The Storylines:
For the first time this season, I made a mid-season post called ‘The Trades’ that analyzed where the season was at after Round 5. I made the comment at the time that the awards races had a lot of question marks as there weren’t a lot of awards-friendly releases in that first half. However, when looking ahead to films that had been announced, you might recall I had this to say about a certain release:
“After helping build up his reputation at the studio to new heights on the television front, Dwight Gallo’s Born in Brooklyn has been circled on the calendars of a lot of fellow awards prognosticators for a while now.”
I’m not saying me and my fellow awards columnists are modern-day Nostradamus because it shouldn’t be a surprise that Born in Brooklyn did so well. It looked good on paper and excelled those expectations. Going into Season 11, no films had ever reached 10 nominations at one ceremony. There have been three in the last two seasons alone! And one could argue that Ben Affleck was in the running for Best Actor, which would have pushed it into unprecedented territory of 11 nominations. For what it’s worth, I thought Oleff gave the best performance of the film so I’m glad he didn’t get overlooked because of his age.
Born in Brooklyn is contending in just about every major category. Right there with it is A Lost Sense of Heaven, which is also represented in every major category except for Best Actor. When it comes to those acting races, you could reasonably argue all three will feature showdowns between actors from those two films (although this may be a disservice to Amy Adams). In the actress categories in particular, it is interesting that both feature a young actress versus a veteran actress. At the same time, both races also feature some of the most celebrated actresses in LRF history (Hendricks and Foy) versus two relative newcomers to the GRA game (Pugh and Parker).
But just because those films racked up noms in the acting categories doesn’t necessarily make this a two-horse race. Control fell a bit behind those two front-runners because of the supporting categories but it still came away with a healthy 6 nominations. I’d argue that it probably has the front-runner for Best Director with Villeneuve looking to win his first trophy in his third try. Thus, Best Picture could go to any of these three (and I’ll talk about the fourth later on). This season’s awards race was fascinating because of the wrench that Round 10 threw into the mix.I’m not sure if there has ever been two legit awards contenders released in the last season.On one hand, that makes these things very hard to predict. On the other hand, it is very exciting!
While those three films are the three-headed monster at the top, there were some surprising films that took a hit at the nominations ceremony. I will talk about two former front-runners (Germinal and The Temptations) below. Harrelson, The Great Beyond and The Stranger were also formidable late-season additions that seemed to have a shot but only came away with 2 nominations each. And despite a hard-pressing FYC campaign by its writer, The Letter J only nabbed one nomination for Best Starring Couple (which might partially be down to the star power of its pair - more on that later).
I will say that there were a few categories that were notably weak this year. One is Best Adaptation. When I tried to predict these categories, I actually nailed all four of those nominees but it was a bit of a struggle (Germinal and Superman seemed like locks). But that’s because those were the only four films I even thought were worthy of a nomination (so you won’t be seeing any Adaptation snubs). However, I’m sure the studio would rather this category be thin than the Original category. The actress categories were also not the strongest. A Lost Sense of Heaven gave this a shot in the arm with two front-runners but the third and fourth spots in the field were very thin. This led to some surprise nominations, which I will cover later.
So let’s get to the special categories, shall we?
The Surprises & Snubs
Snub/Surprise: The Temptations - “How could this be a snub if it was nominated for Best Picture?” Good question! In my mid-season post, I mentioned how there were only two or three serious Best Picture candidates at that point and this was one of them (I’ll mention the other in a second). However, outside of Soundtrack, we went a long time in this nominations announcement without hearing the film’s name. Best Starring Couple, Original Story, Supporting Actor, Lead Actor were all possibilities. It got to the point where the biggest surprise was that it was nominated for Best Picture! Given this circumstance, you may even be able to argue that this is the biggest Best Picture nominee surprise since Synthetic in Season 5 (despite coming into the ceremony as a favorite).
Surprise: Karen Gillan - Wow! This fourth spot in Best Actress was always going to be unpredictable. Elizabeth Olsen, Elle Fanning, Marion Cotillard, Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Tessa Thompson were some actresses that came to mind. The key difference between those roles and Gillan’s is that her’s was the only one where she was definitely the lead of the film. And so while her nomination might be a surprise, it is nice to see a female-led film get a spot in this category.
Snub: Germinal - This is another early season favorite that lost steam as the season went along. While Pattinson still has a good shot at Best Actor (and it’s is the favorite in Adaptation by default), the other lack of nominations was eye-opening. I thought it had its best shot in Ensemble Cast but these last few rounds really took it over. This was likely Jean-Luc Godard’s last chance at Hollywood awards glory before the end of his career.
Surprise: David Cronenberg - Speaking of the Director category, this was the biggest surprise. However, Walker did have an impressive showing and Cronenberg is obviously respected in the industry. I actually thought this was a strong Director field this year. In addition to Godard, other directors I thought had a chance include David McKenzie, Ang Lee, Clint Eastwood, Jeff Nichols, and Yorgos Lanthimos. For real, you could pick any four out of those six and it would be a respectable field. Thus, the four who did get nominated should be proud of their accomplishments.
Snub: The Devil’s Passage - While maybe not as notable as Germinal or The Temptations, it was a shame that this film’s cast was not recognized. I thought it was one of the best assembled group of actors of the season.
