2016 SATELLITE AWARDS ANNOUNCED

No idea when the Satellite Award winners were announced, but I care about as little now as I ever did. Their nominations, which I dismissed as 'atrocious' at the time but which, at the other end of awards season, now seem entirely banal, are here, btw.

Best Motion Picture

La La Land

Manchester by the Sea

Best Director

Kenneth Lonergan (Manchester by the Sea)

Best Actress

Isabelle Huppert (Elle)

Ruth Negga (Loving)

Best Actor

Andrew Garfield (Hacksaw Ridge)

Viggo Mortensen (Captain Fantastic)

Best Actress in a Supporting Role

Naomie Harris (Moonlight)

Best Actor in a Supporting Role

Jeff Bridges (Hell or High Water)

Best Screenplay, Original

Barry Jenkins (Moonlight)

Best Screenplay, Adapted

Kieran Fitzgerald and Oliver Stone (Snowden)

Best Cinematography

Bill Pope (The Jungle Book)

Best Film Editing

John Gilbert (Hacksaw Ridge)

Best Art Direction and Production Design

Jean Rabasse (Jackie)

Best Costume Design

Madeline Fontaine (Jackie)

Best Sound (Editing and Mixing)

Peter Grace, Robert MacKenzie, Kevin O'Connell and Andy Wright (Hacksaw Ridge)

Best Visual Effects

Andrew R. Jones, Robert Legato, Dan Lemmon and Adam Valdez (The Jungle Book)

Best Original Score

Justin Hurwitz (La La Land)

Best Original Song

'City of Stars' (La La Land)

Best Ensemble

Hidden Figures

Best Motion Picture, Animated or Mixed Media

My Life as a Courgette

Best Motion Picture, Documentary

13th

Best Motion Picture, International Film

The Salesman

Best First Feature

Russudan Glurjidze (House of Others)

Auteur Award

Tom Ford

Humanitarian Award

Patrick Stewart

Mary Pickford Award

Edward James Olmos

Tesla Award

John Toll

REVIEW - NOCTURAMA (BERTRAND BONELLO)

Bertrand Bonello is the insider looking out, the fully-fledged member of the bourgeoisie thumbing his nose at his fellow bourgeois artists and their audiences, exploiting their tools and tropes in the creation of wilfully incendiary art of his own. His is a blatantly, intentionally contradictory stance, exemplified as never before in Nocturama, a sympathetic story of a fellow band of insiders looking out, neither harbouring nor, arguably, warranting any sympathy themselves. Bonello seeks not responses but reactions, dispassionately examining the details of his scenario with a deliberate protection against any judgemental inference; his clinical mise-en-scene is designed to accent the nature of each component therein, rather than that of the bigger picture, ever only vague and imprecise. Nocturama thus becomes a most subjective cinematic experience, predicated as it is upon sincere, individual emotional reception and not a more reasonable intellectual one; it's interesting, thus, to identify exactly what one can infer from the film, since its very practice of rebuffing inference inherently, ironically produces it. Bonello's take on the disenfranchisement of the privileged (and less privileged) youth is distinctly French in its disposition, though universally understandable, and the compassion he directs toward his film's ensemble of characters is a valuable addition to the prickly debates on the subjects explored herein. What is even more distinctly French, though, is Nocturama's style, and its abundance of it - your feelings on the content of Bonello's conceit aside, you can always rely on this insider to use his bourgeois abilities to their best, and this is a typically excellent technical and formal enterprise from this most audacious and provocative artist.

LA LA LAND WINS FIVE BAFTAS

...so not a sweep. 5/11. That's less than The Artist, actually. Up to a point, La La Land had actually tied several other films as the runners-up in awards count, as non-Best Film nominee Lion was, for most of the evening, the only film to have claimed more than one prize. But Damien Chazelle's musical took four top awards to bring its tally to five - less than most had predicted, though far more than any other film this year from BAFTA, given their eagerness to spread the wealth. Check out BAFTA's 2016 nominees here, and their winners below:

Best Film

La La Land (Fred Berger, Jordan Horowitz and Marc Platt)

Best Director

Damien Chazelle (La La Land)

Best Leading Actress

Emma Stone (La La Land)

Best Leading Actor

Casey Affleck (Manchester by the Sea)

Best Supporting Actress

Viola Davis (Fences)

Best Supporting Actor

Dev Patel (Lion)

Best Original Screenplay

Kenneth Lonergan (Manchester by the Sea)

Best Adapted Screenplay

Luke Davies (Lion)

