Awards Season 2020: Film Independent Spirit Awards Nominations

Brace yourself...

Yep, with today's announcement of the nominees for the 35th Film Independent Spirit Awards, awards season 2020 has begun!

As you will probably know by now, the Film Independent Spirit Awards recognise films made wholly or partly outside the traditional studio system (although there is becoming an increasingly wide overlap between these and the more 'mainstream' awards). 

Below is a selection of nominations:

Best Feature

A Hidden Life

Clemency

The Farewell

Marriage Story

Uncut Gems

Best Director

Robert Eggers (The Lighthouse)

Alma Har'el (Honey Boy)

Julius Onah (Luce)

Benny Safdie & Josh Safdie (Uncut Gems)

Lorene Scafaria (Hustlers)

Best Male Lead

Chris Galust (Give Me Liberty)

Kelvin Harrison Jr. (Luce)

Robert Pattinson (The Lighthouse)

Adam Sandler (Uncut Gems)

Matthias Schoenaerts (The Mustang)

Best Female Lead

Karen Allen (Colewell)

Hong Chau (Driveways)

Elisabeth Moss (Her Smell)

Mary Kay Place (Diane)

Alfre Woodard (Clemency)

Renée Zellweger (Judy)

Best Supporting Male

Willem Dafoe (The Lighthouse)

Noah Jupe (Honey Boy)

Shia LaBeouf (Honey Boy)

Jonathan Majors (The Last Black Man In San Francisco)

Wendell Pierce (Burning Cane)

Best Supporting Female

Jennifer Lopez (Hustlers)

Taylor Russell (Waves)

Zhao Shuzhen (The Farewell)

Lauren 'Lolo' Spencer (Give Me Liberty)

Octavia Spencer (Luce)

A full list of nominees can be found here.

Uncut Gems and The Lighthouse have five nominations apiece, whilst Honey Boy and Give Me Liberty both have four. 

The Film Independent Spirit Awards will be given out on Saturday 8th February 2020.

So, it's officially started! The next major piece of awards news will be on 8th December, when the Critics' Choice Awards nominations will be announced. 

For Your Consideration: Possible Contenders For Awards Season 2020

It's beginning to look a lot like awards season. That's come around quick, hasn't it? 

For me, it officially kicks off tomorrow (Thursday 21st November) with the announcement of this year's Film Independent Spirit Awards. Those of you who are not fans of this self-congratulatory flim-flam will be pleased to know that it's a shorter awards season for 2020, as the main event- the 92nd Academy Awards- are at the start of February (Sunday 9th February) rather than the end as has been usual over the last years. So it's approximately three weeks shorter. I'm sure that'll be cold comfort for some...

As has been my custom, I've had a look through this year's major festivals and have rounded up a list of films that you might be hearing a lot about over the next few months.

Awards bodies liking movies about movies and movie-making? As Hans Landa says in Inglourious Basterds, 'that's a bingo!' Expect to see Once Upon A Time In Hollywood being a big part of awards season 2020, with nominations for Best Picture, as well as nods for Quentin Tarantino (for writing and directing), Leonardo DiCaprio (for playing faded TV actor Rick Dalton), Brad Pitt (for playing Dalton's stunt double Cliff Booth) and Margot Robbie (for playing real-life actress Sharon Tate). Early rumour has it that DiCaprio will be put forward in the Lead Actor categories, whilst Pitt will compete for Supporting Actor awards. It pulls the same historical revision schtick that Inglourious Basterds does, but that probably won't put too many people off. 

Inspired by director Noah Baumbach's own divorce from actress Jennifer Jason Leigh, Marriage Story tells the tale of Nicole (Scarlett Johansson) and Charlie Barber (Adam Driver), an actress and theatre director respectively, whose relationship fails and they navigate the emotional waters of divorce whilst trying to do right by their child. Both Johansson and Driver have been given rave reviews for their performances, and films that show divorce are rare. There's able support by Laura Dern and Alan Alda and the script has been praised as being insightful and compassionate. It also won People's Choice Award (First Runner-Up) at Toronto, which means it's one to watch. 

Scorsese. De Niro. Pacino. Pesci. Feels like The Irishman was positively made to be an awards magnet. De Niro plays former mob hitman Frank Sheeran who may (or may not) have had something to do with the disappearance of labour union leader Jimmy Hoffa (played by Pacino), who vanished  in 1975 and has never been found. It's one of those weighty biographical crime dramas much beloved of awards bodies; but will the fact that it's made for Netflix scupper its chances? 

