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It's not a happy tale, but No Country for Old Men might be responsible for a lot of smiles in the next few months.
The Coen brothers' latest effort was named Best Film on Wednesday by the National Board of Review, giving the ultra-violent yet characteristically dark-humored crime drama a leg up as it heads into the spin-driven time of year known as awards season.
Joel and Ethan Coen, who split producing, directing and writing credits on this one, also shared the award for Best Adapted Screenplay and (attention SAG Awards) the movie's cast, which includes Josh Brolin, Javier Bardem, Tommy Lee Jones, Woody Harrelson and Kelly MacDonald, was named Best Ensemble.
The chilling yet beautifully filmed take on Cormac McCarthy's bleak fable stars Brolin as a Texas welder accustomed to the trailer-park life who stumbles across $2 million of stolen drug money and opts to keep it, unaware that a nail-gun wielding psycho (a bowl-cut Bardem) will stop at nothing to recover the cash.
"No Country for Old Men is a brilliant convergence of extraordinary directing, a masterful screenplay, and incredible ensemble performances," NBR president Annie Schulhof said. In selecting this year's winners—it doesn't do nominations—the board screened 282 films.
While the NBR, made up of film historians, students and educators, hasn't always coincided with the Academy when it comes to the best motion picture of the year (their last match was American Beauty), a multitude of the board's honorees go on to make more acceptance speeches in the near future.
The NBR was dead on when it singled out Forest Whitaker and Helen Mirren, though, so that bodes well for its choices this year for Best Actor and Actress, George Clooney and Julie Christie.
Clooney was honored for his turn as a law firm's cutthroat "fixer" in the corruption-laced thriller Michael Clayton, while Christie's performance as a married woman suffering from Alzheimer's disease who falls in love with a fellow patient in Away from Her has had critics buzzing for months.
Casey Affleck was named Best Supporting Actor for his role as the second title character in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. The nearly three-hour take on the twisted relationship between the famed gunslinger and the compadre who shot him in the back received mixed reviews but landed on the NBR's list of the year's top 10 films.
Included on that list are several as-yet unreleased films that we'll just have to take their word about: Sweeney Todd, for which Tim Burton won Best Director honors, the much-anticipated literary adaptations Atonement and The Kite Runner, and the Morgan Freeman-Jack Nicholson comedy The Bucket List (whose concept could have gone either way, so it's nice to hear it's good).
Also rising from the ashes of an unevenly reviewed movie was Best Supporting Actress winner Amy Ryan, whose turn as the shady mother of a kidnapped child in Ben Affleck's directorial debut Gone Baby Gone set her apart from the melodramatic pack.
Affleck worked enough magic in the board's collective eyes, however, because his was named Best Directorial Debut.
Emile Hirsch, who dropped a quarter of his body weight to play doomed adventurer and society-rejecter Chris McCandless in Sean Penn's Into the Wild, was honored for Breakthrough Performance by an Actor.
Juno's Ellen Page, who added a fake tummy to play a sardonic pregnant teen, received the actress' breakthrough award.
Meanwhile, Juno scribe Diablo Cody tied for Best Original Screenplay with Lars and the Real Girl penner Nancy Oliver.
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, which required Brooklyn-born director Julian Schnabel to brush up on his French before he could film the surreal biopic about a magazine editor who suffers a paralyzing stroke and dictates his memoir entirely by blinking his left eye, was named Best Foreign Film.
Body of War, a typically critical look at the Iraq war that focuses on the experience of an injured American soldier as he returns home, was named Best Documentary. The critically lauded Disney-Pixar collaboration Ratatouille was named Best Animated Feature.
Trophies are scheduled to be handed out at the board's annual gala Jan. 15 at Cipriani's in New York.
Michael Douglas and cinematographer Roger Deakins have been tapped to receive career achievement awards, while Turner Classic Movies host Robert Osborne will be given the William K. Everson Film History Award.
For a complete rundown of the board's lists of the best films, indie features, documentaries and foreign films, go to http://www.nbrmp.org/awards/. Here's a look at the individual 2007 National Board of Review winners:
Film: No Country for Old Men
Actor: George Clooney, Michael Clayton
Actress: Julie Christie, Away from Her
Supporting Actor: Casey Affleck, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Supporting Actress: Amy Ryan, Gone Baby Gone
Director: Tim Burton, Sweeney Todd
Foreign Film: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Documentary: Body of War
Animated Feature: Ratatouille
Ensemble Cast: No Country for Old Men
Breakthrough Performance by an Actor: Emile Hirsch, Into the Wild
Breakthrough Performance by an Actress: Ellen Page, Juno
Directorial Debut: Ben Affleck, Gone Baby Gone
Original Screenplay: Diablo Cody, Juno and Nancy Oliver, Lars and the Real Girl
Adapted Screenplay: Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, No Country for Old Men
Career Achievement: Michael Douglas
Career Achievement in Cinematography: Roger Deakins
William K. Everson Film History Award: Robert Osborne
Bvlgari Award for NBR Freedom of Expression: The Great Debaters and Persepolis
The Coen brothers' latest effort was named Best Film on Wednesday by the National Board of Review, giving the ultra-violent yet characteristically dark-humored crime drama a leg up as it heads into the spin-driven time of year known as awards season.
