A hodgepodge of Critics Awards, Decade listings, Shortlists, Nominations Rammed into One Post

As I technically have seven days to finish my own Decade List (more on the progress of that later on), I'm going to throw a bunch of end-of-the-year shit your way with little commentary, though you'll notice a lot of similarities below. I'm distracted enough as it is. Firstly, the LA Film Critics Association have named their awards for 2009 this afternoon. The New York Film Critics Online is, according to Twitter, in the midst of theirs right now (Correction: They were when I started writing this; they've finished and named, curiously, Avatar as the best film of 2009. Full list here). Here's the LAFCA:

Picture: The Hurt Locker, d. Kathryn Bigelow
Runner-Up: Up in the Air, d. Jason Reitman
Director: Kathryn Bigelow - The Hurt Locker
Runner-Up: Michael Haneke - The White Ribbon [Das weiße Band]
Actor: Jeff Bridges - Crazy Heart
Runner-Up: Colin Firth - A Single Man
Actress: Yolande Moreau - Séraphine
Runner-Up: Carey Mulligan - An Education
Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz - Inglourious Basterds
Runner-Up: Peter Capaldi - In the Loop
Supporting Actress: Mo'Nique - Precious
Runner-Up: Anna Kendrick - Up in the Air
Cinematography: Christian Berger - The White Ribbon
Runner-Up: Barry Ackroyd - The Hurt Locker
Production Design: Philip Ivey - District 9
Runner-Up: Rick Carter, Robert Stromberg - Avatar
Music Score: T-Bone Burnett, Stephen Bruton - Crazy Heart
Runner-Up: Alexandre Desplat - Fantastic Mr. Fox
Foreign Film: Summer Hours [L'heure d'été], d. Olivier Assayas, France
Runner-Up: The White Ribbon, Germany/Austria/France/Italy
Documentary/Non-Fiction: (tie) The Beaches of Agnès [Les plages d'Agnès], d. Agnès Varda; The Cove, d. Louie Psihoyos
Animated Film: Fantastic Mr. Fox, d. Wes Anderson
Runner-Up: Up, d. Peter Docter, Bob Peterson

The Boston Society of Film Critics also dished out their awards today. They are as follows:

Picture: The Hurt Locker, d. Kathryn Bigelow
Director: Kathryn Bigelow - The Hurt Locker
Actor: Jeremy Renner - The Hurt Locker
Actress: Meryl Streep - Julie & Julia
Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz - Inglourious Basterds
Supporting Actress: Mo'Nique - Precious
Ensemble Cast: (tie) Precious; Star Trek
Screenplay: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen - A Serious Man
Cinematography: Barry Ackroyd - The Hurt Locker
Foreign Film: Summer Hours [L'heure d'été], d. Olivier Assayas, France
Documentary: The Cove, d. Louie Psihoyos
Animated Film: Up, d. Peter Docter, Bob Peterson
Editing: Bob Murawski, Chris Innis - The Hurt Locker
New Filmmaker: Neill Blomkamp - District 9
Use of Music in a Film: Crazy Heart

The Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association named their winners on 7 December. They are as follows:

Film: Up in the Air, d. Jason Reitman
Director: Kathryn Bigelow - The Hurt Locker
Actor: George Clooney - Up in the Air
Actress: Carey Mulligan - An Education
Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz - Inglourious Basterds
Supporting Actress: Mo'Nique - Precious
Ensemble Cast: The Hurt Locker
Breakthrough Performance: Gabourey Sidibe - Precious
Adapted Screenplay: Jason Reitman, Sheldon Turner - Up in the Air
Original Screenplay: Quentin Tarantino - Inglourious Basterds
Foreign Film: Sin Nombre, d. Cary Fukunaga, Mexico/USA
Documentary: Food, Inc., d. Robert Kenner
Animated Film: Up, d. Peter Docter, Bob Peterson
Art Direction: Nine

