Mad Max: Fury Road is probably the best example of this phenomenon, winning all sorts
of technical awards in the first two hours of the telecast, assaulting the stage with all manner of swarthy George Miller acolytes that made you believe the entire Academy had drank the Mad Max Kool Aid (or Mother's Milk, as it were).
The biggest winner of the night was most obviously «Mad Max: Fury Road,» taking home nine awards for best director, actor / actress, and a plethora
of technical awards as well.
The evening's biggest winner was The Shape of Water which won four awards - including Best Director Guillermo del Toro and Dunkirk which took home three
of the technical awards including Best Editing.
And Pan's Labyrinth did win
plenty of technical awards, but its subject matter wasn't nearly as taboo or off the beaten path as The Shape of Water is.
In addition to The Shape of Water, genre titles like Blade Runner 2049, The Last Jedi, Get Out, and Logan are all up for an impressive spread of categories that include more than the traditional
collection of technical awards that more FX - heavy films that tend to be nominated for those awards.
A
host of technical awards went to first - time winners — including Roger Deakins, who was nominated 13 times without winning before finally winning this time, for Blade Runner 2049.
At the beginning of the award show Hugo piled on the wins in most
of the technical awards such as Best Visual Effects, Best Sound Mixing, Best Sound Editing and Best Art Direction.
And while Gandhi wasn't a bad biopic, its near
domination of the technical awards stole the spotlight from pioneering scifi flicks such as Blade Runner - whose set design set the template for cinematic dystopias to come - and Tron, whose now - hokey light - bright costumes framed how future audiences would perceive virtual reality worlds.
I expect this to be strong favorite for a
lot of the technical awards come Oscar - season, but I'm not convinced this is going to be the favorite to win the big one like the buzz has you believing.