Widescreen Awards: Supporting Actress

Although her performance skirts a little too close to the precipice that is the cliched monster mom, Melissa Leo strikes the right balance for The Fighter. It helps that you can see where Christian Bale's Dicky Eklund gets his dysfunction from. And, by the end of the movie, you're left convinced of Alice Ward's (often misplaced) love for her sons. She'd do anything for them, true, but it's seldom the right thing.



Perhaps best known as Clive Owen's Appletini-loving mark in "Duplicity," Carrie Preston turns in a quiet but captivating performance in That Evening Sun. Pushed aside in her alcoholic husband's escalating dispute with an elderly man, Ludie Choate's pain and uncertainty shines through in momentary glances. But there's still enough chemistry between her and the drunken lout Lonzo to understand why she stays.



In just two scenes, Charlotte Rampling paints a nuanced picture of an aging barfly. The smell of thick perfume seems to waft off screen in Life During Wartime, in addition to the foul odor of desperation and self-pity. She's aggressive in the pursuit of her conquests, but at Jacqueline's core is a deeply insecure woman. "I'm a monster," she says, with no expectation to hear differently. It's as brutally honest and heartbreakingly funny as any film last year got.



It's true that Hailee Steinfeld's Mattie Ross is closer to a lead than a supporting player in True Grit, but as Scott Rudin, the film's producer, pointed out, she doesn't exactly have an arc. Nor does she need one. Steinfeld nails this single-minded character, never seeming too precocious even while sparring with impetuous adults. It's a testament to Steinfeld that, even once we meet the woman (played by Elizabeth Marvel) she becomes, she's instantly recognizable. Aside from a lost limb, she hasn't changed a bit.



When we finally catch a glimpse of the facade that is Jacki Weaver's crime family matriarch Smurf Cody in Animal Kingdom, it's a revelatory moment. She's easily one of the best villains of the year, with her maternal hugs and broad smiles. At the same time she's scheming against her grandson, she's doing her damndest to protect her own troubled brood against the corrupt police. Can you blame her? (Well, yes, but still...)

Widescreen Awards: Adapted Screenplay

Joel and Ethan Coen exercise a light touch in adapting Charles Portis' novel True Grit. In doing so, they preserve some of the best dialogue I’ve ever heard in a western. It all rings true. It all speaks volumes about the characters through word choice alone.

The Town doesn’t seem as authentic as it would seem. For one thing, “The Town” — as the film is quick to say in a disclaimer — of today has been the benefactor or victim of urban renewal. For another, the dialogue seems to benefit from actors well-versed in the Boston accent. Where the film succeeds, however, is in its old-fashioned, tightly-written heist film script, penned by Peter Craig, Ben Affleck and Aaron Stockard.

Full disclosure. The Killer Inside Me, a first-person depiction of a Texas sheriff's deputy's descent into full-on psychosis, is one of my favorite pulp fiction novels. The film, particularly the ending, leave something to be desired. But John Curran’s script, with its regionally-specific dialogue and some beneficial plot tweaking, is not the problem.

Much has been said already about Aaron Sorkin’s (pictured) rapid-fire dialogue in The Social Network. It is impressive, but that kind of dialogue is only worthwhile if it’s handled effectively by the director and the actors. (It is.) The real strength of Sorkin’s screenplay is its delicate handling of a complicated story, its multiple perspectives and the broader impact Facebook has had on its creators and the rest of us.

Writer-director Scott Teems keeps the motivations of his characters always clear — though sometimes cloaked in several layers of self-deception — in That Evening Sun, an adaption of William Gay’s short story, “I Hate to See That Evening Sun Go Down.” Teems never loses sight of the characters' humanity and, when the tension is ratcheted up, you feel for both sides in the property dispute.

Widescreen Awards: Art Direction

Film is an artificial medium. When I first started watching movies

— for the record, the first theater experience I can remember is Jurassic Park when I was five or six years old

— that never crossed my mind. It's not that I believed everything on screen was really happening, but it's just not something you think about for a long time.

But decisions go into everything, from the color of the protagonist's car to which pen he uses and how he signs his name. There are seemingly infinite possibilities when it comes to these things, but the best films use these choices to say something about the character or the scene. These films, in my opinion, have done that the best.

Briefly, some useful film vocab: A production designer is responsible for the overall visual appearance of a film.

A set designer or decorator is in charge of translating the production designer's vision, choosing furnishings and other items seen on a given set.

An art director oversees the workers who actually build the sets. Lower budget films, such as Life During Wartime, sometimes forgo either the set designer or art director.

Agora realistically recreates Roman Alexandria, in the process resurrecting the style of the 1950s sword-and-sandal epic. The attention to detail in the film is awe-inspiring. And, what's most impressive, is how (almost) seamlessly practical effects and sets integrate with CGI backdrops.

Production design — Guy Dyas

Art direction — Frank Walsh

Set design — Larry Dias

Black Swan is a textbook example of a film where every decision was consciously made to contribute to the overall atmosphere. The Sayers' apartment, the ballet company and even Nina's casting party are all precisely designed to contribute to that mounting sense of dread.

Production design — Thérèse DePrez

Art direction — David Stein

Set design — Tora Peterson

The Ghost Writer's production design makes up for what's lacking in the script. So much of the tension in the film is drawn from the foreboding sets. Highlights include a post-modern Martha's Vineyard retreat, an empty ferry terminal and a claustrophobic London book release party.

Production design — Albrecht Konrad

Art direction — David Scheunemann

Set design — Bernhard Henrich and Ulli Isfort

Life During Wartime uses its sun-kissed Florida setting for a surreal backdrop to the often desperate and sometimes despicable acts its characters perpetrate. As a counterpoint to the very sobering themes on display, the garish condominiums and McMansions and strip mall restaurants work their magic.

Production design — Roshelle Berliner

Art direction — Matteo De Cosmo

True Grit captures the grit of the old west without the usual embellishments. Mattie Ross doesn't frequent any saloons, but the places she does visit in her efforts to bring closure to her father's death — particularly Rooster Cogburn's back room abode — all exude an authenticity that's hard to fake.

Production design — Jess Gonchor

Art direction — Christina Ann Wilson

Set design — Nancy Haigh