and the winner is...

Houston Film Critics Society unveils 'favourites' for upcoming movie awards

The Favourite is a Houston critics' favorite.

Photo by Yorgos Lanthimos

It appears the film critics of Houston have a thing for movies about 18th-century English royalty being bitchy to one another.

That would explain why the period piece The Favourite, directed by Yorgos Lanthimos and starring Olivia Colman and Oscar winners Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz, has a whopping seven nominations in the 12th Annual Houston Film Critics Society Movie Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, and Best Supporting Actress.

The monster Marvel hit Black Panther and If Beale Street Could Talk, the James Baldwin-adapted latest from Moonlight director Barry Jenkins, are both tied with six nominations, while the Bradley Cooper-directed remake of A Star is Born and the Dick Cheney biopic Vice each have five. All these films are nominated for best picture, along with BlacKkKlansman, Eighth Grade, First Reformed, Green Book, Hereditary, and Roma.

“Once again, the HFCS nominations tell the story of the year in film,” Joshua Starnes, president of the organization (which this writer is a member), said in a statement. “By celebrating popular blockbusters as well as acclaimed independent films, the nominations remind us why we love to go to the movies.”

The winners will be announced on Thursday, January 3, 2019 at a free "Oscar-style" ceremony (with promotional assistance from ESPN 97.5 FM and SportsMap 94.1 FM, which is owned by Gow Media, which also owns CultureMap) at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, starting at 7 pm.

There will also be awards given out the Best Poster (BlacKkKlansman and Suspiria both have two nominations) as well as Worst Picture (yes, Venom is in there). A silent auction benefitting the HFCS will include movie industry collectables and will be staged at the after-party at Hotel ZaZa, located in the Houston Museum District. Tickets are required to ensure a manageable level of attendance.

Here is a full list of the nominees:

Best Picture

A Star is Born

Black Panther

BlackKklansman

Eighth Grade

If Beale Street Could Talk

The Favourite

First Reformed

Green Book

Hereditary

Roma

Vice

Best Director

Bradley Cooper, A Star is Born

Alfonso Cuaron, Roma

Barry Jenkins, If Beale Street Could Talk

Yorgos Lanthimos, The Favourite

Adam McKay, Vice

Best Actor

Christian Bale, Vice

Bradley Cooper, A Star is Born

Ethan Hawke, First Reformed

Rami Malek, Bohemian Rhapsody

Viggo Mortensen, Green Book

Best Actress

Glenn Close, The Wife

Toni Collette, Hereditary

Olivia Colman, The Favourite

Lady Gaga, A Star is Born

Melissa McCarthy, Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Best Supporting Actor

Mahershala Ali, Green Book

Timothee Chalamet, Beautiful Boy

Adam Driver, BlackKklansman

Richard E. Grant, Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Michael B. Jordan, Black Panther

Best Supporting Actress

Amy Adams, Vice

Claire Foy, First Man

Regina King, If Beale Street Could Talk

Emma Stone, The Favourite

Rachel Weisz, The Favourite

Best Screenplay

Bo Burnham, Eighth Grade

Deborah Davis & Tony McNamara, The Favourite

Paul Schrader, First Reformed

Barry Jenkins, If Beale Street Could Talk

Adam McKay, Vice

Best Cinematography

Rachel Morrison, Black Panther

Linus Sandgren, First Man

Robbie Ryan, The Favourite

James Laxton, If Beale Street Could Talk

Alfonso Cuaron, Roma

Best Animated Film

Incredibles 2

Isle of Dogs

Mirai

Ralph Breaks the Internet

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

Best Original Score

Ludwig Göransson, Black Panther

Justin Hurwitz, First Man

Nicholas Britell, If Beale Street Could Talk

Alexandre Desplat, Isle of Dogs

Thom Yorke, Suspiria

Best Original Song

All the Stars from Black Panther

Ashes from Deadpool 2

Hearts Beat Loudfrom Hearts Beat Loud

Revelation from Boy Erased

Shallow from A Star is Born

Best Foreign Language Film

Burning

Border

Cold War

Roma

Shoplifters

Best Documentary Feature

Free Solo

Minding the Gap

RBG

Three Identical Strangers

Won't You Be My Neighbor?

