This is the thread where we discuss matters pertaining to the detrius that accompanies the "End of the Year in Cinema" -- 2024

Apologies to Eric H. for starting this thread without him, but he hasn't posted in a while. And today kicks off detrius season with the Gotham Awards nominations.

ANORA ANORA ANORA

Full Gothams lineup:

Best Feature

Anora
Babygirl
Challengers
A Different Man
Nickel Boys

Best International Feature

All We Imagine as Light
Green Border
Hard Truths
Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell
Vermiglio

Best Documentary Feature

Dahomey
Intercepted
No Other Land
Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat
Sugarcane
Union

Best Director

Payal Kapadia, All We Imagine as Light
Sean Baker, Anora
Guan Hu, Black Dog
Jane Schoenbrun, I Saw the TV Glow
RaMell Ross, Nickel Boys

Best Screenplay

Between the Temples
Evil Does Not Exist
Femme
His Three Daughters
Janet Planet

Breakthrough Director

Shuchi Talati, Girls Will Be Girls
India Donaldson, Good One
Alessandra Lacorazza, In the Summers
Vera Drew, The People’s Joker
Mahdi Fleifel, To a Land Unknown

Outstanding Lead Performance

Pamela Anderson, The Last Showgirl
Adrien Brody, The Brutalist
Colman Domingo, Sing Sing
Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Hard Truths
Nicole Kidman, Babygirl
Keith Kupferer, Ghostlight
Mikey Madison, Anora
Demi Moore, The Substance
Saoirse Ronan, Outrun
Justice Smith, I Saw the TV Glow

Outstanding Supporting Performance

Yura Borisov, Anora
Kieran Culkin, A Real Pain
Danielle Deadwyler, The Piano Lesson
Brigette Lundy-Paine, I Saw the TV Glow
Natasha Lyonne, His Three Daughters
Clarence Maclin, Sing Sing
Katy O’Brian, Love Lies Bleeding
Guy Pearce, The Brutalist
Adam Pearson, A Different Man
Brian Tyree Henry, The Fire Inside

Breakthrough Performer

Lily Collias, Good One
Ryan Destiny, The Fire Inside
Maisy Stella, My Old Ass
Izaac Wang, Dìdi
Brandon Wilson, Nickel Boys

Conan hosting the Oscars:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/15/business/media/conan-obrien-oscars-host.html

Don't think I'm going to do as well in Movie Fantasy League as I did last year, so now I'm just hoping that my team, Saoirse and Destroy, beats the team Saoirse and Rescue.

Cahiers du Cinema top 10:

1) Misericordia (Alain Guiraudie)
2) May December (Todd Haynes)
3) In Water (Hong Sang Soo)
4) The Zone of Interest (Jonathan Glazer)
5) All We Imagine As Light (Kayal Kapadia)
6) The Delinquents (Rodrigo Moreno)
7) Evil Does Not Exist (Ryusuke Hamaguchi)
8) Ma Vie Ma Gueule (Sophie Fillieres)
9) Trap (M. Night Shyamalan)
10) The Other Way Around (Jonas Trueba)

https://www.worldofreel.com/blog/2024/11/28/cahiers-du-cinmas-top-10-of-2024-topped-by-alain-guiraudies-misericordia-includes-shyamalan-glazer-and-haynes

[9) Trap (M. Night Shyamalan)

Da fuck?

2023 releases and shyamalan. good start to the season

I didn't know about the new Guiraudie. Yah on the Hamaguchi, possibly his best.

I'm just hoping that my team, Saoirse and Destroy, beats the team Saoirse and Rescue.

Well you’re ahead of me (I’m Tom Holland Drive).

Follow along as NYFCC announces awards:

https://bsky.app/profile/nyfcc.bsky.social

https://bsky.app/profile/nyfcc.bsky.social/post/3lcfxdocia22q

BEST ACTRESS: Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Hard Truths

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Kieran Culkin, A Real Pain

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY: Jomo Fray, Nickel Boys

BEST FIRST FILM: Janet Planet

BEST ACTRESS: Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Hard Truths

yesss

Forgot to post the Gotham Award winners yesterday. Full list here, but notable winners were A Different Man for feature, RaMell Ross (Nickel Boys) for director, Colman Domingo (Sing Sing) for lead performance, and Clarence Maclin (Sing Sing) for supporting performance.

Back to NYFCC:

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Carol Kane, Between the Temples

oh god more fucking category fraud. Kane is a LEAD. Like Culkin.

Kane's my vote for Best Actress actually.

