The one awards that may start to give us a much better idea as to which way the Academy is going is presented this Saturday night, and it's actually a new entry to the film awards season. The American Film Institute will award its first ever AFI Awards for film and television this Saturday night, in a 3 hour televised ceremony on CBS beginning at 7 PM CST, 8 PM EST. The AFI Awards insert themselves at an interesting juncture in the film awards season, as it will now become the first awards given by the industry themselves.
Usually, the film awards season progresses with the critics awards, followed by the guild awards, and the Oscar season is usually shaped particularly as the industry guild awards are presented. And I've said it before, but I do firmly believe that the AFI Awards will end up becoming as important and eventually legendary as the Golden Globes and the Oscars, becoming the third biggest film awards show around. And likely to be as respected as the Oscars, as they clearly have made very eclectic choices in their nominees, so we'll see.
This film awards season has been so interesting to follow, with one film up one week when it's honored, and then down when it's forgotten the next week by another organization. Black Hawk Down is a good example ... it's up for the most AFI Awards, but was completely forgotten by the Golden Globes, to be presented in a couple of weeks. Critics and industry individuals are clearly split over so many films, and this will undoubtedly make for an interesting Academy Awards. Almost every film being considered this film awards season has its champions and its detractors ... Black Hawk Down, Moulin Rouge, Memento, Mulholland Drive ... they all have ardent fans and ardent opponents. Two epic blockbusters still seem to be striving above that fray, and could still be the Oscar frontrunners ... Lord of the Rings and A Beautiful Mind. I'll discuss that in just a little bit ...
