The Philadelphia Film Critics Circle today handed Rian Johnson‘s Knives Out their Best Film award. I’m presuming that when Johnson heard the news he called the PFCC president and demanded a recount. All I can figure is that the Philly crix couldn’t decide on a Best Pic winner and so somebody finally said “fuck it, let’s give it to Johnson’s unpretentious, expertly written Agatha Christie throwaway flick,” and a majority shrugged and said “okay, whatever.”

Don’t misunderstand — I really like Knives Out (I’ve seen it twice), but it’s not a Best Picture-type deal. It’s a well-acted, super-witty popcorn diversion.

The other Philly eyebrow-raiser was giving their Best Supporting Actress award to Little Women‘s Florence Pugh. Nobody is thinking along these lines out here, I can tell you. For most of the film her Amy character behaves like a resentful, arch-backed little beeyotch. All she seems to do is taunt Saoirse Ronan‘s Jo. She even burns Jo’s manuscript at one point.

Best Director: Martin Scorsese, The Irishman
Best Actor: Adam Driver, Marriage Story
Best Actress: Lupita Nyong’o, Us (again?)
Best Supporting Actor: a tie between Brad Pitt in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and Joe Pesci in The Irishman.
Best Foreign Film: Parasite (South Korea)…can’t give it to Ladj Ly’s Les Miserables!
Best Animated Film: Toy Story
Best Documentary: Apollo 11 (agreed)
Best Cinematography: The Lighthouse (agreed)
Best Script: Knives Out

Nine months ago I went apeshit for Kent Jones‘ Diane (IFC Films). “One of those modest, drill-bitty, character-driven films that just reaches in and flips your light switch,” I wrote. “It makes you feel human. It makes you care.”

I was especially knocked out by Mary Kay Place‘s titular performance, but you know what? I didn’t have the courage or stamina to start re-promoting her performance when award season began several weeks back. Because Diane had opened and gone away so many months beforehand, and because IFC Films wasn’t pushing her, and because no one else was on the Mary Kay bandwagon.

And so I dropped it. I folded. I moved on. I knew she’d given one of the best lead female performances I’d seen in a long time, and I didn’t have the strength to keep reminding people of this.

But the Los Angeles Film Critics Association did. A couple of hours ago they gave Mary Kay Place their Best Actress award. My immediate reaction was one of elation mixed with a little shame. Because, as I’ve just explained, I didn’t have the fortitude. HE salutes the LAFCA foodies for doing the right thing in this regard. They showed real backbone.

Many have said this is a weak year for Best Actress performances, and they’re not wrong. Lupita Nyong’o winning two (or is it three?) Best Actress trophies for channelling Jamie Lee Curtis in her John Carpenter phase is proof of that. But Mary Kay Place is the real deal. Her Diane turn is more arresting than any other female performance I’ve seen this year.

IFC Films hasn’t mounted a Best Actress campaign for MKP because they’ve haven’t the surplus dough, but this shouldn’t stop Academy and SAG members from watching Diane at the first opportunity. It’s streaming right now on Amazon.

From my 3.27.19 review: “The Oscar situation is always weighted against intimate, small-scaled films that open in the spring, but at the very least Diane is a guaranteed Gotham and Spirit Awards contender for Best Picture. And I can’t imagine Mary Kay Place, who plays the titular character, not being an all-but-certain contender for a Best Actress Oscar nom. Unless SAG and Academy voters take leave of their senses. Which is always a possibility.”

As we speak Place is anything but an all but certain contender for a Best Actress Oscar nom, in part because of cowards like myself.

“Diane is really and truly the shit. Even if you’re a GenZ or Millennial who doesn’t want to think about what life will be like 35 or 40 years hence, it’ll still sink in. There are those, I’m presuming, who’d rather not settle into a simple Bressonian saga about the weight of responsibility and life being a hard-knocks thing a good part of the time. Or who’d rather not consider the existence of a 70-year-old New England woman who lives alone but has good friends, and who drives carefully, tries to do the right thing, works part-time in a homeless soup kitchen and has been coping with certain dark recollections for decades.

Gal Gadot: “My lieyeefe…(beat)…hahsn’t been whutyouproblythinkithahs….(bump-bump-bump-bump)…we ahll have our strahggles.”

Kristin Wiig: “Yehvuhbeeninlohhf?

GG (smiling): “A lohnng time agooh.”

I guess I’m wondering why Chris Pine‘s Steve Trevor character, a mortal in his mid 30s when he ran into Wonder Woman during the first World War and who sorta kinda blew himself up in Act Three…I’m not only wondering how he escaped death, but how come he isn’t at least 105 years old in 1984? Obviously there’s an explanation.

I mostly hated the first Wonder Woman. I was okay with Gadot and Pine’s romantic scenes, but I hated the D.C. Amazonian-destiny-mythology bullshit. I found Robin Wright‘s Antiope and Connie Nielsen‘s Hippolyta irksome, and I couldn’t stand Danny Huston‘s Erich Ludendorff and David Thewlis‘s Ares. Their turgid dialogue, I mean.

Welcome to 1984…to big hair, shoulder pads, no smart phones or iPads, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Reagan in the White House, Huey Lewis and the News‘ “The Heart of Rock & Roll”, shitty 480p TVs, Lionel Richie performing “All Night Long” at the close of the Los Angeles Olympics, etc. Oh, and disco was dead in ’84 — it flourished from ’76 to ’80 or ’81.

I was still the proverbial lad in ’84…no marriage, no kids, driving a beater, living in Beachwood Canyon.

