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 Coralie Fargeat’s “The Substance”
In its first two hours, "The Substance" is a well-made, entertaining movie. Writer-director Coralie Fargeat treats audiences to a heavy dose of biting social commentary on ageism and sexism in Hollywood, with a spoonful of sugar- and sparkle-doused body horror.
But the film's deliciously unhinged, blood-soaked and inevitably polarizing third act is what makes it unforgettable.
What begins as a dread-inducing but still relatively palatable sci-fi flick spirals deeper into absurdism and violence, eventually erupting — quite literally — into a full-blown monster movie. Let the viewer decide who the monster is.
Fargeat — who won best screenplay at this year's Cannes Film Festival — has been vocal about her reverence for "The Fly" director David Cronenberg, and fans of the godfather of body horror will see his unmistakable influence. But "The Substance" is also wholly unique and benefits from Fargeat's perspective, which, according to the French filmmaker, has involved extensive grappling with her own relationship to her body and society's scrutiny.
"The Substance" tells the story of Elisabeth Sparkle, a famed aerobics instructor with a televised show, played by a powerfully vulnerable Demi Moore. Sparkle is fired on her 50th birthday by a ruthless executive — a perfectly cast Dennis Quaid, who nails sleazy and gross.
Feeling rejected by a town that once loved her and despairing over her bygone star power, Sparkle learns from a handsome young nurse about a black-market drug that promises to create a "younger, more beautiful, more perfect" version of its user. Though she initially tosses the phone number in the trash, she soon fishes it out in a desperate panic and places an order.
The one rule to follow is that... Read More