2023 Festivals/Awards Thread

[Buscemi2]

The real surprise in Best Documentary Feature was Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie not getting nominated. This seemed to be winning all of the Best Documentary awards and it's the kind of movie the Academy loves.

I never expected the director of Napoleon Dynamite to be an Oscar nominee.

America Ferrera for Best Supporting Actress is a surprise. She kind of got lost in the shuffle of that movie outside of her speech at the end.

On Best Director, I'd call Jonathan Glazer a bigger surprise than Triet. The Zone of Interest hadn't been getting much traction and it's probably way too downbeat for voters in a field of downbeat movies.

As for Best Actress (and Supporting Actress), did anyone really see Nyad? The reviews were average for a movie of its type and Bening's nomination really feels like another attempt to make people think she'll finally win when Stone's likely getting it again for being popular. Same thing with Cooper and his ridiculous fake nose.

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar probably wins Live-Action Short Film despite it being absolutely terrible as it's the most widely-seen. It's literally 40 minutes of the cast reciting a Roald Dahl story to the camera.

Oppenheimer not getting a Visual Effects nomination is a surprise, as it seemed to be the biggest takeaway of that movie for audiences rather than the film's message.

Lastly, if Turning Red had made the Best Original Song shortlist last year, we'd be talking about Billie Eilish and Finneas O'Connell as the new Alan Menken or the Sherman brothers.

[StarLord123]

Spider-Verse gets shut out of the Best Picture race again, of course. Hopefully the 3rd concluding chapter will manage to get a BP nom (unless it somehow disappoints). TMNT not getting an animated feature nom is disappointing, but I suppose it's not surprising that they went with the safe choice in Elemental.

Oppenheimer wasn't even in the VFX shortlist as there's very little actual CG in the film. I think it's looking quite likely to win Picture, as it's my 2nd favorite of the year behind only Spider-Verse, that win would get no complaints from me.

Flower Moon not getting a screenplay nomination weakens its chances at winning Picture. As far as historical dramas go, I have a feeling that it'll be largely overshadowed by Oppenheimer and possibly could've swept in another year.

Not a single nomination for Saltburn, not that I think it would deserve any outside of maybe cinematography.

I'm guessing The Creator will win VFX, but I wouldn't complain if either it or GOTG 3 won.

[Buscemi2]

Across the Spider-Verse didn't deserve a Best Picture nomination. It was nowhere near the level of the first film and the storytelling is full of problems.

Oppenheimer might have the most nominations but it's not a sign it will win Best Picture. In the last ten years, only three of the films with the most nominations (Everything Everywhere All at Once, The Shape of Water, and Birdman) won. As for Killers of the Flower Moon, it wasn't getting much traction in other awards but it could play spoiler in the final ballot.

And Saltburn never had a shot at nominations. If All of Us Strangers, a near-universally praised film that actually had some buzz, couldn't get nominations, Saltburn wasn't either.

[transformers2]

Barring some fuckery at the BAFTA's or SAG's, it would be absolutely stunning if Oppenheimer didn't win Best Picture. It has all of the momentum at the moment and there doesn't appear to be anything that will be able to put a stop to it at this juncture of the awards cycle.

As for Nyad's nominations, actors just love Bening and Foster, so it didn't really shock me at all that they got noms despite the relative indifference towards the film itself.

[Buscemi2]

But didn't we say that about La La Land and it ended up not winning Best Picture? That movie was inescapable and tied the record for most nominations in Oscar history.

[transformers2]

Moonlight beating La La Land was a definitely massive upset, but this just feels different. La La Land wasn't a massive cultural event helmed by a beloved filmmaker that currently has 0 Oscar wins to their name. I wouldn't be disappointed at all if it lost to any nominated film outside of Maestro, I'd just be shocked if it happened.

[numbersix]

The equivalent of that shock would be Past Lives winning this year, another beloved A24 film, but I don't think it has the heft or buzz of Moonlight, so I two am convinced Nopenheimer will win the gold. Even if it's my least favourite of the nominees (I haven't seen Maestro yet)

[transformers2]

DGA Winners:
Theatrical Feature Film: Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer
First-Time Feature Film: Celine Song, Past Lives
Documentary Feature: Mstyslav Chernov, 20 Days in Mariupol

[transformers2]

BAFTA Winners:
Best Film: Oppenheimer
Best Director: Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer
Best Actor in a Leading Role: Cillian Murphy, Oppenheimer
Best Actress in a Leading Role: Emma Stone, Poor Things
Best Actor in a Supporting Role: Robert Downey Jr., Oppenheimer
Best Actress in a Supporting Rolee: Da'Vine Joy Randolph, The Holdovers
Best Original Screenplay: Anatomy of a Fall
Best Adapted Screenplay: American Fiction
Best Animated Film: The Boy and the Heron
Best Documentary: 20 Days in Mariupol
Best Film Not in the English Language: The Zone of Interest
Best Casting: The Holdovers
Best Cinematography: Oppenheimer
Best Editing: Oppenheimer
Best Costume Design: Poor Things
Best Makeup & Hairstyling: Poor Things
Best Production Design: Poor Things
Best Score: Oppenheimer
Best Sound: The Zone of Interest
Best Special Visual Effects: Poor Things
Outstanding British Film: The Zone of Interest
Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer: Earth Mama
Best British Short Animation: Crab Day
Best British Short Film: Jellyfish and Lobster
EE Rising Star Award: Mia McKenna-Bruce

Big boost for The Boy and the Heron and American Fiction chances in Best Animated Feature and Best Adapted Screenplay while Paul Giamatti has suffered a setback by losing to Murphy here (Saturday's SAG Awards could ultimately dictate his fate). Also, will be interesting to see if Poor Things' success in the below-the-line awards will carry over to the Oscars or were just a product of the Brits awarding one of their own films.

