There Will Be Blood – the film about how many words Daniel Day-Lewis can say in a funny voice within the space of two and a half hours – is really doing rather well at winning awards this year.
Although it has already won a bunch of awards already, There Will Be Blood is still gaining momentum all the time, picking up a handful of awards at Saturday night's National Society Of Film Critics awards in New York for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Director and Best Cinematography. Now, the continuing success of There Will Be Blood – along with that of its rivals No Country For Old Men and Into The Wild – might make it look as if I Now Pronounce You Chuck And Larry has been edged out of the Oscars running, but we still live in eternal hope that Blake Clark gets the credit he deserves for imbuing Crazy Homeless Man with such dignified pathos.
So it looks like awards season might be dead on its feet already thanks to the WGA strike banning everyone from going to the Golden Globes, but the clever kids at the National Society Of Film Critics knows a simple way around that. Instead of hosting a glitzy gala evening full of stars dressed up to the nines heartily congratulating themselves on being able to make films about important things like war and malformed babies, the National Society Of Film Critics instead just gathers its members up in a restaurant and lets them shout at each other until some winners get decided.
And the National Society Of Film Critics awards are even more refreshing because they have absolutely no bearing on the outcome of the Oscars either. Like last year when it decided that Pan's Labyrinth was the best film and everyone else was fawning over The Departed, for example, or any of the other times when the National Society Of Film Critics got it wrong that we can't be bothered to find out about at the moment.
That's good news for us, but rubbish news for There Will Be Blood, because it swept the board at Saturday's National Society Of Film Critics awards so probably won't get a sniff come Oscar night. There Will Be Blood managed to win awards for best picture, best director, best cinematography and best actor for Daniel Day-Lewis' compelling portrayal of a man who talks quite slowly in an unusual voice, adding to the tally of awards that already includes an LA Film Critics trophy and a New York Film Critics trophy.
Apart from that, though, the National Society Of Film Critics awards went just as you'd expect. Julie Christie won an award because she played a woman with a degenerative mental condition in a film, Cate Blanchett won an award because she played an old musician in a vaguely biopic-ish film, No End In Sight won an award because it's a documentary about the Iraq war and Casey Affleck won an award because it was getting late and everyone had been drinking a little bit by the time they got round to choosing the Best Supporting Actor prize.
We expect.
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