GABBY Awards 2017 - Alternate Oscars Through The Years

Best Movie

This was a really good year for movies.  A lot of times I will get to the end of the year where I'm binge watching all the Oscar bait films and getting disappointed but I liked most of them this year.  Movies like The Post, The Shape Of Water, Lady Bird and I, Tonya were good to really good but most of my movies still come from earlier in the year because those are the ones that have stayed with me.  Quick shout out to the greatness of the superhero genre this year, Justice League was a bit of a bust but this year had Thor: Ragnarok, Spider-Man: Homecoming and Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2, as well as Kong: Skull Island and War For The Planet Of The Apes, all came close to making my list.  The first great movie I saw this year was Colossal starring Anne Hathaway as a woman battling her inner demons which are manifested in an actual demon.  A giant monster is destroying South Korea and she realizes that the monster mimics her actions while she is drunk.  The next great movie I saw this year was The Big Sick written by Kumail Nanjiani and his wife Emily V. Gordon about the beginning of their relationship where she fell into a medically induced coma.  Then came Baby Driver Edgar Wright's car chase musical which may be the best sounding movie I've ever seen.  It's a technical marvel, the editing, stunts, cinematography and soundtrack are all perfect and the performances and the story grabs you just as well.  I don't usually enjoy horror movies which is probably why I liked It so much.  It's definitely scary but at its core it is a coming of age film in the vein of Stand By Me.  The kids at its center are all incredible young actors who you root for as they fight an evil entity disguised as a clown.  The scene where they finally face their fears is one of the most satisfying film moments of 2017.  I was completely prepared to hand my Best Movie title to Colossal until I saw Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri late in the year.  This is just storytelling at its best.  Moments get paid off that you didn't think would and when they get paid off they don't go at all the way you expect.  Frances McDormand is incredible as a woman who puts up a series of billboards to shame the police who have not found her daughter's murderer.  Martin McDonagh made my favorite film of 2008 and did it again this year.

WINNER: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

The Big Sick - 10 Nominations, 3 Wins

It - 10 Nominations, 4 Wins

Baby Driver - 8 Nominations, 3 Wins
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri - 8 Nominations, 3 Wins

Colossal - 6 Nominations, 1 Win

Best Actor

Gary Oldman almost made my list for transforming into Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour but was replaced at the last minute because while I respected the performance I would rather recognize an actor in a movie I liked.  Plus, he's winning every other Best Actor award there is so he doesn't need my kudos.  First on my list is Bryan Cranston who puts on a one man show in Wakefield.  He plays a man who comes home late one night, falls asleep in the room above his attic and instead of walking back into his house, decides to commit to the life of a hobo.  Most of the movie is his inner monologue so if you love Cranston then this is a special treat because you get to see him act while he reads to you.  James McAvoy was an early favorite when Split debuted in January.  The command he has of his body and face as he embodies multiple characters inside the same person's mind is astonishing.  He plays a man with 23 different personalities and 3 girls locked in his basement.  James Franco doesn't do a pitch perfect Tommy Wiseau impression in The Disaster Artist but he does a good job of creating a sympathetic character.  He plays Tommy as a hopeless dreamer who doesn't quite fit in to our world.  I had a few options to choose from for my last 2 slots, Tom Cruise is a charming anti hero in American Made, Liev Schreiber plays the boxer that Rocky Balboa was based on in the fun biopic Chuck, Ansel Elgort is the fresh faced Baby Driver and Hugh Jackman has his possibly final outing as Wolverine in Logan.  I instead picked Woody Harrelson for playing a social outcast looking for his daughter in Wilson and Harry Dean Stanton in his final role as Lucky.  Stanton has over 200 credits on IMDb and has been working steadily since the 1950s.  In what would be his final role he plays an old man who refuses to die.  His performance is all the more poignant knowing that it would be his swan song.  Seeing as how Cranston and McAvoy will have other chances and Stanton had been one of my favorite character actors for pretty much my entire life I can't resist giving it to him.  This is a fantastic performance that capped of an incredible career.