BEST ACTOR: Adrien Brody, The Brutalist

BEST SCREENPLAY: Sean Baker, Anora

BEST INTERNATIONAL FILM: All We Imagine as Light

BEST DIRECTOR: RaMell Ross, Nickel Boys

BEST FILM: The Brutalist

xxpost Cahiers has a weird thing for Shyamalan and Eastwood. They tie themselves into knots describing the auteurist marvels those two create (in their eyes).

I watched Trap last night, inspired by this post and uhh

I am a Trap apologist. It's ridiculous fun.

National Board of Review

Best Film: “Wicked”

Best Director: Jon M. Chu, “Wicked”

Best Actor: Daniel Craig, “Queer”

Best Actress: Nicole Kidman, “Babygirl”

Best Supporting Actor: Kieran Culkin, “A Real Pain”

Best Supporting Actress: Elle Fanning, “A Complete Unknown”

Best Ensemble: “Conclave”

Breakthrough Performance: Mikey Madison, “Anora”

Best Directorial Debut: India Donaldson, “Good One”

Best Original Screenplay: Mike Leigh, “Hard Truths”

Best Adapted Screenplay: Clint Bentley & Greg Kwedar, “Sing Sing”

NBR Spotlight Award: Creative Collaboration of Cynthia Erivo & Ariana Grande

NBR Freedom of Expression Award: “No Other Land”

Best Animated Feature: “Flow”

Best International Film: “The Seed of the Sacred Fig”

Best Documentary: “Sugarcane”

Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography: Jarin Blaschke, “Nosferatu”

Outstanding Achievement in Stunt Artistry: “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga”

Oh no the Wicked train begins

John Waters' Top 10

Over the paywall: https://web.archive.org/web/20241206153936/https://www.vulture.com/article/john-waters-best-movies-of-2024.html

Golden Globe nominations!
https://variety.com/2024/film/awards/golden-globes-nominations-2025-full-list-1236236911/

Nice to see Challengers and Zendaya show up.

Also, my initial positive reaction to Emilia Perez has soured somewhat, but I'm happy for the sake of my fantasy league team that it scored 10 noms.

How are these two different people?

https://i.imgur.com/jXV0iGq.png

Emilia Perez is just loathsome as a queer film and as musical.

I like the idea of it being a musical, but no, the songs are not very good. Some of the things about the movie that didn't work made more sense when I learned it was originally written as an opera libretto.

LA Film Critics:

Best Picture
Winner: Anora
Runner-up: The Brutalist

Best Director
Winner: Mohammad Rasoulof, The Seed of the Sacred Fig
Runner-up: Sean Baker, Anora

Best Lead Performance
Winners: Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Hard Truths, and Mikey Madison, Anora
Runners-up: Demi Moore, The Substance, and Fernanda Torres, I’m Still Here

Best Supporting Performance
Winners: Yura Borisov, Anora, and Kieran Culkin, A Real Pain
Runners-up: Clarence Maclin, Sing Sing, and Adam Pearson, A Different Man

Best Screenplay
Winner: Jesse Eisenberg, A Real Pain
Runner-up: Sean Baker, Anora

Best Documentary/Nonfiction
Winner: No Other Land
Runner-up: Dahomey

Best Cinematography
Winner: Jomo Fray, Nickel Boys
Runner-up: Lol Crawley, The Brutalist

Best Music/Score
Winner: Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, Challengers
Runner-up: Eiko Ishibashi, Evil Does Not Exist

Best Production Design
Winner: Judy Becker, The Brutalist
Runner-up: Adam Stockhausen, Blitz

Best Editing
Tie: Nicholas Monsour, Nickel Boys, and Hansjörg Weissbrich, September 5

Best Animation
Winner: Flow
Runner-up: Chicken for Linda

Best Film Not in the English Language
Winner: All We Imagine as Light
Runner-up: The Seed of the Sacred Fig

Douglas Edwards Experimental Film Prize
Eduardo Williams’ The Human Surge 3

New Generation
Vera Drew, The People’s Joker

I thought RaMell Ross's documentary Hale County This Morning, This Evening (2018) was an incredible film, abstract but totally accessible. I also loved Colson Whitehead's book Nickel Boys, so am looking forward to Ross's interpretation of it

I've been meaning to watch Hale County. Thought it was on Criterion, but it's not (or at least not now).

Way better than Nickel Boys

Florida Film Critics Circle ballots due tomorrow.

I highly recommend All We Imagine as Light and the documentary Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat.

what didn't you like about Nickel Boys, Alfred?

