Saturn Awards

FILM AWARDS

BEST COMIC BOOK-TO-FILM: Guardians of the Galaxy
BEST SCIENCE FILM FILM: Interstellar
BEST FANTASY FILM: The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
BEST HORROR FILM: Dracula Untold
BEST THRILLER FILM: Gone Girl
BEST ACTION/ADVENTURE: Unbroken
BEST INTERNATIONAL FILM: The Theory of Everything
BEST INDEPENDENT FILM: Whiplash
BEST ANIMATED FILM: The LEGO Movie

BEST ACTOR: Chris Pratt, Guardians of the Galaxy
BEST ACTRESS: Rosamund Pike, Gone Girl
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Richard Armitage, The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Rene Russo, Nightcrawler
BEST YOUTH PERFORMANCE: MacKenzie Foy, Interstellar

BEST DIRECTOR: James Gunn, Guardians of the Galaxy
BEST WRITING: Interstellar- Christopher Nolan & Jonathan Nolan
BEST EDITING: Edge of Tomorrow
BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN: Interstellar
BEST MUSIC: Interstellar
BEST COSTUMES: Dracula Untold
BEST MAKE-UP: Guardians of the Galaxy
BEST VISUAL EFFECTS: Interstellar

TELEVISION

BEST NETWORK SERIES: Hannibal
BEST CABLE SERIES: The Walking Dead
BEST LIMITED RUN SERIES: Game of Thrones
BEST SUPERHERO SERIES: The Flash
BEST YOUTH-ORIENTED SERIES: The 100

BEST ACTOR (tie): Hugh Dancy, Hannibal; Andrew Lincoln, The Walking Dead
BEST ACTRESS: Caitronia Balfe, Outlander
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Laurence Fishburne, Hannibal
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Melissa McBride, The Walking Dead
BEST YOUTH PERFORMANCE: Maisie Williams, Game of Thrones
BEST GUEST PERFORMER: Wentworth Miller, The Flash

Television Critics Association Nominations

PROGRAM OF THE YEAR
The Americans
Empire
Game of Thrones
Mad Men
Transparent 

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN COMEDY
The Big Bang Theory
Inside Amy Schumer
Jane the Virgin
Transparent
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt 

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN DRAMA
The Americans
Empire
Game of Thrones
Justified
Mad Men 

INDIVIDUAL ACHIEVEMENT IN COMEDY
Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Veep
Gina Rodriguez, Jane the Virgin
Amy Schumer, Inside Amy Schumer
Jeffrey Tambor, Transparent
Constance Wu, Fresh Off the Boat

INDIVIDUAL ACHIEVEMENT IN DRAMA
Viola Davis, How to Get Away with Murder
Jon Hamm, Mad Men 
Taraji P. Henson, Empire
Matthew Rhys, The Americans
Bob Odenkirk, Better Call Saul

OUTSTANDING NEW PROGRAM
Better Call Saul
Empire
The Flash
Jane the Virgin
Transparent 

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN MOVIES, MINISERIES AND SPECIALS
Bessie
The Honorable Woman
The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst
Olive Kitteridge
Wolf Hall

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN NEWS AND INFORMATION
60 Minutes
CBS Sunday Morning
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Frontline
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver    

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN REALITY PROGRAMMING
The Amazing Race
The Chair
Dancing with the Stars
RuPaul's Drag Race
Shark Tank

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN YOUTH PROGRAMMING
Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood
The Fosters
The Legend of Korra
Sesame Street
Switched at Birth   

HERITAGE AWARD
Friends
Late Show/Late Night with David Letterman
The Shield
Star Trek
Twin Peaks 

Critics' Choice Television Awards

COMEDY SERIES

SERIES: Silicon Valley
ACTOR: Jeffrey Tambor, Transparent
ACTRESS: Amy Schumer, Inside Amy Schumer
SUPPORTING ACTOR: T.J. Miller, Silicon Valley
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Allison Janney, Mom 
GUEST PERFORMER: Bradley Whitford, Transparent

DRAMA SERIES

SERIES: The Americans
ACTOR: Bob Odenkirk, Better Call Saul
ACTRESS: Taraji P. Henson, Empire
SUPPORTING ACTOR: Jonathan Banks, Better Call Saul 
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Lorraine Toussaint, Orange Is the New Black
GUEST PERFORMER: Sam Elliott, Justified

MADE-FOR-TELEVISION MOVIES OR LIMITED SERIES

MOVIE: Bessie
ACTOR: David Oyelowo, Nightingale
ACTRESS: Frances McDormand, Olive Kitteridge
SUPPORTING: Bill Murray, Olive Kitteridge
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Sarah Paulson, American Horror Story: Freak Show 
  
