MOB: Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards Preview

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* Read more!

Top Ten of 2010

There are many films I have left to see, but the only one I foresee cracking my top ten list is Sylvain Chomet's The Illusionist, which I can't imagine myself having access to before the year ends. So before I fill this blog with futile and wrong predictions of the flurry of critics awards coming down the pike next week, I think this is a prime time to post this.



Honorable mentions: Certified Copy, The Oath, The Kids Are All Right.



10. Red Riding Trilogy
Three talented directors pull the audience into their penetration of a system that unfolds in layers of corruption, greed, and terror. The story unfolds slowly in aggravation but with a dread that you're hard pressed to turn away from, especially with the first installment on the shoulders of the always compelling actor Andrew Garfield.



9. Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work
Ricki Stern and Anne Sundberg use rather typical elements of the documentary genre to tackle a very unconventional subject — the enigma of the public persona that is Joan Rivers — and completely spins our prior impressions of her right on our heads that has you leave the film with a newfound respect and admiration for this trailblazing American institution of comedy.



8. Poetry
Chang-dong Lee takes his time for his central character, at the end of her life, to find the artistic inspiration she needs to write her very first poem. The journey is filled with tragedy, heartbreak, unspeakable horrors and ultimately utter depravity. We're taken on this whirlwind journey by Jeong-hee Yoon in one of the performances of the year until she is finally driven to poetic inspiration by the very end in a beautifully bittersweet sequence of pure cinematic poetry.



7. Black Swan
Darren Aronofsky proves the extent of his directorial vision as he paints a gradual portrait of a horrifying descent into madness, and Natalie Portman's performance drags the viewer right down into it with her.



6. The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceauşescu
In a year of mundanely crafted preachy documentaries hogging all the attention, director Andrei Ujica puts together a political documentary among the most innovative, informative, penetrating and challenging films of the year. Three hours of unnarrated footage puts you, squarely, into the world of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu as he saw it through his own eyes. This immersion into the mind of one of the 20th century's most enigmatic dictators — in all of his delusional glory — exposes the world of global politics in all its pomp, circumstance, and insincerity and something to be taken as seriously as a three-ring circus.



5. Toy Story 3
The final installment of a trilogy I grew up with that is aimed at many others in my generation, almost ruthlessly taking command of our nostalgia and transporting us back to a place of such playful bliss before the final message that we should probably move on. Don't forget about the wonderful moments of childhood, even relish in it once in a while, but now its time to move forward and allow the Toy Story films to stand alone for a new generation of children.



4. Another Year
Mike Leigh chronicles a tragically average year in the lives of a couple named Tom and Gerri and the friends from their past and present that come visit them. Little vignettes featured from each season allow the audience to put together a puzzle that tells a story of life and how those in advanced age deal with it every other year. Lesley Manville plays their most centrally featured friend, Mary, whose own character gives a spirited performance at the start of the film but unravels piece by piece throughout the story until you're left with an utterly shocking shell of a woman near the end of her string by the Wintertime.



3. The Social Network
David Fincher's airtight direction of Aaron Sorkin's multifaceted and epic parable for our times goes by as fast and as efficiently as the technology we depend on in this digital age, and the result is what looks like an American masterpiece on all fronts. Jesse Eisenberg's verbose performance incapsulates one of the most complicated and flawed visionary geniuses ever put to the screen, while Andrew Garfield's performance holds down the film's humane and emotional center with the gravitas of an actor like Al Pacino before him wreaking with a heartbreaking vulnerability, insecurity, and longing to be loved by his only friend — who comes to betray him.



2. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul uses every cinematic tool in his artillery to create a dreamy, free floating world of fleeting beauty filled with mystique and wonderment. A quiet meditation of a land past, present and future. Alive with the sounds of insects, of night, of rustling leaves. The beautiful cinematography can capture the richness of the luscious Thai forests, the pristine water flowing from a falls, or the monotony of manmade walls at any given moment. It's a stunning achievement.



1. Blue Valentine
Derek Cianfrance delicately films Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams in the performance of their respective lifetimes, packing a punch of full authentic emotion at both ends of the spectrum. It's a searingly real film full of contrasts, going back and forth to when they first met to where their marriage is ending. The flashback counterpart to the film is a film full of passion, tenderness, and a pure love. The present day shows a shattering of lives and family, an intensity of disappointment and sadness. Cianfrance fills the final sequence with the emotional climax of both stories jumping back and forth between a perfect past and the present falling apart that leaves you floored in the emotional event of 2010. Read more!

