The Race for the Gold: Movie Awards Season

Let’s talk movie awards….

Awards? How can you talk about awards when not all movies are out for the year, and probably more importantly, most movie-goers haven’t seen any of the movies that are getting buzz from critics?

Pretty easily.

Go ahead, tell me the best movie you saw this year. Can you even remember any movie you saw this year? This will be one of many challenges… the overall U.S. box office take is down, there’s illegal downloads, movies released on VOD the same day as in theaters, movies going straight to VOD (Snowpiercer anyone?), an aging voter pool, and a feeling that movies have to be “important” in order to be considered “best”. (I won’t even start on the hacking at Sony this week.)

There have already been a number of awards handed out to movies and performances in the last month or so, which normally would give us an idea of who and what will be vying for the big awards. But I think this year will be full of surprises. There hasn’t been one major film that has drawn a lot of attention. Men’s roles have been crazy good, women’s roles have been very weak, and a handful of actors have had multiple roles that are award-worthy.

So over the next few months read this column, and catch up on the films and people that may end up with shiny hardware on their shelves. And just remember, movie  studios dump terrible movies in theaters in January, giving you plenty of time to see the good stuff!

Because she is a working entertainment industry union member who votes for movies and performances during awards season, our columnist will be known here as Mrs. Norman Maine. She has made films and taught film classes in higher education settings.