Best Cinematography

Linus Sandgren (La La Land)

Best Editing

John Gilbert (Hacksaw Ridge)

Best Production Design

Stuart Craig and Anna Pinnock (Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them)

Best Costume Design

Madeline Fontaine (Jackie)

Best Sound

Sylvain Bellemare, Bernard Gariepy Strobl and Claude la Haye (Arrival)

Best Special Visual Effects

Andrew R. Jones, Robert Legato, Dan Lemmon and Adam Valdez (The Jungle Book)

Best Makeup & Hair

J. Roy Helland and Daniel Phillips (Florence Foster Jenkins)

Best Original Music

Justin Hurwitz (La La Land)

Best Animated Film

Kubo and the Two Strings (Travis Knight)

Best Documentary

13th (Ava DuVernay)

Best Film Not in the English Language
Son of Saul (Nemes Laszlo and Sipos Gabor)

Outstanding British Film

I, Daniel Blake (Paul Laverty, Ken Loach and Rebecca O'Brien)

Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer

Babak Anvari, Emily Leo, Oliver Roskill and Lucan Toh (Under the Shadow)

Best British Short Film

Home (Shpat Deda, Afolabi Kuti, Daniel Mulloy and Scott O'Donnell)

Best British Short Animation

A Love Story (Khaled Gad, Anushka Kishani Naanayakkara and Elena Ruscombe-King)

Outstanding Contribution to British Cinema
Curzon Cinemas

BAFTA Fellowship
Mel Brooks

EE Rising Star Award

Tom Holland

2016 ADG WINNERS ANNOUNCED

The Art Directors Guild has announced its award winners for 2016, and no-one is surprised. Their predictability is outdone only by their mediocracy, seemingly confirming that the year wasn't a good one for production design. It was. The ADG just didn't pick up on that fact. Nominees at this link; winners below. #JusticeForDanteFerretti!

Excellence in Production Design - Period

Wynn Thomas (Hidden Figures)

Excellence in Production Design - Fantasy

Guy Hendrix Dyas (Passengers)

Excellence in Production Design - Contemporary

David Wasco (La La Land)

2016 USC SCRIPTER WINNER: MOONLIGHT

So Moonlight wins the USC Scripter for Barry Jenkins and Tarell Alvin McCraney. It thus becomes the natural choice for those predicting the Adapted Screenplay Oscar, as this is the only major group considering the film an adaptation. You can see the nominees at this link.

TEASER TRAILER FOR SOFIA COPPOLA'S THE BEGUILED

Yes, Sofia Coppola keeps going off the deep end, but so what? I've never before been known to turn down an invitation to a Nicky K party and I'm not about to start now! Out in the UK and the US both on the 23rd of June, so it's pretty probable that this is headed for Cannes.

THE JUNGLE BOOK TAKES TOP HONOURS AT VISUAL EFFECTS SOCIETY AWARDS

As predicted, The Jungle Book has aced it at the Visual Effects Society awards. Five wins were presented to Disney's live-action-ish remake, as the studio's fellow blockbuster Rogue One goes home empty-handed. Check out the VES' nominations at this link, and their winners in full below.

Outstanding Visual Effects in a Photoreal Feature

Joyce Cox, Andrew R. Jones, Robert Legato, J. D. Schwalm and Adam Valdez (The Jungle Book)

Outstanding Supporting Visual Effects in a Photoreal Feature

Burt Dalton, John Galloway, Craig Hammack, Petra Holtorf-Stratton and Jason Snell (Deepwater Horizon)

Outstanding Animated Performance in a Photoreal Feature

Andrei Coval, Paul Story, Jack Tema and Dennis Yoo - 'King Louie' (The Jungle Book)

Outstanding Virtual Cinematography in a Photoreal Project

John Brennan, Robert Legato, Bill Pope and Gary Roberts (The Jungle Book)

Outstanding Models in a Photoreal or Animated Project

Jean Bolte, Kelvin Lau, Kevin Sprout and Kim Vongbunyong - 'Deepwater Horizon rig' (Deepwater Horizon)

Outstanding Created Environment in a Photoreal Feature

Tim Belsher, Jon Mitchell, Martijn van Herk and Adam Watkins - 'New York City' (Doctor Strange)

Outstanding Effects Simulations in a Photoreal Feature

Fabian Nowak, Ludovic Ramisandraina, David Schneider and Oliver Winwood - 'Nature effects' (The Jungle Book)

Outstanding Compositing in a Photoreal Feature

Matthew Adams, Masaki Mitchell, Christoph Salzmann and Max Stummer (The Jungle Book)

