“Black Swan” Leads BFCA Field

Aronofsky’s psycho-thriller set a Critics’ Choice Award record with 12 nominations, though “The King’s Speech” and “True Grit” were right behind with 11 each. “Inception” landed 10, “127 Hours” 9, and “The Social Network” 8. The lesson here? When you have a bunch of TV critics who wouldn’t know great sound editing if it punched them in the face, and then have those critics vote on below-the-line technical categories, they’re probably just going to nominate the same five films over and over again.

Other than the BFCA being rather predictable, what can we take away from this field? Not much, I think; despite all the hullaballoo over the critics’ awards, the past few days hasn’t changed much about the state of the race at all (more on this when I post the NYFCC winners shortly). “Black Swan” is looking like it might just be too good for the Academy to ignore; which begs the question of what, if anything will change between the BFCA 10 and the Oscar 10. It seems like “The Kids Are All Right” has to be in there somewhere, but what do you drop? “The Town?” Maybe “Winter’s Bone” will remain merely a critical darling? Maybe it will turn out that Academy voters couldn’t stomach “127 Hours” after all? I really have no clue.

Other than that, the fact that the BFCA nominates 6 people for its main categories means they’re really not much use at all in narrowing down the field. The nods for Noomi Rapace and Mila Kunis are mildly interesting and appreciated; again, maybe Kunis has a play in the weak Supporting Actress race, but I don’t see Rapace sticking in the crowded Actress field. I’m getting discouraged that some of my preferred Supporting candidates like Ed Harris and Miranda Richardson aren’t popping up anywhere, though there always remains the possibility of a surprise nomination come Oscar-time, in the vein of Michael Shannon a couple years ago. One final interesting tidbit is that “The Town” keeps appearing in contention for various ensemble awards; if Affleck’s film scores a SAG Ensemble nod on Thursday, its spot in the Best Picture 10 will start looking rather secure indeed.

Anyway, New York Film Critics’ Circle awards will be posted imminently, followed by Golden Globe nominations tomorrow and SAG nominations Thursday. It’s a big week. Apologies to the people who read this blog who don’t care so much about the awards stuff.

Best Picture

• Black Swan
• The Fighter
• Inception
• The King’s Speech
• 127 Hours
• The Social Network
• The Town
• Toy Story 3
• True Grit
• Winter’s Bone

Best Director

• Darren Aronofsky, “Black Swan”
• Christopher Nolan, “Inception”
• Tom Hooper, “The King’s Speech”
• Danny Boyle, “127 Hours”
• David Fincher, “The Social Network”
• Ethan, Joel Coen, “True Grit”

Best Actor

• Jeff Bridges, “True Grit”
• Robert Duvall, “Get Low”
• Jesse Eisenberg, “The Social Network”
• Colin Firth, “The King’s Speech”
• James Franco, “127 Hours”
• Ryan Gosling, “Blue Valentine”

Best Actress

• Annette Bening, “The Kids Are All Right”
• Nicole Kidman, “Rabbit Hole”
• Jennifer Lawrence, “Winter’s Bone”
• Natalie Portman, “Black Swan”
• Noomi Rapace, “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo”
• Michelle Williams, “Blue Valentine”

Best Supporting Actor

• Christian Bale, “The Fighter”
• Andrew Garfield, “The Social Network”
• Jeremy Renner, “The Town”
• Sam Rockwell, “Conviction”
• Mark Ruffalo, “The Kids Are All Right”
• Geoffrey Rush, “The King’s Speech”

Best Supporting Actress

• Amy Adams, “The Fighter”
• Helena Bonham Carter, “The King’s Speech”
• Mila Kunis, “Black Swan”
• Melissa Leo, “The Fighter”
• Hailee Steinfeld, “True Grit”
• Jacki Weaver, “Animal Kingdom”

Best Young Actor/Actress

• Elle Fanning, “Somewhere”
• Jennifer Lawrence, “Winter’s Bone”
• Chloe Moretz, “Kick-Ass”
• Chloe Moretz, “Let Me In”
• Kodi Smit-McPhee, “Let Me In”
• Hailee Steinfeld, “True Grit”

Best Acting Ensemble

• The Fighter
• The Kids Are All Right
• The King’s Speech
• The Social Network
• The Town

Best Original Screenplay

• Mike Leigh, “Another Year”
• Mark Heyman, Andrez Heinz, “Black Swan”
• Scott Silver, Paul Tamasy, Eric Johnson, “The Fighter”
• Christopher Nolan, “Inception”
• Stuart Blumberg, Lisa Cholodenko, “The Kids Are All Right”
• David Seidler, “The King’s Speech”

Best Adapated Screenplay

• Danny Boyle, Simon Beaufoy, “127 Hours”
• Aaron Sorkin, “The Social Network”
• Peter Craig, Ben Affleck, Aaron Stockard, “The Town”
• Michael Arndt, “Toy Story 3”
• Ethan, Joel Coen, “True Grit”
• Debra Granik, Anne Rosellini, “Winter’s Bone”

Best Art Direction

• Alice in Wonderland
• Black Swan
• Inception
• The King’s Speech
• True Grit

Best Cinematography

• Black Swan
• Inception
• The King’s Speech
• 127 Hours
• True Grit

Best Costume Design

• Alice in Wonderland
• Black Swan
• The King’s Speech
• True Grit

Best Film Editing

• Black Swan
• Inception
• 127 Hours
• The Social Network

Best Makeup

• Alice in Wonderland
• Black Swan
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallow: Part 1
• True Grit

Best Score

• Clint Mansell, “Black Swan”
• Hans Zimmer, “Inception”
• Alexandre Desplat, “The King’s Speech”
• Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross, “The Social Network”
• Carter Burwell, “True Grit”

Best Song

• “You Haven’t Seen the Last of Me,” from “Burlesque”
• “If I Rise,” from “127 Hours”
• “I See the Light,” from “Tangled”
• “We Belong Together,” from “Toy Story 3”
• “Shine,” from “Waiting for Superman”

Best Sound

• Black Swan
• Inception
• 127 Hours
• The Social Network
• Toy Story 3

Best Visual Effects

• Alice in Wonderland
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1
• Inception
• TRON Legacy

Best Animated Feature

• Despicable Me
• How to Train Your Dragon
• The Illusionist
• Tangled
• Toy Story 3

Best Action Movie

• Inception
• Kick-Ass
• Red
• The Town
• Unstoppable

Best Comedy

• Cyrus
• Date Night
• Easy A
• Get Him to the Greek
• I Love You Phillip Morris
• The Other Guys

Best Foreign Language Film

• Biutiful
• The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
• I Am Love

Best Documentary Feature

• Exit Through the Gift Shop
• Inside Job
• Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work
• Restrepo
• The Tillman Story
• Waiting for ‘Superman’

Best Picture Made for Television

• The Pacific
• Temple Grandin
• You Don’t Know Jack