National Society of Film Critics Pick 'The Hurt Locker'

The race for Best Picture, as we've chronicled for a few weeks now, is narrowing fast. Yeah, there are still ten nominees, and I think we'll see just how superfluous that is by the time the nominations are announced. A few writers still have Inglourious Basterds playing spoiler at the Oscars, and that would be about the only suspense left. Precious peaked too early, Nine and The Lovely Bones aren't good enough, and it's now down to Up in the Air, Avatar, and The Hurt Locker, and that's about it. The Hurt Locker has been the critics' choice for a while now, and it added to that resume with a dominating performance at the National Society of Film Critics awards this weekend. And when I say dominant, it's the only film of this year's big three to win anything from the film critics. That might be a little too one-sided, I think. The full list is available at IndieWire. I think one interesting thing the NSFC does is list the top three finisthers with the number of votes each received, and the Best Picture win was only outdistanced by The Hurt Locker's lead in Best Director. That's not a foregone conclusion at the Oscars, either, especially with Cameron's technical tour de force, but there will probably be growing momentum for Kathryn Bigelow to break the glass ceiling for female directors. Best Picture
The Hurt Locker Best Director
Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker Best Actor
Jeremy Renner, The Hurt Locker Best Actress
Yolande Moreau, Seraphine Best Supporting Actor
Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds, and Paul Schneider, Bright Star (tie) Best Supporting Actress
Mo’Nique, Precious: Based on the novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire Best Screenplay
Joel and Ethan Coen, A Serious Man Best Foreign-Language Film
Summer Hours Best Non-Fiction Film
The Beaches of Agnes Best Cinematography
Christian Berger, The White Ribbon It appears that Avatar has overtaken (or overpowered) Up in the Air in most industry circles as the frontrunner. If that's true, and I don't see it becoming less true over the next couple of months, then the head-to-head between James Cameron and his ex-wife Kathryn Bigelow will be quite a story to follow.

Comments

[MRPigg]

An interesting statistic has popped up. The last time that the New York, LA, and National Society of Film Critics agreed on their choices for Best Picture (this year is The Hurt Locker), was 1997 when the consensus pick was L.A. Confidential. Does anyone remember what won Best Picture that year? A technically innovative epic with strong word of mouth directed by James Cameron...

hmmm...

[Get The Big Picture]

Yeah, I saw that, but decided not to bring it up. It's a strong coincidence, certainly, and I would've picked Confidential that year, too. However, Avatar is a much, much better movie than Titanic, in my view.