Variety: Five Films Separate From Awards Season Pack
Excerpt:
It’s pretty clear at this moment in the Oscar race that five films tower above the rest and, in keeping with the tradition of the season, those films were firmed up by last week’s Directors Guild nominations: “Dunkirk,” “Get Out,” “Lady Bird,” “The Shape of Water” and “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.”
Notably, this quintet also leads the rest of the pack in total guild and industry group citations. Up until Tuesday’s Visual Effects Society nominations, “The Shape of Water” in fact had a perfect streak going on that score — named by every group or guild in some form or another — with “Dunkirk” a few steps behind.
Each film, meanwhile, has also weathered its own pushback in the media, providing a playbook for campaign dirty tricks that can easily rear their head when a race is as wide open as this one is.
Christopher Nolan’s “Dunkirk,” some have contended, lacks humanity and is more of a spectacle movie than one that invites you into its ensemble of equivalent characters. But those criticisms have never really clicked. Mark Rylance’s Dawson is the emotional, patriotic heart of the film, and to point out a particularly harrowing sequence, there’s plenty of humanity on display in the hull of a beached vessel as terrified soldiers argue among themselves, awaiting their fate with the incoming tide.
In Japan, Dunkirk won the Nikkan Sports Award for best foreign film and is also nominated for the Japan Academy Prize, the Blue Ribbon Awards and the Mainichi Film Awards.
Dunkirk was voted best movie of the year in Brazil (Rio de Janeiro Film Critics Association) and Luxemburg (Luxemburg Film Press Association).
It is also nominated for best foreign / European / non-American film in Denmark (Bodil and Robert awards), in Spain (Gaudi awards, CEC Awards) and in Russia (Golden Eagle).
This was rather unexpected. They've been hugging Nolan's nuts for years. And this is his most British film yet. I also definitely expected to see 2049 to be in there. Odd.£
