Pat Tillman + Edward Cullen + Other Curious Choices: More Film Awards

The Tillman Story. Amir Bar-Lev’s San Francisco Film Critics Circle Award-winning documentary The Tillman Story revolves around the U.S. military’s lies and cover-up attempts following the death of football player turned soldier Pat Tillman while serving in Afghanistan. After having made a name for himself with the Arizona Cardinals, Pat Tillman joined the U.S. Army in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Tillman was killed – a victim of “friendly fire” – at age 27 in April 2004.

Pat Tillman documentary & Edward Cullen among several unusual awards season choices

Amir Bar-Lev’s nonfiction film The Tillman Story, about the United States’ military deception and cover-up following the death of former football player Pat Tillman in Afghanistan, was 2010’s Best Documentary according to the San Francisco Film Critics Circle. (See further below the full list of the San Francisco Film Critics’ winners.)

This awards season, The Tillman Story has won only three awards. Besides the San Francisco Film Critics, the documentary also received top honors from the Florida and St. Louis Film Critics.

Three years ago, Bar-Lev’s My Kid Could Paint That was nominated for the Gotham Awards, while his Fighter, about Czech Holocaust survivors Jan Weiner and Arnost Lustig, earned a Special Mention at the 2000 Karlovy Vary Film Festival.

Bar-Lev co-wrote The Tillman Story with Mark Monroe. Josh Brolin narrates.

Michelle Williams & John Hawkes

Besides The Tillman Story, the San Francisco Film Critics’ other unusual picks were Best Actress Michelle Williams for Derek Cianfrance’s controversial drama Blue Valentine, and Best Supporting Actor John Hawkes for Debra Granik’s indie drama Winter’s Bone. Both Williams and Hawkes are potential Academy Award contenders.

Most of the San Francisco Film Critics’ other winners matched what has been announced elsewhere. Among them: Best Film The Social Network, about the creation of Facebook; Best Actor Colin Firth for Tom Hooper’s crowd-pleasing, real-life inspired drama The King’s Speech; and, still going surprisingly strong, Best Supporting Actress Jacki Weaver for David Michôd’s Australian crime drama Animal Kingdom.

Additionally, The Social Network‘s David Fincher shared the Best Director award with Darren Aronofsky for the ballet world-set psychological thriller Black Swan, starring awards season favorite Natalie Portman.

South Korean mother love drama tops

Bong Joon-ho’s Mother, a well-received South Korean psychological drama/thriller, was chosen as the year’s Best Foreign Language Film. Earlier this month, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association selected veteran Kim Hye-ja as Best Actress for her work as the titular character.

The other 2010 San Francisco Film Critics winners were Lee Unkrich’s animated blockbuster Toy Story 3; screenwriters Aaron Sorkin and David Seidler for, respectively, The Social Network (adapted) and The King’s Speech (original); and cinematographer Matthew Libatique for Black Swan.

Bay Area programmer Elliot Lavine was named the recipient of the Marlon Riggs Award “for courage & vision in the Bay Area film community.”

San Francisco Film Critics winners

Best Picture: The Social Network.

Best Foreign Language Film: Mother (South Korea).

Best Documentary: The Tillman Story.

Best Director (tie): Darren Aronofsky, Black Swan & David Fincher, The Social Network.

Best Actress: Michelle Williams, Blue Valentine.

Best Actor: Colin Firth, The King’s Speech.

Best Supporting Actress: Jacki Weaver, Animal Kingdom.

Best Supporting Actor: John Hawkes, Winter’s Bone.

Best Adapted Screenplay: Aaron Sorkin, The Social Network.

Best Original Screenplay: David Seidler, The King’s Speech.

Best Animated Feature: Toy Story 3.

Best Cinematography: Matthew Libatique, Black Swan.

Marlon Riggs Award for courage & vision in the Bay Area film community: Elliot Lavine – teacher, exhibitor, and repertory curator – for Bay Area programming over the last two decades. His revival of rare archival studio, independent, and exploitation titles has particularly played a major role in the renewed popularity of film noir and pre-Production Code features.

Edward Cullen a.k.a. Robert Pattinson in The Twilight Saga: Eclipse. Among the recently announced – unusual – awards season winners were The Tillman Story, Michelle Williams, John Hawkes, Halle Berry (see further below), and … the centenarian vegetarian vampire Edward Cullen, played by Robert Pattinson in the Twilight Saga movies. Although bypassed by the celebrity-friendly Critics’ Choice Awards, Edward topped one of the Audience Award categories of the British-based Richard Attenborough Film Awards.

Award winner Edward Cullen

The U.K.-based Richard Attenborough Film Awards include a total of 14 categories. Half of these are the domain of British regional film critics; the other half are chosen by moviegoers. (The full list of this year’s Richard Attenborough Film Award winners can be found further below.)

