Now that its December, besides all of the top ten lists starting to crop up, it’s also award season. Yeah, I can’t believe it either. And while we’re not going to post every single critics/associations/boards/committee awards list, NBR is usually the first semi-big one that people actually take seriously. It’s a good pre-cursor to Oscar night and a smart bunch of whips over there.
Results were unleashed today and my educated guess is that this is how much of the rest of the year is going to play out: with Fincher and Co. taking home a shitload of various statues for The Social Network. With the NBR alone it took best film, director, actor and screenplay. This is going to be The Hurt Locker of 2010 I foresee.
The complete list of awards plays out as follows:
Best Film: The Social Network
Best Director: David Fincher, The Social Network
Best Actor: Jesse Eisenberg, The Social Network
Best Actress: Lesley Manville, Another Year
Best Supporting Actor: Christian Bale, The Fighter
Best Supporting Actress: Jacki Weaver, Animal Kingdom
Best Foreign Film: Of Gods and Men
Best Documentary: Waiting For “Superman”
Best Animated Feature: Toy Story 3
Best Ensemble Cast: The Town
Breakthrough Performance: Jennifer Lawrence, Winter’s Bone
Spotlight Award for Best Directorial Debut: Sebastian Junger and Tim Hetherington, Restrepo
Best Original Screenplay: Chris Sparling, Buried
Best Adapted Screenplay: Aaron Sorkin, The Social Network
Special Filmmaking Achievement Award: Sofia Coppola, for writing, directing, and producing Somewhere
William K. Everson Film History Award: Leonard Maltin
NBR Freedom of Expression: Fair Game, Conviction, Howl
Top Eleven Films (In alphabetical order):
Another Year
The Fighter
Hereafter
Inception
The King’s Speech
Shutter Island
The Social Network
The Town
Toy Story 3
True Grit
Winter’s Bone
Top Ten Independent Films (In alphabetical order):
Animal Kingdom
Buried
Fish Tank
The Ghost Writer
Greenberg
Let Me In
Monsters
Please Give
Somewhere
Youth in Revolt
Top Six Foreign Films (In alphabetical order):
I Am Love
Incendies
Life, Above All
Of Gods And Men
Soul Kitchen
White Material
Top Six Documentary Films (In alphabetical order):
A Film Unfinished
Inside Job
Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work
Restrepo
The Tillman Story
Waiting For “Superman”
I like director JOHN WATERS Top 10 of 2010: http://artforum.com/inprint/id=26857
1 Domain (Patric Chiha) My favorite movie of the year. A forty-year-old alcoholic aunt (played by Béatrice Dalle—“Betty Blue” herself!) and her gayish teenage nephew form a perversely close relationship by taking walks together. Lots of walks! So many walks you’ll be left breathless by the sheer elegance of this astonishing little workout.
2 Enter the Void (Gaspar Noé) The best film ever about taking hallucinogenic drugs. Seizure-inducing title credits, cinematography that looks as if it were shot by a Gerhard Richter–influenced kamikaze pilot—even vagina cams. Gaspar, thank you. You’re my sweetheart.
3 Buried (Rodrigo Cortés) The most excruciatingly painful date movie imaginable comes complete with a very smart feel-bad ending. See it with someone you hate.
4 Ricky (François Ozon) A great special-effects movie, though there’s only one effect: a flying baby. If David Lynch and David Cronenberg had sex and one of them magically got pregnant, this film could be their offspring.
5 Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work (Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg) Talk about granting access! Are you crazy, Joan?! If Jews went to confession, this film would be a sacrament.
6 Jackass 3D (Jeff Tremaine) A scatological, gay, s/m, borderline snuff movie amazingly embraced by a wide, American blue-collar family audience. Isn’t Steve-O chugging down a glass of sweat collected from the ass-crack of an obese man and then vomiting at you in 3-D the purest moment of raw cinema anarchy this year?
7 Life During Wartime (Todd Solondz) Paul Reubens (without a trace of Pee-Wee) is a suicidal ghost who’s still miserable, and Charlotte Rampling plays a bitter, self-loathing hotel hornball. Both performances will break your heart.
8 Dogtooth (Yorgos Lanthimos) If your parents raised you into your teen years without ever once letting you out of the house and taught you that “outside” means climbing in the trunk of the family car and locking yourself in, are you in mental trouble? Hilarious, original, and very discomfiting, the way movies should be.
9 Carlos (Olivier Assayas) I loved all five-plus hours of this French hymn to celebrity revolutionary–turned-mercenary Carlos the Jackal. He’s so sexy that even militant, left-wing German feminist terrorists give him head and his own hostages ask for his autograph.
10 Mesrine (Parts 1 and 2) (Jean-François Richet) Four and a half more hours about another French criminal–folk hero–stud. Who’s badder? More butch? Cuter nude? Carlos or Jacques Mesrine? Why not a subtitled ten-hour “Freddy vs. Jason” combined sequel about both? In Sensurround, s’il vous plaît.
rock n roll Jackie Weaver for Animal Kingdom, quite simply the best Australian film of at least the last 10 years, if The Square was Boxcar Bertha, Animal Kingdom is Goodfellas, has an ending to rival all others this year, still my number #3 film behind Inception & Exit Through the Gift Shop (and i’ve seen 90% of films in comp at Cannes)
Sad that I missed Animal Kingdom, and am hoping to catch it before the end of the year, even if I have to import the dang Aussie DVD at this point!
I was not much of a fan of Animal Kingdom. I honestly don’t even remember much of it. It’s a very slow burn and I remember taking issue with a lot of stuff in there… but for the life of me can’t remember what. Sort of an in one eye and out the other experience. Love The Square though.
Nice to see Lesley Manville get some love. John Waters’ list is great too, mainly for his descriptions – I’ve only actually seen 1 of them shockingly! After rewatching Dogtooth the other night it’s up in my top ten now though.
Animal Kingdom has the most deserved use of slow mo in cinematic history. Anyway last year they gave best director 2 pathetic Clint Eastwood rugby movie, Invictus, this year they will how ever sync up with oscars, Fincher 4 be the biggest lock since Scorsese in 2006. Christian Bale is still in actor working top 5, a return to scene stealing ala The Prestige I suspect.
Glad The Town got recognized, although ensemble?
Normally I would say best performance is not objective, but in the case of Lesley Manville, if she doesn’t win the Oscar than I think it can be proven scientifically that the Academy made an error.
When does The Fighter come out?
Animal Kingdom was pretty awesome; took me a while to acclimate to the kid and his acting style, but the guy that played Pope was amazing as was Jackie Weaver of course.
I’ll be seeing The Social Network for the second time this weekend, so we’ll see if I like it more this time. I liked it a lot the first time, but it did not crack my top 5 on first viewing.
My favourite film of the year is still Mr. Nobody, by a long shot.
Love for OF GODS AND MEN & INCENDIES makes me happy.
Really enjoyed ANIMAL KINGDOM but in a year of spectacular film, I must admit it’s sort of fallen by the wayside.
As fir FISH TANK… I thought that was an 09 release.
Fish Tank released in February 2010 in the US; it was 2009 in the UK.