I feel like I haven't been paying attention lately. I had no idea there was an Alliance for Women Film Journalists until last week, when AWFJ's 2006 award nominations were announced, and now I've learned about the Women Film Critics Circle, which has just announced its awards. Obviously I have now some career goals to reach in 2007.

The WFCC website doesn't give many details about who's in the group other than the obvious: Female film critics and reporters. The awards include the obvious categories: Best Picture by a Woman went to Little Miss Sunshine, which was co-directed by Valerie Faris (and Jonathan Dayton, although he's not mentioned). Best Picture About Women was a tie between Volver and The Queen, both of which focus on strong female characters, although both were written and directed by men. Some of the more interesting awards categories include Best Equality of the Sexes, awarded to Ellen Page in Hard Candy (pictured above)... yow. I'm not sure that character's behavior warrants an award. Most Offensive Male Character was a tie: the obvious Sacha Baron Cohen in Borat along with Jason Statham in Crank. These women are brave -- I've noticed that any female (including myself) who says they found parts of Borat even the least bit sexist or offensive is immediately accused of that cliched crime, Having No Sense of Humor.

One new category the WFCC started this year is the Adrienne Shelly award, given in memory of the late actress/filmmaker for a film that "passionately opposes violence against women." The winner was Sisters in Law, a documentary about female judges in Africa that I'm sorry I missed at SXSW this year. The group's lifetime achievement award went to Barbara Kopple, the documentary filmmaker who won Oscars for Harlan County USA and American Dream, and who directed Shut Up & Sing, the 2006 documentary about the Dixie Chicks. There's also a Hall of Shame listing of ten 2006 films, and I'm sorry that no explanation is given for why these films are in the Hall of Shame, particularly Venus. (Anyone want to venture some opinions?)

The Boston Society of Film Critics is with the majority on who the best actor and actress of 2006 are. It named Forest Whitaker and Helen Mirren in those respective categories for its annual awards on Sunday night. But, the rest of the group's choices are another matter. The Departed, which had so far been unrecognized by the AFI, the NYFCO and the LAFCA (it is expected to do better with the NYFCC), won four awards, including best picture, director, supporting actor (not the one you'd think, though) and screenplay. Other surprising picks were Half Nelson's Shareeka Epps for best supporting actress and its director, Ryan Fleck, for best new filmmaker.

In giving so much love to The Departed, the Boston critics come off as simply favoring the film's setting and shooting locations. But, they can't really be that obvious. Besides, they didn't give so much to Mystic River (only best picture and best ensemble) back in 2003, and that film was just as good and just as representative of Beantown.

Check out the whole list of winners after the jump.

If you're like me, you eat way too much on Thanksgiving. And the last thing you want to do after eating so much is to watch a film about food or eating. Kevin made up a great list of food movies in honor of the holiday, and Kim wrote about "eating" films with a twist, but following your feast, you might get stomach pains just thinking about most of them. None of them could do too much harm, however, because they are all enjoyable fictional films. As a companion piece, I have come up with seven documentaries that you would definitely want to avoid in the wake of turkey day; A few of them you will want to avoid even after your digestive system has settled.

I caught a special screening of American Dream Tuesday night and it had me wondering if Barbara Kopple might get another Oscar nomination next year. She won her first Academy Award for Harlan County, U.S.A. in 1977 and her second for American Dream in 1991. She's got a new doc out right now, Shut Up & Sing, and while it isn't nearly as riveting as the other two docs, it is quite an achievement. Anyway, the Academy announced their shortlist of feature documentary contenders yesterday, and, sure enough, Shut Up & Sing is on it. This doesn't mean that the film has received an Oscar nomination yet, but it is one step closer.

The shortlist is simply a narrowing down of eligible documentaries from 81 to 15, selected by the Documentary Branch screening committee. This will make it easier for the Documentary Branch members to vote for the final list of five nominees, which the Academy will announce with the rest of the Oscar noms on January 23. I'm not shocked by how few of the 15 I've seen so far, even considering how many docs I caught at Tribeca this year, but I am disappointed in myself. I've only seen three from the list: An Inconvenient Truth; The Ground Truth; and, of course, Shut Up & Sing.

The thing is, most of the docs that have been critically acclaimed, like Deliver Us From Evil, still aren't calling my name at the end of the day. I know that docs aren't always uplifting, but lately I just haven't been in the mood for anything really depressing. Besides, I'm pretty skeptical about a lot of docs these days, even those that are well-received. The last two Oscar-winners were undeserving trash, in my opinion. March of the Penguins beating Murderball? Born into Brothels beating ... well, anything? Seriously though, 2005 was a bad year for quality documentaries. The five noms that year weren't much better than the self-serving winner, and too much attention was given to Fahrenheit 9/11 (at least it wasn't recognized at the Oscars) rather than to better films, like Control Room and The Corporation.

