AWARDS - The Social Network has made some big strides towards a possible cleaning up at the major awards (particularly the Oscars) this week, winning Best Film at the LA Film Critics Awards, Boston Film Critics Awards, New York Film Critics Awards and the Richard Attenborough Film Awards (The first serious acknowledgement of the film in British awards territory). So that's 4 major Best Film wins in the space of a week- not bad at all, and a clear indicator of what may come in the more serious Golden Globes (Jan 16th), BAFTAs (Feb 13th) and Oscars (Feb 27th). With the LA Critics, possibly considered the more important of those 3 Critic Awards, David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin also triumphed with best director and best screenplay for The Social Network. Inevitably, and quite deservedly, Colin Firth won Best Actor for The King's Speech and Toy Story 3 won Best Animation. The Boston Critics gave Jesse Eisenberg the Best Actor award (although Colin Firth is probably a dead cert for the Oscars, Eisenberg deserves all plaudits that come his way) and Natalie Portman Best Actress for Black Swan (another film garnering a large number of award wins and nominations). They also gave Best Supporting Actor to Christian Bale for The Fighter, which was in a way overlooked during awards predictions but is steadily gaining more and more recognition in the nominations (and wins). The New York Critics went against both Firth and Eisenberg and instead plumped for James Franco as Best Actor for his tour-de-force performance in 127 Hours, but agreed with the Boston Critics on Best Actress for Natalie Portman (she seems the current favourite for the Oscars) and Best Supporting Actor for Christian Bale. The Richard Attenborough Film Awards tend to bring in slightly more mainstream fare alongside the arthouse cinema, meaning Christopher Nolan won Best Filmmaker, Chloe Moretz Best Newcomer (very much deserved) and Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows part 1 Best British Film (not so deserved- compare it to something like Another Year and there is simply no contest). Colin Firth won Best Actor and, surprisingly but pleasingly, Noomi Rapace won Best Actress for The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.
NOMINATIONS - The 2011 Golden Globes nominations were announced this week and have produced more than a few surprises (in fact Empire Online features an article dedicated to the cock-ups they appear to have made this year). The King's Speech leads the nominations with a total of seven (including, unsurprisingly, Best Film and Best Actor), followed by The Social Network and The Fighter with six each. Black Swan, Inception and The Kids Are All Right all pick up four. Amazingly, the distinctly average likes of Alice in Wonderland, Burlesque and The Tourist have managed to pick up three each. Johnny Depp, admittedly a terrific actor, is an undeserving recipient of two acting nominations for the aforementioned Alice and The Tourist. The surprises don't stop there, as (Empire Online points this out specifically) the nominations seem to have completely missed out The Coen Brothers' upcoming Western True Grit. The Musical or Comedy category that the Golden Globes bizarrely continue to use, proves itself to be a complete non-worker once more with the above three odd picks combined with average flicks like Red and Love and Other Drugs (such movies may be entertaining enough but should not be considered awards-worthy). The Kids Are All Right should win by a mile in that category with such average competition. There are of course more pleasing aspects to the nominations- Inception breaks down the mainstream/awards barrier to receive a Best Picture nomination (though the winner is much more likely to be The Social Network or The King's Speech), the incredibly talented Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams pick up acting nods for Blue Valentine, and Emma Stone gets a fully deserved Best Actress (Musical or Comedy) nomination for her turn in Easy A.
In the Critics' Choice Award nominations, Black Swan reigns supreme with 12 nominations (a record amount for the Awards), True Grit (making its absence in the Globe nominations even more strange) and The King's Speech received 11, Inception got 10 and The Social Network 9. There are few surprises to be found.
Meanwhile, the Screen Actors Guild Awards (SAGs) have announced their nominations for 2011, with The King's Speech and The Fighter leading the pack in the ceremony that rewards acting talent alone.
LISTS - The American Film Institute have released a list of their top 10 films of 2010. The AFI's list, in no particular order, reads as thus- Black Swan, The Fighter, Inception, The Kids Are All Right, 127 Hours, The Social Network, The Town, Toy Story 3, True Grit and Winter's Bone. No major surprises there, but nice to see Ben Affleck's rather excellent The Town gain some end-of-year recognition. Scott Pilgrim vs The World director Edgar Wright has announced his 5 favourite films of the year- The Social Network ('Hugely entertaining... [like] a gangster saga'), Black Swan ('Sinister, sexual, and captivating'), Toy Story 3 ('in the pantheon of dark Disney greatness'), Enter The Void ('A total out-of-body experience') and 127 Hours ('Ninety-five amazing minutes'). Hollywood's Black List (which details the ten best unproduced scripts of the year) for 2010 has been released, and you can read the short synopses of each one and their possible futures at http://blog.moviefone.com/2010/12/13/black-list-2010-best-unproduced-screenplays/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter.
TRAILERS - Just a few trailers doing the rounds this week-
1. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides - the big one this week. Looks like it could be a lot of fun, hopefully having more of a focus on Johnny Depp's superb Captain Jack Sparrow than the last two rather disappointing parts in the series had, while bringing in the talents of Penelope Cruz and Ian McShane. Trailer here- http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/pirates-caribbean-on-stranger-tides.html?showVideo=1#belowNav
2. Tree of Life - Terrence Malick's much-anticipated and much-delayed latest feature looks brilliant and bonkers, and features the acting talents of Brad Pitt and Sean Penn. Trailer here- http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi612735001
3. Water For Elephants - A rather interesting looking circus-set drama, based on a novel by Sara Gruen, that stars Reese Witherspoon, Robert Pattinson and Christolph Waltz. Trailer here- http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi663197721/
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