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.

USA Today‘s Anthony Breznican has posted some plot details from Uncle Festus and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, as passed along by producer Frank Marshall. The stand-out thing is the huge, caramel-tinted skull and those massive chompers, which appear to be in perfect condition.

Sadness and regret over the sudden deaths of Red Wagon production vp Rhiannon Meyer and Scott Rudin Prods. vp Sam Cassell, both 28, early Saturday morning. Variety‘s Michael Fleming reports they were on their way home from a late dinner around 1 ayem when an inebriated Jose Luis Vargas slammed into their Honda Civic at the corner of Sunset and Gower.

Rhiannon Meyer, Sam Cassell

“It’s funny that the most hopeful, great movie of 2007 (based on the memoir by Jean-Dominique Bauby) centers on a man (played by Mathieu Amalric) whose massive stroke leaves everything paralyzed except one eye,” notes New York critic David Edelstein in a 2007 wrap-up piece. “But his mind is unfettered, and so is the palette of Julian Schnabel — who turns out to be a major filmmaker, an artist whose grasp of light and texture and camera movement is both visually inspired and fused with the characters’ emotions. Somehow, the hero’s plight becomes a metaphor for the human condition: It reminds us how submerged we all are, how distant from even the people we love.”

Yup, an excellent film. Schnabel is a major-league visualist who took an unappealing solitary-confinement situation and made it into something gloriously imaginative, transcendent and universal. Why, then, was I praying for this impassioned film, beautifully made as it was, to end as quickly as possible? Why couldn’t I submit to the metaphor and identify with a totally paralyzed man and go with the notion that we’re all blinking our eyelashes (if only we could do more!) in order to convey our innermost whatever?

Because I’m not paralyzed, dammit, and I’d rather not be, not even by cinematic proxy. Because, thank fortune or fate or whatever or whomever, I’m alive and healthy and able to say and do, write and create, debate and engage…far from oblivion and delighted not to be bed-ridden or imprisoned or ruined in some godawful way, thank you. And not very interested in being a prisoner of any kind (even briefly) until I have no choice in the matter. No bars on my windows, no way and no how.

Here’s hoping that something “happens” during today’s New York Film Critics Circle voting. Something along the lines of what was reported last year by Bilge Ebiri — Rex Reed‘s despair over United 93 being chosen Best Picture, the Andrew Sarris bathroom break…anything like that. If Ebiri doesn’t report something (or even if he attempts a repeat of last year’s scoop), this is an open invitation to any NYFCC member to get in touch and pass along something “good” about how the voting went down (i.e., what internecine tensions brought about what vote for what actor or film) or about some unintentionally revealing admission of some political motive or core prejudice during the voting.

The political and internecine nature of the recent critics awards (plus the National Board of Review awards last Wednesday) was discussed by The Envelope‘s Tom O’Neil and myself during a podcast recording last night.

We speculated that the L.A. Film Critics didn’t give their Best Picture award yesterday to the generally favored No Country for Old Men because (a) they didn’t want to follow in the footsteps of the despised National Board of Review, which gave its Best Picture award to No Country last Wednesday, or (b) knowing that No Country had the most headwind, the LAFCA-ers decided that There Will Be Blood (which they gave their Best Picture award to) needed their help more than the Coen Brothers and Miramax did.

In his description of our chat, O’Neil writes that “you’ll hear us laughing over the possibility that the New Yorker critics may now feel free to pick No Country on Monday since the Hollywooders didn’t do so on Sunday (the two groups admit that they try to avoid rubber-stamping each other). But if No Country fares poorly in the NYFCC voting, then…award pundits are just wrong about how the typical critic feels about that Coen brothers pic.”

I don’t agree on this point. AMPAS, HFPA and guild-wise, No Country for Old Men is a more palatable, kind-hearted and less abrasive experience than There Will Be Blood. Add this to its Best Picture critics tally so far and the Coen Bros. pic enjoys a close-to-frontrunner status right now, which is a better place to be than being a flat-out frontrunner, which nobody wants to be until early January.

I asked O’Neil what had happened to Sidney Lumet‘s Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead, as it seems to have dropped off radar screens. One reason, he said, was that it wasn’t being promoted as heavily as it needed to be by ThinkFilm. Today’s New York Film Critics Circle voting, he said, is a last-chance, do-or-die situation for the Lumet film. If it’s chosen as Best Picture or one of its actors takes an award, fine…back in the game. But if nothing happens, it’ll be adios amigos and “that’s all she wrote.”