Review: Black Swan

Vincent Cassell informs his group of New York City ballet dancers that he's going to stage the old staple of ballet, Swan Lake. But it's going to be different. It's gonna be stripped down — visceral, real.

He chooses Natalie Portman's character Nina Sayers — a shy, self-conscious and quaint figure. An ambitious dreamer. The first half of Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan kind of plays out like her character. It misses some steps trying to get the story along, a lot of it is really very obvious. No real depth. Barbara Hershey's role as Nina's mother is perfectly chilling in its own right, but she's not allowed much depth to delve into. Vincent Cassell's Tomas' sleaze is really rather one-dimensional. His humanity hardly present.

Portman, however, is already the best we've ever seen her at this point. Her physicality in her dancing is impressive enough as it is, but emotionally we see a frail young woman at the end of her string. A string of delicacy that Portman dances over like a man on wire's balancing act. A poetic portrait surrounded by light strokes, as meticulous as the perfection Sayers strives for.

Tomas needs Nina to break out of her shell. Her innocence is perfect for the White Swan in the production, but he needs her to break loose into her Black Swan. In her ambition she falls into herself into a state of insanity. Slowly she devolves until she completely lets go. Much like the film does, as well.

Much as the first half mirrors Nina Sayers' state of mind, the second half of the film perfectly reflects her descent into dark delirium and operatic madness. We see the full force of a true maestro's ferocious ambition with Aronofky's direction — we see a true vision find its wings and take flight on the screen as Sayers goes out on stage for her first performance. Every element, every shot is so necessary but flows much more freely than the first half did. Nina Sayers' transformation is truly a sight to behold.

And much of that credit is owed to one Natalie Portman, who took up the challenge and for the first time in her career seemed to transcend the bounds of performance into being. Truly immersive, if Aronofsky paints the world of madness she drags you down right in with her. You're transfixed onto her until the very last shot where you're left dumbfounded.

Countering Portman's white swan is Mila Kunis' black swan of Lily. Effortless, real, unconscious. Next to Portman, wound up like the music box with a spinning ballerina she keeps by her bedside, you really see what Tomas is referring to with Lily's free energy. She plays off of Portman incredibly effectively, and gives perhaps the best major supporting performance in the film.

Aside from Kunis the other worthwhile mention is of Winona Ryder's cameo. Aggravated with being older and washed up, we see her Beth already through Natalie Portman's hell and back many a time. She makes the most of her limited screentime by emanating a paradoxically fiery chill to her character. One who's on edge, fierce, but at the same time you could see a haunting in her. Her career has taken everything out of her, and now she's just the empty shell of a woman without it.

Aronofksy has created a truly bold piece of cinema, using every element from Libathique's kinetic camerawork to Clint Mansell's crowning achievement in the music to push the limit on what is cinematically possible. He takes a familiar story of one descending into madness through art, seen and perfected in a movie like The Red Shoes before it — but strips it down; making it intimate, real. And with it finding a mainstream audience witnessing the psychological horror before them, it looks like we could have a real game changer on our hands. Read more!

MOB: National Board of Review reaction

Perhaps a predictable choice, but the rest of my predictions (sans Bale) for the NBR results were totally shat on. And good thing, too. These are some of the more inspired NBR choices I've seen in a long time. Though The Social Network is not my personal favorite movie of the year, it still keeps me thinking about the things it achieved to this day and keeps my interest as piqued now as it did when it debuted — even after having seen it twice. It's endlessly watchable, and I think it's release date brought it to the point where there's no longer much question over its status as an American classic — which may well keep it steamrolling through the season to a deserved Best Picture Oscar.

You could say it's pretty inconsequential to win the NBR, considering none of the winners they chose last year ended up on the Kodak stage the March after. But this is a true sweep, even giving Best Director to Fincher (again) — which is a category they usually try to keep separate from Best Picture. Rewarding the young Jesse Eisenberg in the Lead Actor category ahead of bigshots like Colin Firth or James Franco proves he's one of the big boys in this race, and a force to be reckoned with. And truly, it's an inspired performance to reward. Eisenberg somehow managed the task of playing a character of contradictions. He has virtually no hands-on people skills, yet he still manages to understand the wants and needs of his entire generation. He is a genius and a visionary, but doesn't quite understand how to work people out emotionally. And I think the biggest testament to his brilliance is in the way we understand Zuckerberg's motivations and his side of the story — when he looks out the window, we understand that he'd clearly rather be working on facebook than sit in these legal proceedings — he communicates the emotions of his character that his character himself is incapable of expressing.

