NSFC Loves France, Olivia Williams, The Social Network

The National Society of Film Critics, founded in the 1960s, remains one of the most prestigious critics groups. Though they follow numerous critics groups to their "best!" declarations each year, they don't usually take orders so well. You can always count on a surprise or two though there's still no denying The Social Network.

Olivia Williams takes her first prize for The Ghost Writer

Picture The Social Network (runner up: Carlos and Winter's Bone)
Director David Fincher for The Social Network (ru: Olivier Assayas for Carlos and Roman Polanski for The Ghost Writer)

Actress Giovanna Mezzogiorno in Vincere (ru: Annette Bening in The Kids Are All Right and Lesley Manville in Another Year)
Actor Jesse Eisenberg in The Social Network (ru tie: Colin Firth in The King's Speech and Edgar Ramirez in Carlos)
Supporting Actress Olivia Williams in The Ghost Writer (ru: Amy Adams in The Fighter and tied for third: Melissa Leo in The Fighter and Jacki Weaver in Animal Kingdom)
Supporting Actor Geoffrey Rush in The King's Speech (ru: Christian Bale in The Fighter and Jeremy Renner in The Town)

The actress categories are especially interesting for the names and the order. As you may remember, I'm fond of Olivia Williams in The Ghost Writer (though I have too many candidates for Best Supporting Actress and I'm still debating who I shall proclaim "best!") No sign of Natalie & Hailee at NSFC though they've been hogging the conversation this week. Lesley Manville sure could've used this win though for a late push. As discussed on the podcast, that 5th spot in Best Actress is still very volatile.

Screenplay Aaron Sorkin for The Social Network (ru: David Seidler for The King's Speech and Roman Polanski & Robert Harris for The Ghost Writer)
Cinematography Roger Deakins for True Grit (ru: Matthew Libatique for Black Swan and Harris Savides for Somewhere)
NonFiction Inside Job (ru: Exit Through the Gift Shop and Last Train Home)
Foreign Language Film Carlos (ru: A Prophet and White Material)
Film Heritage Awards 1. The Film Foundation (20th Anniversary) 2. "Chaplin at Keystone" Flicker Alley, "Elia Kazan Collection" (Fox) 4. Upstream rediscovered 1927 film directed by John Ford (National Film Preservation Board) 5. On the Bowery (Milestone) and 6. Word is Out (Restored by the UCLA Film & Television Archive and distributed by Milestone)

I'm a francophile myself but found it surprising that all three of their favorite foreign films winner Carlos, Oscar nominee A Prophet (pictured left) and Claire Denis' White Material are Gallic. Crazy! What about Mother? I Am Love? Vincere (since they loved Giovanna)? Dogtooth?

BAFTA Swans, Ohio Dreams, Audio Society Listens

With Oscar nominations just 17 days away, it's all over but the stragglers, the ceremonies (BFCA and Globes in a week's time. Whooo) and one biggie precursor the Director's Guild of America, which will announce on Monday. Awards season always starts feeling about deja vu at this point. But we're about to wake up to the NOW. Just 17 days...

But here's three more awards crumbs until we get there: But here's three more awards crumbs until we get there: The BAFTA long list (not their nominees. that happens later), Ohio Critics and the Cinema Audio Society. It's a lot to cover so it's all after the jump.

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Blogger Man: Turn Off the Link

Serious Film Michael (a TFE columnist) is counting down his favs of the year.
Final Girl Stacy's cartoons of the Friday the 13th series almost make it seems as cute as a Pixar movie... okay no. I amend. It's still sick so it's almost as cute as a Don Hertzfeldt animation.
Parabasis a fascinating thoughtful and scathing review of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark.
In Contention Guy's 25 favorites of 2010. It was a very good year.