Another theatrical-projection-standards article referencing my 12.5 Sweeney Todd projection piece went up yesterday, this one from First Showing‘s Alex Billington. The title: “The State of Cinema: Poor Projection Quality is Here to Stay…Unless You Make a Difference.”

The Washington, DC Area Film Critics Association (WAFCA) went earlier today with No Country for Old Men in four categories — Best Film, Best Directors (Joel and Ethan Coen), Best Acting Ensemble and Best Supporting Actor (Javier Bardem). Michael Clayton‘s George Clooney was named Best Actor (what is this…?). Away From Her‘s Julie Christie was given the Best Actress award and Gone Baby Gone‘s Amy Ryan won in the Best Supporting Actress category.

Okay, okay…Gone Baby Gone‘s Amy Ryan isn’t the surprise upstart in the Best Supporting Actress category any more. With four wins under her belt (from LAFCA, BSFC, NBR and the Washington, D.C.-area film critics), she’s the new front-runner. As much as I don’t personally support or agree with this, I’m Not There‘s Cate Blanchett is now the second-ranked underdog. The difference is that Ryan’s druggy Dorchester mom is a foul and offensive character while Blanchett’s “Jude” is a trip and a half.

The L.A. Film Critics stood tall in the mud and adopted their usual contrarian, damn-the-torpedos stance in giving their Best Picture award today to Paul Thomas Anderson‘s There Will Be Blood — a brilliant, lacerating, suffer-no-softies art film that you need to see twice to get the full benefit of. But yay for LAFCA — it was a good thing to do for a movie that a lot of mainstream industry types may flinch at when they see it. (Which is why they’ll need to see it twice — the second time’s the charm!)

No Country for Old Men wasn’t the runner-up (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly took that honor) and that’s fine…but again, no love for poor Atonement, by any standard a non-competitor or perhaps even a weak-kneed underdog at this stage.

Variety‘s Anne Thompson wrote earlier today that LAFCA did this in response to the National Board of Review having given their Best Picture award to No Country for Old Men, not because of my Groucho Marx theory but “to seek another consensus winner…that could use their support.”

LAFCA also gave their Best Director award to Paul Thomas Anderson (the runner-up was Diving Bell and the Butterfly helmer Julian Schnabel).

The group’s Best Actor award went to Blood‘s Daniel Day-Lewis. LAFCA’s runner-up Best Actor was Starting Out in the Evening‘s Frank Langella, who won the Best Actor prize from the Boston film critics earlier today.

LAFCA’s Best Actress award went to Marion Cotillard for La Vie en Rose — no surprise there. Anamaria Marinca, the scrappy, blonde-haired star of 4 Months, 3 Months and 2 Days, was the runner-up. Marinca’s costar Vlad Ivanov, who plays the hard-eyed Mr. Bebe in Cristian Mungiu‘s film, won LAFCA’s Best Supporting Actor award with Into The Wild‘s Hal Holbrook taking the runner-up slot.

4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days costar Vlad Ivanov (r.), winner of LAFCA’s Best Supporting Actor award

Gone Baby Gone‘s Amy Ryan took the Best Supporting Actress award, zotzing I’m Not There‘s Cate Blanchett for the second time today. I suspect this probably happened because LAFCA and the Boston critics both figured Blanchett was the runaway front-runner and they wanted to give Ryan a helping hand.

LAFCA’s Best Screenplay award wet to Tamara Jenkins for The Savages.

The Best Animation award was split between Persepolis and Ratatouille.

LAFCA’s Best Foreign Language Film award, no surprise, went to 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days. (How dug in are the AMPAS foreign-branch members who didn’t care for Mungiu’s film? Their will and credibility is being tested by all the awards it’s been getting lately. Will they stick to their guns and, as feared, refuse to even nominate it as one of the five, or will they cave like the consensus shape-shifters they are deep down? Either way they’re scum.)

The Best Documentary/Non-fiction Film award went to No End in Sight witn runner-up status gogng to Sicko. The Best Music award wad given to Once‘s Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova. The Best Cinematography award went to Janusz Kaminski, for The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. The Best Career Achievement went to Before The Devil KNows You’re Dead director Sidney Lumet.

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Unlike the New York and Boston critics, the L.A. film critics have never bothered with updating their award choices as they’re decided upon. As far as their website is concerned it’s still 1997. I’ll post their decisions when I get around to it. I’m heading out for some air.