National Society of Film Critics Tagged Articles at Cinematical
Final Critics Org Announces Year's Best ... Finally!
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The National Society of Film Critics has become the last org to dish out its favorites from 2006, and the good news is that we no longer have to dedicate posts to critic nominations and favorites. The better news? They came out of left field and chose Pan's Labyrinth as the best film of the year. No Children of Men? No United 93? No Dreamgirls, or The Departed or The Queen -- nope, this pack -- which consists of 58 critics -- shelled out top honors to Guillermo del Toro's fantasy flick. And I say, good for them.
On the directing front, del Toro lost out to United 93's Paul Greengrass, who managed to also sneak by Martin Scorsese with 21 votes. See, these critics don't do nominations or host a ceremony where they announce the winners -- they simply vote and decide on the spot. In the best actor and actress categories, there were no surprises -- Forest Whitaker (The Last King of Scotland) took home best actor in an extremely close race with Peter O'Toole (Venus), which ultimately went to a tiebreaker, allowing Whitaker to slip past with a 9 votes to 8 victory. Helen Mirren (The Queen) didn't have as much trouble; she walked away with the best actress award, accumulating 94 votes, whereas Laura Dern (looks like Lynch's promotional tour paid off) finished second with 32 votes.
An Inconvenient Truth took best non-fiction film, while Peter Morgan's script for The Queen won best screenplay. Check out a full list of winners and runner-ups (courtesy of indiewire) after the jump.
More on the National Society of Film Critics Awards
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On the Los Angeles Times website, Tom O'Neil offers a fascinating look at
the voting behind the National Society of Film Critics Awards. As I reported in yesterday's
post on the group's honorees, it took six ballots for Capote
to be chosen as best picture - the details of the voting, however, are fascinating. The first ballot is conducted either
in person or by proxy, so the vote of each member, whether they're at the meeting or not (this year's was held in New
York, at Sardi's restaurant). After those 55 votes were counted, A
History of Violence was in first place, but its lead over Brokeback Mountain was not substantial enough to give it an outright victory. As a result,
a second vote was taken, but this time only the 26 critics at the meet were allowed to vote. In round two, those present
listed their three favorites (awarding three points to the one at the top of their personal list) of the five films that
received the most votes in round one: Violence, Brokeback, 2046,
Capote, and The
World. Still with me?After the second round, A History of Violence had taken a substantial lead over Brokeback Mountain, but it still didn't have enough points to win (a winner must have the most points and be listed on the majority of ballots). If no winner has been chosen by the fifth round, the rules stipulate that only the top thee vote-getters - in this case, A History of Violence, 2046, and Capote - compete; after that vote, 2046 had the fewest points and was dropped. So, in round six, the remaining voters simply chose between the works of Bennett Miller and David Cronenberg. As we know, Capote won - but the victory was by a single vote.
O'Neil's article also lists the vote totals (and number of ballot) for the other major categories and is worth a read - it's not often we're allowed a behind-the-scenes look at how the winners of major awards are selected.
National Society of Film Critics names Capote best picture
Filed under: Drama », Awards », Newsstand », Trophy Hysteric »
After six ballots, the 55 film writers who make up
with National Society of Film Critics chose Capote
as the best film of 2005. In the second spot was A History of
Violence, followed by a film that has received little notice this awards season, Wong
Kar-Wai's 2046. Capote star Philip Seymour Hoffman also received top honors for his work as Truman
Capote, just beating out The Squid and the Whale star Jeff
Daniels for the honor. The gay cowboy, er, sheepherder, himself, Heath Ledger, finished third.Refreshingly, apart from that whole Capote thing, this group of critics didn't really follow the 2005 awards trends, and ended up giving their prizes to a fairly diverse group of people and films. Other major winners were David Cronenberg, who took home the best director award (for A History of Violence), and Reese Witherspoon, who was named best actress for Walk the Line. Additionally, the rarely-mentioned pair of Ed Harris (A History of Violence) and Amy Adams (Junebug), won the supporting awards, while Noah Baumbach picked up yet another screenwriting nod for the hilarious, acerbic The Squid and the Whale.
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