Congrats to the Dorian Winners!

The winners of the annual Dorian awards have been announced -- voted on by members of GALECA, an orgination of entertainment critics of the queer sort amongst whom I happily count myself -- and we did okay! I only voted for a couple of the winners but I'm not angry that we gave The Substance a near damned sweep -- that's a lot of fun! This ain't your grandma's queer critic's awards show! Anyway Challengers did well too (winning score and screenplay) and we gave our rising star award to Jonathan Bailey! Jonathan Bailey always gets a rise outta me that's for sure. Hit the jump and I'll share the full press release with y'all...

All of Us Winners

As I posted a few weeks back I was extremely happy with our film nominations for the Dorians, aka the awards that my critics group GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Critics hand out every year -- we did good then and I am happy to report that we did good again with our winners. Much better than a lot of critics groups have! And I don't just say that because we handed three major prizes to my favorite movie of 2023, Andrew Haigh's All of Us Strangers... although I don't not say it because of that either. Strangers won both our "Film of the Year" award and our "LGBTQ Film of the Year" award, plus the award for "Best LGBTQ  Screenplay" to Haigh, as well it damn should. But I'm happy with the rest of our prizes -- I mean, Lily Gladstone and Charles Melton as our (lead and supporting) acting winners? 

Can you beat that? (In related news I'm extremely annoyed that this awards season doesn't seem to have offered the two of them a chance to take a photo together for me to use here -- I would like to see that. They would look gorgeous together. Somebody get a photo of them together for us please.) I'm not even annoyed that Greta Gerwig won for Best Director for Barbie, even though I'm not a fan of Barbie, because it's a nice fuck you to the Oscars and I will never pass one of those up. Anyway good on us this year! Hit the jump for the entire press release and winners list...

Right On, Dorians, Right On

The 15th annual Dorian Awards nominations dropped last night -- these are voted on by the members of GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics, of which I am a member -- and we did a good job this year y'all. Specifically because of all the love we showered on Andrew Haigh's All of Us Strangers aka my favorite movie of 2023, which received a well-earned nine nominations. Even the movies I didn't like -- things like Barbie and The Holdovers -- I can't quibble with the nominations they did get since I know I'm an outlier there... and especially since we didn't nominate Maestro for shit. Haha! Fuck that movie -- I'm proud that our collection of queer journalists saw through that thing's hetero-lensed shame-y bullshit. Anyway altogether these are a stellar group of nominees. We'll announce our winners on February 26th -- if you want to make the case for my cote on anything do so in the comments! I'm not easily swayed -- I don't know if you've noticed but I tend to have strong opinions, haha -- but I'd love to hear your thoughts. Hit the jump for the press release and all of the nominees...

And These Are Your Gay Emmys

I yelped several times reading through the winners of the Dorian TV Awards just now -- awarded by the LGBTQ+ critics guild GALECA of which I am a member, we got so much right! And then we gave some awards to Succession, but I guess we can't get everything right. Ahem. Anyway we gave two yes two prizes to Bryan Fuller's horror doc Queer For Fear (read my review of it here), which got the biggest yelp out of me. We gave it both "Best LGBTQ Doc or Doc series" as well as the more general "Best Doc or Doc Series" and dammit it deserved 'em both. We also gave several awards to Somebody Somewhere and The White Lotus AND we gave "Best TV Movie" to Andrew Ahn's Fire Island! We have good taste! Except for Succession. Hit the jump for the press release and list of winners....

And Uhhhh I'd Like To Be Famous

For now I'm only a member in one critic's group but it's the one I'm in for sucking dick so it just doesn't get better -- the group's called GALECA the Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics, and we've just announced our nominations for the films and performances of 2022! These are just nominations -- we'll vote to narrow it down next and then the winners of each category will be announced on February 23rd. You can read the whole list over at AwardsWatch -- I like most everything we nominated although per usual most of the nominations I personally made were way too weird to bubble up to the top. No love for Flux Gourmet or Great Freedom, siiiigh. But we did nominate Mia Goth for her work in Pearl (and Top Gun didn't get shit) so I will not complain! It's good stuff.

And The Award Goes To... Queens!

