2016 DGA/PGA/WGA winners

Congratulations to this year's DGA/PGA/WGA honorees!

Directors Guild of America

Feature Film
Damien Chazelle
La La Land (Lionsgate)
Directorial Team:
Unit Production Manager: Michael Beugg
First Assistant Director: Peter Kohn
Second Assistant Director: Paula Case
Assistant Unit Production Manager: Bart Lipton
Second Second Assistant Director: Brett Robinson
Additional Second Assistant Director: Dodi Rubenstein

First-Time Director Feature Film
Garth Davis
Lion (The Weinstein Company)
Directorial Team:
First Assistant Director: Chris Webb
First Assistant Director: Ananya Rane (India Unit)
Second Assistant Directors: Mark Ingram (Australia Unit), Sunny Tiku (India Unit), KP Singh (India Unit), Shaunak Kapur (India Unit)

Documentary
Ezra Edelman
O.J.: Made in America
ESPN Films

Producers Guild of America

Darryl F. Zanuck Award for Outstanding Producer of Theatrical Motion Pictures
La La Land
Producers: Fred Berger, Jordan Horowitz, Marc Platt

Outstanding Producer of Animated Theatrical Motion Pictures
Zootopia
Producer: Clark Spencer

Outstanding Producer of Documentary Theatrical Motion Pictures
O.J.: Made in America
Producers: Ezra Edelman, Caroline Waterlow

Writers Guild of America

Original Screenplay
Moonlight
Written by Barry Jenkins, Story by Tarell McCraney; A24

Adapted Screenplay
Arrival
Screenplay by Eric Heisserer;
Based on the Story “Story of Your Life” by Ted Chiang; Paramount Pictures

2016 BAFTA winners

Congratulations to all of this year's BAFTA Award honorees!

Best Film:
La La Land

Best British Film in 2017: 
I, Daniel Blake

Best Director: 
Damien Chazelle, La La Land

Best Actor:
Casey Affleck, Manchester by the Sea

Best Actress:
Emma Stone, La La Land

Best Supporting Actor:
Dev Patel, Lion

Best Supporting Actress:
Viola Davis, Fences

Best Film Not in the English Language: 
Son of Saul

Best Documentary:
13th

Best Animated Film: 
Kubo and the Two Strings

Best Cinematography: 
Linus Sandgren, La La Land

Best Original Screenplay:
Kenneth Lonergan, Manchester by the Sea

Best Adapted Screenplay: 
Luke Davies, Lion

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 Makeup and Hair: 
J. Roy Helland and Daniel Phillips, Florence Foster Jenkins

Best Sound: 
Claude La Haye, Bernard Gariépy Strobl and Sylvain Bellemare, Arrival

Best Special Visual Effects: 
Robert Legato, Dan Lemmon, Andrew R. Jones and Adam Valdez, The Jungle Book

Best British Short Animation: 
A Love Story

Best British Short Film: 
Home

The EE Rising Star Award: 
Tom Holland

Best Original Music: 
Justin Hurwitz, La La Land

Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer:
Under the Shadow, Babak Anvari (writer/director), and Emily Leo, Oliver Roskill and Lucan Toh (producers)

2nd Annual Awards Connection Oscar Predictions Contest

Howdy, awards season junkies!

It's time for the 2nd Annual Awards Connection Oscar Predictions Contest.

The rules are easy and breezy. First, if you somehow haven't already, follow me @AwardsConnect on Twitter. Then, simply e-mail your Oscar predictions in all 24 categories (yes, including the likes of Best Sound Editing and Best Documentary Short Subject) to me at theawardsconnection@gmail.com, and include in the e-mail your Twitter handle (if you have one), as I'll be announcing the contest winner via Twitter.

Whoever gets the most correct predictions will receive a $25 Fandango gift card via e-mail. Last year, it was Matthew Stewart who emerged triumphant.

In the event of a tie, I have the following tie-breaker question: How many Oscars will La La Land, Manchester by the Sea and Moonlight win COMBINED? Whoever has the correct answer or comes closest to it will triumph. (Ex: If you believe La La Land will win 7 Oscars, Manchester by the Sea 3 Oscars and Moonlight 2 Oscars, your answer should be 12 Oscars.) Include your answer in the e-mail.

The deadline for prediction submissions is Oscar Sunday, February 26th at 6pm eastern time. The contest winner will be announced later in the week on Twitter and also notified via e-mail.

Questions should be directed to theawardsconnection@gmail.com, or of course feel free to message me on Twitter.

Happy predicting!

