Bernardo Villela is like a mallrat except at the movies. He is a writer, director, editor and film enthusiast who seeks to continue to explore and learn about cinema, chronicle the journey and share his findings.
This is a newly-siphoned off post from the original Young Actors post. This category came into being in the 2011 BAM Awards as part of the start of the diversification of the Youth Categories. This division of the category was necessary because while there were female winners, most of the time that was not the case and even nominations were hard to come by. This year’s nominees not only validated this decision, while hard to find as many titles the quality was high, the Supporting categories, which was a gamble, also provided great candidates.
2024 Beatrice Schneider The Best Christmas Pageant Ever
This is a newly-siphoned off post from the original Young Actors post. This category came into being in the 2011 BAM Awards. After adding an Ensemble Award the next logical step was to end the unisex nature of the Youth Lead Categories. The final step was complete this year with the inclusion of Supporting categories for young actors. The Lead Youth Acting winners from 1996-2010 can be found in a separate post.
This is a newly-siphoned off post from the original Young Actors post. This category came into being in the 2010 BAM Awards to recognize Ensemble work, but only among young actors within a cast, which differentiates it from Best Cast. The inception of this category was the first step toward parity between youth-specific and open categories.
2024Kynlee Heiman, Sebastian Billingsley-Rodriguez, Wyatt Dewar, Matthew Lamb, Owen Mathison, Ewan Matthis-Wood, Essek Moore, Laurelei Olivia Mote, Mason D Nelligan, and Isla Verot The Best Christmas Pageant Ever
2022 Mason Thames, Madeline McGraw, Miguel Cazarez Mora, Rebecca Clarke, J. Gaven Wilde, Spencer Fitzgerald, Jordan Isaiah White, Brady Ryan, Tristan Pravong, Jacob Moran, Brandy Hepner, Banks Repeta The Black Phone
2021 Kevin Vechiatto, Gabriel Moreira, Laura Roseo, and Giulia Benite Turma da Mônica Laços
2020 Alivia Clark, Ashling Doyle, Tanner Flood, James Freedson-Jackson, Oliver Gifford, Nolan Lyons, Sam McCathy, Ivy Mille, Taylor Richardson, and Eric Schuett 18 to Party
2019 Jack Dylan Grazer, Jaeden Martell, Finn Wolfhard, Wyatt Oleff, Chosen Jacobs, Jeremy Ray Taylor, Luke Roesseler, Jackson Robert Scott, Sladen Peltier, Sophia Lillis, Ryan Kiera Armstrong, It: Chapter 2
2018 Storm Reid, Levi Miller, Deric McCabe, and Rowan Blanchard A Wrinkle in Time
2017 Jaeden Lieberher, Jack Dylan Grazer, Wyatt Oleff, Chosen Jacobs, Jeremy Ray Taylor, Sophia Lillis, Finn Wolfhard, Jackson Robert Scott and Nicholas Hamilton It
2016 Thor Braun, Rick Lens, Thijn Brobbel, Luciano Hiwat, Dylan Pijper, Joes Brauers, Maas Bronkhuyzen, and Dennis Reinsma De Boskampi’s
2015 Oscar Dietz, Samuel Ting Graf, Astris Juncher-Benzon, Amalie Kruse Jensen, Marcus Jess Petersson, Johannes Jeffries Sørensen and Hectores Brøgger Andersen Antboy 2: Revenge of the Red Fury
2014Spencer Bogaert, Felix Maesschalck, Emma Verlinden, Nell Cattrysse and Pommelien Tijs Labyrinthus
2013 Siam Yu, Colton Stewart, Gage Munroe, Michael Friend, Aidan Gouveia, Mackenzie Munro, Alex Cardillo, Dyson Fyke, Spencer Howes, Andy Reid, Richard Nguyen, Eric Hanson, and Alex Wall in I Declare War
2012Ben Van den Heuvel, Nathan Naenen, Noor Ben Taouet, Jelle Florizoone, Nina Marie Kortekaas, Mathias Vergels North Sea Texas
2011 Joel Courtney, Elle Fanning, Ryan Lee, Zach Mills, Gabriel Basso and Riley Griffiths Super 8
2010 Oscar Steer, Asa Butterfield, Lil Woods, Eros Vlahos and Rosie-Taylor Ritson in Nanny McPhee Returns
So here is the eye candy award. As always there are a few things to note: first, among my favorite winners are the back-to-back tandem of Jurassic Park: The Lost World and Small Soldiers simply because I like to award combined efforts whenever possible. Combined efforts meaning many techniques were used to create the effects of a film like robotics, prosthetic, models in tandem with CGI. Had I known how some effects were achieved for Inception it may have swayed my 2010 vote, having said that I was glad it won the Oscar. Second, one curious thing to note is that you have at times here streaks like 20th Century Fox is on a run as a studio and the Narnia series is 3-for-3 as they always up the ante in combining their work with real elements.
