Big news for Paul Thomas Anderson today: his There Will Be Blood practically swept the National Society of Film Critics awards, taking home Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (for Daniel Day-Lewis) and Best Cinematography. This isn’t the first critical recognition for the movie-- it cleaned up with the Los Angeles Film Critics and the New York Film Critics Online-- but it’s the first significant sweep, as well as the first critical awards to come since the film opened.

Other winners included Julie Christie for Best Actress (she’s done well with a whole mess of other critics), Cate Blanchett for Best Supporting Actress (currently duking it out against Amy Ryan for critics awards) and Casey Affleck, who just barely edged out Javier Bardem for Best Supporting Actor. Tamara Jenkins won Best Screenplay for The Savages, 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days won Best Foreign Language Film, and No End In Sight won Best Documentary.

The most interesting bit of coverage so far on all of this is Tom O’Neil at the blog Gold Derby, which has the rundown of how all the votes were split. Take a look and pick your favorite rout: There Will Be Blood destroyed The Diving Bell and the Butterfly! Julie Christie almost got beaten by Marion Cotillard! OK, maybe this stuff only resembles boxing matches for nuts like me, but hey, it’s still fun.

Mostly what this has done is send the Oscar prognosticators into a frenzy, wondering whether or not this deep, dark oil drama actually has s hot at Best Picture (more from that in my Oscar column tomorrow). What it mostly means is that There Will Be Blood is the film of the moment, the one getting all the attention and cramming movie theaters in New York and L.A. We’ll see how things turn out with the Broadcast Film Critics Awards tomorrow, and the Guild awards after that-- the horse race continues!