AARP "Grown-Up" Nominations

by Nathaniel R

 

The Two Popes leads the nominations for the 19th annual AARP "Movies for Grown-ups" Awards . The ceremony, which will also honor Annette Bening with the Career Achievement Award will be held on January 11th in Beverly Hills with Tony Danza hosting. These awards don't get much attention but we think they're worth noting each year since a good chunk of Oscar voters are in their target demographic as a magazine...

Best Picture/Best Movie for Grownups

• A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
• Bombshell
• The Farewell
• The Irishman
• Little Women
• Marriage Story
• Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
• The Two Popes

Bombshell sticks out in this crowd as 'one of these things is not like the others', doesn't it?

Best Actress

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Spirit Award nominations spread the wealth for 2019.

by Nathaniel R

Nominations for the 35th annual Independent Spirit Awards have been announced with the wealth really being spread. For example the 5 nominees for the top prize “Feature” only crossover with “Best Director” on a single film, the Safdie brothers Uncut Gem which co-led the nominations with 5 prizes though it’s yet to open in theaters. Tying that films lead for most nominations was The Lighthouse even though that black and white oddity did not score a nomination for Best Feature!

Interestingly enough, the just-opened indie Waves was (almost) entirely shut out even though it’s a Best Feature nominee at the often quite parallel Gotham Awards. On a similar note the acting nominations aren’t heavily dependent on Best Feature love, either. 

A complete list of nominations plus commentary after the jump...

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"Apollo 11" and "American Factory" are big at the Cinema Eye Honors

by Nathaniel R

Cinema Eye is the only international documentary honor that surveys the whole craft of documentary filmmaking (like the Oscars, they look at cinematography, editing, and the like). They are now in their 12th year and have announced their latest batch of nominees. The nominations are determined by "top documentary programmers" from various festivals all over the world. The awards take place over an entire weekend, January 4th-6th, 2020, which serves as the finale of what is basically a multi-city travelling festival. 

This year Apollo 11 (Neon) and American Factory (Netflix) led the nominations (5 categories each) while Homecoming: A Film By Beyonce leads the Broadcast portion of the nominations with 3 nods. This year's "Legacy Award" will go to the trippy classic Koyaanisqatsi. Unfortunately Cinema Eye is one of those awards that appears to have no consistency of the number of nominees ranging anywhere from 4 to 8 nominations depending on the category.

The nominations are after the jump...

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Gowns, Prizes, and Glenn Close at the Costume Design Guild Awards

Kate Walsh's dressed in Fatal Attraction drag for the Glenn Close tribute at the CDG Awardsby Nathaniel R

The Costume Design Guild Awards were held in Los Angeles last night with the actress Kate Walsh hosting. Crazy Rich Asians (contemporary), The Favourite (period), and Black Panther (fantasy) took their top prizes. But there's more to the CDG awards than just those three top winners -- perhaps you've noticed we obsess on Costume Design a little bit?

Though the awards aren't televised one of the highlights surely must have been Kate Walsh dressing as Fatal Attraction's iconic villainess Alex Forrest (pictured left) for the Glenn Close portion of the ceremony! A complete list of winners, Oscar correlative statistic notes, favourite gowns from the ceremony, and image galleries for their winners and some personal thoughts on highlights where Glenn Close and Costume Design intersect... 

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A Shocking First-Time-Ever WGA Surprise!

To all the other nominees in the category, have fun at the Oscars, LOSERS!"
-Bo Burnham accepting his WGA prize for Original Screenplay

This is not common at all but last night the Writers Guild of America opted to ditch the Best Picture nominated films and instead chose Can You Ever Forgive Me? in Adapted and Eighth Grade (which was not even nominated for the Oscar *sniffle*) in Original as the year's best screenplays. Though the WGA and the Oscar winners only line up about half the time (some of that due to eligibility differences) it's pretty rare that the WGA skips Best Picture nominees if they have the option of awarding them. The last time they gave their Adapted Screenplay prize to a non Oscar Best Pic contender was American Splendor (2003) and the last time they gave their Original Screenplay to a non Oscar Best Pic contender was Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) so we're talking quite a while ago. It's so uncommon that it happening in both categories simultaneously is a downright shock; it's literally never happened in the history of the WGA...

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