New York Crits: What a Country!
No Country for Old Men has its mojo back.
A day after being passed over for everything by the Los Angeles film critics, the Coen brothers thriller was named Best Picture and honored with three other awards on Monday by the New York Film Critics Circle.
Joel and Ethan Coen shared the Best Director and Best Screenplay prizes; Javier Bardem took Best Supporting Actor for his adroit coin-flipping.
Elsewhere, Julie Christie, a decade past her last Oscar nomination, was named Best Actress for the Alzheimer's drama Away from Her. Daniel Day-Lewis was tapped Best Actor for coveting oil in There Will Be Blood.
Day-Lewis earlier was named Best Actor by the L.A. critics, who loved his Paul Thomas Anderson film as much as their New York counterparts loved No Country for Old Men.
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, which turned up several times on the L.A. writers' best-of list, albeit mostly as a runner-up, was not mentioned at all by the New York writers. (For one thing, there is no second place at the New York Film Critics Circle Awards.)
No Country for Old Men currently has the edge in the major critics awards over There Will Be Blood, having taken top honors last week from the National Board of Review.
Aside from the No Country for Old Men split, the New York and L.A. groups were of the same mind when it came to Amy Ryan (Best Supporting Actress), No End in Sight (Best Documentary), Persepolis (Best Animated Film) and actress Sarah Polley's feature directing work on Away from Her (Best First Film).
They also both decided that the time was nigh to honor 83-year-old director Sidney Lumet, late of Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, for a lifetime of work highlighted by Dog Day Afternoon, Network and Serpico.
The New York critics honored Ryan for her work in Gone Baby Gone (the L.A. critics lauded her for both that film and Before the Devil Knows You're Dead); the L.A. critics split their animation award between France's Persepolis, the black-and-white take on life in Iran after the fall of the Shah, and Ratatouille.
Between the L.A. and New York contingents, Ratatouille, the Disney-Pixar hit, was the only box-office power to pull any weight with voters. Not even Michael Moore's Sicko, the year's top-grossing documentary, won anything, although the L.A. critics did grant it runner-up status.
The disconnect between the critics and Hollywood is no coincidence. The New York critics on Monday said their awards are probably most accurately described as "a principled alternative to the Oscars." Or, to put it another way, if you want to know what film isn't going to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards, then commit the New York critics' awards to memory. The New York writers' pick for film of the year hasn't gone on to win Best Picture at the Oscars in more than 10 years. (The L.A. writers have the same track record.)
The Golden Globes, with its red-carpet arrivals and live TV telecast, is the true Oscar-aspiring awards show. Its nominations are due out Thursday.
The New York writers will present their awards Jan. 6.
Here's a rundown of the winners of the 2007 New York Film Critics Circle Awards:
- Film: No Country for Old Men
- Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood
- Actress: Julie Christie, Away from Her
- Supporting Actor: Javier Bardem, No Country for Old Men
- Supporting Actress: Amy Ryan, Gone Baby Gone
- Director: Joel and Ethan Coen, No Country for Old Men
- Screenplay: Joel and Ethan Coen, No Country for Old Men
- Foreign-Language Film: The Lives of Others
- Animation: Persepolis
- Documentary: No End in Sight
- Cinematography: There Will Be Blood
- First Film: Sarah Polley, Away From Her
- Lifetime Achievement: Sidney Lumet
- Special Critics' Awards: Charles Burnett, Killers of Sheep
