Over the weekend, a few critic groups united in naming 
Amy Ryan has snagged at least five awards in the past four business days (I lost count after the NBR, New York critics, LA critics, DC critics and San Francisco critics) for her work in Ben Affleck’s Gone Baby Gone, and has thus usurped Cate Blanchett as the presumptive frontrunner in the Best Supporting Actress Oscar race. This is, to me, a fairly shocking turn of events, and judging by the noise it’s creating amongst Oscar bloggers, I’m not totally alone in my surprise.
It doesn’t help that Todd Haynes’ I’m Not There––the film that prompted Harvey Weinstein to promise to shoot himself if it didn’t net Blanchett an Oscar nomination––has been all but shut out of the critical derby thus far. I was particularly surprised to see the film earn nary a nod from the New York Film Critics Circle–it certainly has no shortage of local, effusive defenders. And yet, the film has sort of slunk into the shadows of the season. Putting Harvey’s silly, trigger-happy bravado aside, it’s no secret that The Weinstein Company is hurting for hits, and so far, There is part of the problem; still on less than 150 screens and consistently dropping 30% from weekend to weekend, I don’t see how the distributor will be able to justify any kind of expansion unless there’s a major, major reversal in awards momentum.
The question is: where’s the loudest man in pseudo-indie distribution when his films really need him?
