Is This Awards Season Predictable? Will Rogue One Slay the Box Office?

Whew…In the last 72 hours, we have seen some real developments leading into the 2017 Oscar race with announcements of The Critic’s Choice Winners, AFI winners, IDA winners NAACP Image Awards, Annie Awards and the 2017 Golden Globes Nominees. Ok…here we go…

With a year that was so heavy on diversity being spoken every two seconds, it was refreshing to see black and brown faces among the nominees and winners Sunday night during the 2016 Critic’s Choice Awards. I was really shocked and disappointed that Hidden Figures, Fences and Lion didn’t get more love.

On the bright side, Moonlight seems to be the darling of this awards season taking home multiple awards including one for “House of Cards” “Hidden Figures” star Mahershala Ali.

CLICK HERE FOR A COMPLETE LIST OF WINNERS FROM THE 2016 CRITICS CHOICE AWARDS

ABC and HBO led the noms in the television categories with 23 nominations and 14 nominations, respectively. Columbia Records leads with 16 nominations, followed by RCA Records with 10 nominations and Atlantic Records with 4 nominations. Walt Disney Studios leads with 9 nominations, followed by Focus Features with 7 nominations, while A24 and Fox Searchlight Pictures both received 6 nominations in the motion picture categories.

Beyoncé and her “Lemonade” are leading the pack with 7 nominations, followed by her sister Solange Knowles with 5 nominations. Additionally, Chance the Rapper and Kendrick Lamar received 4 nominations, while Donald Glover and Nate Parker both received nominations for 3 awards.

The Birth of a Nation, universally snubbed this awards season is getting some love from the NAACP with nods for the film and its Star/Director/Writer – Nate Parker

For a complete list of nominees and latest news, please visit www.naacpimageawards.net.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story had its premiere over the weekend in preparation of a global opening on December 16th. Having seen the film, I can tell you that it is well worth all the hype! Here’s what I had to say about it and a sneak peek trailer…

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story Review

CLICK HERE FOR EXCLUSIVE STAR WARS TRAILER…

Nominations for the 44th Annie Awards – recognizing the best in animated filmmaking in television and movies across 36 categories – were announced by the International Animated Film Association, cementing the Oscar-bound journey of titles like Zootopia, Kubo and the Two Strings, and Finding Dory.

For a full list of the nominees, go to www.annieawards.org.

Last, but certainly not least are the Golden Globe nods. Although a few big names earned awards buzz leading up to the noms, they won’t have a shot at the prestigious award. A few lesser known films, television shows (This is Us) and actors, however, pulled some off unexpected nods.

Popular shows like “Empire” were “shut out”, as was its star Taraji P.Henson for her stellar work in “Hidden Figures” (which garnered a Best Supporting nod for co-star Octavia Spencer).

Additional snubs involve the highly anticipated and extremely controversial Nat Turner film, “The Birth of A Nation”, Denzel Washington for his exceptional work as the Director of the Pulitizer-Prize winning play “Fences”, the Martin Scorsese film “Silence”, Tom Hanks in “Sully”, “The Walking Dead’s “Jeffrey Dean Morgan and the cast of the hit HBO Series “Game of Thrones”.

It’s been a real interesting year in film for sure and it continues to be unpredictable yet not. Next up…the 2017 Academy Award Nominees. Stay tuned.