Once upon a time the Manhattan-based Gotham Awards, generally known for their lunatic wokey leanings, were more or less the east coast version of the Spirit Awards, and this meant that eligible films had to have been produced for $35 million or lower. (The Spirit budget cap is $30 million but close enough.) But the Gotham budget cap was removed in 2023 to allow for “a more inclusive submission pool” of potential nominees.
Which is how and why the masssively expensive, progressive-left-leaning One Battle After Another has been nominated for a Gotham Best Feature award. The other nominees are Bugonia, East of Wall, Familiar Touch, Hamnet, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You? (a mute nostril agony film if I’ve ever seen one), Lurker, Sorry, Baby (HE’s personal preference to win!), The Testament of Ann Lee and Train Dreams.
Sessue Hayakawa’s Colonel Saito: “I hate the Gotham Wokeys! They have no shame about praising woke bonafides and identity credentials while giving secondary consideration to achievements in film that are primarily merit-based…no shame about this! In 2023 they gave May December‘s Charles Melton their Best Supporting Actor award because of his half-Asian ancestry (his mother is Korean), and then they lied about this in the aftermath!
“The Gotham Wokey gangbangers are stubborn mules but they have no pride. They endure but haven’t the courage to stand up straight and tall for cinematic art. Plus they’ve blown off gender-based acting categories. I hate them…they’re propagandists!”
On top of which the Gotham Wokeys have failed to nominate Joachim Trier‘s Sentimental Value for their Best International Feature award…WHY? The nominees are Jafar Panahi‘s It Was Just an Accident (not good enough– won in Cannes for political reasons), Park Chan-Wook‘s No Other Choice, Richard Linklater‘s Nouvelle Vague (this should win!), Mascha Schilinski‘s Sound of Falling (another mute-nostril-agony contender) and Bi Gan‘s Resurrection.
The Outstanding Lead Performance Gotham Award will almost certainly go to Hamnet‘s Jessie Buckley, and the Outstanding Supporting Performance Gothamn trophy should be handed to either Sentimental Value‘s Stellan Skarsgard, One Battle After Another‘s Benicio Del Toro or Jay Kelly‘s Adam Sandler.