The Artist wins Best Picture by the NYFCC (Although they haven't seen everything yet)

[Foggy]

Source: Rope of Silicon

The New York Film Critics Circle went about handing out their awards for the Best of 2011 this morning despite only having seen David Fincher's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo less than 24 hours ago and having not seen Stephen Daldry's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close as Warner Bros. refused to screen it early to meet the ridiculous early announcement date the NYFCC set this year in an attempt to be first.

That said, I don't put much stock in these awards as it's clearly evident the intent was to be first, gain attention as a result and hope their picks would be influential throughout the duration of the 2011 awards season. So be it, and I'll list the winners, which were announced today via the org's Twitter feed and I've added The Artist to my "Oscar Overture" as the first film to gain recognition from a critical organization and/or high profile award show, but I personally can't respect it.

With my opinion out of the way, The Artist took home not only Best Picture, but also a Best Director nod for Michel Hazanavicius. Some may also be surprised to see Brad Pitt named Best Actor for Moneyball and The Tree of Life considering many see The Artist actor Jean Dujardin as an Oscar front-runner along with George Clooney for The Descendants.

Moneyball actually garnered two awards, one for Pitt and another for the screenplay written by Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin whereas The Tree of Life also took two awards, the second for Emmanuel Lubezki for Best Cinematography.

Meryl Streep was named Best Actress for The Iron Lady with Albert Brooks (Drive) and Jessica Chastain (Tree of Life, The Help and Take Shelter) named in the Supporting categories.

I have included the full list of winners directly below, and like I said above, the poster for The Artist is already positioned under the NYFCC logo in my "Oscar Overture" section, which lists several of the precursor awards leading up to the Oscars.

Next we have the National Board of Review who will announce their winner on Thursday, December 1. So buckle up, it doesn't slow down from this point on.

Best Picture

■The Artist
Best Cinematography

■Emmanuel Lubezki (The Tree of Life)
Best Screenplay

■Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin (Moneyball)
Best Director

■Michel Hazanavicius (The Artist)
Best Foreign Language Film

■A Separation
Best Actor

■Brad Pitt (Moneyball and The Tree of Life)
Best Supporting Actor

■Albert Brooks (Drive)
Best Actress

■Meryl Streep (The Iron Lady)
Best Supporting Actress

■Jessica Chastain (Tree of Life, The Help and Take Shelter)
Best Nonfiction Film

■Cave of Forgotten Dreams (directed by Werner Herzog)
Best First Feature

■J.C. Chandor for Margin Call

[Snicket]

Everything about The Artist seems like an overrated awards-***** type movie.

I can't take the NYFCC seriously if they haven't even seen everything yet.

[42041]

Originally Posted by Snicket

Everything about The Artist seems like an overrated awards-***** type movie.

I can't take the NYFCC seriously if they haven't even seen everything yet.

Well, you seem pretty happy making assumptions about films you haven't seen

[KubrickFan]

As if every member of the Academy watches every movie. Nothing new, I reckon.

[The Theory]

I am finding it hard to care too much about this at this point. The attitude behind trying to be the first, particularly at the sacrifice of what these awards are supposed to be about, is pretty reprehensible. But I mean, it's not like the NYFCC is a major player in the award-giving process. Let them do their thing and people will continue not paying attention to them. Perfect!

[Cinemach]

Originally Posted by Snicket

I can't take the NYFCC seriously if they haven't even seen everything yet.

Exactly. Especially when you know many of the heavy-hitters come out in December.

I mean, I'm not going to see everything either and I'll still do a top-ten whatever. But I'm not going to do so with one month in the year left to go.

[Foggy]

Originally Posted by The Theory

I am finding it hard to care too much about this at this point. The attitude behind trying to be the first, particularly at the sacrifice of what these awards are supposed to be about, is pretty reprehensible. But I mean, it's not like the NYFCC is a major player in the award-giving process. Let them do their thing and people will continue not paying attention to them. Perfect!

