NYFCC Awards Flower Moon Best Picture; Etc.

Lily Gladstone won Best Actress from the NYFCC
for Killers of the Flower Moon.

Let the film award season begin. The New York Film Critics Circle is the first out of the gate with their picks for the best of 2023. Killers of the Flower Moon, Martin Scorsese's three-hour-plus epic of the murders of Osage Native Americans by greedy white folks for their oil, was named Best Picture and Best Actress (Lily Gladstone as Mollie Kyle). But Best Director went to Christopher Nolan for Oppenheimer which also won Best Cinematography. 

Here's a breakdown of the winners:

• Best Film – Killers of the Flower Moon

• Best Director – Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer

• Best Actor – Franz Rogowski, Passages

• Best Actress – Lily Gladstone, Killers of the Flower Moon

• Best Supporting Actor – Charles Melton, May December

• Best Supporting Actress – Da’Vine Joy Randolph, The Holdovers

• Best Screenplay – Samy Burch, May December

• Best First Film – Past Lives

• Best Foreign Language Film – Anatomy of a Fall

• Best Animated Film – The Boy and the Heron

• Best Non-Fiction Film – Menus-Plaisirs – Les Troisgros

• Best Cinematography – Oppenheimer

Speaking of film awards, I read a few months ago that Dick Clark Productions brought out the Golden Globe Awards from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the organization of foreign-based film critics and reporters who voted for and administered the GGs, the second-most watched movie and TV awards after the Oscars and the Emmys. The production company which had been producing the broadcast awards ceremony for several years, was reportedly "winding down" the HFPA. So I thought to myself, then who's going to vote for the awards? This was a tricky questions because the HFPA had come under fire for its lack of diversity and questionable ethics. (Don't forget Pia Zadora won a Best Newcomer Award after her millionaire husband reportedly bribed the GG electorate with expensive gifts.) 

It turns out the same people are voting for the awards. Dick Clark Enterprises is hiring all former HFPA members as employees and PAYING THEM a salary of $75,000 a year! New voters are being sought, but they don't get a salary. Do you believe it! A decent salary for watching movies and TV shows all year. Talk about a cushy job.

Recent Films Seen:

Coleman Domingo (center)
in Rustin

Two weeks ago we watched Rustin on Netflix. Star-making performance from Coleman Domingo who I've seen in many Broadway and Off-Broadway shows. The cast also included theater people like Audra McDonald, Michael Potts, Glynn Turman, Jeffrey Wright, CCH Pounder, Bill Irwin, Adrienne Warren, Grantham Coleman, Da'Vine Joy Randolph (who was named Best Supporting Actress for The Holdovers by the NYFCC) and in a rare non-comedic role Chris Rock.

Then last week we went to the Paris Theater and sat in the mezzanine for Maestro, Bradley Cooper's passion project on Leonard Bernstein in which he not only starred, but also directed and co-wrote as well as conducted (doing Orson Welles and Warren Beatty one better. They starred, directed and wrote Citizen Kane and Heaven Can Wait respectively and received multiple Oscar nods.) Cooper's fake nose isn't even an issue. He delivers a masterful performance as the egocentric genius composer-conductor and is a top contender for the Best Actor Oscar. Carey Mulligan is equally intense as Bernstein's understanding and long-suffering wife Felicia and could take Best Actress.

Bradley Cooper and Carey Mulligan
in Maestro.
Credit: Jason MacDonald/Netflix

2023 Potential Oscar Nominated Films Seen So Far
Oppenheimer (34th Street AMC)
Barbie (Regal Union Square)
Asteroid City (Angelika)
Golda (County Theater, Doylestown, PA)
Killers of the Flower Moon (Regal Kaufman Astoria)
Rustin (Netflix)
The Killer (Netflix)--Tilda Swinton could nab a Supporting Actress nod
Maestro (Paris Cinema mezzanine)