Washington Area Film Critics Association Awards 2022: Everything Everywhere All At Once and More!

Posted on December 12, 2022 at 8:11 am

“Everything Everywhere All At Once” cinched four major wins when The Washington, D.C. Area Film Critics Association (WAFCA) announced their top honorees for 2022 this morning. A life-affirming, genre-traversing journey through the multiverse as experienced by a struggling working-class wife, mother, and laundromat owner, writer-directors Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert’s uniquely unclassifiable feature proved victorious in the Best Film, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Supporting Actor categories, the latter for former child star Ke Huy Quan’s breakthrough return to acting after a 20-year hiatus.

In the other major acting races, Colin Farrell won Best Actor for his riveting performance in Martin McDonagh’s “The Banshees of Inisherin,” as a 1920s everyman living off the coast of Ireland who is stricken with confusion and grief when his best friend abruptly ends their relationship, and Kerry Condon won Best Supporting Actress for the same film, as Farrell’s outspoken, increasingly concerned sister. Cate Blanchett triumphed in the Best Actress category for her haunted tour de force turn in Todd Field’s “TÁR,” as a world-class musician and conductor experiencing a reckoning for her questionable past actions.

Best Youth Performance went to Gabriel LaBelle as an aspiring teenage filmmaker not unlike Steven Spielberg in “The Fabelmans,” and Best Voice Performance was awarded to Jenny Slate for her irresistibly funny and poignant turn in the title role of Dean Fleischer-Camp’s “Marcel the Shell with Shoes On.” Zoe Saldaña won Best Motion Capture Performance for her excellent work in James Cameron’s “Avatar: The Way of Water.” Best Acting Ensemble went to the marvelous cast of Rian Johnson’s “Glass Onion,” the second chapter in the “Knives Out” murder-mystery franchise, starring Daniel Craig as returning detective Benoit Blanc, and Edward Norton, Janelle Monáe, Kate Hudson, Kathryn Hahn, Leslie Odom Jr., Dave Bautista, Jessica Henwick, and Madelyn Cline as his gaggle of suspects. Johnson also won Best Adapted Screenplay for the spiky, surprising, meticulously plotted “Glass Onion.”

“Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio,” a beautifully rendered stop-motion animated adaptation from del Toro and co-director Mark Gustafson, won Best Animated Feature. Best International/Foreign Language Film was awarded to Park Chan-wook’s “Decision to Leave,” an intoxicating romantic mystery from South Korea, and Best Documentary kudos went to “Good Night Oppy,” Ryan White’s inspiring story of Opportunity, the NASA exploration rover whose planned 90-day mission to Mars in 2003 turned into a nearly 15-year odyssey.

In technical categories, Joseph Kosinski’s blockbuster hit “Top Gun: Maverick,” the acclaimed long-awaited sequel to 1986’s “Top Gun,” took home the prizes for Claudio Miranda’s dazzling cinematography and Eddie Hamilton’s seamless editing. Best Production Design went to Ryan Coogler’s “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” while Best Score was awarded to composer Michael Giacchino for Matt Reeves’ “The Batman.”

The Washington, D.C. Area Film Critics Association comprises over 60 DC-VA-MD-based film critics from television, radio, print and the Internet. Voting was conducted from December 9-11, 2022.

THE 2022 WAFCA AWARD WINNERS:

Best Film:
Everything Everywhere All At Once

Best Director:
Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert (Everything Everywhere All At Once)

Best Actor:
Colin Farrell (The Banshees of Inisherin)

Best Actress:
Cate Blanchett (TÁR)

Best Supporting Actor:
Ke Huy Quan (Everything Everywhere All At Once)

Best Supporting Actress:
Kerry Condon (The Banshees of Inisherin)

Best Acting Ensemble:
Glass Onion

Best Youth Performance:
Gabriel LaBelle (The Fabelmans)

Best Voice Performance:
Jenny Slate (Marcel the Shell with Shoes On)

Best Motion Capture Performance:
Zoe Saldaña (Avatar: The Way of Water)

Best Original Screenplay:
Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert (Everything Everywhere All At Once)

Best Adapted Screenplay:
Rian Johnson (Glass Onion)

Best Animated Feature:
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio

Best Documentary:
Good Night Oppy

Best International/Foreign Language Film:
Decision to Leave

Best Production Design:
Hannah Beachler, Production Designer; Lisa Sessions Morgan, Set Decorator (Black Panther: Wakanda Forever)

Best Cinematography:
Claudio Miranda, ASC (Top Gun: Maverick)

Best Editing:
Eddie Hamilton, ACE (Top Gun: Maverick)

