Review of the 16th Annual Critics Choice Awards 2011

Arnold Schwarzenegger kicked off the festivities at the 16th Annual Critics Choice Awards 2011, simply by making fun of himself. The cast of Jackass performed their own versions of some of the favorites from the list of nominees for Best Picture, including Inception, Black Swan, and The Social Network. House band for the night was Maroon 5.

The night was full of poorly written jokes and sketches. Instead of any one particular movie dominating, the critical love was spread across the board. Here is a full recap of presenters, acceptance speeches, nominees and winners.

Best Acting Ensemble

Ashton Kutcher rambled for a while, trying to be funny about following Arnold, before he presented the first award of the night. The Critics Choice Award for Best Acting Ensemble went to The Fighter. Accepting the award were Amy Adams, Christian Bale, Jack McGee, and Melissa Leo. Jack McGee did all of the speaking, stumbling over his words in his humble excitement at winning the award.

Nominees:

• The Fighter
• The Kids Are All Right
• The King's Speech
• The Social Network
• The Town

Best Young Actor/Actress

Emma Stone & Jesse Eisenburg presented the Critics Choice Award for Best Young Actor/Actress to Hailee Steinfeld, for her work in True Grit. The fourteen year-old thanked her family, the production team, and The Lord for her first award.

Nominees:

• Elle Fanning - Somewhere
• Jennifer Lawrence - Winter's Bone
• Chloe Grace Moretz - Let Me In
• Chloe Grace Moretz - Kick-Ass
• Kodi Smit-McPhee - Let Me In
• Hailee Steinfeld - True Grit

Best Supporting Actor

Eva Mendes presented the Critics Choice Award for Best Supporting Actor to Christian Bale, for his work in The Figher. He talked on and on for quite some time, thanking everyone who was involved with the film. He added his wife and his daughter in his thanks at the end.

Nominees:

• Christian Bale - The Fighter
• Andrew Garfield - The Social Network
• Jeremy Renner - The Town
• Sam Rockwell - Conviction
• Mark Ruffalo - The Kids Are All Right
• Geoffrey Rush - The King's Speech

Best Action Movie

Ed Helms, of The Hangover, presented the Critics Choice Award for Best Action Movie to Inception. Helms swore so much, that half of his presentation had to be muted. The award was accepted by producer/director/writer Christopher Nolan and producer Emma Thomas. They thanked the critics for having an action film category.

Nominees:

• Inception
• Kick-Ass
• Red
• The Town
• Unstoppable

Best Documentary Feature

Reality TV stars Kim & Khloe Kardashian gave a half-hearted attempt at humor as they compared feature documentaries with reality TV. They presented the Critics Choice Award for Best Documentary Feature to Waiting for 'Superman', about the problems with today's schools. The award was accepted by producer Lesley Chilcott and director/writer Davis Guggenheim, who turned his speech into a political platform. He asked, "Do you believe every kid in American can learn?" He meant all kids, within the wealthier neighborhoods of the audience, as well as in the poorer neighborhoods through which they occasionally pass. He said you shouldn't have to win the lottery, nor win the "Bingo game" to get a good education. Leslie simply thanked the BFCA.

Nominees:

• Exit Through the Gift Shop
• Inside Job
• Restrepo
• Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work
• The Tillman Story
• Waiting for Superman

Best Picture Made for Television

Jon Hamm and Jennifer Lawrence presented the Critics Choice Award for Best Picture Made for Television to The Pacific. Executive producer Steven Spielberg accepted the award. He talked about it taking five years to make the film and thanked HBO for their patience. He also honored his father and his uncle, who had both fought in the Pacific.

Nominees:

• The Pacific
• Temple Grandin
• You Don't Know Jack

Best Comedy

Joan Rivers and Sarah Silverman tried to spar, as Sarah pretended to be Melissa and called Joan's documentary, "Joan Rivers: A Piece of Sh*t." They presented the Critics Choice Award for Best Comedy to Easy A. Will Gluck, producer/director, was one of those who came up to accept the award. He talked about how the movie was familiar to all of us, as we all are familiar with pretending to have sex. The critics, in particular, should be used to that. He also said that he hoped Emma Stone hadn't pretended to have sex during school, as she was homeschooled, even though her brother was hot.

Nominees:

• Cyrus
• Date Night
• Easy A
• Get Him to the Greek
• I Love You Phillip Morris
• The Other Guys

Best Animated Feature

Sophie Regaro and Hank Azaria said they enjoyed basking in the attention for a few minutes, as they dawdled in announcing the expected winner of the Critics Choice Award for Best Animated Feature: Toy Story 3. Director Lee Ulbridge accepted the award, congratulating fellow nominees on an outstanding year. He also thanked the BCFA. To Pixar/Disney, he said thanks for trusting him with Toy Story 3, especially as it took four years to make the movie. And to audiences, he thanked them for embracing a story about talking toys.