Lastly, I must’ve learned something about how certain shots in The Patriot were achieved in 2000 that influenced my vote but I honestly cannot recall what but as I have stated before I am not revisiting these awards merely posting them for posterity. I, of course, could never have predicted my fatigue of disaster films in 1996 or how much more unsavory that White House shot in Independence Day would grow over the years.
Nevertheless, I hope you enjoy the winners as much as I have.
I have for some time wanted to start a series like this, and figured this new year was a good time to start. Essentially, whenever there is a publicly-voted award in the film world I will share my thoughts and vote here.
I was thankful to be reminded of this award this morning. It’s one I have voted in before and since it’s kind of a body of work award and is thus more intriguing than most. I can’t recall how many times I have voted in this poll in the past, but considering that Nicholas Hoult and Emma Stone have been nominated previously, and also been BAM honorees, I’m fairly sure I cast my ballot for them in the years in which they were nominated.
As for this year’s ballot the choices are:
Elizabeth Olsen, considering that I picked her as Best Actress last year, and liked her in a subpar film this year, she’s already “risen” in my mind.
Andrea Riseborough, I sadly haven’t seen in any of her recent roles, so I couldn’t vote in her favor.
Suraj Sharma, I liked him far more than I did The Life of Pi, but it’s a stepping-stone to potentially bigger and better roles for him.
Juno Temple, I liked her performances in Killer Joe and The Dark Knight Rises. However, there was another tandem of roles that was more impressive this year amongst this list.
When we think of the 90s socio-politically you can almost draw a parallel to the kind of films that were produced. With Clinton in office the stock market more than doubled it was prosperity galore and yet there was a generation (Generation X followed by Y, how original) that could care less. There were hardly any films that reflected the times we were in because that would be bourgeois, no one really cared they had money in their pocket. Yet there was also nothing to escape unless you count the laughable Lewinsky affair, so film stagnated aside from the occasional blip here and there.
While the 80s were not like the 60s in that there was a constant issue constantly looming over everyone like the Vietnam War. There were several crucial events in America’s history. Films are the products of our society and the people writing those films for the most part came of age in the 60s and thus, had a higher social consciousness than those who grew up in the culturally devoid 70s.
Being children of the 60s coupled with the fact that escapist family oriented cinema was in demand for a great part of the decade lead to many of these films having a lot of pie-in-the-sky idealism in them.
The 80s socially and politically were a mess. There was always something. New York was a crime-ridden dirty hole, which is reflected to some extent Ghostbusters. At the beginning of the decade there was the hostage crisis and the decade ended with the beginning of the communist collapse. While there were many crises and negative events there was a national sentiment in the nation and a presentiment that gave people a feeling that we could change things, amid all the excesses of the ‘me generation’ there was Hands Across America, Farm Aid and Artists for Africa which were movements by musicians that we could change the world and films like Amazing Grace and Chuck reflect that sentiment.
It was undoubtedly a turbulent time but there was a wind of change in the air. Reagan’s short-sightedness in his term is paralleled by the studio heads. Reagan wanted to give the taxpayers a break immediately and it hurt in the long run while the studios wanted money immediately and slowly the quality of films they were producing would dwindle. Thankfully, the quality did keep coming out until the end of the decade. The political conditions were all aligned for good, even great films to be made. Great films never come out in abundance when the nation is affluent. Pre-packaged hit-me films do, the 80s were a great time to grow up in because you probably weren’t aware of all that was going on around you. Yet I do recall seeing the possibility for change and seeing that something good can occur in this world and I saw it plastered across a large silver screen every weekend.
Note: This is a recapitulation of a paper I wrote in film school. It will be published here in installments. You can read part one here.
A few notes worth mentioning when it comes to the Best Cast category: First, I did borrow this concept from the SAG Awards. I just love the idea of honoring an entire cast from top to bottom and just wish they’d list and/or invite more people. There have been years when, if I was patient enough, I listed many of the players in the cast. Needless to say if one cast member wins they all do whether listed or not.
Second, there is one statistical oddity I noticed while assembling this list is that only four of the winners of Best Cast also were awarded my Best Picture prize. This kind of illustrates my point that acting is very important in a film but a film is so collaborative that its success does not necessarily hinge on its players’ ability.
Also interesting to note is that the Harry Potter series has two wins here whereas it has not captured Best Picture in a rather Susan Lucci-like fashion. Lastly, when looking closely enough you’ll note some actors played parts, whether lead, supporting or tertiary, in multiple Best Casts. One such case would be Trevor Morgan, who only really had one major scene in The Sixth Sense wherein he bullies Haley Joel Osment but then plays a much more significant part in Mean Creek. I have not yet verified it but then there’s also the odd case of Hugh Mitchell, who was Colin Creevey in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and Boy Nicholas Nickleby in Nicholas Nickleby and thus, is to my knowledge, the only actor to ever get nominated twice in the same year for the Best Cast category.
