Awards Season Unleashed! NYFCC, NBR, & Spirit Awards Picks, plus the Battle for Best Documentary

0:00Ryan Lattanzio:So good, so good, so good. New markdowns up to 70 % off are at Nordstrom Rack stores now. Stock up and stay big on shoes, tops, dresses, accessories, and more must-haves for summer. Join the Nordiclub to unlock exclusive discounts, shop new arrivals first, and more. Plus, buy online and pick up at your favorite rack store for free. Great brands, great prices. That's why you rack.

0:51Welcome to Screen Talk, IndieWire's weekly look at what's going on in Hollywood. I'm Anne Thompson in Los Angeles.

0:57Ryan Lattanzio:And I'm Ryan Latanzio in New York. It's been a very busy week for awards season, Anne, as I'm sure you know, but especially here in New York. So we're going to dig into all of that, including New York Film Critics Circle, National Board of Review, Spirit Award nominations. But we're also going to talk about the documentary Oscar Race, which you wrote about very closely in a piece in IndieWire this week. And so I'm hoping that between the two of us, we can narrow down the list of possibilities that looking at what movies have a chance as the short lists are coming up in two weeks and people are going to be voting next week.

1:32Ryan Lattanzio:Yeah. So and, you know, we have a lot of thoughts about all the awards that came out this week. Yeah, because, you know, the real trick is to sort of figure out what it all means. You know, some of these groups have more impact than others on the 10 ,000. I checked. It is 10 ,000 Oscar voters now because they invited like 500 over the summer. So they're figuring out what to watch. They're way behind us. They're way behind people who went to festivals and screenings. And, you know, we've pretty much caught up with everything at this point. I saw Avatar on Monday. That's a whole other subject. Avatar, fire and ash.

2:15Ryan Lattanzio:I didn't see it because of all the things going on this week and uh I was asked by my family to actually they saw my mom saw your post on Facebook and she said have you seen Avatar I'm really hoping that you can wait to see it with the family over the holidays because and so I am going to honor that for a couple of reasons one is we don't always do things as a group and it involves leaving the house so happy about that but also it is um well when you add the trailers, it's going to be almost five hours of not interacting with family and sitting in silence in the dark, which I would have, you know, clung to anyway.

2:55Ryan Lattanzio:And I would have escaped to go see it on Christmas Eve or something, even if my family didn't want to go. So for the record, to everyone listening, I have not seen Avatar. I didn't like the last few movies, so I don't expect that's going to shift for this one, but I will see it around Christmas. If you've seen the other two, this is an extension of the second one. It is a huge war movie, basically, or a Western, if you like. What is it? It's the settlers, you know, the indigenous people, you know, who are who are living in peaceful harmony with nature. And then the big machines arrive. But this is an extension of the war between the Sully family and the Miles Quadditch, played by Stephen Lang.

3:40And as such, it's very repetitive in many ways, but it is an extraordinary achievement also cinematically. And it's a lot of fun. I'm not going to deny it. I was very engaged with it for the whole three hours and 17 minutes. And even if it was repetitive and even if it was sometimes the dialogue was sometimes risible, because, you know, Cameron knows exactly how to reach a big audience, but he isn't necessarily playing to the critics. And I'm going to suggest that the critics may be tough on him on this.

4:12Ryan Lattanzio:Well, for him, reaching a big audience doesn't apparently doesn't mean good dialogue or passable writing, because those have been unendurable for the last couple of movies. All right. So moving on, we're going to figure out which of these groups actually have an impact on Oscar voters, because it's a rate. There's a range. The main function of these awards groups is to signal to the voters which films they should actually prioritize. It isn't like they're going to make up their own minds in the end. So like Rose Byrne Who won Best Actress at the New York Film Critics, we've been talking About her, we were on the case But now they're really going to Pay attention to And watch If I Had Legs I'd Kick You Or Amy Madigan in Weapons A lot of them may not have gone to see Weapons Now they will, that's nice Ryan That you would have that kind of power Right, so this was your And giving, you know, K-pop Demon Hunters Best Animation suggests that the rest of the field was weak, which I think it is.

