'The Descendants' is #1 for L.A. Film Critics Association

The L.A. Film Critics Association is tweeting out the news from the crits' annual voting confab. "The Descendants" outpolled "Tree of Life" for best picture. Terrence Malick does win best director for 'Tree,' just ahead of Martin Scorcese. "City of Life and Death" for best foreign-language film, "Rango" for animation, Michael Fassbender and Youn Jung-hee for best actors, Jessica Chastain and Christopher Plummer for supporting actors, "Cave of Forgotten Dreams" for documentary. The group's website is still flagged by Google for malware, but you can get the other winners quicker on Twitter.

'Descendants' bonus: One of the major charms of the movie is the sublime Hawaiian slack-key soundtrack. Midway through the first song, I could already smell the Maui countryside and taste the beach in my mouth. "Hi`ilawe" appears twice in the film, performed by Gabby Pahinui and Sonny Chillingworth. After the jump, Pahinui does the song in a documentary before his 1980 death.