2011 Oscar nominations: the aftermath

That to follow and scrutinize the film award season is a pointless exercise has always been clear to me.  It is also an unrewarding one. The proliferation of Oscar precursors and the Academy's faint-hearted choices have rendered the Oscar prognostication game easy and predictable.

Looking at this year's Oscar nominations, which have been announced earlier today, one might argue that absolutely nothing out of the ordinary has really happened, at least in the main categories.

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Best female performances of 2010

Following our entry on the best films of 2010, here is our choice of the best female performances of the year. We have tried to be commercially and geographically unbiased in our selection. The list accommodates a small South Korean film (or, in this case, two) with an art house vocation as much as a high-school comedy with blockbuster aspirations.

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The NBR aftermath: Lesley Manville, Jacki Weaver and Buried

You have to take with a pinch of salt any conclusion drawn from the announcement of the 2010 National Board of Review Awards. As traditional starting gun of the film awards season they manage to gather a lot of attention but the clout they have on the rest of the awards race is limited at best.

The Oscar hopes of many films start and end in the NBR and, as a rule of thumb, one might argue that films that win here won’t fare well later in the season, especially on the big night at the Academy Awards.

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2010 National Board of Review Awards announced

The 2010 National Board of Review Awards have been announced. I'll post soon an analysis of the results in Imitation of Life. Until then, here is the complete list of winners. You can compare it against my predictions, which are available in the previous entry of the blog.

Just one comment. Lesley Manville and Jacki Weaver have been named best actress and supporting actress, respectively. Does it get any better?

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JACKI WEAVER FOR BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

David Michod's Animal Kingdom is not an easy film to watch. To start with, it takes around half an hour to get used to the thick Aussie accent and, more importantly, to the savage rules that reign over the Animal Kingdom in which the characters (and the film itself) live. However, if you manage to watch until the end you will enjoy one of the most satisfying film experiences coming from the land down under in years.

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