Atonement remains my choice for best movie of the year so far, and until I see There Will be Blood I don’t see that changing unless Sweeney Todd rocks my world. However, for the National Board of Review the top pick of 2007 is No Country for Old Men, but at least Atonement gets named as an Honorable Mention.
On top of that Tim Burton was named best director for Sweeney Todd, George Clooney best actor for Michael Clayton and Julie Christie was named best actress for Away from Her. The supporting nods went to Casey Affleck for The Assassination of Jesse James and Amy Ryan for Gone Baby Gone making the NBR’s choices quite appropriate.
I have no problem with No Country taking the top prize even though I think it belongs to Atonement. As a matter of fact NBR’s honorable mention for best film is a pretty good list:
- The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford
- Atonement
- The Bourne Ultimatum
- The Bucket List
- Into The Wild
- Juno
- The Kite Runner
- Lars And The Real Girl
- Michael Clayton
- Sweeney Todd
I remain shocked that Zodiac didn’t get named, but you can’t win ’em all.
As for the rest of the awards, best foreign film went to the well deserved The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (read my review here), Ratatouille took best animated feature, breakthrough actor and actress were Emile Hirsch in Into the Wild and Ellen Page for Juno.
This is the second time Page has been named as a Breakthrough performer and I don’t get it… Was Hard Candy completely forgotten? That was her breakthrough performance.
Ben Affleck took best directorial debut for Gone Baby Gone, the Coen brothers took best adapted screenplay for No Country for Old Men and there was a tie for original screenplay (what a cop out) between Diablo Cody (Juno) and Nancy Oliver (Lars and the Real Girl).
For the complete list of winners click here.
