Never Let Them Go. A Video Essay by Matt Zoller Seitz

Beautifully constructed video essay for L Magazine on 2010 cinema. Worth your ten minutes. I'd embed it here but it's one of those videos that starts immediately without pressing a button. Hate that!

Chicago Critics: Collegiate Men and Serious Little Girls Dominate.

The Chicago Film Critics are the latest critics association to announce their awards and they've gone, like virtually everyone else, with The Social Network.

 These 52 critics love Sorkin & Fincher's warring young entrepeneurs. They also like their actresses real young and their prizes spread out.




Best Picture The Social Network
Best Director David Fincher, The Social Network
Best Actress Natalie Portman, Black Swan
Best Actor  Colin Firth, The King's Speech
Best Supporting Actress Hailee Steinfeld, True Grit

Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld), the captain of True Grit's ship.

• If you assume that Helena Bonham-Carter, and The Fighter girls are safe in the Supporting Actress race, does this rush of Hailee Steinfeld wins prophecy that she'll be stealing Jacki Weaver's spot? If so how will we ever forgive these (and other critics) who inexplicably ruled in Hailee's favor? Or will Hailee take Mila Kunis's spot? Or does it signify only that True Grit was the last film to screen for critics groups and they tend to love Coen Bros movies more than just about anybody? Your verdict please in the comments.

Best Supporting Actor Christian Bale, The Fighter

• Since I was taken to task for only bitching about Hailee's category fraud I should note here again that I think this is a lead role too. More bitching! Wheeee. (still and all... Hailee's is the single most fraudulent categorization this year with Bale & Rush doing the Jeff Bridges co-lead thing in their movies. Notice how no one thinks Jeff Bridges is "supporting" in True Grit.)

Best Screenplay Aaron Sorkin, The Social Network
Best Documentary Exit Through The Gift Shop
Best Foreign Film A Prophet
Best Animated Film Toy Story 3
Best Cinematography Wally Pfister, Inception
Best Original Score Clint Mansell, Black Swan
Most Promising Performer Jennifer Lawrence, Winter's Bone
Most Promising Filmmaker Derek Cianfrance, Blue Valentine

The Blue Valentine trio.

A few observations...

• The median age of the female actress winners is 21. (The median personality is humorless. Seriously... Hailee, Natalie and Jennifer are allergic to smiling in those movies.) Those Chicago critics sure do like 'em young. At least they have for the past four years (each year the youngest nominee has won). For what it's worth, I do promise to stop talking about age biases for at least a couple of weeks but there's one more comprehensive Oscar trivia post about it coming tonight which covers the men, too so it's stuck in me brain.
• Hmmm. How is Jennifer Lawrence "more promising" than Hailee Steinfeld but can't defeat her in direct battle? Maybe Jennifer slipped like Sugar Ray Leonard in the ring with Christian Bale? Oh no wait, that's right... they demoted Hailee to supporting. Argh. I honestly keep forgetting because it's so ridonculous.
• Chicago tends to stick with presumed Oscar categories, even if it looks ridiculous; they also named Kate Winslet "Best Supporting Actress" for The Reader.
• Happy to see an honor for Derek Cianfrance for Blue Valentine. The first step in getting great performances is to cast great actors but you do still have to direct them afterwards. That he did with a confident hand.



Can Rapunzel fend off challengers?

• Toy Story 3 has all but won the animated Oscar even before nominations are announced, but it's getting hard to suss out what it's ostensible competition will be isn't it? How To Train Your Dragon, The Illusionist and Tangled all have devoted fans so which of those three films gets the snub? It becomes really hard to say when one film dominates the discussion to such a degree that you hear of little else.

 And finally, thanks to In Contention for pointing this out but it's so brilliant.

Houston, St. Louis & Florida Name Their Favorites

I'm just going to keep using this one photo I concocted below until people stop with the Hailee Steinfeld is a supporting actress in True Grit meme. I've even seen her so labelled IN REVIEWS that have nothing to do with Oscars. Oscar culture has truly distorted all concepts of narrative in our modern society. I realize that I'm the lone ornery voice of dissent but, so what? I'm demonstrating my own true grit; Hailee would be proud of me... well, except for the part where I wouldn't nominate her.

But, the ageism and sexism of movie awards is really getting to me this year, sorry.

Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld), the captain of True Grit's ship.

Fact: No teenage boy who was leading a picture like True Grit (just imagine the gender reversed) would ever win any awards beyond "breakthrough." Remember when Leonardo DiCaprio won all those statues for his wildly acclaimed "supporting" work in This Boy's Life (1993) and Jesse Bradford won all those awards for King of the Hill (1993)  and Christian Bale won those same prizes for his debut "supporting" work in Empire of the Sun (1987) and Max Records won them for supporting all of those Wild Things Whereever They Were last year and remember when...

