LAFCA Winners

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Re: LAFCA Winners

Post by criddic3 »

Actors pride themselves on "just being," so perhaps an actor melding into a performance and being convincing is enough? (for the record I have not seen either Gladstone or Driver yet.)
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Re: LAFCA Winners

Post by The Original BJ »

I caught up with Certain Women yesterday, and I must say, I don't really get the Lily Gladstone thing. It strikes me as being of a pair with Adam Driver's win -- I don't fault the actor for doing what was required of them, but I just don't think the degree of difficulty was nearly high enough to merit acting prizes. It's clear that there is a certain segment of the critical population that likes to reward actors who don't really seem to be doing very much, but as sensitive as Gladstone's character/performance are, I tend to prefer performances where I can see more of the effort involved.
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Re: LAFCA Winners

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flipp525 wrote:I was really happy to see Rebecca's Hall cited for Christine. Just realizing now that I never posted a reaction to that film. Hall takes a (at times) rather unsympathetic character and bring her right to the boiling point and then nails the explosive ending. I was very impressed with her performance - she knew exactly who the character was and didn't have a single weak, unmotivated moment in the film.
Rebecca Hall should have received an Indie Spirit nomination but I suppose not enough voters saw the film.
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Re: LAFCA Winners

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I was really happy to see Rebecca Hall cited for Christine. Just realizing now that I never posted a reaction to that film. Hall takes a (at times) rather unsympathetic character and brings her right to the boiling point and then nails the explosive ending. I was very impressed with her performance - she knew exactly who the character was and didn't have a single weak, unmotivated moment in the film.
Last edited by flipp525 on Mon Dec 05, 2016 7:33 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: LAFCA Winners

Post by Sabin »

Yeah, I've seen 20th Century Women. She could get a nomination but I don't see her giving anyone a run for their money.
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Re: LAFCA Winners

Post by Bog »

Big Magilla wrote: Greta Gerwig (is) going to give Viola Davis a run for her money for Supporting Actress.
Feel dumb and/or out the loop...with a combined lack of viewing....for Jackie? Wiener Dog? 20th Century Women?
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Re: LAFCA Winners

Post by The Original BJ »

The Manchester-La La-Moonlight split between NBR, NY, and LA is nice, giving the three most widely-liked titles a big prize as we head into the nominations for the televised ceremonies. Interesting that Barry Jenkins has had a unanimous 3-for-3 run at Best Director so far.

I don't share Mister Tee's outright disgust for Adam Driver, but I can't express much enthusiasm for his Best Actor prize here. I don't really care for Paterson, and though I think Driver is fine for what he's asked to do, I never once thought he was giving enough of a performance to merit consideration for acting prizes.

Huppert was a natural pick for this award, but I still have to marvel at the momentum she's built up in recent weeks. She has to be considered right in the thick of the Best Actress conversation -- a competitive category, to be sure -- but with as strong a shot at nomination as the majority of contenders.

Mahershala Ali does sure seem like the Supporting Actor front-runner, which is surprising on one hand, because I wouldn't have thought "he's definitely winning the Oscar" after seeing Moonlight. But there doesn't seem to be much of a narrative for anyone else right now. I'm still hoping the vague nature of this category might at least pull in another one of the Moonlight guys to join him on the list.

I haven't seen Certain Women, so can't comment on that prize. But Supporting Actress strikes me as a category with four pretty strong candidates (Davis, Harris, Kidman, Williams) and then a gaping hole that someone has to fill. It'll be interesting to see if a strong fifth contender emerges, or if random choices emerge as each coming group goes their own way.

A lot of us thought The Lobster was a potential Screenplay nominee back when it opened, and this is a nice get for its candidacy. Mister Tee is right, though, about the lopsided nature of the two writing prizes -- Original has a number of movies that all look like potential winners, while nothing much looks like a typical victor on the Adapted side.

I don't think I would call The Handmaiden a work of immense depth, but it's quite a kick of entertainment, with a rather fiendishly constructed plot that keeps pulling the rug out from under the audience to increasingly wild degrees. I'm happy to applaud both its prizes -- on the design end, it's certainly a striking-looking film.

Save for the Score runner-up mention, Jackie blanks again. Do we think it's just too much of a biography to score with the critics' groups? Because it didn't seem like I was alone in my enthusiasm for the movie, its star, and filmmakers, and it feels like the kind of serious mainstream historical picture that typically does well come awards season, even if the quality isn't this high.
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Re: LAFCA Winners

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Ali has to be the presumed front-runner for Supporting Actor at this point, with Lucas Hedges, Jeff Bridges, Michael Shannon and either Dev Patel or Ben Foster the other nominees.

Naomie Harris, Molly Shannon, Greta Gerwig and Michelle Williams are all going to give Viola Davis a run for her money for Supporting Actress.

Casey Affleck, Andrew Garfield, Ryan Gosling and Joel Edgerton are all more likely first time Best Actor winners than Denzel Washington is at picking up a third Oscar, but Denzel does seem a more likely fifth nominee than fellow two-time winner Tom Hanks at this point.

The hardest category to pin down is Best Actress with Natalie Portman, Ruth Negga and Emma Stone virtually certain in my mind and Amy Adams, Annette Bening and critics' favorite Isabelle Huppert all strong contenders for the other two slots.
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Re: LAFCA Winners

Post by ksrymy »

After word from a friend in the editing guild today, most people at (albeit at only one, certain screening of) Silence seemed underwhelmed with Liam Neeson who makes more of a Beatrice Straight appearance than a traditional supporting turn.

