I’ve written a lot about the National Board of Review and its phony baloney way of selecting winners for its awards.

Today the NBR gave no fewer than 7 awards to movies made by independent studio A24. David Laub, head of marketing for A24, sits on the NBR board. That’s all you need to know. He’s listed on a 2021 mentorship website as “a distribution executive for film and television studio A24, where he works in all aspects of film distribution including acquisitions, marketing, publicity, and exhibition.’

The NBR gave two of its biggest awards to Joel Coen’s “The Tragedy of Macbeth.” Coen won for Screenplay and Bruno Delbonnel won for cinematography.

Two of the NBR’s top 10 films of the year were from A24, “Macbeth” and “Red Rocket.”

Two of the top 10 indie films on the NBR list also came from A24: “C’mon C’mon” and “The Green Knight.”

In foreign films, the NBR cited “Lamb,” another A24 film. They weren’t sheepish about it either.

Is it a scandal? Yes. Netflix, for whom no one feels any sympathy, was almost totally shut out of the NBR with their films “The Lost Daughter,””Tick Tick Boom” and “Power of the Dog.” And also for a foreign film, “The Hand of God.” Amazon was shut out for “Being the Ricardos.” There were dozens more oversights including Wes Anderson’s “The French Dispatch,” which was at least worthy of mention, and Edgar Wright’s “Last Night in Soho.”

But A24 had the advantage. The little studio doesn’t like me because I write this every year. They don’t invite to me to screenings or send me review links. They don’t send press releases or emails. I had to buy my ticket to “Macbeth” at the New York Film Festival. The NBR equally snubs me for their big gala in January. But this is a fraud perpetuated on the public, and I don’t mind calling it out.

Steven Spielberg’s “West Side Story” asks the question Imagine if you could do life over knowing what you know now.

So Spielberg has reimagined Robert Wise and Arthur Laurents’s movie of the Broadway musical 60 years later. Actually, 64 years later, because “WSS” opened on Broadway in 1957. Lincoln Center did not exist on Manhattan’s West Side. The world of the Sharks and Jets was real. It had yet to be paved over for the future.

It’s six decades later. We can look back at it now that that world was wiped out. Someone I mentioned this to yesterday didn’t even realize there had been a neighborhood where Lincoln Center stands, that people lived there.

Well, they did, which is why Tony Kushner’s resonant screenplay and the lavish set built in New Jersey to look like New York in 1957 instantly give the Spielberg film weight and verisimilitude. From the very beginning when we see the wrecking balls, the signs that say “Future Home of Lincoln Center,” you know that Spielberg and co. have got it right. It’s thrilling to know they understand.

In this growing rubble come the Jets and the Sharks, Tony and Maria and all their friends. It feels as though Spielberg has always been waiting for this moment despite his decades of authoritative, big budget filmmaking. Did he always have this in mind when “ET” was phoning home, and Richard Dreyfus was talking to aliens, when Oskar Schindler was saving Jews, and Tom Hanks was saving Private Ryan? It sure seems like it. “West Side Story” 2.0 is the perfect distillation of Spielberg, combining fantasy and violence.

To get beyond the detailed nuanced production we’ll have to see this movie twice, But let’s get to the show. Spielberg has done everything right, the opposite of what the cowards who mounted “WSS” on Broadway in 2019 did. He used Bernstein-Sondheim music, the Jerome Robbins dancing, the Laurents story. Kushner expanded, deepened every character with history and motivation. Early tweets declared this movie better than the original! But it’s not it can’t be. It’s just that the filmmakers had the gift of hindsight. They had a text to work from, whereas Laurents et al built it from the ground up.

The actors: I’m sorry but the entire ensemble is perfect, starting with Ansel Elgort and Rachel Zegler as Tony and Maria. I’m so glad I said from the outset that Elgort was right for this job. I saw it when he was in “Baby Driver.” Zegler is the find of finds. Ariana DeBose and Mike Faist are sensational as Anita and Riff. Audiences are not going to stop talking about them. Brian D’Arcy James and Corey Stoll are memorable as Krupke and Schrank, D’Arcy James is beautifully certain and perplexed about how to handle his gangs as the tractors and forklifts make way for a new world.

And then there is Rita Moreno, who won her Oscar 60 years for playing Anita, and now returns as Valentina, who runs the corner store. Spielberg gives her the gift of a lifetime (she’s 90 now) as the wise owl. And he resets the show’s most famous song, “Somewhere,” as an anthem in her voice for all the ages. She’s going to get another Oscar. You can’t not have a lump in your throat when she sings it.

