Both the Women's Film Critics Circle (of which I am a member) and the Alliance of Women Film Journalists gave out their awards and surprise, some are quite different from the other lists.
The Women Film Critics Circle is an association of 47 women film critics and scholars from around the country, who are involved in print, radio, online and TV broadcast media. They came together five years ago to form the first women critics organization ever in the country, in the belief that women’s perspectives and voices in film criticism need to be recognized fully. WFCC also prides itself on being the most culturally and racially diverse critics group in the country by far, and best reflecting the diversity of movie audiences.
The Women Film Critics Circle Awards 2008
BEST MOVIE ABOUT WOMEN
Changeling
BEST MOVIE BY A WOMAN
Frozen River
BEST STORYTELLER [Screenwriting Award]
Jennifer Lumet: Rachel Getting Married
BEST ACTRESS:
Melissa Leo: Frozen River
BEST ACTOR
Mickey Rourke: The Wrestler
BEST YOUNG ACTRESS:
Abigail Breslin: Kit Kittredge and Definitely Maybe
BEST COMEDIC ACTRESS: *TIE*
Sally Hawkins: Happy-Go-Lucky
Meryl Streep: Mamma Mia!
BEST FOREIGN FILM
I've Loved You So Long
BEST FEMALE IMAGES IN A MOVIE:
The Secret Life Of Bees
BEST UNRELEASED MOVIE:
How The Garcia Girls Spent Their Summer
BEST EQUALITY OF THE SEXES:
Nothing But The Truth
BEST MUSIC:
Cadillac Records
BEST ANIMATED FEMALE :
Eve: WALL-E
BEST FAMILY FILM
WALL-E
LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD:
Meryl Streep
ACTING AND ACTIVISM: Natalie Portman
**ADRIENNE SHELLY AWARD: For a film that most passionately opposes violence against women:
Changeling
**JOSEPHINE BAKER AWARD: For best expressing the woman of color experience in America:
Ballast
**KAREN MORLEY AWARD: For best exemplifying a woman’s place in history or society, and a courageous search for identity:
Battle In Seattle
COURAGE IN ACTING:
Deidra Edwards in DisFigured: For redefining conventional standards of female physical beauty and pride on screen, and promoting positive images of big bodied women.
BEST DOCUMENTARIES:
GROUNDBREAKER:
A Walk To Beautiful: Mary Olive Smith
ABOVE AND BEYOND:
Wings Of Defeat: Risa Morimoto
COURAGE IN FILMMAKING:
Traces Of The Trade: Katrina Browne
MOST OFFENSIVE MALE CHARACTERS
Aaron Eckhart: Towelhead
Sam Rockwell: Choke
Larry Bishop: Hell Ride
Paul Rudd, Sean William Scott: Role Models
Jason Mewes: Zack And Miri Make a Porno
TOP TEN HALL OF SHAME
Roman Polanski: Wanted And Desired
House Of The Sleeping Beauties
The Women
The Life Before Her Eyes
The Hottie and the No ttie
Savage Grace
Made Of Honor
The Family That Preys
Hounddog
Zack And Miri Make A Porno
**ADRIENNE SHELLY AWARD: Adrienne Shelly was a promising actress and filmmaker who was brutally strangled in her apartment in 2006 at the age of forty by a construction worker in the building, after she complained about noise. Her killer tried to cover up his crime by hanging her from a shower20rack in her bathroom, to make it look like a suicide. He later confessed that he was having a “bad day.” Shelly, who left behind a baby daughter, had just completed her film Waitress, which she also starred in, and which was honored at Sundance after her death.
**JOSEPHINE BAKER AWARD; The daughter of a laundress and a musician, Baker overcame being born black, female and poor, and marriage at age fifteen, to become an internationally acclaimed legendary performer, starring in the films Princess Tam Tam, Moulin Rouge and Zou Zou. She also survived the race riots in East St. Louis, Illinois as a child, and later expatriated to France to escape US racism. After participating heroically in the underground French Resistance during WWII, Baker returned to the US where she was a crusader for racial equality. Her activism led to attacks against her by reporter Walter Winchell who denounced her as a communist, leading her to wage a battle against him. Baker was instrumental in ending segregation in many theaters and clubs, where she refused to perform unless integration was implemented.
**KAREN MORLEY AWARD: Karen Morley was a promising Hollywood star in the 1930s, in such films as Mata Hari and Our Daily Bread. She was driven out of Hollywood for her leftist political convictions by the Blacklist and for refusing to testify against other actors, while Robert Taylor and Sterling Hayden were informants against her. And also for daring to have a child and become a mother, unacceptable for f emale stars in those days. Morley maintained her militant political activism for the rest of her life, running for Lieutenant Governor on the American Labor Party ticket in 1954. She passed away in 2003, unrepentant to the end, at the age of 93.
Alliance of Women Film Journalists
EDA ANNUAL ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS
Best Film
Slumdog Millionaire
Best Direction
Danny Boyle - Slumdog Millionaire
Best Screenplay Original
Wall-E - Andrew Stanton, Pete Docter, Jim Reardon
Best Screenplay Adapted
Frost/Nixon - Peter Morgan
Best Documentary (Tie)
Man On Wire - James Marsh
Trouble The Water - Tia Lessen, Carl Deal
Best Actress (Tie)
Sally Hawkins - Happy-Go-Lucky
Kate Winslet - The Reader and Revolutionary Road
Best Actress In Supporting Role
Viola Davis - Doubt
Best Actor
Sean Penn - Milk
Best Actor in Supporting Role
Heath Ledger - Dark Knight
Best Ensemble Cast
Rachel Getting Married
Best Editing
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - Kirk Baxter, Angus Wall
Best Foreign Film
Tell No One
EDA FEMALE FOCUS AWARDS
Best Woman Director
Courtney Hunt - Frozen River
Best Woman Screenwriter
Jenny Lumet - Rachel Getting Married
Best Breakthrough Performance
Sally Hawkins - Happy-Go-Lucky
Best Newcomer
Misty Upham - Frozen River
Women’s Image Award
Kristin Scott Thomas
Hanging in There Award for Persistence
Melissa Leo - Frozen River
Actress Defying Age and Ageism
Catherine Deneuve - A Christmas Tale
2008 Outstanding Achievement By A Woman In The Film Industry
Sheila Nevins, Producing/Programming at HBO
Lifetime Achievement Award
Catherine Deneuve
AWFJ Award For Humanitarian Activism
All of the Women in Pray The Devil Back To Hell
EDA SPECIAL MENTION AWARDS
AWFJ Hall Of Shame Award
27 Dresses
Actress Most in Need Of A New Agent
Kate Hudson
Movie You Wanted To Love But Just Couldn‘t (Tie)
Mamma Mia!
The Women
Best Of The Fests
Hunger
Unforgettable Moment Award (Tie)
Dark Knight: Joker’s first scene
Slumdog Millionaire: Young Jamal jumps into the poop
Best Depiction Of Nudity or Sexuality (Tie)
Elegy
The Reader
Best Seduction
Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Sequel That Shouldn’t Have Been Made Award (Tie)
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Saw V
The Remake That Shouldn’t Have Been Made Award:
The Women
Cultural Crossover Award
Slumdog Millionaire
Bravest Performance Award
Mickey Rourke - The Wrester
Best Leap from Actress to Director Award
Helen Hunt - Then She Found Me
Most Egregious Age Difference Between Leading Man and Love Interest
The Wackness - Ben Kingsley and Mary-Kate Olsen
