Director Ang Lee named Best Director by Los Angeles Film Critics Association and his "Brokeback Mountain" is their Best Picture of the Year choice. LAFCA's 31st annual achievement awards ceremony will be held Tuesday, January 17, 2006 at the Park Hyatt Hotel in Los Angeles. www.lafca.net
The Los Angeles Film Critics Association (LAFCA) has kicked off awards season by voting "Brokeback Mountain" as Best Picture of the Year for 2005, and honoring Ang Lee, director of the gay cowboy drama starring Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal with the Best Director Award. William Chang Suk-Pick won in the production design category for Wong Kar Wai's "2046," and Joe Hisaishi won in the music score category the Japanese anime spectacular "Howl's Moving Castle." The Los Angeles Film Critics Association is made up of print, radio and online critics in the Southern California area. LAFCA's 31st annual achievement awards ceremony will be held Tuesday, January 17, 2006 at the Park Hyatt Hotel in Los Angeles. www.lafca.net
Other award winners include:
DIRECTOR:
Runner-up: David Cronenberg, "A History of Violence"
ACTRESS: Vera Farmiga, "Down to the Bone"
Runner-up: Judi Dench, "Mrs. Henderson Presents"
ACTOR: Phillip Seymour Hoffman, "Capote"
Runner-up: Heath Ledger, "Brokeback Mountain"
SCREENPLAY: TIE:
"Capote" by Dan Futterman
"The Squid and the Whale" by Noah Baumbach
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Catherine Keener, "Capote", Ballad of Jack and Rose, The 40 Year Old Virgin and The Interpreter
Runner-up: Amy Adams, "Junebug"
SUPPORTING ACTOR: William Hurt, "A History of Violence"
- Runner-up: Frank Langella, "Good Night, And Good Luck"
FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM: "Cach" directed by Michael Haneke
Runner-up: "2046" directed by Wong Kar Wai
DOCUMENTARY/NON-FICTION FILM: "Grizzly Man" directed by Werner Herzog
Runner-up: "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room" directed by Alex Gibney
PRODUCTION DESIGN: William Chang, "2046"
Runner-up: Jim Bissell, "Good Night, And Good Luck."
ANIMATION: "Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit" (Nick Park and Steve Box)
MUSIC/SCORE: Joe Hisaishi, Youmi Kimura, "Howls Moving Castle"
Runner-up: Ryuichi Sakamoto, "Tony Takitani"
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Robert Elswit, "Good Night, And Good Luck"
Runner-up: Christopher Doyle, Kwan Pun Leung, & Yiu-Fai Lai, "2046"
NEW GENERATION: Terrence Howard
CAREER ACHIEVEMENT: Richard Widmark
INDEPENDENT/EXPERIMENTAL: La Commune (Paris, 1871) directed by Peter Watkins
SPECIAL CITATIONS:
To Film critic Kevin Thomas for his contributions to film culture in Los Angeles.
To David Shepard, Bruce Posner and the Anthology Film Archive to honor Unseen Cinema, an eight-disc set DVD collection of avant-garde, underground films from 1894-1941.