National Board of Review, que-est-ce que c'est?

Every year the National Board of Review is the first entity to announce its film awards, and every year dozens, or, hell, maybe hundreds, of Americans respond, "What the hell is the National Board of Review?"

I know that sounds like sour grapes or something, as I myself am not a member of the National Board of Review, but really, it's not. Sour grapes, that is. I've been a media professional for almost 25 years, and a full-time almost-nothing-but film critic for 10, and I still don't have any idea what the National Board of Review is. I just read on Jeffrey Wells' site that they just kicked Annette Insdorf off it. I edited or interviewed Annette Insdorf once...at least I know I had a phone conversation with her...so I guess I'm a little out of the dark for knowing that she was on the board before she got kicked off of it...but...no. Is it that I am, like George W. Bush is supposed to be, intellectually uncurious...or is the National Board of Review like the Bilderburgers or the Trilateral Commission or something? I dunno.

But in any case, they announced their awards today...

and they gave what one might politely refer as a truckload of them to No Country For Old Men. Given this blogs putative obsession with that film, I suppose that counts as good news. But I gotta level with you here. I have never for a minute in my entire life thought that art and awards ever had a single goddamn iota to do with each other, and this attitude, over a lifetime, has colored the way I think about awards. By the same token, I understand that my opinion that art and awards don't have a single goddamn iota to do with each other will not affect the real world relationship of art and awards, from the Nobel Prize for Literature to the MacArthur Genius Grant to the Oscars to the Golden Globes. I further realize that my professsional function is largely reliant on this Business we call Show, and I am hence under some professional obligation to take an interest in awards, although I may disagree somewhat with, say, my pal Jeff on the proportion and articulation of said interest.

That said, what I consider most interesting about the findings of the mysterious National Board of Review—which findings in full can be accessed via this Variety story—is not so much its laying on of the garlands w/r/t No Country, but its complete and utter snubbing of Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood, a film I am even more in love with, if you must know, than No Country. I understand that Blood is a potentially alienating film, but I did not think it would be quite this alienating. Unless I miss my guess I can't say that Paul Thomas Anderson made the film in order to garner awards. But I'm actually, in my disinterest, sort of shocked that the picture, by my inference, so turned off the NBR that it denied Daniel Day-Lewis its Best Actor nod. They did give DeNiro Best Actor for Raging Bull, after all.

So, there's that.

Comments

[bill]

Didn't the NBR also say that "The Bucket List" was one of the best films of the year? Of course, I haven't seen it, and I guess they have, but, I mean..."The Bucket List"?

Which is perhaps some clue to their snubbing of "There Will Be Blood" (another one I haven't seen, so why am I even talking about any of this?). While I have read some pretty astonishing raves for Anderson's film, those that don't like it really, really, REALLY seem to not like it a whole bunch.

[vadim]

This is my one and only run-in with the NBR: at a screening of For Your Consideration — held, ironically, for their consideration — they all trooped in in a clump. I was on pins and needles trying to figure out if there would be even one seat left in Broadway Screening Room; just before the lights went down, there was. And bleating voices from behind my head:

"What are we seeing?"
"For Your Consideration."
"Is it a comedy?"
"Yes."

That was more than enough for me.

[Jürgen]

The Bucket List is utter shite. I actually gasped when I saw that on their list.

[brian]

No matter who they are, i'm pleased they named Julie Christie Best Actress for 'Away From Her' - hopefully this superb performance will be remembered when other 'Best' lists appear, all the way to the Oscars.

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