This year the New York Film Critics Circle have been a poor example of everything wrong with the awards race. After bumping up their awards just to call “FIRST!,” they pushed it back a day so they could see David Fincher‘s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. They also alluded that Stephen Daldry‘s Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close wasn’t up to snuff because Warner Bros. wanted to let the filmmaker finish his film, instead of rushing to completion in order to show it to a group of critics. It is shameful behavior and sad to see an organization caught up in such pettiness. But nonetheless, we have their decisions on the best of 2011 in cinema and kicking off the first of the major awards decisions.
The big winner was The Artist, which picked up best film and best director for Michel Hazanavicius, with those awards going to David Fincher for The Social Network last year. It is quite unfortunate the film is on its way to becoming an award darling, as I enjoyed it, but it is nowhere near my top 10 (or 20, or 30) of the year. They also cemented Asghar Farhadi’s A Separation as the leading foreign film contender and despite enjoying it, I was surprised to see J.C. Chandor‘s Margin Call take the best first feature award over Sean Durkin‘s Martha Marcy May Marlene.
The Tree of Life and Moneyball were big winners, with the former taking best cinematography and the latter bringing home best screenplay. Brad Pitt was also awarded best actor for both, and his co-star Jessica Chastain with supporting, as well as for The Help and Take Shelter. Check them out below thanks to indeWIRE.
Best Film:
Michel Hazanavicius (The Artist)
Best Director:
Michel Hazanavicius (The Artist)
Best Screenplay:
Aaron Sorkin and Steve Zaillian (Moneyball)
Best Actress:
Meryl Streep (The Iron Lady)
Best Actor:
Brad Pitt (Moneyball and The Tree of Life)
Best Supporting Actress:
Jessica Chastain (The Tree of Life, Take Shelter and The Help)
Best Supporting Actor:
Albert Brooks (Drive)
Best Cinematography:
Emmanuel Lubezki (The Tree of Life)
Best Non-fiction Film:
Cave of Forgotten Dreams (Werner Herzog)
Best Foreign Language Film:
A Separation (Asghar Farhadi)
Best First Feature:
Margin Call (J.C. Chandor)
What do you think about their decision? Are these your favorites?