Clint Eastwood's biopic Richard Jewell might also do well (so long as it is eligible). Jewell's story is one of those that would seem farfetched if it didn't actually happen: Jewell was working as a security guard at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta and got wind of a plot to bomb the Centennieal Olympic Park. When the bomb detonated, Jewell saved lives... and was then accused of planting the bomb himself. This kind of story is awards catnip, so there may be nods for Eastwood, Paul Walter Hauser (who plays Jewell), Sam Rockwell (who plays Jewell's lawyer) and Kathy Bates (who plays Jewell's mother Bobi).

A black-comedy thriller, Parasite [Gisaengchung] won the Palme d'Or at this year's Cannes Film Festival, and is also South Korea's entry for the Academy's Best International Feature. It also won People's Choice Award (Second Runner-Up) at Toronto, so it's getting a lot of notice over and above the foreign language market. A twisted tale of a lower-class family insinuating themselves into a middle-class family's life, it may well follow Roma's lead and be nominated for awards outside of just foreign language films.  

Sticking with foreign language films for the moment, Pain And Glory [Dolor Y Gloria] is Pedro Almodóvar's latest (and most personal) film. Antonio Banderas won the Best Actor award at Cannes for playing film director Salvador Mallo (a facsimile for Almodóvar himself) as he remembers his past and tries to break a creative impasse. Penélope Cruz has also been praised for her performance as the younger version of Salvador's mother Jacinta. Almodóvar has been nominated for a Best Director Oscar previously (for Talk To Her [Hable Con Ella] in 2003) so may get his second here. 

1917 may well get nominations, especially in the technical categories, due to the amount of technical expertise used to make the film look like one single long take which plays out in real time. Two young British privates during the First World War are given an impossible mission: deliver a message deep in enemy territory that will stop 1600 men, and one of the soldier's brothers, from walking straight into a deadly trap. Directed by Sam Mendes, this should be an unusual (but worthwhile) experience.

Who doesn't love a good old whodunit? Rian Johnson gets behind the lens for Knives Out, a murder mystery in which a gentleman detective (played by Daniel Craig) investigates the mysterious death of successful mystery writer Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer). But with a house-load of suspects and motives aplenty, anyone could have done it... a starry cast including Chris Evans, Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Shannon, Toni Collette, and Ana de Armas makes this an intriguing proposition. 

Right... you're just going to have to go with me on this one. Jojo Rabbit won the People's Choice Award at this year's Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), which is usually a good barometer of awards success, which is why I've included it in this round-up. But do awards bodies have the stones to nominate a World War II film in which a young German boy (whose imaginary friend is Adolf Hitler [played by the film's director Taika Waititi]) learns his mother is hiding a Jewish girl in the attic? Without having seen the film, I can't make any judgement on whether it is satire or just in incredibly poor taste. Expect that debate to rage on. 

Adam Sandler could get nominated for an Oscar. I'll take 'sentences I never thought I'd write with any sincerity' or 'there's a better chance of Satan ice-skating to work than this happening' for $500, Alex. But... strange as it may seen, Sandler is getting some of the best notices of his career for his role in the Safdie Brothers' Uncut Gems, playing a charismatic New York jeweller pursuing his next big score. If nothing else, he might end up with the Razzie Redeemer next year!

Le Mans '66 [previously titled Ford V Ferrari] might also see some awards love (as with 1917, potentially in the technical fields) for its recreations of the 1966 Le Mans 24hr race which saw Ford- who had developed a revolutionary new car- challenge Ferrari for the title. So far, does what it says on the tin. Matt Damon and Christian Bale play American designer Carroll Shelby and British driver Ken Miles who help to build the mean machine. High-octane racing, true-life story? Should see this mentioned quite a bit. 

Edward Norton pulls double-duty in Motherless Brooklyn, both directing and starring in this 1950s-set crime drama based on a novel by Jonathan Lethem. Norton plays a private detective, who has Tourette's, as he investigates the murder of his mentor and friend. Other cast members include Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Alec Baldwin, and Willem Dafoe. Dafoe also appears in The Lighthouse, directed by Robert Eggers, about two lighthouse keepers who try to keep their sanity whilst living on a remote New England island in the 1890s. Dafoe's co-star is Robert Pattinson, clearly getting the independent movie itch out of his system before he plays Batman. The Lighthouse is moody, black-and-white, and apparently weird as all get-out. It might be too rich for the blood of most awards bodies, but is worth mentioning nonetheless.

