2021 Fantaverse Awards

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How about another Best Picture featurette? This time around we've got The Invisible Man with some words by me:

Reimagining a classic horror property as a real life meets sci-fi horror flick about an abusive scientist (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) who fakes his own death then uses his undisclosed technological breakthrough to silently terrorize the woman (Elisabeth Moss) that left him proved to be an unexpected stroke of genius. Anchored by Leigh Whannell's brilliant script/direction that meticulously builds an eerie atmosphere that heightens the intensity of everything from the feeling of ever-present dread that the abused feels in the aftermath of leaving their abuser to the shocks from the jump scares and a fearlessly commanding performance from Moss that conveys paranoia and fear with a haunting degree of authenticity, The Invisible Man is an intelligent, terrifying and eventually cathartic tale that does for abusive relationships what Get Out did for race relations.

-Other notes:
-Nominated for 4 awards (Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Visual Effects)
-Joins Get Out and 2014 winner Whiplash as the only Blumhouse projects to earn Best Picture nominees

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Jumping back into the awards with Best Animated Feature. Here is the historically small field of nominees:
Onward
Soul
Wolfwalkers

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And the Winner is...:

Soul

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Up next we've got Best Documentary Feature. Here are the nominees:
Boys State
Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution
Collective
Time
You Cannot Kill David Arquette

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And the winners are:

(TIE)
Collective and Time

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It was a good year for docs. the 4 nominees I've seen were very impressive.

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We're officially at the halfway mark of the show!!! To celebrate, here's are my thoughts on our 5th Best picture nominee, Minari:
Lee Issac Chung put himself on the map in a big way with this semi-autobiographical drama set in the early 80's about a family of South Korean immigrants trying to establish a farming business in rural Arkansas. The relaxed pacing allows for plenty of time for the members of the family as well as their complicated dynamic to be developed and the restrained, naturalistic performances from the main cast (particularly Steven Yuen as the patriarch who is determined to make the farm a success regardless of what it costs him, Youn Yuh-jung as the mother-in-law who comes over from South Korea to help watch the kids while they start to get their business rolling and Alan Kim-who turns in the best performance by a child actor since Jacob Tremblay in Room-as the American-born son whose particularly discontent with their new living situation) make all of the high and lows the characters go through during their journey to achieve true prosperity and assimilate to a new country resonate beautifully. It's the type of sweet, low-key and emotional movie that will only add to A24's mythic lore in the independent film community.

Other notes:
-Nominated for 10 awards (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Original Screenplay, Best Foreign Language Feature, Best Score, Breakthrough Performance x2) here and has already logged a pair of wins for Youn Yuh-jung.
-1st Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner to receive a Fantaverse Best Picture nomination since Whiplash in 2014.

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It was a good year for docs. the 4 nominees I've seen were very impressive.

That it was. Netflix in particular had a terrific slate.

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We've now reached the technical awards portion of the ceremony. Here are the nominees for Best Cinematography:
First Cow
Mank
Nomadland
Saint Maud
The Vast of Night

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And the Winner is...:

Erik Messerschmidt for Mank

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For the 2nd half of the technical showcase, we have Best Visual Effects. Here are the nominees:
The Invisible Man
Love and Monsters
Tenet
The Vast of Night
Underwater

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And the winner is....:

Love and Monsters

The most lopsided winner of the night, finishing a full 7 points ahead of the 2nd place vote-getter (Tenet). And it's big victory is well-earned in my book. The VFX team being able to create all of those creatures with only a $30 mil budget is a mighty impressive feat.

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Featurette #6 for Never Rarely Sometimes Always provided by Chien:
Some films you love because they are a beautiful piece of cinema, with a nice balance of laughter, emotion, beautifully shot scenes, actors you love and a great music. And some films, like Never Rarely Sometimes Always, you love them because they are just raw cinema. And expression of urgency. NRSA follows a teen girl going to NY City to get an abortion, but she’s a minor, and NY is a daunting city. The director films the anguish, the despair, the doubt, the fear, and it holds onto you like it holds onto its young protagonist. On the paper, it may not seem much, but it all feels so real, so intense, you leave the film knowing you’ve just watched a piece of cinema that will last.

-Other notes:
-Nominated for 4 awards today (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Breakthrough Performance)
-Joins Minari as the 2nd 2020 Sundance selection to be nominated in this category.

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Time to class up the joint with the award for Best Score. Here are the nominees:
Mank
Minari
Soul
Sound of Metal
Tenet

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And the Winner is...:

Sound of Metal

Composed by Nicolas Becker and Abraham Marder