The Reel Society Of Film Critics Awards Ceremony 2016

[silversurfer19]

Good evening ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the 2016 Reel Society Of Film Critics Awards, the ceremony that celebrates and honours the movies and actors that sought not just to ensure quality, but also to entertain each and every member of the fantaverse and beyond. All movies released during 2015 within the United States have been considered, and after a long and diligent process, the valued members of the committee have narrowed down the prestige of those movies to tonight's nominees. It is from these nominees that voting has been canvased, and tonight I will reveal the winners of each award.

First up, I must apologise for my no-show last night. Something came up at very late notice that would not have allowed me to fully embrace the importance of the occasion, so I took the difficult decision to delay it a day. Hopefully it's only increased anticipation rather than turned you all into knife wielding maniacs...

2015 was another spectacular year in cinema, from the visually stunning Mad Max: Fury Road, where George Miller, despite his advancing years, proved he could still make a movie that knocks the socks off what the cream of Hollywood action directors can apparently achieve, to success on a relatively smaller scale, in the form of the breathakingly emotional Room and it's fantastic cast. A Quentin Tarantino movie made yet another appearance in the Best Picture category, with his western The Hateful Eight a very popular choice, while for the first time we find Sylvester Stallone make his grand entrance with the expertly shot Creed. Sci-Fi continued to prove popular on both the large and smaller format, with The Martian pleasing audiences with an emotional yet charming blockbuster, while Ex-Machina proved haunting as we question the nature of humanity. Historical drama's, as ever, found their place with the likes of Spotlight and Carol each proving deeply affecting movies despite their gulf in subject matter, while a movie that transcended timelines, It Follows, was an eerie and terrifying exploration of relationships and death. Finally, as it only seems right, Pixar once again grace the category with one of their finest efforts to date in Inside Out, a terrifically funny and affecting movie that captures humanity and all it's pitfalls by imploring our feelings. Fascinating stuff! Each movie proved that film is still at its absolute pinnacle in terms of craft, story and entertainment, and we look forward to honouring them all tonight. So please, will you join me in looking back at the year that has passed and the movies that graced our cinemas, courtesy of Fantaverse member, Sleepy Skunk.



There will be in total 16 awards handed out this evening, celebrating films for their acting, technicalities, writing and overall vision, and they will be announced in the following order, with Best Picture nominees celebrated at various points of the evening:

Best Breakthrough Performance

Carol Featurette

Best Original Screenplay
Best Adapted Screenplay

Creed Featurette

Best Actor In A Supporting Role

Ex-Machina Featurette

Best Actress In A Supporting Role

Inside Out Featurette

Best Animated Feature
Best Documentary Feature

It Follows Featurette

Best Cinematography
Best Visual Effects

Mad Max: Fury Road Featurette

Best Score
Best Foreign Language Picture

Room Featurette

Best Cast

Spotlight Featurette

Best Actress In A Leading Role

The Hateful Eight Featurette

Best Actor In A Leading Role

The Martian Featurette

Best Director

Best Picture

Lots of exciting moments to anticipate of the next couple of hours so, without further adue, I give you, The 2016 Reel Society Of Film Critics Awards!

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And so we kick off our awards show with the first category of the evening:

Best Breakthrough Performance

The nominees are:

Maika Monroe, It Follows
Shameik Moore, DOPE
Daisy Ridley, Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Jacob Tremblay, Room
Alicia Vikander, Ex-Machina

And the winner is....

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Jacob Tremblay, Room

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Now we take a quick break to acknowledge the first Best Picture nominee of the evening, the poignant masterpiece that is 'Carol'. Chienfantome has kindly provided this excellent piece.

Many have pegged Carol to be too cold a film. But in every forbidden love story, there is warmth. Warmth of the feelings against the cold of the reasoning. And it often is in the taboo relationships that emotions are the most explosive.
But first and foremost, Carol is a shattering love story told with the precision and the elegance that come with Todd Haynes' cinema, right in the vein of "Far from Heaven". In fact there is pretty much everything you can hope for in a great film, in Carol. A period piece treated with care. An intelligent direction. Two amazing actress performances. And to magnify it all, Carter Burwell's melancholic and heartbreaking music theme. And at the very end of it, one of the most beautiful film sequence we have seen all year. Cinema, with a capital C.

[Walleye413]

A lovely write-up for Carol. And that pic of Jacob Tremblay is just fantastic. Can't argue with the first award, even if it wasn't my choice.

[silversurfer19]

Next up in the awards:

Best Original Screenplay

The nominees are:

Ex-Machina
Inside Out
Spotlight
Straight Outta Compton
The Hateful Eight

And the winner is...

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Ex-Machina

[silversurfer19]

Wish I'd had the opportunity to see The Hateful Eight but there was some kind of distributor dispute that stopped it being played in my area. May have had an impact on the awards I guess but in the end we are limited to only vote on what we have seen, and for me Ex-Machina was probably, alongside Inside Out, right up there with the best in that regard.

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And quickly following that script award is it's companion piece:

Best Adapted Screenplay

And the nominees are:

Carol
Room
Steve Jobs
The Big Short
The Martian

And the winner is...

[Chienfantome]

Two Great winners already.
That's a great poster of Ex-machina.

[silversurfer19]

Room, winner of Best Adapted Screenplay

[transformers2]

No complaints so far. All worthy winners.

[silversurfer19]

my vote here went to Carol, a sublime script that captured the lingering tensions of such an illicit affair with the deepest compassion, much like Chien's review. Can't complain at all with Room though, as it too was magnificent, and the attention to the child's point of view is exquisite.

[transformers2]

I'm glad I popped on here when I did. It would've been a travesty If I had missed the awards 2 years in a row.

[silversurfer19]

Time for another Best Picture featurette, this time courtesy of transformers. This is Creed:

What could've easily been a cheap attempt to cash-in on the Rocky name turned out to be the franchise's best film since the 1976 original. Aided by a pair of spectacular performances from Michael B. Jordan as the son of the late Apollo Creed from the first four Rocky films and Sylvester Stallone as the aging and emotionally-broken Rocky Balboa, writer/director Ryan Coogler proved that his masterful debut Fruitvale Station wasn't a fluke by crafting an engrossing, poignant film that honors the legacy of Stallone's original franchise without ever feeling like a by-the-numbers retread.

Nominated for 3 awards tonight, including Best Picture, this is Creed.