Let's Talk About Critics' Circles

Yesterday the New York Film Critics Circle (NYFCC) officially got awards season off to a start by handing their top kudos to Katherine Bigelow's "Zero Dark Thirty." This is the same organization who got everyone so worked up last year when they announced their winners at the end of November, before several would-be contenders had a chance to screen. However, their choice proved to be prescient. "The Artist" was chosen as best film, and went on to win the Best Picture Oscar a few weeks later.

The NYFCC is considered one of the most important preliminaries to the Oscars, because it's one of the earliest competitive awards given out in the season. The various critics' circles awards may not have much prestige individually, but they are extremely influential, as they reflect the choices of various film critics across the country. Contrary to popular belief, movie reviewers have absolutely no say in the Academy Awards, because the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences is essentially a trade organization. You actually have to be in the movie business as an actor, director, producer, or be in a related movie trade in order to be considered for membership. The biggest percentage of the Academy is composed of actors, which is why one of the strongest predictors of who will prevail at the Oscars is actually the Screen Actors Guild Awards, and to a lesser extent the guild awards for directors and producers and so on.

The critics' groups are far more low key. There are dozens of them, mostly based around geographical areas with membership limited to those writing for certain publications. We've also seen a spate of online critics' groups forming in recent years as the print publications have grown less influential. The more prominent circles include Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago, and Washington D.C., mirroring the country's major newspapers. New York is the oldest of them, having given its first prize to John Ford's "The Informer," all the way back in 1936. Their roster has included such iconic names as Bosley Crowther, Pauline Kael, Andrew Sarris, and Judith Crist over the years. However, even in aggregate, the critics' awards hardly register in the consciousness of the general public. Compare the NYFCC with the considerably less celebrated Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA), the organization that puts on the Golden Globes. In Hollywood, it's still the spectacle that sells.

And yet, the critics' circles will often have a major impact on the awards race because their awards are coming from people widely recognized as having informed opinions. The job of people in Hollywood is to make movies. The job of the critics is to evaluate them. So the only people at the start of the awards season who have plausibly seen all the movies in contention for the big awards are the critics. They've also proven to be reliably hype-proof, and willing to champion smaller films that might slip under the radar otherwise. 2012 is a pretty crowded year, and there's a wealth of potential nominees, so every little bit of validation helps. The NYFCC choice I'm the most pleased about is Rachel Weisz winning Best Actress for "The Deep Blue Sea," a heavy British drama that came out very early in the year, was extremely underseen, and in significant danger of being overlooked. And then there's the Supporting Actor nod for Matthew McConaughey, for his work in "Magic Mike" and "Bernie," more small films without much buzz behind them so far.

I admit that when you get down to the basic mechanics, the critics' circles appeal to me more than the bigger awards. They're usually just a few dozen film writers who get together once a year to argue and vote on their favorite movies. Poke around online and it's easy to find casual write-ups on how the winners were chosen in certain groups. There's plenty of open discussion on the balloting procedures and the close-calls and the surprises. A couple of NYFCC members even provided Twitter updates as they voted this year (Hi Dana Stevens!) You never get this kind of transparency from the Academy, who are all serious business and have their ballots sent to an accounting firm to be tabulated. Of course, due to the nature of the Oscars the formality is a necessity, but reading over the NYFCC post-mortems this morning (Hi J. Hoberman!), the critics take themselves just as seriously, but still seem to have more fun.

No indication yet as to whether the NYFCC's choices are going to be reflected by the Academy, but as for me, "Zero Dark Thirty" is getting priority as Christmas viewing this year over "Django Unchained" and "Les Misérables." I have serious doubts that "Zero Dark Thirty" has cinematography comparable to "Life of Pi" or "The Master," so I'll have to take a look and see for myself.
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