Over the weekend, the Australian Film Institute, also known as AFI, handed out their annual awards, with Warwick Thornton's Samson & Delilah claiming the Best Picture, Director, Original Screenplay (by Thornton), the Young Actor Award (for both leads, Marissa Gibson and Rowan McNamara), Cinematography, Sound and the AFI Members' Choice Award. Other winners include Balibo, which nabbed prizes for Adapted Screenplay (David Williamson, Robert Connolly), Editing, Actor (for Anthony LaPaglia) and Supporting Actor (Oscar Isaac). Kudos also to my favorite gals from Muriel's Wedding, Rachel Griffiths and Toni Collette, for each taking home an award for Best Supporting Actress in Beautiful Kate and the International Best Actress Award for The United States of Tara, respectively.

The other AFI (the American Film Institute) named their 10 Best Films of 2009 today, in alphabetical order (note that only American films are eligible): Coraline [d. Henry Selick], The Hangover [d. Todd Phillips], The Hurt Locker [d. Kathryn Bigelow], The Messenger [d. Oren Moverman], Precious [d. Lee Daniels], A Serious Man [d. Joel Coen, Ethan Coen], A Single Man [d. Tom Ford], Sugar [d. Anna Boden, Ryan Fleck], Up [d. Peter Docter, Bob Peterson] and Up in the Air [d. Jason Reitman].

The British Independent Film Awards were dolled out over a week ago, but I didn't have the time to post it then. I am especially pleased at the recipient of the Best Director Prize. The major winners below; full list here:

Film: Moon, d. Duncan Jones
Director: Andrea Arnold - Fish Tank
Douglas Hickox Award (for Directorial Debut): Duncan Jones - Moon
Actor: Tom Hardy - Bronson
Actress: Carey Mulligan - An Education
Supporting Actor: John Henshaw - Looking for Eric
Supporting Actress: Anne-Marie Duff - Nowhere Boy
Most Promising Newcomer: Katie Jarvis - Fish Tank
Screenplay: Armando Iannucci, Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Tony Roche - In the Loop
Documentary: Mugabe and the White African, d. Lucy Bailey, Andrew Thompson
Foreign Independent Film: Let the Right One In [Låt den rätte komma in], d. Tomas Alfredson, Sweden

Sacha Gervasi's Anvil! The Story of Anvil was the surprise winner at the International Documentary Association's gala last week. Despite its growing fan base, the film was not short-listed for the Academy Award Documentary category. Also, Thanks to the Alternative Film Guide for providing a schedule for all the upcoming critics and industry awards (check this link). Tomorrow: the New York Film Critics Circle and the San Francisco Film Critics, as well as both Chicago and my hometown St. Louis' "nominations." Both Chicago and STL will announce their official winners on 21 December. And, for those with award frenzy (I can't count myself as one of them this year, even though I'm spending all this time posting these listings), the Golden Globe nominations will be announced on Tuesday, the 15th.

The Golden Globes have listed their record-breaking 69 foreign language films that will be eligible for that category's 5 nominees, announced on Tuesday. Among the qualifying films (full list here via Variety): About Elly [d. Asghar Farhadi], Ajami [d. Scandar Copti, Yaron Shani], Baarìa [d. Giuseppe Tornatore], Broken Embraces [d. Pedro Almodóvar], No puedo vivir sin ti [d. Leon Dai], City of Life and Death [d. Lu Chuan], Eden Is West [d. Costa-Gavras], The Girl on the Train [d. André Techiné], The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo [d. Niels Arden Oplev], I Killed My Mother [d. Xavier Dolan], Lebanon [d. Samuel Maoz], The Maid [d. Sebastián Silva], Micmacs [d. Jean-Pierre Jeunet], Mother [d. Bong Joon-ho], Police, Adjective [d. Corneliu Porumboiu], A Prophet [d. Jacques Audiard], Rudo & Cursi [d. Carlos Cuarón], Samson & Delilah [d. Warwick Thornton], The Secret in Their Eyes [d. Juan José Campanella], Thirst [d. Park Chan-wook] and The White Ribbon [d. Michael Haneke].

Now onto decade proceedings. The Onion's A.V. Club ranked their 50 Best Films of the '00s on 3 December. Their top 10 is below, but you can check out all 50 plus commentaries on their website.

01. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, 2004, d. Michel Gondry, USA
02. 25th Hour, 2002, d. Spike Lee, USA
03. There Will Be Blood, 2007, d. Paul Thomas Anderson, USA
04. No Country for Old Men, 2007, d. Joel Coen, Ethan Coen, USA
05. Memento, 2000, d. Christopher Nolan, USA
06. Spirited Away, 2001, d. Hayao Miyazaki, Japan
07. Kill Bill, Vol. 1, 2003, d. Quentin Tarantino, USA
08. Capturing the Friedmans, 2003, d. Andrew Jarecki, USA
09. The New World, 2005, d. Terrence Malick, USA/UK
10. Children of Men, 2006, d. Alfonso Cuarón, UK/USA/Japan

Also of note, take a look at Michael Atkinson at Zero for Conduct's 50 Best Films of the '00s. His top 10 are below, but the full list can be found here.

01. La commune (Paris, 1871), 2000, d. Peter Watkins, France
02. What Time Is It There?, 2001, d. Tsai Ming-liang, Taiwan/France
03. Werckmeister Harmonies [Werckmeister harmóniák], 2000, d. Béla Tarr, Ágnes Hranitzky, Hungary/Italy/Germany/France
04. Adaptation., 2002, d. Spike Jonze, USA
05. 2046, 2004, d. Wong Kar-wai, Hong Kong/China/France/Germany
06. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, 2004, d. Michel Gondry, USA
07. Time of the Wolf [Le temps du loup], 2003, d. Michael Haneke, Austria/France/Germany
08. Battle in Heaven [Batalla en el cielo], 2005, d. Carlos Reygadas, Mexico/France/Germany/Belgium
09. Caché, 2005, d. Michael Haneke, Austria/France/Germany/Italy
10. Inland Empire, 2006, d. David Lynch, USA/Poland/France

Reverse Shot has their Best of the Decade proceedings in medias res, counting down from 20 for the rest of the month. They're up to #16 with Olivier Assayas' Summer Hours [L'heure d'été]. So far, they have the following: Joel and Ethan Coen's No Country for Old Men at #17, Cristi Puiu's The Death of Mr. Lăzărescu [Moartea domnului Lăzărescu] at #18, Alfonso Cuarón's Children of Men at #19 and Terence Davies' The House of Mirth at #20. To keep up with their countdown, check this link periodically.

For all your film list needs, please check out David Hudson's posts at The Auteurs' Notebook, which rounds up a seemingly mind-boggling collection of film writings, from the elite to the 0ccasional middle-brow. Also on The Auteurs' Notebook, Adrian Curry ranks the best posters of the decade (film quality notwithstanding). As he told me, he loves "negative space," so keep that in mind... his collection is uniformly excellent (though I could maybe do without the entire third row of runners-up). The gorgeous, haunting image of Naomi Watts' shedding a tear (what she does best) on the poster for Michael Haneke's Funny Games remake tops the list (see above).

And finally, a bit of musical lists to close this entry. The A.V. Club made lists for both the decade and 2009; 50 for the '00s, 25 for '09. The top 10s of both lists are below:

The '00s

01. The White Stripes - White Blood Cells, 2001
02. Kanye West - The College Dropout, 2004
03. Radiohead - Kid A, 2000
04. OutKast - Stankonia, 2000
05. Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, 2002
06. The Hold Steady - Separation Sunday, 2005
07. Modest Mouse - The Moon & Antarctica, 2000
08. Arcade Fire - Funeral, 2004
09. Jay-Z - The Blueprint, 2001
10. The National - Alligator, 2005

Two-Thousand-and-Nine

01. Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
02. Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest
03. Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion
04. Sunset Rubdown - Dragonslayer
05. Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca
06. Neko Case - Middle Cyclone
07. P.O.S. - Never Better
08. Converge - Axe to Fall
09. Brother Ali - Us
10. Andrew Bird - Noble Beast

Slant Magazine also dropped a pair of 2009 music lists, one for albums, the other for singles. It's almost not worth mentioning due to their #2 pick in the album section, but aside from that, their spell- and fact-checker was out sick, as they misspelled the title of their #1 album of 2009 and referred to Bat for Lashes' album by the wrong solar entity. Regardless, here's their 10 Albums and Singles. Full list here.

