"Movies for Grownups" Awards - 20th Anniversary

by Nathaniel R

Dame Judi Dench as "Granny" in Belfast

The AARP 'Movies For Grownups' Awards is now 20 years old. They'll be airing a PBS special on March 18th to celebrate their 20th anniversary. This year their favourites were Belfast with 8 nominations and West Side Story with 6. Their awards specifically honor filmmakers and actors over 50 which is why their acting lineups are generally a combination of actors with genuine Oscar buzz paired with random celebrity fillers. Though let's just say in their supporting categories they largely have no excuse for their lapses of taste since plenty of great roles / performances come from the over 50 set each year...

Unfortunately as with both awards serving specific communities (the NAACP "Image Awards" come to mind) or awards in niche categories that would require a lot of conversation and watching-hours to come up with great nominees (the Emmy "guest categories" come  to mind) the AARP's nominations generally lean towards either laziness (this person is famous, therefore worthy!) or give off the impression that the nominating committees or voting bodies are only watching the highest profile stuff that is placed in front of them at the tail end of the year. So for each of their categories beyond best picture rather than commentary we're listing other things they could have easily chosen.

BEST PICTURE

• Being the Ricardos
• Belfast
• King Richard
• Power of the Dog
• West Side Story

BEST DIRECTOR

• Kenneth Branagh, Belfast
• Jane Campion, Power of the Dog
• Guillermo del Toro, Nightmare Alley
• Steven Spielberg, West Side Story
• Denis Villeneuve, Dune

That's a solid enough lineup but it could have been better. Other directors over 50 they could have chosen include: Mike Mills (C'mon C'mon), Pedro Almodovar (Parallel Mothers), Joel Coen (Tragedy of Macbeth), Paul Thomas Anderson (Licorice Pizza), Asghar Farhadi (A Hero), Paul Verhoeven (Benedetta), Paolo Sorrentino (Hand of God), Ridley Scott (The Last Duel / House of Gucci)

BEST ACTRESS

• Halle Berry, Bruised
• Sandra Bullock, Unforgivable
• Nicole Kidman, Being the Ricardos
• Frances McDormand, The Tragedy of Macbeth
• Helen Mirren, The Duke

They had extremely limited options this year since not a lot of women over 50 headlined movies (at least not in movies that were released in the US). The only other that comes immediately to mind is Tilda Swinton (Memoria) but this organization clearly doesn't watch a lot of challenging art films. 

BEST ACTOR

• Javier Bardem, Being the Ricardos
• Jim Broadbent, The Duke
• Peter Dinklage, Cyrano
• Will Smith, King Richard
• Denzel Washington, The Tragedy of Macbeth

Some eligible men they could have gone with but didn't: Hidetoshi Nishijima - Drive My Car (just turned 50), Nicolas Cage - Pig, Clifton Collins Jr - Jockey, Matt Damon - Stillwater / The Last Duel, Udo Kier - Swan Song, Daniel Craig - No Time To Die, or Vincent Lindon - Titane. 

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

• Cate Blanchett, Nightmare Alley
• Judi Dench, Belfast
• Aunjanue Ellis, King Richard
• Marlee Matlin, CODA
• Rita Moreno, West Side Story

Some eligible options they didn't select: Ann Dowd - Mass, Martha Plimpton - Mass, Kathryn Hunter - Tragedy of Macbeth, Meryl Streep - Don't Look Up, Jayne Houdyshell - The Humans, Cherry Jones - Eyes of Tammy Faye, Diana Rigg - Last Night in Soho, Tilda Swinton - The French Dispatch, Frances McDormand - The French Dispatch, Charlotte Rampling - Benedetta

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

• Ciarán Hinds, Belfast
• Jared Leto, House of Gucci
• JK Simmons, Being the Ricardos
• Timothy Spall, Spencer
• David Strathairn, Nightmare Alley

Jared Leto turned 50 a couple of weeks ago so of course they chose him over superior options. Other eligible contenders: Jason Isaacs - Mass, Reed Birney- Mass, Troy Kotsur - CODA, Colman Domingo -Zola, Mark Rylance - Don't Look Up, Richard Jenkins - The Humans, Jeffrey Wright - The French Dispatch, Benicio Del Toro - The French Dispatch, Al Pacino - House of Gucci, Richard E Grant - Everybody Loves Jamie, and Tony Leung - Shang-Chi 

