And the winner is "Claire's Knee"

The National Society of Film Critics just announced its 2006 award picks and, as always, this group did not disappoint. No Babel or Departed or Dreamgirls here.

As it does more often than not, this particular gaggle of critics selected as Best Picture a movie that isn't in the countdown as a possible Oscar contenders, Guillermo Del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth. Sure, this one rates on lots of Top Ten lists and stands a good chance in the Foreign Film category (especially if ...Iwo Jima doesn’t land there too) but not as one of the Academy’s Big Final Five.

You can always count on these guys to shake things up a little just when the final stretch to Oscar Night suddenly becomes a grind. Over the years, the NSFC has selected as Best Picture such gems as Yi Yi, Mulholland Drive, Out of Sight, Topsy Turvy, Day For Night, and Scenes From A Marriage. In fact, since 1966 they have only agreed with the Oscar for Best Picture on four occasions.

Last year, the group was one of the few that did not cite Brokeback Mountain, or even Crash. It went with Capote. (Maybe its weakest choice since it deemed Babe worthy to bring home the big bacon). Anyway, take a look at the NSFC choices over the years. You’ll find lots (and I mean lots) of Bergman, either as best director or for guiding Liv, Bibi and Ingrid to their victories. But there’s plenty more foreign, offbeat, and indie-type films here than on the rosters of any other awards group. You’ll probably find a few titles to add to your Netflix queue.

Here are the 2006 selections, dedicated, incidentally, to the memory of Robert Altman:
Best Picture: Pan’s Labyrinth
Best Director: Paul Greengrass, United 93
Best Actor : Forest Whitaker, The Last King of Scotland
Best Actress : Helen Mirren, The Queen
Best Supporting Actor : Mark Whalberg, The Departed
Best Supporting Actress : Meryl Streep, The Devil Wears Prada and A Prairie Home
Screenplay : The Queen, written by Peter Morgan

Note, please, another nod for Marky…the likelihood of his Oscar candidacy is just driving some people crazy. I love that. I hope he gets nominated AND wins. Not gonna happen, but how much fun would that be? Cheers, too, for recognizing Streep’s great and fabulous work in the category where it belongs: supporting.
So did anyone watch Dirt on F/X? I caught a repeat of the debut episode earlier this evening. It’s a perfectly fine trash wallow but not up to the standards of its network’s Rescue Me or The Shield. (I would have also mentioned Nip/Tuck had it not slouched its way into shock-value tedium this season. Ho Hum.) And that Grease audition/reality show is a true clunker. But I’ll probably tune again for at least one more episode. And I must admit that at one point tonight Billy Bush made me laugh. How often can you say that?

I guess I’m just waiting for Rome 2 and Color Splash, which pretty much illustrates how just how shamefully and widely swings my pendulum of small screen entertainment. Reality TV has more than its share of hunks du jour, but none any sweeter than David Bromstad. Other than that, it's more than likely Family Guy ("Who wants chowder?") and The Office or simply high-tailing it back to TCM where I seem to be spending most of my surfing time these days. Caught a few minutes of Theodora Goes Wild this morning…Irene Dunne at her best.