2005 National Board of Review Award Winners
The New York-based group National Board of Review has selected George Clooney’s black-and-white biopic-cum-sociopolitical drama Good Night and Good Luck. (above, with Clooney and David Strathairn) as the best film of 2005.
Other winners include best director Ang Lee for critics’ fave Brokeback Mountain; another critics’ fave, Philip Seymour Hoffman, chosen as best actor for Capote; and best actress Felicity Huffman, who plays a pre-op male-to-female transsexual in Transamerica.
The best foreign film was Paradise Now, the story of two Palestinian suicide bombers directed by Hany Abu-Assad; while, inexplicably, leading man Jake Gyllenhaal (above, with Anne Hathaway) won as best supporting actor for his gay rodeo cowboy in Brokeback Mountain.
Perhaps the NBR decided to categorize Gyllenhaal’s Jack Twist as a supporting role so as to give the young actor a little something, since Heath Ledger’s taciturn cowboy has been lassoing nearly all the critical praise for acting in that film. (And if Gyllenhaal is also listed as a supporting actor for the Oscars that would increase both Gyllenhaal’s chances of landing a nomination and Ledger’s chances of winning the best actor Academy Award.)
Gong Li (right), one of the greatest film actresses of the last 15 years, was chosen best supporting actress for her portrayal of a bitter geisha in Memoirs of a Geisha. Although I hated it each time she (and everybody else) had to say something in that outer-planetary English dialect they came up with for the film, Gong’s facial expressions were, as always, masterful.
According to the NBR’s press release, the main awards (film, foreign film, documentary, animated film, acting, director, screenplay, cable film) are voted on by a Screening Committee comprised of 150 members, who must have seen all qualifying films before voting. The other awards are given by the Exceptional Photoplay Committee, first created in 1929, and composed of 12 members. The NBR’s membership includes film professionals, educators, students, and historians.
This year, the National Board of Review, usually the first group to announce its yearly list of film-award winners, postponed their announcement to Dec. 12. The delay was imposed after it was discovered that NBR voters had been sent an incomplete list of eligible films.
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Tags: Ang Lee, Anne Hathaway, Brokeback Mountain, David Strathairn, Felicity Huffman, Film Awards, George Clooney, Gong Li, Good Night and Good Luck, Jake Gyllenhaal, Memoirs of a Geisha
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