Alternative Film Guide

If you’re all critics-awarded out, skip this post…
The Utah Film Critics Association, which consists of about a dozen or so Utah-ian reviewers, announced their winners this past Dec. 28.
The usual suspects — United 93, Letters from Iwo Jima, Helen Mirren — dominated the Utah critics’ list, but there were a handful of surprises.
For instance, [...]

The Directors Guild of America (DGA), then known as the Screen Directors Guild (SDG), began handing out yearly achievement awards in 1948. (The Guild had been founded in 1936.) George Sidney, Frank Capra, Delmer Daves, John Ford, H. Bruce Humberstone, Irving Pichel, Norman Taurog, and, ex-officio, SDG president George Marshall took part in the SDG’s [...]

The Directors Guild of America’s feature-film nominations are coming up. Four special award winners have already been announced. (The information below was taken from the Directors Guild website.)
Director/actor/producer/author Carl Reiner will receive the 2006 Honorary Life Member Award, which is given in recognition of his service to the Guild and his outstanding creative achievements.
Directors [...]

32nd Metro Manila Film Festival Awards - 2006
The 32nd Metro Manila Film Festival award winners were announced at the Aliw Theater in Manila on December 29, 2006.
 

 
Best Picture: Enteng Kabisote 3: Okay ka fairy ko… The legend goes on and on and on
2nd Best Picture: Kasal, Kasali, Kasalo
3rd Best Picture: Shake, Rattle [...]

© A.M.P.A.S.
"Chico—Diane—Heaven!"
"Personally, Veda’s convinced me that alligators have the right idea. They eat their young."
"I vant to be alohhhn."
None of the above quotes, all three from movies nominated for a Best Picture Academy Award — the last quote actually comes from an Oscar-winning film — are to be found in the Academy of Motion Picture [...]

Press Release:
Beverly Hills, CA — Three hundred seven feature films are eligible for the Academy Award® for Best Picture of 2006, it has been announced by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
To be eligible for 79th Academy Awards® consideration, feature films have until midnight, December 31, to open in a commercial motion picture [...]

Note: The evangelical minister Marjoe Gortner mentioned in the press release below is the same Marjoe Gortner who later became a Hollywood actor, appearing in numerous TV series and in features such as Earthquake (he’s the guy with posters of hunky men in his room), Mausoleum, Starcrash, and Hellhole.
Press Release:
New York, NY — The 2007 [...]

Utah Film Critics Association Awards - 2006
The 2006 Utah Film Critics Association award winners were announced on December 28, 2006.
2006 Utah Film Critics Association Awards - Brief Article
 

 
Best Film: United 93 directed by Paul Greengrass
Runner-up: The Departed directed by Martin Scorsese
Best Foreign-Language Film: Letters from Iwo Jima directed by Clint Eastwood
Runner-up: Pan’s Labyrinth [...]

The Korean Film Critics Society has chosen Kim Tae-yong’s drama Gajokeui Tansaeng / Family Ties as the best Korean film of 2006. The story of different relationships within a dysfunctional family, Family Ties has also won top prizes from the Pusan Film Critics and from the jury at this year’s Thessaloniki International Film Festival.
Other [...]

1st Oklahoma Film Critics Circle Awards - 2006
The 1st Oklahoma Film Critics Circle award winners were announced on December 24, 2006.
 

 
Best Film: United 93 directed by Paul Greengrass
Runner-up: The Departed directed by Martin Scorsese
Others in the top ten (in alphabetical order):
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan [...]

The Florida Film Critics Circle chose Martin Scorsese’s moderately entertaining and thoroughly absurd mob drama The Departed as their top film of 2006. Additionally, The Departed was tops in three other categories: Best Director, Best Screenplay (William Monahan), and Best Supporting Actor, Jack Nicholson.
I believe this is Nicholson’s first win among critics’ groups [...]

2nd St. Louis Gateway Film Critics Association Awards - 2006
The 2nd St. Louis Gateway Film Critics Association award nominations were announced on December 22, 2006.
The 2nd St. Louis Gateway Film Critics Association award winners were announced on January 7, 2007.
2006 St. Louis Critics Film Critics Association Winners - Brief Article
† Films, performances, etc. nominated [...]

