Yesterday, the
Denver Film Critics Society, of which I am a voting member, announced its
awards nominations for our picks in cinema’s best for 2017. There were, as I wrote
about with my Top 10 list, an extraordinary number of great films this
year, and that has translated to the best group of nominations we have ever had
in my years voting with the organization. And I don’t just say that because a
surprising number of my pet nominees made it in – I say it because this is an
unusually rich awards season that it starting to coalesce in very frustrating,
exclusionary ways, and I think our nominations do a relatively good job
celebrating the scope, diversity, and totality of the year in film. We’re still
missing some crucial categories (like Cinematography, which I lobbied for and
got added in 2015, only to see it subsequently removed), and everyone will have
nitpicks here and there, but I think on the whole this is a group of nominees
we can all be proud of. We will be voting later this week for the final
winners, which will be announced next week, and I am very excited to see who
and what comes out on top.
For a full list of
nominees, followed by a little commentary from me on most of the categories, continue reading after the jump…
Best Film
Call
Me By Your Name
Dunkirk
Lady
Bird
The
Shape of Water
Get
Out
These exactly match our Director nominations listed
below, which is neat, so more thoughts on that in a second – I’ll just say that
these are five thoroughly great films that express diverse viewpoints, genres,
artistic styles, and backgrounds, and capture the spirit of the year in film
very well. I’m proud of having this group at the top of our list.
Best Director
Greta Gerwig, Lady
Bird
Christopher Nolan, Dunkirk
Jordan Peele, Get
Out
Guillermo Del Toro, The Shape of Water
Luca Guadagnino, Call
Me By Your Name
As with Best Film, this is just about right in my
estimation, especially if one puts aside personal taste and thinks about trying
to define the year as a whole. Two first-time directors doing landmark work in
Greta Gerwig and Jordan Peele, two beloved modern veterans arguably doing
career-best work in Nolan and Del Toro, and an arthouse favorite making his
masterpiece in Luca Guadagnino. I also appreciate the relative diversity of
this field, with a female, black, and openly gay director all here – something you
probably won’t be able to say about the Oscar nominations. Gerwig will be my final vote here, as will Lady Bird in Best Film.
Best Actor
Timothee Chalamet, Call
Me By Your Name
Gary Oldman, Darkest
Hour
James Franco, The
Disaster Artist
Daniel Day-Lewis, Phantom
Thread
Harry Dean Stanton, Lucky
I pushed hard for Lucky
in a lot of categories during the nomination process, with no real sense if
anyone else in the group would have the same passion, but we got it in where it
counted most – here, for the late Harry Dean Stanton, who will absolutely be my
vote. These are the kinds of moments that make me love having a critic’s group
to vote with: to shine a light on something the ‘major’ awards bodies are never
going to recognize. And it’s a very deserving, wide-open field all around here.
My vote will be going to Stanton, and with Chalamet, Oldman, and Day-Lewis
assumedly pulling different tastes in different directions, I have a feeling he
could be a stealth favorite here.
Best Actress
Saoirse Ronan, Lady
Bird
Frances McDormand, Three
Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Margot Robbie, I,
Tonya
Meryl Streep, The
Post
Sally Hawkins, The
Shape of Water
This isn’t exactly my ballot (I made a Hail Mary-pass
for Kristen Stewart in Persona Shopper by
putting her at #1 on my list during the nomination process, but alas), but
these are still five thoroughly deserving
performances. My vote will go to Saoirse Ronan, but I’d be just as happy to see
Margot Robbie, Sally Hawkins, or even Meryl Streep, whose work in The Post is her best and most vital in
years.
Best Supporting Actor
Armie Hammer, Call
Me By Your Name
Woody Harrelson, Three
Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Sam Rockwell, Three
Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Willem Dafoe, The
Florida Project
Ray Romano, The
Big Sick
This was the hardest category for me to whittle down
during the nomination process, my shortlist containing over 20 names. None of
the ones I nominated made it here (my #1 and #2, respectively, were David Lynch
in Lucky and Patrick Stewart in Logan, which were probably pipe dreams),
but these are all perfectly deserving. This is the one category in which I
might vote for Three Billboards, a
film I disliked on the whole, because Harrelson is easily the film’s best and
most effectively human component, and the movie peaked for me in his final
scenes. But I could also go with Hammer or Dafoe and be just as happy, so I’ll
have to think about it.
