Monkeys Have Flown Out of Your Butt

The movie world is still abuzz about Matthew McConaughey's Best Supporting Actor win yesterday with the New York Film Critics Circle for "Magic Mike" and "Bernie".  But before you threaten to turn in your Academy membership for fear that an actor of McConaughey's, uh, "ability", could actually join the historical pantheon of great Academy Award-winning actors, let us remind you of something.  Oscar voters are not critics, and critics are not Oscar voters.

 

(mcconaughey in "bernie")

As for the New York Film Critics Circle's record of predicting who will go on to win the Oscar, note that in the past ten years, only twice have the New York Critics and the Oscars picked the same actor for Best Supporting Actor.  The head-scratcher about McConaughey's pick is that we would have guessed it would have been the Oscar voters who would give in to voting for popular, well-liked actors before the New York Critics would.  Which means one thing: serious New York critics actually thought McConaughey did a great job of acting.  But trust us, we saw "Bernie", and McConaughey did not do a good job of acting.  In fact, when we saw "Bernie", we remember that it was McConaughey's awkward performance, in particular, that solely threatened to derail the charm and tone of the otherwise very likable movie.

 

Next up:  tomorrow the National Board of Review will announce it's winners for the year's best in film.