Over a week ago we got word of honors bestowed by the Georgia Film Critics Association. We never heard of them. In fact, trying to identify their membership led us to more fishy suspicions than any reliable verification. So we passed on posting.
The “awards” refuse to go away though. I’ve seen them published a dozen times over the past week — and today our pal Guy Lodge is featuring them as mavericks — so maybe they’re certified? Could be. I have no idea. Can somebody from the Georgia Film Critics Association contact us with credentials?
For now I’ll leave this up since it’s a slow news day and maybe there’s a discussion to be had about the proliferation of local critics groups sprouting up faster than we can validate them all. The films and filmmakers are respectable choices — but it would be nice to know who exactly chose them. This 9-day old website doesn’t reveal a single name.
The Tree of Life dominates the Georgia Film Critics’ Association awards, while Brad Pitt is a double winner, and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy takes best ensemble.
Best Picture: “The Tree of Life”
Best Director: Terrence Malick, “The Tree of Life”
Best Actress: Juliette Binoche, “Certified Copy”
Best Actor: Brad Pitt, “Moneyball”
Best Supporting Actress: Jessica Chastain, “The Tree of Life”
Best Supporting Actor: Brad Pitt, “The Tree of Life”
Best Original Screenplay: Woody Allen, “Midnight in Paris”
Best Adapted Screenplay: Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin, “Moneyball”
Best Foreign Language Film: “Certified Copy”
Best Animated Film: “The Adventures of Tintin”
Best Documentary: “Senna”
Best Ensemble: “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy”
Best Cinematography: Emmanuel Lubezki, “The Tree of Life”
Best Art Direction: Jack Fisk, “The Tree of Life”
Best Original Score: John Williams, “War Horse”
Best Original Song: Bret McKenzie, “Man or Muppet,” “The Muppets”
Breakthrough Award: Jessica Chastain
Excellence in Georgia Cinema: “Sahkanaga”
“Just to add a small curio: I wrote a paper on Alvar Aalto in high school and his great Finnish compatriot, the architect and industrial designer, Eero Saarinen.”
That’s really cool. Helsinki is 2012 Design Capital of Europe.
This just in: Andy Serkis is getting a Special Achievement Owly 😀
I’m in the West end of Atlanta.
I think we should leave them up…
For one thing, this guy, whoever he is, cannot be bought. Not one single Weinstein production in sight.
He has a thing for Brad Pitt, but I’ll accept personal crushes (it can cloud judgement) over a Weinstein’s gimp anyway.
From this day forth, he shall be known as Coffee Guy, the man who anal raped Harvey.
Hey Dean, whereabouts in ATL are ya?
It’s The Night Listener meets JT Leroy meets online film nerds. Titillating! It’s the expansion of the mystery genre….right. here! 😉
http://filmicability.blogspot.com/2012/01/my-second-go-at-oscar-nomination.html
I don’t know this guy at REELGEORGIA, so I’m wondering if this is a “real” organization, though it should be.
By the way, Bob Longino was the last film reviewer to work at the AJC, though he was really a Features editor and not a film critic. The people I listed–Holman, Feaster, Ringel, Lindsay, Dayoub (who does a non–city-specific site on the web, as I do) and maybe the very well connected Jake Jacobson–are the only real film critics I know about in this city (there might be one or two others, but I don’t know their names, though I know their outlets). I would consider myself another published film critic. But this guy who does REELGEORGIA–he’s just some guy, as far as I know.
Just to add a small curio: I wrote a paper on Alvar Aalto in high school and his great Finnish compatriot, the architect and industrial designer, Eero Saarinen. That’s actually true.
Also my mum owns FIVE Aalto vases.
Btw, I really enjoyed this thread…made me smile:)
Don’t know if I want the Georgia critics’ to exist or not…well, there’s a good story lurking behind this enigma, either way…!
That’s evil 😀
Think I go and buy an Owly now. It’s almost 5am, so I call it for the day.
Owly’s are harder to buy than a Golden Globe. (allegedly)
Any type of plants/flowers are good there if Taji may chew on the leaves.
Marbles are popular. Seen that in many houses.
Originals probably don’t exist. I believe they were considered too futuristic at the time and claimed appreciation only years later. Not sure, though.
I love things that were designed 100 years ago that look they’re objects from 100 years in the future.
Alvar Aalto was a visionary. (or else a visitor from another planet.)
(I’ve had Siamese fighting fish in these vases too, but not for long. Not nice for them. Too confined. But they look amazing enough to make them suffer a short time for the sake of aesthetics…)
WOW.
wait, I mean they were designed in 1936!
not that I have originals from 1936.
Taji guards them.
Used to have philodendrons growing out of them, but they turned yellow this winter. So versatile, they’ve held 40 different things over the years. They look especially cool filled with shiny pebbles or colored marbles.
Ryan, Iittala is quite an expensive design. I only own a small candle holder and that cost like 80 bucks. Owly – or Owlies should be given EVERY YEAR. For sure.
I have two of those 1936 Alvar Aalto vases. I treasure them.
Ryan and Dean … I also live in the Atlanta area, and to my knowledge, I am completely unaware of the Georgia Film Critic group. I do have several critic friends of my own in the area, including 2 active members of the SEFCA, but I have never heard of the Georgia FC. Just my two cents.
Also, I don’t know about the contact for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution…considering they (to my knowledge) don’t have an in-house critic and haven’t for several years. All reviews in the AJC are unfortunately taken from other critics, such as Christy Lemire & Michael Phillips. As much as I wish the Georgia critics was a real thing…I don’t buy it.
