BIGGIE'S PLACE

The 31st Annual Biggie Awards

celebrating achievements in motion pictures for the year 2019

UPDATED WITH WINNERS!

Right off the bat, I have to apologize for not posting the Biggies for the last two years. Because of the real-world job I had at the time, I was on the road most of the year and as a result I fell way behind on my moviegoing in both 2017 and 2018. I simply hadn’t seen all the movies I needed to in time for awards season. As such, the Biggies would not have been ready in anything close to a timely manner. In truth, I still haven’t finished all my nominees and winners for both those years, as I have several contenders from both years I need to watch. However, I can tell you that my Best Picture winner for 2017 was Dunkirk and for 2018 was Avengers: Infinity War. Dunkirk marks the third Christopher Nolan film to take my top prize (after The Dark Knight and Inception). To make something that tense, that suspenseful and that powerful and all in a neat, 106-minute package? It was both a remarkable feat and a fresh take on the war genre, which is really hard to do at this point. Infinity War becomes the first MCU movie to be nominated for or win Best Picture. I thought it was a monumental achievement and perhaps the most difficult film that’s ever been attempted. It turns a pop culture phenomenon into straight up mythology. I will eventually get around to finishing 2017 and ’18, but whether or not I get around to doing full write-ups and posting them on here remains to be seen.

A quick mini rant from this year’s awards season I need to get out of the way:

All of a sudden, #BAFTAsSoWhite

The BAFTAs (aka the British Oscars) came under heavy scrutiny this season because they failed to nominate a single non-white actor. In their complaining about this, nearly everyone said the BAFTAs have a long, dark history of ignoring non-white performers. Yes, it is unfathomable that they have never nominated Denzel Washington. No argument here. It’s inexcusable. If they ever do nominate him, he shouldn’t attend out of pure spite. Now that we’ve gotten the same argument everyone else uses out of the way, can we have a deeper discussion?

JUST LAST YEAR, the BAFTAs gave Best Picture to Roma (a movie made by and about Mexicans), Adapted Screenplay to Spike Lee, Best Actor to Rami Malek (who is of Egyptian descent) and Best Supporting Actor to Mahershala Ali. JUST like the Oscars did. Most years, they nominate the same non-white actors that the Academy does. Does an inherently racist organization give its top prizes to Mexicans and black people? I don’t recall an online uproar last year, but now suddenly this year they’re a vile, racist organization with a long history of excluding diversity that needs immediate fixing. WHICH IS IT?

With that said, let’s jump straight into it. Here are my nominees for the best in film for 2019…

(click down below to page 2)