Movie Geeks Awards: Snubs and Surprises

When the Movie Geeks Awards had happened back in 2021, I was one of the many commenting people who were cheering for the awards when they were handed out to the right people and booing at the moments which didn’t sit right with me. Frankly, as one of the team members working alongside the other Modmins in making the Awards a success, I am able to better empathize with my fellow team members who also happen to be great friends. Additionally, the honesty of the voting process in treating every member as the ballot makes it the tremendous success it is. This year, we broke the record to have close to 1.2k comments.
The Movie Geeks Awards happened on April 3^rd and this piece was supposed to come in a couple of days itself. However, my constant occupation with this torturous offline world kept me from writing it. Anyway, here are the most surprising and disappointing moments of this year’s MGA.
Surprises
Drive My Car’s Best Picture Win

The terrific J-Auteur Ryusuke Hamaguchi made one of the clearest films of the year with Drive My Car.  A film panning out in a meditative yet deeply engaging manner, with a playwright named Yusuke Kafuka as its protagonist, DMC possesses a magical, sensual enigma. It is about how humans hold on to grief and how they resist confrontations for as long as they can. It unravels the most internalized and complex truths with an offhand charm. It’s a film resounding with great amounts of intellect and gentleness.

The win of Drive My Car as the top film of the year is richly deserved. It’s immensely satisfying because it almost comes off as a cross between three of the most accomplished masters of arts- Anton Chekhov, Haruki Murakami (from whose short story it has been adapted), and the filmmaker Hamaguchi himself (who also won the Best Director here). Foreign cinema is clearly holding the reigns and this win succeeds the prizes conferred to Bong Joon-Ho’s slightly overpraised but definitely sharp Parasite (Korean) and Catarina Vasconcelos’s profoundly moving and affecting The Metamorphosis of Birds (Portugese).

Kristen Stewart’s Diana for Best Actress

Sometimes a distinct lack of popularity helps in enhancing the honesty of an institution. Kristen Stewart was undoubtedly the finest performer of the year. Her rendition to Diana, the Princess of Wales, was entirely unique to her and a feat that simply can’t be matched. She brings a psychological layer to the performance, a deliberately thought out vulnerability that gradually morphs into strength, confidence, resilience and a liberation. She is the finest part of Pablo Larrain’s already accomplished and masterful version of Diana’s life. However, it’d be a lie to say that her compelling performance was getting the Awards-season recognition that it so deserved.

However, the clarity in the minds of our group members for her win as the Actress of the night met a deserved fan-service. Kristen Stewart, in and as Spencer, grabbed the Best Actress to everyone’s joy. It was met with a distinctive enthusiasm and it also emerged as the night’s finest moment.

A Hero, the finest third

Asghar Farhadi’s A Hero released to a massive round of applause. It was hailed as one of his best films and the definitive contender to be the film of the year. However, it all came crashing down when it was called a plagiarized work and it somehow became morally wrong to love the film for what it was. If you ask me, I can comfortably admire the film for what it is beyond how it got made. It’s a powerful work from Farhadi that demands a lot of contemplation and even more processing. It carefully studies power dynamics with deceptive simplicity and on a case-study basis.

However, the lack of wins for A Hero was starting to become disheartening until it finally arrived with a bang and grabbed the third spot at the top-most prize. No amount of moral and legal policing takes away from the fact that this is a rather impactful film with carefully fabricated writing and some of the most nuanced withholding of crucial details.

Dune’s emergence as the Biggest Winner of the night

Don’t get me wrong here- I do like Dune a lot for what it is. Denis Villeneuve’s broad and breathtaking adaptation of one of the broadest science fiction books feels equally microcosmic. Its attention to visual detail is at odds with the sparse and minimalistic dialogue. If it feels incomplete, it’s only by design since it’s only a first part to a series of films (from the looks of it, a trilogy).

However, it was a mainstream technical marvel, the kind which can be comfortably snapped out among the more deserving and less known pictures from an ideal world. However, the voters were dazzled by the film’s technical superiority. They were in awe of the makeup, the costumes, and the visual effects and even found it to be the finest shot film of the year, robbing many fantastically shot films of the honor. As if that wasn’t enough, they also decided to make it a winner of the Production Design and editing categories, further placing Villeneuve as one of the best directors this year. It was laughable and disappointing for a lot of people, greatly deserved for a few others.

