Shh… do you hear that noise? It sounds like… a whole lot of smug masturbation. Hey, that must mean that movie awards season is here already! And that's especially good if you're Clint Eastwood, as he's the first man-muck recipient of the year.
The Oscars may not take place until February, but that hasn't stopped awards season from being well and truly declared open, so let's hear all about it before the other 936 movie awards that could – maybe – give a slight indication as to who might stand a chance of winning an Oscar (possibly) strip us all of our will to live. Last night the National Board Of Review gave out its awards, and prizes went to Clint Eastwood for his Iwo Jima movie, Martin Scorsese for The Departed and a whole bunch of other people that some historians thought totally rocked, that you'll read about after the jump.
Oscar night won't take place for another two and a half months – and chances are that new Oscar host Ellen DeGeneres is still in the early stages of deliberating whether making a joke about all the Fucking Jews and Sugar Tits in the room is in good taste. But just because the Oscars are a long way off, it doesn't mean that Oscar season can't start immediately. The annual 80-day process of observing a billion similarly-dull movie awards ceremonies in the hope that one will give some clue as to who'll win an Oscar started last night with the National Board Of Review awards.
The National Board Of Whaaaat? Oh, don't pretend you don't know – the National Board Of Review is made up of the coolest historians, students, educators and 'others' in all of America. And – boy oh boy – the National Board Of Review sure does know an over-long, ferociously self-important movie that nobody wants to watch when it sees one; last night the National Board Of Review said that the best film of the year was the still-unreleased Clint Eastwood-directed Letters From Iwo Jima, not to be confused with Flags Of Our Fathers, the other Clint Eastwood-directed Iwo Jima film that nobody went to see.
The Departed, basically a violent love letter to Jack-Nicholson's strap-on cock, won Martin Scorsese a Best Director National Board Of Review awards, with other awards going to Forest Whitaker who got Best Actor for Last King Of Scotland and Venice Film Festival winner Helen Mirren, who won Best Actress for The Queen. According to the National Board Of Review, the ten best films of the year were Babel, Blood Diamond, The Departed, The Devil Wears Prada, Flags Of Our Father The History Boys, Letters From Iwo Jima, Little Miss Sunshine, Notes on a Scandal and The Painted Veil – or as we like to call them, Confusing Moralising, Moralising For Simpletons, The Strap-On Cock Film, Aren't Some Women Bitchy?, America Rules!, Fat Man And The Cure, America Sucks! Fat Girl Dancing, Rah-Rah Buttoned Up Britishness and Future Free DVD Given Away On The Front Of The Mail On Sunday – with all the winners looking like this:
Film: Letters from Iwo Jima
Actor: Forest Whitaker, The Last King of Scotland
Actress: Helen Mirren, The Queen
Supporting Actor: Djimon Hounsou, Blood Diamond
Supporting Actress: Catherine O'Hara, For Your Consideration
Director: Martin Scorsese, The Departed
Foreign Film: Volver
Documentary: An Inconvenient Truth
Animated Feature: Cars
Ensemble Cast: The Departed
Breakthrough Performance by an Actor: Ryan Gosling, Half Nelson
Breakthrough Performance by an Actress: Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls, and Rinko Kikuchi, Babel
Directorial Debut: Jason Reitman, Thank You for Smoking
Original Screenplay: Stranger Than Fiction
Adapted Screenplay: The Painted Veil
Career Achievement: Eli Wallach
Billy Wilder Award for Excellence in Directing: Jonathan Demme
Career Achievement in Producing: Irwin Winkler
William K. Everson Film History Award: Donald Krim
Bvlgari Award for NBR Freedom of Expression: Water and World Trade Centre
Apocalypto, as you can see, went away bereft – which we guess clears that up .
And happily, nothing for Ben Affleck.
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