12:51 pm update: No Country for Old Men has won the New York Film Critics Circle award for Best Picture. It seemed to take a little while, indicating that perhaps a second ballot was needed for Coen Bros. advocates to win over a tough challenger. I’d sure love to know the backstory, if there’s one to tell.
Tom O’Neil and I may have called it last night. By choosing There Will be Blood for Best Picture yesterday, the L.A. Film Critics enabled the NYFCC — gave them the freedom of will, unbothered and unencumbered by that pesky National Board of Review precedent or any concerns about being seen as rubber-stamping another critic group’s choice — to select No Country for Old Men without any nagging whatevers.
12:37 pm, Boston time: The New York Film Critics Circle has been voting for a while now, and…oh Christ, Amy Ryan has won a Best Supporting Actress award again? What is that, five so far? This is turning into a bit of a pack mentality thing. What has I’m Not There‘s Cate Blanchett done to offend? Cheers for the year’s greatest drugged-out, child-destroying deadbeat mom, whom Ryan has been expert in bringing to life.
Joel and Ethan Coen have been named Best Directors for No Country for Old Men. Daniel Day Lewis has won Best Actor for his work in There Will Be Blood, and Away From Her‘s Julie Christie has taken the Best Actress award . No Country for Old Men‘s Javier Bardem has taken the Best Supporting Actor honor..
4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days has been blown off because the NYFCC, strangely, has decided to give their Best Foreign Film award to Florian Henckel von Donnnersmarck‘s The Lives of Others, an exquisite film that everyone regarded as an ’06 release (regardless of the New York-area distribution particulars) and which won, of course, the Best Foreign Language Feature Oscar last February.
The NYFC’s Best Animated Film is Persepolis. The Best First Film award went to Away From Her director Sarah Polley. No End in Sight has won the Best Documentary award, and There Will Be Blood‘s Robert Elswit has been named Best Cinematographer.
