The Storylines:
What to say of this crop of nominations? An emerging storyline near the end of the season was that the GRA nominations and front-runners were very unclear. Sometimes we have a film come in late that really makes things more clear but that was not the case this season. As such, this nomination reveal was surely to generate some surprises. That also means that the ceremony itself could be unpredictable (which are always the funnest to watch).
One of the storylines this season is the depth of the field for some of these categories. It is no secret that an issue in the past has been a lack of quality Actress nominees. This season, that was certainly not an issue as 7 or 8 candidates had a realistic shot at landing a spot. The Best Supporting Actress category also felt like it had plenty of possible nominees who could make it in. And a topic of conversation on awards sites is the strength of the Best Supporting Actor category, which surely led to some dilemmas for the awards voters.
A major thing that stood out to me when going over these nominees is the insurgence of youth into this nomination field. Nine of the sixteen acting nominees are 35 or younger. The trio headlining this group are Elle Fanning, Lucas Hedges, and Sydney Sweeney. For Fanning and Hedges, it was quite the season for two of LRF’s brightest young stars. They starred together in Spider-Man and have a chance to win Best Starring Couple while also being nominated in Best Actress and Best Actor for two totally different films. Ana de Armas is another part of the Spider-Man ensemble to get a nomination for a different role. Sweeney, meanwhile, doesn’t have as long of a track record at the studio but is a real threat to take home multiple awards on the night. Perhaps we will look back on this ceremony as a changing of the guard that fully ushers in this younger generation of stars, with the likes of Alden Ehrenreich, Billy Magnussen, and Mackenzie Foy already there.
If last season was the season of Gallo, this might be the season of Horne. His two films this season - Cecil and Poison Ivy - notched up a total of 16 nominations and he has a 50% chance of winning Best Picture. Poison Ivy joins Klondike as the leaders in nominations with nine each, something that I don’t know if anyone would’ve predicted before the season. Across the board, it seems like more mysterious thrillers seem to be a defining trait of this season’s best and Horne was one of the people leading that charge.
When you take a look at this field of nominees, I think you’ll see a pretty well balanced split of old and new. There are a handful of previous winners, some of which are out here breaking records like Nicholas Winding Refn and Alden Ehrenreich. There is also a good amount of people looking to get their first GRAs after multiple attempts, alongside the newcomers. I do also want to point out that this ceremony seems to have a direct relationship to Season 6 film Death Dream. The film was a critical hit at the time and had great success at the GRAs but it seems to have only grown in reputation since. The likes of Dwight Gallo, Chad Taylor, and D.R. Cobb have all cited it as their favorite film in LRF history and three of its major players - Ehrenreich, Kyle Chandler, and David Robert Mitchell - all gained nominees here for three separate films.
The Surprises & Snubs:
Surprise: Poison Ivy - It is fair to say that this is the biggest surprise of the entire season, not just these GRA nominations. The erotic thriller remake was a sleeper hit at the box office and swept critics away. It now finds itself nominated in every major category except for Best Director and with a chance to win some big-time GRAs.
Snub: Ethan Hawke - As previously mentioned, the Best Supporting Actor category was absolutely stacked with nominees this year so it’s not a surprise that there is a snub or two. The biggest one for me was Ethan Hawke in Floyd Monroe, a box office flop that pretty well received by critics but probably not memorable enough to earn Hawke a spot here.
Surprise: Shouts From the Well, Tokyo Rose & At the Mountains of Madness - I decided to group this trio together because they were all in a similar boat: only one nomination but in the prestigious writing categories. I’m not sure what that exactly says about the field but it is at least interesting.
Snub: Sonoya Mizuno - Speaking of Tokyo Rose, Mizuno feels like one of the casualties of a strong Best Actress field. That category was filled with performances from highly-nominated films so the lack of overall appreciation for the film probably hurt her chances.
Snub/Surprise: For Those Who Don’t Read Me, Hillside, & Prodigy - It’s hard to tell what exactly went wrong for this trio of films that would normally be seen as GRA-friendly. They were all similarly received and released around the same time but just came up totally empty here. Perhaps the closest person to a nomination would’ve been Cate Blanchett, whose performance seems under-appreciated.
