Deep in the Heart of Texas Critics

Perhaps you've noticed that I haven't posted the results of several film critics awards the second they've come in. It's because there are too many. But I finalized info on my Oscar pages this morning. Texas was the latest thorn in my side. I ask the following in all sincerity: Are there really enough film critics working in the State of Texas to justify three separate critics organizations: Dallas/Fort Worth, Austin and Houston each with their own? Should all these laid off film critics you keep hearing about be relocating to the Lone Star State?

What's worse is that these three Texan entities don't have different aesthetics. Oh sure there are disagreements in Best Picture: Dallas (Slumdog), Houston (Benjamin Button), Austin (The Dark Knight). Yet all three of them agree on Heath Ledger as Supporting Actor (The Dark Knight) and Anne Hathaway as Best Actress (Rachel Getting Married). In other categories they have 2/3 agreement. Why not just form one Supersize Texas Association of Critics (STAC) or somesuch? Wouldn't their opinions have slightly more weight that way?

Here in NYC, the publishing capital, we only have 2 film critics organizations that claim a "place" in their title (NYFCC and NYFCO). If in New York, where you can't throw a bagel without hitting a critic, we can only justify 2...

I'm glad New York keeps it simple. Could you imagine? The Bronx Film Critics Association (BFCA -wait that acronym is in use), the Greater Association of Long Island Critics (GALIC), The Upper West Side Film Critics Association (UWSFCA). The Upper West Side Film Critics Association Online (UWSFCAO) Staten Island Critics Circle Organization (SICCO), Washington Heights Hispanic Association of Critics (WHHAC), East Village Association of Critics (EVAC). I mean where does it end? Central Harlem Online Independent Critics Everlasting (CHOICE), Freelancers Union Critics Kircle (FUCK). Exactly!

Madness.

Do you think Houston thinks they can kick Dallas/Ft. Worth's ass? You know Austin thinks itself a total hipster and above the fray. Which it kinda is... but still. It's not like Austin's choices truly rocked the fringes. For that you have to go to Toronto -- Wendy & Lucy as Best Pic. Rachel Getting Married in three categories... Woot!

And while we're filling in the blanks, there's also Phoenix which honored Benjamin Button and Las Vegas which went with Frost/Nixon and not just in Best Picture. All over the place it won. That's its first (and probably last) win for Best Picture. But at least it ain't Frontrunner Millionaire. On a more humorous note, despite the Slumdog SAG ensemble nomination (grrr - a prize for the casting directors ability to find cute children?) the cast is still unknown to many. Over @ MovieWeb for example, they think the great male actor Irffan Khan is actually the pretty if blank female star Freida Pinto and they also think that Frieda Pinto is Frieda Pinto while she is simultaneously Mia Drake. Oops.

In other news... Utah joins Austin in lauding The Dark Knight as Best Picture (with Rachel Getting Married as runner up? Interesting if inconsequential... it's really too bad Rachel has been faring so poorly outside of Anne Hathaway. But history will be kind to it long past the Frost/Nixons). They give director to Pixar's Andrew Stanton for WALL•E. They went totally populist.


updated Oscar pages
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