Don't all the critic circles make a part of the Academy

Originally Posted by Cinemach

Exactly. Especially when you know many of the heavy-hitters come out in December.

I mean, I'm not going to see everything either and I'll still do a top-ten whatever. But I'm not going to do so with one month in the year left to go.

We're not award givers, so our opinions aren't going to sway much

[EricJ]

Originally Posted by Foggy

Don't all the critic circles make a part of the Academy

Um, no?
The Academy only gives membership to paid actors, directors and technicians in the industry--Roger Ebert might have a membership for writing a screenplay, but otherwise, that's basically the cavernous philosophical rift between Press awards and Industry awards.
One watches the movie and essays about it, the other knows how much work went into getting the shot or performance.

(The Golden Globes are also from publicists, not critics, and we've still never completely solved the mystery of who the heck the "Hollywood Foreign Press Service" is in the first place, or who belongs to it....Still say it sounds like a spy alias.)

Originally Posted by Snicket

Everything about The Artist seems like an overrated awards-***** type movie.
I can't take the NYFCC seriously if they haven't even seen everything yet.

Well, they HAVE seen most of everything yet, at festival and press screenings--They just haven't publicly reviewed it yet.

And used to be, the joke was, "Good thing we have the press-critics and NFBR awards, how else would we know what's going to come in second?"
Dating way back to the days when real actual mainstream movies would win Best Picture, everyone thought the Oscars was just awarding box-office popularity, and the press critics went out of their way to champion the snooty artistic "underdog" films from Cannes at the top of their lists, just to show 'em and rage against the Machine.
Unfortunately, nowadays, we DON'T have actual mainstream movies up for Best Picture--The Academy's shortened nomination period means the voters don't have time to do anything but crib off the Golden Globes and press critics at the last minute...Which means the various Critics' Circles, still fighting the old "Oscars are popularity contests!" battles, are now instead creating their own self-fulfilling prophecies: If they say The Artist or Tree of Life () is up for Picture, every voter now believes them unquestioningly.

We've seen the Academy in the last few years try to dig themselves out of their own hole and have "real" films up for the awards again--And with the "Ten nomination" stunt now over (they announced this year they'll think up "as many as they need", but have a feeling it'll still be five), and no Pixar film this year to rally behind for Picture (shut up, I didn't hate Cars 2!), many of the voters may find themselves either lazily sinking back into the Critics-list quicksand, or trying to make a consciencious stab at actually trying to get a commercial movie back into the lists again.
Looks like Moneyball has a "It's sorta like Social Network!" chance at being a major player, and I'm still cautiously keeping an eye on Hugo's Scorsese/film-history sentimentality.

[The_Basterd]

They haven't seen two Awardsy movies.

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close-sources say it's bad (I actually know three people who've seen it and they all didn't like it), and Jolie's "In the Land of Blood & Honey."

That's it.

"The Artist" is winning Best Picture. I've seen it twice already. I'm assured.

The End.

[Cinemach]

Originally Posted by Foggy

We're not award givers, so our opinions aren't going to sway much

But we do it for fun. And even for fun, most of us know to do so after the films have been released.

The actual critics doing this just undermines their credibility. No one is going to find these awards legitimate.

[Foggy]

Originally Posted by Cinemach

But we do it for fun. And even for fun, most of us know to do so after the films have been released.

The actual critics doing this just undermines their credibility. No one is going to find these awards legitimate.

Exactly, we're more professional than the professionals

[nathanp]

Originally Posted by The_Basterd

They haven't seen two Awardsy movies.

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close-sources say it's bad (I actually know three people who've seen it and they all didn't like it), and Jolie's "In the Land of Blood & Honey."

That's it.

"The Artist" is winning Best Picture. I've seen it twice already. I'm assured.

The End.

Can't wait to see it, hoping it hits my town sometime in Dec or Jan.

[thelittleprince]

I agree. NYFCC lost credibility when they didn't pick HUGO for Best Picture!