George Miller‘s Mad Max: Fury Road is one of the most visually arresting, elegantly composed action films ever made and is easily among 2015’s finest, so I have no issue at all with the National Board of Review giving it their Best Film award. And giving Creed‘s Sylvester Stallone their Best Supporting Actor award (and thereby semi-officializing his award-season momentum) is fine by me. And I fully agree with Son of Saul getting their Best Foreign Language Film award. But The Martian‘s Matt Damon winning the Best Actor award instead of Leonardo DiCaprio in The Revenant? I’m glumly resigned to Room‘s Brie Larson winning several Best Actress awards so fine, whatever, and I haven’t seen The Hateful Eight (the first screening is tonight) so no comment on Jennifer Jason Leigh winning Best Supporting Actress and Quentin Tarantino winning for Best Screenplay. I just don’t like the NBR very much, and I really don’t like the fact that they ignored Spotlight, Joy, Carol, Brooklyn, The Big Short, The Revenant…seriously, why did they go for so many popcorn movies?

The NBR used to be made up of a bunch of crusty old-school Manhattanites — old biddies, jaded alcoholics, etc. Now, to judge by today’s vote, it seems to be ruled by 45-and-under action/genre/sci-fi geeks.