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Chicago Film Critics Release Awards Nominations

By Steven Pate in Arts & Entertainment on Dec 17, 2010 6:20PM

2010_12_cfca.jpg If you're determined to win your Oscars pool this year, now is when you start doing a tiny bit of homework. Today's announcement of the Chicago Film Critics Association Awards nominations caps off the busiest week of movie awards news until the Golden Globes ceremony a month from now, and provides a decent crib sheet for the Academy Awards nominations.

On the whole, the nominees fall in line with the SAG nominations announced yesterday and the Golden Globe nominations announced earlier this week: a whole bunch of nominations for The Social Network (8 nominations), with The King's Speech (6 nominations) and Black Swan (6) and Inception (5) also among the heavy hitters.

Here are the nominations for the major categories:

Best Picture: Black Swan, Inception, The King’s Speech, The Social Network, Winter's Bone

Best Director: Darren Aronofsky: Black Swan, David Fincher: The Social Network, Debra Granik: Winter’s Bone, Tom Hooper: The King’s Speech, Christopher Nolan: Inception

Best Supporting Actress
Amy Adams: The Fighter, Helena Bonham Carter: The King’s Speech, Melissa Leo: The Fighter, Hailee Steinfeld: True Grit, Jacki Weaver: Animal Kingdom

Best Supprting Actor
Christian Bale: The Fighter, Andrew Garfield: The Social Network, John Hawkes: Winter’s Bone, Mark Ruffalo: The Kids Are All Right, Geoffrey Rush: The King’s Speech

Best Actor
Jeff Bridges: True Grit, Jesse Eisenberg: The Social Network, Colin Firth: The King’s Speech, James Franco: 127 Hours, Ryan Gosling: Blue Valentine

Best Actress
Annette Bening: The Kids Are All Right, Jennifer Lawrence: Winter’s Bone, Lesley Manville: Another Year, Natalie Portman: Black Swan, Michelle Williams: Blue Valentine

If we were forced to characterize the nominations, they seem to favor Winter's Bone and True Grit (6 nominations each) at the expense of The Fighter (3 nominations) in comparison with other critics' awards. Not seeing Jeremy Renner nominated for The Town is also surprising. Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams were both given the nominations many incorrectly expected them to receive from the Screen Actors Guild.