The absolutely ridiculous National Board of Review just announced its awards for this year. They gave every movie and every studio something to ensure their dinner tables are paid for (it’s thousands of dollars).
“The Post” won Best Picture, Actor, and Actress– Spielberg, Hanks and Streep means 20th Century Fox will have to go all out. These are also the biggest stars Annie Schulhof could think of.
But…
She gave Angelina Jolie their let’s get another celeb in here Freedom of Expression Award for “First They Killed My Father” because you’ve got to have Angie and some of her kids.
“Get Out” won Best Ensemble, Best Breakthrough Director which is great because the NBR traditionally ignores black people.
With the retirement of Warner Bros’ Dan Fellman, Schulhof breaks from her usual WB slavishness. There’a nod to “Dunkirk” and a nod to “Wonder Woman” but it’s a sop. Schulhof has moved on to Universal (Get Out) and Fox (The Post) to butter her bread.
NBR is a group of layabouts who pay top dollar to belong to the group and more to attend the dinner. There are no film people, but some dentists and so on. Also, this year, they’ve made their dinner for Tuesday, January 9th in New York– two days after the Golden Globes in LA. and two days before the televised Critics Choice Awards in LA. This means huge travel expenses for the studios and a lot of exhaustion. Since the NBR is unimportant and not televised, these winners would do well to Skype in their speeches from the West Coast.
BEST FILM
The Post, directed by Steven Spielberg
BEST DIRECTOR
Greta Gerwig, Lady Bird
BEST CAST ENSEMBLE
Get Out
BEST ACTOR
Tom Hanks
BEST ACTRESS
Meryl Streep
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Willem Dafoe, The Florida Project
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Laurie Metcalf, Lady Bird
BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
Coco (Disney/Pixar)
BREAKTHROUGH PERFORMANCE MALE
Timothée Chalamet,  Call Me By Your Name
BREAKTHROUGH PERFORMANCE FEMALE
They skipped this, don’t know why since there were plenty of choices.
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Phantom Thread
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
The Disaster Artist
BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
Foxtrot (Sony Classics, Israel)
SPOTLIGHT AWARD
Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins and actress Gal Gadot
BEST DOCUMENTARY
Jane
FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION (tie)
John Ridley’s Let it Fall: Los Angeles, 1982-1992
Angelina Jolie’s First They Killed My Father
TOP TEN FILMS
BABY DRIVER, CALL ME BY YOUR NAME, THE DISASTER ARTIST, DOWNSIZING, DUNKIRK, THE FLORIDA PROJECT, GET OUT, LADY BIRD, LOGAN, PHANTOM THREAD
BEST INDEPENDENT FILMS
BEATRIZ AT DINNER
BRIGSBY BEAR
A GHOST STORY
LADY MACBETH
LOGAN LUCKY
LOVING VINCENT
MENASHE,
NORMAN: THE MODERATE RISE AND TRAGIC FALL OF A NEW YORK FIXER,
PATTI CAKE$
WIND RIVER