No, neither do I.

Pretend Hailee was a boy and imagine her chances competing against Bale or Rush. HA! Like that would ever happen. People respect veteran actors too much to take their trophies away from them. But put a young girl up against a veteran actress and the veteran actresses are toast. They get no respect.

Anyway... if you wanna discuss what Texas, Missouri and Florida critics are honoring, keep on readin'.




Houston
Best Picture The Social Network
Best Director David Fincher, The Social Network
Best Actress Natalie Portman, Black Swan
Best Actor  Jesse Eisenberg, The Social Network

Best Supporting Actress Hailee Steinfeld, True Grit
Best Supporting Actor Christian Bale, The Fighter
Best Screenplay Aaron Sorkin, The Social Network
Best Documentary Restrepo
Best Foreign Film The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Best Animated Film Toy Story 3
Best Cinematography Wally Pfister, Inception
Best Original Score Hans Zimmer, Inception
Best Original Song “We Are Sex Bob-Omb!”, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (music and lyrics by Beck)
Worst Picture Jonah Hex
Humanitarian of the Year George Clooney
Lifetime Achievement Award Sissy Spacek

• I can't feign more anger at the Hailee Steinfeld True Grit thing but to say that it's the single biggest category fraud since Jamie Foxx as "supporting" in Collateral. Moving on... it's the usual suspects here so... moving on.
  
  Oh P.S. Sissy Spacek is a Texan but she's definitely a good choice for lifetime achievement. What would be even better than a lifetime achievement prize would be a role worth her time. When is that coming?

Florida
Best Picture: The Social Network
Best Actress: Natalie Portman, Black Swan
Best Actor: Firth, The King’s Speech
Best Supporting Actress: Melissa Leo, The Fighter
Best Supporting Actor: Christian Bale, The Fighter
Best Director: David Fincher, The Social Network
Best Adapted Screenplay: Aaron Sorkin, The Social Network
Best Original Screenplay: Christopher Nolan, Inception
Best Cinematography: Wally Pfister, Inception
Best Visual Effects: Inception
Best Art Direction/Production Design: Guy Dyas, Inception
Best Foreign Language Film: I Am Love
Best Animated: Toy Story 3
Best Documentary: The Tillman Story
Breakout: Jennifer Lawrence, Winter’s Bone
Golden Orange: Matthew Curtis, Enzian Theater and the Florida  Film Festival

• More usual suspects as Natalie Portman begins to take the critical lead (after a slow start where she didn't manage either of the important coastal awards, LAFCA or NYFCC).
  
  Of note: Inception fared better than usual here. I do think it's still going to have a very high nomination count at the Oscars.

St. Louis

Best Picture The Social Network
Best Director David Fincher, The Social Network
Best Actress Natalie Portman, Black Swan
Best Actor  Colin Firth, The King's Speech
Best Supporting Actress Melissa Leo, The Fighter
Best Supporting Actor Christian Bale, The Fighter
Best Adapted Screenplay Aaron Sorkin, The Social Network
Best Original Screenplay David Seidler, The King's Speech
Best Documentary The Tillman Story
Best Foreign Film MicMacs
Best Animated Film Toy Story 3
Best Comedy Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
Cinematography Roger Deakins, True Grit
Best Music The Social Network
Visual Effects Inception
Artistic/Creative Film (Arthouse) MicMacs
Moving the Medium Forward Award Inception
Special Merit (Scene) (tie) 127 Hours (zoomout when first trapped) and Inception (zero gravity hallway)

• Nathaniel R Award For Altruistic Groupthink: To all minor critics organization who make blogging easier by choosing all of the same films and performances to award. For the ease and speed of copying and pasting, my fingers and wrists thank you!

Oh and one more thing before I forget...

Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld), the captain of True Grit's ship.

NYFCC's 2010 Wins: "The Social Kids That Are All Right Network"

The New York Film Critics Circle forms, together with LAFCA (Los Angeles Film Critics Association) and the NSFC* (National Society of Film Critics), the holy trinity** of critics awards. LA & NY combined can be a potent influential mix... not that they often agree. But this year they did, further underlining the dominance of The Social Network this awards season. The other big boost went to The Kids Are All Right, Lisa Cholodenko's warmly funny family-at-crossroads film, which picked up three major wins (Actress, Supporting Actor, Screenplay)

Picture The Social Network
Director David Fincher for The Social Network
Actress Annette Bening for The Kids Are All Right
Actor Colin Firth for The King's Speech

We already knew that Best Actress was shaping up to be a Bening vs. Portman showdown. But it was not confirmed in a neatly bi-coastal way since Portman did not take LAFCA yesterday. She wasn't even runner-up. Nevertheless, it's still firmly on track to turn out that way, a two-person battle, since they're the likely Globe winners in Comedy and Drama, respectively.


