Gotham Nominations: Locker and Fan, Maid and Man
I don’t think they mean too much in the big awards picture (last year, Frozen River ended up winning), but I’m a fan of the Gotham Independent Film Awards as well as their West Coast cousin the Indie Spirit Awards. The fact they don’t have much bearing on the Oscars reflects more poorly on Oscar than on the Gothams and Spirits themselves.
With that in mind, the Gotham nominees were announced this morning by NY Times/At the Movies critic A.O. Scott. Once again, there’s a fascinating cross section of films honored.
Like it or not, Awards Season is underway.
Critical darling The Hurt Locker was nominated for three awards including Best Feature, Best Ensemble Performance and Breakthrough Actor (for Jeremy Renner). Joel and Ethan Coen’s terrific A Serious Man was nominated for Best Feature and Best Ensemble. Michael Stuhlbarg not getting recognized in the Breakthrough category is a significant misstep and so is the attention lavished on Robert Siegel’s Big Fan. It received three nominations including Best Feature, Breakthrough Director (for Siegel) and Breakthrough Actor for Patton Oswalt. Oswalt was good, but the charms of the movie itself are totally lost on me.
Another big snub is the exclusion of No Impact Man from the Best Documentary category. Then again, not having seen the other nominees I can’t say they’re not better. I know Tyson especially has a strong fan base.
The only other multiple nominee I see off hand is Sebastian Silva’s’ The Maid which just openend in NY last weekend and hits LA next. It was nominated for Best Feature and Breakthrough Actor Catalina Saavedra. I missed the LA screening of this one, but a screener just landed on my desk so I hope to have a look at it in the next couple of days.
Also of note is Soulémane Sy Savané’s Breakthrough Actor nomination for his terrific work in Goodbye Solo.
Check out all the nominees over at Filmmaker Magazine.
Filed under: Awards
Tags: A Serious Man, Big Fan, Catalina Saavedra, Ethan Coen, Gotham Independent Film Awards, Gregorio Gonzales, Jeremy Renner, Joel Coen, Michael Stuhlbarg, Patton Oswalt, Robert Siegel, Soulemane Sy Savane, The Coen Brothers, The Hurt Locker, The Maid, Tyson
Booyah, Guy and Madeline pops up again.
Yeah I’m a little surprised Stuhlbarg doesn’t get a nod over someone like Ben Foster, who is already pretty much a household name (you know, for people who live in crazy movie blog houses).
I think this is going to be an odd year for documentary nominations. There has been no clear front runner, some of the strongest ones came out early in the year, and there aren’t any big names (whoops, Michael Moore?..nope) on the docket that I can think of.
You and Sam K have sold me on Guy and Madeline. I’m going to make every effort to see it at AFI.
Wow, for all the good in there I find quite a bit of WTF disappointments typical of the Globes or Oscars, so I’m sad to see the Gothams following suit. Patton Oswalt and Ben Foster as breakout actors? What, because they had starring roles? Both of these are not only well-known in the film world but both have had starring roles before. I guess no one has heard of Ratatouille or 3:10 to Yuma.
And it’s disappointing to see the documentary category recognizing Food, Inc when other films like No Impact Man or The Garden are more needy of recognition and similarly themed. Heck, I’d even take Anvil over Tyson (didn’t care for Tyson much).
Oh well, can’t win them all and I do appreciate the recognition given to the films chosen.
Surprising Precious didn’t get any loving either since it won both the Sundance Jury prize and the TIFF audience prize.