A couple of critics awards have come down the pike so far — DC, Detroit, Houston announces nominations today — but they're all rather slight. When Oscar prognosticators refer to who wins the "critics awards" or becomes a critics' "darling," there are really only three big ones from which they base their references — Los Angeles, New York, and the National Society.
By the end of this week, we'll have already gone very far into the Oscar season in seeing who the contenders are shaping out to be. Los Angeles announces tomorrow, New York the day after that, the Broadcast Film Critics Awards announce their nominees the same day, the Golden Globes the day after that, the Screen Actors Guild becomes the first guild to announce its nominees on Thursday and by that time I'll have already been done with my finals and ideally home for the holidays.
LA and NY are not the be-all, end-all, but it could make or break a movie in terms of buzz or building momentum. If Christian Bale wins any of the three between LA, NY, or NSFC, I do believe he might be the closest thing to our first acting lock this season for the Oscar win. If figures like Lesley Manville or a movie like Winter's Bone get left out (not likely), there could be trouble.
In terms of most of the critics awards, as has been shown by the smaller groups already, one has to assume The Social Network as the default frontrunner. It's hard for some people to imagine a movie sweeping all three, rare enough as it is, a single year after The Hurt Locker accomplished the same feat. That said, if there's any movie to do it, it's The Social Network, with technically even a higher metacritic score than The Hurt Locker and the first American studio movie to top Sight & Sound magazine's top films of the year list in quite some time. With this frontrunner position, you could assume prizes for both David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin are well assured.
Another movie that could take LAFCA is the other movie claiming itself as the best reviewed of the year — going by other critical aggregate Rotten Tomatoes — is Toy Story 3. As many are quick to point out, L.A. gave WALL·E a well deserved win in their top category 2 years ago and Toy Story 3 is even more loved by critics. Although, it is important to mention that Pixar hasn't quite monopolized the animation category in critics awards the way they have at the Oscars, with a movie like Waltz With Bashir winning the top NSFC prize the same year as WALL·E triumphed with the LA critics and international sensation The Illusionist running against it in the same year.
Another movie that is strongly in the running is Debra Granik's Sundance hit Winter's Bone, already among the most rewarded films of the year so far and fits the perfect bill of a Sundance indie sensation with the critics. Critics seem universally infatuated with the lead performance of young Jennifer Lawrence, and supporting players Dale Dickey and John Hawkes stand a fair shot in weaker categories this year as well.
Providing the most competition for Jennifer Lawrence, and a movie potentially spoiling the Director and Screenplay categories, is none other than ABWAFB favorite Lesley Manville for Another Year. Since her landmark NBR win she hasn't seemed to make much of an impact among the myopic critics bodies handing out awards so far, even tragically losing the British Independent Film Award prize for Supporting Actress to Helena Bonham Carter for her thin supportive-wife role in The King's Speech. Then again, things also seemed bleak for Sally Hawkins in 2008 before she raped and, yes, swept the three major critics groups for her performance in Happy-Go-Lucky. Imelda Staunton, too, swept the critics awards for Vera Drake in the '04-'05 season. Critics clearly love the Leigh ladies, and Another Year made an impressive stand at 3rd place in the Sight & Sound poll of top critics cited above.
Mike Leigh, too, has won prizes in every single critics group before. For Happy-Go-Lucky, NY bestowed him Best Director and LA Best Screenplay while, appropriately, he won both Director and Screenplay from the NSFC. Topsy-Turvy won Best Film at both NY and NSFC, receiving the Director prize from both groups as well. Probably to make up for their oversight of Secrets & Lies, potentially the film most comparable to Another Year and how its awards season will go, which won Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actress for Brenda Blethyn's performance at the LAFCA Awards, but not a single award among the other critics branches. Perhaps Another Year will follow suit.
There are several trends we can look for in their Lead Actor category. I tend to think that the LA critics, in individual reviews, went bonkers enough for The Social Network to extend a sweep to its star Jesse Eisenberg fresh-off an NBR prize. Looking at their past winners, we see Jeff Bridges, Sean Penn, Daniel Day-Lewis, Forest Whitaker (tied with Sacha Baron Cohen?), and Phillip Seymour Hoffman. LA tends to be a pretty good bellweather for the Lead Actor category, and one would assume that Colin Firth is the most natural choice here. If James Franco takes it, then it could potentially change the face of this year's Lead Actor race. At the same time, however, the LA critics have a penchant for rewarding foreign performances, so we could very well also see a win for Javier Bardem for Biutiful or an even further out of left field win for young Tahar Rahim for A Prophet. I'd say all four are contenders.
In the Supporting categories you have some less options. Among Supporting Actor, I've already proposed John Hawkes but Christian Bale has been getting some rather glowing reviews for The Fighter. The highest praise has, in fact, come from the New York critics but I see the LA ones more industry-influenced and more likely to vote for someone of that star power. Unlikely that they'd bury a single film with this many awards, but many of The Social Network's reviews also glowingly singled out other ABWAFB favorite Andrew Garfield.
The default frontrunner for the Supporting Actress category, and possible sweeper this year, is Jacki Weaver for Australian indie Animal Kingdom. Fresh off winning Best Actress at the Australian Film Institute Awards, she faces heavy critical backing for a lesser seen film that critics may be eager to build up momentum for. Another option, as noted above, would be Dale Dickey in Winter's Bone, or Olivia Williams for the nearly forgotten The Ghost Writer — which could really build up a lot of momentum for her in a really flimsy category. The Ghost Writer has plenty of critical backing behind it, as well, and swept the European Film Awards the other day making it only second to The Social Network in solid film awards handed to it so far in the season.
Here's the contenders as I see them, with an asterisk noting my personal choice of a prediction for one of these many crapshoots we call a critics award.
Picture: Another Year, A Prophet, The Social Network*, Toy Story 3, Winter's Bone
Director: Jacques Audiard, David Fincher*, Debra Granik, Mike Leigh, Christopher Nolan
Actor: Javier Bardem, Jesse Eisenberg*, Colin Firth, James Franco, Tahar Rahim
Actress: Jennifer Lawrence, Lesley Manville*, Natalie Portman, Paprika Steen (Applaus)
Supporting Actor: Niels Arestrup, Christian Bale, Jim Broadbent, Andrew Garfield, John Hawkes*
Supporting Actress: Dale Dickey, Melissa Leo, Ruth Sheen, Jacki Weaver, Olivia Williams*
Screenplay: Another Year, The Social Network*, Winter's Bone
Foreign: Carlos, A Prophet*, Of Gods and Men, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
Animated: The Illusionist, Toy Story 3*
Cinematography: 127 Hours*, Inception
Art Direction: Inception*
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