National Board of Review picks "Up in the Air" as Best Film of the Year

Variety.com is reporting that the National Board of Review, usually one of the first major film groups to give out year-end accolades, has given Ivan Reitman's brilliant comedy/drama "Up In the Air" top honors at their annual event. The Board gave the movie awards for Best Picture, Actor (George Clooney, who shares the honor with 'Invictus' star Morgan Freeman), Supporting Actress (Anna Kendrick) and Best Adapted Screenplay to Reitman and Sheldon Turner. Not a bad thing to add to the ad campaign as the film debuts in selected theaters on Friday (and you better pray that your theater is selected! Just kidding).

Other wins include Clint Eastwood for Best Director for "Invictus", The Coen Brothers for their original screenplay for "A Serious Man", Carey Mulligan for "An Education", "Up" for Best Animated Feature as well as a special award for Wes Anderson's stop-motion winner "Fantastic Mr. Fox" (saw it Tuesday night and loved every minute of it).

The Board also named its ten best films of 2009. They were: "(500) Days of Summer", "An Education", "The Hurt Locker", "Inglourious Basterds", "Invictus", "The Messenger", "A Serious Man", "Star Trek", "Up" and "Where the Wild Things Are". Call me crazy, but should the film named best film of the year also be included on the list? Just sayin', is all...

Now, do these awards mean anything? Well, yes and no. No in the fact that awards for films have meant little if anything to the actual quality of a film. "Up in the Air" could win zero awards and it still wouldn't take away the fact that it is a great piece of Hollywood entertainment. I would say that yes, awards mean something in regards to the fact that giving quality films like "Up in the Air", "The Hurt Locker", "(500) Days of Summer", "Fantastic Mr. Fox" and most likely "An Education" and "Invictus" (I haven't seen either one yet, unfortunately) will help more people seek out and discover them, instead of pissing away their hard-earned money and time on crap like the "Twilight" films, "Planet 51", "2012" or "A Christmas Carol".

So, let the mutual Tinseltown ass-kissing and self-congratulatory bullshit commence. Maybe all this awards-love will help people actually seek out and re-discover the increasingly rare art of cinematic storytelling this holiday season.

Yeah, right!