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My WAFCA Ballot

Posted By Sonny Bunch On In Culture | Comments Disabled
The Witch

The Washington Area Film Critics Association, which was foolish enough to induct me into its ranks years ago, released its nominees for its annual year-end awards yesterday; winners will be announced tomorrow. In the interest of transparency,* I figured I'd share my nominees and some thoughts on the choices with y'all. (I'll update this post Monday morning when the winners are announced.)

Update: Here are the winners. Big morning for La La Land. Can't say I'm surprised, even if I didn't think it's one of the top five films of the year; it's a crowd-pleaser. The winner I'm most disappointed in is Natalie Portman taking best actress for Jackie. She overacts in a sub-HBO docudrama. Whoopity do. End Update.

The way it works is that each critic submits a list with up to five nominees in each category. Choices are weighted, which is to say that your top choice gets more points than the last choice. Just FYI: Silence, Patriots Day, and Rogue One did not screen for us, hence their absence from my ballot.

OK, here's what I nominated in every category:

Best Film

Arrival and Hell or High Water are the two best films I've seen this year, and it's not particularly close. That being said, I really liked Hail, Caesar! and Love & Friendship as well; you'll see them pop up quite a bit in my ballot. That they were both entirely shut out is disappointing, but not surprising. If I could redo this entry, I might put The Witch in the five-hole.

Best Director

Best Actor

Edgerton is low-key great in Loving: a bit shy, overwhelmed by the position he finds himself in. I imagine the Oscar race will come down to Denzel and Affleck, however. Gun to my head, Denzel probably ends up winning. He does a lot of actoring in Fences, you guys.

Best Actress

Beckinsale is delightful in Love & Friendship, and the fact that she (and the film) is not getting more love from awards-givers thus far is a real travesty.

Best Supporting Actor

Ali's to lose, and for good reason (he's the best thing about Moonlight by a wide margin). But Tom Bennett is hilarious in Love & Friendship and really, really deserves more attention.

Best Supporting Actress

Davis' to lose. I nominated Abbey Lee for the second straight year in this category (she is the blonde in Fury Road) because I think she really brings a special something to the big screen.

Best Acting Ensemble

Best Voice Performance

Best Motion Capture Performance

Best Youth Performance

The Witch's somewhat controversial closing scene (in which we learn what we're watching is actually a radicalization narrative) only really works because Taylor-Joy sells it so perfectly.

Best Adapted Screenplay

Best original Screenplay

Best Animated Feature

Best Documentary

Given that Anthony Weiner is directly responsible for defeating Hillary Clinton—no Weiner, no Comey Surprise; no Comey Surprise, no Trump in the White House—it would be remarkable if Weiner doesn't get an Oscar nomination.

Best Foreign Language Film

I hate this category. I don't actually like any of these movies.

Best Production Design

The Witch deserves this award. It won't win this award, but it deserves it. They recreated a 17th century Pilgrim outpost with basically no money! C'mon.

Best Cinematography

The category I most regret already. I'd drop La La Land and Hacksaw Ridge and sub in The Witch and Knight of Cups, if I could do it over again.

Best Editing

Nocturnal Animals is a bit of a mess, but the opening 35 minutes or so are almost unbearably tense, and I give the editing a lot of credit for maintaining that tension.

Best Original Score

Pretty solid category, all in all. Considering that The Neon Demon is best understood as a two-hour music video, it'll be a shame when La La Land wins this category. Whatever, I'm just glad Neon Demon got the nomination.

The Joe Barber Award for Best Portrayal of Washington, DC

*Transparency and the need for #content, that is.