Best Film-The Descendants
Best Director-Terrence Malick, The Tree of Life
Best Actor-George Clooney, The Descendants
Best Actress-Kirsten Dunst, Melancholia
Best Supporting Actor-Christopher Plummer, Beginners
Best Supporting Actress-Jessica Chastain, The Tree of Life
Best Animated Film-Rango
Best Foreign Film-A Separation
Best Documentary-Cave of Forgotten Dreams
Best Original Screenplay-Beginners
Best Adapted Screenplay-Moneyball
Best Fantasy Film-Hugo
I just saw “Taking Shelter” last week and Michael Shannon’s performance is singularly the best by ANY actor in ANY category of the year. He was stunning, and his performance just blew me away. And I don’t understand why Jessica Chastain has been relegated to “supporting” status in this film. She was neck-and-neck with Shannon throughout most of the film, and is deserving of Best Actress consideration in this film.
I’m hoping AMPAS pays attention.
I agree this is not time for Chastain to be splitting awards for her performances. My feeling is she will get nominated for The Help but I don’t think she is going to win the Oscar unless she gets in for The Tree Of Life. They are not gonna give her the Oscar for the Help before Octavia.
Not true, Scott! I’m a KCFCC member and The Artist was screened and we got screeners. It just didn’t have the support. Runners up were Drive for Pic, Michael Shannon for Actor, Viola Davis for Actress and all were very close. Malick ran away with director, as did Chastain and Plummer.
Just FYI: no theater in Kansas City received ‘The Artist’ until this past Friday, which probably means no voters saw it before voting took place.
Yay Beginners!
Seems to me that the story of an orphan – living inside the walls of a train station, winding the clocks, repairing a mysterious automaton and searching for a heart-shaped key – contains strong elements of fantasy. Not to mention underlying levels of the fantastic represented in old sci-fi/fantasy movies and in dream layers.
Thanks, Kirby. Knowing who placed adds mcuh to the results.
I’m curious about Hugo for fantasy as well….isn’t it more like a period film with some visual “exaggeration” put into the mix in order to enhance the sense of wonder? Or else, every children’s picture is fantasy, because children in essence perceive the world in a different way than adults (a prism that could be labeled “fantasy” or “fantastic”?).
Either way, this is kind of bewildering to me…
@steve50 – I live in KC and from what I hear it came down to Dunst and Viola Davis for best actress, while best actor came down to Clooney and Michael Shannon.
“The Descendants beating Drive by only a few for Best Film.”
Thanks for the details, KC. I would imagine the acting categories were close, as well?
OCO, critics don’t vote for Oscars, gee. You don’t take industry’s voters into consideration. Mission impossible 4’s ratings are almost as high as The Artist, so why isn’t it getting any momentum at all? Spiderman 2 also got high rating. Just because a film got good ratings and you personally adore it, doesn’t mean it has to be the Oscar material. It is over. I feel like you are doing this on purpose to annoy people here. It is over, you should concede the fact that HP is not getting any love from the film industry. Stop giving it excuses already. Time to get over it.
Rango looks good but Tintin is the best animated film of year and i hope it will win Oscar/ Do you agree with me?
Is anyone else wondering why Hugo is considered fantasy? That really doesn’t make sense to me. Maybe because it’s kid-friendly, it’s automatically considered fantasy.
@robertlowercaseA then why did RottemTomatoes awarded HP:DH2 the best-reviewed, wide-release movie of 2011?
The Descendants is really one of my favorite film. Thanks for this update!
@Zooey well at the public award ceremonies cares, including BAFTA for outstanding british fil
@The Great Dane Midnight in Paris, Tree of Life, Win Win, The King’s Speech, Soul Surfer, Hanna, B, Beiginners, Bridesmaids, Super 8, and A Better Life were released before Harry Potter snd the Deathly Hallows Part 2.
I really would love to see Dunst and the cinematography acknowledged. It’s laughable that WAR HORSE has better prospects. Can Dunst actually get into the final five? If there’s the surge.. The critics’ wins came too late, but the Cannes victory could have made people curious. So I believe that in the end she could defeat Glenn Close and get into the final five. I’m fine with that since I’m no real fan of Close’s performance (while I really adore Janet McTeer – such an underrated actor; and yes, she deserves to be a threat for the win!). So I believe it’s Streep, Davis, Williams (the locks). Then we have Swinton and Close – both very vulnerable. I doubt many have seen their films and in Close’s case, I doubt many of these who has care much about it or the performance. So I believe that Dunst – if she has passionate supporters – could bump any of them. To me Close is more likely, because Swinton’s career is going very well and after the snub last year, she could go all the way this year. So I’d say (for now):
Davis
Dunst
Streep
Swinton
Williams
@ The Great Dane,
can’t you people FINALLY understand that the Harry Potter snub (if it happens and mots likely it will) have nothing to do with it being released early. It happens only for ONE reason: it’s not the film the Academy would go for. THE DARK KNIGHT had everything it needed (critical adoration, Zeitgeist phenomenon factor, which usually is very important for these awards and sentiment for Ledger). It was likely to get a lot of nods and it did, but it was snubbed for picture, directing and writing. After all voters won’t go for genre efforts unless they really, really feel the pressure to. And with HP, nobody is doing anything – the critics don’t care, the guilds don’t care (even the PGA!) and now EVEN the BAFTA doesn’t care. So?
