The Los Angeles Film Critics Association (my former homies) have announced their collective choices for best achievements of 2007 and... well, for now, I'll just say that I doubt most of them would even be on my short list of runners-up for this year. (I haven't seen "Sweeney Todd" or "Diving Bell and the Butterfly" yet, though.) I'm glad that some honorees are getting recognition: Milestone Films, Sarah Polley, Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova (from "Once": music as dialog/acting), Jack Fisk (to whom I will always be grateful for, among other things, the prom in "Carrie," the house in "Days of Heaven," and pulling the lever in "Eraserhead" -- yes, that was him), "Persepolis" and "Ratatouille" (tied for best animated feature), Vlad Ivanov (for negotiating the trickiest of roles) and a few others. But I know how misleading these group-ballot things can be. LAFCA's list does leave the impression that they felt "Blood" (and, perphaps, "Diving Bell") tower the rest of the year's releases. I wonder if that's really the overwhelming majority opinion, or if it's another case of second- or third-choice consensus carrying the day. Too many of these seem like Academy-style picks to me (Most Noticeable Acting, Most Obvious/Intrusive Score, etc.). More about that later on in the month...
UPDATE (12/10/07): LAFCA member Robert Koelher writes to Jeffrey Wells at Hollywood Elsewhere:
"I've cited to both Anne Thompson and David Poland the various fictions they've written about re. LAFCA's awards, namely that our pick for 'TWBB' had to do with going against National Board of Review (Anne) or the Academy (David). And now you say we were generally flying the contrarian flag. [...][NOTE: In my post I did not surmise that LAFCA was intentionally striking any groupthink contrarian pose. I know from experience that it doesn't really work that way -- and, besides, LAFCA is the first crix group to vote, so what's to react against? But I wondered about the margin of victory, a legitimate question regarding the results of any balloting or committee decision-making procedure -- including the Oscars. Koehler's letter helps clarify that. I'm glad to know I disagree with some genuine majority sentiments rather than some statistical flukes. I disagreed with some choices when I was a member of the group, too -- and I don't know anyone who didn't, from time to time. It's a group of critics, you know....]"By a wide margin, LAFCA felt... that 'There Will Be Blood' was the best American film of the year. That's all. No chess work, no calculations, no triangulation -- nothing but a matter of taste based on seeing more movies over the year than anybody else.
"And Jeff, the group judgement was based -- with perhaps no exceptions, since there was simply no time for most or all of us to view it more than once -- on a single viewing of 'TWBB.' It's a great movie on the first viewing."
The LAFCA 2007 awards:
PICTURE: "There Will Be Blood"
RUNNER-UP: "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly"
DIRECTOR: Paul Thomas Anderson, "There Will Be Blood"
RUNNER-UP: Julian Schnabel, "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly"
ACTOR: Daniel Day-Lewis, "There Will Be Blood"
RUNNER-UP: Frank Langella, "Starting Out in the Evening"
ACTRESS: Marion Cotillard, "La Vie en rose"
RUNNER-UP: Anamaria Marinca, "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days"
SUPPORTING ACTOR: Vlad Ivanov, "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days"
RUNNER-UP: Hal Holbrook, "Into the Wild"
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Amy Ryan, "Gone Baby Gone" and "Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead"
RUNNER-UP: Cate Blanchett, "I’m Not There"
SCREENPLAY: Tamara Jenkins, "The Savages" RUNNER-UP: Paul Thomas Anderson, "There Will Be Blood"
FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM: "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days"
RUNNER-UP: "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly"
DOCUMENTARY: "No End in Sight"
RUNNER-UP: "Sicko"
ANIMATION: "Ratatouille" and "Persepolis" (tie)
MUSIC: Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, "Once"
RUNNER-UP: Jonny Greenwood, "There Will Be Blood"
PRODUCTION DESIGN: Jack Fisk, "There Will Be Blood"
RUNNER-UP: Dante Ferretti, "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street"
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Janusz Kaminski, "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly"
RUNNER-UP: Robert Elswit, "There Will Be Blood"
NEW GENERATION: Sarah Polley, "Away From Her"
INDEPENDENT/EXPERIMENTAL: Pedro Costa’s "Colossal Youth"
SPECIAL CITATION: New Crowned Hope series commissioned by director Peter Sellars to honor the anniversary of Mozart’s 250th birthday
LEGACY AWARDS: Milestone Film and Video and the Outfest Legacy Project
Maybe it's me, but I don't see "Sweeney Todd" anywhere on the list of winners or runners-up.
JE: Dante Ferretti is runner up to Jack Fisk in Production Design for "Sweeney Todd."
Wait, you're saying that you don't think There Will Be Blood is worthy of a short list? You'd be the first person I've heard that from... (I haven't seen it yet, but I have high expectations from PTA.)
Diving Bell was very good. B+, I'd say. But no way in hell was it the second best film of the year. Better than No Country for Old Men? Assassination of Jesse James? Away From Her? Death Proof? C'mon. And I've still got about a dozen or two DVDs from 2007 to go.