Supporting Actress Melissa Leo for The Fighter
Supporting Actor Mark Ruffalo for The Kids Are All Right
Screenplay Lisa Cholodenko & Stuart Blumberg for The Kids Are All Right
Cinematography Matthew Libatique for Black Swan
Animated Film Sylvain Chomet's The Illusionist
Documentary Inside Job
Foreign Film Carlos
First Feature David Michôd's Animal Kingdom
Special Prize is there one this year? I haven't seen one specified online and their site has not been updated.

Having been a big fan of Animal Kingdom all year, I am pleased for David Michôd's win, since the praise has usually reduced the film to the Jacki Weaver show. Weaver aside, the entire cast is strong and so is the film so good on NYFCC for noticing.

Animal Kingdom's cast: Frecheville, Stapleton, Ford, Weaver,
Joel Edgerton and Ben Mendelsohn

In other film critics org news today, The Southeastern Film Critics Association named The Social Network the years best and also hilariously named True Grit's Hailee Steinfeld the best "supporting" actress of the year. What she's supporting, other than her entire Coen Bros picture, we don't know. They used to call that "carrying" a film and that's only done by lead actors. What the Christ? She's even more of a lead than Frances McDormand was in Fargo! See also: BFCA Nominations for this year's most egregious Category Fraud party. Every year has one.

*in recent years it seems that the NSFC has been fading -- so perhaps the only powerful critics orgs are now LA & NY... at least in terms of media interest -- given NSFC's late voting and the ever expanding roster of film awards.

NYFCO (Prizes and Top Ten List)

Need one more critics group for the day? No? Well then don't open up this window.

The New York Film Critics Online, which is a fairly new organization as critics awards go, embraced most of the Oscar frontrunners with the exception of The King's Speech. Their awards went like so... I may have missed a few but I shall update again if I have.


Picture: The Social Network

• Their top ten list is (alpha order) 127 Hours, Another Year, Black Swan, Blue Valentine, The Ghost Writer, Inception, The Kids Are All Right, The King's Speech, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and The Social Network. 
 

A couple mild surprises in that top ten but the awards themselves are very Oscar-predictiony.

Director: David Fincher, The Social Network
Actor: James Franco in 127 Hours
Actress: Natalie Portman in Black Swan
Supporting Actor: Christian Bale, The Fighter
Supporting Actress: Melissa Leo, The Fighter
Ensemble Cast: The Kids Are All Right
Debut Performance: Noomi Rapace for The Millenium Trilogy.
Debut Director: John Wells, The Company of Men
Screenplay: Aaron Sorkin, The Social Network
Cinematography: Matthew Libatique, Black Swan
Music or Score: Clint Mansell, Black Swan
Documentary: Exit Through the Gift Shop
Foreign Film: I Am Love
Animated Film: Toy Story 3

Critics Awards Cometh. Swan vs. Network?

Ballots were due today for the BFCA "Critics Choice Awards" so you can be sure I did my share of handwringing before I sent it in. My god, you think you know what you want to vote for and you stare at the ballot and it's just >gah< indecision! (It doesn't help that you can only vote for 3 items in each category, 5 for best picture). Those nominations will be announced on Monday.

Tomorrow we'll be hearing from the LAFCA (who will begin announcing at 12:30 PST) -- who have the Academy's ear by way of proximity and major representative outlets--  and the New York Film Critics Online (not to be confused with the the ancient NYFCC which votes on Monday) and then we're off. Neither the critics awards nor the top ten lists will let up thereafter for at least the next month. If you're curious about what I'm predicting you can check out Gold Derby's roundup of pundits here. Other than Best Picture (The Social Network -duh.), predicting critics awards can be a bit like throwing darts. We hope there are lots of fun surprises this year.

In the past decade critics prizes have become both more plentiful and repetitive, with one film always the obvious champ. Even in years where you'd think there'd be a battle royale (like 2007's No Country For Old Men vs. There Will Be Blood) it never really goes ten rounds before one film K.O.s the other. It's less about critical battles than it used to be and more about declaring your allegiance to the hivemind. Which, if you stop to think about it, is exactly what online movie culture is about, with off-consensus critics being (virtually) burned at the stake if they dare to dislike [insert popular movie here]. Which is all a long way of saying that you'll hear the title The Social Network over and over again this season. As often as you heard The Hurt Locker last year probably.

But both are great films so I don't mi---Oh no. I've been assimilated, too. Noooooooooooo

I'm guessing that if we see any challenge to Fincher's Networking this year it'll be Aronofsky & Team Swan (still all the rage at the specialty box office). But how much of a fight do those crazy ballerinas have in them?


Care to make any predictions?