Film News: ‘The Artist,’ ‘The Help’ Big Winners at Critics’ Choice Awards

Submitted by TimBMartens on January 13, 2012 - 9:57am

CHICAGO – The 17th Annual Critics’ Choice Awards played out last night, and the big winning films of the night were “The Artist” and “The Help.” Winning Best Picture and Best Director, “The Artist” placed itself into the category of serious contender for this year’s Academy Awards, while “The Help” won Best Actress (Viola Davis), Best Supporting Actress (Octavia Spencer), and Best Ensemble Cast.

With ten films nominated for the top prize, “The Artist” was able to beat out the likes of “The Descendants” and “Hugo” to take the top film prize. Meanwhile, “Rango” was named Best Animated Film, “Drive” won Best Action Movie, “Bridesmaids” won Best Comedy Film, “George Harrison: Living in the Material World” won Best Documentary, and “A Separation” won Best Foreign Language Film.

As previously mentioned, Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer won the top awards for actresses, while George Clooney won Best Actor for his performance in “The Descendants” and Christopher Plummer won Best Supporting Actor for his role in “Beginnners.” The writing awards went to Woody Allen for his original screenplay for “Midnight in Paris” and Aaron Sorkin, Steven Zaillian, and Stan Chervin for their adapted screenplay “Moneyball.”

The technical awards went to several different films. Best Cinematography was a tie between “The Tree of Life” and “War Horse,” Best Art Direction was awarded to “Hugo,” Best Editing went to “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” Best Costume Design was won by “The Artist,” “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2” won Best Makeup and Best Song, and Best Visual Effects went to “Rise of the Planet of the Apes.”

The music awards went as follows: Best Score- Ludovic Bource for his original score in “The Artist” and Best Song- Bret McKenzie (of Flight of the Conchords fame) for his original song “Life’s a Happy Song” from “The Muppets.”