Posted around 4:15 pm today:

9 days ago::

Today:

I’ve thought it since I saw the film in September, and I still think it now: Poor Things has a good shot to win the Best Picture Oscarpic.twitter.com/4bgsQxvn3G

— Brian Rowe (@mrbrianrowe) December 10, 2023

4:15 pm eastern: All hail the Gods of Rome! Not only did Killers of the Flower Moon‘s Lily Gladstone fail to win the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Leading Performance Award, but she didn’t even place in runner-up status (although she did so qualify in the supporting category). For now at least, her identity campaign has been stopped in its tracks…screech! The award has been split between Anatomy of a Fall‘s Sandra Hüller, and Poor Things‘ Emma Stone.

The runner-ups are All of Us Strangers‘ Andrew Scott and American Fiction’s Jeffrey Wright,

LAFCA’s Best Supporting Performance awards have gone to Rachel McAdams, (Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret) and The Holdovers‘ Da’Vine Joy Randolph. Runners-up: Lily Gladstone, Killers of the Flower Moon, and Ryan Gosling, Barbie.

Earlier today: The Los Angeles Film Critics Association is widely regarded as perhaps the most fickle and eccentric awards-bestowing org on the planet. We all know this. Don’t argue.

Not only have they chopped the roster of eligible acting winners in half by dispensing with gender, but they’re known worldwide as the only major critics group that routinely takes a brunch break during voting….bagels and soft-spread cream cheese, lox and onions, potato salad, pickles, Ruffles chips, half-consumed jars of mayonnaise, etc. They’re dedicated to their eccentricity, and when they vote each year everyone says “okay, here come the virtue-signalling fruit loops.” Not that bagels, cream cheese, onions and wokeness necessarily go hand in hand.

Seven years ago (i.e., late ’16) LAFCA gave Lily Gladstone their Best Supporting Actress award for having stared longingly at Kristen Stewart while saying almost nothing in Kelly Reichardt‘s Certain Women — basically an attagirl identity award for Gladstone playing her own rural Native American self while conveying lesbian currents.

You just know they’re going to come roaring back and give her their Best Actress trophy for doing roughly the same thing in Killers of the Flower Moon, or for playing a hetero Native American woman staring daggers at Robert DeNiro and the other bad guys while saying almost nothing.

So far…

Best Screenplay: All of Us Strangers. Andrew Haigh.
Runner-up: May December, Samy Burch.

Best Cinematography: Poor Things (Searchlight) — Robbie Ryan
Runner-up: Killers of the Flower Moon (Apple Original Films/Paramount Pictures) — Rodrigo Prieto

Best Production Design: Barbie (Warner Bros.) — Sarah Greenwood
Runner-up: Poor Things (Searchlight Pictures) — Shona Heath, James Price

Best Music Score: The Zone of Interest (A24) — Mica Levi, sound designer Johnnie Burn.
Runner-up: Barbie (Warner Bros.) — Mark Ronson, Andrew Wyatt.

Did you know that the late Robbie Robertson, who composed the metronomically rythmic tom-tom score for Killers of the Flower Moon, waas born with Native Anerican blood? His mother, Rosemarie Dolly Chrysler, was a blend of Cayuga and Mohawk, and was raised on the Six Nations of the Grand River reserve southwest of Toronto.

And did you know that Robertson’s score stands completely on its own, and that his ethnicity means very little if anything in terms of the final impact? His music understands what Killers is about more than this torn and confused film knows itself. The Best Score Oscar is Robertson’s to lose. The work, not the blood.

Carey Mulligan and Michael Fassbender are obviously fine, gifted, thoughtful and certainly insightful artists….two youngish people in theh absolute fullness of their lives. But these Variety encounters are nonetheles vapid. Because they’ve been instructed (and have gone along with the instruction) to keep it fleet and zippy and mutually flattering and whatnot, and if you miss one of these conversations you’re fine. If you’ve seen their respective award-season films (Maestro and The Killer), you’ve got what you need. They’re both perfect.