For your copy-and-pasting convenience, here again are this year's nominees:

BEST PICTURE
Arrival
Fences
Hacksaw Ridge
Hell or High Water
Hidden Figures
La La Land
Lion
Manchester by the Sea
Moonlight

BEST DIRECTOR
Denis Villeneuve, Arrival
Mel Gibson, Hacksaw Ridge
Damien Chazelle, La La Land
Kenneth Lonergan, Manchester by the Sea
Barry Jenkins, Moonlight

BEST ACTOR
Casey Affleck, Manchester by the Sea
Andrew Garfield, Hacksaw Ridge
Ryan Gosling, La La Land
Viggo Mortensen, Captain Fantastic
Denzel Washington, Fences

BEST ACTRESS
Isabelle Huppert, Elle
Ruth Negga, Loving
Natalie Portman, Jackie
Emma Stone, La La Land
Meryl Streep, Florence Foster Jenkins

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Mahershala Ali, Moonlight
Jeff Bridges, Hell or High Water
Lucas Hedges, Manchester by the Sea
Dev Patel, Lion
Michael Shannon, Nocturnal Animals

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Viola Davis, Fences
Naomie Harris, Moonlight
Nicole Kidman, Lion
Octavia Spencer, Hidden Figures
Michelle Williams, Manchester by the Sea

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Hell or High Water
La La Land
The Lobster
Manchester by the Sea
20th Century Women

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Arrival
Fences
Hidden Figures
Lion
Moonlight

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Arrival
La La Land
Lion
Moonlight
Silence

BEST FILM EDITING
Arrival
Hacksaw Ridge
Hell or High Water
La La Land
Moonlight

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
Deepwater Horizon
Doctor Strange
The Jungle Book
Kubo and the Two Strings
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN
Arrival
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Hail, Caesar!
La La Land
Passengers

BEST COSTUME DESIGN
Allied
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Florence Foster Jenkins
Jackie
La La Land

BEST MAKEUP & HAIRSTYLING
A Man Called Ove
Star Trek Beyond
Suicide Squad

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
Jackie
La La Land
Lion
Moonlight
Passengers

BEST ORIGINAL SONG
“Audition (The Fools Who Dream),” La La Land
“Can’t Stop the Feeling,” Trolls
“City of Stars,” La La Land
“The Empty Chair,” Jim: The James Foley Story
“How Far I’ll Go,” Moana

BEST SOUND EDITING
Arrival
Deepwater Horizon
Hacksaw Ridge
La La Land
Sully

BEST SOUND MIXING
Arrival
Hacksaw Ridge
La La Land
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
Kubo and the Two Strings
Moana
My Life as a Zucchini
The Red Turtle
Zootopia

BEST DOCUMENTARY
Fire at Sea
I Am Not Your Negro
Life, Animated
O.J.: Made in America
13th

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
Land of Mine
A Man Called Ove
The Salesman
Tanna
Toni Erdmann

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT
Extremis
4.1 Miles
Joe's Violin
Watani: My Homeland
The White Helmets

BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT
Ennemis Entreniers
La Femme et le TGV
Silent Nights
Sing
Timecode

BEST ANIMATED SHORT
Blind Vaysha
Borrowed Time
Pear Cider and Cigarettes
Pearl
Piper

Review: "Lion"

As director Garth Davis' Oscar-nominated Lion opens, five-year-old Saroo (Sunny Pawar, in a wonderful screen debut) is waiting at a train station for his brother Guddu (Abhishek Bharate) when he accidentally falls asleep aboard a dormant train and awakens in the morning, the moving vehicle now countless miles across India, in Calcutta.

With no understanding of the local Bengali language, Saroo wanders the city with impressive street smarts and is eventually placed in an orphanage. Not long after, with his family unable to ever track him down and vice versa, he is adopted by an Australian couple (Nicole Kidman and David Wenham), who whole-heartedly adore Saroo from the get-go.

This opening half of Lion suggests a masterpiece in cinema. It's sumptuously photographed, with cinematography by Greig Fraser, features a stirring original score by Hauschka and Dustin O'Halloran and boasts that delightful, engaging performance by Pawar, who has an enormous screen presence. Kidman is fantastic too, in scenes both early and later in the film, though I do wish her character was more fleshed-out.

Lion's latter half, I'm afraid, isn't quite on-par with its exceptional start. In this portion of the picture, set 25 years later, an adult Saroo (Dev Patel) is now residing in Melbourne, where he studies hotel management. Following an evening of Indian cuisine with friends and his girlfriend Lucy (Rooney Mara), Saroo finds himself overcome with flashbacks to his childhood. His friends suggest he utilize Google Earth to finally locate his hometown and before long, this search becomes an obsession for Saroo.

These scenes, while competently filmed and performed, don't pack the same punch as those featuring Pawar. Moreover, Mara, who should have won last year's Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Carol, is obscenely underused in a thankless role. Only toward the film's conclusion does it muster the same impact as earlier but these moments are also a tad dampened by the use of a bombastic original song by Sia.

Even if Lion overall does not live up to the sky-high promise of its first hour, the picture is still an immensely moving one and deserving of the recognition it's so far garnered.

A-

2016 SAG Awards winners

Congratulations to all of this year's fantastic SAG Awards winners! (And Lifetime Achievement honoree Lily Tomlin!)

Best Ensemble
Hidden Figures

Best Lead Actor
Denzel Washington, Fences

Best Lead Actress
Emma Stone, La La Land

Best Supporting Actor
Mahershala Ali, Moonlight

Best Supporting Actress
Viola Davis, Fences