This time the grim American tale sucked up the top critics prize, the National Society of Film Critics for Best Film, Best Actor for the lead, Daniel Day-Lewis, Best Director for PTA and Best Cinematography.
The 42nd annual awards were given out by the NSFC, an association of 61 movie critics from across the country. However, only 41 members cast ballots at the group’s meeting Saturday in New York City, the society said in a news release.
Julie Christie won Best Actress making her pretty much a shoe-in for an Oscar nom, Casey Affleck won Best Supporting Actor for his turn in “The Assassination of Jesse James” and Cate Blanchett won the Best Supporting Actress award for “I’m Not There.”
So are these awards the crystal ball to the Oscars? Not exactly and more accurately, not really. In 2006 the NSFC voted “Pan’s Labyrinth” as Best Picture and in 2005 they awarded “Capote,” with the top prize. Another example: “Gladiator,” “Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” and “Beautiful Mind,” all former Globe and Oscar winners, didn’t win anything from the group, either. In the past twenty years, only three films that won the NSFC have gone on to win the Best Picture Oscar. Not a good look.
Yes, the disconnect between critical consensus and and Oscar members has lessened in recent years, but that still doesn’t mean ‘Blood’ is a lock for nominations. Yes, the critical groundswell does seem to be spilling over in its favor, but with the Academy you can never tell. They’re a conservative bunch that don’t like dark films and love their light, easy-to-digest fluffy fare (see “Little Miss Sunshine,” and “Crash”).
SAG Nominations Favor ‘Wild’
Much more of a strong indicator of the Oscars, and something we haven’t had a chance to blog about yet ,are the Screen Actors Guild Nominations. Who cleaned up there? Why the only so-so critically received Sean Penn film, “Into The Wild.” The film was completely ignored by the Golden Globes, but scored four nominations including, Best Actor for Emile Hirsch, Best Supporting Actor for Hal Holbrook, Best Supporting Actress for Catherine Keener and Best Ensemble Cast (the SAG equivalent for Best Picture).
Both “Micheal Clayton” and “No Country For Old Men” did well too, with three nominations each. ‘Blood’ only scored one nomination for Daniel Day-Lewis.
The SAG Best actress category nominations are pretty much what we expect for the Oscar nominations.
* Cate Blanchett – Elizabeth: The Golden Age
* Julie Christie – Away From Her
* Marion Cotillard – La Vie En Rose
* Angelina Jolie – A Mighty Heart
* Ellen Page – Juno
Last year the performers who won the SAG awards for Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress all won their Oscar counterpart (Forest Whitaker, Helen Mirren and Jennifer Hudson respectively). Then again, the SAG Awards also gave a nomination to fucking “Bobby” last year, so there’s no accounting for taste, but they were pretty on the money in 2005 (again 3 of the four winners of the top acting awards also went on to win their respective Oscar category).
But since ‘Wild’ hasn’t won anything, yet, this means little so far, but something to think about when the winners are announced. The awards take place on January 27.
Just remember that critics going apeshit for a film doesn’t necessarily equate Oscar gold let alone nominations. It’s kind of like the music press going berserk for the first Arcade Fire album, but the disc only selling under 300K after almost a year of critical flogging. Hype and reality are always two drastically different things.