THE PLOT COAGULATES: The National Board of Review Awards and the Oscars 2010

The National Board of Review Awards came out, which means that the race for the Oscar has officially begun (the NBR is the New Hampshire of the Academy). This also means I’ll postpone my column on the Best Actress race just a tad to analyze what the NBR awards mean.

Actually, they don’t mean an awful lot. The NBR and the Oscars sometimes agree (No Country for Old Men; Slumdog Millionare) and sometimes don’t (The Hurt Locker when NBR chose Up in the Air). The NBR is actually seen as a bit more mainstream, being conservative in their awards (like the Republican center right), which makes it surprising they chose The Social Network over The King’s Speech. That could suggest some sort of zeitgeist change in what people who give awards look for in movies, but it just as probably doesn’t.

I still think The King’s Speech will win Best Picture and Colin Firth Actor (over NBR’s choice of Jessi Eisenberg for The Social Network), if for no other reason than that the Weinsteins don’t mean a hoot to the NBR. Actress should still go to Annette Bening (over NBR’s Leslie Manville for Another Year). At the same time, the honors here for Manville and Eisenberg do help them gain a firm foundation for a nomination, so it is significant in that way. This also supports David Fincher being one of the five directing nominees that will have to be culled from the top ten titles come Academy Award voting time.

However, there are two awards that, gremlin like, could be throwing a monkey wrench into the proceedings. Best Supporting Actor went to Christian Bale for The Fighter. Bale is considered Geoffrey Rush’s main rival for the win and this will only keep Bale (a popular actor within the industry, even if he has a reputation for being difficult) in the mind’s eye. Best Supporting Actress is totally up in the air right now; NBR gave it (possibly very deservedly) to Jacki Weaver for Animal Kingdom. I don’t think this will move Taylor any closer to winning; it just keeps the Supporting Actress waters very muddy.

Also significant is that The Social Network won best Adapted Screenplay. I wasn’t sure whether Aaron Sorkin’s script was considered original or adapted. Since it’s adapted, David Seidler, who wrote The King’s Speech, can start rehearsing what he’s going to say Oscar night when he wins for Original Screenplay since Sorkin was his main, if only, rival. The award for Original Screenplay went to Chris Sparling for Buried, which may help jump start his campaign for a nom, but I can’t see it winning over The King’s Speech.

Best Foreign Language film went to Of Gods and Men from France. The winner of this award for the Oscars can often be determined solely by the subject matter of the film. Of Gods and Men is about conflict between a Catholic Order and Fundamentalists: sounds like a winner to me.

The Town got an award for Best Ensemble which could help Jeremy Renner’s chances for a Supporting Actor nom. Jennifer Lawrence got the Breakthrough Performance award which should help cement her nom for Best Actress.

And, of course, what’s very interesting here is what didn’t make the top ten lists. The Black Swan, 127 Hours and The Kids Are All Right, all considered shoe ins for nominations, were conspicuous by their absence.

Isn’t this fun.

AND THEY'RE OFF: The 2009 Award Season has started

I’m an award whore, I’m afraid, and the Academy Awards are especially the ones I’ll lift my legs for. Every year I and Jerry, my best friend in Chicago, start predicting what is going to be nominated for the Oscars. I know, I know, I should have more self respect, but I can’t help it. It’s a lot of fun (even though my top ten list almost never has one film from the films nominated for best picture). But I’m not addicted. I’m not. I can stop anytime I want. I just don’t choose to.

Last week the National Board of Review revealed their list of best films and performances, etc. of 2009. For a complete list see http://www.nbrmp.org/awards/. With that, I and Jerry both agreed the award season had officially started.

However, that’s not quite accurate. For me, the season started when I noticed in L.A. that Bad Lieutenant was moved from Grauman’s Chinese to the art house Nuart Theater in Westwood, which I can’t help but think was done to try to reach Oscar voters in order to get nominations, especially for Nicholas Cage. In addition, just down the street from the Nuart, Bright Star has returned to the Royal, another art house (though a bit safer in what it shows). I thought Bright Star had imploded, but it’s back, ostensibly for the same reason as Bad Lieutenant (no, not to get Nicholas Cage a nomination—BS’s best chances are in technical categories like costumes and a possible supporting actor nomination for Paul Schneider, the brightest star in the movie—that was a fairly bad pun, wasn’t it; I should edit it out).

But back to the NBR. Of the top eleven films (the best film of the year Up in the Air and then the top ten), I’ve seen all but Up in the Air and Invictus (…Air just opened and Invictus hasn’t—oh, a note to the NBR: you didn’t alphabetize the list correctly, (500) Days of Summer should come first). Up in the Air now has the strongest buzz for winning the Oscar, but it’s early yet. Of the top five foreign language films, I missed Song of Sparrows (it’s on my Netflix list and Jerry says it’s really good) and The White Ribbon has yet to open. The winner of the best foreign film, The Prophet, also hasn’t opened yet. The best foreign language film nominations are the hardest to predict because of the way they are nominated.

Of the top indie films on the list, I missed Amreeka (it wasn’t at a convenient theater); Goodbye Solo (which I didn’t like from the previews, but Jerry says is good); Sugar (which also didn’t thrill me from the previews, but got raves from the critics); and Me and Orson Welles (which just opened, so don’t rush me, okay). The biggest surprise here, and I keep rereading the list to make sure I’m right, is that Precious wasn’t listed. Precious at this point is suppose to get a best picture, director, screenplay and supporting actress nomination, with a possible actress nom thrown in. There is some buzz of it taking the prize (but Up in the Air may have burst that bubble).

A Serious Man got best original screenplay, which probably indicates a nom for that as well.

So far I only see six definite to very probable nominations for best picture at the Oscars: Up in the Air, Up, Julie and Julia, Inglorious Basterds, Precious and The Hurt Locker. Invictus looks good, but I have to wait and see how well it is received when it opens. NBR tends to like these sorts of well meaning political dramas more than the Academy does.

The other big surprise is that Woody Harrelson won best supporting actor over Christoph Waltz for Inglorious Basterds. Though Waltz is still expected to win the Oscar, this probably means that Harrelson will at least get a nomination. Also, the NBR awards also probably indicated that acting nominations will go to George Clooney, Morgan Freeman, Carey Mulligan, though I wouldn’t be so quick to throw in Anna Kendrick for a Best Supporting Actress nom, yet. It’s still too early. Jerry thinks this means that Clint Eastwood will also get a directing nomination for Invictus, but I’m not going there yet. Everybody says that Eastwood always gets a nomination when he brings a film out; I don’t know why, since if one looks at the films he directed, he actually often gets overlooked for a directing nomination (Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, Changeling and Gran Torino and rumor had it that they brought out Letters from Iwo Jima early because the buzz was that Eastwood wasn’t going to be nominated for Flags of our Fathers).

The Golden Globe noms are coming our around the 15th.