Rising Questions: BFCA preview

The Broadcast Film Critics Association will unfurl their nominations for the Critics Choice Awards tomorrow. While they're not an elite organization by any stretch of the imagination, they're often good at ironing out some of the problems you encounter this early in the race: namely, who's actually here to play and who's just riding buzz?

The Golden Globes release their nominees next Tuesday, and with them comes the first major benchmark for how we weed out certain actors, directors, and films. While the Globes notoriously pander to stars (and star-studded films), they've retained some kind of draw and staying power that's always worthy of consideration. But that's an article for next week.

This week, we're still stuck with only a few awards to look at, namely the National Board of Review. So before the Critics Choice awards throw their own set of picks at us, here are the questions they can help answer:

Read more after the jump:


1. Will the United States care about "The Ghost Writer?"
Roman Polanski's film is one of the best of 2010, and fresh off its dramatic sweep of the European Film Awards, is poised to make a big comeback. It's the kind of film the Golden Globes could easily go for, but if it wants to make a run for the Oscar (who love Polanski; don't forget, he won Best Director in 2002 for "The Pianist") it needs to land now. That means a Critics Choice nod for Picture, Director, or Screenplay. If not here, the New York Film Critics Circle or Los Angeles Film Critics Association, both announcing in the next two weeks, need to single it out somewhere.

2. Is "The Social Network" the frontrunner?
Short answer, yes. Long answer, there is no "frontrunner" right now.  The race just started. The Critics Choice and Golden Globe nominations, as well as the slew of regional organizations who will be announcing in the coming month will make this picture clearer, but the National Board of Review has only awarded the film that went on to win Best Picture at the Oscars twice in the last decade. Once in 2007 to No Country for Old Men and again in 2008 to Slumdog Millionaire -- two films that peaked early and rode a tidal wave of critical acclaim to the Kodak Theatre. The Social network is poised to do the same, but again, it's far too early to tell.


3. What's up with "Winter's Bone?"
Oh yes, Winter's Bone, that little movie that absolutely floored me when I saw it back in August. Winter's Bone is one of the darling of the film festival circuit -- it won at Sundance and has had a commanding run at multiple national and international film festivals (it won at Torino in Italy over the weekend).  But it's a small independent movie, the kind that the Oscars either embrace or cast aside - there's surprisingly little in-between with them. But if Winter's Bone keeps winning, and if it scores multiple nominations from the Critics Choice, it becomes a dangerous player in a lot of categories.


4. What actors do we need to watch for?
There's been a lot of talk about certain films on here the past week, but not a lot about actors. Right now, there are a few presume locks for nominations -- Natalie Portman in Lead Actress, James Franco in Lead Actor, Geoffrey Rush in Supporting Actor, Colin Firth in Lead Actor, for instance -- but all the acting fields are always crowded.  The Critics Choice are a perfect choice for any of the Social Network ensemble -- Eisenberg in Lead, Garfield and Timberlake in Supporting Actor, Rooney Mara in Supporting Actress -- to lay some steam. It's also a chance for a couple people like Bill Murray (Get Low), Annette Bening (The Kids Are All Right), Nicole Kidman (Rabbit Hole), Lesley Manville (Another Year), Leonardo DiCaprio (Shutter Island), Michael Douglas (Wall Street 2) and Marion Cotillard (Inception) to make a serious play.  Then there are always surprises, which we'll talk about when we get there.


5. Who has the biggest question mark?
To me, right now, David O'Russell's boxing bio-pic The Fighter is one of the great unanswered factors in the race. True Grit is going to do well at the Golden Globes and most likely at the Critics Choice, and Black Swan has plenty of people singing its praises despite those who call it too weird to like, but I have yet to see anyone come out and champion The Fighter as a film that's going to soar. The National Board of Review picked Christian Bale as Supporting Actor last week, and a nod with the Critics Choice will help push him towards a first-time Oscar nomination, but the film's other actors - Mark Wahlberg, Melissa Leo and Amy Adams - as well as the film itself still seem like they're teetering on the edge of either being a huge Oscar favorite or a middle-run movie with a few nominations.  It needs someone to throw their weight behind it.