Critics Choice Preview

Sunday, Boston, LA and the AFI will announce their winners. Monday, it’s the New York Film Critics, and the Critics Choice nominations. The Critics Choice, also known around these parts as the BFCA, have been doing the ten nominees thing for a while now, which puts them in a really good position this year. The Critics Choice are made up of a wide variety of people in various outlets all over the country. Unlike the Globes, they don’t divide them up between comedy/musical and drama – they just nominate the ten best.

This site, Reelrave.com, appears to be a hub for the Critics Choice – a kind of lively user-driven movie site powered by the BFCA. They have links to BFCA member sites, reviews, blog, etc. There is a lot of interesting info over there and it’s worth taking a look at.

Let’s take a quick look at their history and talk about what might happen.

Last year, the Critics picked the following ten films:

• Changeling
• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
• The Dark Knight
• Doubt
• Frost/Nixon
• Milk
• The Reader
• Slumdog Millionaire
• Wall-E
• The Wrestler

This looks like a pretty good rundown, I’d say, of what Oscar’s Big Ten would have looked like, unless I’m forgetting a film or two.¬† It wasn’t either The Reader OR The Dark Knight, it was The Reader AND The Dark Knight, and Wall-E, and The Wrestler. So we’ll be watching with great interest which ten films the BFCA go for.

The year before, these were the ten:
Nominees:
• American Gangster
• Atonement
• The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
• Into the Wild
• Juno
• The Kite Runner
• Michael Clayton
• Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
• There Will Be Blood
• No Country for Old Men

Again, this looks like a pretty good lineup, although Sweeney would have been axed, maybe the Kite Runner.

Since they are all mostly finished with their balloting, it seems a good time to predict what they might choose. Avatar was seen probably too late for many of them – I know some of them have seen it, as I attended a screening with many of them the other night – but still, they have a lot of voting members who probably didn’t see it. Also worth noting, since we’re talking about Titanic lately, the BFCA famously gave their Best Prize to LA Confidential over Titanic….

I can tell you with a fair amount of confidence that the big nominee will be Up in the Air. I suspect that it will be nominated for Picture, Director, Screenplay, Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actress, Best Young Actress, Best Score – potentially eight nominations. Following Up in the Air, The Hurt Locker will be the next big getter, I suspect with Picture, Director, Screenplay, Actor, Supporting Actor (maybe two nods here, maybe one), Best Young Actor potentially. So that’s six perhaps. But it might get seven, depending on the Best Supporting Actor situation.

The next big nominee, I figure, will be either Precious or Inglourious Basterds. Either which way, here are my predictions for the BFCA. Please feel free to add yours.

Big Ten:
Up in the Air
The Hurt Locker
Precious
Avatar
Star Trek
Invictus
Up
Inglourious Basterds
An Education — OR — A Serious Man

Other possibles would be Sherlock Holmes (although maybe screened too early), Crazy Heart, Nine, A Serious Man, Where the Wild Things Are, The Blind Side (although do they still have Best Family Film? But I think I dumped that category). I expect there may also be some surprises — I am not entirely sure how they’re going to vote, to be honest. Their tastes are a little more difficult to predict than the Globes or the Oscars because they have a relatively short history and the face of their membership keeps changing.

Best Actor
George Clooney, Up in the Air
Morgan Freeman, Invictus
Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart
Colin Firth, A Single Man
Jeremy Renner, the Hurt Locker

Also possible Viggo Mortensen for The Road, Ben Foster for The Messenger, Robert Downey, Jr. Sherlock Holmes

Best Actress
Meryl Streep, Julie & Julia
Carey Mulligan, An Education
Gabby Sadibe, Precious
Sandra Bullock The Blind Side
Abbie Cornish, Bright Star
Also possible Helen Mirren, the Last Station, Marion Cotillard for Nine

Best Supporting Actor
Woody Harrelson, The Messenger
Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds
Christian McKay, Me & Orson Welles
Matt Damon, Invictus
Alec Baldwin, It’s Complicated
Also possible: Stanley Tucci, The Lovely Bones (should be) but might be for Julie & Julia, Anthony Mackie, The Hurt Locker

Supporting Actress:
Julianne Moore, A Single Man
Anna Kendrick, Up in the Air
Vera Farmiga, Up in the Air OR Penelope Cruz in Nine
Mo’Nique, Precious
Melanie Laurent, Inglourious Basterds
Also possible: Maggie Gyllenhaal for Crazy Heart and Samantha Morton for The Messenger

Director:
Jason Reitman, Up in the Air
Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker
Jim Cameron, Avatar
Clint Eastwood, Invictus
Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds
Also possible: Lone Scherfig, Lee Daniels, Pete Docter, Nancy Myers

Screenplay:
An Education
Up in the Air
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Up
Also possible: Precious, A Serious Man, The Messenger

They also have Best Young Actress, Foreign Language, Doc and Best Action film. Nominations will be announced Monday.