Joel and Ethan Coen, who split producing, directing and writing credits on this one, also shared the award for Best Adapted Screenplay and (attention SAG Awards) the movie's cast, which includes Josh Brolin, Javier Bardem, Tommy Lee Jones, Woody Harrelson and Kelly MacDonald, was named Best Ensemble.
The chilling yet beautifully filmed take on Cormac McCarthy's bleak fable stars Brolin as a Texas welder accustomed to the trailer-park life who stumbles across $2 million of stolen drug money and opts to keep it, unaware that a nail-gun wielding psycho (a bowl-cut Bardem) will stop at nothing to recover the cash.
"No Country for Old Men is a brilliant convergence of extraordinary directing, a masterful screenplay, and incredible ensemble performances," NBR president Annie Schulhof said. In selecting this year's winners—it doesn't do nominations—the board screened 282 films.
While the NBR, made up of film historians, students and educators, hasn't always coincided with the Academy when it comes to the best motion picture of the year (their last match was American Beauty), a multitude of the board's honorees go on to make more acceptance speeches in the near future.
The NBR was dead on when it singled out Forest Whitaker and Helen Mirren, though, so that bodes well for its choices this year for Best Actor and Actress, George Clooney and Julie Christie.
Clooney was honored for his turn as a law firm's cutthroat "fixer" in the corruption-laced thriller Michael Clayton, while Christie's performance as a married woman suffering from Alzheimer's disease who falls in love with a fellow patient in Away from Her has had critics buzzing for months.
Casey Affleck was named Best Supporting Actor for his role as the second title character in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. The nearly three-hour take on the twisted relationship between the famed gunslinger and the compadre who shot him in the back received mixed reviews but landed on the NBR's list of the year's top 10 films.
Included on that list are several as-yet unreleased films that we'll just have to take their word about: Sweeney Todd, for which Tim Burton won Best Director honors, the much-anticipated literary adaptations Atonement and The Kite Runner, and the Morgan Freeman-Jack Nicholson comedy The Bucket List (whose concept could have gone either way, so it's nice to hear it's good).
Also rising from the ashes of an unevenly reviewed movie was Best Supporting Actress winner Amy Ryan, whose turn as the shady mother of a kidnapped child in Ben Affleck's directorial debut Gone Baby Gone set her apart from the melodramatic pack.
Affleck worked enough magic in the board's collective eyes, however, because his was named Best Directorial Debut.
Emile Hirsch, who dropped a quarter of his body weight to play doomed adventurer and society-rejecter Chris McCandless in Sean Penn's Into the Wild, was honored for Breakthrough Performance by an Actor.
Juno's Ellen Page, who added a fake tummy to play a sardonic pregnant teen, received the actress' breakthrough award.
Meanwhile, Juno scribe Diablo Cody tied for Best Original Screenplay with Lars and the Real Girl penner Nancy Oliver.
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, which required Brooklyn-born director Julian Schnabel to brush up on his French before he could film the surreal biopic about a magazine editor who suffers a paralyzing stroke and dictates his memoir entirely by blinking his left eye, was named Best Foreign Film.
Body of War, a typically critical look at the Iraq war that focuses on the experience of an injured American soldier as he returns home, was named Best Documentary. The critically lauded Disney-Pixar collaboration Ratatouille was named Best Animated Feature.
Trophies are scheduled to be handed out at the board's annual gala Jan. 15 at Cipriani's in New York.
Michael Douglas and cinematographer Roger Deakins have been tapped to receive career achievement awards, while Turner Classic Movies host Robert Osborne will be given the William K. Everson Film History Award.
For a complete rundown of the board's lists of the best films, indie features, documentaries and foreign films, go to http://www.nbrmp.org/awards/. Here's a look at the individual 2007 National Board of Review winners:
Film: No Country for Old Men
Actor: George Clooney, Michael Clayton
Actress: Julie Christie, Away from Her
Supporting Actor: Casey Affleck, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Supporting Actress: Amy Ryan, Gone Baby Gone
Director: Tim Burton, Sweeney Todd
Foreign Film: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Documentary: Body of War
Animated Feature: Ratatouille
Ensemble Cast: No Country for Old Men
Breakthrough Performance by an Actor: Emile Hirsch, Into the Wild
Breakthrough Performance by an Actress: Ellen Page, Juno
Directorial Debut: Ben Affleck, Gone Baby Gone
Original Screenplay: Diablo Cody, Juno and Nancy Oliver, Lars and the Real Girl
Adapted Screenplay: Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, No Country for Old Men
Career Achievement: Michael Douglas
Career Achievement in Cinematography: Roger Deakins
William K. Everson Film History Award: Robert Osborne
Bvlgari Award for NBR Freedom of Expression: The Great Debaters and Persepolis
Labels: Award season 2007, cine, movies, National Board of Review
posted by Alex B at 12:45 AM
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