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Critics picking hometown favorites (and Borat)

The first picks of this years award season are trickling in. Its a year with no clear cut winners; critics seem to be defaulting to partisan favorites:

I find it sort of suspect that the Boston Society of Film Critics favorite is, guess what, The Departed. The film won four awards including best picture, director, supporting actor and screenplay. Also shocking is United 93’s win for best picture from both the DC Area Film Critics Association and the New York Film Critics Circle.

I’ve been telling people for weeks that Sacha Baron Cohen had award traction but nobody believed me! I’m stoked that Sacha tied with Forest for the Los Angeles Critics best actor spot. I love it when left field mavericks upset establishments. All my friends thought I was nuts but I voted for the Arizona ballot initiative that would have entered every voter into a one million dollar lottery as means of increasing turnout. Partially I voted like that because its hilarious, but I also did it because there’s lots of merit in compelling out of the box ideas.

Actually these films are all in my top 5 best films of the year. Personally, I think 2006 was one of the best years for movies in a long time.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 12th, 2006 at 6:56 am and is filed under industry, art. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

4 Responses to “Critics picking hometown favorites (and Borat)”

  1. Dan Kimmel Says:
    December 12th, 2006 at 3:17 pm

    As a voting member (and past president) of the Boston group I can tell you there was no fix and nothing suspicious. There have been plenty of lousy films set in Boston we haven’t honored. “The Departed” was simply one that we liked.

    How come no one’s picking on the LA Critics for going with a movie that, oh so conveniently, was set in the Pacific? :)

  2. Andres Martinez Says:
    December 12th, 2006 at 4:07 pm

    Good point. Is there some sort of conspiracy amongst the nation’s critics?!

  3. Nate Says:
    December 15th, 2006 at 11:21 pm

    United 93 is in your top films of the year?

  4. Andres Martinez Says:
    December 16th, 2006 at 3:55 am

    Of the films I’ve seen this year my top five, in no order, are:

    Departed
    United 93
    Borat
    Brick (I think this is 2005 but I saw it 2006)
    Casino Royale

    I also liked Inside Man, Jackass, Hollywoodland, and Children of Men. Worst move of the year was Little Miss Sunshine.

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