Battle Dominates Early Film Awards

Leonardo DiCaprio in One Battle After Another,
Best Picture winner for the NYFCC, NBR
and Gotham Awards.

Film award season is upon us and One Battle After Another, Paul Thomas Anderson's action epic of a former radical (Leonardo DiCaprio) rescuing his daughter from a right-wing nut job (Sean Penn), is dominating the field, winning Best Picture and several other awards from the New York Film Critics Circle, the National Board of Review and the Gotham Awards. Benicio Del Toro who plays a martial arts instructor and underground activist who aides DiCaprio's character, was named Best Supporting Actor by both the NYFCC and NBR. Rose Byrne won Best Actress from both of those groups for If I Had Legs I'd Kick You (which is also my choice for Best Title of the Decade.) 

The Gotham Awards were announced Mon., the NYFCC on Tues. and the the NBR on Wed. I have not been as excited about the movie awards this year as in past seasons. I used to obsessively keep track of all the eligible films I'd seen and where I'd seen them. Maybe I'll do that this year, but it's looking like Battle is the top film and I wasn't crazy about it. The direction was excellent, Anderson keeps the suspense tight and the action sequences were skillfully edited and shot, but the theme left me cold. Anderson appears to be condemning political extremism of all kinds. DiCaprio plays a former resistance fighter whose daughter is kidnapped by racist Army officer Sean Penn. DiCaprio's character appears to be an innocent caught between two extremes. The left-wing radical underground army he was allied with resorts to extreme violence to achieve its ends. His lover, played by Teyana Taylor, is a horrible person, abandoning their daughter and the cause when she is caught. Penn's forces are equally heinous, representing not only the current cruel immigration policies of the Trump administration, but also a cultish, deep-state powerful network of bigots called the Christmas Adventurers. 

I didn't sympathize with any of the characters except Del Toro's activist who is the only one who doesn't resort to violence to help his community. Having said that, I didn't find his performance exciting enough to warrant all these Supporting Actor prizes. I didn't really get the point of the film, except to film people getting shot and chasing each other across the desert.

Hamnet is the only other film getting major award buzz and it's not even been mentioned by these early accolade dispensers. (Still haven't seen it, but I plan to.) I did catch Wicked: For Good yesterday in 3-D and 4-DX at the Union Square theater. The seats moved while Cynthia Erivo was flying her broom, so that was fun and we were sprinkled with water during the cyclone scenes. It will probably garner a few Golden Globe nods. 

A breakdown of the winners follows: