Critics' Choice Awards Dated for Jan. 10, 'Rust and Bone' Tops in London and the IDA Announces Documentary Noms

Another piece of the Awards Calendar has been filled in as the Broadcast Film Critics Association — of which I am a member — has announced the 2013 Critics’ Choice Movie Awards will take place January 10, 2013, airing on The CW after several years on VH1.

This makes the 10th a rather big day on the award season calendar as the 2013 Oscar nominations will be announced that morning. I guess I will be getting up early in a Los Angeles hotel room to announce the Oscar noms before heading to the Critics’ Choice Awards that night. Nominations will be announced on December 11.

You can check out my full Awards Calendar here.

Sasha Stone over at Awards Daily recently asked a crop of Oscar bloggers a series of questions regarding the race and you may happen to notice at least one name you recognize among those questioned if you click here.

Some recent festival winners include Ang Lee‘s Life of Pi winning the Audience Award at the Mill Valley Film Festival while Jacques Audiard‘s Rust and Bone won in London.

Greig Fraser, whose work you are going to love in Andrew Dominik‘s Killing Them Softly spoke about his work on the film with American Cinematographer. Here’s a sample:

When defining the look of Killing Them Softly‘s nameless town, Dominik and Fraser used a choice geographical phrase: Shitsville. Fraser explains, “Although we shot on location in New Orleans, we were aiming for something generic, a little town between New Orleans, Boston and D.C. that we called Shitsville. We wanted the place to look like it’s on the down-and-down, on the way out. We wanted viewers to feel just how smelly and grimy and horrible it was, but at the same time, we didn’t want to alienate them visually. That was the challenge!”

The bleak, often violent world presented in the film is often suffused with a low-contrast softness. “That’s a combination of stock, lenses and lighting,” says Fraser. “Where possible, I always used soft lighting. Cinematographers sometimes use hard backlight to give the appearance of sharpness, but I tried to avoid that. We were going with soft lenses and soft lighting, and often with soft faces. Creaminess is what Andrew and I wanted, not milkiness, which is different. Creaminess is something you feel you can enter into, like a bath; you want to be absorbed and encompassed by it. These were our lofty expectations. It wasn’t always completely obtainable, but we did our best.”

Get the full interview here

Finally, the International Documentary Association announced their nominees this morning and the short subject includes three of the The Central Park Five, which just saw a trailer debut recently and I’ve included it at the bottom of this post.

Also nominated is Kirby Dick‘s The Invisible War, which I had not heard of until the DVD arrived a week or so ago, but it sounds interesting as it centers on the epidemic of rape within the U.S. military with the back of the packaging saying “20% of all active-duty female servicewomen are sexually assaulted.” The doc actually caused for a change in policy. It’s one I am going to make a point to watch.

The feature and short nominations are below and Hit Fix has the rest.

Best Documentary Feature