As those who are my friends on Facebook, or follow me on Twitter know, in December I am gearing up for my annual film awards (The BAM Awards), and that only partially explains my recent reposting of all past winners.
Since these are picks made by one person, the nominating process is even more important. Aside from the the past years, the full slate of nominees from all years past was no public knowledge.
This is because essentially the first time I did them, in 1996, I created them by myself for myself. At the time, I knew a lot less about how these decisions are made, campaigning, the year-end barrage of contenders and the like, such that the releasing of the Academy Award nominees was even more frustrating. Rather than just bemoan it I decided to create an award slate based on what I had seen.
Back then I was ticket stub pack rat, at the time it was the only way to track anything. So I created the list, picked winners and printed it out. The fact that I stuck with hard copies and no back-up created issues, however, it was just for me at the time.
I called them the BAM Awards because I needed a name. I suppose I came up with Bernardo Academy of Movies because I was being reactionary to The Academy. How one man by himself can be an Academy I didn’t fully consider. I thought it was kind of a silly name even at the time so eventually it just became BAM.
Slowly, the awards widened: soon I emailed a select group of friends (that created eventual storage issues), a few years ago when I was on the Site That Must Not Be Named I decided to really take it public. I didn’t think about it ahead of time, it just occurred to me roundabout late November of ’09 that I could.
The publication was an exciting and unnerving process regardless of how many or how few people would actually care to see them. While there are a two categories (which I now and again consider ending, and have skipped on occasion) which are negative, it is a positive emotion that brings me to these announcements. I want to at the end of this period of time share what I thought an why, and all winner announcements come with some explanation, and I do belabor them and struggle with them.
So it is heartening that last year, for the first time, the actual honorees, be they nominees or winners, on occasion acknowledged it. Now that may seem like a self-aggrandizing statement, but what I liked was knowing the news reached them and other people and they were pleased to hear it. The design of these awards are to cement what performances, works and films most affected me, I make no bones about that, and sharing that felt like a gamble, but it’s been rewarding for that and many other reason.
Of course, if you see a film missing from any year you may inquire, and there is room for intelligent discourse, but the above statements are true: trolling or disrespectful comments aimed at who was chosen won’t be tolerated. Your own awards are just a blog post away.
I apologize for even needing to insert that statement but I did have cause to make similar points last year. Anyway, with how much I enjoyed last year’s and how much I’m looking forward to this year’s awards, I thought it’d be a good idea to put all I have out there in a “reverse” countdown.
So here goes…
2009
The Following are the BAM Award nominations. They reflect only the opinion of this critic and are based solely on the films he was able to see during the course of the past calendar year.
Unlike previous years only films released in the calendar year qualified. This narrowed the pool somewhat but there are good things to be found within indeed. A statement about the year in
film will follow with the winners and with the winners you will also get photos and with the special awards a little more info. The winners will be published on December 31st, 2009.
Where the Wild Things Are
My One and Only
Lymelife
Inglourious Basterds
Up
Whatever Works
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
A Single Man
Before Tomorrow
Is Anybody There?
John Crowley Is Anybody There?
Spike Jonze Where the Wild Things Are
Derick Martini Lymelife
Quentin Tarantino Inglourious Basterds
David Yates Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Sacha Baron Cohen Brüno
Sharlto Copley District 9
Colin Firth A Single Man
Logan Lerman My One and Only
Viggo Mortensen The Road
Sandra Bullock The Blind Side
Kelly Macdonald The Merry Gentleman
Michelle Monaghan Trucker
Mélanie Laurent Inglourious Basterds
Renee Zellweger My One and Only
Michael Caine Is Anybody There?
