Movie Box Review

The New York Film Critics Circle famously (notoriously?), having decided that they simply couldn't wait to announce their 2011 awards until, y'know, they had actually seen all the movies (when Warners couldn't rush them a copy of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close--which doesn't open until December 25--the Circle simply ignored it), has made its late-November proclamations.  After the break, the winners and some thoughts:

Best Picture:  THE ARTIST  It's Oscar time, and that means Harvey Weinstein.  The Artist, with its admirable mix of craft and movie love, has a chance of overwhelming the critical establishment, and while that's no guarantee of Oscar glory (remember The Social Network), it certainly could make for a frontrunner.  Awards like this will also help the picture be seen by a more mainstream audience, which in turn doesn't hurt with the Academy.

Best Director:  Michel Hazanavicius, THE ARTIST  Ditto.

Best Actor:  Brad Pitt, MONEYBALL and THE TREE OF LIFE  Pitt (and Jessica Chastain below) benefit from the fact that critics groups base their awards on a year's body of work rather than for a single film.  Having 2 well-regarded pictures in one calendar year is a big boost.  Also, the fact that there's no tremendous favorite in this category could give Pitt the best chance of his career thus far for a victory.  (Which would probably be for Moneyball.)

Best Actress:  Meryl Streep, THE IRON LADY This race has seemed to narrow quickly to Streep vs Michelle Williams (and possibly Viola Davis), and the first volley goes to The Great One.  Big loser here is Glenn Close, whose Albert Nobbs is currently under the radar and may stay there.

Best Supporting Actor:  Albert Brooks, DRIVE  That perfect combination of a talent that richly deserves reward for decades of superb work with a role that genuinely surprised everyone (and in which he was remarkable ).  Christopher Plummer in Beginners seems to be his main competition.

Best Supporting Actress:  Jessica Chastain, THE TREE OF LIFE, TAKE SHELTER and THE HELP  The It Girl of 2011, and this list of movies doesn't even include her excellent turns in The Debt, Texas Killing Fields or Coriolanus.  The Oscar question is whether so many fine performances will fracture her chances of actually winning.

Best Screenplay:  Aaron Sorkin and Steven Zaillian, MONEYBALL  There aren't writers in Hollywood more A-list than these two, and in Moneyball they successfully brought to the screen a piece of source material as unpromising as anything out there.

Best Foreign-Language Film:  A SEPARATION  Sony Classics isn't opening this Iranian drama until the very end of December, but it's been making the rounds of film festivals for months.

Best Cinematography:  Emmanuel Lubezki, THE TREE OF LIFE  Even people who gave up on the movie had to bow their heads at the spectacular look of the film. 

Best Nonfiction Film:  CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS  Werner Herzog is a figure beloved by critics, and Cave was a film where his fascinations melded beautifully with the subject matter.  Also impressive as one of the first documentaries to make truly effective use of 3D.

Best First Feature:  MARGIN CALL  Yay, NYFCC!  One of the year's very best pictures--first or otherwise--gets a shout-out that will hopefully keep it alive down the awards season trail.

For many years, the National Board of Review has been the self-appointed first group on the calendar to announce awards for Best Picture and other categories.  The NBR is sort of like the Golden Globes without super-powers; they're 110 people tangentially related to the world of film whom you've never heard of and whose opinions would mean nothing to you if they told you their choices individually.  Their Best Picture winners have coincided with the Oscars exactly twice in the past decade:  Slumdog Millionaire and No Country For Old Men.  (Other choices have included Good Night and Good Luck, Moulin Rouge and Up In the Air).  But because their's is the first horse out of the gate, they get a couple of days of national publicity until the next group comes along.

Well, no more.  The NY Film Critics Circle, a somewhat more august group, has decided they want that heady publicity rush, and they've announced that they'll announce their winners on November 28.  (NBR won't unveil theirs until December 1--at least for now.)  All of this would amount to the most inside of baseball, except that any films wanting to be considered by NYFCC will have to screen for the critics by Thanksgiving weekend--which in practical terms means by November 23, the day before Thanksgiving.  This is a full month or more before such potential contenders as War Horse, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and We Bought A Zoo are scheduled to open, and may require unfinished versions to be submitted for critical review. Since, unlike the NBR members, the Film Critics Circle is made up of people who are actually expected to review these films for the public, that means they could be judging pictures before they're in their final form.  Also, any films scheduled to open in the succeeding weeks who aren't blessed with the NYFCC imprimatur, possibly including Carnage, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy and Young Adult, could be tarnished as "losers" before they've even been seen by audiences.