Surprise: Superman: The Man of Tomorrow - OK, OK, I know what you’re thinking. “But Reuben, you called this film’s success in your mid-season post so how can this be a surprise?” Another good question! At that point in the season, I thought it had a good chance at standing out amongst a shallow field. But as I’ve already detailed, the awards races gained strength as the season rolled along and that makes Superman’s 7 nominations a surprise! A delightful surprise. It was also a major beneficiary of the weak actress fields as Frances McDormand got a spot in Best Supporting Actress (I always thought she was a great choice for that role).
Previous Winners:
Christina Hendricks - This is Christina’s third Best Actress nomination, tying her for the most along with Jennifer Lawrence and Brie Larson. Hendricks previously won in Season 7 for The Question: The End.
Colin Farrell - Not only has Colin Farrell won Best Actor before but he also did it with the same director in The Death of an Honest Man. Could the Farrell/Lanthimos pairing prove magical once more?
Best Original Story - Per usual, this category is stacked and that is accentuated by the fact that all the nominees have won before. The first two winners of the award, Dwight Gallo and James Morgan, return after having previously won for Blackwater and Into Thin Air (Morgan also won for The Raven). Chad Taylor has the most trophies in this category, winning for Scion, Cascade, Calamity and Ghost Town. And even the very pairing of Jimmy Ellis and John Malone have won before, having won just last season for Elysian.
Mackenzie Foy - Mackenzie Foy is tied for the record of most acting wins in GRA history with 4 (2 of which are Best Starring Couple). She won Best Actress for Kite and Best Supporting Actress for Lullabies for Little Criminals. It feels inevitable that we see a Mackenzie Foy/Alden Ehrenreich pairing in the future (I’ll keep an eye out on the Trades).
Previous Nominees:
Jake Gyllenhaal - This marks Jake’s fourth time being nominated in the Best Actor category. All four have come since Season 9 (Batman: The Caped Crusader, Blackbird, Torso). This ties him with Alden Ehrenreich, who has won twice.
Lucas Hedges & Elle Fanning - I expected our first two-time nominated pairing in the Best Starring Couple category but this was not the pair I had predicted. Instead of Control’s top starring couple, The Letter J gets its one nomination by putting together two of LRF’s biggest young stars who were previously nominated for Letter to Myself. Could this be LRF’s “it” pairing?
Billy Crudup - After having been nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his role in Long Time, Crudup is back in the category for Born in Brooklyn.
Roy Horne & Matt Parker - Both of these writers have been nominated before in Best Adaptation but are yet to win. Parker was nominated in Season 11 for The Stand while Horne has been nominated twice (two anime adaptations: Perfect Blue and Kite).
Frances McDormand & Sarah Gadon - After her acclaimed performance in Eileen was snubbed in favor of Joey King, McDormand is back for redemption in Best Supporting Actress with this famous comic book role. Gadon, meanwhile, is best known for her blockbuster work in Halo but was nominated in this category last season with Blind Faith.
Florence Pugh - At this point in her young career, Pugh’s batting average at LRF is pretty good. She racked up Best Supporting Actress nominations with her first two roles - The Tower and One for the Ages - and is now making her step up to Best Actress.
Denis Villeneuve - Heralded by many as the best of his generation but Villeneuve does not have much to show for himself when it comes to the GRAs. He was nominated for Costa Nostra and Torso but is yet to win. Could this be the time he finally breaks through?
The Newcomers:
Lynne Ramsay - While Affleck and Cronenberg are also first time nominees, I just wanted to point out Ramsay’s persistence. This is her fourth directing job for the studio. I don’t have director stats so I’m not entirely sure but that has to be one of the most frequent collaborators with the studio. So for her to get nominated in her fourth film is definitely a feel-good story (even if her films often aren’t!). I’m sure Jack Ryder is somewhere smiling.
Wyatt Oleff - This youngster joins the likes of Joey King, Pugh, Fanning, Hedges and others as the young generation who continue to be recognized at the GRAs. I do not believe he is the youngest by a few months but he and his IT co-star Finn Wolfhard were both 16 at the time of the ceremony.
Robert Pattinson - He’s come a long way since Edward Cullen and this cements that. He has actually found steady work at the studio (Germinal was his sixth film at the studio) but this is his first nomination.
Molly Parker - For Parker, this is not only her first GRA nomination but it’s also her first film for the studio. That happens from time to time but she is the only such example this season.
Stephen Dorff - At the start of Last Resort Films, who would’ve ever thought that Stephen Dorff would be nominated for Best Actor? His career has certainly seen its ups and downs but has been on the upswing recently with his Best Guest Actor win at the Golden Views Awards for his performance of Hunter S. Thompson in 'Rolling Stone'. Could Dorff become the first combined GVA/GRA winner? Again, who would’ve ever thought?
BONUS! Season 15 Preview:
When I made The Trades post, some people were clamoring for it to be a pre-season thing. While that will not be the case, I thought I could add on a little bit to this post to look ahead. While there have only been 5 films announced thus far, it sounds like there are already some possible GRA contenders. Tarantino returns to the studio with an interesting premise. Tim Burton returns to his comfort zone with a known property in the Phantom of the Opera. And John Malone continues his more frequent activity with a new original film with two bonafide movie stars. And we've got a big Justice League movie to start things off. Exciting times, eh?
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