I think this goes down to the age old question of what is a critic? Is it any Joe Blow who has an opinion or does one have to be published in a real (as in tangible)newspaper?
Because technically…aren’t WE an international critics group?
Wow, The Finnish Online Critics for Great Britain have exquisite taste! 🙂
The Finnish Online Critics of Great Britain and the coveted supercute Owly.
As you can see, my name is Dean Treadway, and I run my website FILMICABILITY (http://filmicability.blogspot.com/) out of my hometown of Atlanta, Georgia (though most of the work on the blog was done in Brooklyn, NY, but I relocated late in 2011). I also want to note that I’m a correspondant for MOVIE GEEKS UNITED, a top-rated movie podcast run by Jamey Duvall (http://www.blogtalkradio.com/moviegeeksunited). Anyway, I’m not yet part of the Georgia Society of Film Critics, but I’m sure I’m friends with a few of the people who’re part of the organization. You want to look for:
Bob Longino, Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Curt Holman, Creative Loafing
Felicia Feaster, Creative Loafing
Eleanor Ringel, Atlanta Business Chronicle
and maybe even
David T. Lindsay, Stomp and Stammer
Tony Dayoub, Cinema Viewfinder
Just posting this, thinking I could help. If I hear anything else about this obviously new organization, I’ll let you know.
By the way, with its weird mix of the rural and the urban, Georgia has some pretty radical free-thinkers, and this might explain the outcome. I personally agree with many of their choices.
Dean Treadway
Thanks. I have no doubt there are many fine publications and lots of eminent critics throughout the cities and towns of Georgia.
Just need some verification from any of them that they belong to this group. From what we see, georgiafilmcritics.org is closely tied to ReelGeorgia which in turn appears to be the creation of one individual.
All I’m looking for is another source to corroborate.
Tero stole my joke, so I won’t bother.
Here are the winners of the 1st annual ‘Finnish Online Critics for Great Britain and United States’. The votes are in, and counted:
PICTURE: The Tree of Life
DIRECTOR: Nicolas Winding Refn – Drive
ACTOR: Michael Fassbender – Shame
ACTRESS: Tilda Swinton – We Need to Talk About Kevin
SUPP. ACTOR: Brad Pitt – The Tree of Life
SUPP. ACTRESS: Shailene Woodley – The Descendants
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: Lynne Ramsay & Rory Kinnear – We Need to Talk About Kevin
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Michel Hazanavicius – The Artist
EDITING: Hugo
CINEMATOGRAPHY: The Tree of Life
COSTUME DESIGN: Hugo
ART DIRECTION: Hugo
VISUAL EFFECTS: Rise of the Planet of the Apes
SOUND: War Horse
ORIGINAL SCORE: The Artist
SONG: The Help (“The Living Proof”)
MAKE UP: The Iron Lady
FILM NOT IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE: A Separation
ANIMATED FEATURE: The Adventures of Tintin – The Secret of the Unicorn
DOCUMENTARY FEATURE: Project Nim
FINNISH FEATURE: Le Havre
There are worse things than being in a group of 1.
maybe he’s a movie critic at a local newspaper. Chances are such a critic might need additional funds so a second job might be necessary. Or maybe he’s an area manager at a Starbucks who loves film and writes reviews for a local paper as a hobby.
I am skeptical of most of these critics groups. I really can’t see how many cities are large enough to have more than 2 or 3 full time critics, what with the ailing newspaper business.
Look at Philadelphia, they have two major daily newspapers, The Inquirer and the Daily News. I think the Inquirer has two reviewers, I can’t imagine the Daily News has more than one since they are primarily sports and local tabloid news. There are likely a couple of independant papers but I doubt none of them have a full time reviewer, so throw 3 or 4 more on the pile for that.
That leaves us like 6 or 7 for the city proper. Maybe a few more for the suburban region, but I know for a fact that those papers only review the big studio stuff and I think some even farm out the reviews to readers who have nothing better to do.
Now I know Philadephia doesn’t have a critics group prize, but it’s a much larger city than most of these organizations.
Should any group that has single-digit membership be considered remotely important?
maybe he’s a movie critic at a local newspaper. Chances are such a critic might need additional funds so a second job might be necessary. Or maybe he’s an area manager at a Starbucks who loves film and writes reviews for a local paper…
I think he probably does write for a local paper. But maybe he should add that to his online resume in a way to clear up the confusion.
And while he’s at it, maybe furnish the names of the other critics in his group.
Sorry, Ryan. I picked them up from Guy Lodge, and thought I remembered us posting their nominees, but maybe I imagined that, LOL. Hope they turn out to be legitimate, as they have good taste.
Don’t be sorry Beth!
It’s an interesting discussion, either way.
I’ll take responsibility for posting, and I’ll be happy to update this post erasing any doubts if someone from the Georgia Film Critics wants to contact us with verification. (…more than one someone would be even better.)
Wow, excellnt, Brad Pitt for Tree of Life, so deserving!!!
Oh, there’s so much Foreign Language in Certified Copy.
I have to say that I’m skeptical of this group.
A) We don’t know who they are.
http://www.georgiafilmcritics.org/
B) The website was created only 9 days ago
http://www.whois.net/whois/georgiafilmcritics.org
C) by this fellow:
http://www.reelga.com/p/about-us.html
I think we’d probably better take this down until we get some better validation.
Or do we think the proliferation of dubious critics groups is a conversation worth having in itself?
Wow, Georgia loves its Brad Pitt, don’t they?
Nice to see Juliette Binoche get recognized for the best work of her career. Too bad it won’t tranlate into an Oscar nomination.
Then again, you never can tell ? ? ? ?
this is pretty much how i see this year in movies.