Caleb Landry-Jones as the Best Actor

This is one of those massive surprises which we are still not talking enough about. Caleb Landry-Jones’s performance as the dreaded Australian serial killer Martin Bryant was the chilling core of Justin Kurzel’s unconventional and brilliant biographical character study, which also happens to be one of the best and the most underrated films you’re going to see this year. In Nitram, Landry-Jones doesn’t just slip into the skin of this layered and complex character, but starts a full-body inhabitance of him.

At the same time, the performance was too muted and keenly focused to be declared one ‘for the ages’ in the popular opinion. Thankfully, the ‘most’ performances lost at the expense of uplifting a performance as excellent as that of Caleb. I’m really happy that he won.

Jonny Greenwood becomes the Artist with the most MG Awards

If we talk about film soundtracks, we can surely say that this was totally the year of Greenwood. His symphonies were compelling to hear. When I bought my new earphones early this year, the first thing I played to test it was “Arrival”, the first score in the ravishing OST of Spencer. Thankfully, this love didn’t go unrecognized. His work was also tremendously robust in The Power of the Dog, going off-kilter evenly with Licorice Pizza.

Frankly, in an ideal world, he should have grabbed all the three positions when it comes to the category of Best Original Scores. But the blind love for Dune resulted in Hans Zimmer’s second prize win for his memorable OST (which frankly wasn’t as great as these three gems). Anyway, the two wins made Jonny Greenwood the artist who has secured the most number of MG Awards in their history, which is remarkable and well-deserved.

The Green Knight, Served Right

David Lowery’s The Green Knight was a wonderful mediaeval Arthurian masterpiece. It was also a subtle and nuanced eco-fable so potently written and crafted that even in the longer run, its existence as one of the most visually stunning films of all time cannot be denied. It had ravishing visuals with prescient uses of light cutting through the darkness, and some of the most haunting hybrids of prosthetics and visual effects. It was a great and richly calculative anti-Dune which would have wiped it all in an ideal world.

However, given that the general audience’s consensus declared the film as ‘unsubstantial’ and ‘boring’ and too ‘artsy’, the various wins of The Green Knight in the technical categories still came off as a surprise. If not necessarily the film, its breathtaking visuals did manage to win a popular support. I quite liked these achievements. Especially the second prize in Makeup going to the painstakingly constructed, dazzling emerald creature Green Knight.

Snubs

No Love for Nightmare Alley

While I haven’t seen the film I’ve also heard nothing but praises for Guillermo Del Toro’s dazzling and star-studded neo-noir, a remake of the 1947 film with the same name. Starring Bradley Cooper, Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara and Toni Collette, the film went on to earn quite a few nominations at the Oscars as well, including Best Picture and Best Cinematography.

It was nominated here as well. However, it didn’t go on to earn any of the awards, just like the Oscars. If admirers of the film are to be believed, it got practically robbed of the plaudits it deserved in the Cinematography, Production design and Adapted Screenplay categories.

Kirsten Dunst’s absence among the Best Supporting Actresses

Don’t get me wrong here- I deeply appreciate the three winners in this category. Toko Miura delivered a controlled and fluid performance as Misaki Watari in Drive My Car, the crucial but unexpected ‘driver’ in the picture. Ann Dowd was deeply moving in Mass, and Jessie Buckley is nothing if not deserving of all the love she received for her crucial performance in The Lost Daughter. However, if I could replace any of them with Kirsten Dunst’s subtle yet uncompromised turn in The Power of the Dog, I can do so.

Dunst was as charming and calm a presence in The Power of the Dog as she always is- I thought that this was just a smart move in casting to give a very demure role to Dunst. However, as the film started taking a wild leap in its western genre, even her character started turning leaves and became something entirely new. Her vulnerability became extremely real and personal and affecting all the same. Safe to say, this was my favourite supporting-actor performance this year and I’m disappointed it didn’t take any of the three positions.

The Real Tragedy of Macbeth

I’m not going to lie here- this is one of those snubs that produce a wicked smile on my face. Joel Coen’s first individual venture as a film-maker without his brother Ethan Coen at mutual assistance, The Tragedy of Macbeth was purely Shakespearean in proportions. The staunch use of Victorian English and the sheer theatrical mounting here were among the many things that made the fans of both the writer and the leading actor (Denzel Washington, who is brilliant in the film) love it. However, as much as I admire these cinematic literatures and the bold, brave directions in which they take their source texts, the film left me cold and unaffected and it just didn’t do anything to me.