Best Original Score:
Michael Giacchino (The Batman)

The 2022 WAFCA AWARD NOMINEES WERE:

Best Film:
The Banshees of Inisherin
Everything Everywhere All At Once
The Fabelmans
TÁR
Top Gun: Maverick

Best Director:
Todd Field (TÁR)
Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert (Everything Everywhere All At Once)
Martin McDonagh (The Banshees of Inisherin)
Sarah Polley (Women Talking)
Steven Spielberg (The Fabelmans)

Best Actor:
Austin Butler (Elvis)
Tom Cruise (Top Gun: Maverick)
Colin Farrell (The Banshees of Inisherin)
Brendan Fraser (The Whale)
Paul Mescal (Aftersun)

Best Actress:
Cate Blanchett (TÁR)
Viola Davis (The Woman King)
Danielle Deadwyler (Till)
Michelle Williams (The Fabelmans)
Michelle Yeoh (Everything Everywhere All At Once)

Best Supporting Actor:
Paul Dano (The Fabelmans)
Brendan Gleeson (The Banshees of Inisherin)
Barry Keoghan (The Banshees of Inisherin)
Ke Huy Quan (Everything Everywhere All At Once)
Ben Whishaw (Women Talking)

Best Supporting Actress:
Angela Bassett (Black Panther: Wakanda Forever)
Kerry Condon (The Banshees of Inisherin)
Jamie Lee Curtis (Everything Everywhere All At Once)
Stephanie Hsu (Everything Everywhere All At Once)
Janelle Monáe (Glass Onion)

Best Acting Ensemble:
The Banshees of Inisherin
Everything Everywhere All At Once
The Fabelmans
Glass Onion
Women Talking

Best Youth Performance:
Frankie Corio (Aftersun)
Jalyn Hall (Till)
Gabriel LaBelle (The Fabelmans)
Banks Repeta (Armageddon Time)
Sadie Sink (The Whale)

Best Voice Performance:
Rosalie Chiang (Turning Red)
Gregory Mann (Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio)
Ewan McGregor (Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio)
Sandra Oh (Turning Red)
Jenny Slate (Marcel the Shell with Shoes On)

Best Motion Capture Performance:
Sam Worthington (Avatar: The Way of Water)
Sigourney Weaver (Avatar: The Way of Water)
Zoe Saldaña (Avatar: The Way of Water)

Best Original Screenplay:
Martin McDonagh (The Banshees of Inisherin)
Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert (Everything Everywhere All At Once)
Steven Spielberg & Tony Kushner (The Fabelmans)
Jordan Peele (Nope)
Todd Field (TÁR)

Best Adapted Screenplay:
Rian Johnson (Glass Onion)
Patrick McHale, Guillermo del Toro (Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio)
Rebecca Lenkiewicz (She Said)
Samuel D. Hunter (The Whale)
Sarah Polley (Women Talking)

Best Animated Feature:
Apollo 10½
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On
Turning Red
Wendell & Wild

Best Documentary:
All That Breathes
All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
Descendant
Fire of Love
Good Night Oppy

Best International/
Foreign Language Film:
All Quiet on the Western Front
Close
Decision to Leave
EO
RRR

Best Production Design:
Hannah Beachler, Production Designer; Lisa Sessions Morgan, Set Decorator (Black Panther: Wakanda Forever)
Catherine Martin, Karen Murphy, Production Designers; Bev Dunn, Set Decorator (Elvis)
Jason Kisvarday, Production Designer; Kelsi Ephraim, Set Decorator (Everything Everywhere All At Once)
Rick Carter, Production Designer; Karen O’Hara, Set Decorator (The Fabelmans)
Rick Heinrichs, Production Designer; Elli Griff, Set Decorator (Glass Onion)

Best Cinematography:
Roger Deakins, ASC, BSC (Empire of Light)
Larkin Seiple (Everything Everywhere All At Once)
Janusz Kaminski (The Fabelmans)
Hoyte van Hoytema ASC, FSF, NSC (Nope)
Claudio Miranda, ASC (Top Gun: Maverick)

Best Editing:
Matt Villa, ASE ACE; Jonathan Redmond (Elvis)
Paul Rogers (Everything Everywhere All At Once)
Michael Kahn, ACE; Sarah Broshar (The Fabelmans)
Monika Willi (TÁR)
Eddie Hamilton, ACE (Top Gun: Maverick)

Best Original Score:
Michael Giacchino (The Batman)
John Williams (The Fabelmans)
Alexandre Desplat (Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio)
Hildur Guðnadóttir (TÁR)
Hildur Guðnadóttir (Women Talking)

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Awards

Empire of Light

Posted on December 8, 2022 at 5:38 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for sexual content, language and brief violence
Profanity:	Very strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Alcohol, smoking, medication
Violence/ Scariness:	Racist mob violence
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	December 9, 2022

“Empire of Light” has such enticing visuals and such thoughtful performances it can almost lull audiences into forgetting that the storyline and characters are like pieces from different jigsaw puzzles. They never come together. And, more problematic, they are two-dimensional cardboard depictions, not the real thing or even a worthy substitute.

