The Washington Area Film Critics Association, which was foolish enough to accept me as a member, announced its year-end awards this morning. The winners, with a few thoughts, after the jump.
Best Film:
Spotlight
Best Director:
George Miller (Mad Max: Fury Road)
Best Actor:
Leonardo DiCaprio (The Revenant)
Best Actress:
Saoirse Ronan (Brooklyn)
Best Supporting Actor:
Idris Elba (Beasts of No Nation)
Best Supporting Actress:
Alicia Vikander (Ex Machina)
Best Acting Ensemble:
Spotlight
Best Youth Performance:
Jacob Tremblay (Room)
Best Adapted Screenplay:
Emma Donoghue (Room)
Best Original Screenplay:
Pete Docter, Meg LeFauve, and Josh Cooley (Original Story by Pete Docter and Ronnie Del Carmen) (Inside Out)
Best Animated Feature:
Inside Out
Best Documentary:
Amy
Best Foreign Language Film:
Son of Saul
Best Production Design:
Production Designer: Colin Gibson, Set Decorator: Lisa Thompson (Mad Max: Fury Road)
Best Cinematography:
Emmanuel Lubezki, ASC, AMC (The Revenant)
Best Editing:
Margaret Sixel (Mad Max: Fury Road)
Best Original Score:
Jóhann Jóhannsson (Sicario)
You can check out the nominees here, below the winners.
Okay, so, first off, full disclosure: I haven't seen The Revenant yet because it screened just once for critics and on a night that I had already agreed to appear on a panel. Therefore I have no strong thoughts on Leo taking Best Actor In A Film Featuring Bear Rape or Lubezki's win for cinematography.
How do I feel about Spotlight beating out Mad Max: Fury Road for best picture?
I kid, a bit. It's not that I don't like Spotlight, mind you. Indeed, Spotlight was number two on my list of nominees! But the gap between number one and number two this year was quite large, to my mind, in part because one is pure cinema and the other is simply pretty good storytelling: Mad Max is a movie that can only really be told on the big screen; Spotlight could've easily been a staged production or a premium cable movie.
That being said, I do find it weirdly amusing that the race for best picture may come down to a choice between a staid, cable-esque Movie Of The Week About Important Issues and a balls-to-the-wall action flick featuring a guy who plays a guitar that shoots fire from its neck. Leaving aside the New York Film Critics Circle—which picked the remarkably, dreadfully dull Carol—we now have wins for Spotlight from WAFCA, the Boston Film Critics Society, New York Film Critics Online, and the Los Angeles Film Critic Association. Mad Max: Fury Road, meanwhile, has wins from the National Board of Review and the Boston Online Film Critics. Granted, Fury Road is not exactly Oscar-bait. But this has been a weird year lacking a clear consensus establishment pick (gee, seems familiar) and I could see Miller's film snagging a best picture nom.
Anyway, back to WAFCA. I think my favorite win was Alicia Vikander's victory in supporting actress. Ex Machina (reviewed here) is a movie that did not get nearly as wide an audience as it deserved, and it doesn't work without Vikander's alternately warm and chilly AI-infused robot. And I'm really glad Sixel won for best-editing; lord only knows how she stitched Fury Road together in a coherent way.