OSCAR: Critics Keep Friending 'The Social Network' While Picture Rivals Keep Fretting

In an era where review aggregation sites like Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic have erased individuality and replaced it with a percentage statistic that can be quoted? more easily than the words of Roger Ebert or other?name reviewers, we are seeing a pack mentality emerge with critics groups come awards time. No matter which region of the country, they all seem to be moving in step with each other for the most part. For David Fincher this has to be especially sweet. Just two years ago he sat on the sidelines as nearly all these groups lined up?for Danny Boyle and Slumdog Millionaire against his highly touted The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. When Oscar time rolled around there was no question which film would win. Now it’s hard to find a single critics group that doesn’t want to friend The Social Network -- and rivals in this still very fluid race are feeling the pain, no doubt trying to figure out how to counter it all before it’s too late.

While most Hollywood offices are shutting down for the holidays,?Sony Pictures'?awards campaign?crew are working overtime?for contender The Social Network?in advance of next week's mailing of Academy Of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences nomination ballots.?That’s why director?Fincher, who was supposed to be on a 2-week holiday break from shooting the studio’s?The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo in Sweden, actually?isn’t getting much of a break at all. Last week, he was in New York doing a Q&A moderated by?pal Spike Jonze. And now Tuesday and Wednesday he is on the Sony lot in Culver City for 3 more sessions?aimed at actors, editors, sound designers, cinematographers, and other various voting groups who are still in town and not preoccupied by the?holiday. I am told Fincher only agreed to do these Q&As in order to support various crew and cast members who will be appearing with him.

An evite "Save The Date" notice also went out? for a January 6th DVD/Blu Ray “launch event” for The Social Network -- although some voting groups already got a taste of it when Sony sent yet another For? Your Consideration DVD, this time featuring the movie and a 2-hour second disc full of supplementary features. Even though groups like the BFCA and HFPA have already received screeners, this seems like a smart move; it?freshens the film and adds extras to give it another whirl in the player over the holidays timed just before final voting gets underway. Sony can’t do the same for the Academy, however:?sending anything other than the movie is against the rules.

Why such a hard?sell??While it made a huge splash when it opened?on October 1st, The Social?Network?maybe?faded a bit in Hollywood's awards firmament when other later entries like The King’s Speech and The Fighter hit the spotlight. Now it’s roaring back with help from the same critics groups who first championed?No Country For Old Men, Slumdog Millionaire, and The Hurt Locker?creating a consensus and perhaps influencing the vote?for the last 3 consecutive Best Picture Oscar winners. Time Magazine’s selection for 2010 Person Of The Year of Mark Zuckerberg, the real life inspiration for Aaron Sorkin’s script,?certainly also hit just at the right time for Sony’s?re-energized awards campaign.

No film has been honored more this season or won more critics groups' Best Picture awards than The Social Network in what has been the most wide-open race in years.?In fact, no other movie has won any Best Picture award from critics (okay, except the San Diego?reviewers who courageously broke ranks to give it to Winter’s Bone). Whether it? has been critics orgs in Boston,?Chicago, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Detroit, Florida, Houston, Indiana, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New York,?San Francisco, St. Louis, Toronto, Washington DC, online, offline, or at the “Satellite” awards, the result is always the same: The Social Network = Best Picture. Of course not every friggin’ state or city with a “critics society” has weighed in yet. But how much do you wanna bet that Phoenix, Iowa, Kansas City, Oklahoma, and Vancouver??follow like lemmings. Anyone wanna guess which way Central Ohio and Utah are leaning?

It all started at the beginning of the month when the National Board of Review named?The Social Network?its Best Picture -- and they don’t even call themselves critics. We’re not sure who they actually are but they jumped on board first. Most recently,?the London Film Critics showered it with nominations. And of course?the high profile televised awards shows --?NBC’s Golden Globes from the?Hollywood Foreign Press Association and VH1’s?Critics Choice Movie Awards of the Broadcast Film Critics Association (I am a member there) --??also have it in contention big-time for their January ceremonies. Even the African American Film Critics Association which?handed out its main acting awards to Halle Berry, Michael Ealy, and Kimberly Elise and included films like Frankie & Alice, For Colored Girls, Blood Done Sign My Name, and Night Catches Us in its Top 10 list -- but still fell right in line when it came to naming Social Network its Best Picture?despite not much?diversity in its cast, as I recall.

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'Social Network' Wins LA Film Critics Award

LOS ANGELES, DECEMBER 12, 2010 – “The Social Network” was voted Best Picture of the Year, it was announced today by Brent Simon, President of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association (LAFCA). The runner up was “Carlos”.