Texas Independent Film Award

1985

An American in Texas

The Standoff at Sparrow Creek

Support the Girls

Tejano

Visual Effects

Black Panther

First Man

Mission: Impossible – Fallout

Best Poster

BlacKkKlansman (two different posters)

Mandy

Suspiria (two different posters)

Best Worst Film of the Year

The 15:17 to Paris

The Happytime Murders

Life Itself

Peppermint

Venom

awards movies

welcome home, wes

Wes Anderson's Houston homecoming supports historic theater restoration

A fancy, eccentric-looking crowd showed up for the Wes Anderson Homecoming Soirée, held on Friday, July 17, at the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts’s Zilkha Hall.

Fans of the Houston-born, Oscar-winning auteur paid hundreds of dollars to attend this benefit event. Guys dressed up like characters from The Royal Tenenbaums. Others wore red skull caps and low-top Adidas, like the characters from The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. Some people working the event even wore “Lobby Boy” hats, looking like the bellboy character from The Grand Budapest Hotel.

The people gathered for two reasons: 1) to get a chance to see Anderson in person; and 2) to raise money to renovate and restore the Garden Oaks Theater, a project spearheaded by local nonprofit Arthouse Houston. Top-tier “Founders Experience” ticketholders got a chance to meet Anderson onstage for pics. The St. John's School alum also received a proclamation from Mayor John Whitmire declaring it “Wes Anderson Day.”

After that, he and actor/fellow SJS alum Michael Maggart (who has appeared in several Anderson films) held a half-hour discussion where they reminisced about making Rushmore here in Houston, Anderson’s days working at the Bookstop on W. Alabama (now a Trader Joe’s), and how he and frequent collaborator Owen Wilson used to sneak into the River Oaks Theatre. (It involved pretending to lose a pair of glasses.)

Of course, the conversation shifted to Anderson coming back home to support the Garden Oaks project. “I always say you can't build an old building,” Anderson said. “First of all, I mean, a beautiful old place has history, and has people's experiences tied into it, and it has stories involved in it. And I think an old cinema — these things are kind of endangered all over the world, and it's not just an architectural thing. It's not even just a community thing. It's a sort of delivery system for something that’s, to me, deeply important to our country.

“It’s one thing we can access these things on all these devices,” he continued. “It's a different thing when you go to a place that's designed to help you share the experience of a movie together. It's such a powerful art form. And, anyway, for me, it's worth making a bit of an effort to try to save a place like the Garden Oaks.”

After the convo, he introduced the quintet of films he curated for the event. (Unfortunately the DCP file for his 2007 short Hotel Chevalier had some technical difficulties and was cut short.) “We wanted to do a screening here, and I don't have a new movie to show,” he said. “I don't have something hot off the presses. So, I thought I'd put together a little something that just was different from what anybody else will see. So it's a sort of mixture… This is just for Texas, this little collection.”

He eventually left the stage, leaving Arthouse Houston co-founder/director Maureen McNamara and Houston Public Media host Ernie Manouse to auction off perks & gifts and encourage the audience in helping revive another legendary, local movie palace. Among other items, attendees bid for treasures such as a special John Waters backstage VIP experience at his upcoming Christmas Show, dinner with John Cameron Mitchell, and a rare set of photo portraits of a young Anderson and friends, circa Bottle Rocket. Others paid $5,000 for select seats in the future theater and $5,000 to restore one foot of the venue's neon sign.

Photo by Alan Nguyen

Mayor John Whitmire declared Friday as Wes Anderson day in the director's honor.

So far, the effort has raised approximately $1.3 million of the $4 million required to begin the renovation project. The organization needs to raise $4 million by July 30 for the project to move forward. Those interested in securing naming rights will find more information here.

“River Oaks has 245 seats,” McNamara informed the crowd. “The Garden has over 700, and that is a place that we don't have in Houston. We have a need for that, for premieres, for performances in your life, for music, for a dynamic learning & exhibition space… So, we're building new on the shoulders of our history. I hope you guys will join us, and we need people to join us in a big way today.”

wes anderson garden oaks rushmore houston fundraisers