Like I said, I've only seen one-fifth of the films shortlisted, so I can't speak for this year's crop with any authority. Still, I don't foresee the group of finalists being anything as good as we saw in 2004. Man, that was a good year. Anyway, check out the 15 titles, with links to our reviews where available, after the jump.

Last week, there was a lot of controversy surrounding the announcement that Harvey and Bob Weinstein are producing a gala event to honor Wal-Mart CEO H. Lee Scott, Jr. After all, the Weinsteins are known for their support of the Democratic party and for their distributing liberal-sided docs like Fahrenheit 9/11 and the new Barbara Kopple film Shut Up & Sing. So, what are they doing hobnobbing with the enemy of their friends? The official reason is that the Weinsteins support Scott's new efforts to sustain environmental friendliness, but a number of people are pointing out other reasons the brothers might desire a good relationship with the retail company.

Radar has a report on some of these reasons, which include the Weinsteins' hopes for priority placement in Wal-Mart's stores and their need for Wal-Mart to go easier on movies depicting sex and drugs. Variety more specifically addressed the Weinsteins' recent control of Genius Products, which will be making straight-to-video, family-friendly films that cater well to Wal-Mart's demographic. Wake-Up Wal-Mart has gone so far as to write a letter of disapproval to the Weinsteins.

So, now what happens when Michael Moore, who is already a critic of Wal-Mart, decides his next activist doc is against the stores? Will the Weinsteins still support their golden boy?

In related news, SpielbergFilms.net is pointing out that Wal-Mart is now selling Poltergeist on DVD for less than $5. It's things like this that make it hard for moviefans to keep up a hatred for the stores, but I think we can all hold out for next year's 25th Anniversary edition, right?

Ever since the Dixie Chicks went off on George W. Bush at a concert in the UK back in 2003, the musical trio have been almost as well known for their politics as for their music. Country music fans, who tend as a group to lean to the right side of the political aisle, took great umbrage to the Chicks making their opinion on the president -- is is from their home state of Texas -- be known to the world. In Dixie Chicks: Shut Up and Sing, directors Barbara Kopple and Cecilia Peck take a look at the fallout of the Chicks refusal to shut up: The radio stations refusing to play their music, the right-wing bloggers urging fans to boycott them, the letters from fans, one of which inspired both a Dixie Chicks song and the title of this documentary, by telling the women to just "shut up and sing." Barbara Kopple and Cecilia Peck sat down with Cinematical's James Rocchi and Netscape's Alexia Prichard to discuss their controversial film. You can download the video here (60.9MB, 9: or watch it over on Netscape.

Those clever little (actually, they're not so little) Weinstein boys are hoping to turn political controversy into box office gold, as they've gone and picked up the worldwide distribution rights for the documentary Dixie Chicks: Shut Up and Sing. Directed by Barbara Kopple (who also helmed the Oscar-winning strike doc Harlan County, U.S.A.) and produced by Cecilia Peck and Kopple, pic follows the singing group around, while documenting the aftermath of Natalie Maines' heavily publicized anti-Bush comments.

Now, I'm far from a rabid Dixie Chicks fan, but I was certainly surprised to see how hated these girls became after Maines simply stated that she was ashamed President Bush was from Texas. I mean, we're talking radio boycotts and death threats -- all because she decided to speak her mind and be truthful? Not surprisingly, the Weinsteins are looking to shove the film into theaters this November, right in time for elections. Dixie Chicks: Shut Up and Sing will officially debut in a Gala Presentation next month at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Elements of the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival lineup are slowly dribbling out ahead of the full slate's announcement on August 22. Most recently, it was the 22 documentaries that make up the Festival's Real to Reel segment that were announced, a lineup that includes The U.S. vs. John Lennon, Blindsight, about a group of blind teenagers climbing Everest, Jeff Garlin's This Filthy World, and Tony Kaye's Lake of Fire, an examination of the abortion debate in the US. In addition, Dixie Chicks: Shut Up and Sing, Oscar-winner Barbara Kopple's film about the band in the wake of their words against President Bush after 9/11, will be the first doc ever to merit a Gala Presentation at the Festival.

(The full Real to Reel lineup probably can be found on the TIFF website, but I'll be damned if I can figure out where it is. Everyone who is smarter than I am and tracks it down, please post a link in the comments, and I'll add it to the post.)

Edit: And the readers come through again -- thanks, robruzic and Madeleine. An external program list can be found here (use the pulldown menu to sort), and the TIFF press releases are collected here.