News today has been coming hot and heavy and I've been straaaaaining to keep up -- I haven't even gotten around to that news about a new season of Feud being directed by Gus Van Sant and starring Tom Hollander as Truman Capote alongside Naomi Watts, Chloë Sevigny, Calista Flockheart, and Diane Lane as the high society ladies he spurned when he wrote that tell-all back in the 1970s! And I'm not getting to it now either! (Really I just said all that needs to be said though, didn't I? Until we see the damn thing. anyway.) No this post here is to wham-bam out today's announcement from the LGBTQ critic's guild I belong to that we have awarded our TV Awards -- the Dorian TV Awards from GALECA are here, and you can read our entire slate of winners over at The Hollywood Reporter. No I don't have time to get into it too much, but I will say I think we did real good -- especially in the acting prizes, which went to Melanie Lynskey for Yellowjackets and Jennifer Coolidge for The White Lotus, in Lead and Supporting respectively. Queens, deserving queens, all of them queens!

Small Screen Dorians

This year GALECA, the LGBT critic's guild of which I have been a member for a few years now, decided to split our annual Dorian Awards into two parts, with our Film awards following the end-of-year schedule that the Oscars do basically, and our TV awards hitting mid-year, closer to the Emmys I guess. (I have no idea when the Emmys happen, I haven't paid the Emmys attention in at least a decade.) Point being the TV portion of our Dorians is happening right now and today the nominations were announced! Photographed above is the one that made me the happiest -- we have been worshipping the goddess Melanie Lynskey since Heavenly Creatures and the Yellowjackets love is well-earned! -- but if you click on over to The Hollywood Reporter you can see all of our noms, and I actually think they're pretty good! Nomination leaders Hacks and Somebody Somewhere are both wonderful shows anyway, and there are countless highlights besides. Okay I don't really know how The Staircase got totally snubbed but I'll just chalk that up to us being unsure where to spread the wealth, in which case let me just add... 

Good For The Gays Again

As you might know yours truly is a member of the film critics group called GALECA, which gathers up a bunch of us LGTBQ critics so we can be all queer over movies together, like we do. It's what we live for! Anyway our annual awards, called The Dorians, were announced this week, and you know what? Gay people got taste. I wouldn't say that in all circumstances -- we have seem to have wrought those awful Housewives programs, after all -- but here, in these circumstances, we have proven it this one way. We gave our big awards to Jane Campion's The Power of the Dog (also my personal favorite film of 2021), to Flee, to the fuck-yeah performances of Kristen Stewart in Spencer (and I am aware that that one's proven divisive...

... but I am way firm in the pro camp and I'm incredibly happy we recognized her for the work number one, but she's also queer herself so, you know, gays supporting gays yo!) and Ariana DeBose in West Side Story (also one of our queer compatriots!) -- we showed taste, baby. Add on to that we gave two count them TWO big awards to Pedro Almodovar and I have no notes. No notes. These weren't all my votes (I am a sad for Kodi Smit-McPhee and Jonny Greenwood and my baby Luca) but I am not angry at any of the winners. Not even House of Gucci winning for "Campiest Film" -- I hate that movie, truly, but that prize makes perfect sense. Hit the jump for the full press release...

GALECA Goes Small Screen

As mentioned with terrific pride on several occasions I became a member of GALECA, the guild for LGBTQ entertainment journalists and critics back in 2018 -- that's right, the year of Call Me By Your Name, which I loved so much I decided I had to lobby for it as hard as I could. Y'all know I'm not the biggest pusher of Awards Season narratives but I think our little group does a better job than most, and I think that's showcased in our just-dropped nominations for this year's TV Awards, which I've got for you below. 

This is the first year our Dorian Awards have been split up, with our Movie Awards happening during the usual Movie Awards Season and our TV Awards happening, well, now. And it makes sense to me -- pre-halfening the list of awards was hella long! This is much more manageable. There are a couple of shows I lobbied hard for this year that didn't make a dent at all (Raoul Peck's Exterminate All the Brutes, which I wrote about at Pajiba awhile back, is an absolute masterpiece that didn't get a single mention) or not much of a dent at all (just one nomination for shows like PEN15, The Underground Railroad, and blasphemies of blasphemies -- and bringing us back to my beginning with this guild -- Luca Guadagnino's We Are Who We Are, although I recognize that show was divisive... 

... but the haters are hella wrong). Still those last three shows did get mentioned, and Steve McQueen's Small Axe masterful miniseries got three nominations, and that's more than most of the TV academies will probably recognize those things. Plus plenty of love for It's a Sin and Hacks and Mare of Easttown, all predictable as far as these things go but excellent all the same. Our winners will be announced on August 29th, but for now hit the jump for the full list of nominees...

