'Hurt Locker' Takes Online Film Critics Honors

Kudos to Cinematical for tracking down the specific stats on this; it's a great supplement to the news that The Hurt Locker now has a noticeable lead in the year-end critics awards. Whether or not that translates to the Academy Awards is hard to say, but this certainly shores up the film's standing as a legitimate contender. The Hurt Locker won four Online Film Critics Society Awards today, tying the film with the most nominations, Inglourious Basterds. However, it won three of the major trophies - Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor, also winning Best Editing. Here's where it gets noteworthy: The win brings to 10 the number of Best Pictures secured by The Hurt Locker, which is one ahead of Up in the Air. Way off in the distance are Basterds with three, Up with two wins, and Avatar taking home only the award from New York Film Critics Online. Cinematical's breakdown of what these numbers could mean is worth checking out, although the theme is the same one we've been trumpeting for a couple of weeks: Hurt Locker is right there with Avatar, and both of them may neutralize Up in the Air. It's turning into a David vs. Goliath story, and if the Academy voters look at it the same way, then we might expect The Hurt Locker to win, in spite - or maybe because - of all of the money James Cameron has made in the past few weeks. Kathryn Bigelow is trouncing everyone for Best Director, and that seems like an easier race to call than Best Picture. Bigelow has won 16 Best Director honors this year from the various critics groups; nobody else has more than three. It could still be Avatar's year, and I'm not discounting that, especially with The Golden Globes coming in just a couple of weeks, when the film is still going to be pretty hot. A win there might reawaken some Oscar voters. But The Hurt Locker seems to be slowly building momentum, which is the way these things tend to play out in more even years. In October, Precious was a movie to contend with. In November and most of December, it was Up in the Air. But now this really does look more and more like a tug-of-war rather than a battle royal, and both films at the top of the list are peaking at the right time.

Comments

[laura petermann]

I hope Kathryn Bigelow & Jeremy Renner win as many awards as they can carry!!