MOB: LAFCA Preview

The Los Angeles Film Critics Association are sometimes hard to peg I think because they can go super mainstream (being good indicators of the Lead Actor winner at the Oscars) or go super obscure into the foreign selections (not so good at Lead Actress). Kenneth Turan, who easily yields the most influence in the group, gave his biggest rave of the year so far to The Artist but I do think that the NYFCC date sufficiently pissed LA off and they will try to differentiate themselves from NY in a number of ways, and probably NBR as well (Turan was less than a fan of Hugo). The Descendants is a safe bet since they're huge Payne fans but to many the film doesn't live up to Sideways, which absolutely swept in '04 (then again does anyone think About Schmidt, BP winner from them in '02, did?). Turan gave other raves to Poetry, We Were Here, We Need To Talk About Kevin and Cave of Forgotten Dreams.

One has seen increasingly in recent years, though, a more general push towards the more out there foreign choices (Carlos would have cleaned up had it not been for The Social Network). Easily the biggest critical story in the foreign language field this year has been A Separation, so there's that.

There's a number of films left unsaid by NY that LA can easily claim, and I think they will especially be pretty kind to Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy as it recently leapfrogged over the likes of NY successes The Artist and Moneyball as the highest metacritic score for a more major English language film of this year. You can also see some love, maybe, to stuff like Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.

So I find with stuff like this if you just make a list of films you think they'll want to recognize and start to allocate them various awards from there, then you might be pretty successful. I would list them as:
The Artist
The Descendants
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
A Separation
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

So with that...

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Best Picture:
A SEPARATION
(runner-up: The Descendants)

Best Director:
MICHEL HAZANAVICIUS, THE ARTIST
(runner-up: Tomas Alfredsen, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy)

Best Actor:
GARY OLDMAN, TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY
(runner-up: Jean Dujardin, The Artist)

Best Actress:
JEONG-HEE YOON, POETRY
(runner-up: Tilda Swinton, We Need to Talk About Kevin)

Best Supporting Actor:
ANDY SERKIS, RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES
(runner-up: Max Von Sydow, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close)

Best Supporting Actress:
SHAILENE WOODLEY, THE DESCENDANTS
(runner-up: Vanessa Redgrave, Coriolanus)

Best Screenplay:
THE DESCENDANTS
(runner-up: A Separation)

Best Cinematography:
THE TREE OF LIFE
(runner-up: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy)

Best Production Design:
TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY
(runner-up: The Tree of Life)

Best Music Score:
THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO
(runner-up: The Artist)

Best Foreign Language Film:
A SEPARATION
(runner-up: Poetry)

Best Documentary:
WE WERE HERE
(runner-up: Cave of Forgotten Dreams)

Best Animation:
CHICO & RITA
(runner-up: Rango)

New Generation Award:
DEE REES, PARIAH
(runner-up: Sean Durkin, Martha Marcy May Marlene)

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