Were I to dig deep enough I’m sure there’d be other interesting stats to find like Alan Rickman’s three wins but alas here are the winners…
In his Biographia Literaria Samuel Taylor Coleridge* postulates how a critic’s faculties and tastes are influenced by his life experiences and exposure to art. I open with this statement because in writing about the 1980s a decade in which I was a child, I realize there can be a certain amount of filtering due to nostalgia or longing for ‘the good old days,’ thus, with each film I discuss in the 1980s I think it important to note when I first saw the film. Some have stood the test of time. Others are recent discoveries. I’m also trying to examine all of these films in a new light to ensure subjectivity.
I also think it’s important to note the genesis of this concept in my own reasoning as it has most definitely shifted. A little more than a year ago [as of this writing] I saw a film called Amazing Grace and Chuck for the first time and I thought to myself “This film could’ve only been made in the 80s.” I thought this both because of its aesthetics, the grain and milieu common to the 1980s. I started postulating upon that on my cornerstone on defining the 1980s noting that the 50s, 60s, and 70s had each had their own unique looks. I noted there was overlap such that early 80s films still looked like they were shot in the 70s. Yet this would be too technical and pedantic an approach. What really struck me about Amazing Grace and Chuck was the subject matter. And while you can’t pin down a decade as sporadic and variegated as the 80s (As opposed to the heavy focus on Sci-Fi in the 50s) you can see there were ideas buried even in these heavily Hollywoodized films. Yet I come to realize as I’ve viewed nearly 30 films for analysis that saying this is what the 80s were all about is folly. However, within the context of each individual film I can display a reflection of cinematic or social thinking at the time.
This is an overview of a decade of innovation. A decade where the blockbuster was ever more predominant than in the 1970s yet there seemed to be a last gasp of artistry. There were great films released amongst the garbage. Also, we would see the trends that would lead to the decline in quality in the 1990s. It was a decade with artists who still had a spark of idealism and still had something to say albeit through indirect channels.
While many of the films make connections to my youthful sensitivities, it is important to note that these films for the most part do not condescend or talk down to its intended audience which is a problem that has become more and more apparent as time has moved on. These are also films that for me have stood the test of time. Some of what was good in the eighties was adopted in the 90s and turned sour and what’s worse some of what was terrible also stayed and became worse. In this paper I will look at the motion picture in all its forms film, television, animation and the newly-invented, at the time, music video. No matter how you look at it the 80s did matter and I want to examine the decade here. It was a decade I grew up in it is true but now I can look back subjectively and examine a decade I’ve come to love.
* While primarily a poet and philosopher Coleridge wrote an abundance of dramatic criticism, introduced the term ‘suspension of disbelief’ to the artistic world, and is one of the most important concepts in cinema.
Note: This is a recapitulation of a paper I wrote in film school. It will be published here in installments.
In many ways this category exists now because of Waiting for ‘Superman’. As I intimate in the review linked below, I have come full circle with regards to documentary films. I can embrace them as a separate but equal entity to narrative film. I will strive to qualify this category annually but while I can appreciate documentaries fully now I acknowledge my proclivity for fiction whereas when I’m given a choice between which two to watch at a given time I will invariably choose the narrative. Having said that the category is, of course, valid and proved it can threaten to be the best of the year.
This one may have been a bit lacking in the drama department because Superman did make my Top 10 and no other doc crashed the Top 15, however it is truly an amazing experience but none of these others should be missed either. They are all on Netflix (the nominees being: Prodigal Sons, Killing Kasztner, Waiting for ‘Superman‘, Best Worst Movie, The Art of the Steal)
I’ll try and make my commentary on these films brief but there are several noteworthy selections that deserve some preface.
Firstly, I slam the Razzies on an annual basis because they never pick anything low budget. Birdemic became infamous due to its cheesy nature, it was “snubbed” conversely Alice in Wonderland was reviled by many critics but due to the fact that it was nominated for a handful of technical Oscars it was left out. Now I do have some widely seen films down below but my mandate is not to find and slam the worst of the worst. I try and seek out that which I will like and comment on what I find to be the worst. Mind you I do not choose some of the more popular titles for shock effect either. I literally fell asleep during the Pirates film “honored” below and liked others in the series.
As I said in my Overrated category there are people who participated in, and in some cases made, the films below that I really like and it pains me to have to include them on this list. However, I find it hilarious that Charlie Sheen is in one of them. He’d call that winning even if I don’t.
Anyway, just a few more caveats, yes, here, like in other categories, Made for TV Movies are not expressly forbidden so a few will be of that nature and a few will be direct-to-video I believe. I knock them because I didn’t like them, though, not because of the distribution path. Straight-to-video and Made for TV have earned nominees in positive categories also.
In 2002 I skipped the Award, I believe I brought it back the next year and in reconstructing ’03 (lost records) I added a “winner.”
My 2006 film was one I saw at a film festival that doesn’t have a one-sheet up anywhere. I have included a YouTube clip of the opening.
2012 Award Discontinued. This post will remain for archival. Please check 2012 winners post, which is linked here for the reasoning.
The Movie Rat 