MCN Blogs
David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

NYFCC

It’s deja vu’ all over again.
The Hurt Locker is the critics’ choice (lower case, so as not to impinge on BFCA’s awards tag) with the film and director Bigelow taking the awards on both coasts.
In The Loop wins Screenplay in NY and is runner-up in LA.
LAFCA went for the unexpected with Yolande Moreau as Best Actress for Seraphine. NY stuck with Mamma Meryl!
Waltz, Mo’Nique, DP Christian Berger, foreign language candidate Summer Hours went both ways, as did The Fantastic Mr Fox – a title critics are hoping won’t get lost by the inevitable Up win and likely BP slot.
And BFCA embarrassed itself by going to six nominees in 6 of the top 7 categories (top category #8, Best Picture, is a firm 10). Also the norm.

Be Sociable, Share!

8 Responses to “NYFCC”

  1. Rob says:

    This is so boring already. I kind of hope Mo’Nique pulls an Amy Ryan and flames out outside of the critics’ groups. That’s barely even a two-note performance.

  2. hcat says:

    Very nice to see In The Loop being shown some love.

  3. a_loco says:

    I thought Precious was excellent, but I can’t help but feel the attention Mo’Nique’s been getting is due to her embodying the stereotype of a black female.
    She was excellent in that final scene, though.

  4. movieman says:

    Yay, “Mr. Fox”! I adore “Up” as any sane person would, but it’s nice seeing some love bestowed on Wes and Co.
    The biggest embarrassments of the BFCA nominations–and I’m speaking as a member–are the lack of a Best Foreign Film nod to “Summer Hours” (“Coco Before Chanel” is a better movie, gang? seriously? in what world??) and the drearily unimaginative doc selections.
    “This is It” and “Capitalism” over “Every Little Step”?! I knew that “Beaches of Agnes” and “Of Time and the City” (my 2 other non-fiction picks) were longshots. But I didn’t see their “Step” snub coming.

  5. Eric says:

    I feel like I’m the only guy who saw “Hurt Locker” but wasn’t crazy for it. And I love Bigelow’s work!
    I won’t complain too loud, of course, if it leads to bigger and better things for her.

  6. jeffmcm says:

    I’ll stick up for Mo’Nique. I think the performance works because she adds nuance and some emotional complexlity to what easily could have been a pretty simple monster character. Whether or not she was the Best Supporting Actress this year, I don’t know.
    I wasn’t blown away by Hurt Locker either. Good movie, yeah, masterpiece, not so sure.

  7. I’m with jeff and loco…Mo’Nique in that final scene is simply shocking and sad and creepy and…awesome.
    I finally caught “Fantastic Mr. Fox” over the weekend and think it deserves a best animated nod. I love “Up” as well, but it feels like critics and voters are just automatically giving the award for best animated to “Up” when honestly, it didn’t break new ground in animation. It’s a sweet, fun, gorgeous film but Mr. Fox is completely original, the acting is superior and the animation is like nothing seen before. Grow a pair, voters….vote for Foxy!

  8. Hallick says:

    “And BFCA embarrassed itself by going to six nominees in 6 of the top 7 categories (top category #8, Best Picture, is a firm 10). Also the norm.”
    Hey c’mon, it’s America. We’re the super-sizing experts.
    On a sort of related note, if anybody’s looking for a good radio interview, you should go find Tom Ford’s on today’s Fresh Air. Besides some good stuff about “A Single Man”, he has some interesting thoughts about the ballooning of America.

Quote Unquotesee all »

It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon