This just in:
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
*1. Hanna Schygulla (The Edge of Heaven) - 29 (Strand Releasing)
2. Viola Davis (Doubt) - 29 (on fewer ballots)
3. Penelope Cruz (Vicky Cristina Barcelona) - 24
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
*1. Eddie Marsan (Happy-Go-Lucky) 41 (Miramax)
2. Heath Ledger (The Dark Knight) - 35
3. Josh Brolin (Milk) - 29
BEST ACTRESS
*1. Sally Hawkins (Happy-Go-Lucky) - 65 (Miramax)
2. Melissa Leo (Frozen River) - 33
3. Michelle Williams (Wendy and Lucy) - 31
BEST ACTOR
*1. Sean Penn (Milk) - 87 (Focus Features)
2. Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler)- 40
3. Clint Eastwood (Gran Torino)- 38
BEST PICTURE
*1. Waltz with Bashir (Ari Folman) - 26 (Sony Pictures Classic)
2. Happy-Go-Lucky 20
2. WALL-E (20)
BEST DIRECTOR
*1. Mike Leigh (Happy-Go-Lucky) - 36 (Miramax)
2. Gus Van Sant (Milk, Paranoid Park) - 20
3. Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire) -16
BEST NONFICTION FILM
*1. Man on Wire (James Marsh) - 55 (Magnolia)
2. Trouble the Water (Tia Lessin and Carl C. Deal) - 34
3. Encounters at the End of the World (Werner Herzog) - 26
BEST SCREENPLAY
*1. Happy-Go-Lucky (Mike Leigh) - 29
2. A Christmas Tale (Arnaud Desplechin) - 24
3. Synecdoche, New York (Charlie Kaufman) - 17
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
*1. Slumdog Millionaire (Anthony Dod Mantle) - 29 (Fox Searchlight)
2. Flight of the Red Balloon (Lee Ping-Bing) - 22
3. The Dark Knight (Wally Pfister) - 18
4. Still Life (Yu Lik-Wai )
BEST EXPERIMENTAL FILM - Ken Jacobs' Razzle Dazzle.
FILM HERITAGE AWARDS
The Criterion Collection for finally making Samuel Fuller's suppressed "White Dog" (1982) available to a wide American audience via DVD release.
"The Exiles," Kent Mackenzie's realistic 1961 independent film about Native Americans in Los Angeles. (Restored by Ross Lipman of the UCLA Television and Film Archives and distributed by Milestone.)
Flicker Alley for releasing DVD collections of rare early U.S. and foreign silent films.
Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment for its DVD set "Murnau, Borzage and Fox."
The Flicker Alley George Melies boxed set is, in the parlance of our times, absolutely off the hook. It really ties film history together. It's far out, man.
I keep pretty good tabs on the movies that come out through the year. Why are some of these titles completely unknown to me?
Hooray! Eddie Marsan takes it! Finally, an award/poll/list got it right. En-Ra-Ha baby, En-Ra-Ha.
Oh how I pray this attention translates into a nomination for Michelle Williams. Hawkins may be better in the end, but I find both performances to be a kind of perfection; such as they are, Williams moves me the most.
All these polls notwithstanding, I still feel that The Dark Knight, Slumdog Millionaire and Milk are all locks for the top award, with Frost/Nixon, Doubt, Benjamin Button and WALL-E on the next tier down battling for the remaining slots.
rob - Agreed. And, of the next tier films, I think Benjamin Button and Wall-E have the upper hand.
I wonder why the Steve McQueen film "Hunger" has gone missing on so many of these top 10 lists. When Sight & Sound did their international critic poll of critics last month, it came in at #1. It has yet to make it to my city (Chicago), but, according to IMDB, it did have a U.S. limited release date of December 5th.
I haven't seen Frozen River, so I can't speak about Melissa Leo's performance, but was there no room for Anne Hathaway in Rachel Getting Married?
And I haven't seen Rachel Getting Married, but Melissa Leo's performance in Frozen River is just amazing. I'm so glad to see it getting noticed.
Why do they call the Documentary category "Best NonFiction Film"? Does that mean non-docs that are nonfiction are eligible? Milk, for example.