PHOENIX FUCKS IT UP WITH THEIR 2015 FILM CRITICS SOCIETY NOMINATIONS

And here comes the Phoenix Film Critics Society to really brighten up your Christmas! Among the many odious details in their award nominations for the year: Carol secures one nomination, the same number as The Visit; The Danish Girl is declared a better film than Carol; not a single POC is nominated for an acting award, The Martian makes the top three for cinematography (over Carol and The Assassin); 'Writing's on the Wall' from Spectre is named one of the best three film songs of the year; The Look of Silence isn't even nominated for Best Documentary; The Walk is nominated for its ensemble, indicating that perhaps these voters didn't even see The Walk; fs will people stop claiming Alicia Vikander broke through with Ex Machina? Have they literally not even gotten out of bed for the last four years? Winners will be announced on the 22nd of December. The disaster in full below:

Best Picture

The Big Short

Bridge of Spies

Brooklyn

The Danish Girl

Inside Out

Mad Max: Fury Road

The Martian

The Revenant

Room

Spotlight

Best Director

Alejandro González Iñárritu (The Revenant)

Adam McKay (The Big Short)

Tom McCarthy (Spotlight)

George Miller (Mad Max: Fury Road)

Ridley Scott (The Martian)

Best Actor in a Leading Role

Bryan Cranston (Trumbo)

Matt Damon (The Martian)

Johnny Depp (Black Mass)

Leonardo DiCaprio (The Revenant)

Eddie Redmayne (The Danish Girl)

Best Actress in a Leading Role

Cate Blanchett (Carol)

Brie Larson (Room)

Jennifer Lawrence (Joy)

Saoirse Ronan (Brooklyn)

Charlize Theron (Mad Max: Fury Road)

Best Actor in a Supporting Role

Paul Dano (Love & Mercy)

Tom Hardy (The Revenant)

Mark Ruffalo (Spotlight)

Mark Rylance (Bridge of Spies)

Michael Shannon (99 Homes)

Best Actress in a Supporting Role

Rachel McAdams (Spotlight)

Helen Mirren (Trumbo)

Alicia Vikander (The Danish Girl)

Julie Walters (Brooklyn)

Kate Winslet (Steve Jobs)

Best Original Screenplay

Bridge of Spies

Ex Machina

Inside Out

Spotlight

Best Screenplay Adapted from Other Material

The Big Short

Brooklyn

The Martian

Room

Best Cinematography

Mad Max: Fury Road

The Martian

The Revenant

Best Film Editing

Mad Max: Fury Road

The Martian

Spotlight

Best Production Design

Brooklyn

The Danish Girl

Mad Max: Fury Road

Best Costume Design

Cinderella

The Danish Girl

Mad Max: Fury Road

Best Visual Effects

Jurassic World

Mad Max: Fury Road

The Martian

Best Original Score

Bridge of Spies

The Hateful Eight

The Revenant

Spotlight

Best Original Song

‘One Kind of Love’ (Love & Mercy)

‘See You Again’ (Furious 7)

‘Writing’s on the Wall’ (Spectre)

Best Ensemble Acting

The Big Short

The Hateful Eight

Spotlight

Trumbo

The Walk

Best Animated Film

Inside Out

The Peanuts Movie

Shaun the Sheep Movie

Best Documentary

Amy

He Named Me Malala

Where to Invade Next

Best Foreign Language Film

The Assassin

Mustang

Son of Saul

The Overlooked Film of the Year

Ex Machina

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl

Z for Zachariah

Best Breakthrough Performance

Abraham Attah (Beasts of No Nation)

Jacob Tremblay (Room)

Alicia Vikander (Ex Machina)

Best Performance by a Youth

Abraham Attah (Beasts of No Nation)

Ed Oxenbould (The Visit)

Jacob Tremblay (Room)

REVIEW - THE VISIT (M. NIGHT SHYAMALAN)

M. Night Shyamalan loves a twist, as well we know. And that's good for me, because I love a twist too, and The Visit contains a cracker of one. It functions as the best twists do, exemplifying this writer-director's skill at orchestrating them (when his skills in many other areas are so woefully wanting): it reconfigures what you've already seen without betraying your trust, painting past occurrences in a new light that contributes narrative and thematic complexity without sacrificing the integrity of what you saw, or what you think you saw. It can't quite stretch to contributing said integrity, though, in those areas where Shyamalan's skills are all but absent, and it's thus that The Visit is a film of lesser quality than its one, crucial, late-game revelation. As per, this American auteur's confidence in those skills shows no signs of diminishing even after a string of mostly-deserved flops - convinced on the legitimacy of his style of scripting, he writes excessively purple dialogue and encourages a detached, vaguely psychotic manner of performing in all his actors. This time, he almost gets away with the dialogue, given the self-assured nature of his teen protagonists, though one wonders why they ever had to be so obnoxious, and so it's Shyamalan who comes off obnoxious. He almost gets away with the wacky acting too, given the film's identity as a (sporadically effective) horror, though one notes a distinctly ageist tone to the conceit that only intensifies following the twist, and so, again, it's Shyamalan who comes off badly. Alongside the twist, The Visit benefits from a canny choice of DP - Maryse Alberti, whose experience in documentary makes her a perfect fit for found-footage filmmaking, and she demonstrates once more that she has a knack for making mundane environments subtly visually interesting.