Saturday, January 4, 2020

Awards Season Gears Back Up in Palm Springs

“I probably should have prepared something,” Joaquin Phoenix said while making the first of what might be many awards acceptance speeches this season. “I really, really should have prepared something. I had plenty of time to do it, but—I didn’t.”
The Golden Globes may have the reputation for being the loosest televised awards show, but to really see some unscripted moments, it’s worth a trip to Palm Springs, where the annual Palm Springs International Film Festival honors many of the year’s biggest awards contenders. They even manage to hand awards to two people who are otherwise expected to compete against each other. Adam Driver, widely expected to be Phoenix’s primary competition in the best-actor Oscar race, accepted his own award for Marriage Story, while best-actress contenders Renée Zellweger and Charlize Theron both accepted prizes, as did best-director heavyweights Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino. Everyone arrived at the awards knowing they would win and had the opportunity to prepare emotional speeches; Jennifer Lopez cried while speaking about the character she played in Hustlers, and Robert De Niro made time for a jab at Republicans. And Phoenix, no preparation required, aptly summed up the value of awards season: “A part of me thinks it’s absurd and ridiculous and embarrassing, and another part of me realizes the power of the creative spirit and art and what we do at our best. I guess I try to focus on that part of it as much as I can.”
Elsewhere in HWD, Anthony Breznican digs deep on Scorsese’s speech in Palm Springs, where he raised concerns that streaming algorithms—just like the ones bringing his film The Irishman to Netflix subscribers—may ruin moviegoers; Laura Bradley finds Leonardo DiCaprio applauding a new menu for the Golden Globes; and Laura Regensdorf talks to the makeup wizards who helped transform Renée Zellweger into Judy Garland, with the help of contact lenses and some very carefully painted mascara tracks.