Gotham Nominations Spread the Wealth / Kick Off Awards Season

by Nathaniel R

THE INVITE nabs four nominations at the Gotham Awards

Hi strangers! I know I’ve been absent but I will now be inching back into the site. It's that time of year again! The Gotham Award nominations are in, unofficially kicking off “awards season”. Awards season continues to always be both shape-shifting and staying exactly the same. Each year is familiar in terms of narrative tropes, genre "slots" and more, but also brand new with a new set of films and constant awards show tinkering with rules and categories! Usually with awards shows one or two films get the headlines as “leaders” but the Gothams have so few categories (just 10 really) that no film can truly claim to be "leading" the pack this time around. Japan’s Oscar submission All of a Sudden, the Nigerian “Mrs Dalloway” adaptation Clarissa, Olivia Wilde’s open marriage dramedy The Invite, Mike Leigh’s possible swan song Tender Loving Care, and the festival darling La Gradiva share the “lead” status with four nods apiece.  If you look at it by distributors the “leaders” are more glaringly obvious; A24 and NEON, distributors who have carved out recognizable identities and developed their own loyal fanbases, lead with 15 and 14 nominations respectively. Let's talk about each category...

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TIFF 51: Jury of Two, Part II

Time for another break from those TIFF and NYFF reviews. Cláudio Alves and Eurocheese have appointed themselves juries to choose the best of the Toronto fest. From Casting to Picture, let's go!

How many prizes can Eurocheese give to LA BOLA NEGRA? To quote a 22-year-old comedy classic, "the limits does not exist."

CLÁUDIO: Hello again, my friend. I guess it's time for the second round of these. Or third, if we count that gargantuan Best Actress conversation that spanned from Oscar frontrunner Julianne Moore to such underrated international thespians as Rejane Faria. And speaking of acting, why don't we start the next part of our jury-of-two journey with the category AMPAS hosted for the first time last season?

BEST CASTING 

First up, casting legend Nina Gold deserves praise for the miracles she does for Tender Loving Care and Clarissa. The former is full of small, one-scene roles that need to jump off the screen and feel as lived-in as our main quartet. Somehow, she got it right every single time, be they Leigh regulars, British theater and TV vets, or newcomers like Kaedon Skerritt. In the Nigerian Mrs. Dalloway adaptation, the main cast is more sprawling, and casting different versions of the same characters adds another layer of difficulty. Somehow, she aces it, sometimes by not insisting on superficial similarities between performers but by getting the right energy for the role at two such distinct phases of their lives that they might as well be different people altogether...

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