GALECA Winners: Call Me By Your Given Name. "I gave it to myself"

by Nathaniel R

Dance party! "Call Me By Your Name" wins yet more prizesThe Gay and Lesbian Entertainment Critics Association have spoken and it probably won't surprise you to hear that they were "wilde" for Call Me By Your Name, Lady Bird, and Big Little Lies. As a member of the organization my only really gripe is that there are too many multiple winners (three prizes for Jordan Peele, two for Timothée Chalamet, two for Kate McKinnon, Call Me By Your Name winning both film categories) which can feel like overkill when there are so many beautiful achievements each year worth honoring. That's why some festival jury rules or some awards that are forbidden to give a film or performance multiple prizes make a kind of sense to me even though everyone gets up in arms about those kind of rules. 

But, regardless, the winners are listed after the jump as well as Kate McKinnon's musical performance winning SNL skit...

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Beauty vs Beast: The Darkest Elio

Jason from MNPP here with this week's "Beauty vs Beast" contest - we've been more or less working our way through the year's big awards contenders over the past few weeks, with a Three Billboards here and a Phantom Thread there, and knowing what you know about my oft-expressed personal... predilections... you'd be forgiven for expecting a proper Call Me By Your Name showdown at some point. But I can't do it! I can't pit (haha like a peach) Elio against Oliver. I refuse!

Thankfully the awards season has offered me an alternative. (For once the awards season doing me a favor!) While Timothee Chalamet's been racking up the critics prizes for his performance it's been widely assumed that the Oscar already has Gary Oldman's name engraved on it and has since the very first photograph of him in Churchill drag was revealed. But where would your vote go, I wonder...

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PREVIOUSLY Last week was the aforementioned Phantom-Thread-off, and finally some much deserved attention for Vicky Krieps, whose Alma plucked up about 70% of your mushrooms I mean votes. Said Claran:

"I thot Krieps is a discovered gem!! She matches DDL every step of the way n emerges the winner, well sorta... Its no an easy feat acting opp such icons like DDL or Manville n she holds up pretty well!! I'm surprised tt she din land a best newcomer mention w the BAFTA or NBR or any other critics group. She's the find o 2017, if u asked me."

The Joyful Nominations. Which were yours?

by Nathaniel R

img srcIt's part two of our Team Experience Oscar Nomination response... and then we can move on to both Oscar chart fun and back to cinema proper. The latter some of you will surely be itching for if you're not all-the-way obsessed with Oscar minutiae.

This morning we shed final tears for the snubs and now, the nominations that brought us the most joy in the acting categories and elsewhere.

WHICH (NON-ACTING) NOMINATION GAVE YOU THE MOST JOY?

CHRIS FEIL: Agnès Varda is finally a competitive Oscar nominee, which is doubly rewarding considering Faces Places will likely be her final film. (We love you too, JR.) With Jane out of the way she may even be the frontrunner, giving her Honorary Oscar a friend on its shelf - a lovely thought considering Faces Places is partly an ode to partnership.

GLENN DUNKS: Rachel Morrison becoming the first nominated woman in Achievement in Cinematography is pretty great and a major win for Netflix considering most people would have seen it on their smaller screens...

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Team Experience Grieving the Oscar Shut-Outs

Nathaniel R

We're not supposed to use the word "snub" anymore (stop trying to make "snubbed" rehappen). It's true that it's become overused to the point of insanity. The word implies a purposeful disdain, a rebuff, when Oscar voters surely aren't saying "ugh, that Franco!" when they vote (errr, bad example perhaps they were). The point is they're merely voting on the ones they keep hearing about their favorites. Some films and performances and achievements just don't quite make the cut. And who knows? Someone or something you love might have been one vote shy of a nomination so it wasn't "snubbed" at all, just unlucky! This is what I'm choosing to believe about Jake Gyllenhaal's raw, rangey, vulnerable, and altogether stunning turn in Stronger. He's one of his generations very best actors and keeps proving it in film after film and they just keep ignoring him year after year. It's driving me mad. So...

Which omission pissed you off the most? That's the question that I ask you in the comments and that I already asked the (usually) Oscar loving Team Experience. Their angry-fun answers are after the jump...

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Soundtracking: 2017's Original Song Nominees

by Chris Feil

Chris here, with your weekly dose of movie music. If this year's list of Oscar nominated songs doesn't help relieve the widely stated concerns for the category, I'm not sure what will. Not only do you have a batch of memorable tunes you would have actually heard, but they also fulfill the branch's aim of being narratively resonant as well. Throw in some popular artists and rousing emotion and it might actually make for a less disposable part of the ceremony this year...

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