Carsten Nicolai | Through the Shattered Lens

The Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics — that’s right, my hometown! — announced their picks for the best of 2015 yesterday! Oddly enough, they give very little love to two of my favorite films of the year — Sicario and Mad Max: Fury Road — and instead went for Spotlight.

Anyway, here are the DFW winners!

Best Picture:

Spotlight (director — Tom McCarthy)

Best Animated Feature:

Inside Out (director — Pete Docter)

Best Foreign Language Film:

Son of Saul (Hungary)

Best Documentary:

Amy

Best Director:

Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (The Revenant)

Best Actor:

Leonardo DiCaprio (The Revenant)

Best Actress:

Brie Larson (Room)

Best Supporting Actor:

Paul Dano (Love and Mercy)

Best Supporting Actress:

Rooney Mara (Carol)

Best Screenplay:

Spotlight (Josh Singer, TomMcCarthy)

Best Cinematography:

Emmanuel Lubezki (The Revenant)

Best Musical Score:

The Revenant (Bryce Dessner, Carsten Nicolai and Ryûichi Sakamoto)

Russell Smith Award (named for the late Dallas Morning News film critic. The honor is given annually to the best low-budget or cutting-edge independent film.)

Tangerine (director — Sean Baker)

Did you know that The Martian was a comedy?

Well, no, actually it’s not. It’s a very serious film that has a few comedic moments. Matt Damon makes a few jokes but that’s largely because he’s trying not to lose his mind and commit suicide. However, The Martian was submitted to the Golden Globes as a comedy. Why? Probably because the producers realized that it would be easier for them to win if their film was the only big-budget drama nominated in the comedy category. It’s dishonest, it’s unethical, and it totally worked. This morning, when the Golden Globe nominations were announced, The Martian was nominated for Best Picture, Comedy or Musical.

I was not a particularly huge fan of The Martian to begin with. The fact that it has now been nominated for Best Comedy while Inside Out was not does not help matters.

Anyway, as for the rest of the Golden Globe nominations … actually, I like a lot of them. Mad Max: Fury Road was nominated for Best Picture, Drama and that should help it regain whatever momentum it may have lost after not being nominated by the SAG. The Big Short was also nominated for Best Picture, Comedy so I guess I really will have to see it, despite having no desire to do so. Trumbo was not nominated for Best Picture but it did pick up nominations for Bryan Cranston and Helen Mirren. Spotlight was naturally nominated for best picture but received no acting nominations, which means that either all the actors are splitting the votes among themselves or maybe Spotlight, while remaining the front-runner, is not as universally loved as some are thinking. It’s impossible for me to say because I haven’t seen Spotlight yet but I have noticed that a lot of critics seem to be more respectful than enthusiastic about it.

(At the same time, my friend, the sportswriter Jason Tarwater, was quite enthusiastic after seeing Spotlight and I usually trust his opinion on these things.)

Anyway, here are the Golden Globe Film nominations!

Best Picture (Drama)

Best Picture (Musical or Comedy)