With Critics Choice win, ‘The Hurt Locker’ looks for a surge
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The Broadcast Film Critics Assn.’s Critics Choice Awards have historically been known more for their number of choices than the choices themselves; the group was one of the first to go to 10 slots for best picture (initiating that more than a decade ago).
So we’re loathe to read too much into ‘The Hurt Locker’ win for best film, although, heading into tonight’s Golden Globes, it’s likely that the best-director slab of crystal Kathryn Bigelow picked up Friday is the harbinger of more prizes and encomiums for the director herself.
Still, as the third pony in a two-horse race (at least at the moment, as ‘Up in the Air’ and ‘Avatar’ shape up as front-runners), it never hurts to get a win, even if doesn’t exactly come at Churchill Downs. It will be hard to upend the interplanetary tree huggers or the airport-lounge wanderers, but if a chunk of voters split between large-scale spectacle and intimate human drama, that leaves ‘The Hurt Locker’ right there to collect. And some ink from a win, even from a group of critics, doesn’t hurt the cause.
Otherwise, Friday night’s event at the Hollywood Palladium was a mixed bag. The good witch Kristin Chenoweth would have been better off going to the movies than hosting a show about them; the helium-voiced one couldn’t pull off many of the jokes (not that the writers gave her much to work with). And bits like a Sarah Silverman presentation were about as fresh as last summer’s nectarines.
Still, a John Hughes tribute played well, with just the right touch of nostalgia, and Christoph Waltz’s, surrealist, Teutonic speech -- in which he attempted to make some kind of conceptual joke around a thousand repetitions of the word ‘choice,’ a performance piece to rival (unintentionally) anything Hans Landa had to offer -- bailed out the evening. And what to say about the latest round of Meryl Streep-Sandra Bullock faux rivalry, this time with a sapphic twist.
The awards, voted on by a group of television and radio reviewers, is in a transitional place. This year’s felt a little more glamorous -- and convenient -- moving from Santa Monica on a Thursday night to Hollywood on a Friday night. But there’s still plenty of uncertainty -- the group is in the final year of a three-year deal with VH1, and insiders say odds aren’t great it will be renewed. A little more Sandy and a little less Glinda might help that cause too.
-- Steven Zeitchik
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