I'm reserving judgment on There Will Be Blood. The trailer looks fricking excellent.
...it was late.
Well, I guess we know how you feel about "There Will Be Blood," Jim.
The most telling detail in regards to the voting process may be that "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" earned runner-up for Best Film, second to an English-Language American film, yet was also runner-up in the Best Foreign Language Film category. (Also, I didn't think "4 Months..." was released this year—what are the eligibility rules here?)
That said, I've seen all the selections except for "Sweeney Todd" and find most of them to be worthy choices (the screenplay for "The Savages" didn't impress me that much).
I wouldn't say most of the nods for "Blood" are Academy-obvious, with the exception of DDL and maybe Fisk since the film is a period piece. If anything about the choices rings Oscar, it's that the voters are definitely picking their favorite films for many different categories. That doesn't necessarily mean that each category wasn't considered on its own merits.
As for "Once," obviousness shouldn't disqualify it (I assume "intrusive" is a reference to Greenwood, but then again music in musicals is always intrusive—not that that's a bad thing). The LA critics only have one award for music, rather than separate prizes for score and song. I know some critics (not from LA) who have been listening to the "Once" soundtrack since they saw the movie at Sundance in January, so it's clearly made an impression beyond the lazy "let's vote for a musical!" situation. I say fair play to "Once"—even though I thought Hansard wrote most of the music without Irglova (who might just have the award for performance (?)). Anyone have the info on that?
Jeremy: To be honest, I'm still grappling with "There Will Be Blood." I'm probably going to need to see it again (or sit down to write about it -- that kind of focus often helps me understand and clarify my own responses, particularly when I feel so ambivalent).
I do think "Once" deserved attention for the music (you'll notice I singled out Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova as honorees I was glad were recognized). But I don't know what to make of the "Blood" music. The movie felt to me like a mammoth contest of wills between Daniel Day Lewis and the score over which could upstage the other. I found it mightily distracting. Is there some method to this madness? It may take another viewing for me to sort it out...
Unfortunately the rest of us won't be able to see "Blood" until after Christmas. Sad.
Ah, I was a bit confused about "Once" because you mentioned that you were glad Hansard and Irglova were recognized, but then singled-out the music at the end as an example of what you didn't like. "There Will Be Blood" was the runner-up, so I assumed it was directed at the winner as well.
I was just poking fun because "Blood" was such the prominent winner here that by saying you don't agree with most of the choices and then listing exceptions, it almost boiled down to just one film (not that there aren't a few others on the list—i.e. the performance in a singer's biopic ). It's nice to hear someone question the current favorite for Best Actor, especially since DDL receives the respect usually reserved for saints and Howard Hawks, no what matter the part he plays (I didn't care for "The Ballad of Jack and Rose"). But I found him to be in-form here. Of course, my probable favorite performance of the year, Seth Rogen in "Knocked Up," didn't received any critic organization awards.
As for Greenwood's score, I'm not a worshipper of his work with Radiohead, like many are, but I found what he did with "Blood" very interesting. He's not really going for a blend-into-the-background type of score, he and Anderson are trying to keep things off-kilter and uncomfortable—more like dialogue than ambience. I didn't feel like it was distracting so much as an integrated part of the work. I too would like to see the film a second time before writing about it, but don't think I will have the opportunity.
Out of curiosity, what did you think of Jon Brion's "Punch-Drunk Love" score?
What surprised me about the awards was the conspicuous absence of "No Country for Old Men." Javier Bardem didn't even receive runner-up for Best Supporting Actor. (I loved Vlad Ivanov's performance, and thought Halbrook was good in a rather limiting role.)
Jim, I love you, but I have to take you to task when you express something disingenuous that I know is beneath your intellectual capacity to be. Jeremy has already said some of what I wanted to say, but let me reiterate in more explicit terms: Just because you don't agree with the choice or taste of a group of people doesn't mean that you should resort to condescending speculation about their choice or their motives/agenda.
You should realize the undercurrent of arrogance when you suggest that either Diving Bell or There Will Be Blood earned a consensus because they couldn't agree on their favorites and just settled on something that they all thought was all right. Same goes for any suggestions that any critics group just wants to copy or appeal to the Academy (and remember that AMPAS is also entitled to some measure of respect).
As a sound rebuttal to said speculations, let me present what should be the final word on the matter: One of Variety's critics has written a letter to Jeff Wells (who voiced thoughts similar to yours regarding TWBB's wins) in which he states that the LAFCA did in fact feel that TWBB "towered" over the rest of the movies that they saw; it won the vote by a wide margin. Please read the letter and Wells's thoughts here: http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/archives/2007/12/koehler_fires_b.php
Fei: Thank you for that link. I've included it in an update to the original post. It answers my question, which was not speculation but a legitimate question. In any voting procedure or committee decision (including the Oscars) we have every reason to wonder about margins of victory. Some critics' groups vote by "secret ballot," with the winners determined from the top-vote getters in the first round. When I was a LAFCA member, we went around the room (varying directions for each category) with each member announcing a first-, second-, and third-place choice. (This, of course, allowed for strategic weighting of votes if a consensus began to take shape: If it was really close, and the final voters were keeping track, they could easily tip the scales either way. See accounts of last year's NY crix' voting, where Andrew Sarris's trip to the bathroom threw the outcome of one round into question.)