The subjectivity of the POV cramped the movie's resonances imo. For a limited intelligence the subjectivity works, but Elwood's so smart that I wanted the film to honor his empathy and observational powers. Let him access the full range of his responses. It worked a couple places: the laundry room, the elder Elwood's bar chat with a fellow inmate.

Sight and Sound Top 50:

https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/polls/best-films-2024-all-votes

Oscar shortlists for international, documentary, shorts, score, song, sound, VFX, and makeup:
https://press.oscars.org/news/97th-oscarsr-shortlists-10-award-categories-announced

from ScreenSlate's 'favourite first viewings' megapoll, Vera Drew on Unfrosted:

One of the most perverted films I have ever seen. The Right Stuff parody fair-use boomer fetish art. The cinematic equivalent of a sociopath. Sarah Cooper and a Cereal Mascot January 6 sequence. Grandma’s Holes, frooty goopy fetishy marshmallow fluff “what’s the first thing a baby tastes” “applesauce.” “Milk.” Watching Jerry lip sync the end credits song by Jimmy Fallon and Meghan Trainor is like staring into Azathoth.

Our winners: https://x.com/FLFilmCritics

And we did Best Actor right, dammit.

The Guardian’s 50 best films in the UK #1 - All Of Us Strangers

The Guardian’s 50 best movies in the US #1 -The Brutalist

AV Club has been featuring some good film writing lately, like this:

https://www.avclub.com/mufasa-the-lion-king-disney-live-action-problem-faces

Just took the kids to see it and yeah I agree with all that. Don’t get me wrong it was incredibly impressive, the attention to detail was insane, but at the end of the day they just looked like animals. I couldn’t really tell some of the characters apart either. Also there was hardly a still shot the whole time, felt like the camera was constantly spinning in circles for like half of the runtime, made me dizzy to the point where I almost considered walking out. Wasn’t just me either, even my son said “it made my brain hurt”

Golden Globes making things interesting. Feel like Demi Moore has sewn up an Oscar nomination, but that category is stacked. Torres's win makes this an eight-person race, I'd say. I wonder if, for instance, Jolie doesn't make it in.

Anyway...

BEST DRAMA
"The Brutalist"

BEST COMEDY OR MUSICAL
"Emilia Pérez"

BEST MALE ACTOR, DRAMA
Adrien Brody, "The Brutalist"

BEST FEMALE ACTOR, DRAMA
Fernanda Torres, "I’m Still Here"

BEST MALE ACTOR, COMEDY OR MUSICAL
Sebastian Stan, "A Different Man"

BEST FEMALE ACTOR, COMEDY OR MUSICAL
Demi Moore, "The Substance"

BEST MALE SUPPORTING ACTOR
Kieran Culkin, "A Real Pain"

BEST FEMALE SUPPORTING ACTOR
Zoe Saldaña, "Emilia Pérez"

BEST DIRECTOR
Brady Corbet, "The Brutalist"

BEST ANIMATED FILM
"Flow"

BEST NON-ENGLISH LANGUAGE FILM
"Emilia Pérez"

BEST SCREENPLAY
Peter Straughan, "Conclave"

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, "Challengers"

BEST ORIGINAL SONG
"El Mal," "Emilia Pérez"

CINEMATIC AND BOX OFFICE ACHIEVEMENT
"Wicked"

And here's the National Society of Film Critics, announced a few days ago:


Best Picture: “Nickel Boys”
Runners-up:
“Anora”
“All We Imagine As Light”

Best Actor: Colman Domingo, “Sing Sing”
Runners-up:
Adrien Brody, “The Brutalist”
Ralph Fiennes, “Conclave”

Best Actress: Marianne Jean-Baptiste, “Hard Truths”
Runners-up:
Mikey Madison, “Anora”
Ilinca Manolache, “Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World”

Best Supporting Actress: Michele Austin, “Hard Truths”
Runners-up:
Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, “Nickel Boys”
Natasha Lyonne, “His Three Daughters”

Best Supporting Actor: Kieran Culkin, “A Real Pain”
Runners-up:
Guy Pearce, “The Brutalist”
Edward Norton, “A Complete Unknown”
Adam Pearson, “A Different Man”

Best Director: Payal Kapadia, “All We Imagine As Light”
Runners-up:
RaMell Ross, “Nickel Boys”
Sean Baker, “Anora”

Best Screenplay: Jesse Eisenberg, “A Real Pain”
Runners-up:
Radu Jude, “Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World”
Sean Baker, “Anora”

Best Cinematography: Jomo Fray, “Nickel Boys”
Runners-up:
Lol Crawley, “The Brutalist”
Jarin Blaschke, “Nosferatu”