WINNER: Harry Dean Stanton for Lucky

Best Actress

As soon as I saw Colossal I knew Anne Hathaway was the woman to beat in this category and she didn't have much competition until the very end of the year.  Salma Hayek was an early contender as a Mexican maid at an affluent dinner party in Beatriz At Dinner.  Sally Hawkins was going to make my list for the biopic Maudie before knocking herself off with her performance as a mute janitor in love with a sea creature in The Shape Of Water.  Margot Robbie is hilarious and accurate as disgraced figure skater Tonya Harding in I, Tonya.  Hathaway had this sewn up until in came Frances McDormand who gives a career best performance in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.  I also considered Saorise Ronan for Lady Bird, Meryl Streep for The Post, Jenny Slate for Landline and, even though I hated the movie, Kristen Stewart in Personal Shopper.  I'm going back and forth between Hathaway and McDormand but the scale tips in favor of Hathaway seeing as how Frances won in 1996 and Anne has yet to win, despite several great performances and 4 previous nominations.

WINNER: Anne Hathaway for Colossal

Best Supporting Actor

Once the awards season started up I was really disappointed that Ray Romano didn't get much attention for his heartfelt and funny performance in The Big Sick.  I loved how his character was a perfect yin to his wife's yang.  She is frazzled and emotional and he is much more laid back and logical.  Also overlooked was Jason Sudeikis in Colossal, playing against type and using his welcoming demeanor to make you believe that someone would fall for the jerk he's playing.  Luckily one of my favorite character actors of the past 2 decades finally started getting some awards consideration and that's Sam Rockwell who plays a police officer who is quick to act without thinking about consequences.  My second posthumous nomination of the year goes to Bill Paxton who is really terrific as a corrupt sheriff on the hunt for his daughter and his stolen cash in his final performance in Mean Dreams.  There were some fun also rans this year.  I really wanted to make room for Jeff Goldblum's bizarre performance in Thor: Ragnarok and Michael Keaton's Vulture in Spider-Man: Homecoming.  Willem Dafoe was very solid in The Florida Project, John Lithgow was as good as he always is in Beatriz At Dinner, Patrick Stewart brings levity to the role of Professor X in Logan, Woody Harrelson steals scenes in both Three Billboards and War For The Planet Of The Apes and there's also the disgraced Kevin Spacey in Baby Driver.  No performance filled me with more joy this year than John C. Reilly in Kong: Skull Island.  From the moment he's introduced to his touching epilogue he is the backbone to that movie and is able to steal scenes away from a giant gorilla.

WINNER: John C. Reilly for Kong: Skull Island

Best Supporting Actress

Pretty slim pickings this year in this category.  I don't really have anybody that was left off that I wanted to include and two of my nominees probably wouldn't have made it in a more competitive year.  First on my list is Holly Hunter in The Big Sick, an incredibly emotional performance of a mother dealing with her comatose daughter.  Next is Allison Janney as Tonya Harding's foul mouthed and hard edged mother in I, Tonya.  It's hard to make an unsympathetic character fun but Janney delivers.  While the movie isn't anything too special, Girls Trip brought us Tiffany Haddish who turns her performance up to 11 and creates a character the likes of which we have never seen on film before.  My last two nominees are the always dependable Laurie Metcalf who is really good in Lady Bird as a mother who doesn't want to lose her daughter to a far away college, I just wish the movie did more with her, and Allison Williams as the white woman bringing her black boyfriend to meet her parents in Get Out.  She does a very nice job of transforming from sweet to menacing very quickly.  The only two alternates I had were Catherine Keener as the mother with hypnotic abilities in Get Out and Octavia Spencer as the wise cracking cleaning lady in The Shape Of Water.

WINNER: Holly Hunter for The Big Sick

Best Director

Martin McDonagh (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri), Andy Muschietti (It), Michael Showalter (The Big Sick), Nacho Vigalondo (Colossal), Edgar Wright (Baby Driver)

  WINNER: Martin McDonagh for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

 

Best Comedic Screenplay 

The Big Sick, Brigsby Bear, Dave Made A Maze, The Disaster Artist, The House

 WINNER: The Big Sick: Emily V. Gordon & Kumail Nanjiani

Best Dramatic Screenplay 

Colossal, Get Out, It, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Wakefield

WINNER: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri - Martin McDonagh

Best Documentary

Gilbert, I Am Jane Doe, The Last Laugh, An Open Secret, Score: A Film Music Documentary

