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:

NYFCC Names The Brutalist Best

Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones in
The Brutalist.

Film award season has begun. The New York Film Critics Circle, the earliest of the reviewers' organization and the oldest--this is their 90th awards--met on Dec. 3 to vote for their choices for the best work of 2024. The Brutalist, Brady Corbet's epic film about a Hungarian-Jewish architect fleeing post-World War II Europe for America, was named Best Picture and won Best Actor for Adrien Brody. 

Marianne Jean-Bapiste was voted Best Actress for her performance as a woman suffering from depression and anger issues in Mike Leigh's Hard Truths. Carol Kane won Best Supporting Actress as a retired music teacher studying for her long-denied Bat Mitzvah and developing an attraction for a troubled cantor who was her former student in Between the Temples. Kieran Culkin was named Best Supporting Actor as a man touring Poland with his cousin to reconnect with their roots in A Real Pain.

Nickel Boys, based on Colson Whitehead's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, won for Best Director and Cinematography. Annie Baker's Janet Planet was elected Best First Film. The awards will be presented at a dinner on Jan. 8.

The group did not announce runners-up. Many of the winning films have not be released commercially yet.

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. 

Bruce Dern, the SAG Awards, and GG/NYFCC Aftershocks

Bruce Dern in Nebraska

Saw Nebraska last night. Touching little movie. Don't think Bruce Dern has a chance for the Oscar, since it's not a very showy role. But he might get the SAG tonight because the actors' union sometimes votes for those older performers such as Gloria Stuart in Titanic and Ruby Dee in American Gangster. Likewise James Gandolfini could be a surprise posthumous winner for Supporting Actor for Enough Said but Jared Leto will probably continue his winning ways for Dallas Buyers Club.

Speaking of Leto, he caught some heat for not being sufficiently supportive of the transgender and HIV community in his Golden Globes acceptance speech as did Matthew McConaughey. Likewise, Cate Blanchett was blasted for making a Judy Garland joke, Julia Louis Dreyfuss for making electronic cigarette smoking appear glamorous in a comedy bit with hosts Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, and Cecil B. DeMille Award winner Woody Allen was dissed by Mia and Ronan Farrow on Twitter. That's why the GGs are becoming more and more popular than the Oscars. The stars get drunk and you never know what they're going to say.