With The King’s Speech and Kids Are All Right Best Actress contender Annette Bening having been blanked so far by the NBR, D.C.-area critics, Boston Film Critics, NYFCO and LAFCA film awards (and with today’s New York Film Critics Circle voters expected to bypass them also), it was fair to ask last night if they were going to be nominated by anyone or anything except by the chummy, highly political SAG and AMPAS…or whether it was time to admit they’ve been over-hyped all along.

Do I hear a cavalry charge? Hold on…listen! Tah-da-dat-da-dat-da-DAT-da-DAT-da-dah-dah-da-dah-da-DAT-da-DAT-da-dahhh! It’s the nominations from the Broadcast Film Critics Association — i.e., the Critics Choice awards — thundering over a ridge, horse hooves kicking up a cloud of dust…saved! Because they’re carrying 11 nominations for The King’s Speech (including Best Picture, Best Actor/Colin Firth, Best Supporting Actor/Geoffrey Rush, Best Director/Tom Hooper, etc.) and 4 nominations for The Kids Are All Right, including a Best Actress nomination for Bening.

The biggest BFCA winner of all is Darren Aronofsky‘s Black Swan with an “unprecedented” 12 nominations. True Grit matches Speech‘s 11 nominations while Inception got 10 nominations and The Social Network accumulated 9.

One huge note of regret: Another Year‘s Lesley Manville has been shut out of BFCA Best Actress contention. The lady is too great an actress and has given too searing a performance for any further shut-outs to occur. Please — let’s not regard this as a bellwether.

The Critics Choice winners will be announced at the Hollywood Palladium on Friday, 1.14.11 at 9 pm, and will be broadcast again (for the fourth year in a row) by VH1. It will also be the first year the show will also be aired internationally.

This morning a critic in a discussion board pointed out that at least three of the six actresses nominated by the BFCA for Best Actress received on-screen oral pleasuring in their respective films — Annette Bening in The Kids Are All Right, Natalie Portman in Black Swan and Michelle Williams in Blue Valentine.