WINNER: An Open Secret - Amy J. Berg

Breakout Performance - Actor

Jacob Batalon is hysterical as Peter Parker's best friend who is obsessed with his new superhero powers in Spider-Man: Homecoming.  Paul W. Downs has the best arc in the female led Rough Night as he straps on a diaper and drives to rescue his fiancee, getting crack heads and truck drivers to fall in love along the way.  Daniel Kaluuya plays a black man visiting his white girlfriend's family only to find they are up to no good in Get Out.  Kumail Nanjiani got his first lead role playing himself in The Big Sick, which he also co-wrote, playing a stand up comedian whose new girlfriend falls in a coma.  Jeremy Ray Taylor is the isolated overweight kid who joins The Losers Club in It.

WINNER: Kumail Nanjiani for The Big Sick

Breakout Performance - Actress

Hong Chau is subtly hilarious as Ngoc Lan Tran, a Vietnamese activist with a fake leg, shrunk against her will in Downsizing.  Zoe Kazan makes you fall in love with her character before she goes into a medically induced coma in The Big Sick.  Sophia Lillis is amazingly sympathetic as the only female member of The Losers Club in It.  Danielle McDonald dreams big as an overweight girl with aspirations of becoming a rap star in Patti Cake$.  Bria Vinaite plays a single mother living in a hotel near Disney Land in The Florida Project.

WINNER: Sophia Lillis for It

Best Villain

Woody Harrelson is a crazed colonel trying to make sure that humans remain the dominant species in War For The Planet Of The Apes.  Michael Keaton dons some mechanical wings as The Vulture in Spider-Man: Homecoming.  James McAvoy has 3 girls trapped in his basement and 23 personalities in his head in Split.  Kurt Russell is a living planet trying to turn the whole world into himself in Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2.  Bill Skarsgård is an ancient evil personified as a dancing clown in It.

WINNER: Bill Skarsgård for It

Best Hero

Tom Cruise sees dead people and hunts an ancient evil in the critically maligned but very fun The Mummy.  Chris Hemsworth has his third go round as the prince of Asgard in Thor: Ragnarok.  Tom Holland is the latest actor to play web slinger Peter Parker in Spider-Man: Homecoming.  Hugh Jackman has his supposedly last outing as an aged Wolverine in Logan.  Chris Pratt returns to play the half human half celestial Star Lord in Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2.

WINNER: Chris Hemsworth for Thor: Ragnarok

Best Song

Captain Underpants Theme Song (Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie), Home (Ferdinand), This Is Me (The Greatest Showman), Stand Up For Something (Marshall), PBNJ (Patti Cake$)

  WINNER: This Is Me by Keala Settle from The Greatest Showman

Best Soundtrack Or Musical Score

Baby Driver, It, The Shape Of Water, Thor: Ragnarok, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

 WINNER: Thor: Ragnarok - Mark Mothersbaugh

Best On-Screen Chemistry

Zoe Kazan & Kumail Nanjiani (The Big Sick), Holly Hunter & Ray Romano (The Big Sick), Dave Franco & James Franco (The Disaster Artist), Will Ferrell & Amy Poehler (The House), Chris Hemsworth & Mark Ruffalo (Thor: Ragnarok)

WINNER: Dave Franco & James Franco for The Disaster Artist

Best Voice-Over Performance

Alec Baldwin (The Boss Baby), Bradley Cooper (Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2), Bill Hader (Power Rangers), Andy Serkis (War For The Planet Of The Apes), Taika Waititi (Thor: Ragnarok)

WINNER: Taika Waititi for Thor: Ragnarok

Best Film-Editing Baby Driver, It, Kong: Skull Island, Logan Lucky, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri 

WINNER: Baby Driver - Jonathan Amos & Paul Machliss

Best Cinematography Baby Driver, Blade Runner 2049, Dave Made A Maze, It, The Shape Of Water 

WINNER: It - Chung-hoon Chung

Best Visual-Effects

Colossal, Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2, Kong: Skull Island, Thor: Ragnarok, War For The Planet Of The Apes

