Author: Scott Feinberg / Source: The Hollywood Reporter
As if this awards season wasn’t already wide-open enough, with no clear frontrunner yet in any major category, Monday night’s 28th Gotham Awards further confused matters.
Both Eighth Grade and First Reformed — indies’ indies — took home prizes for their respective writer/directors — Bo Burnham won best breakthrough director and Paul Schrader won best screenplay — and stars — Eighth Grade‘s Elsie Fisher won best breakthrough actor and First Reformed‘s Ethan Hawke won best actor. But neither film won best feature.
The presumptive frontrunners for that award, Yorgos Lanthimos‘ The Favourite and Barry Jenkins‘ If Beale Street Could Talk, were upended in the category by Chloe Zhao‘s modern-day western The Rider.Beale Street went 0-for-2 on the night; The Favourite did pick up two preordained special prizes — best ensemble and a Rachel Weisz career tribute — but lost in all three categories in which it was nominated. Meanwhile, one of the year’s most critically acclaimed films, Roma, which is technically an indie even though it’s being distributed by Netflix, was up for just one award — best breakthrough actress, for Yalitza Aparacio — and lost. And the evening’s sole standing ovation was accorded to indie icon Willem Dafoe, not in recognition of his transformative portrayal of Vincent van Gogh in Julian Schanbel‘s At Eternity’s Gate — he wasn’t even nominated for that — but as he collected a career tribute following a glowing introduction from Laurie Anderson.
So what does it all mean?!
The Gothams, I always say, are to the Oscars what the Iowa caucuses are to a presidential election: they’re the first “results” to come in, so they get a lot of attention, but the reality is there is actually no reason to believe they tell us anything about what’s still to…
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