Best Nonfiction Film: “No Other Land”
Runners-up:
“Dahomey”
“Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat”

Best Foreign-Language Film: “All We Imagine As Light”
Runners-up:
“Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World”
“The Seed of the Sacred Fig”

Best Experimental Film: “The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire”

Film Heritage Award: Scott Eyman

Film Heritage Award: IndieCollect

Film Heritage Award: To Save and Project: The MoMa International Festival of Film Preservation

Special Citation for a Film Awaiting U.S. Distribution: “No Other Land”

I'm trying to think if I've ever seen a fake biopic before, a fictional drama with all the familiar beats of an Oscar contender. Fake documentaries, sure, mockumentaries, comedic fake biopics, but something as convincingly rich and detailed and specific as this? I must be forgetting something obvious.

Tar is an obvious comparison (where apparently many people thought she was a real composer) but Tar didn't have the typical biopic plot structure at all.

does citizen kane count?

Walk Hard

I did think of "Citizen Kane" as an obvious antecedent, but as with "Tar," maybe, its structural audacity sets it apart. This one, something about the way the details are doled out just nails it.

Things are getting interesting: Anora won both the Producers' Guild and Directors' Guild awards last night.

It was being proclaimed an Oscar frontrunner nine months ago when it won the Palme d'Or but then fell a bit as awards season progressed and other movies entered the mix. But maybe it will be the one to benefit from Emilia Perez's fall from grace.

Personally, I've always been skeptical of its Best Picture chances. As much as I liked it, it just doesn't seem like the kind of movie that the Oscar voters would throw their weight behind. But this year, who knows!

Yeah, it's got as solid a chance as anything. I'm one of the few ilxors not blown away by it but I'll always root for a comedy.

Tough-but-vulnerable protagonist gets taken for a ride in more ways than one by gangsters who promise things they don't deliver — it's now a political allegory!

I was slightly disappointed in it, but mostly because my expectations were so high. I still liked it a lot.

I enjoyed it more than I enjoyed The Brutalist, whatever that counts for. I don't think either are masterworks, but I'm also fine with either winning Best Picture, there have been a lot worse.

It's not my favourite of Baker's but I'm in the *very good* camp. Maybe doesn't hit all the tonal shifts and it drags a little in parts but so many great details (the put-upon local fixer's anxiety about parking tickets, etc) and an incredible final scene. I'd be happy to see it win in a year where I didn't love any of the nominees but I liked most of them quite a bit.

Interesting that the PGA votes were in before the Sofia tweets came out. I can publicly be snobbish about the Oscar race every year but I'll admit it's fun to not really know what's going to happen.

Sean Baker won best director at the DGAs.

yeah both PGA and DGA were last night

So I finally saw I'm Still Here. I don't see it winning anything unless 1) voters split on certain frontrunners, or 2) the voters think this is a way to give Donald Trump the finger. (Assuming they remember how Trump reacted to Parasite, and that I'm not giving them more credit than they deserve.)

She's gathering momentum. It's her or Moore.

I watched Emilia Perez last night with a film friend who is visiting me. What was reinforced for me watching it for a second time was how emotional so many of the scenes are between the four actresses. I can see why it won a group best actress award at Cannes. The heightened emotion of those moments completely outweighed all of the convoluted plot contrivances and social controversy for me. And I realized in seeing it the second time that I really liked the music.

I'm watching Anora with my visitor film friend tonight, we are both looking forward to it

I'd say the absurdity of the way it handled the transition and why it happened in the first place generated the social controversy but ymmv

yes, I guess that is part of what I meant by plot contrivances

Just saw Anora, really gripping in ways I wasn't expecting. And funny? It had a bit of The Big Lebowsky absurdity of ridiculous freakouts that was extremely entertaining and almost felt nostalgic... while keeping both feet firmly planted in the cynical present. I hope it wins Best Picture, but maybe it's too "Parasite" like?

Haven't seen I'm Still Here, A Complete Unkown or The Brutalist yet, though

I actually mentioned Parasite to a friend the other night when trying to think of a precedent for a Best Picture with a similar tone to Anora. Given that Parasite won, I'm not sure "too Parasite like" is a problem. But I think it had a clearer social message/narrative that voters wanted to support. There are some similar class dynamics going on in Anora, but it's not as allegorical.

It's barely allegorical imo. It's selling a surface (this isn't criticism).

It's why I preferred it to other Baker films that to me sold surface as depth.

Yeah, I don't personally think of it as a criticism, either. But voters want to latch onto something as a reason for a movie to earn their vote.

