With nine nominations, including best film and best director (Alejandro González Iñárritu), Babel (above) seems to be the Chicago Film Critics Association's favorite 2006 flick.
Among the other multiple nominees are The Departed and The Queen, both of which are in the running for best film and best director (Martin Scorsese and Stephen Frears, respectively).
The two biggest surprises among the Chicago critics' list were the inclusion of Maggie Gyllenhaal and Gavin Hood's Tsotsi.
There are six nominees for the best actress slot — I'm assuming that's how Gyllenhaal was able to sneak in for her performance as an ex-con who discovers motherhood in the little-seen Sherrybaby. She has also been nominated for a best actress – drama Golden Globe and was up for a Satellite Award in the same category. (Gyllenhaal lost to, who else, Helen Mirren in The Queen). Additionally, Gyllenhaal has won best actress awards at festivals in Karlovy Vary and Stockholm.
As for Tsotsi (above, with Presley Chweneyagae), the Academy Award-winning South African social drama about a thug and a baby has thus far been thoroughly ignored by U.S. critics' groups. That is unfortunate, as Tsotsi could use some publicity. The film was hardly a major hit on U.S. shores, earning only about US$3 million. But it's already won an Oscar, so why bother? Most critics want to predict the future, not reiterate the past.
Letters from Iwo Jima and Apocalypto, for their part, continue to receive nominations in the best foreign language film category, a great way to keep as many awards as possible within the Hollywood circle.
And that brings me to the use — or uselessness — of film award nominations. In addition to working as a self-promotional tool, those nominations can be useful if they call attention to deserving movies and individuals that would generally be ignored by both the media and the public. When it comes to U.S. film critics, however, nods for little-known talent are rare.
This year, apart from a handful of unusual acknowledgments — e.g., the Los Angeles Film Critics Association's choice for best supporting actress (Luminita Gheorghiu, for the Romanian comedy-drama The Death of Mr. Lazarescu) — only the San Diego Film Critics Society has dared to take a step away from mainstream groupthink for several of their top choices.
Most film critics' groups don't have that much to lose if they opt for the unconventional. Since it's not as if the planet — or even Chicago — is baiting its breath waiting for the results of the Chicago critics' picks for 2006, it's both disheartening and irritating that instead of using their brief media spotlight to help lift deserving films out of obscurity, those film critics have made safe choices that will (they hope) label them accurate Oscar prognosticators.
The Chicago winners will be announced on Dec. 28.