Day: December 13, 2004

The biggest squeaker in this morning’s New York Film Critics Circle voting was over the Best Non-Fiction Film award going to Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11, according to the group’s chairman Thelma Adams. “There has been a big pendulum swing against that movie,” Adams confided late this morning. One of the concerns, said Adams, was “is it really a non-fiction film?” F9/11‘s biggest competitor, was Jonathan Caouette’s Tarnation, while Kevin McDonald’s Touching the Void, she implied, was somewhere in the rear with the gear. Sideways did as well as it did not only because “it’s a great film all around,” Adams said, but also because “there’s not a bloc of people who hate it,” as with Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which “some [critics] feel very passionately negative about.” Million Dollar Baby, she said, “was not a knockout…if the NYFCC voters had agreed it was a perfect movie it would have been our #1 choice. Baby was behind Sideways in the voting, but not right behind it.” Eastwood’s Best Director award was decided upon towards the end of the voting, she believes, “because by that point we had already given four awards to Sideways.”

Clint Eastwood has just been handed the New York Film Critics Circle’s Best Director award for his work on Million Dollar Baby….terrific. There was obviously a bit of Sideways vs. Baby wrangling going on among the elite New York-area critics, with the Eastwood win smacking of some kind of spread-it-around compromise gesture. But good for Clint. Maybe between this and the Golden Globe nominations for Baby, he’ll loosen up and start playing the awards-hustle game. “That’s all it is,” said Kris Kirstofferson’s financial-shark character in Alan Pakula’s Rollover, in the midst of slapping down some wimpy associate. “It’s a damn game!”

One of two Clint Eastwood scenarios (take your pick): (a) Clint won’t “do” anything for Milllion Dollar Baby…no q & a’s at industry screenings, no honored-guest visits at film festivals, no sit-down slots on director’s panels, or (b) he will be doing things on occasion and just likes to play it loose, like a jazz musician. Eastwood’s in-house Malpaso marketing guy Marco Barla has told one prestigious Los Angeles-area suitor that Eastwood is so adamant and dug-in about not doing publicity he isn’t even asking Eastwood if he’ll do this or that. (Barla isn’t even picking up the phone about this issue, and is referring callers to senior WB publicist Julie Goodwin.) Eastwood is said to be steamed at WB production execs for not supporting Baby more fervently during production, but some say that his apparent no-publicity, leave-me-alone posture is self-defeating as far as Baby‘s interests are concerned.

Bulletin from a big-name regional critic: “I have been pestering the hell out of my [distant city]-based WB rep for a screening of Million Dollar Baby in [nearby city] before my Top Ten list is due, and have been told more or less that it likely won’t happen. I was invited to see it later this week in [far-away city]: a five-hour roundtrip drive on a day when I’ve already got two screenings to attend here. Thanks much. Considering that his last was Mystic River, Clint Eastwood is getting fucked by his long-time studio on this one.”

And so the question, with four respected critic groups (from NYC, L.A., Boston and San Francisco) having given their Best Picture awards to Alexander Payne’s excellent Sideways: what happened to the supposed impact grenade of Clint Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby? These critics groups are obviously exhibiting deep-rooted admiration for Payne’s film, which I concur with, but Eastwood’s boxing drama was supposed to be the big Last Minute Wow that was staggering critics of consequence…but this hasn’t been evidenced so far by a Best Picture win. (Although Eastwood himself has won the NYFC’s Best Director award, so that’s something.) I guess this simply means that critics liked Payne’s film just a little bit more, and (who knows?) maybe they were also reacting on some level to that mentally-handicapped kid in Eastwood’s film. Baby will certainly be Oscar nominated and, I still predict, take the Best Picture Oscar. And by the way, Tom O’Neill…? What’s been happening with your beloved Aviator with the critics so far? Flatlining!

Righteous vision sometimes pokes through: Sideways has won the Best Picture award from the New York Film Critics Circle, which makes it…what?…four such honors over the last two days from critics orgs (L.A., New York, Boston, and San Francisco.) Sideways sad-sack Paul Giamatti has won the New York Film Critics Circle award for Best Actor, and his costar Virginia Madsen has nabbed the NYFCC’s Best Suporting Actress award, adding to the identical honor she was given last Saturday by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. Vera Drake‘s Imelda Staunton has been handed the NYFCC’s Best Actress award following Saturday’s LAFCA trophy for the same achievement. Clive Owen…yes!….has taken the NYFCC’s Best Supporting Actor award for his acting in Closer, and Pedro Almodovar’s Bad Education has been given the Best Foregin Film Award.