BEST SCREENWRITER

• Paul Thomas Anderson, Licorice Pizza
• Kenneth Branagh, Belfast
• Jane Campion, Power of the Dog
• Guillermo del Toro & Kim Morgan, Nightmare Alley
• Tony Kushner, West Side Story

BEST GROWNUP LOVE STORY

• 23 Walks
• Belfast
• Cyrano
• The Duke
• Tragedy of Macbeth

BEST INTERGENERATIONAL FILM

• Belfast
• C'mon C'mon
• CODA
• King Richard
• The Tender Bar

BEST BUDDY PICTURE

• 12 Mighty Orphans
• Finch
• The Harder They Fall
• Off the Rails
• Queen Bees

BEST ENSEMBLE

• Don't Look Up
• The Harder They Fall
• House of Gucci
• Nightmare Alley
• West Side Story

The Mass snub here is even more unforgiveable than it was at SAG given that they're supposed to be honoring actors over 50 in their awards!

BEST TIME CAPSULE

• Belfast
• Being the Ricardos
• Licorice Pizza
• Spencer
• West Side Story

Time Capsule is a really strange honor to give Spencer given that it's purposefully make-believe and takes place in one weekend at one secluded local that's cut off from any sign of the real world or, thus, a time frame. It's an interesting idea for a category though.

BEST DOCUMENTARY

• Beatles: Get Back
• Julia
• My Name is Pauli Murray
• Summer of Soul
• Who We Are: A Chronicle of Racism in America

BEST FOREIGN FILM

• Drive My Car (Japan)
• Hand of God (Italy) 
• Sheep Without a Shepherd (China) 
• There Is No Evil (Iran)
• Two of Us (France) 

Their selections here come from three different release years (2019-2021). What an extremely odd decision / lineup. 

TV AWARDS

BEST SERIES

• The Chair
• The Crown
• Hacks
• Succession
• Ted Lasso

It's not every day that Succession and Ted Lasso have to compete with one another!

BEST LIMITED SERIES

• Halston
• Maid
• Mare of Easttown
• Nine Perfect Strangers
• Underground Railroad

BEST ACTRESS

• Gillian Anderson, The Crown
• Andie MacDowell, Maid
• Sandra Oh, The Chair
• Jean Smart, Hacks
• Lily Tomlin, Grace & Frankie

Here's one TV lead actress award that Kate Winslet can't win; she's only 46!

BEST ACTOR

• Kevin Costner, Yellowstone
• Michael Keaton, Dopesick
• Ewan McGregor, Halston
• Billy Porter, Pose
• Martin Short, Only Murders in the Building

Awww. no Steve Martin? They didn't want the full Only Murders set? 

Do you have a favourite category in their nominations?

Comments

[Frank Zappa]

JL is 50?!? Well, I guess if that other JL (J.Lo) is 52...

[Peggy Sue]

So they didn't like Titane, uh?

[Yavor]

The more I think about Belfast, the more I dislike everything about it. Great explosive opening - yes. After that it's..................................... what is it trying to be?

There's this HUGE pre-drama surrounding Pa's departure from home. However, what happens after that is: Pa leaves home (drama and sadness) by disappearing behind a wall -> 5/10 mins later he shows up again *insert some typical family conflict* -> disappears (drama and sadness) behind same wall again -> 5/10 mins later he shows up again *insert some typical family conflict*. Not at all a well-paced movie, Kenneth Branagh. Not at all well-developed emotional beats.

All of the performances are overrated. Jude Hill stands out on the basis of charm. But charm alone a great performance does not make.

I find it weird when people compare Belfast to Roma.

Roma excels in showing you that period in Mexican history. Cuaron takes you places, so many places in fact, as the story unfolds. The stakes in Roma are incredibly high for the characters. The husband and father is an actual asshole who disappears and never returns (unlike Pa in Belfast). Simultaneously, a poor servant girl is impregnated and abandoned by the father of the baby, the same person threatens to kill her later in the movie. The baby dies.

I hope Belfast is ignored as much as possible by Oscar. The Academy needs to be reminded, regularly, that they're honouring the best of the best of the year.