LPs

01. Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion
02. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's Blitz! [ugh]
03. Patrick Wolf - The Bachelor
04. Bat for Lashes - Two Suns
05. St. Vincent - Actor
06. Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca
07. Japandroids - Post-Nothing
08. Raekwon - Only Built 4 Cuban Linx... Pt. II
09. Camera Obscura - My Maudlin Career
10. Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest

Singles

01. Animal Collection - "My Girls" [Merriweather Post Pavilion]
02. Lady GaGa - "Poker Face" [The Fame]
03. Phoenix - "1901" [Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix]
04. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - "Zero" [It's Blitz!]
05. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - "Heads Will Roll" [It's Blitz!]
06. Major Lazer featuring Mr. Lexx and Santigold - "Hold the Line" [Guns Don't Kill People... Lazers Do]
07. Grizzly Bear - "Two Weeks" [Veckatimest]
08. Camera Obscura - "French Navy" [My Maudlin Career]
09. Dirty Projectors and David Byrne - "Knotty Pine" [Dark Was the Night]
10. Girls' Generation - "Gee" [Gee]

...aaaaaand it starts again.

The National Board of Review tossed out their annual film awards this afternoon. Almost always the first to do so, the NBR awards aren't typically the most respectable of the end-of-the-year critics' prizes (remember when they named Quills the best picture of 2000?), but since they've been announced, it means that award season is in full swing. Expect plenty of other Film Circles to reveal their winners throughout the month. Awards below:

Best Picture: Up in the Air, d. Jason Reitman
Best Director: Clint Eastwood - Invictus
Best Actor: (tie) Morgan Freeman - Invictus; George Clooney - Up in the Air
Best Actress: Carey Mulligan - An Education
Best Supporting Actor: Woody Harrelson - The Messenger
Best Supporting Actress: Anna Kendrick - Up in the Air
Best Foreign Film: A Prophet [Un prophète], d. Jacques Audiard, France
Best Documentary: The Cove, d. Louie Psihoyos
Best Animated Feature: Up, d. Pete Docter, Bob Peterson
Best Ensemble Cast: It's Complicated
Breakthrough Performance by an Actor: Jeremy Renner - The Hurt Locker
Breakthrough Performance by an Actress: Gabourey Sidibe - Precious
Spotlight Award for Best Directorial Debut: (tie) Duncan Jones - Moon; Oren Moverman - The Messenger; Marc Webb - (500) Days of Summer
Special Filmmaking Achievement Award: Wes Anderson - The Fantastic Mr. Fox
William K. Everson Film History Award: Jean Picker Firstenberg
NBR Freedom of Expression: (tie) Burma VJ; Invictus; The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellseberg and the Pentagon Papers

Top 10 Films (After Up in the Air), alphabetically

(500) Days of Summer, d. Mark Webb
An Education, d. Lone Scherfig
The Hurt Locker, d. Kathryn Bigelow
Inglourious Basterds, d. Quentin Tarantino
Invictus, d. Clint Eastwood
The Messenger, d. Oren Moverman
A Serious Man, d. Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
Star Trek, d. J.J. Abrams
Up, d. Pete Docter, Bob Peterson
Where the Wild Things Are, d. Spike Jonze


Top 10 "Independent" Films, alphabetically

Amreeka, d. Cherien Dabis
District 9, d. Neill Blomkamp
Goodbye Solo, d. Ramin Bahrani
Humpday, d. Lynn Shelton
In the Loop, d. Armando Iannucci
Julia, d. Erick Zonca
Me and Orson Welles, d. Richard Linklater
Moon, d. Duncan Jones
Sugar, d. Anna Boden, Ryan Fleck
Two Lovers, d. James Gray


Top 5 Foreign Films (After A Prophet), alphabetically

The Maid [La nana], d. Sebastián Silva, Chile/Mexico
Revanche, d. Götz Spielmann, Austria
Song of Sparrows, d. Majid Majidi, Iran
Three Monkeys [Üç maymun], d. Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Turkey
The White Ribbon [Das weiße Band], d. Michael Haneke, Austria/Germany/France/Italy


Top 5 Docmentary Films (After The Cove), alphabetically

Burma VJ, d. Anders Østergaard
Crude, d. Joe Berlinger
Food, Inc., d. Robert Kenner
Good Hair, d. Jeff Stilson
The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers, d. Judith Ehrlich, Rick Goldsmith

Results of indieWIRE's 2008 Critics Poll

Hou Hsiao-hsien's Flight of the Red Balloon was named the best film in indieWIRE's Critics Poll; Hou also was named best director. Though both of those wins were certainly welcome and exciting, most of the other winners went to predictable choices: Mickey Rourke, Heath Ledger, Charlie Kaufman, Man on Wire and Ballast. Look deeper though and you'll find a lot of wonderful picks, like Asia Argento for Boarding Gate, The Last Mistress and Mother of Tears. Here's the full list.

indieWIRE's List of the Best Undistributed Films of 2008

indieWIRE's year end polls are usually the best places to find either what you've missed from the year or a likeminded round-up of the finest the year had to offer. In conducting their annual list of the best undistributed films, Lucrecia Martel's The Headless Woman [La mujer sin cabeza] topped the charts, despite tepid reception when it premiered at Cannes (small proof that you can only take negaitve Cannes' reception so far). In the number two spot was Hong Sang-soo's Night and Day, the latest from a filmmaker whose name frequently appears on these lists. Pablo Larrain's Tony Manero, Albert Serra's Birdsong [El Cant dels ocells] and (tied for 5th) Claire Denis' 35 Shots of Rum [35 rhums] and Koji Wakamatsu's United Red Army round out the top 5. A handful of still-undistributed films from 07 hang onto the list including Abel Ferrara's Go Go Tales (whose deal with IFC seems to have been erroneous), Pen-ek Ratanaruang's Ploy and Roy Andersson's You, the Living - all three of which rank among the finest films I've had a chance to see in the past two years. Check the full list via indieWIRE (particularly if you're a distributor).

SAGs, Chicago

The Screen Actors Guild nominations were announced, despite the threat of a strike, and they were typically boring, and shamefully missing Sally Hawkins for Happy-Go-Lucky (Frozen River's Melissa Leo was the surprise nomination). The Chicago Film Critics' Association went with WALL·E as their best picture. Their full awards can be found here.

Now put your hands up

Unless another city throws me for a loop, I probably won't be posting any more of the Critics Awards for 2008. But as IndieWire's Peter Knegt said, Toronto's film awards were "a nice change of pace," honoring Wendy and Lucy with both the best picture and best actress (Michelle Williams) awards. Rachel Getting Married won Best Director, Supporting Actress and Screenplay. You can check out the rest of Toronto's selections here, but you'll have to wait until January before they unveil the award for Best Canadian Film.

More Awards, Lists

I'm holding back a lot of behind-the-scenes complaints I have for the St. Louis Film Critics Circle, but I feel pretty strongly embarrassed by not just the special categories but their winners too. Having an award for "Best Comedy" is silly enough, but awarding it to Burn After Reading is just shameful. "Most Original, Innovative or Creative Film?" Please. But Slumdog Millionaire as the best foreign language film?!?? I'm really going to keep my mouth shut until I've officially said goodbye to this city. You can see the full winners here. In other awards news, San Francisco went (predictably) with Milk; San Diego favored Slumdog Millionaire.

