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The Grand Budapest Hotel

The Online Film Critics Society announced the winners for their 18th annual OFCS awards for excellence in film, and “The Grand Budapest Hotel” won Best Picture of 2014, plus Best Original Screenplay and Best Cinematography.  Past OFCS Awards winners that went on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture include “12 Years a Slave,” “Argo,” “The Hurt Locker,” “American Beauty,” and “No Country for Old Men.”  Life Itself won for Best Documentary and Two Days, One Night won the award for Best Film Not in the English Language.

IDA

The Polish film IDA was the big winner of the 2014 European Film Awards, winning Best European Film prize and People’s Choice Award 2014 for Best European Film; plus Best European Director for Paweł Pawlikowski, Best European Cinematographer-Prix CARLO DI PALMA and Best European Screenwriter. In IDA, Anna, an orphan raised in a convent, is preparing to take her vows when she’s sent to visit Wanda, her aunt and only living relative. A cynical, hard-drinking Communist Party judge, Wanda reveals that Anna’s real name is Ida and that her parents were Jews murdered during the Nazi occupation. So the two embark on an unusual journey through the wintry countryside to unearth their family’s dark history. 

 The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced that 79 songs from eligible feature-length motion pictures released in 2014 are in contention for nominations in the Original Song category for the 87th Oscars®.

The original songs, along with the motion picture in which each song is featured, are listed below in alphabetical order by film title and song title:

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced that 114 scores from eligible feature-length motion pictures released in 2014 are in contention for nominations in the Original Score category for the 87th Oscars®.

The eligible scores along with their composers are listed below, in alphabetical order by film title:

The Russian film Leviathan won the 8th Asia Pacific Screen Award (APSA) for Best Feature Film, the region’s highest accolade in film at the awards ceremony held in Brisbane, Australia.  The APSA for Achievement in Directing, for the third time in the history of the event, went to Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan for his already Palme d’Or winning film Winter Sleep (Turkey, France, Germany).  The awards recognize and promote cinematic excellence and cultural diversity of the world’s fastest-growing film region.

The nominations for the 72nd Golden Globe Awards were announced this morning at the Beverly Hilton hotel, with HFPA president Theo Kingma, Kate Beckinsale, two-time Golden Globe Award-nominee Peter Krause, Paula Patton, and Golden Globe-winner and five-time nominee Jeremy Piven doing the honors. Birdman leads with seven nominations; Boyhood and Imitation Game follows with five each. The 72nd Annual Golden Globe® Awards, hosted by Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, will air on Sunday, January 11, 2015, LIVE coast-to-coast on NBC from 5:00-8:00 p.m. (PST)/8:00-11:00 p.m. (EST)

Selma

Selma, described as the first studio film to center around Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., is the big winner among the critics representing the African-American Film Critics Association (AAFCA). Selma earned multiple awards from AAFCA for Best Director, (Ava DuVernay); Best Actor for Oyelowo and Best Song for its John Legend/Common theme song, “Glory”. AAFCA will hold its annual award ceremony and dinner on Wednesday, February 4, 2015 at 7:00pm the Taglyan Complex in Hollywood, CA.

The Washington, D.C. Area Film Critics Association (WAFCA) announced its top picks for the year, and “Boyhood”  won the coveted “Best Film” spot.  “Boyhood” also won for Best Director (Richard Linklater), Best Supporting Actress (Patricia Arquette), and Best Youth Performance by Ellar Coltrane, the young boy who literally becomes a man before audiences’ eyes. However, “Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)” was the big winner with five awards. “Birdman,” directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu, and marking the explosive return of ’80s star Michael Keaton (winner of this year’s Best Actor award), also snatched Best Acting Ensemble, Best Original Screenplay, Best Cinematography, and Best Editing.