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge (1985)

Freddy: I need you, Jesse. We got special work to do here,

you and me. You've got the body... I've got the brain.

LOL I wonder how much of my love for terrible puns I can trace directly back to Freddy Kreuger? Anyway a very happy 73rd birthday to the icon Robert Englund today -- since it's also Pride Month I had to pick The Gay One, I'm sure he understands. Speaking of have y'all seen the doc about this movie, and lead actor Mark Patton's tortured relationship with it and his own coming out process, called Scream, Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street? I guess I never properly reviewed it (how did that happen?) but it's terrific and you can watch it on Shudder or you can rent it on Amazon; it's definitely worth a look. GALECA, the LGBT critic's guild that I'm a part of named it the Best Gay Doc of last year -- I don't know that I'd go that far (I really loved Circus of Books for one) but it's up there.

Queer Kisses For Antonio & Co.

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When I posted my five favorite nominations yesterday for the Dorian Awards -- aka the annual prizes given out to movies of merit from the LGBT critic's guild GALECA, of which I am a member -- I knew the winners announcement was imminent, but it turned out to be really really imminent, showing up about half an hour after I posted that post. I'm glad I posted it beforehand though, since if I'd posted it after it might have seemed like sour grapes given nearly none of my picks ended up winning. Good things won! (Mostly.) We had plenty of love for Portrait of a Lady on Fire and I love that we gave Antonio Banderas Best Actor for Almodovar's Pain and Glory. 

And I very much like Parasite (my review), which strolled off with five prizes including Best Film and Best Director and Best Supporting Actor -- do I think Parasite is just a liiiiiittle overrated? I have said as much previously, yes. But far worse things can float to the top when it comes to consensus, and Parasite is nobody's bad movie. Anyway I'm the most happy we gave Florence Pugh an award, which was the one of my wishes that came true. Hooray for Florence! Hit the jump for the entire list of winners, and big gay congrats to them all...

5 Off My Head: The Dorians of '19

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I'm running late on sharing these with you since they were dropped on Friday when I was off, but the critic's guild I belong to called GALECA, aka The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics, announced our Dorian Award nominees the other day, and they're generally pretty darn terrific if I do say so myself! (Spoiler alert: I do.)

Our pal Murtada wrote them all up at The Film Experience in total so I'll just toss you over there if you'd like to see them that way, but I figured before the winners are announced -- voting just ended today -- I'd highlight five of my favorite nominees, aka the sort of recognitions that only a group of us smart queers could come up with. We smart, we queer, get used to it!

5 of My Favorites Dorian Noms for 2019

The Lighthouse for "Visually Striking Film of the Year" -- This was the only nomination my favorite movie of the year received -- I didn't say we did a perfect job! -- so of course I'm going to highlight it immediately. This whole category is stacked though, with nominees also including Midsommar and Portrait of a Lady on Fire. (Read my The Lighthouse review here.)

Portrait of a Lady on Fire for Best Film & Director -- Speaking of, the best LGBT film of 2019 (if you don't count The Lighthouse, which fine don't count The Lighthouse, whatever) got a lot of love from our group, as well it should. I personally would've even given its two leading ladies acting noms over even some of our nominees. (Read my Portrait of a Lady on Fire review here.)

End of the Century for Best LGBT Film -- The best "G" film  out of the "LGBT" (again, if you don't count The Lighthouse...) got a nod, which rules. I wasn't sure how many of my fellow voters had seen this Argentinian gem. (Read my End of the Century review here.)

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Congrats to Taron on his Golden Globe! I think it was our three minute long crazy eyed conversation that really cinched the deal https://t.co/wlmQ81ecdN

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) January 8, 2020

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Taron Egerton in Rocketman for Best Actor -- Thank goodness we nominated Taron since we made the profound mistake of nominating Rami Malek last year! Taron's so much better. (Read my Rocketman review here.)

Florence Pugh for the "Rising Star of the Year" -- I have a dreaded sinking feeling that Pugh's name won't be called out on Oscar nomination morning on Tuesday, but we were smart enough to latch on here at the appropriate moment with this and with her nomination for Best Supporting Actress with Little Women. We can say we got it right at the right time, unlike the Oscars which will undoubtedly wait too long. (Please, prove me wrong, AMPAS!)

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And stay tuned for our winners, 

which will be announced soon...