Nominees:

• Despicable Me
• How to Train Your Dragon
• The Illusionist
• Tangled
• Toy Story 3

Music + Film Award

2011 marks the first year for the new Music + Film category. The award is given to a director who achieves excellence in combining music and film. The first recipient was Quentin Tarantino. Ice Cube introduced a montage of songs and scenes from Tarantino's movies, that demonstrate his ironic combinations. Adam Levine of Maroon 5 performed "Stuck in the Middle with You" with Resevoir Dogs playing in the background. Keri Hilson did "Son of a Preacher Man," which had ironically been used as a tool of seduction in Pulp Fiction.

Tim Roth then talked about Quentin's "rhythm method" for a movie, which is planning a movie around the songs that are going to be in it. Tarantino came up to accept his award, and thanked the critics for coming up with this category. He could trace his love of music in films to seeing Head in the late 1960s. As a kid, he made playlists, then designed scenes around them, much as he does now. When making True Romance, he had to fight for a music budget, because to him, he was making a record album.

Best Supporting Actress

Josh Brolin presented the Critics Choice Award for Best Supporting Actress to his friend Melissa Leo, for her work in The Fighter. She joked about the presentation being special, as she had been able to make out with Brolin when he was 17 years old. She thanked the critics for writing kind words about her for the last thirty years. She is also grateful that her career has been blossoming for the last ten years, despite people telling her it would be over after the age of 40.

Nominees:

• Amy Adams - "The Fighter"
• Helena Bonham Carter - "The King's Speech"
• Mila Kunis - "Black Swan"
• Melissa Leo - "The Fighter"
• Hailee Steinfeld - "True Grit"
• Jacki Weaver - "Animal Kingdom"

Best Adapted Screenplay

Rob Huebel and Paul Scheer presented the Critics Choice Award for Best Adapted Screenplay to Aaron Sorkin for The Social Network. Sorkin mentioned how just seven years ago, Facebook.com was registered as a domain. Where would we all be without it now? He thanked Aaron Zuckerberg, as well as the team who worked on the movie. Then, he told his daughter Roxie he loved her and that it was time to go to bed.

Nominees:

• "127 Hours" - Simon Beaufoy and Danny Boyle
• "The Social Network" - Aaron Sorkin
• "The Town" - Peter Craig and Ben Affleck & Aaron Stockard
• "Toy Story 3" - Michael Arndt (Story by John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich)
• "True Grit" - Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
• "Winter's Bone" - Debra Granik and Anne Rosellini

Best Original Screenplay

Huebel and Scheer also presented the Critics Choice Award for Best Original Screenplay. This went to David Seidler for The King's Speech. He was worried about disgracing himself, and said that anyone could have been up there. Critics can make mistakes, so he thanked them for making this one. He was flustered and stuttered through his speech, and thanked everyone for letting him be heard.

Nominees:

• "Another Year" - Mike Leigh
• "Black Swan" - Mark Heyman and Andres Heinz and John McLaughlin
• "The Fighter" - Scott Silver and Paul Tamasy & Eric Johnson (Story by Keith Dorrington & Paul Tamasy & Eric Johnson)
• "Inception" - Christopher Nolan
• "The Kids Are All Right" - Lisa Cholodenko and Stuart Blumberg
• "The King's Speech" - David Seidler

Best Director

Greg Kinnear was the presenter for the Critics Choice Award for Best Director. David Fincher, director of The Social Network, was unable to attend the festivities, so Kinnear accepted it on his behalf.

Nominees:

• Darren Aronofsky - "Black Swan"
• Danny Boyle - "127 Hours"
• Joel Coen & Ethan Coen - "True Grit"
• David Fincher - "The Social Network"
• Tom Hooper - "The King's Speech"
• Christopher Nolan - "Inception"

Joel Siegel Award

The Joel Siegel Award is annually presented for onscreen work and service to the community. This year, the recipient of the 4th annual Joel Siegel Award was Matt Damon. He and Gary White co-founded Water.org, which is dedicated to bringing clean water and sanitation to children all around the world. Damon talked about how it was ridiculous that we solved this problem in our own country years ago, yet children all around the world as dying every 15 seconds from lack of clean water and sanitation. He urged everyone watching to visit his site and donate $25 dollars, to bring a kid clean water for life.

The award was presented by Damon's costar Emily Blunt, and his feuding nemesis Jimmy Kimmel. Kimmel kept interrupting the presentation with stupid quips and sarcastic criticism. Damon finally looked over at him and said, "Jimmy, I literally have no idea why you're here." At that point, Kimmel walked offstage.

