The Social Network Wins Big with National Board of Review
The National Board of Review of Motion Pictures announced their end of year awards today. The Review is one of the first major awards to be given every year. Often it is considered to be one of the best indicators of how the rest of the year’s awards will fall into place. In somewhat of a surprise, the Review selected The Social Network as the Best Film of the Year. Many people thought that honor might go to the more conventional The King’s Speech. But alas, David Fincher’s film looks poised to be the award season front-runner. The film also picked up an award for Jesse Eisenberg as the Best Actor in a Film for his portrayal of Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg. In addition, the film also picked up awards for Fincher as Best Director and writer Aaron Sorkin for Best Adapted Screenplay. The film was clearly the biggest winner with its four awards, only four other films received multiple honors with two each, those being: Animal Kingdom, Buried, Restrepo, and Somewhere.
The winner of the Board of Review’s top honor generally is considered to be a front-runner for the Academy Award’s Best Picture award. The question becomes whether or not the film can build steam heading into the turn of the year. Last year Up in the Air won the Review’s award for Best Film, but was unable to hold on through the end of the year. Ultimately, the film lost to Avatar at the Golden Globes and then to The Hurt Locker in March at the Academy Awards. However, the previous year Slumdog Millionaire came away with the Review’s honor and never looked back, taking home just about every Best Film award that followed including the Oscar.
The award for Best Documentary went to Waiting For “Superman”. Over the last 10 years the winner of the Review’s honor has gone on to win the Oscar seven times. It should be noted that in the three years in which it didn’t win, the film wasn’t even nominated. So needless to say, Waiting For “Superman” looks to be in good shape if it hopes to win the little golden statue early next year.
Things are looking fairly bleak for those individuals who won the Review’s awards for all of the acting categories as well as the award for Best Director. In past years, the winner of the award hasn’t necessarily translated into an Oscar win. In fact the past couple of years these winners have struck out at the Academy’s biggest ceremony. The only exception was Penélope Cruz in 2008, when she won both the Review’s honor and the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.
So now the race begins. Will The Social Network prevail? Will the National Board of Review’s 2010 awards predict the winners to come? Or will they stand uniquely alone in their opinions? For now we will let Fincher and his film celebrate their victory. It may just be enough to take it the entire way to Oscar gold.
Winners:
- Best Film: The Social Network
- Best Director: David Fincher for The Social Network
- Best Actor: Jesse Eisenberg in The Social Network
- Best Actress: Lesley Manville in Another Year
- Best Supporting Actor: Christian Bale in The Fighter
- Best Supporting Actress: Jacki Weaver in Animal Kingdom
- Best Adapted Screenplay: Aaron Sorkin for The Social Network
- Best Original Screenplay: Chris Sparling for Buried
- Best Animated Film: Toy Story 3
- Best Foreign Film: Of Gods and Men
- Best Documentary: Waiting For “Superman”
You can find the entire list of award winners at the National Board of Review’s website.
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15 Comments
For one reason or another the National Board of Review’s website neglects to include their top 10 list for Best Films of the year. I am not sure why this is, but after doing further research it seems as though the following films are included in this list (not including The Social Network): Another Year, The Fighter, Hereafter, Inception, The King’s Speech, Shutter Island, The Town, Toy Story 3, True Grit, and Winter’s Bone.
Due to this, my claim that only four other films received multiple honors is incorrect, instead 10 films received two honors, those being: Animal Kingdom, Another Year, Buried, The Fighter, Restrepo, Shutter Island, Somewhere, The Town, Toy Story 3, and Winter’s Bone.
Glad to see Christian Bale gain some momentum into awards season, dude is overdue for an Oscar nod. I saw Restrepo earlier this year and I thought very highly of it. It seems like a very strong year for documentaries.
AMEN, Castor! I hope the Academy will be smart enough to at least nominate the guy for once!
Wow, Social Network huh? I just saw it last week and indeed it’s a good movie, but not sure if it’s spectacular. I can’t wait to see Animal Kingdom, but unfortunately it won’t be available on Netflix until January
Christian Bale looks great in The Fighter. I would think that right now he has to be the frontrunner with maybe Geoffrey Rush. I am excited to see this film. I didn’t get a chance to see Restrepo, but wish I had.
I wouldn’t mind Rush winning over Bale… because he’s his equal (if not better), just as long as Bale gets nominated.
I still think “The Social Network” has a leg up on the rest of the field. But I would have said that about “Up in the Air” last year, and we know how that turned out.
I have a feeling that it has it almost wrapped up. I would feel pretty good about wagering a bet that Social Network is going to win. I feel more strongly than I did last year with Up in the Air. As much as Up in the Air was the frontrunner, I still felt the field was way too tight.
I have to agree with Rob. The best films were totally over looked. The Social Network is great, but I believe that Black Swan and Blue Valentine were much better overall in nearly all aspects.
First of all, I am jealous that you have had the opportunity to see them. I feel like every year some of the best films are overlooked. Just the political nature of award season.
Man, I want to see “Another Year.” I keep hearing about how great Lesley Manville is. I’m hoping it’s out here at Christmas.
I ask you, why must we pit movies against each other? They were all surely made for entirely seperate reasons, without consideration about their release paramours, and yet we mst forever associate them together, wherein up to ten may be standouts, but one must be the best of the best.
Can’t you just watch a damn movie anymore?
*exeunt*
I’m going to guess it was you then who responded “Who cares?” to the poll on my weekly round-up?
Interesting observations. Not to be the self-promoting whore, but come check out my Weekly Wrap of awards season! I’m pretty dedicated to following it and theorizing about it, and I simply can’t update every time a big group announces. I’ll post them every Friday!
The Social Network 1
The King’s Speech 0
Let’s see how this plays out.
And nobody at all was surprised in the slightest.
The Social Network is the film of 2010. No question about it.
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