Best Supporting Actress
Laurie Metcalf, Lady
Bird
Allison Janney, I,
Tonya
Mary J. Blige, Mudbound
Holly Hunter, The
Big Sick
Bria Vinaite, The
Florida Project
Only one from my personal ballot here, but it’s the
one that counts – Laurie Metcalf, who will absolutely be my final vote – and my
other choices were proud longshots (including Karin Konoval as Maurice in War for the Planet of the Apes and
Rooney Mara in A Ghost Story). But
the others here were all on my shortlist, and I particularly like seeing Mary
J. Blige make it in for Mudbound.
Best Sci-Fi/Horror Film
The
Last Jedi
Get
Out
It
Logan
Blade
Runner 2049
To be frank, I’m not sure why we have this category,
especially when we’re missing much more essential ones like Cinematography and
Editing, but then I don’t make the rules. This is pretty much exactly what I
put on my ballot, swapping out Logan for
War for the Planet of the Apes (I
like Logan better, but didn’t think
it qualified as a ‘sci-fi’ for whatever reason). My vote will be either Get Out or Blade Runner.
Best Animated FIlm
Coco
Loving
Vincent
The
LEGO Batman Movie
Despicable
Me 3
The
Breadwinner
I am very very very tired with American animation and
as a result didn’t see enough to vote for this category this year (and I’ll
exclude myself from voting here as well). I’ve heard Coco is great (the Frozen short
scared me off) and I would love to see Loving
Vincent. No idea why Despicable Me 3 is
here, other than we needed 5 titles.
Best Comedy
The
Big Sick
Thor:
Ragnarok
The
Disaster Artist
Lady
Bird
I,
Tonya
Another category that feels mostly redundant to me,
especially in a year where some of the best films were comedies (or, at least,
comedy-adjacent), but there are 4 very good films here that I hope are all trounced
by Lady Bird.
Best Original Screenplay
The
Big Sick
Lady
Bird
Get
Out
Three
Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
I,
Tonya
Three
Billboards is not a good screenplay, but to each their own. Lady Bird and Get Out are exemplary ones, and the former will have my vote. A
solid category overall.
Best Adapted Screenplay
Star
Wars: The Last Jedi
Molly’s
Game
Call
Me By Your Name
The
Disaster Artist
Logan
The
Last Jedi and Logan were
both Hail Mary-passes for me here that came to fruition, so that makes me
smile, even if my vote will probably go to James Ivory for Call Me By Your Name. Though the sheer quality of Rian Johnson’s
writing on Star Wars, and the amount
of bizarre ‘fan’ anger it has stoked, kind of makes me want to throw another
vote its way.
Best Special Effects
The
Last Jedi
Dunkirk
The
Shape of Water
War
for the Planet of the Apes
Blade
Runner 2049
This was my exact ballot, so I guess I agree! My vote
will go for War for the Planet of the
Apes. I still don’t know why we have this and no Cinematography category.
That’s weird.
Best Original Song
“Remember Me,” Coco
“This Is Me,” The
Greatest Showman
“Evermore,” Beauty
and the Beast
“Visions of Gideon,” Call Me By Your Name
“Mystery of Love,” Call
Me By Your Name
I don’t care about this category and I'm not sure why
we have it and I guess I’ll give my vote to “Visions of Gideon” as it accompanies
perhaps the single best shot of 2017.
Best Score
Hans Zimmer, Dunkirk
Dario Marianelli, Darkest
Hour
Jonny Greenwood, Phantom
Thread
Hans Zimmer and Benjamin Wallfisch, Blade Runner 2049
Alexandre Desplat, The
Shape of Water
A good category all around. Blade Runner gets my vote here, but I’m a little bummed John
Williams couldn’t make it in for The Last
Jedi.
Best Documentary
Jane
The
Work
Chasing
Coral
Faces
Places
Dawson
City: Frozen Time
Best Foreign Language Film
Thelma
Foxtrot
First
They Killed My Father
Graduation
A
Fantastic Woman
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