Legal thrillers and courtroom dramas also do well at awards times, so you might see Just Mercy and Dark Waters being mentioned too (subject to them meeting any eligibility criteria). Just Mercy stars Michael B. Jordan as lawyer Bryan Stevenson, as he attempts to overturn the conviction of a man sentenced to die for a crime he didn't commit. Dark Waters stars Mark Ruffalo as corporate defence attorney Robert Bilott who takes on an environmental lawsuit which exposes a company's long history of pollution. 

Literary adaptations tend to do well at awards time, so there's two that you might be hearing a lot of. First is The Personal History Of David Copperfield, directed by Armando Iannucci with Dev Patel in the title role, supported by a starry cast including Tilda Swinton, Peter Capaldi, Hugh Laurie, Ben Whishaw, and Gwendoline Christie. The second is Greta Gerwig's adaptation of Little Women, with Saoirse Ronan, Emma Watson, Laura Dern, Timothée Chalamet and Meryl Streep. Previous film adaptations of Little Women have done the business at awards time, so this may well do the same. 

You might think that Cats is a bit of a shoo-in for some awards love. Big musical adaptations do tend to do well. But there's a bit of a fly in the ointment here: the deadlines for eligibility for several major awards bodies pass in early December, and- as yet- there have been no planned showings prior to its release around Christmas. Although I can see one silver lining if it misses the window - at least we won't get subjected to bloody 'Memory' over and over again...

Biopics also do well at awards season, so here are several that might get nods

- The Two Popes: directed by Fernando Meirelles (City of God, The Constant Gardener), this film documents a meeting between Pope Benedict XVI (Anthony Hopkins) and Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio (Jonathan Pryce) who would go on to succeed Benedict as Pope Francis when Benedict resigned in 2013. Both actors have been praised, with particular attention given to Pryce who might get his first Oscar nomination at the ripe age of 73.

- A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood: if you were going to cast someone to play Fred Rogers (a.k.a. The Nicest Man Who's Ever Lived), Tom Hanks would surely be a no-brainer. Well, that's exactly what Marielle Heller (Can You Ever Forgive Me?) did. Rumour has it, though, that Hanks has been submitted in the Supporting Actor category with co-star Matthew Rhys in the main. Either way, I'd expect to see Hanks mentioned a lot.  

- Rocketman: Taron Egerton's performance in this raucous, musical fantasia about the life of Elton John is committed and superb, and he deserves (and may well get) a lot of awards love for it, not least because he does all his own singing too. Also, a massive shout-out to the costume design because it is immense and incredibly detailed!

- Judy: Renée Zellweger is uncanny as the late, great Judy Garland in this biopic about the screen legend's latter days in London. It goes beyond mimicry to find the soul of the woman behind and, even if the film itself is a bit by-the-numbers, Zellweger's emotive performance is just superb. 

- Bombshell: this timely look at the exposé into the "alleged" harrassment of several female Fox News staff by its late founder Roger Ailes has been garnering a lot of love for several members of the cast, including Charlize Theron as news anchor Megyn Kelly and Nicole Kidman as commentator Gretchen Carlson. 

- Harriet: Odd to think, with all the films that have been made on the subject of the abolition of slavery in the US, that this is the first film made about the extraordinary life of Harriet Tubman. She helped dozens of slaves get to freedom via a network of activists and safe-houses also known as the Underground Railroad. Cynthia Erivo (Widows, Bad Times At The El Royale) takes the title role and her performance has been highly praised, so expect to see her named.  

Will Joker see any awards love? Honestly... maybe. I don't know whether it'll be to the scale of Black Panther last year, but I'm certain it's going to get noticed. For all of its flaws (of which there are many), there's no denying that Joaquin Phoenix's performance is committed and intense, and his physical transformation is something that awards bodies tend to like. I wouldn't be surprised to see his name in some of the Best Actor categories- and the film winning the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival (a prize that usually goes to foreign-language auteur films) is an interesting sign. I've long said that awards bodies need to get over the sniffiness towards genre movies, and Black Panther's nominations last year seem to be a watershed in that tide changing, so who knows?

