On Friday night, VH1 aired the forgotten awards show, the Critics Choice Awards, otherwise known as the Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards. The Critics Choice sort of represent the consensus of the critics’ thoughts on the year-in-film. The ceremony has improved over the past few years, and this year they actually had a decent production budget and a surprising good house band with Maroon 5. The breezy two-hour show handed out awards quickly and all in all, I enjoyed watching it while I downed a couple of cocktails with my dog (my dog was not drinking).

The big winners:

Best Picture: The Social Network
Best Director: David Fincher, The Social Network
Best Actor: Colin Firth
Best Actress: Natalie Portman
Best Supporting Actress: Melissa Leo
Best Supporting Actor: Christian Bale
Best Newcomer: Hailee Steinfield
Best Ensemble: The cast of The Fighter
Best Made-for-TV Movie: The Pacific

My favorite parts:

* My favorite acceptance speeches were from Melissa Leo and Christian Bale, surprisingly. Bale is really impressing me lately – you can see that he’s making a real effort to NOT be a jagoff. This is Bale’s version of an Oscar campaign – simply not being surly and difficult. Actually putting on a suit and showing some humility and humor about being honored. His acceptance speech was lovely, and he honored the town of Lowell, Massachusetts and the Ward family, and then he got emotional about his family, specifically his wife Sibi. As far as Melissa Leo’s win, she is just an awesome broad, a wonderful character actress and I enjoyed her because she just seemed to be having the time of her life.

* Matt Damon was honored with the Joel Siegel Award, which recognized his humanitarian work with Water.org, the global clean-water initiative that Matt co-founded. Matt looked great, his speech was simple and humble, and he knows how to laugh at himself – he was pretty much roasted by the two presenters of the award, Jimmy Kimmel and Emily Blunt.

* Quentin Tarantino! He got some kind of special lifetime achievement award that gave him special recognition for his extraordinary use of music in film. He seemed genuinely touched to receive the award, and I always enjoy hearing him speak – he’s a talker. And a genius. It was good to see him!

Here are some photos of the winners – for some reason, I can’t find any photos of Christian Bale or Matt Damon. Sorry, CB!

Photos courtesy of WENN.