TALK SHOW: The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
ANIMATED SERIES: Archer
REALITY SERIES: Shark Tank
REALITY COMPETITION SERIES: Face Off
REALITY SERIES HOST: Cat Deeley, So You Think You Can Dance
MOST BINGE-WORTHY SERIES: The Walking Dead
GENIUS AWARD: Seth MacFarlane

Avengers: Age of Ultron

Avengers: Age of Ultron officially kicks off the summer movie season.  Box office records for Marvel's eleventh entry to its venerable cinematic universe are insured.  After all, the Marvel brand is such a finely oiled, storm-weathered machine that it's nearly irrelevant to put much serious thought or intellectual weight over whether or not the movies themselves are good or bad.  Analysis is besides the point-- the approval ratings and billion dollar global business dictates Hollywood investments rather than artfulness, originality and aesthetic value.  This may sound horribly cynical-- the corporatist, overstuffed Age of Ultron can't not be iced with a little cynicism-- but that's certainly not meant to imply that there aren't pleasures to be found in Joss Whedon's second go as captain of the ship.  Nor is it meant to imply that there shouldn't be a place in the cinematic marketplace for the adventures of this rag-tag group of superhero misfits-- Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Captain America (Chris Evans), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner)-- learning how to form a team.  There's value in that, just as there is in Richard Linklater's effortlessly insightful 18-year spanning Before-trilogy.  I just wish slightly more people flocked to the latter and slightly less blathered endlessly at the former.

Hiring Whedon was Marvel's smartest move.  When he came aboard to write and direct the first Avengers, the Marvel universe was still an unsteady, risky venture.  Yet with Whedon's verve as a writer and willingness to work within the iron-clad Marvel infrastructure as a director, it was clear way before the iconic 360 money shot near the end of the 2012 film that franchise/brand was going to take over the world (whilst simultaneously showing the destruction of it in every movie).  Whedon already established on the great television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer a way to deconstruct, mold and sharpen genre pieces by attaching humanity, levity and relatable anguish while still respecting and holding true its mythology.  The first Avengers film was hardly a work of art but it was zesty and chock full of small, human-sized moments to savor on thanks to Whedon's sharp one-liners and gift with performers.  Avengers: Age of Ultron at times feels like a heated divide between Whedon's untethered imagination and Marvel's eternal task to retain the status quo.  Which again, isn't to say the movie is altogether bad (devotees will probably be happy, agnostics may continue to shrug), but perhaps marks a blessing that Whedon is handing directorial duties moving forward.

White God

Perhaps just like Hagen, the mixed-breed canine headliner of Kornél Mundruczó's thrilling Hungarian parable White God, it's a little difficult to pin down the origins of this ambitiously staged morality play.  The film, which won the top prize in the Un Certain Regard sidebar at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival and was Hungary's official selection for last years' Academy Awards, wears multiple hats as an animal rights advocacy work, coming-of-age tale and revenge fantasy thriller.  With a title that draws to mind Samuel Fuller's 1982 race wars thriller White Dog and derives from a quote from J. M. Coetzee's post-apartheid novel Disgrace, White God proudly wears a wide range of influences upon its sleeve-- there's a hint of Planet of the Apes, a dash of Charles Bronson grade B-schlock, a peppering of Lassie Comes Home, even perhaps the raw ingredients of the Dardenne Brothers working class naturalism on display.  If all of these elements seems at odds with one another, well, they are.  Yet White God, in its messy and imperfect way is an utterly fascinating and vibrant piece of filmmaking, a difficult film to shake and one of the most unnerving thrillers in recent years.  I should probably mention here that the film is about a pack of dogs revolting in the streets of Budapest.  If that sounds a little ridiculous, well that's kind of true as well.

To Mundruczó's credit, he does stack the deck heavily in the favor of the pooches.  In White God, the majority of the humans are characterized as threats or obstacles to not just dogs but animal-kind in general-- some of the most potent pieces of imagery at the start of the film features freshly slaughtered cow flesh being judged for human consumption.  The inspector, we soon learn, is Dániel (Sándor Zsótér), a former professor turned meat grader who serves as the first obstacle for Hagen, a bulky yet cuddly mutt, the star of White God (played by Luke and Body, twin Labrador-mixes).  The one human grace note in the film is Lili (Zsófia Psotta), Hagen's 13-year-old custodian and bestie.  Early scenes bring to mind the golden nostalgia of children and their beloved pets, something Mundruczó undercuts with the continued tease of tension.  Circumstances bring the two at the door of her estranged father Dániel, a combustible mixture of an ill-attuned parent and a girl on the cusp of womanhood full of resentment-- Hagen gets it the worst in the end.