Roy Moore: “The hand of God…providence…put Trump into the White House.” [Few seconds later] “You could say that America is the focus of evil in the world.’ Guardian: “For example?” Moore: “Same-sex marriage.” Guardian: “That’s what Putin would say.” Moore: “Maybe Putin is right.”

Make no mistake about Paul Thomas Anderson‘s Phantom Thread being a very good film. But not by the measuring stick of Joe and Jane Popcorn. It’s a high falutin’ critics’ film, and the other day a critic friend mentioned that Phantom Thread is “the kind of film that makes people hate the critics whose reviews convince them to see it.”

By that standard the Boston Society of Film Critics is about to earn a fair amount of enmity for naming Phantom Thread as 2017’s Best Picture.

Even by an elite-quill-pen perspective giving the year’s top prize to Phantom Thread strikes me as very peculiar. It assembles its own meticulous realm with deft and intelligent brush strokes and delivers superb performances, for sure, but it’s no one’s idea of a satisfying film that really pays off. To call it a better film (more moving or satisfying, more cannily reflective of real-life) than Lady Bird, Call Me By Your Name or Dunkirk is just perverse. What is the BSFC trying to do, get attention for themselves? Demonstrate that no one can be weirder or more anal?

Other BSFC winners:

Best Actor: Daniel Kaluuya for Get Out. Wells reaction: Seriously? A good-looking guy who gave an okay performance in a clever social-metaphor horror flick. Nobody at Gold Derby has listed Kaluuya as a Best Actor contender. Nobody at all. Gary Oldman, Timothee Chalamet, Daniel Day-Lewis, James Franco and Tom Hanks — get with the program, Beantowners!

Best Actress: Sally Hawkins, The Shape of Water. Wells reaction: Not Saoirse Ronan…seriously? Okay, your call.

Best Supporting Actor: Willem Dafoe, The Florida Project. Wells reaction: Fine.

Best Supporting Actress: Laurie Metcalf, Lady Bird. Wells reaction: Fine.

Best Director: Paul Thomas Anderson, Phantom Thread. Wells reaction: Again, a very perverse call.

Best Screenplay: Greta Gerwig, Lady Bird. Wells reaction: Agreed.

Best Cinematography: Hoyte Van Hoytema for Dunkirk. Wells reaction: Good call.

Best Foreign Language Film: Ruben Ostlund‘s The Square, which won everything at the European Film Awards the other night.

Who would want to bang out predictions for a bunch of Golden Globe nominations? The winners are of some interest, but the nominees? We all know the films and performances that will probably make the cut, and if this or that favored contender doesn’t make it then the Golden Globe nominators will have caused a stir and maybe a few gasps.

The 75th annual Golden Globe Awards are slated for 1.7.18, or a week and a half before everyone leaves for Park City (and thank God for that spiritual vacation from the hammer blows of the Oscar game). Oscar nominations will close voting on Friday, 1.13.17. Oscar noms will be announced on Wednesday, 1.24, or during the final third of Sundance ’18.

The 2018 Golden Globes nominations will be announced tomorrow morning at (choke) 5 am Pacific.

Likely noms in Best Picture – Drama category: Call Me by Your Name, The Post, The Shape of Water, Dunkirk, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, The Florida Project, Darkest Hour. 50/50 prognosis on Mudbound. Question: Given the HFPA’s absurdly loose definition of “comedy or musical”, why isn’t the sometimes darkly humorous Three Billboards expected to compete in that category? I don’t consider Three Billboards to be a comedy, but it’s certainly funnier than I, Tonya, which the HFPA will apparently place in the hah-hah category.

Likely noms in Best Picture – Comedy or Musical category: The Big Sick, I, Tonya, Lady Bird, The Disaster Artist, Get Out. Has anyone seen The Greatest Showman? I could see the HFPA nominating it in order to get Hugh Jackman and company to occupy a table, but given the presumptions about this film it would be highly cynical to nominate it just to nominate it.

I don’t see the point in predicting acting, directing or screenwriting nominations. Okay, Call me By Your Name‘s Luca Guadagnino should be nominated for Best Director. I just don’t feel like expending the energy. I’ll jump into everything tomorrow. At a decent hour.

