For those who track Oscar odds the way that other people follow horse racing or college football, the Gotham Independent Film Awards hold a special place. The awards, given by the Independent Filmmaker Project, and held,…
The Gotham Awards are to the Oscars what the Iowa caucuses are to a presidential election and the NFL’s preseason games are to its regular season: they’re the first “results” to come in, so they get a lot of attention, but the reality is they don’t really tell us much of anything about what’s to come.
This is not to rain on the parade of Moonlight, the big winner at Monday night’s 26th annual Gothams — it took best feature, best screenplay, a special ensemble prize and the audience award, and, at the end of the day, it may well pose the greatest threat to presumptive best picture Oscar favorite La La Land. Nor is it to diminish the moment in the spotlight enjoyed by the others invited up to the podium — best actor Casey Affleck (Manchester by the Sea), best actress Isabelle Huppert (Elle) and Ezra Edelman, director of best documentary O.J.: Made in America.
But, as much as we may want to ascribe greater “meaning” to the Gothams, the reality is that the winner in each of its categories is chosen by four or five more or less random people from the film industry — some more associated with the indies (e.g. Emily Mortimer) than others (e.g. Jonah Hill) — whereas Oscar nominations are chosen by hundreds and Oscar winners are determined by thousands. Needless to say, the handful of Gotham voters is miles away from being a scientific sample for the large pool of ultimate Academy voters.
If one wants to get a good read on how the indie film community feels about this year’s crop of films,…
“Moonlight,” Barry Jenkins’s celebrated, intimate portrait of a gay youngster growing up in a drug-ridden Miami neighborhood, rode into the awards season on a wave of momentum Monday night, scooping up four Gotham Awards, including best feature.
“It’s a tough film, with a bit of hope in it,” Mr. Jenkins told the Bagger as celebrators and journalists swirled around him, offering hugs and congratulations after the show. “I love that people come out of it with a sense of hope. Whatever we did, it’s getting into people, and they see themselves in it.”
Held at Cipriani Wall Street in Lower Manhattan, the star-studded Gothams — attendees included Amy Adams, Cate Blanchett, Natalie Portman, Janelle Monáe and a delightfully potty-mouthed Danny DeVito — signal the beginning of the movie awards season.
The prizes for “Moonlight” — it also won best screenplay, best ensemble and the audience award — firm up early forecasts that it would be a strong player in the awards race this year. Though the Gothams are not necessarily predictive of the Oscars, its winners for best feature from the previous two years, “Birdman” and “Spotlight,”…