10:14 am Update: This is the final ignominious straw for the NYFCC — they’ve just given their Best Picture award to The Artist. God! All right, calm down…a little grace and dignity here. This will obviously help Harvey Weinstein‘s effort to get more under-40 nabobs to check out this perfectly delightful diversion (and then tell their friends about it), and that’s fine. The Artist should be seen and enjoyed. But this is otherwise wrong, wrong…not cool.
Repeat after me for the 17th or 37th time — The Artist is all about re-creation, backward visitation and reflective surfaces. It possesses and radiates nothing that is truly its own, except for a desire to give entertainment-seekers a nice pleasant time. And that’s not nearly enough to warrant a Best Picture prize. Shame on the NYFCC in this respect…shame!
9:50 am Update: NYFCC has given its Best Screenplay award to Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin for Moneyball. That’s more like it! Major Moneyball awards-cred momentum is now established and unmistakable. (Very much looking forward to slapping around those Moneyball detractors.) But NYFCC probably won’t give it their Best Picture award. A voice is telling me that The Tree of Life will win in that respect. But if The Artist takes it….yeesh. I’m still reeling from that Hazanavicius win
9:33 am Update: NYFCC has handed its Best Director prize to Michel Hazanavicius for The Artist. WHAT?? For making a highly engaging curio, a nostalgic bauble…a shimmering, silver-toned audience pleaser? And in so doing blowing off the efforts of Bennett Miller, Alexander Payne, Terrence Malick (which I could totally live with) and others? This is a major NYFCC embarassment.
8:56 am Update: Somewhere in this realm there is a God, and justice besides, and a good amount of satisfaction — Moneyball and Tree of Life‘s Brad Pitt has won Best Actor from the NYFCC. Throw a chair through a glass window! Tapley: “Now is the time for Moneyball to strike. An uncertain time in the season.”
8:44 am Update: Hooray for Drive‘s Albert Brooks! He’s just won the NYFCC’s Best Supporting Actor trophy. Waiting for Brooks’ Twitter acceptance riff. 8:48 am Brooks Update: So where is it? Deciding what tone to take, Albert? C’mon, man…just let fly.
Update: The Iron Lady‘s Meryl Sreep has won the NYFCC Best Actress award. Beginning of a sweep? Uncertain impact upon Viola Davis, Michelle Williams bandwagons. Awareness is settling in that Glenn Close‘s Albert Nobbs performance has never lit anyone up. She deserves a career tribute Best Actress nom, but the performance itself is recessive, overly congealed.
Spirit Awards Nominations for Best Feature: 50/50, Beginners, Drive, Take Shelter and The Artist. I’ll have to post the entire slate of nominees after the NYFCC voting is over. Here’s the Hollywood Reporter‘s rundown.
Earlier: The slowly tweeting, drip-dri[–dripping New York Film Critics Circle has given the expected Best Supporting Actress award to Jessica Chastain for Take Shelter (best), The Tree of Life (2nd best) and The Help (not so much).
NYFCC’s Best First Feature: Margin Call — an unpopular choice among fans of Martha Marcy May Marlene, which also lost last night at the Gothams. NYFCC Best Documentary: Werner Herzog‘s Cave of Forgotten Dreams.