The title refers to the setting, a once-grand movie theater called Empire across from the beach along England’s south coast. It is 1980, near the end of the year.

Hilary (Olivia Colman) is the manager, taking care of just about everything from sweeping up spilled popcorn to placing the boss’s slippers in front of the space heater to matching up the ticket stubs to make sure every customer is accounted for. It also includes sexually servicing the boss, Donald Ellis, who murmurs tender nothings like “You’re so helpful.”

Hilary has recently returned to the theater after a stint in a mental hospital. She takes medication for bipolar disorder and has regular check-ins with a doctor. That may be why she is tamped down, or it just may be English reserve. Or both. She admits to him that she feels a bit numb. Colman, never less than superb, is the best part of the film, showing us how Hilary’s smile and her eyes communicate opposite emotions.

The other staff includes Norman, the projectionist, who is proud of his understanding of optical physics (Toby Jones), Janine, with wild hair and punk-black lipstick (Hannah Onslow), and quiet but observant Neil (Tom Brooke). One day, Ellis introduces a new employee, Stephen (Micheal Ward), the son of an African immigrant, who is a nurse at the local hospital. Hilary is drawn to him, his gentle care for a bird with a broken wing and his good humor. She stops taking her medication and begins to feel less numb. Some feelings are welcome, some not, as when she snaps at Stephen for trying to amuse Janine by imitating an elderly customer. The same goes for an underused Jones, who is stuck with explaining the magic of the stories projected on a beam of light. Hilary’s recognition of the abuse Stephen suffers because he is Black seems like it is from another movie. A better one, as the issue is more about her reaction than about his experience.

The cinematography by all-time great Roger Deakins is enticing and production designer Mark Tildesley, who gives the Empire theater just the right amount of faded glory, especially in the top floor, once additional theaters with a gracious lounge, now abandoned by everyone but pigeons.

It is a joy to see Colman as Hilary. She shows us the pain and isolation Hilary is experiencing and handles the various stages of bipolar disorder without losing sight of the feelings of anger, jealousy, and longing that are about being human, not about being mentally ill. Ward has enormous appeal. But neither can overcome the underwritten characters created by writer/director Sam Mendes. Small moments engage us, especially those with Tanya Moodie as Stephen’s mother and Crystal Clarke as his love interest. but it never comes together. By the time Hilary finally decides to actually watch a movie and not just supervise the operations of the theater, the message is unforgivably heavy-handed, with the selection, a movie about someone who is removed from what is going on around him, just in case we did not get the message. Movies can be magical. They can bring us together. As Roger Ebert liked to say, they can be empathy machines. But not this one.

Parents should know that this film includes brief violence from a racist mob. Characters use strong language and they smoke and drink. Hilary takes (and does not take) psychotropic medication. There are sexual references and explicit situations.

Family discussion: What did Hilary learn about Stephen when he rescued the bird? Why didn’t she watch the movies? What movies feel magical to you?

If you like this, try: “Blinded by the Light,” set in the same era, and “The Fabelmans”

Spoiler Alert

Posted on December 8, 2022 at 5:06 pm

B +

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for drug use, thematic elements, and sexual content
Profanity:	Strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Alcohol and marijuana
Violence/ Scariness:	Illness and sad death
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	December 9, 2022

TV Guide journalist Michael Ausiello fell in love with photographer Kit Cowan and wrote a book about their life together and Kit’s death from cancer called Spoiler Alert: The Hero Dies. Like Love Story, we know from the beginning that we will be crying at the end. But we expect that it will be a tender, inspiring story, and it is.

Jim Parsons plays Ausiello, a man whose deep attachment to television — and to one show in particular I will not spoil — stems from and perpetuates a tendency to be introverted and self-conscious in his interactions with others, especially possible romantic partners. He calls himself an “FFK,” “former fat kid,” so he is insecure about his body.

Kit (Ben Aldridge) is handsome, confident, and outgoing. He has never considered making a commitment to any kind of romantic or intimate relationship. Both of them are surprised and scared to find themselves caring about each other. Michael is the one who confesses he has always dreamed of someone to lie under the Christmas tree with him, year after year.

