Reaction to the Critics Choice Awards

There were few surprises, little suspense, and relatively few laughs in tonight's Critics Choice Award telecast on VH1. The best laugh came from Eddie Izzard, whose razor-sharp mockery of the lame and stilted podium banter (since the writers are on strike it was worse than usual) cooked up by the blurb whores known as the Broadcast Film Critics Association, was a riot. All respect to them (who knows where I may end up one day, but I prefer to stay in print), but let's face it - these are the people studios go to when they need positive notices for Soul Plane (as host D.L. Hugely knowingly observed).

The major awards - Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, and Screenplay, all went to what are quickly becoming the usual suspects - No Country, the Coens, Day-Lewis, Christie, Bardem, Ryan, and Diablo Cody. All worthy winners of course (except for Cody...the Juno phenomenon is getting old quick), but in a year that is so chock full of worthy films, you would think the awards would be more varied, like they were in 1999. Everyone is flocking to crown No Country when there are, for the first time in a long time, many more to choose from that are just as good.

Of course, this is coming from someone who would like to have seen an Into the Wild sweep. And I'm still scratching my head about the Hairspray victory for Best Ensemble over Before the Devil Knows You're Dead and No Country for Old Men. But the BFCA apparently really liked the film, and I imagine it just missed getting nominated for Best Picture. They gave their Best Young Actress award to Nikki Blonsky over Atonement's Saoirse Ronan, who really should have won, but Blonsky was quite good so no hard feelings over that one.

I would also have liked to have seen Ed Sanders from Sweeney Todd take home Best Young Actor, but young Ahmad Khan Mahmoodzada from The Kite Runner has been through a lot because of his involvement in that film, so it makes a nice consolation prize, even if the film didn't live up to its potential.

But the victory that really made me shout was "Falling Slowly" from Once winning Best Song. Anytime that movie wins an award is a moment worth celebrating.

Oh, and did anyone else catch the uncensored "fuck" that Amy Ryan managed to sneak past the VH1 censors? She said it once and got bleeped...then asked if you could say "fucking" on VH1, which didn't went out uncensored. So apparently you can. It was one of the few shots of adrenaline in an otherwise dull ceremony.

Comments

Anonymous said…
I agree, the usual suspects swept the awards, boring but all the wins were deserved, except Hairspray for Best Ensemble, it was a gimmicky film and was good, but the other nominees had better ensemble performances.

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