December 18, 2008

Female Critics Groups Weigh In on Awards

Both the Women's Film Critics Circle (of which I am a member) and the Alliance of Women Film Journalists gave out their awards and surprise, some are quite different from the other lists.

The Women Film Critics Circle is an association of 47 women film critics and scholars from around the country, who are involved in print, radio, online and TV broadcast media. They came together five years ago to form the first women critics organization ever in the country, in the belief that women’s perspectives and voices in film criticism need to be recognized fully. WFCC also prides itself on being the most culturally and racially diverse critics group in the country by far, and best reflecting the diversity of movie audiences.

The Women Film Critics Circle Awards 2008

BEST MOVIE ABOUT WOMEN
Changeling

BEST MOVIE BY A WOMAN
Frozen River

BEST STORYTELLER [Screenwriting Award]
Jennifer Lumet: Rachel Getting Married

BEST ACTRESS:
Melissa Leo: Frozen River

BEST ACTOR
Mickey Rourke: The Wrestler

BEST YOUNG ACTRESS:
Abigail Breslin: Kit Kittredge and Definitely Maybe

BEST COMEDIC ACTRESS: *TIE*
Sally Hawkins: Happy-Go-Lucky
Meryl Streep: Mamma Mia!

BEST FOREIGN FILM
I've Loved You So Long

BEST FEMALE IMAGES IN A MOVIE:
The Secret Life Of Bees

BEST UNRELEASED MOVIE:
How The Garcia Girls Spent Their Summer

BEST EQUALITY OF THE SEXES:
Nothing But The Truth

BEST MUSIC:
Cadillac Records

BEST ANIMATED FEMALE :
Eve: WALL-E

BEST FAMILY FILM
WALL-E

LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD:
Meryl Streep

ACTING AND ACTIVISM: Natalie Portman

**ADRIENNE SHELLY AWARD: For a film that most passionately opposes violence against women:
Changeling

**JOSEPHINE BAKER AWARD: For best expressing the woman of color experience in America:
Ballast

**KAREN MORLEY AWARD: For best exemplifying a woman’s place in history or society, and a courageous search for identity:
Battle In Seattle

COURAGE IN ACTING:
Deidra Edwards in DisFigured: For redefining conventional standards of female physical beauty and pride on screen, and promoting positive images of big bodied women.

BEST DOCUMENTARIES:

GROUNDBREAKER:
A Walk To Beautiful: Mary Olive Smith

ABOVE AND BEYOND:
Wings Of Defeat: Risa Morimoto

COURAGE IN FILMMAKING:
Traces Of The Trade: Katrina Browne

MOST OFFENSIVE MALE CHARACTERS
Aaron Eckhart: Towelhead
Sam Rockwell: Choke
Larry Bishop: Hell Ride
Paul Rudd, Sean William Scott: Role Models
Jason Mewes: Zack And Miri Make a Porno

TOP TEN HALL OF SHAME
Roman Polanski: Wanted And Desired
House Of The Sleeping Beauties
The Women
The Life Before Her Eyes
The Hottie and the No ttie
Savage Grace
Made Of Honor
The Family That Preys
Hounddog
Zack And Miri Make A Porno

**ADRIENNE SHELLY AWARD: Adrienne Shelly was a promising actress and filmmaker who was brutally strangled in her apartment in 2006 at the age of forty by a construction worker in the building, after she complained about noise. Her killer tried to cover up his crime by hanging her from a shower20rack in her bathroom, to make it look like a suicide. He later confessed that he was having a “bad day.” Shelly, who left behind a baby daughter, had just completed her film Waitress, which she also starred in, and which was honored at Sundance after her death.

**JOSEPHINE BAKER AWARD; The daughter of a laundress and a musician, Baker overcame being born black, female and poor, and marriage at age fifteen, to become an internationally acclaimed legendary performer, starring in the films Princess Tam Tam, Moulin Rouge and Zou Zou. She also survived the race riots in East St. Louis, Illinois as a child, and later expatriated to France to escape US racism. After participating heroically in the underground French Resistance during WWII, Baker returned to the US where she was a crusader for racial equality. Her activism led to attacks against her by reporter Walter Winchell who denounced her as a communist, leading her to wage a battle against him. Baker was instrumental in ending segregation in many theaters and clubs, where she refused to perform unless integration was implemented.

**KAREN MORLEY AWARD: Karen Morley was a promising Hollywood star in the 1930s, in such films as Mata Hari and Our Daily Bread. She was driven out of Hollywood for her leftist political convictions by the Blacklist and for refusing to testify against other actors, while Robert Taylor and Sterling Hayden were informants against her. And also for daring to have a child and become a mother, unacceptable for f emale stars in those days. Morley maintained her militant political activism for the rest of her life, running for Lieutenant Governor on the American Labor Party ticket in 1954. She passed away in 2003, unrepentant to the end, at the age of 93.

Alliance of Women Film Journalists

EDA ANNUAL ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS

Best Film
Slumdog Millionaire

Best Direction
Danny Boyle - Slumdog Millionaire

Best Screenplay Original
Wall-E - Andrew Stanton, Pete Docter, Jim Reardon

Best Screenplay Adapted
Frost/Nixon - Peter Morgan

Best Documentary (Tie)
Man On Wire - James Marsh
Trouble The Water - Tia Lessen, Carl Deal

Best Actress (Tie)
Sally Hawkins - Happy-Go-Lucky
Kate Winslet - The Reader and Revolutionary Road

Best Actress In Supporting Role
Viola Davis - Doubt

Best Actor
Sean Penn - Milk

Best Actor in Supporting Role
Heath Ledger - Dark Knight

Best Ensemble Cast
Rachel Getting Married

Best Editing
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - Kirk Baxter, Angus Wall

Best Foreign Film
Tell No One

EDA FEMALE FOCUS AWARDS

Best Woman Director
Courtney Hunt - Frozen River

Best Woman Screenwriter
Jenny Lumet - Rachel Getting Married

Best Breakthrough Performance
Sally Hawkins - Happy-Go-Lucky

Best Newcomer
Misty Upham - Frozen River

Women’s Image Award
Kristin Scott Thomas

Hanging in There Award for Persistence
Melissa Leo - Frozen River

Actress Defying Age and Ageism
Catherine Deneuve - A Christmas Tale

2008 Outstanding Achievement By A Woman In The Film Industry
Sheila Nevins, Producing/Programming at HBO

Lifetime Achievement Award
Catherine Deneuve

AWFJ Award For Humanitarian Activism
All of the Women in Pray The Devil Back To Hell

EDA SPECIAL MENTION AWARDS

AWFJ Hall Of Shame Award
27 Dresses

Actress Most in Need Of A New Agent
Kate Hudson

Movie You Wanted To Love But Just Couldn‘t (Tie)
Mamma Mia!
The Women

Best Of The Fests
Hunger

Unforgettable Moment Award (Tie)
Dark Knight: Joker’s first scene
Slumdog Millionaire: Young Jamal jumps into the poop

Best Depiction Of Nudity or Sexuality (Tie)
Elegy
The Reader

Best Seduction
Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Sequel That Shouldn’t Have Been Made Award (Tie)
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Saw V

The Remake That Shouldn’t Have Been Made Award:
The Women

Cultural Crossover Award
Slumdog Millionaire

Bravest Performance Award
Mickey Rourke - The Wrester

Best Leap from Actress to Director Award
Helen Hunt - Then She Found Me

Most Egregious Age Difference Between Leading Man and Love Interest
The Wackness - Ben Kingsley and Mary-Kate Olsen