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5 Off My Head - Xmas Vacation Had To Get Away

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So guess what I just found out? I just found out that my office is giving us the bonus gift of an extra holiday day, and we'll be closed tomorrow. Hooray for my hangover, which is thumping -- I can nurse myself back to the usual level of foolishness over a long weekend and look like something bright and shiny come Monday and not this moist fur-ball you see before you today. (Okay you probably weren't picturing a moist fur-ball but now you are, and you're welcome for that.) 

Anyway I figured a good way to get my juices on their way back to flowing would be to take stock of some stuff I watched over the break, and so that's what we'll do now. Weirdly, even with several "Best of 2019" deadlines approaching I didn't actually watch too much new-to-me stuff; I already felt relatively caught up going into the holiday thanks to the screeners + screenings I'm over-privileged with by just living in NYC and being the member of GALECA. But I did see some new stuff, and here is the best of it. I highly recommend all of these things, which I may or may not write actual reviews of next week...

The 5 Best Things I Watched Over the Holidays

Wild Nights With Emily (dir. Madeleine Olnek)

Peterloo (dir. Mike Leigh) 

Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché 

(dir. Pamela B. Green)

I Lost My Body (dir. Jérémy Clapin)
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Invisible Life (dir. Karim Aïnouz)

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What are the best things that

 you watched over the holidays?

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To All the Stars I've Stalked Before

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View this post on Instagram

Michael Shannon at a party for WON’T YOU BE MY NEIGHBOR #michaelshannon #wontyoubemyneighbor #mrrogers

A post shared by Jason Adams (@jasonaadams) on Jan 9, 2019 at 5:52pm PST

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Yours truly went to a "too fancy for my ass" party at Robert DeNiro's Tribeca restaurant last evening for a reception honoring the Mister Rogers' documentary Won't You Be My Neighbor? which was thrown by... Michael Shannon and David Cross, of all people. What a pair! My boyfriend spoke to director Morgan Neville for a bit who relayed - Breaking News!!! - that he does not know what he is doing next.

Anyway you can read my review of that wonderful film right here -- it also just won "Doc of the Year" from my critics group this week and I honestly wouldn't be surprised to see it snatch the Oscar; it's a true crowd-pleaser with the perfect anti-Trumpian message of decency and kindness. It's not my favorite doc of the year (more on that when I get around to listing my favorite things of the year... whenever I get around to that) but I think it's a well-made and moving piece of film and perfectly worthy of praise. And speaking of "things that just won awards from my critic's group"...

... my apologies to Pose and American Horror Story star Billy Porter, whose work for the former just personally won him "Best TV Actor" and "Best Musical performance" from us folks at GALECA this week -- apologies to him for having to deal with sickly, unawake, subway-riding me for a bit this morning...

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Just realized the guy in the short fur jacket sitting half on me in the subway middle seat as I sniffled my nose loudly was BILLY PORTER (!!!) - what a comedown for him after taking the Golden freaking Globes over with a glorious cape, man (he looked great though)

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) January 10, 2019

And The Dorian Goes To...

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A-ha! I have been dying to make that gif ever since I first saw The Favourite and this seems like the perfect opportunity -- last Friday the critics guild I'm a member of, GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics, announced their nominations for their annual Dorian Awards, I posted them right here. Well today we've announced our esteemed winners and I think we did pretty darn great! The Favourite took our "Film of the Year" prize while Olivia Colman took Best Actress, while Can You Ever Forgive Me? took our "LGBTQ Film of the Year" award and Richard E. Grant took Best Supporting Actor from the same. 

All fine choices, and they don't stop there -- we also rallied around the great Schitt's Creek as both our "TV Comedy of the Year" and our "Unsung TV Show of the Year" prizes, AND we found room to honor Annihilation to boot! Huzzah for all that. To read all of our winners hit the jump where I'll share the whole list...

My Second Dorians

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Last year was my first year as a proud member of GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics, and when everything turned up Call Me By Your Name in their year end awards the Dorians (see our post on 2017's winners right here) I felt pretty good about all that... unsurprisingly given our predilections. Well today the 2018 Dorian nominations have been announced and as is fitting for a year sans a consensus pick like CMBYN my feelings this year as I scan through our choices are more complicated. 

I mean I suppose I should've prepared myself for the Star is Born love (siiigh) and for the Rami Malek nomination (triple siiiigh) but the placement of The Favourite's leading ladies (Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz) in the Supporting categories is frustrating - I really hoped we'd do better than the other groups on that matter. Category Fraud must end! Just know that I personally voted for Olivia Colman in Supporting, where she belongs.