Slant Magazine also published four lists of the best films of 2008, from Ed Gonzalez (Rachel Getting Married), Nick Schager (Synecdoche, New York), Bill Weber (Still Life) and Andrew Schenker (The Duchess of Langeais). In the City of Sylvia made three of their lists, and I'm oh-so-pleased to see I won't be the only one with Olivier Assayas' Boarding Gate on mine.

Awards, Etc. from Boston, NY and AFI

I'll never get sick of seeing of seeing Penélope Cruz's name on Critics Award lists. She added two more to the list for her performance in Vicky Cristina Barcelona, but we all remember that Tilda Swinton beat out Gone Baby Gone's Amy Ryan, who was undoubtedly the reigning champion of last year's supporting actress awards, when it came to Oscar time. Sean Penn, Heath Ledger and Sally Hawkins took home two more as well, with both The Boston Society of Film Critics and the New York Film Critics Online mirroring one another in the acting categories (although Penn tied with Mickey Rourke in Boston). Although I frown a bit at Boston's feel-good Best Picture tie of Slumdog Millionaire and WALL·E, their choices of Gus Van Sant for Best Director (honoring both Milk and Paranoid Park) and Christopher Doyle and Rain Kathy Li for cinematography for Paranoid Park was absolutely refreshing. Martin McDonagh was awarded the best new filmmaker for In Bruges by both. The two groups' awards, as well as AFI's list of the ten best films of 2008 are below:

Boston

Picture: (tie) Slumdog Millionaire; WALL·E
Director: Gus Van Sant - Milk; Paranoid Park
Actor: (tie) Sean Penn - Milk; Mickey Rourke - The Wrestler
Actress: Sally Hawkins - Happy-Go-Lucky
Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger - The Dark Knight
Supporting Actress: Penélope Cruz - Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Foreign: Let the Right One In
Animated: WALL·E
Documentary: Man on Wire
Screenplay: Dustin Lance Black - Milk
Cinematography: Christopher Doyle, Rain Kathy Li - Paranoid Park
Editing: Chris Dickens - Slumdog Millionaire
Ensemble Cast: Tropic Thunder
Best New Filmmaker: Martin McDonagh - In Bruges

New York Film Critics Online

Picture: Slumdog Millionaire
Director: Danny Boyle, Loveleen Tandan - Slumdog Millionaire
Actor: Sean Penn - Milk
Actress: Sally Hawkins - Happy-Go-Lucky
Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger - The Dark Knight
Supporting Actress: Penélope Cruz - Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Foreign: 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
Animated: WALL·E
Documentary: Man on Wire
Screenplay: Simon Beaufoy - Slumdog Millionaire
Cinematography: Anthony Dod Mantle - Slumdog Millionaire
Score: A.R. Rahman - Slumdog Millionaire
Ensemble Cast: Milk
Breakout Performance: Sally Hawkins - Happy-Go-Lucky
Debut as Director: Matin McDonagh - In Bruges

The 10 Best Pictures (alphabetically):

Che
A Christmas Tale
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Happy-Go-Lucky
Milk
Rachel Getting Married
Slumdog Millionaire
WALL·E
The Wrestler

AFI's 10 Best Films of 2008 (Alphabetically)

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Frost/Nixon
Frozen River
Gran Torino
Iron Man
Milk
WALL·E
Wendy and Lucy
The Wrestler

New York Film Critics Circle for Milk

Gus Van Sant's Milk took home the top prize at the New York Film Critics Circle. Many of the other winners are repeats of the other awards that have already been given out, with a surprise of 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days winning their Best Foreign Language Film, further pushing it into the grayest of areas in terms of what year it technically qualifies for. The other NYFCC winners include Mike Leigh, Sean Penn, Sally Hawkins, Josh Brolin, Penélope Cruz, Jenny Lumet, Man on Wire and WALL·E. Full list here.