I thought I'd leave this question til last, as is my wont. Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker (or Episode IX, or whatever we're calling it) is- without hyperbole- one of the most hotly-anticipated films of the year, if not the decade. Could we see a Return Of The King-style awards jamboree for the final instalment, to celebrate the entire trilogy (and, the whole Skywalker saga as a whole)? I think (given the less-than-warm reception The Last Jedi has had in some quarters), it would have to be virtually perfect for that to happen. But stranger things have occurred. What's most likely is that it'll get a couple of token technical nods. It'll also depend on whether it makes the eligibility windows for this season. Speaking of which...

The timetable for the major awards in 2020 is as follows:

Film Independent Spirit Awards
Nominations announced: 21st November 2019
Awards ceremony: 8th February 2020

Critics' Choice Awards
Nominations announced: 8th December 2019
Awards ceremony: 12th January 2020

Golden Globes
Nominations announced: 9th December 2019
Awards ceremony: 5th January 2020

Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards
Nominations announced: 11th December 2019
Awards ceremony: 26th January 2020

Writers' Guild Of America (WGA) Award
Nominations announced: 6th January 2020
Awards ceremony: 1st February 2020

Producers' Guild Of America (PGA) Award
Nominations announced: 7th January 2020
Awards ceremony: 18th January 2020

Directors' Guild Of America (DGA) Award
Nominations announced: 7th January 2020
Awards ceremony: 25th January 2020

BAFTA Film Awards
Nominations announced: 7th January 2020
Awards ceremony: 2nd February 2020

Golden Raspberry Awards (Razzies)
Nominations announced: 12th January 2020
Awards ceremony: 8th February 2020

Academy Awards (Oscars)
Nominations announced: 13th January 2020
Awards ceremony: 9th February 2020

So a busy couple of months ahead - only one thing for it...

Review: Terminator: Dark Fate (UK Cert 15)

When Sarah Connor prevented Judgment Day, she changed the future and re-wrote the fate of humanity. Two decades on from that fateful day, a young Mexican woman called Daniella Ramos has her life upended when a ruthless new Terminator travels back in time to hunt and kill her. Luckily, she's got some help in the form of an augmented human (who has also travelled back in time) and Sarah herself...

Directed by Tiim Miller (Deadpool) and with a story co-written by James Cameron, there was anticipation that Cameron's return to the Terminatorverse would provide the much-needed spark to lift the franchise from the doldrums it's found itself in. Honestly, I saw the film more than a week ago and it's taken me this long to formulate what I think about it (and muster up the required enthusiasm to write about it). That should tell you something.

The first third of the film is strong, well-paced, and intermittently thrilling (a few very obvious CGI moments aside). Mackenzie Davis gives a decent turn as Grace, the augmented human from the future sent back to protect Dani. There's a couple of interesting choices made with Grace's character- such as her needing a cocktail of medicine to survive- even if it's a bit predictable as to how she is the one to be sent back. Natalia Reyes is also pretty strong as Dani, starting off as a normal girl whose life gets thrown into chaos (and I'm glad the script didn't go down the expected route that Dani is the mother of the next hero, reducing her agency and character to that of an incubator). Also, there's a great thrill in seeing Linda Hamilton back as Sarah Connor - battle-hardened, haunted, but still a bad-ass. So far, so good. 

But, ironically, the wheels fall off it once Arnold Schwarzenegger makes his appearance as the retired T-800 who now goes by the name of Carl. When the uneasy alliance between him and the trio forms, that's when the film loses its shine and becomes another painfully generic middle-of-the-road actioner. 

Schwarzenegger is serviceable, even if the backstory that 'Carl' has been given is all sorts of ridiculous. I was bothered less about that than others (hi, Rhys!) as there's a bizarre kind of narrative sense to it (at least, the beginning of it). But once he comes into the film, it devolves into set-piece after set-piece, and also the CGI starts to get really dodgy and really noticeable. Characterisation seems to go for a burtons as well, and the tension between Sarah and T-800 isn't played to its full strength.

When we talked about it, Matt joked that the film could have been called Terminator: The Force Awakens in that there's the passing of the torch to a new generation (with the old guard in the background). With the film bombing at the box office, it's unlikely that this will now happen. This is the fourth attempt to reboot/restart/reimagine the Terminator franchise and none of them have been successful (which is a shame as Salvation is a pretty strong start). Maybe they should leave it alone?

In conclusion, I realise it's damning the film with faint praise, but I went into the cinema with incredibly low expectations (after the dumpster fire that was Terminator: Genisys) and came out pleasantly surprised in some respects. There were bits I liked, but overall it's just very bland. 

Rating: 2.5 out of 5

Tez