It’s probably too late for Dunst, but maybe still the perfect time for her to get mentioned finally. It would have been better if she had gotten some early notices too.
Not a good time, though, for Chastain to be “spreading out” between her different performances. I’m sure she’ll still get in there, but still – if people were gonna vote for her for “The Help”, she shouldn’t be getting awards for different perfomances now.
Harry Potter has gotten to a point where, say, Iron Lady, My Week with Marilyn, Take Shelter, Shame and even Mission: Impossible 4 have a greater shot of getting a BP nomination. Who would have thought?
Had they released the film in November like some of the earlier HP movies, we WOULD be looking at a nomination, I believe, cause it would be the big, record breaking film of “the moment”, not a forgotten one – cause let’s face it, one of the reasons for it being ignored is because it IS forgotten and is considered old news.) Anyways, it was always more about the money than the Oscars for Harry Potter. If they wanted to go big with the Oscars, they would have made the last book into ONE long film AND released it at the end of a year. They payed the price. The Dark Knight would probably have made it, had it also been released at the end of the year. I bet, if The Blind Side had been a summer movie, it would never have gone one to be a Best Picture nominee. It just peaked at the exact right time, which is more often than not what a big, commercial money has to if it is to stand a chance with the Academy.
What is all of this I hear about Rooney Mara’s attitude? All I’ve read about is her being dissatisfied with her performance/role on Law & Order: SVU, and if you read her description of it in Entertainment Weekly it does sound stupid. She said she was embarrassed and thought she was terrible in it. Sure maybe she should just be glad she got the role, but I don’t know why people are making a big deal out of it. She has every right to not be proud of it. Almost all actors have stories of embarrassing roles from when they were starting out. She should also be embarrassed by her role in the Nightmare on Elm Street remake, which was pretty bad and she was kind of terrible in. I’ve found her good in other stuff though, such as Dare, The Social Network, Dragon Tattoo, and the recent Tanner Hall. I had almost written her off after Elm Street.
HP8 is dead in the race. Why set yourself to failure? OCO
OCO, I am sorry to bother you, but HP8 is not going anywhere. It is time to face the truth.
Although she’s on my list of favourite performances this year, it has only been two critics wins, but no BAFTA, no GG, no SAG and no BFC – She’s not Laura Linney you know.
i would love to see kirsten gettin in…
@OCO300 Best Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Horror film actually came down to Hugo and Attack the Block at the end, but Hugo just edged out Attack the Block by a few. Melancholia and Drive had a surprising amount of support throughout the voting, with The Descendants beating Drive by only a few for Best Film.
I have a feeling Kirsten Dunst might come up with a surprise nomination like Javier Bardem last year… Tilda won’t get nominated
Meryl, Viola, Michelle, Glenn and Kirsten is the line up I see. R. Mara seems to be getting bad press (not because of the performance but the attitude).
WOW, too bad all this Dunst-love didn’t come sooner. Now she is the earliest (Cannes) AND the latest viable entry at the same time.
I figured they’d choose Hugo for fantasy/sci-fi film. Last year it was Inception.
The first screenplay win for Beginners.
Beginners needs to come to an end! How was Christopher Plummer so great in that movie? Do love the respect for Dunst though. Also why is Rango being embraced so damn much? Tintin is OBVIOUSLY the better animated film in almost every way possible.
Critics choices seldom translate to Oscar, but it looks like Chastain and Plummer have a firm grip on supporting, Moneyball on A Screenplay, and Rango on animated. Amazing that the leads, pic and director are still wide open, at least until tomorrow morning, when we’ll just be left with actor and actress.
In a perfect world Kirsten would be nominated alongside Michelle, Rooney, Viola, and Elizabeth!!! Make room for the future, Hollywood!!!!
Interesting! Quite the surge of support for Dunst lately. Probably won’t translate to an Oscar nom, but well deserved!
@Sasha Stone what were the nominees for best fantasy film?
still no consensus anywhere. it’s all wide open.