Hollywood’s biggest names in film and television returned to the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills for a celebration of the American Film Institute’s picks of the year’s top 10 offerings from those media.
The ballroom for the AFI Awards luncheon was crowded with top executives like Disney’s Bob Iger and Dana Walden, Warner Bros. Discovery’s David Zaslav, Netflix’s Ted Sarandos, WB TV’s Channing Dungey, FX’s John Landgraf, Universal’s Donna Langley, Warners’ Pam Abdy and Michael DeLuca, Apple’s Eddy Cue, AppleTV+’s Jamie Erlicht and Zack Van Amburg and Participant’s David Linde; filmmakers and creators including The Fabelmans’ Steven Spielberg, Abbott Elementary’s Quinta Brunson, Avatar: The Way of Water’s James Cameron, The White Lotus’ Mike White, Nope’s Jordan Peele and Top Gun: Maverick’s Joseph Kosinski; and stars such as Nope’s Daniel Kaluuya, The Woman King’s Viola Davis, Pachinko’s Yuh-jung Youn, Everything Everywhere All at Once’s Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan, Mo’s Mo Amer and The Bear’s Jeremy Allen White and Ayo Edebiri.
As AFI CEO Bob Gazzale likes to say every year during his introductory remarks — which follow AFI Productions director Chris Merrill’s always-great “March of Time” montage celebrating years ending in the same digit as the year being celebrated, in this case, 2022, meaning everything from 1942’s Casablanca to two of Spielberg’s classics, 1982’s ET and 2012’s Lincoln — the great thing about the AFI Awards is that everyone enters and leaves a winner, and none of the people being honored are asked to pay for a spot at the event to which they have been invited. In other words, it’s as pure a celebration as any during the awards season.
Gazzale also took a moment to note that one table of honorees was grieving — a reference to those present on behalf of Elvis, including writer/director Baz Luhrmann and producer Gail Berman, who were attending the day after the sudden death of Lisa Marie Presley — and called for “a quiet moment of reflection.”
On a happier note, Gazzale proudly highlighted the fact that 30 people in the room on behalf of an honored film or TV program were alums of AFI Conservatory, the world’s top-ranked film school. Among them: The Woman King cinematographer Polly Morgan, Tár writer/director Todd Field and The Fabelmans editor Sarah Broshar (one of five people associated with both AFI and that film, others including cinematographer Janusz Kaminski and actor — at least for Spielberg’s film — David Lynch).
The key hour of the proceedings features the reading of rationales for why AFI juries picked the films and TV programs that it did, followed by clips of each.
Rich Frank, who chaired the TV jury, noted that the TV honorees were selected from 599 written/scripted shows, en route to describing — in part — ABC’s Abbott Elementary as “a masterclass in the art of episodic comedy”; FX’s The Bear as “an immersive viewing experience”; AMC’s Better Call Saul as “a bittersweet finale… with outstanding performances”; HBO Max’s Hacks as a show with “a savage second season”; Netflix’s Mo as “amongst television’s finest”; Apple TV+’s Pachinko as a show with “breathtaking cinematic grandeur”; FX’s Reservation Dogs as a show with “an even more ingenious second year”; Apple TV+’s Severance as a “hypnotically cinematic serial”; HBO Max’s Somebody Somewhere as “an anthem to never giving up on yourself”; and HBO’s The White Lotus, season two, as Mike White’s brilliantly inverted whodunnit.”
Speaking on behalf of the film jury, Washington Post film critic Ann Hornaday called Disney’s Avatar: The Way of Water “James Cameron’s endless inventive vision” and “a landmark moment in the history of cinema”; Warners’ Elvis “a cinematic supernova of kaleidoscopic brilliance”; A24’s Everything Everywhere All at Once as “the Daniels’ epic vision” that “leaves no genre behind”; Universal’s The Fabelmans as a film in which Spielberg invites moviegoers “into his home and his heart”; Universal’s Nope as an affirmation of “Jordan Peele’s place as a modern master”; Universal’s She Said as a film centered on a “dynamic duo for the new generation”; Focus’ Tár “Todd Field’s masterwork,” thanks in part to Cate Blanchett’s “towering performance, one for the ages”; Paramount’s Top Gun: Maverick as a film that “soars into the history of American film” on the back of “the greatest movie star of a generation, Tom Cruise“; Sony’s The Woman King “a rousing epic as empowering as it is enlightening”; and Women Talking as a film that “amplifies a primal scream.”
Only American productions were considered, so it was with a “special award” that AFI celebrated one of the year’s most acclaimed non-American films, The Banshees of Inisherin.
Then, the festivities closed, as always, with a closing “benediction,” in this case delivered by surprise guest Al Pacino, who rambled a bit, but in whose legendary presence attendees were nonetheless delighted to find themselves.
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