Outstanding Visual Effects in an Animated Feature

Steve Emerson, Travis Knight, Brad Schiff and Arianne Sutner (Kubo and the Two Strings)

Outstanding Animated Performance in an Animated Feature

Steven Clay Hunter, Jonathan Hoffman, Mark Piretti and Audrey Wong - 'Hank' (Finding Dory)

Outstanding Created Environment in an Animated Feature

Rob Dressel, Andy Harkness, Brien Hindman and Larry Wu - 'Motonui Island' (Moana)

Outstanding Effects Simulations in an Animated Feature

Marc Henry Bryant, David Hutchins, John M. Kosnik and Dale Mayeda (Moana)

Outstanding Visual Effects in a Student Project

Johannes Franz, Alexander Richter, Nicole Rothermel and Thomas Sali (Breaking Point)

REVIEW - OUIJA: ORIGIN OF EVIL (MIKE FLANAGAN)

If the primary objective of horror filmmaking is to evoke feelings, rather than provoke thoughts, it's entirely plausible, and indeed understandable, that so many horror films leave their audience cold. Mike Flanagan has, in the busy second act of his career as a director, devised a pathway past thought and directly into emotional responses of which only an intelligent artist could conceive. He'd be a solid helmer of any genre of film, but if his affinity is for this one, I won't complain. Ouija: Origin of Evil is a compact little scarer, crammed with increasingly accruing detail targeted immediately toward evoking that most essential of feelings in horror: terror! Lighter on incidental suspense and cheap shocks than most of its ilk - though by no means reticent to indulge in the kind of genre thrills we viewers both expect and demand - Origin of Evil instead allows its dread to build insidiously through the gradual unravelling of its narrative's tapestry of historic suffering. The further it goes, the less effective it becomes, but Flanagan composes his crescendo with masterful subtlety at first, thus permitting it to pack a heftier punch upon initial notice. Thoughts remain wholly unprovoked, and Origin of Evil means utterly nothing outside of what potential franchise-building in which it is indisputably engaging, but in the hands of a genuinely intelligent artist, at least it delivers on what we demand. It's unsettling and downright frightening in the right measures, and it achieves its primary objective without question.

REVIEW - THE LOVE WITCH (ANNA BILLER)

The gentle, gentrified warmth of retro pastiche bursts into an almighty blaze in shades of red, pink, nude, and no less than every other vivid hue in the rainbow in Anna Biller's defiantly creative The Love Witch. Here is a true tribute to the tastes of old, using dated, oft-derided techniques to design something as innovative and fresh as once they were too, in coy, scuzzy B-movies of half a century ago. Biller may have lost the capacity to subvert social norms by sheer misfortune of having been born far too late, but her artistic subversion is accompanied by unambiguous political subversion, presented with a joyous lack of inhibition. For all its own soothing beauty, every aspect of the realization of Biller's concepts is overt, even confrontational to the layperson, expecting a winking homage but receiving a brutal appropriation to boldly original effect. The intention behind every such aspect in The Love Witch is plain to behold, an assertion in its scrupulous director's command of so wide a variety of roles - she is also writer, producer, production and costume designer and decorator, editor, and composer - as to explicitly state the cruciality of a woman imposing upon her milieu total control, and insisting upon the acquisition of her aims. She'll meet no opposition from this reviewer - her film, as her protagonist, is forthright, funny, intelligent, sexy, and utterly sumptuous, and ever in a manner most abrasive to a mollified audience of masculine sensibilities. Femininity takes over in The Love Witch, and its corrosive embrace amounts to one of the most refreshing cinema experiences in quite some time.

LA LA LAND AND MOONLIGHT LEAD 2016 CRITICS' TALLY NOMINATIONS!

The Screen On Screen Critics' Tally nominations are announced! Compiled from the full range of awards and polls posted here on SOS through awards season, with points values assigned to placements and multipliers assigned to specific groups, these nominations across 16 categories represent the critical consensus for the best of 2016. La La Land and Moonlight lead the pack with nine nominations apiece, and the Best Picture lineup is strong on films that are popular across the board, save one surprise inclusion. The Adapted Screenplay category is as yet unconfirmed, though the list below is the expected finalized lineup, though any future changes will be duly noted. Awards announced on the 20th of February!

* Edited to replace Lion's Adapted Screenplay nomination with Elle.