So, while I'm perplexed by the reasoning behind the members' votes (have to wait for their individual reviews in order to find out what they were thinking), I'm glad to know that it wasn't just a statistical fluke, but that the results did indeed reflect the strong feelings of the majority.
Meanwhile, nobody should assume they know what I think about "TWBB" (other than it's NOT the "best American film" I saw this year) -- because I don't know myself yet!
It seems pretty obvious that your choice for best film of the year is "No Country for Old Men". I'm still very much looking forward to "There Will Be Blood", largely because I think Paul Thomas Anderson is one of the finest filmmakers working right now, and definitely the stand-alone auteur among American directors under 40.
I've seen THERE WILL BE BLOOD and I prefer it to NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN. With NCFOM, I was always aware of the fact that the Coen brothers were behind the camera. But THERE WILL BE BLOOD was a completely immersive film and I never felt like Paul Thomas Anderson was 'just' showing off like he (and others) always seem to be.
As a friend said, TWBB is an incredibly dry film, but in a good way. Also, I thought the music was great-- it was in the vein of the music A WOMAN IN THE DUNES or THE SHINING.
Critics are always motivated to celebrate a film when they are concerned that it won't get its proper due, and I suspect that was the motivation behind LAFCA's decision. They realize that other films that were released earlier in the year would get more attention because they've had more of a chance to make an impression, and since TWBB is being released at the very-end of the year, they decided to give it a share of the accolades so that it will get more attention.
And rightly so because as I stated, TWBB is a great movie and I hope that Paul Thomas Anderson gets a Best Director Oscar nomination.
In Toronto, I was warned to avoid "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" because it was one of those "awards-y" films. If you want one magic word to keep me from seeing a film I'm waffling on, just call it "awards-y" and I'll run away with thoughts of "Crash" dancing in my head. Not having seen it, however, I make no judgment.
I doubt that "There Will Be Blood" will be Academy material. If anything, "No Country" seems the most likely to emerge as both a critical favorite and an Academy favorite. Which almost means it HAS to be bad, doesn't it? :)
For me, the best film of the year, based on US release date, is Jafar Panahi's magnificent "Offside" but I have a hunch an Iranian film isn't going to make much headway with the Academy or most critic groupthinks. To be honest, almost of my picks for Best Films of 2007 are films I saw in Toronto in 2006. Alain Resnais' "Private Fears in Public Places" (AKA "Coeurs") is way up there. So is Jennifer Baichwal's fantastic documentary "Manufactured Landscapes."
Is there any 2007 film (again, using US release date) that I actually saw in 2007? I second the nomination of "Once," one of the best music films I have seen in years. I really dug Lars von trier's office comedy "The Boss of it All."
But, no, neither of those come close to "Offside," the best film of the year, and one of the best Iranian films I've ever seen. I'm going to form my own critical society and announce the award any day now.
Oh but wait a second. I see Pedro Costa's "Colossal Youth" had a New York release date on Aug 3, 2007. And that was definitely not at the NYFF. If that counts as an '07 realize, then I've got two masterpieces to deal with. Offside or Colossal Youth? I ain't picking between those two. I'll have to amend the announcement: we have a tie this year!
Alex: I haven't seen anything that even comes close to "NCFOM" this year. My top film in 2005 was "The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada," and last year it was "Pan's Labyrinth." (I guess I like movies in which at least someone speaks Spanish, eh?) "Three Burials" was largely overlooked; "Pan" got a surprising amount of mainstream attention (I saw both in Toronto, months before they were theatrically released; "Three Burials" didn't even have a distributor when I saw it.) This year, at least, I'm enjoying having some sizeable critical company -- even though, as I wrote last month, I'm skeptical it will translate into many big-time awards for "NCFOM." Then again, as Ethan Coen said, any attention the movie can get will probably be good for the Jews.
Yes, he was making a joke.
I suspect that the LAFCA awards for TWBB were most likely to help draw attention to a film that is being released at the tail end of the year and build up some support. Indeed someone on here has already posted that very thought. I haven't seen TWBB yet and I'm looking forward to it. But I have a feeling there is no way that it (or any film I haven't seen in '07) can to NCFOM for me.
U really have to wait for the golden globes to get a good look at some possible nominations for oscars. These critic awards are sometimes all over the place and lets face it way off in left field.
I thought that "The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada" was an absolute knockout, certainly one of the best films of this decade. I guess that, my admiration for "No Country" notwithstanding (and I certainly would consider it among the best films of the year, though not head-and-shoulders ahead like you do), the film didn't have the same impact on me as "Melquiades", which seemed like such a perfect blend of style, performance and theme. "No Country" was very good, but I was always aware of the mechanics of the storytelling.
Paul Thomas Anderson the sole auteur under 40? How about David Gordon Green?