The 36th annual Los Angeles Film Critics Association awards ceremony will be held Saturday, January 15 at the InterContinental, Los Angeles. As previously announced, Paul Mazursky will receive the 2010 Career Achievement Award.

Award winners are:

PICTURE: "The Social Network"; Runner-up: "Carlos"

DIRECTOR: Olivier Assayas, "Carlos," and David Fincher, "The Social Network" (tie)

ACTOR: Colin Firth, "The King's Speech"; Runner-up: Edgar Ramirez, "Carlos"

ACTRESS: Kim Hye-ja, "Mother"; Runner-up: Jennifer Lawrence, "Winter's Bone"

SUPPORTING ACTOR: Niels Arestrup, "A Prophet"; Runner-up: Geoffrey Rush, "The King's Speech"

SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Jacki Weaver, "Animal Kingdom"; Runner-up: Olivia Williams, "The Ghost Writer"

SCREENPLAY: Aaron Sorkin, "The Social Network"; Runner-up: David Seidler, "The King's Speech"

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM: "Carlos"; Runner-up: "Mother"

ANIMATION: "Toy Story 3"; Runner-up: "The Illusionist"

DOCUMENTARY / NON-FICTION FILM: "Last Train Home"; Runner-up: "Exit Through the Gift Shop"

CINEMATOGRAPHY: Matthew Libatique, "Black Swan"; Runner-up: Roger Deakins, "True Grit"

MUSIC/SCORE: Alexandre Desplat, "The Ghost Writer," and Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, "The Social Network" (tie)

PRODUCTION DESIGN: Guy Hendrix Dyas, "Inception"; Runner-up: Eve Stewart, "The King's Speech"

NEW GENERATION: Lena Dunham, "Tiny Furniture"

DOUGLAS E. EDWARDS INDEPENDENT/EXPERIMENTAL FILM/VIDEO: "Film Socialism"

LEGACY OF CINEMA AWARDS: Serge Bromberg, "Henri-Georges Clouzot's Inferno," and the F.W. Murnau Foundation and Fernando Pena for the restoration of "Metropolis"

CAREER ACHIEVEMENT: Paul Mazursky

Founded in 1975, The Los Angeles Film Critics Association (LAFCA) is comprised of Los Angeles-based, professional film critics working in the Los Angeles print and electronic media. Each December, LAFCA members vote on the year’s Achievement Awards, honoring screen excellence on both sides of the camera. Plaques of recognition are then presented to winners during LAFCA’s annual awards ceremony, held in mid-January.?Please also find the winners via Twitter @lafilmcritics (http://twitter.com/LAFilmCritics) or visit www.lafca.net.

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Start The Parade Of Critics Awards & Parties

If they weren’t?first out of the gate every season, the New York-based National Board Of Review (a self-described group of film enthusiasts, academics, film professionals, and students) probably wouldn’t garner a whole lot of attention for their awards choices. But their announcement (1ST AWARDS: 'The Social Network' Sweeps 2010 National Board Of Review Kudos)?today naming Sony Picture’s The Social Network Best Picture, Best Director for David Fincher,?Best Adapted Screenplay for Aaron Sorkin, and Best Actor for Jesse Eisenberg will certainly give at least a temporary boost to that film’s battle for supremacy over the other presumed Oscar frontrunner, The King’s Speech, which only got mentioned on the org’s 10 Best List.?The complete shut out in individual categories for?The Weinstein Co pic?is a bit surprising since the NBR in the past had a tendency to be a little more conservative. It even was overlooked for Original Screenplay which??went, surprisingly,?to Liongate’s?Buried, a box office dud that disappeared quickly and is not on anyone’s awards radar.

Still The Social Network probably shouldn’t start prepping those Oscar acceptance speeches yet. Even though the NBR did match eventual Best Picture Oscar winners No Country For Old Men in 2007 and Slumdog Millionaire in 2008, nothing other than Best Documentary winner The Cove and?Best Animated winner Up repeated at the Oscars last year. (Up In The Air was the NBR winner.) And only one of their 8 acting winners in the past two years (2008 Supporting Actress Penelope Cruz) similarly triumphed at the Oscars. That spotty recent track record doesn’t bother NBR president Annie Schulhof who told me, “Some feel that, because we are the first, we are positioned to be Oscar predictors. But that’s not who we are. We are an eclectic group now. It’s wonderful to be first, and sometimes not. We don’t always look so smart even though we think we are. We never said we were film critics. We are the people who go to see movies and our?membership votes with their hearts and heads.”