That said, Kyle Buchanan (the NYT awards pundit) was on the Prestige Junkie podcast today and said that he sees a lot of excitement for Anora among Oscar voters and think it will get a lot of #1 votes. He is less bullish on The Brutalist in part, he said, because he hasn't met any women who are ranking it first.

It would earn my vote for being very immersive, incredibly well acted, written and directed. The few parts where it "drags" (I didn't think it did really) actually works to express the growing tension and stress of the situation.

I loved all the quick editing and how casually some scenes were interspersed depicting certain lifestyle disparities, like the scene where they get IV drips to cure their hangovers and re-hydrate for another night of partying

Yeah Baker is at least as good at limning luxury as poverty.

My friend and I have had multiple discussions about Anora. He liked it ok but thinks it's basically the Hangover and no better, and he's been increasingly irate at it getting award consideration. He's now convinced its insular film nerds cut off from reality making up any "depth" in the film because they like Sean Baker.

that's a weird evaluate that film. it's a good story, well acted, well written.

I'm not sure it's a particularly good story, but it's definitely a good tale. I think what he does best is capture the details (sometimes foregrounded, sometimes or even often subtly backgrounded) of certain walks of life and types of working people and living situations, often in the context of desperate capitalism, that many of us don't encounter or think about. That seems to be his biggest gift, and maybe why "Anora" doesn't seem (to me, at least) like a dramatic improvement over what he's been doing all along. His casting is always great, though, and I suppose in that regard this might be the first of his films with a real breakout, star-making performance.

Quick ranking from critic Whiney G

1. The Substance
2. Nickel Boys
3. Anora
4. The Brutalist
5. I'm Still Here
6. Conclave
7. Wicked
8. A Complete Unknown
9. Emelia Perez
10.

I haven't seen Dune 2

1. The Brutalist
2. Anora
3. The Substance
4. Conclave
5. Nickel Boys
6. Anora
7. Dune 2
8. Emilia Perez

I haven't seen Wicked or I'm Not Here; hope to watch the latter on Thursday.

Your list has Anora twice, I hope #6 is A Complete Unknown

A Complete Nora

Looking at Sean Baker's filmography, I realize I hadn't seen any of his movies until Anora. Any I should see? Or is this is "best" at this stage?

A Complete Nora

― *The Anime＼(*^β^*)/ Ring (Whiney G. Weingarten),

you should see the florida project

...and Starlet and Red Rocket and Tangerine!

I finally saw Anora. I like that it is about a woman who as a sex worker has to be transactional in every interaction in her life, so that it becomes all that she knows, but then encounters someone who doesn't want to relate to her in that way.

I think each of the sections of the story go on too long, and so many of the scenes are hectoring, with people screaming at each other over club music.

But I like the concept of it, that a woman who is disrespected is given a chance to reach for something else and completely embraces it, only to then have to go through an ordeal

She at the end is returned in some ways to her previous life but this time everything is different. The last scene of the film is all-time great I think

Sean Baker knows how to end a movie

Unrelated to "Anora" (not least because I think "Anora" is shot really well):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwTUM9cFeSo

I'm Still Here acquires poignancy as it nears its last half hour. The quotidian reality of keeping a family together -- ice cream outings, fixing dolls -- while bottling up the hysteria borne out knowing your husband's been killed by your own government is handled quite well. All the actors playing the kids excel. If I were an Academy member, Fernanda Torres would get my vote.

BAFTA winners

Film: Conclave
Director: Brady Corbet, The Brutalist
Actor: Adrien Brody, The Brutalist
Actress: Mikey Madison, Anora
Supporting Actor: Kieran Culkin, A Real Pain
Supporting Actress: Zoe Saldana, Emilia Pérez
Original Screenplay: A Real Pain
Adapted Screenplay: Conclave

More:
https://deadline.com/2025/02/bafta-film-awards-winners-list-conclave-emilia-perez-2025-1236291491/

Okay, who's seen the Oscar-nominated shorts (animated and liveaction), and are we concerning ourselves with spoilers?

What's the best way to watch them?

https://shorts.tv/theoscarshorts/

I went to Landmark E Street yesterday.

Of the Sean Baker movies I’ve seen, Tangerine is the must see.

I loved Tangerine

I know A Real Pain is supposed to be a film about generational trauma, but it celebrates two very annoying guys making the holocaust all about themselves.

Kieran Culkin does his Succession schtick with a vengeance. How is he already anointed as the presumed winner of the academy award?

Because he's good.

Conversation here: A Real Pain (the film)