Previous Winners:
Elle Fanning - This feels like the most natural place to start as she is one of the headliners of this ceremony. She won Best Actress for Perfect Blue back in Season 6 and was nominated again a few seasons ago for High School. She has a chance to leave the ceremony with multiple awards tonight after doubling up in the Best Starring Couple category.
Chris Pine - Fanning’s Klondike co-star returns to the GRAs as a two-time winner. He won Best Supporting Actor in Season 15 for Of Rocks & Sand and then ran it back the very next season to win Best Actor for McCain.
Nicholas Winding Refn & Sam Mendes - These two directors have both won in Best Director before. For Mendes, he was nominated for Revolution and won recently for The Glass Menagerie. Refn, meanwhile, is LRF’s most-decorated director as this marks his record sixth nomination (with wins for Crowley and Excalibur). That is nearly double the amount of the second place directors (David Fincher, Denis Villneuve) with 3.
Best Adaptation - Every writer in the Best Adaptation category is a former winner of the award. APJ won for Alan Wake and Batman: Caped Crusader. Chad Taylor won in season 11 with Buried Child while D.R. Cobb won for The Question: The End. And Roy Horne won in season 16 for Excalibur.
Kyle Chandler - Could this be Chandler’s moment? One of the most respected actors in LRF, Chandler previously won Best Supporting Actor for Death Dream and Ghost Town and was nominated for Nevada, Iowa. But the Best Actor category eludes him. It seemed like he was going to have a shot in Season 14 but was left out of the category.
Alden Ehrenreich - And of course, LRF’s golden boy is back once again. He has Best Actor wins for Elysian and Death Dream and a win here would tie him with Leonardo DiCaprio as the studio’s only 3-time winners. But I also saved the best for last here because his two nominations here break a tie with Jake Gyllenhaal to make Alden the most-nominated actor in GRA history.
Previous Nominees:
Lucas Hedges - Including this ceremony, Hedges has now been nominated 8 times - including 4 Best Starring Couple noms. However, he has yet to come up with a trophy. He was previously nominated in Best Actor for Letter to Myself.
David Robert Mitchell & Damien Chazelle - While two of the Best Director nominees have won GRAs, the other two have been nominated but not won. David Robert Mitchell lost to Steven Soderbergh in Season 6 while Chazelle lost to Refn in Season 16.
Brad Pitt - This memorably early-in-the-film performance earned Pitt his first acting nomination since his Best Actor nomination in Season 1, when he was nominated for White Jazz.
Dan Stevens - The future James Bond has seen himself get a second Best Supporting Actor nomination after he was previously nominated for Elysian.
Ana de Armas - LRF’s Black Cat was previously nominated for her very first performance at the studio with Girl/Girl.
Ben Collins - In a category of all previous nominees, Collins is a name that stands out because it is his first nomination since Season 2. His debut feature, Siren, was nominated in the category at the second Golden Reel Awards.
The Newcomers:
Sydney Sweeney - Of all the newcomers, she is probably the one that sticks out the most. While this isn’t her first performance at LRF, it is certainly a grand statement that immediately left a mark. I will certainly be interested to see where her career goes after this.
Maude Apatow, Joan Chen, & Alexandra Daddario - This trio of Best Supporting Actress nominees are all first time nominees. Including de Armas, someone will be a first-time winner in this category.
Awkwafina - The star of Cecil is now nominated for her second film for the studio, after The Kiss Quotient in Season 16.
Orlando Bloom - It was quite the season for Orlando Bloom with two roles in someone of the best received films of the season. After showing up in Season 1, he took a long absence from the studio but has seen his work ramp up as of late.
Ben Mendelsohn - Another person who first debuted in Season 1 that is now getting their GRA nomination. He is nominated for his seventh performance at the studio.
Season 20 Preview:
Next season is a big one. LRF’s 20th annual season is surely to be seen as a cause for celebration and hopefully the quality of films can rise to that level. We know thus far that the early part of the season will see work from the likes of Spike Lee, Sam Raimi, Doug Liman, and Mel Gibson. Hopefully Season 19’s debuting writers will be able to find more success (at least at the box office) than their debuts provided. It appears the season will end with a bang as the Justice League gets back together after ten seasons away. I look forward to seeing who will be in that line-up as the DC Universe has expanded greatly over that time.