Peter Capaldi In the Loop
Zach Galifianakis The Hangover
Christian McKay Me & Orson Welles
Christoph Waltz Inglorious Basterds
Anna Chlumsky In the Loop
Diane Kruger Inglourious Basterds
Julianne Moore A Single Man
Maggie Smith Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Charlize Theron The Road
Lance Acord Where the Wild Things Are
Javier Aguirresarobe The Road
Norman Cohn and Félix Lajeunesse Before Tomorrow
Bruno Delbonnel Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Chris Seager The Merry Gentleman
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
The Unborn
Inglourious Basterds
The Road
A Single Man
Drag Me to Hell
Orphan
In the Loop
Sin Nombre
Paranormal Activity
Aliens in the Attic
Shorts
Old Dogs
Hotel for Dogs
Before Tomorrow
Pandorum
Orphan
The Uninvited
Halloween II
Underworld: Rise of the Lycans
Norman Cohn, Marie-Hélène Cousineau, Louise Dugal & Félix Lajeunesse Before Tomorrow
James Haygood and Eric Zumbrunnen Where the Wild Things Are
Alan Edward Bell (500) Days of Summer
Joan Sobel A Single Man
Mark Day Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
“The Climb” Miley Cyrus Hannah Montana: The Movie
“Quiero que Me Quieras” Gael Garcia Bernal Rudo y Cursi
”Raining Sunshine” Miranda Cosgrove Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs
Carter Burwell and Karen O. Where the Wild Things Are
Abel Korzeniowski A Single Man
Marco Beltrami Knowing
Mark Isham My One and Only
James Horner Avatar
Aliens in the Attic
District 9
2012
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Avatar
Avatar
District 9
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Star Trek
Where the Wild Things Are
Brad Pitt, Mélanie Laurent, Cristoph Waltz, Eli Roth, Diane Kruger, B.J. Novak and Mike Myers Inglourious Basterds
Colin Firth, Julianne Moore, Matthew Goode and Nicholas Hoult in A Single Man
Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Maggie Smith, Robbie Coltrane, Julie Walters, Jim Broadbent, Alan Rickman, Michael Gambon, etc. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Renee Zellweger, Logan Lerman, Mark Rendall, Kevin Bacon and Nick Stahl My One and Only
Rory Culkin, Kieran Culkin, Emma Roberts, Alec Baldwin, Jill Hennessy, Timothy Hutton and Cynthia Nixon Lymelife
Best Performance by a Child Actor
Jimmy Bennett Trucker
Bill Milner Is Anybody There?
Kodi Smit-McPhee The Road
Chandler Canterbury Knowing
Max Records Where the Wild Things Are
Quentin Tarantino Inglourious Basterds
Woody Allen Whatever Works
Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber (500) Days of Summer
Mark Burton and Adam F. Goldberg Aliens in the Attic
John Lucas and Scott Moore The Hangover
Spike Jonze, David Eggers and Maurice Sendak Where the Wild Things Are
Susan Avingaq, Marie-Hélène Cousineau, Madeline Ivalu and Jørn Riel Before Tomorrow
Steve Kloves and J.K. Rowling Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Roberto Orci & Alex Kurtzman and Gene Roddenberry Star Trek
Joe Penhall and Cormac McCarthy The Road
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Is Anybody There?
Aliens in the Attic
My One and Only
A Single Man
My One and Only
Me & Orson Welles
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Where the Wild Things Are
A Single Man
The Ingmar Bergman Lifetime Achievement Award
Werner Herzog
The Robert Downey, Jr. Award for Entertainer of the Year
Michael Keaton
Nominations
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince– 11
Where the Wild Things Are and A Single Man– 9
My One and Only, Inglourious Basterds– 7
The Road– 6
Before Tomorrow, Is Anybody There?– 5
Lymelife, District 9, In the Loop, Aliens in the Attic, Avatar– 3
Whatever Works, The Merry Gentleman, Trucker, The Hangover, Me & Orson Welles, Orphan, Knowing, Star Trek, (500) Days of Summer– 2
Brüno, The Blind Side, The Unborn, Drag Me to Hell, Uninvited, Sin Nombre, Paranormal Activity, Halloween II, Shorts, Old Dogs, Pandorum, Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, Hotel for Dogs, Hannah Montana: The Movie, Rudo y Cursi, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, 2012– 1
The Movie Rat 
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