LA Film Critics Awards

In a surprise move, the LA Film Critics Association named WALL·E the best film of 2008, with The Dark Knight as its runner-up. The rest of the awards went to Danny Boyle, Sean Penn, Sally Hawkins (!), Heath Ledger, Penélope Cruz (!!), Mike Leigh, Still Life, Man on Wire and Waltz with Bashir (though I don't quite understand why it won Best Animation when their best film was animated... alas...). The full list is here, which includes their runner-ups.

Slumdoggin'

Despite posting the Independent Spirit Award nominations and the National Board of Review's awards, I think I'm going to stray from reproducing all of the critics' awards and best of's for 2008, as you can easily find them on IndieWire, GreenCine or MovieCityNews if you so desire. Instead, I'll post a link here and there to the sites.

The Washington DC Critics Association named Slumdog Millionaire the best film of 2008. Kyle Smith and Lou Lumenick of the NY Post concur.

Gomorrah swept the European Film Awards, winning Best Picture, Director, Actor, Screenwriter and Cinematographer. Roger Ebert lists 20 of the best (narrative) films of 2008, and five docs, in no particular order.

Sight & Sound in the UK has posted their 50-critic poll of the best films of 2008, per UK release date (sort of). With three UK films on the list, the top 10 is as follows:

1. Hunger - dir. Steve McQueen
2. There Will Be Blood - dir. Paul Thomas Anderson
3. WALL·E - dir. Andrew Stanton
4. Gomorrah - dir. Matteo Garrone
5. (tie) A Christmas Tale [Un conte de Noël] - dir. Arnaud Desplechin
5. (tie) The Class [Entre les murs] - dir. Laurent Cantet
7. Of Time and the City - dir. Terence Davies
8. Happy-Go-Lucky - dir. Mike Leigh
9. (tie) The Headless Woman [La mujer sin cabeza] - dir. Lucrecia Martel
9. (tie) Let the Right One In [Låt den rätte komma in] - dir. Tomas Alfredson

And the ball is rolling...

The National Board of Review has started critics' award month for cinema, giving Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire the top prize. There appears to be too many awards for actors given out by NBR, but so be it... The NBR usually ranks as one of the less sophisticated of the year's awards. The rest are as follows:

Picture: Slumdog Millionaire - dir. Danny Boyle
Director: David Fincher (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)
Actor: Clint Eastwood (Gran Torino)
Actress: Anne Hathaway (Rachel Getting Married)
Supporting Actor: Josh Brolin (Milk)
Supporting Actress: Penélope Cruz (Vicky Cristina Barcelona)
Foreign Film: Mongol - dir. Sergei Bodrov
Documentary: Man on Wire - dir. James Marsh
Animated Feature: WALL·E - dir. Andrew Stanton
Breakthrough Actor: Dev Patel (Slumdog Millionaire)
Breakthrough Actress: Viola David (Doubt)
Directorial Debut: Courtney Hunt (Frozen River)
Original Screenplay: Nick Schenk (Gran Torino)
Adapted Screenplay: (tie) Eric Roth (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button); Simon Beaufoy (Slumdog Millionaire)
Spotlight Award: Melissa Leo (Frozen River); Richard Jenkins (The Visitor)

Top 10 Films (That Aren't Slumdog, "Independent" or "Foreign," but Can Be Animated)
Burn After Reading - dir. Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
Changeling - dir. Clint Eastwood
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - dir. David Fincher
The Dark Knight - dir. Christopher Nolan
Defiance - dir. Edward Zwick
Frost/Nixon - dir. Ron Howard
Gran Torino - dir. Clint Eastwood
Milk - dir. Gus Van Sant
WALL·E - dir. Andrew Stanton
The Wrestler - dir. Darren Aronofsky