Spielberg often is criticized for too much corniness, or not being serious when he needs to be. A master filmmaker who we’re not even appreciating now, he is taken for granted a lot of the time. He’s had his masterworks– ET, Schindler, Ryan, Close Encounters, Minority Report, War of the Worlds. But now he’s painted his masterpiece. (Plus he brought back the corner of 31st and 6th, where Gimbels, Willoughys cameras and the hot dog shop used to be. I cried.) “WSS” 2.0 is an 11/10. See it on the biggest screen you find.

With the National Board of Review, er, fans, there has to be a reason why Paul Thomas Anderson and “Licorice Pizza” did so well today. It’s certainly not because they’re from MGM since Annie Schulhof otherwise ignored that studio’s other movies including Lady Gaga in “House of Gucci” or Jennifer Hudson and “Respect.” I’m sure in time it will turn out that Schulhof is related to one of the “Pizza” producers.

The NBR also went big for “King Richard,” no surprise that’s Warner Bros. But Schulhof also gave A24 Studios several awards — she’s got a board member, David Laub, connected to that studio. He’s listed on a 2021 mentorship website as “a distribution executive for film and television studio A24, where he works in all aspects of film distribution including acquisitions, marketing, publicity, and exhibition.’ So getting five nominations from the NBR ain’t hard, know what I mean?

Otherwise, Schulhof spread the love to get tables sold for her January 11th event. But she doesn’t like Sony Pictures Classics, so no love for Pedro Almodovar’s “Parallel Mothers” or Penelope Cruz. And nothing for Amazon’s “Being the Ricardos.” Netflix also I guess didn’t capitulate to Schulhof, because except for “Don’t Look Up” being included in the top 10 also-rans there’s nothing for “Power of the Dog,” Jane Campion, “Tick Tick Boom” with Andrew Garfield or Aaron Sorkin and so on. Obviously these people are not playing NBR ball. LOL.

The National Board of Review, if you don’t know, is a fan based group that pays $600 or more in membership and an equal amount to attend the annual gala. They have nothing to do with journalism or film criticism.

Below is a full list of the 2021 award recipients, announced by the National Board of Review:

Best Film: LICORICE PIZZA
Best Director: Paul Thomas Anderson, LICORICE PIZZA
Best Actor: Will Smith, KING RICHARD
Best Actress: Rachel Zegler, WEST SIDE STORY
Best Supporting Actor: Ciarán Hinds, BELFAST
Best Supporting Actress: Aunjanue Ellis, KING RICHARD
Best Original Screenplay: Asghar Farhadi, A HERO
Best Adapted Screenplay: Joel Coen, THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH (A24)
Breakthrough Performance: Alana Haim & Cooper Hoffman, LICORICE PIZZA
Best Directorial Debut: Michael Sarnoski, PIG
Best Animated Feature: ENCANTO
Best Foreign Language Film: A HERO
Best Documentary: SUMMER OF SOUL (…OR, WHEN THE REVOLUTION COULD NOT BE TELEVISED)
Best Ensemble: THE HARDER THEY FALL
Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography: Bruno Delbonnel, THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH (A24)
NBR Freedom of Expression Award: FLEE

Top Films (in alphabetical order)

Belfast
Don’t Look Up
Dune
King Richard
The Last Duel
Nightmare Alley
Red Rocket (A24)
The Tragedy of Macbeth  (A24)
West Side Story

Top 5 Foreign Language Films (in alphabetical order)

Benedetta
Lamb (A24)
Lingui, The Sacred Bonds
Titane
The Worst Person in the World

Top 5 Documentaries (in alphabetical order)

Ascension
Attica
Flee
The Rescue
Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain

Top 10 Independent Films (in alphabetical order)

The Card Counter
C’mon C’mon (A24)
CODA
The Green Knight (A24)
Holler
Jockey
Old Henry
Pig
Shiva Baby
The Souvenir Part II (A24)

Today’s virtual press junket for Guillermo del Toro’s “Nightmare Alley” turned into a nightmare.

Both stars Bradley Cooper and Cate Blanchett are completely MIA and not participating. Cooper was never on the docket, Blanchett was. But she was up at 3:30 this morning and Zoomed in from London for the Q&A after the premiere at Alice Tully Hall, so she’s probably sleeping now. Still, it’s kind of crazy that the film’s two big stars aren’t doing press.

