National Board of Review Awards - Up In The Air, Best Film; Precious snubbed

The first awards show of the Oscar season brings a surprise. The National Board of Review selected Up In The Air, the romantic travel story featuring George Clooney, as Best Film, but snubbed the controversial domestic violence story that is Precious.

Precious by Lionsgate Films

And as the Academy Awards will have 10 Best Picture nominees, the NBOR's provides a glimpse of what might happen in March with this Top Ten Film List:

An Education, 500 Days Of Summer, The Hurt Locker, Inglorious Basterds, Invicus, The Messenger, A Serious Man, Star Trek, Up, Where The Wild Things Are.

The surprise here is that Precious did not make the Top Ten list, but Star Trek did.
 
Star Trek was projected as a film that would be marketed as an Oscar contender and this awards outcome is the first proof that Paramount's tenpole movie of 2009 may also have that Oscar luster.

But that written, the films to watch for have multiple awards: Up In The Air with Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress, and Best Adapted Screenplay awards; Clint Eastwoods' Invictus, a film of sports and freedom in South Africa, won Best Director, Top Ten, and the NBOR's Freedom of Expression award; The Messenger earned Best Supporting Actor for Woody Harrelson and made the Top Ten list, and a Spotlight Award for Best Directorial Debut for Oren Moverman; An Education also made the Top Ten list and Carey Mulligan took home Best Actress award.

But what happened to Precious and why is it not in the Top Ten List?

I think it has a lot to do with the New York City film community, the very same that snubbed Precious during the Gotham Awards in October.

Opray Winfrey's support aside, I thought good pictures were supposed to shake you up and make you think and "be real" and Precious did all that. I'm beginning to believe that, at least in New York City, that film community was not ready for a hard core story about African American domestic violence in America.  But given the range of views I've gathered about Precious, it may be a hard film for anyone to take regardless of race or region; still, it's one of the top nominees in The Independent Sprit Awards, so one storyline during awards season will be if Precious can weather its storm of controversy and emerge with at least an Oscar... or any award. 

Precious aside, a pattern of front runners is slowly emerging as we head toward the 82nd Academy Awards with the top award winners being Up In The Air, Invictus, An Education and The Messenger.

Here's the full list of NBOR winners:

Best Film: Up In The Air

Best Director: Clint Eastwood, Invictus

Best Actor: Morgan Freeman, Invictus and George Clooney, Up In The Air (tie)

Best Actress: Carey Mulligan, An Education

Best Supporting Actor: Woody Harrelson, The Messenger

Best Supporting Actress: Anna Kendrick, Up In The Air

Best Foreign Film: A Prophet

Best Documentary: The Cove

Best Animated Feature: Up

Best Ensemble Cast: It’s Complicated

Breakthrough Performance by an Actor: Jeremy Renner, The Hurt Locker

Breakthrough Performance by an Actress: Gabourey Sidibe, Precious

Spotlight Award for Best Directorial Debut: Duncan Jones, Moon, Oren Moverman, The Messenger and Marc Webb, 500 Days of Summer (tie)

Best Original Screenplay: Joel & Ethan Coen, A Serious Man

Best Adapted Screenplay: Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner, Up In The Air

Special Filmmaking Achievement Award: Wes Anderson, The Fantastic Mr. Fox

William K. Everson Film History Award: Jean Picker Firstenberg

Top Ten Independent Films (In alphabetical order):
Amreeka
District 9
Goodbye Solo
Humpday
In The Loop
Julia
Me And Orson Welles
Moon
Sugar
Two Lovers

NBR Freedom of Expression: Burma Vj: Reporting From A Closed Country, Invictus, The Most Dangerous Man In America: Daniel Ellseberg And The Pentagon Papers


Top Six Foreign Films (In alphabetical order):
The Maid
A Prophet
Revanche
Song Of Sparrows
Three Monkeys
The White Ribbon

Top Six Documentary Films (In alphabetical order):
Burma Vj: Reporting From A Closed Country
The Cove
Crude
Food, Inc.
Good Hair
The Most Dangerous Man In America: Daniel Ellsberg And The Pentagon Papers