“What a year 2017 has been for movies: there was the reboot of Beauty and the Beast, the reboot of It, the reboot of The Mummy, the reboot of Blade Runner — you guys, you’ve outdone yourselves! I don’t know how you do it, you’re geniuses,” jested James Corden while hosting the Hollywood Film Awards, reports The Hollywood Reporter.
The event, held Sunday at the Beverly Hilton, isn’t televised and lauds previously announced winners, some of whom are from movies that haven’t been released yet. Joked the Late Late Show host, “Like the Donald Trump pee tape, I’m just excited to know they’re out there and I might just get to see them one day.”
Corden also poked fun at himself in his opening monologue for the ceremony, celebrating the best of the film industry: “Who better to do that than me, the voice of Hi-5 from The Emoji Movie, currently available on Blu-ray with a Rotten Tomatoes score of 9 percent? It’s a match made in heaven, isn’t it?”
Throughout the evening, Wonder Wheel‘s Kate Winslet took home acting honours, as well as an onstage kiss from the night’s supporting actress honoree Allison Janney of I, Tonya. After being introduced by her Divergent co-star Shailene Woodley, Winslet noted the amount of notable talent in the ballroom, including Janney. “I know I don’t really know you but I know I just want to be you. I do, or just stroke you or something. I mean, we could always kiss, maybe?” she said candidly. As Janney then made her way to the stage, Winslet said, “Ah, it’s gonna happen! This is an exciting moment!” (Winslet also nearly took home two trophies, since Mudbound‘s Mary J. Blige accidentally left her breakout performance statuette at the podium after receiving it from Viola Davis, and left Corden to come onstage and retrieve it.)
Jake Gyllenhaal delivered the evening’s most moving speech that paid tribute Jeff Bauman, the Boston Marathon bombing survivor that he portrays in Stronger. “We’ve always had this compulsive need for heroes, the need to transform ordinary humans into superhumans, but Jeff Bauman never wanted to be a hero,” he said, after being introduced by Amy Adams. “I don’t know if I could’ve found the courage to do what Jeff did in real life, but I know something now that I didn’t know then: if we could find in ourselves the strength that Jeff found, we just might not need heroes.”
Additional acting awards went to Three Billboard Outside Ebbing, Missouri‘s supporting actor Sam Rockwell, Call Me By Your Name breakout Timothee Chalamet, and Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool‘s Jamie Bell. Ensemble acting honors were presented to the casts of The Big Sick (Zoe Kazan, Holly Hunter, Ray Romano and Kumail Nanjiani, who gave a hilarious speech with anti-motion smoothing notes and Romano jabs), I, Tonya (Margot Robbie, Janney, Sebastian Stan, Paul Walter Hauser, Julianne Nicholson and Caitlin Carver) and Mudbound (Carey Mulligan, Garrett Hedlund, Mary J. Blige, Jason Mitchell, Jason Clarke, Rob Morgan and Jonathan Banks). The Meyerowitz Stories‘ Adam Sandler took home the Hollywood Comedy Award. (The latter was presented by his co-star, Dustin Hoffman, whose entrance was coupled with some audience murmurs as he was recently accused of sexual misconduct.)
Darkest Hour director Joe Wright also took home the Hollywood Director Award, and its star Gary Oldman received the Hollywood Career Achievement Award. “I began my career almost forty years ago, and at every juncture, some significant person or turn of fate pushed me along. I’ve had great fortune in my career and I feel every ounce of that privilege,” said Oldman onstage. “We all show up to make something grander than real life and perhaps just maybe find something of a truth in it. It’s indeed a very, very special way to earn a living.”
Harrison Ford also attended to honor Blade Runner 2049 producers Andrew S. Kosove, Broderick Johnson and Cynthia Sikes Yorkin; James Franco hit the stage to honor The Disaster Artistscreenwriters Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, and musicians Diane Warren, Common and Andra Day were honored for their for the original song “Stand Up For Something” from the film Marshall, which they performed. Eva Longoria presented Coco with the Hollywood Animation Award, Jacqueline Bisset gave Angelina Jolie and Loung Ung the Hollywood Foreign Language Film Award for First They Killed My Father, and Sean Combs’ Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop: The Bad Boy Story took home documentary honours.
The evenings additional honorees included Blade Runner 2049 cinematographer Roger Deakins, Victoria & Abdul composer Thomas Newman, The Shape of Water editor Sidney Wollinsky, costume designer Jacqueline Duran of Darkest Hour and Beauty and the Beast, Blade Runner 2049‘s production designer Dennis Gassner, Beauty and the Beast‘s Jenny Shircore for makeup and hair styling, Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2‘s sound team Addison Teague and Dave Acord, and War for the Planet of the Apes‘ visual effects team Joe Letteri, Dan Lemmon, Dan Barrett and Erik Winquist.