The National Society of Film Critics chose Inside Llewyn Davis as Best Picture of the Year for 2013. Inside Llewyn Davis also scored Best Director distinction for Joel and Ethan Coen, Best Cinematography for Bruno Delbonnel and Best Actor for Oscar Isaac.
The Society, made up of many of the country’s most distinguished movie critics, held its 48th annual awards voting meeting, using a weighted ballot system, at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Center as guests of the Film Society of Lincoln Center. Scrolls will be sent to the winners.
Fifty-six members are eligible to vote, though a few disqualify themselves if they haven’t seen every film. Any film that opened in the U.S. during the year 2013 was eligible for consideration. There is no nomination process; members meet, vote (using a weighted ballot), and announce all on January 4th. There is no awards party; scrolls are sent to the winners.
Here is a list of the winners and runners-up, with vote counts from the final round.
BEST PICTURE
1. Inside Llewyn Davis – 23
2. American Hustle – 17
3. 12 Years a Slave – 16
BEST DIRECTOR
1. Joel and Ethan Coen (Inside Llewyn Davis) – 25
2. Alfonso Cuarón (Gravity) – 18
3. Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave) – 15
BEST FOREIGN-LANGUAGE FILM
1. Blue Is the Warmest Color – 27
2. A Touch of Sin – 21
3. The Great Beauty – 15
BEST NON-FICTION FILM
1. The Act of Killing (Joshua Oppenheimer) – 20
1. At Berkeley (Frederick Wiseman) – 20
3. Leviathan (Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel) – 18
BEST SCREENPLAY
1. Before Midnight (Richard Linklater, Julie Delpy, Ethan Hawke) – 29
2. Inside Llewyn Davis (Joel and Ethan Coen) – 26
3. American Hustle (Eric Singer and David O. Russell) – 18
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
1. Inside Llewyn Davis (Bruno Delbonnel) -28
2. Gravity (Emmanuel Lubezki) – 26
3. Nebraska (Phedon Papamichael) – 19
BEST ACTOR
1. Oscar Isaac (Inside Llewyn Davis) – 28
2. Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 Years a Slave) – 19
3. Robert Redford (All Is Lost) – 12
BEST ACTRESS
1. Cate Blanchett (Blue Jasmine) – 57
2. Adèle Exarchopoulos (Blue Is the Warmest Color) – 36
3. Julie Delpy (Before Midnight) – 26
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
1. James Franco (Spring Breakers) – 24
2. Jared Leto (Dallas Buyers Club) – 20
3. Barkhad Abdi (Captain Phillips) – 14
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
1. Jennifer Lawrence (American Hustle) – 54
2. Lupita Nyong’o (12 Years a Slave) – 38
3. Sally Hawkins (Blue Jasmine) – 18
3. Léa Seydoux (Blue Is the Warmest Color) – 18
EXPERIMENTAL FILM
Leviathan (Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel)
FILM HERITAGE AWARD
• To the Museum of Modern Art, for its wide-ranging retrospective of the films of Allan Dwan.
• “Too Much Johnson: the surviving reels from Orson Welles’s first professional film. Discovered by Cinemazero (Pordenone) and Cineteca del Friuli; funded by the National Film Preservation Foundation; and restored by the George Eastman House.
• British Film Institute for restorations of Alfred Hitchcock’s nine silent features.
• To the DVD American Treasures from the New Zealand Film Archive.
BEST FILM STILL AWAITING AMERICAN DISTRIBUTION
• Stray Dogs (Tsai Ming-liang)
• Hide Your Smiling Faces (Daniel Patrick Carbone)
DEDICATION: The meeting was dedicated to the memory of two distinguished members of the Society who died in 2013: Roger Ebert and Stanley Kauffmann.
Review: Writer-Director Aaron Schimberg’s “A Different Man”
Imagine you could wake up one morning, stand at the mirror, and literally peel off any part of your looks you don't like — with only movie-star beauty remaining.
How would it change your life? How SHOULD it change your life?
That's a question – well, a launching point, really — for Edward, protagonist of Aaron Schimberg's fascinating, genre-bending, undeniably provocative and occasionally frustrating "A Different Man," featuring a stellar trio of Sebastian Stan, Adam Pearson and Renate Reinsve.
The very title is open to multiple interpretations. Who (and what) is "different"? The original Edward, who has neurofibromatosis, a genetic disorder that causes bulging tumors on his face? Or the man he becomes when he's able to slip out of that skin? And is he "different" to others, or to himself?
When we meet Edward, a struggling actor in New York (Stan, in elaborate makeup), he's filming some sort of commercial. We soon learn it's an instructional video on how to behave around colleagues with deformities. But even there, the director stops him, offering changes. "Wouldn't want to scare anyone," he says.
On Edward's way home on the subway, people stare. Back at his small apartment building, he meets a young woman in the hallway, in the midst of moving to the flat next door. She winces visibly when she first sees him, as virtually everyone does.
But later, Ingrid (Reinsve) tries to make it up to him, coming over to chat. She is charming and forthright, and tells Edward she's a budding playwright.
Edward goes for a medical checkup and learns that one of his tumors is slowly progressing over the eye. But he's also told of an experimental trial he could join. With the possibility — maybe — of a cure.
So... Read More