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With the Gotham 
Independent Film Awards Monday night, and the announcement of the (way earlier than usual) New York Film Critics' Circle awards and the Independent Spirit nominees, the thick part of awards season is upon us! As I said in my Oscar predictions column this year has been devoid of any clear frontrunner, with a number of movies released (and yet to be released) that have distinctly separate groups of critical champions. As more critics' groups announce their winners, it'll become possible to ascertain consensus. Or lack thereof.
The latter is a lot more possible, because the lack of critical consensus is not due to critics not being able to make up their mind what the best movie (or performance, et cetera) has been this year. It's because their minds are ALL made up. Some of them have been all made up since before they saw all the major award movies. This has been very frustrating to me, because I don't do my Best Of list until after Christmas, but we can't all be moral exemplars and dazzlingly brilliant intellectuals like me. But it is kind of fun to watch the shit-talking about rival movies, which one film writer specializing in awards predictions described as being like “Twilight's” Team Edward vs. Team Jacob, which is a perfect analogy because it makes the people involved look really fucking stupid.
So here's a handy scorecard as to why the critics—ostensibly mature and educated people, which makes this all the worse—engaged in this behavior are being a bunch of shitheads, and who they are. I'll list the pictures that are going to, in some configuration or other, win all the major awards this year, what kind of critics like each one, and what kind of shit they're talking about all the other movies. As usual, this is serious fucking business, so none of that smirking and kidding around:
The Tree of Life
Writer-director Terrence Malick, one of the last auteurs standing from the 1970s, won the Palme D'Or with this beautifully photographed, deeply Malickian (Malickesque? Malickovian?) film. Shared Gotham award for Best Picture.
Who loves it: All those “since Star Wars fucked everything up there haven't been any good movies” people, film people who like alienating civilians (none of whom can figure this picture out AT ALL), Emmanuel Lubezki groupies, Jessica Chastain completists (who have a pretty huge body of work to plow through now, considering no one had heard of her before Cannes), genuine Terrence Malick fans.
What kind of shit they're talking about everyone else: they don't even bother, under the “He who does not feel me is not real to me and therefore doesn't exist, so poof! Vamoose son of a bitch” theory of film criticism.
The Artist
The French silent black and white that won America's (critics') heart. Won Best Picture and Director from New York Film Critics' Circle.
Who loves it: Francophiles, classic Hollywood fans, people who are terrified someone's going to call them ugly Americans for shit-talking anything foreign, Harvey Weinstein.
What kind of shit they're talking about everyone else: “You don't have a soul,” “You have no idea what happiness is,” “VOTE FOR THIS OR YOU'RE FUCKIN DEAD!” (that last is mostly just Harvey W.)
Moneyball
Brad Pitt stars as Billy Beane, maverick Oakland A's GM who made baseball safe for stat nerds.
Who loves it: Everyone who's still pissed that “The Social Network” got fucked last year and is riding that “Aaron Sorkin adapting a non-fiction book” similarity like that horse in Spielberg's new picture, Brad Pitt fans, people who decided that they wanted to pick a winner in September before having to see everything else.
What kind of shit they're talking about everyone else: “Nananananananananana IT'S NOT MONEYBALL SHUT UP!”
The Descendants
Alexander Payne's back! His first picture since 2004's Sideways! And it's got George Clooney! And it's a low-key, darkly humorous and poignant meditation on life and mortality!
Who loves it: The twelve people who read that description and went “fuck yeah.” You'd think the approximately seven billion people who would have sex with George Clooney would constitute a powerful voting bloc but a surprising number of more Tree Of Life-type critics are like “feh, it's all surface, it's banal,” and all kinds of other critic-talk that make civilians want to justifiably murder us all. Still, there are a bunch of “Descendants” supporters out there.
What kind of shit they're talking about everyone else: Actually, these people all decided this was an Oscar frontrunner months before they even saw it, making them the mirror image of the “Moneyball” people: “Meh, I'm sure “The Descendants” will be better.”
Hugo
Marty Scorsese. Paying homage to George Méliès. Boo ya.
Who loves it: Parents who've been desperately trying to find a gateway movie to turn their kids into film nerds, film nerds without kids who would be in that position if they did.
