Oscar noms season just got two steps closer to going from guesses to straight-up reality. And Paul Thomas Anderson’s “There Will Be Blood” and the Coen Brothers’ “No Country For Old Men,” have pushed themselves into the near-lock category for Best Picture nominations (not a huge surprise really).
Both the New York Film Critics Circle and Los Angeles Film Critics Association have given out their collective awards for best movies of the year with NY giving Best Picture love to ‘No Country,’ and L.A. awarding PTA’s ‘Blood.’
Though NY and L.A. both stuck to these films closely, the big winner has to be seen as Daniel Day Lewis who was awarded Best Actor from both coasts. Every one’s already calling him a lock, but now he’s an impenetrable fortress lock.
Notable runner-ups in the L.A. awards (New York didn’t post theirs) were Julian Schnabel‘s “The Diving Bell & The Butterfly” which was the runner-up for Best Director and Best Film (just another strong indicator of the film’s impact with critics) and Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood whose original ‘Blood’ score was the runner up for the Music prize.
Also getting tons of praise is Sarah Polley’s “Away From Her.” Polley grabbed First Time director awards for both coasts and the film’s star Julie Christie won Best Actress from the New York side. Also looking good is 2007 Cannes Palme d’Or winner “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days,” which took Best Foreign Film and Best Supporting Actor prizes in the Left Coast critics’ list.
Look at both these lists to be strong bellwethers of Oscar nods. Note no major awards for “Juno,” a mordant comedy film that many have championed loudly, but just might just be destined to stay within the Independent Spirit Award world. What do we think? Well, our ever-changing Oscar Temperature piece and Breakthrough Performances pieces shows we’re still on the money, or at least near it (and we haven’t even done an updated Oscar piece in a while). It’s also nice to see Charles Burnett’s excavated classic, “Killer Of Sheep” getting some love too.
New York Film Critics Circle Awards
Best Picture – No Country For Old Men
Best Director – Joel & Ethan Coen / No Country For Old Men
Best Actor – Daniel Day Lewis / There Will Be Blood
Best Actress – Julie Christie / Away From Her
Best Supporting Actor – Javier Bardem / No Country For Old Men
Best Supporting Actress – Amy Ryan / Gone Baby Gone
Best Cinematography – Robert Elswit / There Will Be Blood
Best Screenplay – Joel & Ethan Coen / No Country For Old Men
Best Animated Film – Persepolis
Best Non-Fiction Film (Documentary) – No End in Sight
Best Foreign-Language Film – The Lives of Others
Best First Film – Away From Her
Lifetime Achievement Award – Sidney Lumet
Special Critics Award – “Killer of Sheep” by Charles Burnett
Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards
Picture: “There Will Be Blood“
Director Paul Thomas Anderson, “There Will Be Blood”
Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis, “There Will Be Blood”
Actress: Marion Cotillard, “La Vie en rose”
Supporting Actor: Vlad Ivanov, “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days”
Supporting Actress: Amy Ryan, “Gone Baby Gone” and “Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead“
Screenplay: Tamara Jenkins, “The Savages“
Foreign-Language Film: “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days”
Documentary: “No End in Sight”
Animation: “Ratatouille” and “Persepolis” (tie)
Music: Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, “Once“
Production Design: Jack Fisk, “There Will Be Blood”
Best Cinematography: Janusz Kaminski, “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”
New Generation: Sarah Polley, “Away From Her”
Indepedent/Experimental: Pedro Costa’s “Colossal Youth”
“There Will Be Blood” also got a tremendous response from the NY Online Critics group which gave it 5 awards including a Best Picture award (tied with ‘Diving Bell’), Best Director and Best Actor and Best Music for Greenwood’s score. An extremely positive showing for ‘Blood’ so far. D.C Film critics mainly loved the Coens’ ‘No Country.’