Best Actor

An excited Julianne Moore presented the Critics Choice Award for Best Actor to Colin Firth, for his work in The King's Speech. Firth admitted to have a need for attention and approval that bordered on the infantile. He used the royal "we" when saying how he needed it from audiences, peers, and the critics. He appreciated this moment of love, because as of tomorrow, it is open season again, with the upcoming awards shows. He plans to wear his award as a talisman for the open season. He thanked his fellow cast members for letting him take a free ride on their talent.

Nominees:

• Jeff Bridges - True Grit
• Robert Duvall - Get Low
• Jesse Eisenberg - The Social Network
• Colin Firth - The King's Speech
• James Franco - 127 Hours
• Ryan Gosling - Blue Valentine
  

Best Actress

Kevin Spacey did a cheesy Clinton impression as he said, "I'm glad I didn't have to choose between all of these beautiful women," referring to the nominees for the Critics Choice Award for Best Actress. This year's honor went to a glowingly pregnant Natalie Portman. She said she was inspired by all of the women in the category. She thanked Darren Aronofsky for introducing her to the love of her life, dancer Benjamin Millepied, who is also the father of her child. She thanked her parents, Avner and Shelley Hershlag, and said she hoped she could be a great mommy, as they were great parents to her.

Nominees:

• Annette Bening - "The Kids Are All Right"
• Nicole Kidman - "Rabbit Hole"
• Jennifer Lawrence - "Winter's Bone"
• Natalie Portman - "Black Swan"
• Noomi Rapace - "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo"
• Michelle Williams - "Blue Valentine"

Best Picture

Jane Fonda, calling herself a cougar, presented the Critics Choice Award for Best Picture to the creators of The Social Network. Producer Scott Rudin thanked Aaron Sorkin, David Lunch, and the acting ensemble for their achievement.

Nominees:

• 127 Hours
• Black Swan
• The Fighter
• Inception
• The King's Speech
• The Social Network
• The Town
• Toy Story 3
• True Grit
• Winter's Bone

Awards Presented Outside of the Show

The broadcast of the show only lasts for two hours, which doesn't leave time for every award to be handed out on the air. Here is a list of the nominees for the other categories, with the winners indicated in bold.

Best Score

Nominees:

• "Black Swan" - Clint Mansell
• "Inception" - Hans Zimmer
• "The King's Speech" - Alexandre Desplat
• "The Social Network" - Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross
• "True Grit" - Carter Burwell

Best Foreign Language Film

Nominees:

• Biutiful
• I Am Love
• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Best Song

Nominees:

• "I See the Light" - performed by Mandy Moore & Zachary Levi/written by Alan Menken & Glenn Slater - Tangled
• "If I Rise" - performed by Dido and A.R. Rahman/music by A.R. Rahman/lyrics by Dido Armstrong and Rollo Armstrong - 127 Hours
• "Shine" - performed and written by John Legend - Waiting for Superman
• "We Belong Together" - performed and written by Randy Newman - Toy Story 3
• "You Haven't Seen the Last of Me Yet" - performed by Cher/written by Diane Warren - Burlesque

Best Costume Design

Nominees:

• "Alice in Wonderland" - Colleen Atwood
• "Black Swan" - Amy Westcott, Kate Mulleavy and Laura Mulleavy
• "The King's Speech" - Jenny Beavan
• "True Grit" - Mary Zophres

Best Makeup

Nominees:

• Alice in Wonderland
• Black Swan
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1
• True Grit

Best Cinematography

Nominees:

• "127 Hours" - Anthony Dod Mantle and Enrique Chediak
• "Black Swan" - Matthew Libatique
• "Inception" - Wally Pfister
• "The King's Speech" - Danny Cohen
• "True Grit" - Roger Deakins

Best Visual Effects

Nominees:

• Alice in Wonderland
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1
• Inception
• Tron: Legacy

Best Art Direction

Nominees:

• "Alice in Wonderland" - Robert Stromberg and Karen O'Hara
• "Black Swan" - Therese DePrez and Tora Peterson
• "Inception" - Guy Hendrix Dyas and Larry Dias & Doug Mowat
• "The King's Speech" - Eve Stewart and Judy Farr
• "True Grit" - Jess Gonchor and Nancy Haigh

Best Editing

Nominees:

• "127 Hours" - Jon Harris
• "Black Swan" - Andrew Weisblum
• "Inception" - Lee Smith
• "The Social Network" - Angus Wall and Kirk Baxter

Best Sound

Nominees:

• 127 Hours
• Black Swan
• Inception
• The Social Network
• Toy Story 3

Resources:

Viewing of the Broadcast on VH1 on Friday, January 14, 2011

The 16th Annual BFCA Critics Choice Awards List of 2010 Filmmaking Website