I would have liked to attend last night’s Gotham Awards as this would have put a little fire in the stove as far as reporting about it. I watched a video stream on my Macbook Air from a booth at Genghis Cohen, but when I got home I couldn’t write it up. You can’t force these things. And then for some perverse, self-negating reason I popped in a screener of Jonathan Glazer‘s Under The Skin and quickly renewed my feelings of acute boredom and dislike for it. Yeah, it’s “brilliant”…sure thing, later. The guy who directed Sexy Beast died a long time ago.
Birdman‘s Michael Keaton during his acceptance speech at last night’s Gotham Awards.
I cheered the triumphs of Alejandro G. Inarritu‘s Birdman and star Michael Keaton when they won Best Feature and Best Actor. And like everyone else I felt assured by the first official, organizational declaration that “overdue” and sure-to-be-consecrated Julianne Moore is the right Best Actress contender at the right moment, and that the Bataan death march experience of Still Alice is not enough to interfere with this fait accompli.
I was especially heartened by Laura Poitras‘s Citizenfour winning Best Documentary only a few hours after this same honor was announced by the New York Film Critics Circle. The Academy’s dodo bird contingent now understands that blowing off Citizenfour as a Best Documentary Feature nominee will be regarded by the world community as nothing short of pathetic. Variety‘s Tim Gray and others have hinted that there may be a resistance to Citizenfour out here. Go for it, guys. As Christopher Plummer‘s Mike Wallace character says in The Insider, “Fame has a fifteen minute half-life…infamy lasts a little longer.”
Congrats to Team Foxcatcher for taking the best ensemble award, and to director Bennett Miller for received the career tribute award in directing, and to Tilda Swinton for having received the same award for acting. I’ve suddenly recognized that Swinton deserves a Best Supporting Actress nom for the punctuating edge and humor that she brought to Snowpiercer. We’re looking at a relatively weak Supporting Actress field this year but not in Swinton’s case.
HE to Uma Thurman: Ask around and you will learn that there is a certain respectful resistance to the idea that Ira Sachs‘ Love Is Strange is “an instant classic.” You may find, in fact, that there is at least limited agreement that it lacks a pulse.
I would love to embed a video of highlights of the 2014 Gotham Awards (or of the whole thing) but nothing has been posted. Okay, maybe it has but it’s too hard to find.