Top 10 "Independent Films"
Frozen River - dir. Courtney Hunt
In Bruges - dir. Martin McDonagh
In Search of a Midnight Kiss - dir. Alex Holdridge
Mister Foe [Hallam Foe] - dir. David Mackenzie
Rachel Getting Married - dir. Jonathan Demme
Snow Angels - dir. David Gordon Green
Son of Rambow - dir. Garth Jennings
Wendy and Lucy - dir. Kelly Reichardt
Vicky Cristina Barcelona - dir. Woody Allen
The Visitor - dir. Thomas McCarthy

Top 5 "Foreign" Films (That Aren't Mongol)
The Edge of Heaven [Auf der anderen Seite] - dir. Fatih Akin
Let the Right One In [Låt den rätte komma in] - dir. Tomas Alfredson
Roman de gare - dir. Claude Lelouch
A Secret [Un secret] - dir. Claude Miller
Waltz with Bashir - dir. Ari Folman

Top 5 "Documentaries" (That Aren't Man on Wire)
American Teen - dir. Nanette Burstein
The Betrayal - dir. Ellen Kuras, Thavisouk Prasavath
Dear Zachary - dir. Kurt Kuenne
Encounters at the End of the World - dir. Werner Herzog
Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired - dir. Marina Zenovich

3 Honorary Awards

I kind of rushed myself to get the 1st Annual Fin de cinema Film Awards published that I forgot three very important awards to bestow. My apologies to the recipients.

The John Malkovich Award: Michelle Monaghan - Gone Baby Gone

The John Malkovich Award goes to the outstandingly bad/forgettable/annoying performance in an otherwise decent film. I'm kind of stretching the word "decent" for Gone Baby Gone, but Michelle Monaghan was so exceptional in being more of a set piece than an actor that I couldn't have her go home empty-handed. She literally cowers opposite every single actor in the movie (Casey Affleck, Morgan Freeman, Amy Ryan, Ed Harris) to the point that makes the audience question why she's even there in the first place. She's the "love interest" whose purpose only comes late in the film, and by that time, you've forgotten why you should even care what she has to say, or how her opinion would affect Casey Affleck.

Runners-Up: David Strathairn - The Bourne Ultimatum; Brad Pitt - The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford [for being another example of Casey Affleck's performance rendering another actor's absolutely forgettable]

The Teaching Mrs. Tingle Award: Catherine Keener - Into the Wild

The Teaching Mrs. Tingle Award goes to the actor who manages to still retain their usual "fabulousness" despite working under the conditions of a shitty movie (read: Helen Mirren). Into the Wild sucks. I've bitched and moaned about it for months now. Catherine Keener is radiant in just about everything she does (as long as it's not playing a stock character in a stock movie like The Interpreter). In Into the Wild, she manages to hit a home-run every time she's onscreen, which for the laboring runningtime certainly isn't enough. What's also remarkable about Keener's performance here is that she isn't condemned to her usual role of ice queen cunt, which admittedly she does wonderfully. Her performance is probably the only authentic moment of Into the Wild, even though more people are leaning toward Hal Holbrook.

Runners-Up: Marion Cotillard - La Vie en rose; Tea Leoni - You Kill Me [It really pains me to say that, but it's true]; Margot Martindale - Paris je t'aime

The Best (And, Therefore, Gayest) Idea for a Broadway Musical: Xanadu

All this talk in my comment forum about Xanadu reminded me, "how could I forget to shamelessly include Xanadu as an award recipiant this year?" Certain films, like Xanadu, exude time-frame, so giving it an award for 2007 is perfectly acceptable in my book. Thankfully, for those who would disagree, there's validity to its inclusion: it was the surprising hit of the Broadway season this year. A lot of people were surprised, but not me. When I found out that they were still going to use such songs as "Suddenly" and the rousing closing-number "Xanadu," I knew they had a hit-in-the-making, even if the film itself never took off when it hit theatres. I'm sure the Electric Light Orchestra music is probably sadly missing from the production, but I've got to hand it to Broadway for adapting a Hollywood film in dire need of a revival, because, well, Broadway is about as fresh out of ideas as Hollywood is.

List #5: The First Annual Fin de cinema Film Awards

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