It’s almost summer and in the local entertainment scene, that can only mean that the awards season is upon us. As we go to press, only one award-giving organization has given out their annual citations for what they deem are the best cinematic achievements for films released in the previous year.
There was a time when the Young Critics Circle (YCC), a group comprised of film professors and film scholars, was always the first one to release its list of winners. But as things stand, February is almost over and the YCC is yet to announce its choices. Unlike other award-giving groups, the YCC releases its winners and nominees simultaneously.
The foremost local critics group, the Manunuri ng Pelikulang Pilipino always holds a news conference to announce its nominees for the yearly Gawad Urian, and they may do so in April or early-May. We still hope they can narrow down their nominees to only five or six at most for each category.
This is a far cry from Hollywood, where awards season starts during the last month of the year and usually ends in February, with the most coveted recognition of all, the Oscars, given out by the Ampas (Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences), or simply the Academy.
This year’s Oscars will be held on March 4 and with only a mere week to go, the race for Oscar glory is in the homestretch, with clear front-runners in some major categories. We say some because the other categories involve a neck-and-neck fight to the finish line. Some reports point out that this year’s race is one of the most competitive in recent years, although sentimental favorites almost always have the edge.
Quite predictably, the Oscar lead acting trophies would most likely to Gary Oldman and Frances McDormand. Oldman’s portrayal of Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour is so on-point and flawless, while McDormand’s take on the grieving mother in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri resonated very well within the four walls of Hollywood.
It’s unfortunate that Timothée Chalamet of Call Me By Your Name will not be the youngest best actor winner, although many quietly hope to see him score an upset. For the supporting categories, we are placing our bets on Sam Rockwell (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri) and Allison Janney (I, Tonya).
Local showbiz observers note that this excitement was what was lacking in the first local group to hand out their awards to honor last year’s cinematic achievements. They argue that many of the categories have nominees that don’t fully satisfy—that is, if real merit was the sole criterion.
Take for instance, the group’s Best Actress nominees, where some of last year’s most searing performances by actresses in a leading role failed to even bag nominations.
And why, many wonder, is it that the last Cinemalaya’s charming discovery, Noel Comia Jr., who played a boy who tries to make a connection to his absentee father in Kiko Boksingero, lost in the best child performer category to two child actors whose movies no true film buff even remembers.
Ditto in the case of relative newcomer Mary Joy Apostol, whose impressive portrayal of a rural girl who learns to muster the courage and grow up overnight in Mikhail Red’s much-admired Birdshot. Apostol landed a nomination in the New Movie Actress of the Year category, where she was bested by Pia Wurtzbach in the Vice Ganda year-end festival blockbuster. What criteria and basis the voting members had in giving their votes to the beauty queen, only they would know.
And what’s with international theater star Joanna Ampil’s double nomination for the same movie (Ang Larawan)? Fortunately for the talented Ampil, she won as New Movie Actress of the Year in a tie with the beauty queen.
While campaigning is conducted out in the open in the Oscars, the same is brought to outrageous proportions this side of Hollywood.
At a time when prestige movies, both in Hollywood and in local shores, hardly make a dent in the box-office and lose audiences to superhero franchises (in the US) and formulaic fare (in the Philippines), why exactly are awards still relevant?
In an ideal world, awards should honor the best efforts delivered by filmmakers and hopefully contribute in bringing about intelligent discourse and eventually a much-needed viewer education.
But how can discourse be possible if award-giving groups fail to exhibit transparency and exercise impartiality?
Any voting member of any group or body for that matter should strive to be like Caesar’s wife—above suspicion. Only then will anyone’s appeal for respect for the choices of the group he or she is affiliated with make sense.
Respect begets respect. And that should never be compromised.