It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Award Season...

...with the announcement of the New York Film Critics Circles winners.  Here are the major winners.  Thoughts?

Best Picture

The Artist

Best Director 

Michel Hazanavicius for The Artist

Best Screenplay 

Steven Zaillian, Aaron Sorkin for Moneyball

Best Actress 

Meryl Streep for The Iron Lady

Best Actor 

Brad Pitt for Moneyball, The Tree of Life

Best Supporting Actress 

Jessica Chastain for The Tree of Life, The Help, Take Shelter

Best Supporting Actor 

Albert Brooks for Drive

Best Cinematographer 

Emmanuel Lubezki for The Tree of Life

Best Non-Fiction Film (Documentary) 

Cave of Forgotten Dreams

Best Foreign Film 

A Separation (Iran)

Best First Film 

J.C. Chandor for Margin Call

The Tree of Life--you can see my original post about the film here--certainly was a beautiful movie, no hesitation on the cinematography award there (side note: Lubezki also filmed Children of Men, which has some mind-blowing, super-long action shots without any cuts.  He's awesome.).  But is it too avant-garde for the Oscar community?  Brad Pitt was great in it too, but I'm wary of Jessica Chastain's appearance on this list, although I haven't seen her other two movies.

And can Aaron Sorkin pull off best screenplay two years in a row?  We shall see.