11th Florida Film Critics Circle Awards - 2006
The 11th Florida Film Critics Circle Award winners were announced on December 22, 2006.
2006 Florida Film Critics Circle Award Winners - Brief Article
 

 
Best Film: The Departed directed by Martin Scorsese
Best Foreign-Language Film: Pan’s Labyrinth directed by Guillermo del Toro
Best Director: Martin Scorsese, The Departed
[...]

The San Diego Film Critics Society tends to go its own way when it comes to year-end film awards. For instance, last year most critics’ groups chose Brokeback Mountain as the Best Film of the year. The San Diego Film Critics opted for King Kong. Hardly a superior choice, but different nonetheless. Other more esoteric [...]

With nine nominations, including Best Film and Best Director (Alejandro González Iñárritu), Babel seems to be the Chicago Film Critics Association’s favorite 2006 flick.
Among the other multiple nominees are The Departed and The Queen, both of which are in the running for Best Film and Best Director (Martin Scorsese and Stephen Frears, respectively).
The two [...]

The Southeastern Film Critics Association — which consists of reviewers from nine U.S. states — made their choices for the best in film in 2006 this past Dec. 17.
There were neither major nor minor surprises: Best Film, The Departed; Best Foreign Film El Laberinto del fauno / Pan’s Labyrinth; Best Actor Forest Whitaker for [...]

Agustín Díaz Yanes’s 17th-century tale of a Spanish soldier turned mercenary, Alatriste, and Pedro Almodóvar’s story of the women of La Mancha, Volver, dominated the Spanish Film Academy’s XXI Goya Award nominations announced yesterday, Dec. 18, by actors Pilar López de Ayala and Juan José Ballesta. Alatriste, the most expensive Spanish film ever made (€24 [...]

19th Chicago Film Critics Association Awards - 2006
The 19th Chicago Film Critics Association Award nominations were announced on December 19, 2006.
The 19th Chicago Film Critics Association Award winners were announced on December 28, 2006.
2006 Chicago Film Critics Association Nominees - Article
("*" denotes the winner in each category)
 

 
Best Picture
Babel
* The Departed
Little Miss Sunshine
The Queen
United 93
Best Foreign [...]

7th Phoenix Film Critics Society Awards - 2006
The 7th Phoenix Film Critics Society award winners were announced on December 19, 2006.
 

 
Best Film: United 93 directed by Paul Greengrass
Runners-up (in alphabetical order):
Babel
Bobby
Borat
Children of Men
The Departed
The Last King of Scotland
Letters from Iwo Jima
Little Miss Sunshine
The Queen
Best Foreign-Language Film: [...]

The 2006 London Film Critics’ Circle nominations were announced this past Dec. 14.
On the plus side, the London critics tend to be more international than their American counterparts. On the down side, their nominations — sub-divided into "Best" and "Best British" this or other — tend to get somewhat redundant. The Queen , for instance, [...]

The Toronto Film Critics Association announced its list of nominees — three or four per category — for their "Best of 2006" picks.
Most of the nominees are the usual suspects, already found in other critics’ lists, such as The Departed, The Queen, and United 93, but the Toronto critics also made a few unexpected [...]

I wasn’t going to bother posting the nominees for the International Press Academy’s Satellite Awards, created 11 years ago following a rift within the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. But after accidentally looking at their nominations, I felt their choices were actually more interesting and eclectic than those of the more commercial Golden Globes.
Films and [...]

By Dan Schneider of Cosmoetica:
Heaven. When I came across the long-awaited release of the original 1954 Japanese monster film Gojira on DVD, I thought I had struck heaven. That it was accompanied by its Americanized cousin, Godzilla, King of the Monsters, only doubled the joy of expectation. And for once, I was not disappointed. The [...]

21st Goya Awards - 2006
The 21st Spanish Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Goya Award nominees were announced by Pilar López de Ayala and Juan José Ballesta on Dec. 18, 2006.
The 21st Goya Award winners were announced at the Palacio Municipal de Congresos del Campo de las Naciones in Madrid on Jan. 28, 2007.
Nominees [...]

San Diego Film Critics Society Awards - 2006
The 2006 San Diego Film Critics Society Award winners were announced on December 18, 2006.
2006 San Diego Film Critics Society Award Winners - Article
 

 
Best Film: Letters from Iwo Jima directed by Clint Eastwood
Best Foreign-Language Film: Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles, directed by Zhang Yimou
Best Non-Fiction [...]