They move in together. They lie under the Christmas tree. But they have some problems. Michael worries that Kit is cheating on him with a handsome co-worker. Kit gets impatient. Each of them is irritated with the very changes they introduced each other to. Michael, a non-drinker when they met, is now getting quietly snockered in the evenings. Kit, who didn’t watch much television when they met, is watching too much, even for Kit. Both, of course, are about distancing themselves from having real conversations.

Kit moves out, but they remain close. And then, after one more Christmas celebration, Kit tells Michael he is experiencing pain. Michael goes with him to the doctor and they have the conversation everyone dreads, the one that begins with, “I’m afraid the news is not what we had hoped.”

The movie balances our expectations for a movie love story with specifics about the perspective of these gay men and their friends in the capable hands of director Michael Showalter, who gave us a similar, fact-based story in “The Big Sick.” The title itself makes it clear that this one will not have a happily ever after ending. But it has some wise insights about the connections based on going through the direst circumstances together. Intimacy is terrifying, but in the reflected light of the even bigger terror of loss, we can achieve some clarity about risking all of the pain to face it together, to help each other through the worst.

Parsons leaves behind his iconic role in “the Big Bang Theory” to give us the tender-hearted Ausiello, who has to learn to make real-life connections beyond his attachment to his television “friends.” And Aldridge is endearing as Kit allows himself to be vulnerable. Over the closing credits we see a brief video of the real Kit, a scene re-created for the film. With the book and the movie, Michael has made a lovely tribute to Kit, to love, to being human, and to sharing our stories.

Parents should know that this movie has strong language, sexual references and situations, drinking, marijuana, and terminal cancer.

Family discussion: What pushed Kit and Michael apart and what brought them back together? What do we learn from the reaction of Kit’s parents?

If you like this, try: the book, Spoiler Alert: The Hero Dies, and Ausiello’s Instagram account for Kit’s photographs

White Noise

Posted on December 1, 2022 at 5:15 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Not rated
Profanity:	Some strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Alcohol and drugs
Violence/ Scariness:	Apocalyptic themes
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters

Don DeLillo’s 1985 novel White Noise won the National Book Award for fiction. It was an apocalyptic satire about a couple in an academic community who both have a sense of dread and fear of death, and what happens when a toxic cloud causes a massive evacuation. Pretty much everyone agreed that it was un-filmable because so much of its value depended on the book’s tone, which would be impossible to convey on screen. But Noah Bumbach decided that for his first time directed a script based on a book (he co-wrote but did not direct the adaptation of Roald Dahl’s “Fantastic Mr. Fox”) White Noise would be it.

It’s probably even more of a challenge to translate to film now than it was 27 years ago because some of the wildest exaggerations of the satire now seem to be commonplace elements of our daily life. And its reflections on consumerism and the way we separate ourselves from daily and existential considerations are too well-traveled to be meaningful without some freshness in their presentation.

Jack Gladney (Adam Driver) is a professor at the fictional College on the Hill, married to Babette (Greta Gerwig), a warm-hearted woman with intensely crimped hair. Each has been married three times before, and they blended family includes children from the previous relationships and one they had together. They have a loving, intimate relationship, though both are pre-occupied with a fear of death and talk about which one of them will die first.

Jack is a pioneer in Hitler studies, though he does not speak German. He has a new colleague, Murray Siskind (Don Cheadle), who lectures on popular culture themes like car crashes in movies and hopes to be the leading scholar on Elvis Presley. One of the film’s highlights is an almost rap battle after Murray asks Jack to help him by participating in his class.

Some kind of toxic cloud descends, triggering an evacuation. As families shelter in a gigantic warehouse, Jack learns that because he stopped to put gas in the car, his exposure may mean that he has only a short time to live. The bureaucratic obtuseness is briefly touched on, and then the story swings into trying to find out what medicine Babette has been taking.

Bumbach is skilled at intimate, complicated family dramas like “The Squid and the Whale” and “Marriage Story.” He is not able to find a heightened tone for this narrative with the different directions of its three stories and characters who are more symbolic than real. Driver and Gerwig both give excellent performances but they are too sincere and accessible for this brittle material. The credit sequence is the best part of the movie, coming closer to matching the themes than the two hours leading up to it.

Parents should know that this film deals with apocalyptic issues and family struggles over drugs and adultery. There is some peril and violence including guns and attempted murder. Characters use strong language.

Family discussion: How have things changed since this book was written and the era it depicts? Why didn’t Babette tell Jack the truth?

If you like this, try: the book by Don DeLillo and Baumbach’s other films