‘Call Me By Your Name’ Named Best Picture By Los Angeles Film Critics

The Los Angeles Film Critics Association handed out their year-end awards today anointing “Call Me By Your Name “ as Best Picture and it’s director, Luca Guadagnino, Best Director in a tie with Guillermo del Toro.

The organization also awarded “Call Me’s” Timothée Chalamet as Best Actor while “Shape of Water’s” Sally Hawkins won Best Actress.  “The Florida Project” won Best Supporting Actor, Willem Dafoe, and also was the runner-up for Best Picture.  Laurie Metcalf took Best Supporting Actress for “Lady Bird” and Jordan Peele won Screenplay for “Get Out.”  Lee Smith won Editing for “Dunkirk.”

A couple of things to keep in mind when considering LAFCA’s winners. While the organization has lined up with the Academy the past two years picking “Moonlight” and “Spotlight” as Best Picture, the last time they lined up was way back in 2009 with “The Hurt Locker.” The previous time was 16 years earlier with “Schindler’s List.” And, for comparison’s sake, in a category such as Best Director they have lined up only slightly better with the Academy picking the same winners six times since 2000 (the last being Alfonso Cuaron for “Gravity” in 2013). So, do they have a good track record? Well, if you count the past two years, sure. And it’s certainly better than their New York counterparts have fared recently. Let’s see if they go for three for three after selecting “Call Me” this year.

Here’s a list of all of this year’s winners along with some quick reaction/analysis.

Best Picture
Winner: “Call Me By Your Name”
Runner up: “The Florida Project”
Lowdown: It looked like “Shape” could take it, but a crazy impressive pick by the LA Film Critics.  “Call Me” is the highest rated narrative film of the year (Metacritic). It’s also a masterpiece and the rewarded it justly.

Best Director
Winner: Guillermo del Toro, “The Shape of Water” and Luca Guadagnino, “Call Me By Your Name” (Tie)
Lowdown: Wow. Huge for both films and filmmakers. Stunned.

Best Actor
Winner: Timothée Chalamet, “Call Me By Your Name”
Runner up: James Franco, “The Disaster Artist”
Lowdown: This is Chalamet’s second Best Actor win after taking the honor from the NYFCC last week. He’s certainly making the Oscar race more interesting as Gary Oldman was the long presumed favorite and has been snubbed completely by the three major critics groups so far. Franco’s mention helps his cause to get into the race.

Best Actress
Winner: Sally Hawkins, “The Shape of Water”
Runner up: Frances McDormand, “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”
Lowdown: Three different actresses have no won Best Actress making it quite the race as we turn to SAG and Golden Globe nominations.

Best Supporting Actor
Winner: Willem Dafoe, “The Florida Project”
Runner up: Sam Rockwell, “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”
Lowdown: This is the third win for Dafoe. Rockwell still has a shot to win Globe and SAG, but this is huge for the “Florida Project” star.

Best Supporting Actress
Winner: Laurie Metcalf, “Lady Bird”
Runner up: Mary J. Blige, “Mudbound”
Lowdown: Can we please end the Allison Janney is winning Best Supporting Actress talk please?  More importantly, this is a nice lifeline for Blige who is likely now fighting to get into the Best Supporting Actress Oscar field.

Best Screenplay
Winner: Jordan Peele, “Get Out”
Runner up: Martin McDonaugh, “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”
Lowdown: Nice win for Peele as it shapes up as a very tough Original Screenplay race between “Lady Bird,” “Get Out” and “Three Billboards.”

Best Production Design
Winner: Dennis Gassner, “Blade Runner 2049”
Runner up: Paul D. Austerberry, “The Shape of Water”
Lowdown: “Blade” and “Shape” having a strong run with LAFCA. And they should also earn a ton of below-the-line nods from the Academy.

Best Editing
Winner: Lee Smith, “Dunkirk”
Runner up: Tatiana S. Riegel, “I, Tonya”
Lowdown: Smith has an excellent shot of winning this year’s Oscar after nominations for “The Dark Knight” and “Master and Commander.” The runner up recognition for Riegel is actually more important as NEON needs any critics’ group recognition it can find to justify “I, Tonya’s” awards campaign outside of Allison Janney.

Best Musical Score
Winner: Johnny Greenwood, “Phantom Thread”
Runner up: Alexandre Desplat, “The Shape of Water”
Lowdown: Greenwood’s music is wonderful and one of the best aspects of Paul Thomas Anderson’s period drama. Desplat’s win shows broad support for “Shape” in the group.

Best Cinematography
Winner: Dan Lausten, “The Shape of Water”
Runner up: Roger Deakins, “Blade Runner 2049”
Lowdown: It’s unclear if Deakins will actually breakthrough and finally win an Oscar this year, but Lausten’s win is a nice boost for “Shape” among critics groups and earning his own nomination.

Best Foreign-Language Film
Winner: “BPM” and “Loveless” (tie)
Lowdown: “BPM’s” win really helps it in the Foreign Language Film race where it’s likely going to need a committee save to make the shortlist. “Loveless” should* get in through the popular vote (*although you never know).

Best Documentary/Non-Fiction Film
Winner: Agnes Varda, “Faces Places”
Runner up: Brett Morgen, “Jane”
Lowdown: Like NYFCC it appears LAFCA members want their idol Varda to make one more trip back to the States.  Seriously.

Best Animation
Winner: “The Breadwinner”
Runner up: “Coco”
Lowdown: A surprise, but not a surprise? LAFCA hasn’t selected a Pixar movie in this category since 2010 (“Toy Story 2”).

New Generation
Winner: Greta Gerwig
Lowdown:  A consolation prize for Gerwig after losing out at the top honors, but well deserved.

Douglas Edwards Independent / Experimental Film / Video
Winner: Lee Anne Schmidt, “Purge This Land”