With awards season chugging along, it was the turn of relative whippersnapper (by which we mean 17 years and counting) the Critics’ Choice Movie Awards last night. And it was a memorable one for The Artist, which nabbed Best Picture, Best Costume Design, Best Score (wonder if Kim Novak choked on her cocoa when she heard?) and Best Director for Michel Hazanavicius.
Acting wise, there was good news for The Help, as Viola Davis took home Best Actress, while Octavia Spencer got a well-earned Best Supporting Actress award. The movie itself also snagged Best Ensemble.
Elsewhere, George Clooney was Best Actor for The Descendants, Christopher Plummer won Best Supporting Actor for Beginners and Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close co-star Thomas Horn took Best Young Actor/Actress.
Woody Allen got Best Original Screenplay for Midnight In Paris, while Aaron Sorkin and Steve Zaillian shared Best Adapted Screenplay with **Moneyball **story man Stan Chervin.
Rango was Best Animated Feature, Drive took Best Action Movie, Bridesmaids won Best Comedy and A Separation walked off with Best Foreign Film. Martin Scorsese’s George Harrison: Living In The Material World was named Best Documentary. Scorsese also got the Critics’ Choice Music + Film Award for his use of music in cinema throughout his career.
In the cinematography category, the award went jointly to The Tree Of Life’s Emmanuel Lubezki and War Horse’s Janusz Kaminski. Dante Ferretti scored Best Art Direction for Hugo, with Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall winning Best Editing for The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.
And though it sometimes felt like one of those ceremonies where everyone got a trophy, we were pleased to see The Muppets recognised for once, with Life’s A Happy Song as Best Song. Finally, Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows – Part 2 took Best Make-up and Sound and Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes won Best Visual Effects.