5:19Ryan Lattanzio:It wasn't a strong year for animation. Yeah. And it, but it also adds credibility. I went to a party, a holiday party that Netflix people threw and they were ecstatic that they got K-pop demon hunters from the New York film critics. I'm sure. I mean, you think New York film critics, you think Little Amelie or the character of Rain, which I did watch and really enjoyed or Arco, which also is good. Yeah. Arco It was good. But overall, it wasn't, you know, there wasn't a surfeit of strong animated movies this year. And I think Zootopia was screening pretty late and doesn't need your help, obviously, since it's one of the big box office juggernauts of the year.

6:00Ryan Lattanzio:Of all time, basically, in terms of animated movies. Huge in China. We like China. All right. So you went to your first time voting at the New York Film Critics Group, The Circle, on Monday. What was it like to be in that room? I'm really curious, actually. Yeah, so they welcomed me in this year. Really grateful to be part of that group. And like I said before, it brings certain professional cachet, but it comes with other professional burdens as well. And so there's not, I can't say exactly, I'm really not allowed to talk too much about things that happened in the room. there were definitely some close calls I will say that but I can't say around which categories what I will say is that you picture critics voting in a room which here was at film at Lincoln Center at Walter Reed and you think it's like a town hall where people are standing up and and yelling into the clouds but it actually is a very civilized organized voting process that is pretty you know it's written and so it's not it's not contentious the way you would imagine it goes on for a while but it's a lot about a process of elimination and but what what i did appreciate about the results is that so many of these other awards bodies that we're going to talk about it's like they want to give everything to one battle after another they want to make up new awards for one battle after another just to give it everything that they've got but uh we at the new york film Critics Circle recognized that there were other movies to honor as well and so obviously One Battle won Best Feature but then also Benicio Del Toro for Best Supporting Actor and you know there obviously are other categories where other actors and other below the line talent and so forth are in play but you know we chose to go for movies like Secret Agent for Wagner Mora Best Actor also Best International Feature Sinners Autumn Durald Acapel for Cinematography supporting actress, as you said, Amy Madigan, which now elevates her presence as well.

8:11Ryan Lattanzio:And Rose Byrne also for best actress, especially as voters in these groups try to figure out is Chase Infinity lead? Is she supporting? She's going to lead for the Oscars, I believe, right? That is correct, because they want Tiana Taylor to win best supporting actress. She has to beat Ariana Grande. One of the movies that was left out of a lot of these

8:38groups, we didn't expect it to get in there. Wicked. I'm very curious to see one of the topics of discussion at the Netflix party last night was whether Avatar and we need to see the reviews for Avatar. That is the thing we need to parse. And it will do well. I'm not even worrying about that. It's going to be huge. But I do wonder about Wicked and Avatar getting into Best Picture That is starting to look like it may not be inevitable at all.

9:09Ryan Lattanzio:Now, there's definitely some backlash to Wicked at this point. And the other movie that's kind of dead in the ditch with some of these groups is Hamnet, actually, which we're not worried about at the Oscars whatsoever. That's going to play very well for that group. But it didn't win anything at New York Film Critics. Didn't win at Gotham's. I think there's other ones. It just hasn't really been coming up as much this week. Well, it's fair to say that the New York Film Critics Group is the one with the most clout and influence with the voters. And, you know, sometimes momentum, like, obviously, we're seeing some some patterns, momentum can push voters into deciding that they really do love CODA, or everything everywhere all at once.

9:54You know, it happens that way. There's a herd mentality at a certain point. so one battle after another really did win more than just the day arc film critics

10:05Ryan Lattanzio:yeah it won best feature at the gothams uh and which was another one where that movie was nominated across a number of categories and i was actually in the room at that ceremony on ceremony on monday i attend that one every year and you know that it's a little more arcane the voting process for that one it's these clusters of nominating committees that are critics and programmers and more high-minded kind of folks but it's like you get like three to five people voting on each of these categories so in some ways it doesn't mean anything it really doesn't and what else doesn't really mean anything about the Gothams is that there are these sort of pay for play tribute awards right for films like after the hunt that didn't receive any legitimate nominations at all at the Gothams and so you have Luca Guadagnino and Julia Roberts on stage probably understanding that they are there because Amazon bought a table.