And where many expected Annette Bening to triumph in Lead Actress, indeed they went with one of the clear best performances of the year in Lesley Manville's Mary in Another Year. Manville's performance when placed against someone like Bening's shows far greater aptness for hilarity in the film's comedic moments and much more heartbreak in the film's sadder moments. A leading Leigh woman has never won in this category with the NBR before, and with a group so in tune with mainstream tastes it may be a precursor to her success in the category even beyond the critics awards she's expected to cleanly sweep next week. Despite questions of her placement, the category is getting more clearly defined to these five: Bening, Kidman, Lawrence, Manville, and Portman, and if Black Swan and The Kids Are All Right manage to fall flat with the Academy — then Manville's right next in line.

The other actress to get a boost from these awards is Jennifer Lawrence, who won the Breakthrough Performance category with ease. I just wonder why they decided not to separate the Male and Female categories for Breakthrough again this year as they usually do, where my beloved Andrew Garfield could have seen his fair share of the Social Network love NBR laid thickly today.

In Supporting Actor, Bale fits the bill of a proper supporting narrative — an overdue actor with much respect, especially in the mainstream, who has yet to even be nominated. So why not throw him a win for playing a drug addicted Bostonian boxing trainer? It seemed like a foregone conclusion for the NBR folk. The real surprise here is Jacki Weaver's win for Animal Kingdom. In a very weak year, NBR decided to again go outside the borders of the US to find a brilliant performance. Weaver plays the matriarch of an Australian crime family — stoic, statuesque and firm throughout the entire movie until one sequence where she completely unzips her heart and lets her character's richly maternal soul flow with no apologies. She gets right back to her former form, but now you think of her and remember her throughout the entire movie much differently, and much more fully.

Buried gets an oddball mention for its screenplay, and probably won't go much further than that. Glaring omissions from their top 10 include The Kids Are All Right, Black Swan and 127 Hours — by Danny Boyle, who they rewarded two years ago for Slumdog Millionaire. Last year they only had 5 of the top 10 correct, but it seems troubling for these films that seemed so safe for the Academy's 10.

The films don't even crack their top Independent list — which includes middling films like Youth in Revolt over modern masterpieces like Blue Valentine. But that's as far as my grievances with the rewarding body this year, goes. Otherwise the wins of Eisenberg, Manville and Weaver leave me as giddy as a schoolgirl. Read more!

MOB: NBR predictions

The NATIONAL BOARD OF REVIEW announces tomorrow, everyone! Exciting, isn't it? Well, alright. Today's news was rather uneventful. The Satellites proved as useless as ever today by filling up their categories well over the brim with about an average of 8 per category. I think I was off by my earlier pronouncement that the Annies would announce their nominees today by about five days. Whoops!

Anyways, I include the picture of Eastwood and Damon up at the top to feature what I think will be some surprise rewards handed out to the relatively unsuccessful Hereafter from earlier this year. Eastwood's movies going back to Mystic River have not gone unrecognized once by the National Board Review, and considering he has something pretty much every year he proves to be a noticeable presence each year. Unlike with something like Invictus last year, though, Hereafter has already opened unenthusiastically. We shall see.

Best Film: The Social Network
Back-up: The King's Speech
Best Director: Christopher Nolan, Inception
Back-up: David Fincher, The Social Network
Best Actor: Matt Damon, Hereafter
Back-up: Colin Firth, The King's Speech
Best Actress: Natalie Portman, Black Swan
Back-up: Annette Bening, The Kids Are All Rigt
Best Supporting Actor: Christian Bale, The Fighter
Back-up: Geoffrey Rush, The King's Speech
Best Supporting Actress: Helena Bonham Carter, The King's Speech
Back-up: Cecil de France, Hereafter
Best Original Screenplay: Hereafter
Back-up: The Kids Are All Right
Best Adapted Screenplay: The Social Network
Back-up: Rabbit Hole
Best Ensemble Cast: The Kids Are All Right
Back-up: The King's Speech
Best Foreign Film: Biutiful
Back-up: Of Gods and Men
Breakthrough Male: Andrew Garfield, Never Let Me Go/The Social Network
Back-up: Jesse Eisenberg, The Social Network
Breakthrough Female: Jennifer Lawrence, Winter's Bone
Back-up: Let's not kid ourselves, here... Read more!