With that, would you say its safe to say Ali has this close to bagged up or do you think it's still a wild card? I think both leads are still wide open, but it seems safe to say Ali will win since he's sweeping, and can you see Oscar passing up on Viola Davis? Rose Maxson (and Troy, for that matter) is a role basically created to win awards.
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Re: LAFCA Winners

Post by Sabin »

Mister Tee wrote
Haven't see Certain Women, so no opinion on that choice...except to wonder if Gladstone has any hope of getting further recognition. Could someone who has seen in pipe in?
Gladstone could win the National Society of Film CRITICS award as well as the Indie Spirit. If Best Supporting Actress stays fluid beyond Davis, Harris, and Williams it's possible, but I don't see Academy voters sticking around to the final chapter of Reichardt's film. Gladstone is very good but this award is largely due to how enormously sympathetic her character is. She perfect in a role that's largely by design underplayed. It's not a challenging role, but it's a very affecting one. I actually called her win.
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Re: LAFCA Winners

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Mister Tee wrote: Haven't see Certain Women, so no opinion on that choice...except to wonder if Gladstone has any hope of getting further recognition. Could someone who has seen in pipe in?
She might pick up the National Society of Film Critics award but that is were it will end. Actually Kristen Stewart was more impressive that Gladstone in Certain Women, a film that left me cold.
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Re: LAFCA Winners

Post by FilmFan720 »

They also voted a special award for TCM.
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Re: LAFCA Winners

Post by Big Magilla »

With La La Land coming in second to numerous other films, it looks like it was a battle between the La La Land supporters and the anti-La La Land supporters.
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Re: LAFCA Winners

Post by Mister Tee »

Okay, now that they're finally done...

It was a tale of two races: film/director, where the most popular choices from NY repeated, albeit in reverse order, and many other categories, where it seemed a game of "I can out-obscure you" was afoot. I'm unqualified to judge if some of these choices were inspired or simple contrarianism, because a few I'd literally never heard of before today (Your Name, Christine), and others have been unavailable to me (Paterson). But it's hard not to have the feeling the majority in the group was pushing back against the perceived popular choices (La La and Manchester, which together scored a bunch of runners-up but only one minor prize), but supporting repeats by those films they thought needed it (the black gay film, the French lady in the rape movie), and otherwise tossing stones for fun a la their James Franco/Spring Breakers pick. Which is a perfectly acceptable agenda...as long as they own up to it being an agenda, rather than touting it as some form of superior critical honesty. (It's strange, by the way, for those of us who've been around five decades, to see LA essentially evolve into what the National Society founded itself to be.)

To the individual choices:

I was pretty sure the critics groups wouldn't let Moonlight go the season without a major win, and this seemed its best chance (though NSFC could follow). I think the amount of attention the film is getting should prevent the film from repeating Carol's fate; major nominations, at least, seem likely.

And Mahershala Ali could emerge as the film's token Oscar win, simply because it's hard to see at this point who else could take the spot. The fact that he's the primary male heterosexual character could (subliminally) help him with some voters.

Proposition: in the period from the mid to late '00s, the situation sank so low for American film actresses that even critics' groups were reduced to awarding borderline supporting efforts like Witherspoon in Walk the Line. The LA folk took to the barricades: choosing Vera Farmiga in that 2005 contest, for an indie virtually no one had seen, and then choosing a series of fairly obscure foreign-language-speaking actresses (including, admirably, some Asian performers, who rarely got such attention). This was a perfectly admirable strategy. But now I think they're hooked on the junk; to them, a year with no decent mainstream choices and a year with a ton of them works out the same: they still go for someone obscure or foreign. Apart from the idiosyncratic Arquette pick two years ago (which was itself a rebuke to all other 2014 leading actresses), the last American-born actress to win a solo prize from LA is still Vera Farmiga (Jennifer Lawrence did win in a tie). To find an American in a movie that was central to the films of the year, it's Julianne Moore in Far from Heaven. None of this is to demean the great Isabelle Huppert (though i do think there's an element of Life Achievement to her run, something we sneer at when the Academy does it). But the Rebecca Hall runner-up-ship, in a year where Portman and Stone and Bening and Adams have been highly touted, seems to suggest that American actresses should look elsewhere if they want validation.

I of course can't comment on Adam Driver's performance till I see it, but I will say he's fighting a big handicap with me, because up till now I simply haven't been able to stomach the guy. Hated him on Girls (couldn't believe it took her three seasons to get rid of him), haven't cared for him in anything (Star Wars, the Baumbach stuff). Not since Adam Sandler have I taken such a dislike to an actor who keeps getting thrown in my face. So...let's say I'm skeptical (and the choice of him seemed willfully designed to keep Affleck from the sort of sweep Ali and Huppert are getting).

Haven't see Certain Women, so no opinion on that choice...except to wonder if Gladstone has any hope of getting further recognition. Could someone who has seen in pipe in?

The Lobster is a good choice, by me (even if I'd prefer Manchester). Original screenplay is looking like a train wreck this year -- Manchester, La La, Moonlight, Hell of High Water and Lobster taking up all the slots. Has anyone suggested Moonlight mimic the Whiplash "we're adapted!" strategy? It could probably win the movie an extra award.
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Re: LAFCA Winners

Post by Big Magilla »

New Generation
Trey Edward Shults and Krisha Fairchild, Krisha
Best Foreign-Language Film
Winner: The Handmaiden
Runner-Up: Toni Erdmann
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