[Buscemi2]

I really don't get why everyone just collective decided Oppenheimer had good editing. That movie was all over the place and difficult to follow as Nolan seems to think everything should be told non-linear.

But then again, I remembered Bohemian Rhapsody won the Oscar for Best Editing.

[transformers2]

SAG Award Winners:
Best Ensemble: Oppenheimer
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role: Cillian Murphy, Oppenheimer
Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role: Lily Gladstone, Killers of the Flower Moon
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role: Robert Downey Jr., Oppenheimer
Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role: Da'Vine Joy Randolph, The Holdovers
Outstanding Performance by a Stunt Ensemble: Mission: Impossible-Dead Reckoning Part One

Independent Spirit Award Winners:
Best Feature: Past Lives
Best Director: Celine Song, Past Lives
Best Lead Performance: Jeffrey Wright, American Fiction
Best Supporting Performance: Da'Vine Joy Randolph, The Holdovers
Best Breakthrough Performance: Dominic Sessa, The Holdovers
Best Screenplay: Cord Jefferson, American Fiction
Best Documentary Feature: Four Daughters
Best International Feature: Anatomy of a Fall
Best First Feature: A.V. Rockwell, A Thousand and One
Best First Screenplay: Sammy Burch, May December
Best Cinematography: Eigil Bryld, The Holdovers
Best Editing: Daniel Garber, How to Blow Up a Pipeline

Best Actress is now back to being a toss-up between Gladstone and Stone, Giamatti's upset Best Actor bid is effectively DOA and American Fiction just might be able to hand Oppenheimer's one of its only losses of Oscar night in Best Adapted Screenplay. Also glad to see Past Lives and Celine Song finally get some recognition this awards season.

[Buscemi2]

Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey swept the Razzies. This awards season has been so incredibly predictable, with really no surprises since even before festival season started.

Are we even trying to make things that aren't designed to get Internet buzz anymore?

[transformers2]

Since when have the Razzies have provided any sort of surprises? Their entire mission statement is picking on the lowest hanging fruit they can find, and their "job" has only gotten easier now that they've turned their attention to hacky microbudget horror movies made possible by beloved characters entering the public domain. They should just preemptively give all of next year's awards to the 36 Steamboat Willy slashers that are set to come out this summer/fall and save themselves the trouble of putting together a ballot. Also, it's semantics but Blood and Honey didn't "sweep" the awards, it only swept the awards it was up for as it wasn't nominated in any of the acting categories. Jon Voight, Sylvester Stallone and Megan Fox 2x took home those honors.

[Buscemi2]

Blonde was a surprise last year, as the actual film itself wasn't even considered that bad. It was just popular to hate on due to the graphic content (while those ignored that the source material had been around since the early 2000's and had been adapted previously as a miniseries, so everyone should have known it was going to be the way it was). Morbius would have seemed to be the favorite as that film didn't even have defenders and wasn't worth the long wait or the money Sony spent on its production and marketing.

The last time the winner was this obvious to everyone was probably Cats.

The thing with Blood and Honey winning was that it was your run-of-the-mill low-budget bad movie that everyone knew was going to be bad. It was an easy target that further shows the Razzies' irrelevance in the past few years. The real failures are the movies that had significant time and money used on them, attracted big names, and ended up failing miserably. Blood and Honey is no different from an Asylum movie designed solely to mislead people or to milk a joke that wasn't even funny to begin with.

[transformers2]

Oscar winners:
Best Picture: Oppenheimer
Best Director: Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer
Best Actor: Cillian Murphy, Oppenheimer
Best Actress: Emma Stone, Poor Things
Best Supporting Actor: Robert Downey Jr., Oppenheimer
Best Supporting Actress: Da'Vine Joy Randolph, The Holdovers
Best Original Screenplay: Justine Triet and Arthur Harari, Anatomy of a Fall
Best Adapted Screenplay: Cord Jefferson, American Fiction
Best Animated Feature: The Boy and the Heron
Best Documentary Feature: 20 Days in Mariupol
Best International Feature: The Zone of Interest
Best Cinematography: Hoyte von Hoyetma, Oppenheimer
Best Film Editing: Jennifer Lame, Oppenheimer
Best Costume Design: Holly Waddington, Poor Things
Best Makeup and Hairstyling: Poor Things
Best Production Design: Poor Things
Best Original Score: Ludwig Gorrannsson, Oppenheimer
Best Original Song: "What Was I Made For?" (Billie EIlish and Finneas O'Connell), Barbie
Best Sound: The Zone of Interest
Best Visual Effects: Godzilla: Minus One
Best Animated Short: War is Over! Inspired by the Music of John and Yoko
Best Documentary Short: The Last Repair Shop
Best Live Action Short: The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar

Mostly according to the script, but the Poor Things win for Makeup and Hairstyling and The Zone of Interest win for Best Sound really caught me off guard.