10:59Ryan Lattanzio:And in some ways, I don't know if it risks illegitimizing the other awards, but I have been hearing that there was pressure on some of these committees to award the bigger films like Sinners, especially since Gotham's totally removed the budget cap. I don't remember what it was. It was like 35 million a few years ago and then they just took it off altogether. So that's how you see things like My Father's Shadow deservedly winning multiple awards but that almost felt like a rebellion against expectations to award to a bigger movie and same with spirit awards you have these genderless acting categories now which i find personally disgraceful well one of them is all women it's like there's hardly a man in there i i think it was supporting yeah which is probably a rebuke to other years where it was mostly men but it's like then you end up having 10 people vying for one award when you could have had 10 vying for two or five, you know, vying for two and more opportunity to spread the love.

11:56Ryan Lattanzio:I don't. This was a correction, overcorrection that happened a few years ago that has not been received well, critically, even then and still now. Well, hopefully they'll they'll go back. They'll figure it out. But also at the Netflix party, I have to say there were people complaining about the event itself, that it was boring and long and not well organized and they just didn't have a good time, which is not what you want. It's always a very long event. I think this year it ended after three hours, but it's one that you hope to be too. No, it's never that exciting, but it's early days so that there is some energy in the room and I had a good time walking around and talking to some of the nominees.

12:43The National Board of Review is another group of assorted, almost random educators and critics who don't overlap with the Academy. And their lists are poured over for meaning. Does it matter that Hamnet and Begonia are missing from these lists? I agree with you. Hamnet's going to make, it has passionate supporters. It has an emotional impact on some people, not all. Some people resist it. Some people really don't get it. But for the ones that it works on, they respond very powerfully. And I've talked to people in both camps, and I'm pretty confident that it will do well at the Oscars, as you say.

13:27And also, even in a world where you have genre films so strong at the top of, you know, one battle after another or Sinners, you know hamnet could could sneak through as the one that actually reaches people emotionally and feels like an oscar picture i'm not arguing one way or the other i love all three of those movies passionately i think they're all great but there's a there's a room where there's room for that to happen does it mean is it is it is it um is hamnet safe and foolproof no hamnet is slightly wobbly slightly wobbly what about begonia which i've never felt strongly to be an oscar contender

14:10Ryan Lattanzio:but you feel differently about that one it also didn't do that well it didn't make that much money i don't know okay it i mean in the world we live in today it's still playing it's still in theaters it's it's a well it's like you think about poor things that was massive even without the oscar nominations it was massive nuremberg is the one that's massive Nuremberg is at 12.7 domestic this is Sony Pictures Classics World War II movie that's why there is a thing for World War II movies oh yeah I told my dad to see that one yeah it's 16.8 worldwide your dad exactly yeah so so so the thing about Nuremberg is you know Michael Barker is not to be denied he's gonna push to get Michael Shannon into Best Supporting Actor and I will never underestimate him.

15:01I'm Still Here was the movie that he pushed through last year for Fernanda Torres as well as as international. But here's the here's the deal. Begonia is a question mark. I agree. But if you take Wicked and Avatar out of the top 10, what's going to be at the bottom of that list? That's what we've been talking about. You know, is it going to be one of these international films like it just it was just an accident? Of course, the Panahi News this week only supports that narrative. He's in absentia, sentenced to prison again.

15:35Ryan Lattanzio:And I don't know. I'm trying to figure out what the terms, what that actually means. And I think Mian is doing this in real time because he's headed to, he was just here in the US doing a kind of nationwide tour for that movie and doing lots of Q &As. And now he's either in now or headed to Marrakesh Film Festival. I think he's there now. But I don't know. I mean, it's like he'll probably go back to Paris. Yeah, he does. Because where he lives, like four months out of the year or something. Yeah. I mean, I don't think he I mean, this is a question about how can he return? Now, he has done it in the past, you know, returned.

16:11I spoke to someone at NEON who was suggesting that if if he did return, that there's such a spotlight on him that they would have to behave themselves somehow, the Iranian government. But if they've sentenced him to prison, why wouldn't they put him in prison, is my question. Yeah.