Distributors?happy with that “heart and head” vote include Paramount, which landed all three of its contenders Shutter Island, The Fighter and True Grit in the org’s top 10 films of the year, along with The Fighter’s Christian Bale as supporting actor and Waiting For Superman as Best Documentary.?True Grit in fact was one the last two films the org saw?in a Monday doubleheader that also included Sony Pictures’ James L. Brooks comedy, How Do You Know which did not score any NBR love. Warner Bros scored three of the top ten slots with Inception, NBR favorite Clint Eastwood’s Hereafter (Clint always gets something from this group),?and The Town which also won for Ensemble cast. Sony scored big with Social Network’s sweep and specialty division Sony Pictures Classics’ numerous wins that included Best Actress for Lesley Manville in Another Year, Best Supporting Actress Jacki Weaver in the little-known Animal Kingdom, and a “Spotlight” award for the animated The Illusionist and Best Foreign Film for France’s Of Gods And Men. (A special shoutout to my pal, Leonard Maltin, who was named the winner of the William K. Everson Film History Award.)

Now that the gauntlet has been laid down, look for a?parade of about 600 critics groups weighing in with their awards in the next month so fasten your seatbelts.

In other awards doings this busy week, Fox Searchlight may have?had nothing much to celebrate with the NBR announcement (both their leading lights, 127 Hours and Black Swan, zeroed out while Conviction got a special?“Freedom of Expression” mention), but it?threw a holiday party Wednesday night at the rooftop of Beverly Hills’ Thompson Hotel that drew a packed crowd. All stepped gingerly around the edges of the hotel pool (no one fell in although Minnie Driver contemplated it briefly) to talk Oscar and other news of the season. Among those there were Searchlight toppers Nancy Utley and Steve Giulula;?Conviction cast members Hilary Swank, Minnie Driver, Sam Rockwell, Melissa Leo and Juliette Lewis; Cyrus’ ?Marisa Tomei; Never Let Me Go’s (and The Social Network's) Andrew Garfield ?and composer Rachel Portman; Black Swan??director?Darren Aronofsky; 127 Hours’?Danny Boyle and Christian Colson; and from “big” Fox, Co-Chair Tom Rothman along with Love And Other Drugs’ Ed Zwick and his stars Anne Hathaway and Jake Gyllenhaal.

Hathaway?is “terrified and excited” about hosting the Oscars on February 27th but said it is a big honor. Still, it turns out she’s got an even bigger awards gig well before that -- when she and Denzel Washington travel to Oslo, Norway, to co-host this year’s Nobel Peace Prize Concert on December 11.?(Following her recent SNL stint, how does she have time for movies anymore?) Swank and Tomei met up and were?trying the remember the dates they won their first Oscars.?Garfield talked about prepping to play Spider-Man. Leo described the crazy schedule she has been keeping between shooting HBO’s?Treme in New Orleans and plane-hopping to promote?The Fighter’s December 17 opening.?And Aronofsky was still on a high from his New York premiere of Black Swan just one night earlier; he told me it was one of the greatest nights of his life because of the amazing reception. He’s hoping?Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, and Barbara Hershey all get (deserved) recognition for the film.

Meanwhile, across town, True Grit was having its first big Guild/Academy screening at the DGA theatre. One Academy member in attendance emailed this right after: “It played through the roof! The theatre was packed, and they may have even turned people away… Laughter in the right places and major applause at the end – especially for Jeff Bridges and Hailee Steinfeld. I heard a bunch of people?on the way out saying how great Bridges was – another definite nomination -- and how great the movie was as well. Very strong sentiment for Hailee too, but the bigger buzz was for the film and Jeff.”?

Bridges not only has True Grit opening on December 22, he also is starring in Tron: Legacy debuting five days earlier. It’s the sequel to his 1982 sci-fi adventure in which, thanks to new technology, he actually plays opposite his younger self. It’s pretty mind-blowing to see, just like the film and its?jaw-dropping 3D effects.?Even though most people are saying it is his 2009 Oscar Best Actor rival Colin Firth’s year for King’s Speech, a?double-whammy of?high profile?December releases is definitely going to put Bridges right in the thick of the Oscar race again. And going for No. 2 in a row,?previously only?accomplished in the Best Actor race by Spencer Tracy and Tom Hanks.

Earlier this week?Warner Bros heated?things up with back to back DVD release/awards?parties for The Town on Monday and Inception on Tuesday. The former was held in a Security Pacific bank building on Wilshire Blvd (the movie is about bank robbers, of course) and saw star/co-writer/director Ben Affleck and co-stars Jon Hamm and Jeremy Renner chatting?up?Golden Globe and BAFTA voters among others. Producers Graham King and Basil Iwanyk were there, too. And talk about dedication: Iwanyk was a little nervous about another upcoming production: he was on baby alert with his wife?due to maybe deliver later that evening. All in a day’s work for a producer with an Oscar contender.

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