There is a lot to love in the nominations for sure - Ben Whishaw and Toni Collette and ROMA, oh my! It's just that I actually see very few of my weird little babies accounted for this year in the final tally, but then I suppose that's a typical side effect when you average out hundreds of voices - the quirks get sanded down and a consensus forms, no matter how free the year's felt from one. Point being I'll get to work a little harder on our Golden Trousers Awards (aka The Pantys) - which believe it or not after several years of laziness on my part are actually in the works right now - so you'll know who I personally fought for the hardest. And you can hit the jump for the Dorian Award nominations (the winners are awarded on January 12th) and official announcement...

And Here We Are, Nearing The End

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Several movies worth seeing are coming out next weekend but this weekend, this one right here that today marks the start of, is kinda dry - I'm guessing that a lot of the indie stuff that's opened small so far, things like The Favourite (my review) and Boy Erased (my review), will be going wider though and that's where everyone will be, since the next two months are nothing but a mad-dash game of catch-up before the Oscars. 

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AHHHHHH LOOK AT WHAT I CAME HOME TOOOO pic.twitter.com/REKV9gvjR3

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) November 27, 2018

I'm doing far better than usual on this front this year now that I get real honest-to-goodness grown-up screeners thanks to having gotten happily admitted into GALECA this year (read about that here) - there are only a few of the year's big movies left that I haven't seen yet since we've got to start voting on our awards soon, and out of what is left in the next week I'm seeing Ben Is Back, Vice, Vox Lux, and that Spider-man cartoon that everybody's seeming to love. 

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I've refrained from watching a single Vox Lux trailer myself - the first images have been so bonkers what with Natalie Portman all bejeweled up and punked out that I decided to surprise myself on that front, see it all fresh when I'm sitting in the theater. Seems a good movie for that! Anyway this is all my rambling way of asking you guys here on the front-side of a slower weekend before the storm what you're all seeing this weekend, what you've seen so far out of the "awards" movies, and what you're digging?

 Share in the comments...

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To All The Gays I've Loved Before

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Back in January of this year I told y'all how I'd been lucky enough to get accepted to GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics - you can read that right here, along with a look at last year's winners for our annual Dorian awards (which were deservedly Call Me By Your Name heavy -- hey I did my part). Anyway don't know if you noticed but it's Ye Olde Awards Season again, and we're gearing up for another round of making out voices heard. This is the Society's 10th anniversary, and you should follow GALECA on Instagram or on Twitter where we'll be celebrating all ten years of winners, and rolling out our prizes at the turn of the new year...

... the 2018 winners will be announced on January 8th, to be specific. It's all coming up so fast! Point being I'm super excited to get to voting (I get screeners now, like an actual professional!) and if y'all have any recommendations for things I should consider before the end of the year, pour your FYCs on me here in the comments. 

And you can read through the entire press release about this year's Dorian Awards, with all of the categories we'll be voting on and all of the relevant dates (although you'll be hearing from me more when the time comes, have no fear), right after the jump...
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My First Dorians

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Guess who's been admitted into GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics, you guys? If you guessed anyone other than me... well, you're really, really terrible at guessing games if you did that. I mean, really. But yes that's right, it's me, and I'm pleased as rainbow punch that they're having me. 

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Anyway my membership is super fresh but I managed to squeak on in just in time to vote for their 9th annual Dorian Awards, wherein the membership chooses their picks for the Best of the Year, and I'd like to pretend that my votes were the ones that turned this list into the top-tier batch of winners that it turned out to be. We did good!

Like I think you guys are safe in assuming that I'm pretty pleased that the "Film of the Year" and the "LGBTQ Film of the Year" prizes both went to Luca Guadagnino's Call Me By Your Name, while Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor went to Timothée & Michael Stuhlbarg. Meanwhile Greta Gerwig won Best Director for Lady Bird and Laurie Metcalf won for Best Supporting Actress! And Sally Hawkins won Best Actress for The Shape of Water! I cosign every bit.
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I was also pretty happy to see God's Own Country get a prize - it won the "Unsung Film of the Year" award. I know lots of fans of GOC (of which I am certainly one) have been irritable about how CMBYN has sucked all of the awards oxygen out of the room so it's snazzy we made room for that, as well as B.P.M. which won Foreign Film. 2017 was such a banner year for exceptional queer cinema -- spreading the love is highly agreeable.

GALECA also awards television's best - give it up for a prizes for both Twin Peaks and American Gods! - and so if you'd like to see all of our quite wonderful winners you can see them after the jump...
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