The Toronto Film Critics Association (TFCA) have given Bong Joon-ho‘s Parasite their Best Picture and Best Foreign-language Film award, and also their Best Director trophy….c’mon! Parasite is a worthy, well-made film but it’s not without issues or speedbumps. What purpose does it serve to pour this much award syrup over it? If they’re going to give their Best Picture and Best Director awards to Parasite, why not give the foreign language award to Les Miserables or Portrait of a Lady on Fire? As in, you know, “spread it around”?

Martin Scorsese‘s The Irishman has scored 14 nominations for the forthcoming Critics’ Choice Awards, and Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood has been handed 12 noms.

Not to make any rash predictions, but do you know what this means? I’ll tell you what this means, given that the Critics Choice Awards have generally tended to mirror Oscar noms and winners. It means that the odds strongly favor The Irishman winning the Best Picture Oscar, and that Quentin’s film…who knows? Some kind of split vote outcome. Possibly a Best Director of Best Screenplay makeup…something like that.

The CC gang has given The Irishman noms for best picture, director, best actor (Robert De Niro), best supporting actor (Al Pacino and Joe Pesci) and best acting ensemble, among others.

The other heavyweight CC contenders are Little Women (nine nominations), Marriage Story (eight) plus Jojo Rabbit and Parasite (seven noms each).

The foodiest critics group in the world is now voting. This is who they are, what they stand for, what they care about most….toasted bagels and fruit and potato salad. No, seriously — they mostly care about defying Joe Popcorn mindsets. Which is cool.

HE acronyms (Yay), (Fine), (HRO) and (WTF) signify hearty approval, moderate approval, “huh, really?…okay” and “what the fuck?”

Best Film: Parasite / (HRO). Runner-Up: The Irishman. HE commentary: Parasite is a far lesser film than The Irishman, but the people who have been doing Parasite handstands since last May can’t be stopped. They know it’s a less-than-perfect film, but they won’t back off because it focuses on vast social inequity.

Best Director: Bong Joon-ho, Parasite / (HRO). Runner-Up: Martin Scorsese, The Irishman.

Best Actor — Antonio Banderas, Pain and Glory / (Yay). Runner-up: Adam Driver, Marriage Story / (Fine).

Best Actress — Mary Kay Place, Diane / (Yay). Runner-Up: Lupita Nyong’o, Us. HE commentary: Insisting that Nyong’o’s scream-queen-meets-bug-eyed-zombie performance is award-worthy…I give up. It makes no sense to me. I never so much as flirted with the faintest fantasy that it might be an awards contender. In my mind it still isn’t. Nyong’o is a top-tier actress and she sold the dual-role thing, but genre-level performances don’t belong among award finalists. Because they’re defined by jizz-whiz and genre tropes.

Best Supporting Actor — Song Kang Ho, the father/limo driver in Parasite / (HRO). Runner-up: Joe Pesci, The Irishman. HE commentary: Due respect but Song Kang Ho’s performance is on the broad, over-emphasized side. It doesn’t begin to approach the skill and absorption factors in Al Pacino and Joe Pesci‘s supporting turns in The Irishman, and lacks the confident charisma of Brad Pitt‘s Cliff Booth in Once Upon A Time in Hollywood. HE preference: Torn between Pacino and Pitt, leaning toward Pacino.

Best Supporting Actress — Jennifer Lopez, Hustlers / (Yay). Runner-Up>: Zhao Shuzhen, The Farewell.

Best Cinematography — Claire Mathon, Portrait Of A Lady on Fire and Atlantics / (Fine). Runner-up: Roger Deakins, 1917 (Yay). HE preference: Jarin Blaschke, The Lighthouse.

Best Production Design — Barbara Ling, Once Upon A Time in Hollywood / (WTF). Runner-up: Ha Jun Lee, Parasite. HE commentary: What was so noteworthy about the Once Upon A Time production design? Rick Dalton’s Cielo Drive ranch-style pad? The rickety shack that Bruce Dern‘s George Spahn lives in? Lighthouse production designer Craig Lathrop built a rustic 19th Century home plus a worn-looking brick lighthouse from the ground up — nothing in OUATIH or Parasite compares to this.

Best Musical Score — Dan Levy, I Lost My Body / (Fine) HE preference: Robbie Roertson, The Irishman.

Voting among members of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, arguably the flakiest and most whimsically oddball major critics group in the country, is expected to begin at 10 ayem. Or somewhere in that vicinity. HE readers know the LAFCA drill. They’ll vote on five or six categories in the late morning, and then take a 45-minute brunch break, and then return to vote on the last four or five or whatever, including the Best Picture prize.

Posted on 12.9.18: The year-end awards decided by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association are almost always outside the box. When they champion a film or a performance that I happen to share admiration for, I go ‘yay.’ But more often my reaction to their left-field picks is (a) ‘huh, really?…okay” or (b) ‘what the fuck?’ I will therefore signal my reactions today with either (Yay), (HRO) or (WTF).” Same deal today. Naturally I’m hoping for at least a few yays, but you know LAFCA.

I’m not saying LAFCA isn’t dedicated to celebrating quality (I was elated when they gave last year’s Best Actor award to First Reformed‘s Ethan Hawke), but they have to do that LAFCA thing, that “hey, look at us, we’re nervy and different” between bites of bagels and lox and cream cheese and small chunks of fruit. Deciding to award some kind of arbitrary, socially progressive notion or belief scheme of the moment, I mean. A choice that will feel like the right kind of politically correct fulfillment or projection — a choice that will point the way and incidentally defy the Gold Derby-ites.

Outside the Amazon holiday party — Saturday, 12.7, 9:25 pm.