In an 11.27 post called “2018 Hotties Prioritized,” I listed 40 noteworthy 2018 films that will probably generate excitement and perhaps even award-season followings — The Irishman, Roma, Back Seat, First Man, Bohemian Rhapsody, The Wife, Radegund, Widows, If Beale Street Could Talk, Mary Queen of Scots, On The Basis of Sex, Suspiria, Wendy, Sunset, Chappaquiddick, Soldado, Loro, The Nightingale, etc.

29 decent-sounding titles have since been added — Unsane, The Widow, Ad Astra, E-Book, Kursk, Cold War, Can You Ever Forgive Me — for a total of 69. Please tell me what I’m forgetting.

Yes, I’m also looking forward to Ryan Coogler‘s Black Panther, Peyton Reed‘s Ant Man and the Wasp and Ron Howard‘s Solo.

Here’s the whole thing again plus the 29 newbies:

Topliners: 1. Martin Scorsese‘s The Irishman (Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci, Bobby Cannavale, Harvey Keitel, Ray Romano); 2. Adam McKay‘s Back Seat (Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Steve Carell, Sam Rockwell); 3. Damien Chazelle‘s First Man, a space drama about NASA’s Duke of Dullness, Neil Armstrong (Ryan Gosling, Claire Foy, Corey Stoll, Kyle Chandler, Jason Clarke); 4. Saoirse Ronan in Mary, Queen of Scots (w/ Margot Robbie, David Tennant, Jack Lowden, Guy Pearce); 5. Clint Eastwood‘s The 15:17 to Paris (Jenna Fischer, Judy Greer, Bryce Gheisar, Alek Skarlatos, Thomas Lennon, Jaleel White, Tony Hale, P.J. Byrne).

6. Steve McQueen‘s Widows (Viola Davis, Cynthia Erivo, Andre Holland, Elizabeth Debicki, Michelle Rodriguez, Daniel Kaluuya, Liam Neeson, Colin Farrell); 7. Terrence Malick‘s Radegund (August Diehl, Valerie Pachner, Michael Nyqvist, Matthias Schoenaerts, Jürgen Prochnow, Bruno Ganz; 8. Alfonso Cuaron‘s Roma (Marina de Tavira, Marco Graf, Yalitza Aparicio, Daniela Demesa, Enoc Leaño, Daniel Valtierra); 9. Jacques Audiard‘s The Sisters Brothers (Jake Gyllenhaal, Joaquin Phoenix, Rutger Hauer, Riz Ahmed, John C. Reilly); 10. Barry Jenkins‘ If Beale Street Could Talk (Kiki Layne, Stephan James, Teyonah Parris, Regina King, Colman Domingo, Brian Tyree Henry, Diego Luna, Dave Franco).

11. Bryan Singer‘s Bohemian Rhapsody (15-year period from the formation of Queen and lead singer Freddie Mercury up to their performance at Live Aid in 1985) w/ Rami Malek, Ben Hardy, Gwilym Lee, Joseph Mazzello, Allen Leech, Lucy Boynton. 20th Century Fox, 12.25.18; 12. Bjorn Runge‘s The Wife (Glenn Close‘s Best Actress campaign + Jonathan Pryce, Christian Slater, Annie Starke. Max Irons); 13. Felicity Jones as Ruth Bader Ginsburg in On The Basis of Sex; 14. Gus Van Sant‘s Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot (costarring Joaquin Phoenix, Rooney Mara, Jonah Hill, Jack Black, Mark Webber); 15. Felix von Groeningen‘s Beautiful Boy with Steve Carell and Timothy Chalamet.

16. Xavier Dolan‘s The Death and Life of John F. Donovan (Kit Harington, Natalie Portman, Jessica Chastain, Susan Sarandon, Kathy Bates); 17. Asghar Farhadi‘s Todos lo saben (Spanish-language drama w/ Penelope Cruz, Javier Bardem, Barbara Lennie, Ricardo Darin, Inma Cuesta, Eduard Fernandez Javier Camara); 18. Spike Lee‘s Black Klansman (John David Washington, Adam Driver, Laura Harrier, Topher Grace, Corey Hawkins — Focus Features); 19. Woody Allen‘s A Rainy Day in New York (Timothee Chalamet, Elle Fanning, Selena Gomez, Jude Law, Diego Luna, Liev Schreiber); 20. Stefano Sollima‘s Soldado (Benicio del Toro, Josh Brolin, Catherine Keener — Columbia, 6.29.18).