16:30Ryan Lattanzio:And they're doing it amid a steadily rising and increasingly successful Oscar campaign. So that is not that's not a coincidence. So, Ryan, what else is missing from all these lists? Well, again, Hamnet is not on the National Board of Review. Again, this is a gaggle of characters that doesn't necessarily impact things. It just gets people. It doesn't give it a boost. It isn't negative. It's not a negative, although people mention it, but it's not really. These lists are it's good if you get on them. And if you if you don't, you move on. yeah no other choice isn't showing up on these lists that wasn't even on indie wire's list of the top 25 movies of the year no other choice is interesting because i spoke to an academy member i said just one person i mean it doesn't mean anything but what they basically said was that it was chilly it was cold it didn't move them in any way they didn't care about those characters now i think it's a brilliant movie i don't think you need to care about characters to have a brilliant movie, I think it's okay to have loathsome characters like in Marty Supreme.

17:39I welcome them. Marty Supreme is all loathsome characters. But in this case, and that does people react to Marty Supreme that way, too, also, by the way.

17:50Ryan Lattanzio:Are these Academy members that find no other choice chilly people who have not had to worry about unemployment and don't identify with that struggle somehow? Because I think anyone who's been in that position finds that movie absolutely not chilly and quite engaging and moving for that reason my complaint about no other choice uh which is expertly directed and acted by park chen wook wook and lee byung hun uh gives a great performance but it is it's on the it's on the long side and i think it could make some of its points a little more concisely editorially speaking Yeah. I mean, and then the other movie that isn't appearing anywhere and is likely not very strong at the Oscars, and I admit this, I've said this already, is House of Dynamite.

18:41Ryan Lattanzio:That one's in trouble. People don't like it. That's the problem. And it's also being hurt by being on Netflix because of its chapter structure. People tune out. People don't stay riveted. You have to see it in a screening room. You have to see it in a situation where you're trapped and you're freaking out at how intense it is. Yeah. Or in my situation, the very first screening at Venice Film Festival, where I didn't know anything about the structure. It's also it's like on Netflix, people want to know, like, is the bomb going to drop? And then they probably skip to the end and the movie subverts what your expectations of this sort of atomic nuclear threat movie would be.

19:20This is one of those cases where I think the movie in some ways is smarter than the audience. And I admire it so much, but I can see that it isn't playing, you know, for a lot of people. Then there's Is This Thing On, the Bradley Cooper movie that debuted as a sort of just finished movie at the New York Film Festival. That one and Marty Supreme were sort of competing with each other there for attention and Marty Supreme came out ahead. but I like it is this thing on it's just a sweet small comedy but it doesn't feel like an Oscar movie at all never did for me no never it's it's it's a searchlight

20:02Ryan Lattanzio:release it's a it'll do well streaming on Hulu kind of movie that's that's what it's for it's unpretentious actually I like it for that I like it for being a about people talking to each other and relationships and and comedy and marriage. I love this movie, but it isn't elevated. It's funny. I've seen some ad spreads for this movie quoting. I don't know who they're quoting, but it says Laura Dern is a revelation. Maybe Laura Dern was a revelation in the 1980s, but there is nothing revelatory about Laura Dern at this point. She is a bona fide, established, incredible actress. She's still capable of surprising us, but I would not say that her turn in this movie as the wife of Will Arnett is exactly a revelation.

20:48Ryan Lattanzio:It is more in line with the contemporary character work that she's been doing recently. No, it's perfectly, she's fantastic. All right, let's move on to the delightfully, you kept using this word, I'll use it again, arcane indie spirit nominations. And what I mean by that is that most of the nominations are for independent films. That's what they do, that's what they should do and they're small and many people may not have heard of them um and the one that's gonna you know obviously come out ahead and win everything at the end of the day is train dreams which is netflix's uh sleeper that's coming along very nicely and uh could do well it could get into best picture and best actor and best screenplay adapted and with the spirit awards their budget cap is 30 million.

21:37Ryan Lattanzio:But if you look at best feature, Peter Hooger's Day, The Plague, Sorry Baby, Train Dreams, Twinless, these were all movies that were made for, I think the Train Dreams budget was 10 million, something like that. These are all on the lower end of the budget, especially something like Peter Hooger's Day. In other words, these actually are reflecting the independent spirit. Yeah, yeah, as they should. And I love that. I love the Independent at spirit awards and i look forward to it every year and uh it doesn't there is overlap with the oscars actually in their voting body so so if if something wins there it usually wins at the oscars you know pretty soon after so so i think train dreams is is looking good i really do and the spirit awards are a full month before the oscars this year so they're february 15.