WINNER: Kong: Skull Island

Best Stunts

Atomic Blonde, Baby Driver, The Fate Of The Furious, The Mummy, xXx: Return Of Xander Cage

WINNER: Baby Driver

Best Sound

Baby Driver, Dunkirk, Kong: Skull Island, Spider-Man: Homecoming, Thor: Ragnarok

WINNER: Baby Driver

Best Ensemble

Baby Driver, The Big Sick, The Disaster Artist, It, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

WINNER: It

Jaeden Lieberher, Bill Skarsgard, Jeremy Ray Taylor, Sophia Lillis, Finn Wolfhard, Wyatt Oleff, Chosen Jacobs, Jack Dylan Grazer, Nicholas Hamilton, Jackson Robert Scott

Worst Movie

Where to start with 9/11?  I don't like the argument of "too soon" because nobody said that when Mrs. Miniver won the Oscar in 1942.  You can make a movie about a national tragedy but you need to make sure you write dialogue that isn't laughably bad, you need to make the characters worthy of spending an hour and a half with and you can't really stage this movie like a disaster thriller when we know what the outcome will be.  You probably could have found a lead actor who wasn't such an outspoken 9/11 conspiracy theorist as well.  The award for the movie so bad it made me walk out of the theater goes to Baywatch which looks like a great idea on paper.  They took a campy property ala 21 Jump Street and made an action comedy starring the almost always dependable Dwayne Johnson and the usually likable Zac Efron, throw in some T&A and you have a recipe for success.  This movie is abysmally unfunny and the action set pieces outweigh the comedy which doesn't matter because neither the action or the comedy work in this movie.  Speaking of TV properties made into bad feature films we also got CHiPs this year written by, directed by and starring Dax Shephard.  This was not as big of a waste of potential as Baywatch because I don't think anyone had high expectations for this.  The Circle is one of the most confounding movies of the year, I was never sure what story they were trying to tell or why I should care.  Emma Watson, in a lifeless performance, plays a young woman who gets a job at a Facebook or Google type company that wants full transparency, there is corporate intrigue, Watson has an EdTV like subplot where she is monitored all day, the owners of the company get spied on and don't like it.  This movie was boring but also fascinatingly terrible.  Finally, The Emoji Movie, I think I can leave it there, what were you expecting?

"WINNER": Baywatch

Eligible

9/11, Alien Covenant, All Eyez On Me, All Nighter, All The Money In The World, American Made, Atomic Blonde, Baby Driver, The Bad Batch, Battle Of The Sexes, Baywatch, Beatriz At Dinner, Beauty And The Beast, The Belko Experiment, The Big Sick, Blade Runner 2049, The Book Of Henry, The Boss Baby, Brigsby Bear, Call Me By Your Name, Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie, Chips, Chuck, The Circle, Coco, Colossal, The Dark Tower, Darkest Hour, Dave Made A Maze, Detroit, The Disaster Artist, A Dog's Purpose, Downsizing, Dunkirk, The Emoji Movie, The Fate Of The Furious, Ferdinand, Fifty Shades Darker, The Florida Project, The Foreigner, Get Out, Gifted, Girls Trip, The Great Wall, The Greatest Showman, Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2, The Hitman's Bodyguard, The House, How To Be A Latin Lover, I, Tonya, It, John Wick Chapter 2, Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle, Justice League, Kidnap, Killing Gunther, The Killing Of A Sacred Deer, Kingsman: The Golden Circle, Kong: Skull Island, Lady Bird, Landline, Last Flag Flying, The Lego Batman Movie, Lemon, Logan, Logan Lucky, Lucky, Marshall, Maudie, Mean Dreams, Molly's Game, Mother!, Mudbound, The Mummy, Murder on the Orient Express, Paris Can Wait, Patti Cake$, Personal Shopper, The Phantom Thread, Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, The Post, Power Rangers, Roman J. Israel Esq., Rough Night, The Shape Of Water, The Smurfs: The Lost Village, Snatched, The Snowman, Spider-Man: Homecoming, Split, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Stronger, Table 19, Their Finest, Thor: Ragnarok, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri, Transformers: The Last Knight, Victoria And Abdul, Wakefield, War For The Planet Of The Apes, Wilson, Wonder, Wonder Woman, xXx: Return Of Xander Cage