Sunday, December 10, 2006

Color commentary on the LA film critics awards

The awards season has begun. My color coded comments:

Haven't seen.
Yes.
No.

2006 Los Angeles Critics Association winners:

Picture: "Letters From Iwo Jima"
Runner-up: "The Queen"

Director: Paul Greengrass, "United 93"
Runner-up: Clint Eastwood, "Flags of Our Fathers" and "Letters From Iwo Jima"

Actor: Sacha Baron Cohen, "Borat" and Forest Whitaker, "The Last King of Scotland" (tie) (both good, but not good enough)

Actress: Helen Mirren, "The Queen"
Runner-up: Penelope Cruz, "Volver"

Supporting actor: Michael Sheen, "The Queen"[he was very good, but not great]
Runner-up: Sergi Lopez, "Pan's Labyrinth"

Supporting actress: Luminita Gheorghiu, "The Death of Mr. Lazarescu"
Runner-up: Jennifer Hudson, "Dreamgirls" (she should have gotten the award)

Screenplay: Peter Morgan, "The Queen" (it was good, but not the best)
Runner-up: Michael Arndt, "Little Miss Sunshine" (This was a ripoff of "Nat. Lampoon's Vactation")

Cinematography: Emmanuel Lubezki, "Children of Men"
Runner-up: Tom Stern, "Flags of Our Fathers" and "Letters From Iwo Jima"

Production design: Eugenio Caballero, "Pan's Labyrinth" (while this was a much better movie, Arnofsky's "the Fountain" was better)
Runner-up: Jim Clay and Geoffrey Kirkland, "Children of Men"

Music: Alexandre Desplat, "The Queen" and "The Painted Veil"
Runner-up: Thomas Newman, "The Good German" and "Little Children"

Foreign-language film: "The Lives of Others"
Runner-up: "Volver" (The best foreign films were "13 Tzametti" and "The Host", but neither is going to get anything)

Documentary/non-fiction film: "An Inconvenient Truth"
Runner-up: "Darwin's Nightmare"

Animation: "Happy Feet"
Runner-up: "Cars"

Douglas Edwards experimental/independent film/video award: "Old Joy" (Kelly Reichardt) and "In Between Days" (So Yong Kim) ("Old Joy" sucked.)

New generation award: Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris (directors) and Michael Arndt (screenwriter), "Little Miss Sunshine" (A derivitive film which was nice but not great).

Career achievement award (previously announced): Robert Mulligan (?)

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