On top of that, del Toro was originally offered in a solo Q&A to press in an invite to the Critics Choice Association. But this morning Searchlight Films sent out a message that del Toro was being combined with actors Rooney Mara and Richard Jenkins. It’s very unusual for a director of del Toro’s importance not to do his own Q&A. Also missing from the entire press junket is screenwriter Kim Morgan, who’s never written a movie before but recently married del Toro.

None of this should come as any surprise to the press. We were told that there was “absolutely not” going to be a reception or event after last night’s screening. And yet, as the audience poured out of the Alice Tully theater, it was clear that certain guests were being herded upstairs to a private party. Both directors Wes Anderson and Joel Coen were spotted, as well as actress Gina Gershon. The lobby was suddenly filled with press people who’d attended the screening but were now told by security that the building was closed to them, and to get out fast.

Nightmare indeed!

Guillermo del Toro is one of my favorite directors. So it’s doubly sad to report that his remake of the 1940s noir film, “Nightmare Alley,” begins as a dream and ends as a nightmare. It is not a potential Best Picture nominee. It’s a project with high hopes gone wrong, buckling under its own weight despite an all star cast.

del Toro’s work here can’t be faulted as far as direction and execution. From the outset “Nightmare Alley” is beautiful to look at it, with a sumptuous production design that goes from gritty 1930s carney life to spot on Art Deco glamour. del Toro knows how to conjure images, and does so with his usual brio.

But there is no screenplay here that makes sense for 2021. Whether it’s adapted or reimagined, the script is ill conceived, a disaster that squanders all of the good faith it tries to cultivate in the first half hour, tossing reason and empathy to the side. There is no one to root for. Every character is horrible. And none of them have  enough depth to even understand what makes them tick.

I know there will be del Toro fans who want to wish “Nightmare Alley” into some kind of lurid success. It won’t happen. And what this means is Searchlight, for the first time in years, is unlikely to have a Best Picture nominee this year. “The French Dispatch” isn’t happening, and neither is “The Eyes of Tammy Faye.” Former Fox Searchlight chiefs Nancy Utley and Steve Giulia can have some consolation in knowing their long, successful run is over.

“Nightmare Alley” opens at a carnival with really strongly drawn colorful characters and a magnificent set. Bradley Cooper, looking like Indiana Jones, turns up looking for work and quickly ingratiates himself with Toni Colette as Zeena, a fake psychic, and her husband, played by David Straithairn. He hooks up with Rooney Mara’s sorceress, and there are others at the carney we’d like to spend more time with like Willem Dafoe.

But that is not to be. Rather than stay at the carnival, Cooper and Mara leave for greener pastures. They come in contact with Cate Blanchett, a shrink who has a plan to bilk her rich patients. While Blanchett is just fine, the premise of the film now turns into something fairly sinister and unforgiving. There’s nowhere to go but down as Cooper’s Stan reveals himself to be nothing but a louse. He’s no hero, we have no idea who he really is or why he’s so awful. Even Cooper’s charms can’t keep us from disliking Stan more and more.

Meanwhile, the carney folks– Colette, Straithairn, Dafoe– who we invested in emotionally are gone. The filmmakers seem to be saying, You liked them? So what? Now Stan is involved in a grotesque plot with Blanchett’s Dr. Ritter, which puts Mara’s Molly– the only possibly likeable character — at a disadvantage. There is nothing for her to win here since the Stan we’re seeing is so reprehensible. Blanchett is too good at her job. She is convincingly evil.

The production design is top notch, everything from sets to costumes to lighting. Nathan Johnson’s score is gorgeous. But why does it rain continually from scene to scene, and then snow? “Nightmare Alley” is a movie about weather, or not. Capable actors like Clifton Collins Jr. are squandered. Richard Jenkins, a two time Oscar nominee, is made to look ridiculous wearing a crazy wig.

I suppose there are Easter eggs here. At the beginning of the film Stan is seen walking away from a burning farmhouse that seems to recall “Days of Heaven.” Later, there’s a carnival called the “Ambersons” which may be a reference to the more Magnificent family of that name. Maybe there are others but they don’t help. There’s that sinking feeling as “Nightmare Alley” crawls along at a bloated 2 hours, 2o minutes that this is the big disappointment of the season.

A Q&A at Alice Tully Hall followed, with Mara unable to answer most questions, and Cooper also seeming uncertain. The screenwriter, Kim Morgan, has no real credits before this and has married del Toro recently. The most interesting part of the panel chat was learning the movie started before the pandemic, went on hiatus, returned later. Mara was pregnant when they began, and had given birth by the time shooting resumed. I think she got the most of this experience.