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Right then, here's what I would vote for this year. Take it with a pinch of salt if you like (and you probably should) but hopefully this little summary will wrap up 2009 which was, for my tastes, an incredibly bad year for movies. I've seen pretty much all the contenders now, the only exception being Jeff Bridges' Crazy Heart (this year's Wrestler, apparently) or the movie that Sandra Bullock's up for best actress in - shudder - and I can't wait any longer to get these out there.
Best Film:
Winner: The Hurt Locker
Also nominated: In the Loop, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, Up in the Air, World's Greatest Dad.
Best director:
Winner: Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker)
The Hurt Locker is this year's little film that could. Shot on a modest budget, yet conveying real tension from the first scene to last, this must have been a terribly difficult film to make.
It would be wild and wacky to award best film to Bad Lieutenant but I just couldn't do it. I'd certainly want to watch it again, though, which is more than I could say for such harrowing pieces as Precious or irritants like Julie and Julia.
Best British film:
Winner: In the Loop
Also nominated: Bronson, An Education.
Riotously funny, with wildly over the top profanities and seemingly a great ensemble team spirit, this is probably the movie I've watched most this year. It probably helped that I didn't see the TV show, The Thick of It, which features the majority of the cast, and so I wasn't prepared for what I saw. I cannot think of the word 'purview' now without thinking of In the Loop. It's entered my vocabulary, and I can't give much higher credit than that.
Best Actor:
Winner: Tom Hardy (Bronson)
Also nominated: George Clooney (Up in the Air), Hal Holbrook (That Evening Sun), Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker), Sam Rockwell (Moon).
From the flawed but sporadically brilliant movie about charmless lifer Charles Bronson, Tom Hardy literally bared everything for the role. It was a remarkable performance, just edging out Clooney's rejection nuance or, for sentimental reasons, Holbrook's.
Best Actress:
Winner: Michelle Monaghan (Trucker)
Also nominated: Gabourey Sidebe (Precious), Carey Mulligan (An Education).
Honestly, good female roles are becoming rarer than hen's teeth recently. Monaghan wins, for me, as a feisty independent truck driver who has her estranged kid foist upon her. The story's derivitive, the performance not so. Sidebe made an excellent debut, although one hesitates to see what she will do next.
Best Supporting Actor:
Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds)
Also nominated: none
No point mentioning anyone else - they were all blown away by the smiling German officer, menacing in four languages, and his interviewing techniques. Stunning.
Best Supporting Actress:
Mo'Nique (Precious)
Also nominated: none
Mo'Nique is a daytime talk show host in the US, sort of a Trisha on steroids. How on earth anyone could have thought that she could portray the wicked, despicable mother of Precious is beyond me but she does, and is utterly convincing.
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