Now it can be told: The Toronto Film Critics Association — of which, full disclosure, I am not only a member but also the sitting vice-president — has announced its 2008 awards, viewable in full right here at our website.
I’m pretty happy with most of them — and downright ecstatic about the love shown to Kelly Reichardt’s marvelous “Wendy and Lucy”, which I’ve been championing since Cannes. I just hope Reichardt brings Lucy to the awards dinner; good dogs deserve awards, too, even if they’re made out of kitchen scraps.
Of course, in a perfect world, we’d have found a way to acknowledge the bravura performances of Steve Coogan in “Hamlet 2” and Anna Faris in “The House Bunny” … but drama always trumps comedy, and anyway that’s why we have DVD columns.
Well, some of us, anyway.
Bravo, Norm and the TFCA! Some left-field choices, but we’re a pretty sophisticated audience here in Toronto, so I applaud your decisions. I’m frankly amazed that Robert Downey is getting so much love for Tropic Thunder, which I haven’t seen yet, but I have to admit that his mumbling in the trailer always cracks me up.
I agree with you about Wendy and Lucy. I think it’s a devastating film and a worthy performance. But it only screened at TIFF, I think. Is it even on track for a theatrical release here?
Yep, it’ll be released on January 23rd.
Before anyone asks, under the new TFCA guidelines, if a film is scheduled for a Toronto engagement by the end of February and has met the qualifications for this year’s Oscars, we can consider it eligible for our awards.
I’m not totally comfortable with this; we’re clearly bending in the direction of the American calendar so as not to look clueless on big movies that didn’t open up here in time.
But neither was I comfortable with telling Paramount Vantage that “There Will Be Blood” got screwed out of contention last year because they couldn’t book it onto a local screen before December 31st …