The second half explains how…

• David Yates’ fantasy blockbuster Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 was elected Best British Movie of the Year.
• The Pixar release Toy Story 3 won three awards: Best Animated Film, Best 3D Film, and Best Family Film of the Year.
• Edward Cullen has become an awards season winner. The low-voiced, youthful-looking, centenarian vegetarian vampire played by Robert Pattinson in the Twilight movies was named as the year’s Best Movie Character for his “performance” in David Slade’s The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, in which Edward/Pattinson bites off Bryce Dallas Howard’s head.

Other Audience Award winners were Angelina Jolie as Star of the Year for Phillip Noyce’s thriller Salt and, matching the critics’ choice, Chloë Grace Moretz as Breakthrough Star of the Year.

Noomi Rapace gets some Anglophone awards season recognition

Swedish actress Noomi Rapace, who has been generally bypassed on the North American side of the Atlantic, was the United Kingdom’s regional film critics’ Best Actress. Rapace’s Richard Attenborough Film Award was presented for her performance as a tough-looking hacker in the hit thrillers The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest.

Starring Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Armie Hammer, and Justin Timberlake, David Fincher’s Facebook drama The Social Network was the unsurprising Film of the Year choice. Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, who adapted Ben Mezrich’s book The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, was also cited.

Fincher, however, missed out on the Best Director award. British filmmaker Christopher Nolan topped that category for his sci-fi/adventure mix Inception, featuring an all-star cast headed by Leonardo DiCaprio.

Another Britisher, awards season favorite Colin Firth, was anointed Best Actor for Tom Hooper’s British-themed The King’s Speech, while fellow Britisher Michael Caine, a two-time Best Supporting Actor Oscar winner (Hannah and Her Sisters, 1986; The Cider House Rules, 1999), was honored with the All-Time Legend Award.

Chloë Grace Moretz was the Rising Star of the Year for her work in Kick-Ass, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and Let Me In.

Richard Attenborough Film Awards

Film of the Year: The Social Network.

Filmmaker of the Year: Christopher Nolan – director, Inception.

Best Actor: Colin Firth, The King’s Speech.

Best Actress: Noomi Rapace, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest.

Best Screenwriter: Aaron Sorkin, The Social Network.

Rising Star of the Year: Chloë Grace Moretz, Kick-Ass, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Let Me In.

All-Time Legend: Michael Caine.

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Audience Awards

British Movie of the Year: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1.

Animated Film of the Year: Toy Story 3.

Star of the Year: Angelina Jolie, Salt.

Family Film of the Year: Toy Story 3.

3D Film of the Year: Toy Story 3.

Breakthrough Star of the Year: Chloë Grace Moretz.

Best Movie Character: Edward Cullen, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse.

Black Swan with Mila Kunis. Darren Aronofsky’s psychological thriller set in the ballet world was shortlisted for a record-breaking 12 Critics’ Choice Awards from the Broadcast Film Critics Association. Update: Ultimately, Black Swan topped only one category: Best Actress (Natalie Portman). Mila Kunis lost the Best Supporting Actress award to Melissa Leo for The Fighter.

Critics’ Choice Awards: TV audience-friendly picks

Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan topped the Broadcast Film Critics Association’s 2010 Critics’ Choice Award nominations, with a record-breaking 12 nods, including Best Film, Best Director, Best Actress for Natalie Portman, and Best Supporting Actress for Mila Kunis.

Impressive? That depends on how relevant you deem the Critics’ Choice Awards. Also, just remember that last year Rob Marshall’s widely derided box office flop Nine received no less than 10 nominations.

One should also remember that the Broadcast Film Critics Association has ten titles in the running for Best Film, while its “top” categories – Director, Acting, Screenplay – have six names/titles each. That helps movies collect extra nominations, especially those featuring high-profile, TV-ratings-friendly performers.

Only three Best Foreign Language Film nominees

In that regard, it’s telling that the Broadcast Film Critics Association nominated only three films in this year’s Best Foreign Language Film category:

• Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Biutiful, starring 2007 Best Supporting Actor Oscar winner Javier Bardem (No Country for Old Men).
• Luca Guadagnino’s I Am Love, starring 2007 Best Supporting Actress Oscar winner Tilda Swinton (Michael Clayton).
• Niels Arden Oplev’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, the year’s biggest foreign-language box office success in the United States.

Needless to say, widely acclaimed releases such as Olivier Assayas’ Carlos, Bong Joon-ho’s Mother, or Claire Denis’ White Material would have been meaningless to an American television audience.

