Damon and Tarantino get honors at Film Critics Awards

(AFP/Yoshikazu TSUNO)

In the latest of a string of awards ceremonies, film critics will telecast the Critics' Choice Movie Awards live on VH1, MTV's sister channel, on January 14 at 9 pm ET.

The 16th annual event is presented by the Broadcast Film Critics Association, the largest group of film critics in North America with a 250-member voting body, representing television, radio and online critics.

Black Swan leads the nominations in 12 categories from a total of 25, including Best Picture, Best Lead Actress for Natalie Portman, Best Supporting Actress for Mila Kunis and Best Director for Darren Aronofsky.

Other nominees for Best Picture are Inception, The Fighter, The Social Network, The Town, 127 Hours, The King's Speech, Toy Story 3, True Grit and Winter's Bone.

In addition to garnering nominations, Matt Damon will receive an award for his philanthropic efforts. The actor, who won a Critics' Choice award 13 years ago for co-writing Good Will Hunting, stars in 2010's True Grit, Hereafter, Green Zone and last year's Invictus and also narrates Inside Job, about the financial crisis, which is a Best Documentary Feature nominee.

Among Damon's many causes, he co-founded Water.org, which provides safe drinking water around the world, and supports the ONE Campaign's anti-poverty efforts, Not On Our Watch, Haiti relief, the fight against AIDS, and Feeding America's hunger-relief organization.

Director Quentin Tarantino will be presented with the first Critics' Choice Music+Film Award, created to honor a filmmaker who artfully integrates music with film.

Maroon 5 will perform as house band and play a tribute of music from Tarantino's films, demonstrating his dynamic use of key songs such as Chuck Berry's "You Never Can Tell" from the dance scene with Uma Thurman and John Travolta in Pulp Fiction and "Stuck in the Middle" by Stealers Wheel from Reservoir Dogs.

VH1 has posted an Award Season Twitter Tracker to indicate the buzz factor of trending topics. Natalie Portman has been No. 1. Pre-show arrival of celebrities on the red carpet will be posted on http://www.criticschoice.vh1.com.

According to the BFCA, the Critics' Choice Movie Awards are historically the most accurate predictor of the Oscars in the acting categories and for best picture and best director.

Last year's event recognized The Hurt Locker for Best Picture and Kathryn Bigelow as Best Director, which matched the Oscar winners. Since most critics' awards from New York to Los Angeles have selected The Social Network as best film, it will be no surprise if it wins the Critics' Choice.

RC