Another major critical surprise: The Hurt Locker (above, with Jeremy Renner) was voted best picture of 2009 by the San Francisco Film Critics Circle. The Iraq War drama's director, Kathryn Bigelow, received top honors as well.
All kidding aside, a more unique choice — though not all that unexpected considering that it's San Francisco — was Colin Firth for best actor. In Tom Ford's A Single Man, Firth plays a gay English professor in 1960s Los Angeles, a time and place where homosexuality was generally not your usual conversation topic. His lover (Matthew Goode) dies unexpectedly, and the professor must decide what he wants to do with his own life — or rather, if he still has a life. A few months ago, Firth was voted best actor at the Venice Film Festival.
Christian McKay's win for the little-seen Me and Orson Welles (above), starring Zac Efron no less, was a bigger surprise, though McKay has been mentioned elsewhere (usually as a nominee or runner-up). Another curiosity was the choice of Sacha Gervasi's rockumentary Anvil! The Story of Anvil as best documentary of 2009. Louie Psihoyos' The Cove and Robert Kenner's Food, Inc. have been the favorites thus far. (Anvil! has no chance at the Oscars, as it's not one of the semi-finalists in the best documentary feature category.)
Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach's citation for their adaptation of Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr. Fox wasn't something expected, either, but the San Francisco critics' biggest surprise was its choice of best foreign language film: Roy Andersson's off-the-wall comedy-drama You, the Living, a 2008 production that was Sweden's submission for the best foreign language film Academy Award last year. Thus far, no other US critics group has mentioned it (at least at the very top).
Among the expected winners were Meryl Streep (above) for her Julia Child incarnation in Julie & Julia, Mo'Nique for her abusive mom in Precious, Quentin Tarantino for his original Inglourious Basterds screenplay, and, in the SFFCC's inaugural animated feature category, Henry Selick's stop-motion adventure tale Coraline.
Other winners were Roger Deakins' cinematography for Joel and Ethan Coen's A Serious Man, the animated release Sita Sings the Blues, by Nina Paley, which received a special mention, and two Marlon Riggs Award recipients: Frazer Bradshaw's drama Everything Strange and New (above), about working-class life in Oakland, and Barry Jenkins' Medicine for Melancholy, described as a "lyrical black-and-white portrait of two African-American twenty-somethings spending a long day and night in San Francisco." The Marlon Riggs Award is given to a "Bay Area filmmaker or individual who represents courage and innovation in the world of cinema."
And lastly, screenwriter/producer Rose Kaufman, who recently died of cancer, was given a In Memoriam citation.
The San Francisco Film Critics Circle consists of 26 Bay Area film critics. Last year, they chose Milk, about gay-rights activist Harvey Milk, as the best picture of the year.