Lesley Manville not among couple of Critics’ Choice surprises

Strangely, some awards season pundits have been shocked because Lesley Manville failed to receive a Best Actress nomination for her performance in Mike Leigh’s independently made British drama Another Year. Instead, they should have been shocked had Manville been remembered by Critics’ Choice Awards voters. Or that Edward Cullen failed to be shortlisted in some category or other.

In fact, it’s astonishing that Leigh’s Another Year screenplay got shortlisted (in place of something like Due Date) and that Animal Kingdom performer Jacki Weaver found her way into the Best Supporting Actress category. More likely candidates would have been Winona Ryder for Black Swan or Dianne Wiest for Rabbit Hole or some other Hollywood name.

In all fairness, when the New York Film Critics Circle hands out three awards to something like Lisa Cholodenko’s The Kids Are All Right, one shouldn’t expect the Broadcast Film Critics to go any further from TV Guide recommendations than a handful of nods for Debra Granik’s indie hit Winter’s Bone. That’s as daring as it gets.

January 2011 update: San Francisco Film Critics Circle winner The Tillman Story was shortlisted in the Critics’ Choice Awards’ Best Documentary category, but ultimately lost to Davis Guggenheim’s Waiting for ‘Superman’.

Halle Berry in Frankie & Alice. The 2001 Best Actress Academy Award winner (Monster’s Ball) was the African American Film Critics Association’s Best Actress choice for her performance as a go-go dancer/stripper suffering from dissociative identity disorder (a.k.a. multiple personality disorder). Berry’s 2011 Oscar chances, however, are at best quite slim.

More unusual awards season wins: Halle Berry & For Colored Girls

The African American Film Critics Association has named David Fincher’s The Social Network as the Best Feature Film of 2010. The similarities with other U.S.-based film critics groups end right there. Really, Tyler Perry’s critically derided box office underperformer For Colored Girls among the year’s Top Ten films?

Mark Wahlberg, who has been ignored elsewhere for his performance in David O. Russell’s The Fighter was voted Best Actor. The African American Film Critics’ other acting awards all went to black or part-black performers: Halle Berry for Geoffrey Sax’s Frankie & Alice, and, in the supporting categories, For Colored Girls actors Kimberly Elise and Michael Ealy.

Halle Berry for the Oscars?

A few weeks ago, widespread online buzz raised the possibility that Best Actress Oscar winner Halle Berry (Monster’s Ball, 2001) would become a front-runner at the 2011 Oscars for her performance as a woman suffering from multiple personality disorder in Frankie & Alice – shades of Oscar winner Joanne Woodward in the 1957 drama The Three Faces of Eve.

That didn’t seem very likely then, and it sure doesn’t seem at all likely now. African American Film Critics or no, Berry has been all but ignored this awards season.

More African American Film Critics winners

The African American Film Critics’ Best Director was a white British guy – one who hasn’t been faring all that well elsewhere, notwithstanding his Richard Attenborough Film Award win: Christopher Nolan for Inception.

Curiously, this particular critics group has a category for Best Song, but not for Best Foreign Language Film. For the record, this year’s winner was N. Simone’s “Four Women” from For Colored Girls.

Last year, the African American Film Critics Association became embroiled in a major controversy following the selection of American Violet star Nicole Beharie – instead of Precious star Gabourey Sidibe – as the Best Actress of 2009.

See below the full list of African American Film Critics winners.

African American Film Critics Awards

Best Feature Film: The Social Network.

Top 10 films:
1. The Social Network.
2. The King’s Speech.
3. Inception.
4. Black Swan.
5. Night Catches Us.
6. The Fighter.
7. Frankie & Alice.
8. Blood Done Sign My Name.
9. Get Low.
10. For Colored Girls.

Best Documentary: Waiting for ‘Superman’.

Best Director: Christopher Nolan, Inception.

Best Actress: Halle Berry, Frankie & Alice.

Best Actor: Mark Wahlberg, The Fighter.

Best Supporting Actress: Kimberly Elise, For Colored Girls.

Best Supporting Actor: Michael Ealy, For Colored Girls.

Best Screenplay: Night Catches Us, Tanya Hamilton.

Best Song: “Four Women,” by N. Simone, For Colored Girls.

Special Achievement: Lena Horne, Roger Ebert & Melvin Van Peebles.

African American Film Critics Awards source: Steve Pond in TheWrap.

Pat Tillman The Tillman Story image: Passion Pictures.

Mila Kunis Black Swan image: Niko Tavernise / Fox Searchlight Pictures.

Image of Robert Pattinson as the vampire Edward Cullen in The Twilight Saga: Eclipse: Summit Entertainment.

Halle Berry Frankie & Alice image: CodeBlack Films.

“Pat Tillman & Edward Cullen + Other Curious Choices: More Film Awards” last updated in July 2018.