by Nathaniel R
Time to catch up with developments in movie awards land! Much has been happening these past few days.
London Film Critics Award
The event was held over the weekend with Three Billboards continuing its triumphant awards run by taking Picture, Actress, and Screenplay. Isn't it peculiar how if you believe the internet it's the most hated movie that ever existed but IRL it keeps winning prizes that actual humans vote on. In news that will strike others as much happier Timothée Chalamet and Lesley Manville took Best Actor and Supporting Actress respectively. And Hugh Grant emerged victorious in Supporting Actor (for the Oscar ineligible Paddington 2), quipping:
Brexit, Trump, and now me getting prizes. Truly, we are in the end of days.
It was actually a great year for queer films with the London critics because in addition to Chalamet's win actor Harris Dickinson and writer/director Francis Lee took the breakthrough prizes for Beach Rats and God's Own Country respectively.
ACE "Eddie" Awards
The American Cinema Editors guild gave out their prizes recently, too. They went with Dunkirk (Drama), I Tonya (Comedy), and Coco (Animated) as the year's best edited features. Other winners included Hulu's hugely popular and lauded series The Handmaid's Tale, the doc miniseries Five Came Back, and the Oscar snubbed Jane for best documentary editing.
MPSE Nominations
Sound Editors REALLY like getting awards. The Motion Picture Sound Editors have abundant categories within their own guilds prizes which you should check out if you're interested. The nomination leaders were Baby Driver, Blade Runner 2049, Dunkirk and The Shape of Water. Despite those very familiar titles their own awards do have more variety within them than Oscar's two correlative categories (which exactly match this year as if mixing and editing are the same arts). I was happy to see a nomination for Kathryn Bigelow's Detroit (I didn't much like the film but the sound work was quite impressive). They even have a foreign film sound editing category (most guilds ignore the subtitled features) and we're thrilled that both Thelma and BPM (Beats Per Minute) which have expressive uses of sound were both recognized.
ADG Awards
The Art Directors Guild awards were also held this week. The winners were Blade Runner 2049 (fantasy), The Shape of Water (period), Logan (contemporary - great choice. Loved Professor X's shell shocked interior in particular) and Coco (in the first year for an animated category). We suspect the Oscar race for production design will go to The Shape of Water but the period winner at the ADG is no automatic transfer to Oscar (statistically) so we shall see.
Next up in the world of film guid prizes are both the Directors Guild of America and the Annie Awards for animated films on Saturday, February 3rd.