MOB: Where we stand

Winter's Bone predictably dominated the Independent Spirit Award nominations with 7, including nominations in 3 out of the 4 acting categories (Jennifer Lawrence in lead, with John Hawkes and Dale Dickey supporting). The Kids Are All Right just behind with 5, with a shocking omission of Julianne Moore in Lead Actress despite six nominations in that very category — beat out by the likes of co-star Bening, Natalie Portman, Jennifer Lawrence, surprises Greta Gerwig for Greenberg (who I had predicted in Supporting...what do I know?) and Michelle Williams who turned out to be the only nomination for Blue Valentine (I had predicted co-star Gosling would make it, but not her).

Tomorrow we have the more industry friendly awards of the Satellites announcing their nominations; again, generally an inconsequential group. The Annies also announce their nominees tomorrow rewarding fields of animation this past year where Toy Story 3, How to Train Your Dragon and Tangled have been critical and commercial hits, with Sylvain Chomet's (of Triplets of Belleville fame) The Illusionist paced to be a critical darling as well. Day after, the National Board of Review announces its winners, and it's all downhill from there. Read more!

MOB: Independent Spirit Awards Predictions

How exciting! Oscar season has kicked off unofficially today with the surprise news that Anne Hathaway and James Franco have agreed to co-host next year's Academy Awards ceremony. Earlier tonight, we saw the Gotham Awards hand out the first awards of the season, where Winter's Bone came out on top with wins in the top prize as well as for its accomplished ensemble cast. Gotham's prizes in the past have gone for the likes of The Departed and, most recently, The Hurt Locker. They're less successful more often than not, though. Special shout out to recognizing the brilliance of The Oath this year in its Documentary category, which got left off the Academy's shortlist. Shame, though, since it really went about the topic of terrorism in an unconventional way that communicates and enlightens in volumes.

Before I go on to my predictions of what will be announced tomorrow as the nominees of the Independent Spirit Awards, a quick run-through of the immediate calendar of awards being handed out soon: we got the ISA nominations tomorrow, nominations from the Annies and the Satellite Awards the day after that, and then the more "official" kickoff to the precursor season with the announcement of the National Board of Review's awards on Friday. DC kicks off the first of the local critics awards the following Monday.

Note: One really ought not to trust my opinion on the following choices. I wrote these up quite a while ago out of boredom, but most of them are fillers for lack of coming up with anything else and I'm not even exactly sure what constitutes an "independent" film these days.

Best Feature:
Black Swan
Cyrus
The Kids Are All Right
Rabbit Hole
Winter's Bone

Best Male Lead:
Jim Carrey - I Love You, Phillip Morris
Robert Duvall - Get Low
Phillip Seymour Hoffman - Jack Goes Boating
James Franco - Howl
Ryan Gosling - Blue Valentine

Best Female Lead:
Annette Bening - The Kids Are All Right
Nicole Kidman - Rabbit Hole
Jennifer Lawrence - Winter's Bone
Julianne Moore - The Kids Are All Right
Natalie Portman - Black Swan

Best Supporting Male:
John Hawkes - Winter's Bone
Richard Jenkins - Let Me In
Bill Murray - Get Low
John Ortiz - Jack Goes Boating
Mark Ruffalo - The Kids Are All Right

Best Supporting Female:
Greta Gerwig - Greenberg
Ann Guilbert - Please Give
Sissy Spacek - Get Low
Marisa Tomei - Cyrus
Dianne Wiest - Rabbit Hole

Best Director:
Darren Aronofksy - Black Swan
John Cameron Mitchell - Rabbit Hole
Lisa Cholodenko - The Kids Are All Right
Debra Granik - Winter's Bone
Matt Reeves - Let Me In

Best Screenplay:
Cyrus
The Kids Are All Right
I Love You, Phillip Morris
It's Kind of a Funny Story
Life During Wartime

Best First Screenplay:
Blue Valentine
Happythankyoumoreplease
Howl
Night Catches Us
Tiny Furniture

Best First Feature:
Blue Valentine
Get Low
Howl
I Love You, Phillip Morris
Jack Goes Boating

Best Foreign Film:
Animal Kingdom
I Am Love
I Killed My Mother
Micmacs
Wild Grass

Best Documentary:
Babies
Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work
The Oath
Restrepo
The Tillman Story

Best Cinematography:
Black Swan
Blue Valentine
Howl
Let Me In
Winter's Bone Read more!