Best Picture

Hell or High Water (Peter Berg, Carla Hacken, Sidney Kimmel, David MacKenzie and Julie Yorn)

La La Land (Fred Berger, Damien Chazelle, Jordan Horowitz and Marc Platt)

Manchester by the Sea (Lauren Beck, Matt Damon, Kenneth Lonergan, Chris Moore, Kimberly Steward and Kevin J. Walsh)

Moonlight (Dede Gardner, Barry Jenkins, Jeremy Kleiner and Adele Romanski)

Toni Erdmann (Maren Ade, Jonas Dornbach, Janine Jackowski and Michel Merkt)

Best Director

Damien Chazelle (La La Land)

Barry Jenkins (Moonlight)

Kenneth Lonergan (Manchester by the Sea)

David MacKenzie (Hell or High Water)

Denis Villeneuve (Arrival)

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role

Amy Adams (Arrival)

Isabelle Huppert (Elle)

Ruth Negga (Loving)

Natalie Portman (Jackie)

Emma Stone (La La Land)

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role

Casey Affleck (Manchester by the Sea)

Adam Driver (Paterson)

Joel Edgerton (Loving)

Ryan Gosling (La La Land)

Denzel Washington (Fences)

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role

Viola Davis (Fences)

Greta Gerwig (20th Century Women)

Lily Gladstone (Certain Women)

Naomie Harris (Moonlight)

Michelle Williams (Manchester by the Sea)

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role

Mahershala Ali (Moonlight)

Jeff Bridges (Hell or High Water)

Ben Foster (Hell or High Water)

Lucas Hedges (Manchester by the Sea)

Michael Shannon (Nocturnal Animals)

Best Original Screenplay

Damien Chazelle (La La Land)

Efthymis Filippou and Yorgos Lanthimos (The Lobster)

Barry Jenkins and Tarell Alvin McCraney (Moonlight)

Kenneth Lonergan (Manchester by the Sea)

Taylor Sheridan (Hell or High Water)

Best Adapted Screenplay

David Birke (Elle)

Tom Ford (Nocturnal Animals)

Eric Heisserer (Arrival)

Whit Stillman (Love & Friendship)

August Wilson (Fences)

Best Cinematography

Chung Chung Hoon (The Handmaiden)

Stephane Fontaine (Jackie)

James Laxton (Moonlight)

Linus Sandgren (La La Land)

Bradford Young (Arrival)

Best Editing

Tom Cross (La La Land)

John Gilbert (Hacksaw Ridge)

Joi McMillon and Nat Sanders (Moonlight)

Sebastian Sepulveda (Jackie)

Joe Walker (Arrival)

Best Production Design

Stuart Craig (Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them)

Jean Rabasse (Jackie)

Ryu Seong Hee (The Handmaiden)

Patrice Vermette (Arrival)

David Wasco (La La Land)

Best Music

Nicholas Britell (Moonlight)

Justin Hurwitz (La La Land)

Johann Johannsson (Arrival)

Mica Levi (Jackie)

Cliff Martinez (The Neon Demon)

Best Ensemble Cast

Casey Affleck, Matthew Broderick, Kyle Chandler, Lucas Hedges, Gretchen Mol and Michelle Williams (Manchester by the Sea)

Mahershala Ali, Kevin Costner, Kirsten Dunst, Taraji P. Henson, Aldis Hodge, Janelle Monae, Jim Parsons, Glen Powell and Octavia Spencer (Hidden Figures)

Mahershala Ali, Naomie Harris, Alex R. Hibbert, Andre Holland, Jharrel Jerome, Janelle Monae, Jaden Piner, Trevante Rhodes and Ashton Sanders (Moonlight)

Annette Bening, Billy Crudup, Elle Fanning, Greta Gerwig and Lucas Jade Zumann (20th Century Women)

Gil Birmingham, Jeff Bridges, Ben Foster and Chris Pine (Hell or High Water)

Best Animated Feature

Finding Dory (Angus MacLane and Andrew Stanton)

Kubo and the Two Strings (Travis Knight)

Moana (Ron Clements, Don Hall, John Musker and Chris Williams)

The Red Turtle (Michael Dudok de Wit)

Zootopia (Jared Bush, Byron Howard and Rich Moore)

Best Documentary

13th (Ava DuVernay)

Cameraperson (Kirsten Johnson)

I Am Not Your Negro (Raoul Peck)

O.J.: Made in America (Ezra Edelman)

Weiner (Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg)

Best Foreign Language Film

Elle (Paul Verhoeven)

The Handmaiden (Park Chan Wook)

Neruda (Pablo Larrain)

The Salesman (Asghar Farhadi)

Toni Erdmann (Maren Ade)