So much for The Artist's fade: Michel Hazanavicius's silent black-and-white throwback won both Best Picture and Best Director at Thursday night's Critics Choice Movie Awards, a nice bit of prime-time validation shared in part by George Clooney and the ladies of The Help. Read on for the full list of winners (and a few takeaways).
I'm a little surprised that Drive didn't enjoy a stronger showing than just winning Best Action Movie (nice category, Broadcast Film Critics Association), especially after the strong nomination showing it had, but hey. At the very least this would have been a relatively visible (and thus relatively opportune) time for Albert Brooks to close Christopher Plummer's lead in Supporting Actor. Alas.
As for the rest? Not much dazzling here, but...
· Thank God that Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close didn't pull some sneak midseason awards attack. There would have been no coming back from that one; I'd be in a moving van halfway to Montana by now.
· A cinematography tie between Tree of Life and War Horse? Wow! OK.
· I imagine we'll be seeing Clooney back at the top of the Actor category in next week's Oscar Index; it's time (if not past time), as it may very well be for Viola Davis to take the solo lead in Best Actress.
A lot of that will naturally depend on Sunday's Golden Globe Awards results, which we'll be covering live right here at Movieline. Stay tuned for details, predictions and the like... and congrats to the CCMA winners!
Best Picture: The Artist
Best Director: Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist
Best Actor: George Clooney, The Descendants
Best Actress: Viola Davis, The Help
Best Supporting Actor: Christopher Plummer, Beginners
Best Supporting Actress: Octavia Spencer, The Help
Best Acting Ensemble: The Help
Best Original Screenplay: Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris
Best Adapted Screenplay: Steven Zaillian, Aaron Sorkin and Stan Chervin, Moneyball
Best Cinematography: The Tree of Life and War Horse (tie)
Best Art Direction: Hugo
Best Editing: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Best Costume Design: The Artist
Best Makeup: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
Best Visual Effects: Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Best Sound: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
Best Animated Feature: Rango
Best Action Movie: Drive
Best Comedy Movie: Bridesmaids
Best Foreign Language Film: A Separation
Best Documentary Feature: George Harrison: Living in the Material World
Best Song: “Life’s a Happy Song,” Bret McKenzie and the Muppets, The Muppets
Best Score: The Artist
Joel Siegel Humanitarian Award: Sean Penn
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