NBR loves "Killers of the Flower Moon", "The Holdovers", and "Poor Things"

by Nathaniel R

The National Board of Review, now in their 94th year (!), have released their annual winners list. They've generally been very beholden to perceived Oscar contenders. Habitually they're obsessed with already canonized American directors and this year is no exception with Martin Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon taking their top prize. They also found room for multiple citations for Alexander Payne's dramedy The Holdovers. and Yorgos Lanthimos' Poor Things. Other films only scored one prize. Curiously Hayao Miyazaki's The Boy and the Heron was in their top ten list but it did not win Best Animated Feature. The latter prize went to Spider-Man Across the Spider-Verse (which was not in the top ten films). Such are the mysteries of awards season... and the need to fill lots of banquet tables at events with something for every distributor!

I kid, I kid. But the winners and a few more notes are after the jump... 

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NBR flies off into the sunset with "Top Gun Maverick"

by Nathaniel R

TOP GUN MAVERICK

The National Board of Review has spoken. They've named the year's biggest box office hit Top Gun Maverick the very best film of 2022. They also loved two other presumed Best Picture certainties: The Fablemans and The Banshees of Inisherin giving both multiple prizes. The NBR also made an effort to boost the profiles of four subtitled films hoping for kudos this awards season: Germany's All Quiet on the Western Front, Argentina's Argentina 1985, India's RRR, and Belgium's Close. The enduring organization didn't love all the Oscar hopefuls though.  Among the high profile complete shutouts: Babylon, Pinocchio, Triangle of Sadness, Elvis, Tár, and The Whale. Full list of winners and comments follow...

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1951: Jan Sterling in "Ace in the Hole"

We're revisiting the 1951 film year in the lead up to the next Supporting Actress Smackdown. As always Nick Taylor will suggest a few alternatives to Oscar's ballot.

Surely we all remember Jan Sterling from the excellent 1954 Smackdown, whose performance as an “anxious catfishing pioneer” in The High and the Mighty gave a misogynistic role one of the only moments of real pathos in the whole film. That disaster film was enough of a critical and box office success to justify her nomination, but much like Katy Jurado in Broken Lance and even Nina Foch in Executive Suite (who I love!) from the same lineup, the energy around Sterling’s nomination reeks more than a little of belated recognition.

In Sterling’s case, that missed opportunity came in 1951. Beford the National Board of Review introduced supporting categories to their own awards they handed her Best Actress for her supporting turn as a bored, opportunistic wife of a trapped man in Billy Wilder’s Ace in the Hole. But the mediocre reception Ace in the Hole received for its overt cynicism towards the noble professions of journalism and public service may have nixed her chances before category confusion could come into play. That's a shame since Sterling’s performance is absolutely essential to Wilder’s mix of jaded, mundane villainy and calculated entrepreneurship...

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"Licorice Pizza" it is for NBR

by Nathaniel R

The National Board of Review has spoken naming Paul Thomas Anderson's Licorice Pizza, the best of the year. The meandering 'California in the 70s' romantic comedy between a directionless 25 year old woman and a 15 year old child star/entrepeneur has delighted critics since it started screening and the NBR (though they're not a critics group) also felt the vibes. It's still shocking to me, personally that the internet isn't outraged about the plot alone (even though the film is careful about not really going there) while at the same time the internet loves to harass fully-grown adult stars with age differences. But... that's a distraction since social media outrage is a very different thing than awards organization proclivities.

The full list of winners, Oscar stats, and more NBR history including their 'recency bias' problems follow after the jump...

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National Board of Review names 'Da 5 Bloods" da best.

by Nathaniel R

Big awards day, huh?!

Spike Lee's latest joint Da 5 Bloods has won both Best Film and Best Director (as well as Best Ensemble) from the National Board of Review. We must quickly point out that this does not mean that Chloe Zhao's remarkable critics-award complete sweep is broken. As I always have to remind everyone each year -- even those who should know better -- the NBR is not a "critics award". The National Board of Review, founded in 1909, is an anonymous collection of film enthusiasts, industry professionals, academics, students, and presumably a few critics though they never release the names of their organization. So they would be more accurately called an "industry honor" or a "juried prize" rather than lumped in with the 'what do film critics like?' discussion.

Minari and Sound of Metal were the only other films with multiple prizes. The NBR wins and top ten lists AND LOADS OF TRIVIA/STATS are after the jump...

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