New York Film Critics Circle Award Winners

The New York Film Critics Circle announced their winners earlier today. Their picks:

Best Film: Lady Bird

Best Director: Sean Baker, The Florida Project

Best Actress: Saoirse Ronan, Lady Bird

Best Actor: Timothee Chalamet, Call Me By Your Name

Best Supporting Actress: Tiffany Haddish, Girls Trip

Best Supporting Actor: Willem Dafoe, The Florida Project

Best Screenplay: Paul Thomas Anderson, Phantom Thread

Best Cinematography: Rachel Morrison, Mudbound

Best Animated Film: Coco

Best Documentary: Face Places

Best Foreign Language Film: BPM (Beats Per Minute)

Best First Film: Get Out

Review: Justice League (2017)

* * 1/2
Director: Zack Snyder
Starring: Ben Affleck, Gal Gadot, Jason Mamoa, Ezra Miller, Ray Fisher

You know what? It's not terrible. That's not just lowered expectations speaking, either, because I had low expectations when I saw Batman v Superman and that movie still managed to sail right under the low bar my mind had set. It's not a great movie - it's got the problems you would expect not only from a film that had to be significantly re-shot but also from a project driven by the impatience of those who are guiding it to the screen - but it's pretty entertaining in a silly, weightless kind of way. Which is why it's so unfortunate that audiences, having been burned by 2 of DC's last 3 movies, seem to be staying away. I mean, Justice League doesn't deserve to make Wonder Woman level money, but it definitely deserves to make more than Batman v Superman and to not be the movie that fails to make enough money to render its critical reception moot.

National Board of Review Winners

And so it begins. Award season kicks off with the selections of the National Board of Review, which fell hard for Steven Spielberg's forthcoming The Post. The full list of winners:

Best Film: The Post

Best Director: Greta Gerwig, Lady Bird

Best Actor: Tom Hanks, The Post

Best Actress: Meryl Streep, The Post

Best Supporting Actress: Laurie Metcalf, Lady Bird

Best Supporting Actor: Willem Dafoe, The Florida Project

Best Original Screenplay: Paul Thomas Anderson, Phantom Thread

Best Adapted Screenplay: Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber, The Disaster Artist

Best Animated Feature: Coco

Best Foreign Language Film: Foxtrot

Best Documentary: Jane

Best Ensemble: Get Out

Breakthrough Performance: Timothee Calamet, Call Me By Your Name

Best Directorial Debut: Jordan Peele, Get Out

Spotlight Award: Wonder Woman, Patty Jenkins and Gal Gadot

Freedom of Expression Award: First They Killed My Father and Let It Fall: Los Angeles 1982-1992

Top Films: Baby Driver, Call My By Your Name, The Disaster Artist, Downsizing, Dunkirk, The Florida Project, Get Out, Lady Bird, Logan, Phantom Thread

Top 5 Foreign Language Films: A Fantastic Woman, Frantz, Loveless, Summer 1993, The Square

Top 5 Documentaries: Abacus: Small Enough to Jail, Brimstone & Glory, Eric Clapton: Life in 12 Bars, Faces Place, Hell on Earth: The Fall of Syria and the Rise of ISIS

Top 10 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

Review: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

* * * *
Director: Martin McDonagh
Starring: Frances McDormand, Sam Rockwell, Woody Harrelson

We are living in an extraordinarily angry time (or maybe it just seems that way because the internet makes that anger inescapable) and Martin McDonagh's Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri functions like a snapshot of that overriding cultural emotion. It's a film about people who are angry about circumstances they cannot change and who, without any productive outlet for that emotion, have nothing but the violence and pain they're capable of inflicting so that the outside world is as chaotic as they feel inside. If you're familiar with McDonagh's previous features In Bruges and Seven Psychopaths, you'll be prepared for the violence of Three Billboards and for the fact that the film often finds a comedic beat or two in the midst of that violence, but what sets this film slightly apart from those previous two is how deeply felt it is on an emotional level. It's angry and then that anger begins to fade into despair and it just leaves you feeling wrecked in the best possible way.

Review: Lady Bird (2017)

* * * *
Director: Greta Gerwig
Starring: Saoirse Ronan

Lady Bird is the movie that most coming of age movies wish they were. It's funny and sharp and sweet, its characters are so well-realized that you want to both hug them and smack them, and its performances are so great that it's hard to pick which one is best, though Saoirse Ronan might get the edge by virtue of being the film's star and the focus of nearly every scene. As an actress, Greta Gerwig has long-since established herself as a darling of indie film, and as a writer she has established herself as a keen comedic observer of Millennial anxiety. Now she begins to make the case for herself as a director to be reckoned with, one capable of making the absolutely ordinary into something exceptionally compelling. Lady Bird is easily one of the best movies of the year and one of the best films of its type.