Alternative Film Guide RIP Miriam Seegar, one of the last surviving silent film actors.
Vulture Quentin Tarantino responds to the collective internet freakout also known as "OMG, why isn't Sofia Coppola's Somewhere which he awarded in Venice on his top ten list?!?"
Pop Matters chooses their (collective) favorite 20 female performances of 2010. Interesting li... okay, it's a bizarre list. We do appreciate Matt's writeup of Barbara Hershey in Black Swan. We do not appreciate the Annette Bening snub.

Fuming Actresses
US Weekly Michelle Williams is not pleased with the way Nightline edited her statements about Heath Ledger's death and their breakup.
EW's Inside Movies Julia Roberts has had it with everyone ignoring Javier Bardem in Biutiful. OBEY!
The Advocate Glenn Close is horrified that she has an unauthorized cameo in that anti-gay USS Enterprise Navy video that recently caused such a ruckus.

Academy's F/X Branch Votes Movies Off Their Magical Island

The idea of "bakeoffs" that some of the technical Oscar branches use, wherein voting members check out showreels of various films and narrow down the field, is interesting. I'm glad they don't do it with most categories but it's interesting. But when it comes to finals within those semi-finals it just seems... rude. It seems humiliating like Reality TV humiliating. For the first time, we'll have five nominees this year in the Visual Effects category and most people agree that's a smart move given how many movies employ visual f/x these day.

For reasons we don't understand, they've narrowed down their 15 wide finalist list to 7 films, eliminating the new Narnia, wannabe franchises like Prince of Persia and Percy Jackson, jeered 3D efforts Clash of the Titans and The Last Airbender, the Nic Cage sorceror movie and the hit action film Unstoppable. So now we're down to... 

• Eyesore in Wonderland
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Tent Moping Part ∞
• Hereafter
• Inception
• Iron Man 2: The Avengers Cometh. You Saw The Shield and the Hammer, Right?
• Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
• Tron: Legacy

Which means that two of those movies will be snubbed on January 25th and that just seems so mean-spirited. Like "PSYCHE! You thought you were going to be an Oscar nominee. And now you're not. HAHA. You lose!" Note to these AMPAS branches: Only narrow it down once. Don't be a jerk! This isn't reality TV. 

Or maybe we're just in a bad mood because we figure be nice. Put the totally deserving Scott Pilgrim out of his misery early. Don't make him think you're going to honor his creative, funny, stylized effects only to cast him aside for something infinitely more derivative.

Current Predictions

USC Scripter Nominations

If you're new to the awards game -- and there are some newbies every year welcome! -- the USC is a screenplay honor with a very specific focus. The idea is to honor "the year's most accomplished cinematic adaptations as well as the author of the written work upon which the screenplay is based." Got that? That means if you wrote a book 10 years ago that was awesome and someone makes it into a movie that people respond to you get the honor along with the screenwriter. It's a different way of doing things but it's not such a terrible idea since the original writer did do much of the heavy lifting in terms of plotting and character construction and what not.

The nominees:

• 127 HOURS by Danny Boyle and Simon Beaufoy based on "Between a Rock and a Hard Place" by Aron Ralston.
• THE GHOST WRITER by Roman Polanski based on "The Ghost" by Robert Harris.
• THE SOCIAL NETWORK by Aaron Sorkin based on "The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, a Tale of Sex, Money and Betrayal" by Ben Mezrich.
• TRUE GRIT by the Coen Bros based on "True Grit" by Charles Portis
• WINTER'S BONE by Debra Granik and Anne Rosellini based on "Winter's Bone" by Daniel Woodrell

This year's 58 member selection committee composed of screenwriters, film critics and authors among others was headed by Oscar nominated screenwriter Naomi Foner who we have always loved for two reasons. First for writing Running on Empty (1988) which makes us cry every time we see it, and then for those eighteen months of hard work bringing Maggie and Jake Gyllenhaal into the world. Eighteen months well spent!

This list could be your Oscar list but for the likelihood of the Toy Story 3 Oscar nomination. Common wisdom is that The Ghost Writer will slip out but isn't 127 Hours a bit vulnerable? Does anyone else think it's a bit odd that all sequels campaign as adapted?