Eric wrote:Sabin wrote:Best Actress: Regina Hall / Support the Girls
I live.
How nice to see you, even if it's just a quick drop-in.
I of course IMDB-ed Support the Girls, and note it's a got a pretty high Metacritic score, but, as BJ notes, a staggeringly low gross -- so I guess I'm not alone in not having heard of it. Critics' going for it seems a bit like the Rachel Weisz/Deep Blue Sea scenario: a crowded field with no real front-runner allowing a passion choice to break through. (By the way, when you tell me it's an Andrew Bujarski movie, you might as well be telling me it's an X-14 O'Flaherty movie -- I don't know the guy, and Hannah Takes the Stairs is the only one of his credits with which I'm even faintly acquainted. Maybe he's a bigger deal on the West Coast.)
As for the rest, mostly fairly predictable, possibly because the year's pickings are relatively lean.
There did seem something hinky about the Cuaron/Roma choices firing off so quickly at the end like that. Though it's hard to believe, if they really did vote the category earlier, someone wouldn't jump the gun and tweet out the news. Regardless, it was pretty clear to me the film was going to win the top award as soon as I saw the foreign-language pick. And a logical pick it was, given the critical acclaim. It might be the rare film to repeat NY at LA.
First Reformed is obviously going to be one of those movies that irks me all season for punching above what I perceive as its weight. A sort of corollary to BJ's bird-in-hand theory: sometimes a film will open during the early dull season and, by virtue of being respectable, gets wildly over-rated by critics and pundits. Ex Machina and Hell or High Water are examples of this for me (there are people at Jeff Wells' site who continually claim Hell or High Water was easily the best film of its year), and First Reformed is now in their company.
There were reports at Awards Watch that Vice was way better received in LA than NY, so I'll be watching to see if Christian Bale makes a showing there. If he doesn't get a critics' boost, Bradley Cooper could become unstoppable.
Richard E. Grant probably needs the critical boost, given his film's financial weakness. I initially thought McCarthy would be coat-tailing him to an Oscar nomination, but now I wonder if the opposite will be the case.
Having not seen If Beale Street... yet, I can't have an opinion on the King wins. As far as The Favourite ladies: I don't think either Stone or Weisz is strong enough to win this category anywhere (not to say they aren't very good). And I guess I might as well stake out my territory: I think Colman is a stretch for lead; for me, the film is mostly a conflict between Stone and Weisz, with Colman the point of contention, but I'd make Colman a supporting role.
Also vis a vis The Favourite: I'm so used to seeing NY choices with runners-up included that this slate feels impoverished and incomplete to me. Which is to say, it makes a big difference whether The Favourite was close second for film and/or screenplay, or missing from the discussion completely. Same with best actress candidates Close, McCarthy, Aparicio, Gaga. I'm glad the other critics' groups aren't so prissy about guarding their information.