What kind of shit they're talking about everything else: The "Hugo" camp is a bit light on the shit-talking, but they could get smug if the old people responsible for the Oscars being so mercurial and weird nom this a zillion times.
Drive
Baby Goose owns people with hammers and retro synthpop. Albert Brooks lets loose his inner badass (and will certainly get more than just his NYFCC Best Supporting Actor win).
Who loves it: My friend Steve.
What kind of shit he's talking about everything else: “Fuck the Oscars [and, presumably any other awards that sleep on Drive] where it fits.”
Beginners
Ewan McGregor deals with his elderly father coming out of the closet and being terminally ill. Shared Gotham Award for Best Picture.
Who Loves It: The kind of person who likes Belle and Sebastian albums before Dear Catastrophe Waitress. (Full disclosure: that technically includes me. And I DID like this. But I'm not one of the people championing it for awards; I think it'll get a handful at best, almost all indie awards shows one-loving Christopher Plummer.)
What kind of shit they're talking about everything else: “But “Beginners” is so GOOD....come ON you guys, it's SO good.”
Shame
Michael Fassbender's penis broods its way through New York at night, and a variety of very attractive women. Rated NC-17 basically because director Steve McQueen dared the MPAA to, and basically became a mirror for the way critics think about sex.
Who loves it: People who like Michael Fassbender's penis and don't mind that its role is basically a featured cameo and not, as a lot of hysterics implied, the movie's leading actor (this group consists of more than just straight chicks and gay dudes; Michael Fassbender's penis has four-quadrant appeal), people who like their cinematography gorgeous and their tone brooding.
What kind of shit they're talking about everything else: “Man, you guys aren't cool enough to vote for “Shame,” “Shame's” too hardcore for you civilians, na na na na boo boo.”
Midnight In Paris
It's Woody Allen's quinquennial great movie (which used to be triennial, and before that was annual, but such is life; much like the universe itself is expanding—as Woody noted in “Annie Hall”—via entropy to the point where eventually everything will be so far away it just stops, so too the gaps between Woody's legitimately great movies expand. It's physics.) And that means we gotta throw it in the Oscar discussion. Plus it's fucking awesome.
Who loves it: Me, old people, Woody apologists, old creative writing majors for whom ‘20s Paris is the sine qua non de tout le monde.
What kind of shit we're talking about everything else: We're not really talking shit, we're more making the horribly flawed and easily dismissed argument that Woody should get one last victory lap.
War Horse
Steven Spielberg making a movie about a super intelligent, heroic horse who wins World War I. Or something. I haven't seen it yet.
Who loves it: People who cry, Spielberg completists, big fans of “The Black Stallion.”
What kind of shit they're talking about everything else: “All you intellectuals need to get out of your head and FEEL!” (Note: this shit drives me nuts. I fucking LIKE it in my head, okay? There's porn, old clips of Dominique Wilkins dunking, Bowie songs, and early Godard movies up there. Fuck off.)
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
An even more shameless appeal to schmaltzy emotional people than “War Horse.” It's got 9/11, Tom Hanks as a dead father, a precocious kid, pretty much everything except an endangered kitten floating away on an ice floe crying for its mommy. And the book it's based on sucks.
Who loves it: People who've decided they love it before they've seen it. (No one's seen it yet.) Fans of the book.
What kind of shit they're talking about everything else: Smug proclamations, SIGHT UNSEEN, that this is the frontrunner
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
David Fincher's stylishly shot, impeccably cast version of Stieg Larsson's wildly popular novel (which I also didn't like).
Who loves it: see “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.”
What kind of shit they're talking about everything else: I don't know why anyone thinks this is winning anything. Even David Fincher says it doesn't have a chance. He's not saying that to be coy or as a reverse jinx. This is not a movie that wins awards. David Fincher fans need to deal with the fact that he's probably never going to win an Oscar for Best Director and just stop fucking moaning about it. It has nothing to do with him being great or not great.
The Help
The inevitable Oscar Best Picture winner. Won't win anything any critics vote on. But critics don't pick the Oscars or the guild awards that immediately precede them. You know this is coming. Welcome your new overlords.
Danny Bowes' is a prolific writer and critic who lives in New York City. You can look for his column every Wednesday, and read him online at moviesbybowes.blogspot.com.
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