However, even I on a second watch couldn’t deny the fact that the visual style and framing of the film are hard to brush off. The visuals truly have the power to captivate and immerse you and Kathryn Hunter’s ferocious turn as the three witches was a big plus too. However, I guess the voters and jury were just as cold on the film as I was.

Hidetoshi Nishijima robbed off

Again, this means no disrespect to the winning performers. Vicky Kaushal’s deep intensity in Sardar Udham deserved a resounding applause. Ditto for the winner Caleb Landry-Jones, who channeled Martin Bryant as violently and movingly as the character could be. As for the second prize winning performance of Benedict Cumberbatch in The Power of the Dog, it was my favourite of the year easily. However, Hidetoshi Nishijima was practically robbed of the honor he so deserved this year.

Last year too, he delivered an astounding performance in a Japanese indie called Voices in the Wind. However, Drive My Car offered him the moment to shine- his performance as Yusuke Kafuku was deeply understated yet also masterfully brooding. It was also reflective of the film’s complex relationship with honesty. I’d also say that it is a unique performance, great in its own way, yet never dismissive of the acting prowess shown ‘around’ him, by Masaki Okada and Toko Miura most prominently. It is one of the saddest snubs of the year.

The American Gems and the Disservice to them

A few beautiful American gems, two of them wonderful Indies by emerging directorial voices, were overlooked by the voters when they voted for their favourites. The worst affected of them was Sean Baker’s funny, thrilling and unique comedy Red Rocket, a strange yet satisfying character study of a washed-up ex-porn star. It atleas deserved attention for Simon Rex, whose leading performance in the film was equal parts disruptive and electrifying. However, it went empty headed. Same goes for Ridley Scott’s mainstream chivalric epic The Last Duel, a Rashomon-esque, and powerful mainstream period drama about violent justice in middle-aged France.

Fran Kranz made a compelling debut film with Mass, a quiet yet strangely affecting chamber drama involving two pairs of parents on two opposite spectrums of a school shooting event. This is such a cathartic film of a distinctive emotional character with all the four actors and all of the writing sweeping each and every award. However, the best it could manage was a third place for Ann Dowd among the Best Supporting Actresses, a real shame. Additionally, Paul Thomas Anderson deserved more than a third-place Best Original Screenplay nod for his charismatic, dazzling work in Licorice Pizza. It was such an unconventional and funny coming-of-age journey put to a nostalgic lens by PTA, with unexpected delights all the way. However, I’m happy that at least Mike Mills got two major wins for his flawless work with C’mon C’mon.

Memoria and The Hand of God

Two great foreign cinema gems went empty-handed this year. One of them was Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Memoria, perhaps the best film of the year by a distance. It starred Tilda Swinton in a masterful performance where, as Jessica, she seems to be playing a version of herself, meanwhile submitting herself to the tranquility and the unsettling, sonorous quiet of her director’s world. It was a daring performance in a terrifically potent, quietly resonant film which produces a visceral experience and operates it with weaponizing effect. However, the only award it won was a second place for Best Sound. 

With The Hand of God, Paolo Sorrentino has made his most personal film yet. A semi-autobiographical film with “most of it being true”, it’s a clearly processed and divided coming-of-age journey with a wistful first half and a more reflective second half, it follows the protagonist Fabietto through his coming-of-age journey with vast, intelligent, well-acted and well-written observation.

The Fallout and Passing

The Fallout and Passing were two of my favourite films of the year. Both marking directorial debuts for two of the most well-known Hollywood actresses, they were fantastic stories dealing with mental health and female experience in small and large ways. Passing was an extraordinary feature filmmaking marvel, a black and white indie expressing a shattering racial truth of America and spearheaded by two powerful performances delivered by Tessa Thompson and Ruth Negga. The film was also visually stunning and it definitely knew what it was doing with its medium. Additionally, it marked a great directing debut for Rebecca Hall.

The Fallout by Megan Park was an even better film. Another school shooting film this year, it worked because of Jenna Ortega’s marvelous leading performance (at such a tender age!), and due to its very personal and sentimentally true understanding of the teenage traumatic experience. It was an unpredictable story told really well, and it really felt as if Park was reflecting a piece of herself through characters like Vada and Mia. Both of them were robbed. Other such ‘female-centric’ and ‘woman-directed’ films include The Souvenir: Part II, Hive and Bergman Island, mainly because of being hugely under-seen.

These are all the snubs and surprises for this year’s Movie Geeks Awards. See ya next year!