Thanks to Ross for reminding us that the National Society of Film Critics announces today (I don’t think they’ve announced yet). Last year, they sort of backed up what the LA Film Critics had said when they named Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood as their choice for the year’s best.¬† And the recent winners:
2006-Pan’s Labyrinth
2005-Capote
2004-Million Dollar Baby
2003-American Splendour
2002-The Pianist
2001-Mulholland Drive
2000-Yi-Yi
There Will Be Blood, by the way, swept these awards, winning Picture, Director, Actor and Cinematography. They tend to vary their choices but always seem to pick the critics’ darling, naturally. So don’t be surprised if Happy-Go-Lucky is the film they choose.
I went on over to Metacritic to see which film was perched high aloft the critics’ list. Wall-E at 93, of course, is the best reviewed of the non-foreign language or non-documentary. A foreign language film could win, of course, even though they now have a separate category for it. Slumdog Millionaire, the favorite for this (unless it’s Wall-E) is currently enjoying an 86 rating. Milk and Happy-Go-Lucky are at 84, The Dark Knight is 82 and The Wrestler is 81. Frost/Nixon is at 80 and Benjamin Button is unfairly exiled at a really putrid 69. It is probably the only film to have that many scores of 100 with that low of an overall score. Groupthink is a drag but it is all we have as we head into the National Society. To that end, my prediction is that, if it isn’t a foreign film, it will be Wall-E or Slumdog Millionaire.