Three massive feathers in the Oscar Best Picture cap for David Fincher's
The Social Network were handed out yesterday with
The Los Angeles Film Critics Association, the
New York Film Critics Online and the
Boston Society Of Film Critics all proudly calling it their best film of 2010. No matter how you shake it, that's a huge, early sign of Oscar confidence in the film, especially when the LA critics awarded Fincher the Co-director win (alongside
Olivier Assayas for
Carlos), Best Screenplay and Best Score. The Boston Critics also awarded
Jesse Eisenberg as Best Actor for his egotistical, neurotic and elitist portrayal of Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg. This is the first major sign that The Social Network could be the overwhelming recipient of Academy love in February. It's certainly a top dog contender, a powerful horse in the Best Picture race that has now galloped a couple of strides ahead of the competition. Though
Gabe Toro at The Playlist has written a convincing piece suggesting the older Academy voters (he signals out Samuel L. Jackson as an example) won't be able to relate to the socially-inept, geeky, asshole lead who looks down upon the rest of the world and thus the film will be ignored by anything other than critics, who can supposedly more relate. Elsewhere at the New York Film Critics Online -
James Franco won the Best Actor Award for his spirited performance in
127 Hours but there were few other surprises with
Natalie Portman's nod for Best Actress in
Black Swan and Supporting Nods for
Christian Bale and
Melissa Leo both for
The Fighter, respectively. Obviously
Noomi Rapace won the Breakthrough Award for
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo - her winning the female supporting gig in
Sherlock Holmes 2 and her being courted by
Ridley Scott for his
Alien prequel should have been a sure-fire declaration of that.
Despite very few seeing his film
Company Man - director
John Wells took the Hotshot New Director award (sorry Joseph Kosinski) and the frankly bizarre decision to award
The Kids Are All Right the 'ensemble award' over the likes of
Inception and
The King's Speech is a bit baffling. Two head-scratcher acting awards were handed out over the weekend, one by the
Boston Society of Film Critics giving
Juliette Lewis the Best Supporting Win for
Conviction, and the
L.A. Critics awarding Best Supporting Actor to
Niels Arestrup from
A Prophet - and not Geoffrey Rush or Christian Bale, if you can believe it.
The race for the Best Visual Effects Oscar has been narrowed down to 15 final contenders, as chosen by The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The next cut will see these 15 taken down to 7 as chosen by the Academy's visual effects branch committee before a further two more films will be dropped after seeing 15 minute presentation reels from the remanding bunch. That will leave us with five for the Feb 27th Oscar showdown. I've highlighted in bold the films I personally would nominate, with my choice for the winner in Red;
Alice in Wonderland The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader Clash of the Titans Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 Hereafter Inception Iron Man 2 The Last Airbender Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Scott Pilgrim vs the World Shutter Island The Sorcerers Apprentice Tron: Legacy Unstoppable
The
St. Louis Film Critics have had their say voting the top five best films of the year as
Black Swan, The Fighter, Inception, The King's Speech and
The Social Network. Included in the worst movies list were
Clint Eastwood's Hereafter and
James L. Brooks' How Do You Know?
Black Swan leads the
Broadcast Film Critics list with 12 nominations, followed by The Kings Speech and True Grit with 11 each. Notably they also gave performance nods to
Ryan Gosling and
Michelle Williams for
Blue Valentine, two worthy thesps who look likely to miss out on Oscar noms as they are so sparsely spoken about. Here's how the Oscar Contenders Look Right Now;
Best Film
9 Spots Look Fully Booked...
The Social Network True Grit The King's Speech Inception Black Swan Toy Story 3 The Kids Are All Right 127 Hours The Fighter
And then 1 from the following, probably fought between Winter's Bone, The Town and Another Year...
Winter's Bone The Town Shutter Island Get Low Another Year Hereafter Blue Valentine Fair Game
Best Actor
*Those in Bold are absolute locks for nominations, those in Red are locks to win it*
Colin Firth, The King's Speech James Franco, 127 Hours Jesse Eisenberg, The Social Network Javier Bardem, Biutiful Jeff Bridges, True Grit (Oscar favourite, though did he use up all his votes last year?) Ryan Gosling, Blue Valentine Leonardo DiCaprio, Inception Leonardo DiCaprio, Shutter Island Michael Douglas, Solitary Man Ben Affleck, The Town
BEST ACTRESS
Natalie Portman, Black Swan Annette Bening, The Kids Are All Right Lesley Manville, Another Year Jennifer Lawrence, Winter's Bone Tilda Swinton, I Am Love Nicole Kidman, Rabbit Hole Julianne Moore, The Kids Are All Right Michelle Williams, Blue Valentine Kim Hye-ja, Mother Sally Hawkins, Made in Dagenham Hilary Swank, Conviction
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Christian Bale, The Fighter Geoffrey Rush, The King's Speech Matt Damon, True Grit Mark Ruffalo, The Kids Are All Right Andrew Garfield, The Social Network Bill Murray, Get Low Sean Penn, Fair Game Michael Douglas, Wall Street 2 Josh Brolin, Wall Street 2 Sam Rockwell, Conviction Ed Harris, The Way Back Justin Timberlake, The Social Network Jeremy Renner, The Town
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Jacki Weaver, Animal Kingdom Melissa Leo, The Fighter Sissy Spacek, Get Low Saoirse Ronan, The Way Back Barbara Hershey, Black Swan Winona Ryder, Black Swan Marion Cotillard, Inception Miranda Richardson, Made in Dagenham Helena Bonham Carter, The King's Speech Dianne Wiest, Rabbit Hole Ruth Sheen, Another Year Rooney Mara, The Social Network
Best Director
David Fincher ,The Social Network Tom Hooper, The King's Speech Darren Aronofsky, Black Swan Danny Boyle, 127 Hours Christopher Nolan, Inception Joel and Ethan Coen, True Grit Debra Granik, Winter's Bone Doug Liman, Fair Game Mike Leigh, Another Year Lisa Cholodenko, The Kid Are All Right Nigel Cole, Made in Dagenham Ben Affleck, The Town Martin Scorsese, Shutter Island