So let's recap the other various precursor awards announced since my last article. First, let's look at some of the critics. Two of the most respected film critics, at least in my humble opinion, Roger Ebert and Joel Siegel, announced their lists of the ten best films of the year. Joel Siegel picked A Beautiful Mind as the best film of the year, while Ebert went with Monster's Ball. The Washington Post went with the independent film Ghost World as 2001's best film.
Looking at some of the other critics organizations which have announced their choices for 2001's best film achievements, we have recaps of the Online Film Critics choices, the Las Vegas Film Critics selections, and the Southeastern Film Critics Association awards. Memento, which a lot of us thought would be the critics' darling but wasn't, regains some light with honors as best of the year by all 3 of these organizations, probably the first real consensus we've seen in quite a while.
First up, here were the selections by the fairly new Online Film Critics Society ...
BEST PICTURE (tie)
* WINNER - Memento *
* WINNER - Mulholland Drive *
BEST DIRECTOR
* WINNER - David Lynch (Mulholland Dr.) *
BEST ACTOR
* WINNER - Billy Bob Thornton (The Man Who Wasnt There) *
BEST ACTRESS
* WINNER - Naomi Watts (Mulholland Dr.) *
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
* WINNER - Steve Buscemi (Ghost World) *
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
* WINNER - Jennifer Connelly (A Beautiful Mind) *
BEST ENSEMBLE
* WINNER - Gosford Park *
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
* WINNER - Christopher Nolan (Memento) *
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY (tie)
* WINNER - Alejandro Amenábar (The Others) *
* WINNER - David Lynch (Mulholland Dr.) *
BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
* WINNER - Amelie *
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
* WINNER - Roger Deakins (The Man Who Wasn't There) *
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
* WINNER - Angelo Badalamenti (Mulholland Drive) *
BEST BREAKTHROUGH PERFORMANCE
* WINNER - Naomi Watts (Mulholland Dr.) *
BEST BREAKTHROUGH FILMMAKER
* WINNER - Christopher Nolan (Memento) *
BEST DOCUMENTARY
* WINNER - Startup.com *
BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
* WINNER - Shrek *
BEST OVERALL DVD
* WINNER - Moulin Rouge *
The Online Film Critics Society always leans more independent, but most of the ones they selected were ones selected by some of the other critics organizations so far ... there weren't any real surprises.
While the Online Film Critics could not decide between Memento and Mulholland Drive, the Las Vegas Film Critics decided on Memento, but also clearly loved Lord of the Rings, giving it a number of the other technical awards, but also giving Peter Jackson the Best Director award. Here is the list of their choices ...
