Movie's Director, Kathryn Bigelow, and Lead Actor, Jeremy Renner Bestowed 'Best' Honors As Well
The National Society of Film Critics has selected “The Hurt Locker,” a film about an elite Army bomb squad unit that works in Iraq to defuse improvised explosives while under the threat of insurgents, as the best picture of 2009.
The society, composed of film critics from some of the country’s top publications, also bestowed honors on the movie’s director, Kathryn Bigelow, and lead actor, Jeremy Renner.
The society picked Yolande Moreau as best actress for her performance in “Seraphine,” a French film about the painter Seraphine de Senlis.
Joel and Ethan Coen won best screenplay for “A Serious Man,” a dark comedy set in 1967, while “The Beaches of Agnes 40,” an autobiographical documentary about the life of director Agnes Varda, was selected as the best nonfiction film.
“Summer Hours,” a story of three siblings by French filmmaker Olivier Assayas, won for best foreign language film.
Mo’Nique, the Baltimore-born comedian best known for her roles in television sitcoms and as the host of her own talk show, was selected as best supporting actress for her portrayal of an abusive mother in “Precious.”
Austrian Christoph Waltz won for best supporting actor for his work as the Jew Hunter in “Inglourious Basterds,” a Quentin Tarantino war film starring Brad Pitt as the leader of a group of soldiers trying to kill Adolf Hitler.
Forty-six of the society’s 64 members voted during Sunday’s meeting at a midtown Manhattan restaurant.
The society, founded in 1966, has a reputation for picking foreign films or critics’ darlings. Rarely do the group’s selections mirror those given out during the Academy Awards, but its members are highly esteemed by filmmakers and film critics.
The Academy Awards are set for March 7.
Google Opens Its Defense In Antitrust Case Alleging Monopoly Over Online Ad Technology
Google opened its defense against allegations that it holds an illegal monopoly on online advertising technology Friday with witness testimony saying the industry is vastly more complex and competitive than portrayed by the federal government.
"The industry has been exceptionally fluid over the last 18 years," said Scott Sheffer, a vice president for global partnerships at Google, the company's first witness at its antitrust trial in federal court in Alexandria.
The Justice Department and a coalition of states contend that Google built and maintained an illegal monopoly over the technology that facilitates the buying and selling of online ads seen by consumers.
Google counters that the government's case improperly focuses on a narrow type of online ads — essentially the rectangular ones that appear on the top and on the right-hand side of a webpage. In its opening statement, Google's lawyers said the Supreme Court has warned judges against taking action when dealing with rapidly emerging technology like what Sheffer described because of the risk of error or unintended consequences.
Google says defining the market so narrowly ignores the competition it faces from social media companies, Amazon, streaming TV providers and others who offer advertisers the means to reach online consumers.
Justice Department lawyers called witnesses to testify for two weeks before resting their case Friday afternoon, detailing the ways that automated ad exchanges conduct auctions in a matter of milliseconds to determine which ads are placed in front of which consumers and how much they cost.
The department contends the auctions are finessed in subtle ways that benefit Google to the exclusion of would-be competitors and in ways that prevent... Read More