22:27yeah so they do

22:28Ryan Lattanzio:have an impact and it's like oh every year that window gets wider and wider and the oscars seem to get further into the year but i know i know believe me i i'm not there yet but uh fatigue is about to set in the thing that's and we is settling in yes so and earlier this week you posted a really good piece that i also edited uh about how to win a documentary oscar that uses all of the documentary contenders this year to look at how historically these movies get a leg up, advance into the shortlist, and then eventually into the final five on the way to a win. And so I went over your points and wondered if there is an American subject that has a chance that the Oscars now, especially that 34 % of that doc branch is international versus 24 % of the rest of the voters.

23:19Ryan Lattanzio:And a lot of these contenders that we're talking about, these are international movies. Yeah, so last year, all five of the Oscar, the final five Oscar nominations and Best Documentary Feature were international. You could argue that Sugarcane was Canadian, but, you know, a Canadian co-production, but they're international. and that really struck people also and and they really it may come down to the movies themselves in other words this year will be a test we'll see if the same thing happens again there are some really strong movies that are American I suspect that the Alabama solution about prisons you know it's it's a tough sit it's it's a brilliant movie so Andrew Jarecki did did the the Alabama a solution, which that could be one that would not play for the voters overseas.

24:13And nowadays, you know, the distributors are actually campaigning overseas. They, even for the docks, they go to London, they go to Copenhagen, they go to Paris, you know, because they realize that they need to get the international voters. The Perfect Neighbor, which is a Netflix movie that did, is winning some awards. It won the Critics' Choice Awards, which is not necessarily a good thing. I don't think documentary voters are very impressed with the Critics' Choice voters.

24:43Ryan Lattanzio:I don't know if any voters are that impressed. Sorry to say. Yeah, I'm a member, right? So the question there for Perfect Neighbor, is it too American, even though it's brilliant? Angita Gambier is extraordinary and well-liked and she comes from editing and this was her first feature. It would be her first nomination. There are all sorts of reasons why this would be ordinarily, you know, it'd be like American Factory, which won the Oscar a few years ago. But this is nowadays, this international skew is real. And if they don't relate to it, it may not make it. No, I mean, the other thing that works against these documentaries is something we've talked about before, which is that the most popular movie, like however popular it is, that seems to work against it in some way.

25:35Ryan Lattanzio:And no matter how you slice it, Perfect Neighbor is going to be the most watched by the grander public movie of any of these contenders. I mean, it was in the Netflix top 10 for a few weeks, whereas I keep saying the word arcane, but some of these international movies are a bit smaller the tale of sillion that could be the that could be the leader though in this category believe it or not because it's international because it's nat geo because it has a distributor with pockets even if they've cut back their their budgets a bit it it is um that is a a lovely did you see it i did yeah and this is uh tamara katevska who she was nominated for two Oscars in one year for Honeyland.

26:18Ryan Lattanzio:And this movie takes a look at a farming family in North Macedonia, which isn't part of the European Union. So they are faced with a lot of hardships. And the movie at the end comes up against a lot of hard truths about the desire for these people to make themselves another life elsewhere. It's very heartbreaking. This movie premiered at Venice. I saw it a little bit later. She's certainly overdue. And she comes with some pedigree after those other nominations. And somebody pointed out to me that she knows how to campaign now. I mean, that's a skill. That is a skill. Yeah. Ukrainian filmmaker, Mstislav Chernov, won a few years ago for 20 Days in Mariupol.

26:59Ryan Lattanzio:And again, he's back here in the race with the frontline documentary, 2000 Meters to Andrivka, which I saw at CPH Docs, which is about a Ukrainian platoon trying to liberate a village from Russian forces. and what's really intense about this movie is that it's body cam footage of Ukrainian soldiers. So it's from the perspective of the people that are actually going in there. And it's not a talking heads movie. It's like a totally immersive, almost a survival thriller. And it's extremely compelling, but it's also, it's a hard watch. Yeah, I've been, I confess that I've been avoiding it, but I will watch it.

27:37I've heard it extraordinary. And I will, I will, if I can I'm sure I can handle this.