AWARDS 2011: National Board of Review throws "Hugo" into the race

If we were shrugging in a somewhat disgruntled manner when the New York Film Critics Circle announced their winners on Tuesday, the National Board of Review managed to inject a bit of personality into this race. How so? Well I don't think people were quite on board with "Hugo"s Best Picture chances until just now. With Scorsese and his film taking the top prizes from NBR, which was highly expected to go to "The Artist" and Michel Hazanavicius, it feels like there's new blood in there. What gets me even further buzzed is that Tilda Swinton took the Best Actress prize for her amazing performance in "We Need to Talk About Kevin". Fingers crossed that at least this one sticks.

The wins for "The Descendants" and "Beginners", on the other hand, were pretty predictable and within the grain of what we expected. The wins for "50/50" and "Margin Call", on the other hand, are just plain silly. Their top ten are considerably more interesting than I had originally diagnosed this season, but I don't imagine this bunch will all make it to the film list, least of which "Drive", "Girl with the Dragon Tattoo", and for entirely different reasons, "J. Edgar" and "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2".

BEST FILM: "Hugo"

BEST DIRECTOR: Martin Scorsese ("Hugo")

BEST ACTOR: George Clooney ("The Descendants")

BEST ACTRESS: Tilda Swinton ("We Need to Talk About Kevin")

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Christopher Plummer ("Beginners")

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Shailene Woodley ("The Descendants")

Awards 2010: National Board of Review Honors "The Social Network"

The awards season is now off to an official start with the announcement of the winners in the eyes of the National Board of Review. We'll be getting plenty of surprising developments and changes as the weeks go by, so it's fine if we only have a few this time around. It's not that surprising that The Social Network took the top prize, given universal critical and commercial acclaim. It's going to be interesting looking at it and The King's Speech duke it out for attention over the next season. The biggest surprises came from the acting races, which decided to neglect the players for The King's Speech altogether, and went on to grant recognition to Jesse Eisenberg for The Social Network and Lesley Manville for Another Year. This all reminds us that the awards season is something of a wake-up call for all of us, and so a few things are going to be tossed out the window in favor of unlikely contenders. We won't really know the full meaning of any of these winners until we have more. For now though, we have a rather nice beginning. In the meantime, please let me know what you think of the winners and losers. I haven't heard from any of you for a while now, and I'm feeling a little neglected.

Best Film: The Social Network
Best Foreign Language Film: Of Gods and Men
Best Documentary: Waiting for "Superman"
Best Actor: Jesse Eisenberg (The Social Network)
Best Actress: Lesley Manville (Another Year)
Best Supp. Actor: Christian Bale (The Fighter)
Best Supp. Actress: Jacki Weaver (Animal Kingdom)
Best Ensemble Cast: The Town
Best Breakthrough Performance: Jennifer Lawrence (Winter's Bone)
Best Director: David Fincher (The Social Network)
Debut Directors: Sebastian Junger and Tim Hetherington (Restrepo)
Best Adapted Screenplay: Aaron Sorkin (The Social Network)
Best Original Screenplay: Chris Sparling (Buried)
Best Animated Feature: Toy Story 3
Special Filmmaking Award: Sofia Coppola (Somewhere)
Production Design Award: Dante Ferretti (Shutter Island)

Ten Best Films:

Another Year
The Fighter
Hereafter
Inception
The King's Speech
Shutter Island
The Town
Toy Story 3
True Grit
Winter's Bone

Five Best Foreign Films:

I Am Love
Incendies
Above All
Soul Kitchen
White Material

Five Best Documentaries:

A Film Unfinished
Inside Job
Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work
Restrepo
The Tillman Story

Ten Best Independent Films:

Animal Kingdom
Buried
Fish Tank
The Ghost Writer
Greenberg
Let Me In
Monsters
Please Give
Somewhere
Youth in Revolt