The News: Unleash the Superlatives

"E, S, A -- A? 'Are you fucking kidding me?' " Mathieu Amalric blinks his disappointment over sharing NYFCO's Best Picture award to Marie-Josée Croze (Photo: Miramax Films)

By S.T. VanAirsdale

Some of today's movie news of note from around New York:

--Local media leap into the spotlight today as, well, local media take notice of their critics' big award-winners for 2007. The New York Film Critics Online got the Sunday jump announcing -- wait for it -- a tie between There Will Be Blood and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly as the year's best picture. A tie? Come on, gang -- hedging one's bets is hardly in keeping with the spirit of the season. You've gotta do it like your senior circuit colleagues at the New York Film Critics Circle, which will go about 40 degrees against the grain with its own announcement today and then blame Andrew Sarris when the results risk irrelevance. Keep it in mind for next year.

--Maybe the tie is David Edelstein's fault. The NYFCO and NYFCC member this week unveils his own favorites for the year over at New York Magazine, and Diving Bell takes it "by an eyelid." As per usual, the ever-classy Edelstein avoids the puffy hierarchy of 99 percent of the top 10s to follow, choosing favorites by theme rather than any sort of relative merit. Too bad he had to rush to the front of the line; we'll need something this refreshing within the next couple of weeks. (Plus he hands Best Actor kudos to Frank Langella, whose increased seasonal traction with yesterday's Boston Society of Film Critics award gets my Monday off to a relatively upbeat start.)

--While she isn't necessarily qualifying the "best," "greatest" or "most" anything, local girl Lauren Bacall talks to the Post about The Naked City, the West Side and the New York she knows (or knew, rather -- The Automat, RIP) and loves.

--If, in the long run, filmmaking doesn't work out for Ethan Coen, he can always fall back on news analysis for The Times.

Posted at December 10, 2007 5:20 AM