Critics’ Choice Winners ‘Roma,’ ‘Vice,’ and ‘A Star Is Born’ Advance in Oscar Race
Last year at the chilly Barker Hangar at the Santa Monica airport, Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro thanked the Broadcast Film Critics as he accepted the Critics’ Choice award for Best Picture for “The Shape of Water.” Other Critics’ Choice winners that have gone on to win the Oscar include “Spotlight,” “12 Years a Slave,” “Argo,” “The Artist,” “The Hurt Locker,” and “Slumdog Millionaire.” The ones that have not landed Best Picture Oscars came damn close: “The Social Network,” “Boyhood,” and “La La Land.”
The Broadcast Film Critics do better than other critics groups at mirroring Academy voters’ tastes because they are both bigger — more than 330 voters nationwide from radio, online and television — and more mainstream.
Related stories
'Conversations with a Killer' Trailer: Ted Bundy Doc Features Unseen Archival Tapes
Read More:Critics’ Choice Awards 2019 Winners: ‘Roma’ Takes Best Picture, Director
Which bodes well for this year’s Best Picture winner, “Roma” (Netflix), which led the field with four wins, including Director, Cinematography and Best Foreign Language Film for Alfonso Cuarón, who could follow his “amigos” Del Toro and A.G. I?árritu (“Birdman”) as Best Picture Oscar-winners. These four CCA wins could repeat on Oscar night. Cuarón thanked his actresses Yalitza Aparicio and Marina De Tavira — “They are ‘Roma'” — and added, “Films break down walls.”
One unknown going into the Oscar race is how divisive streamer Netflix will turn out to be. The film is still going strong in theaters a month after its release on Netflix.
Cuarón was greeted by a stream of well-wishers all evening, including “Cold War” rival (and friend) Pawel Pawlikowski, “Boy Erased” star Nicole Kidman (who lost Best Supporting Actress to Oscar frontrunner Regina King for “If Beale Street Could Talk”), “Mary Poppins Returns” star Emily Blunt, who lost Best Comedy Actress to Olivia Colman for “The Favourite,” Christopher McQuarrie (whose “Mission: Impossible — Fallout” won Best Action Movie) and “Sorry to Bother You” auteur Boots Riley, who lost Best Original Screenplay to Paul Schrader for “First Reformed.” (A24 also nabbed a Best Young Actress win for Elsie Fisher in “Eighth Grade.”)
“Rest in power, sir,” King said to the late great James Baldwin, and quoted him as well: “We can make America what America must become.” In an upset, Barry Jenkins’ “If Beale Street Could Talk” beat “BlacKkKlansman” for Adapted Screenplay; Spike Lee’s team did not take home any prizes. Also shut out at the CCAs was Globe-winner “Bohemian Rhapsody.”
Last year, eventual CCA winners who repeated at the Oscars included Frances McDormand for Best Actress (“Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”), Gary Oldman for Best Actor (“Darkest Hour”), Allison Janney for Best Supporting Actress (“I, Tonya”) and Sam Rockwell for “Three Billboards.” The CCAs have proved particularly adept at predicting the Best Supporting Actor Oscar winner — in nine of the past ten years, the same person has accepted both awards.
So plunk down your Oscar bets on CCA’s Best Supporting Actor Mahershala Ali (Globe-winner for “Green Book”) and Christian Bale, who repeated his Globe Best Actor in a Comedy win as Dick Cheney with Critics’ Choice trophies in both Best Actor in a Comedy and (since one can be nominated in both categories) and Best Actor overall for “Vice,” which collected three prizes; Bale again thanked his CCA-winning Hair and Makeup team. “Comedy? It’s really a tragedy,” he said. “It is a love story.”
Coming up strong on the craft side were “Black Panther,” which took home three awards, for Production and Costume Design and VFX, and “First Man,” which won Best Score for Justin Hurwitz and Best Editing for Tom Cross.
Confusingly, Olivia Colman won Best Actress in a Comedy (as she did the Globe) for Best Acting Ensemble-winner “The Favourite,” while on the drama side Globe-winner Glenn Close (“The Wife”) tied with weeping “A Star Is Born” singer-star Lady Gaga, who collected her second award of the night after the inevitable Best Song (“Shallow”). The Best Actress Oscar race looks like a three-way with Colman, Close and Gaga, and adds some momentum for “A Star Is Born,” which doesn’t want to settle for the inevitable Best Song win. “I’ll never forget first playing this song to Bradley and then singing it live — take after take,” she said. “This song is a conversation between men and women, asking questions in the shallowness of the modern era.”
(At the “Roma” table, Cuarón translated Gaga’s Best Actress speech for her fan and losing Best Actress nominee Yalitza Aparicio.)
Nina Jacobson and Brad Simpson’s Color Force enjoyed another good night, as FX’s “The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story” won Best Limited Series and Best Actor Darren Criss, repeating its Globe wins, and “Crazy Rich Asians” won Best Comedy. Jacobson reminded Hollywood not to stick to its out-of-date beliefs that the only lead characters white men will go see are white men. “Audiences are hungry to see that power redistributed,” she said.
And celebrating their five CCA wins each were Annapurna (“Vice,” “If Beale Street Could Talk”) and Participant Media, which backed both “Roma” and “Green Book.”
Continuing its winning streak is “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” (Sony), which is sneaking up on Pixar’s “Incredibles 2” in the Oscar race, while John Krasinski’s “A Quiet Place” (Paramount) got a boost as the winner of Best Sci-Fi/Horror Film.
Check out the full list of winners below.
FILM:
BEST PICTURE
“Roma” (Netflix)
BEST ACTOR
Christian Bale – “Vice” (Annapurna)
BEST ACTRESS – TIE
Glenn Close – “The Wife” (Sony Pictures Classics)
Lady Gaga – “A Star Is Born” (Warner Bros.)
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Mahershala Ali – “Green Book” (Universal)
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Regina King – “If Beale Street Could Talk” (Annapurna)
BEST YOUNG ACTOR/ACTRESS
Elsie Fisher – “Eighth Grade” (A24)
BEST ACTING ENSEMBLE
“The Favourite” (Fox Searchlight)
BEST DIRECTOR
Alfonso Cuarón – “Roma” (Netflix)
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Paul Schrader – “First Reformed” (A24)
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Barry Jenkins – “If Beale Street Could Talk” (Annapurna)
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Alfonso Cuarón – “Roma” (Netflix)
BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN
Hannah Beachler, Jay Hart – “Black Panther” (Disney)
BEST EDITING
Tom Cross – “First Man” (Universal)
BEST COSTUME DESIGN
Ruth Carter – “Black Panther” (Disney)
BEST HAIR AND MAKEUP
“Vice” (Annapurna)
BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
“Black Panther” (Disney)
BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
“Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” (Sony)
BEST ACTION MOVIE
“Mission: Impossible – Fallout” (Paramount)
BEST COMEDY
“Crazy Rich Asians” (Warner Bros.)
BEST ACTOR IN A COMEDY
Christian Bale – “Vice” (Annapurna)
BEST ACTRESS IN A COMEDY
Olivia Colman – “The Favourite” (Fox Searchlight)
BEST SCI-FI OR HORROR MOVIE
“A Quiet Place” (Paramount)
BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
“Roma” (Netflix)
BEST SONG
Shallow – “A Star Is Born” (Warner Bros.)
BEST SCORE
Justin Hurwitz – “First Man” (Universal)
Solve the daily Crossword
