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National Society of Film Critics 2009 Winners

An animated film has won the National Society of Film Critics 2009 Awards. No, not WALL-E, but Ari Folman’s anti-war documentary-ish Waltz with Bashir, about Israel’s disastrous 1982 invasion of Lebanon. It’s hard not to believe that current events — the Gaza conflict has been going on since late December — influenced the vote, though war or no war in the Middle East, Waltz with Bashir has been garnering nearly universal praise.
Waltz with Bashir, which had previously won the Los Angeles Film Critics‘ best animated film award (a sort of consolation prize for having lost to WALL-E in the best film category), is Israel’s entry for the 2009 best foreign-language film Oscar; the film is also one of [...]

National Society of Film Critics Awards 2009

2009 National Society of Film Critics Awards
2009 National Society of Film Critics award winners: January 3, 2009
 

Waltz with Bashir by Ari Folman

 
BEST PICTURE
1. Waltz with Bashir, directed by Ari Folman (26)
2. Happy-Go-Lucky (20)
3. WALL-E (20)
BEST NON-FICTION FILM
1. Man on Wire, directed by James Marsh (55)
2. Trouble the Water (34)
3. Encounters at the End of the World (26)
BEST DIRECTOR
1. Mike Leigh, Happy-Go-Lucky (36)
2. Gus Van Sant, Milk & Paranoid Park (20)
3. Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire (16)
BEST ACTOR
1. Sean Penn, Milk (87)
2. Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler (40)
3. Clint Eastwood, Gran Torino (38)
BEST ACTRESS
1. Sally Hawkins, Happy-Go-Lucky (65)
2. Melissa Leo, Frozen River (33)
3. Michelle Williams, Wendy [...]

2008 New York Film Critics Winners

There were no major surprises in the list of the New York Film Critics Circle’s 2008 winners — unless you count last year’s Romanian abortion drama 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days being chosen this year’s best foreign film. (Last year, the New York critics’ picked the German drama The Lives of Others — released in Los Angeles in 2006 — as their top foreign film; the previous year, their choice was the French underground drama Army of Shadows, a 1969 release in its country of origin.)
Milk was voted best film, Sean Penn (above) was the best actor for his performance as slain gay leader Harvey Milk, and Josh Brolin was chosen best supporting actor for the same film. [...]

New York Film Critics Awards 2008

2008 New York Film Critics Circle Awards
2008 New York Film Critics Circle Award winners: Dec. 10, 2008
 

Best Picture: Milk directed by Gus Van Sant
Runners-up: Rachel Getting Married; Happy-Go-Lucky and Slumdog Millionaire (tie)

Best Foreign Film: 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days directed by Cristian Mungiu
Runners-up: A Christmas Tale; The Class

Best First Film: Courtney Hunt, Frozen River
Runners-up: Ballast; Reprise

Best Documentary: Man on Wire directed by James Marsh
Runners-up: Waltz with Bashir; Trouble the Water

Best Animated Film: WALL-E directed by Andrew Stanton
Runner-up: Waltz with Bashir

Best Director: Mike Leigh, Happy-Go-Lucky
Runners-up: Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire; David Fincher, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Best Actor: Sean Penn, Milk
Runners-up: Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler; Clint Eastwood, Gran Torino

Best Actress: Sally Hawkins, Happy-Go-Lucky
Runners-up: Melissa Leo, Frozen River; Kate Winslet, [...]

2008 Los Angeles Film Critics Winners

For the first time in its 34-year history, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association has bestowed its best picture award on an animated film, the Disney/Pixar production Wall-E.

Other surprises included Berlin Film Festival winner Sally Hawkins (above) as best actress for Happy-Go-Lucky, which means that Hawkins is now a potential Oscar contender; Jia Zhangke’s 2006 Venice Film Festival-winning Chinese drama Still Life as best foreign-language film and for the year’s best cinematography, for Lik Wai Yu; and Happy-Go-Lucky for best screenplay (Mike Leigh, who also directed the film).

Non-surprises were Heath Ledger (above) as best supporting actor for The Dark Knight; James Marsh’s widely acclaimed Man on Wire as best documentary; and National Board of Review winner Penélope [...]

London Film Critics Awards 2005

2005 London Film Critics’ Circle Awards
2005 London Film Critics’ Circle Award winners: February 9, 2005.
("*" denotes the winner in each category)
 

Thomas Haden Church, Paul Giamatti in Sideways
 

Best Film
The Aviator – Martin Scorsese
The Motorcycle Diaries – Walter Salles
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind – Michel Gondry
House of Flying Daggers – Zhang Yimou
* Sideways – Alexander Payne
Best British Film
Ae Fond Kiss . . . – Ken Loach
Finding Neverland – Marc Foster
My Summer of Love – Pawel Pwawlikowski
Shaun of the Dead – Edgar Wright
* Vera Drake – Mike Leigh
Best Foreign-Language Film
* The Motorcycle Diaries – Walter Salles
A Very Long Engagement – Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Bad Education – Pedro Almodóvar
House of Flying Daggers – Zhang Yimou
The Return [...]

VERA DRAKE II – Imelda Staunton

VERA DRAKE Review: Part I
Elsewhere, the director imbues Vera Drake with a somewhat artificial flavor. True, the film’s 1950s working-class environment looks real — cramped homes and ugly clothes — but Leigh, as usual, overdoes the unattractiveness of his characters. His laborers have bad teeth and funny faces, and several of them look like they might belong in a mental institution. (Alex Kelly’s Ethel, Vera’s pathologically shy daughter, is a typical inhabitant of Mike Leigh’s Mondo Labor.) Worse yet, Leigh treats them like children — sympathetically, of course, but with a not inconsiderable degree of condescension.
Despite the meticulous preparations and rehearsals that go into Leigh’s projects — or perhaps because of them — several performances feel much too carefully calculated. [...]

VERA DRAKE d: Mike Leigh

Vera Drake (2004)
Direction and screenplay: Mike Leigh
Cast: Imelda Staunton, Philip Davis, Peter Wight, Daniel Mays, Alex Kelly, Eddie Marsan, Ruth Sheen, Sally Hawkins, Chris O’Dowd, Heather Craney
 

 
Director Mike Leigh’s touches are found everywhere in Vera Drake, from the drab working-class social setting to the somewhat bizarre characters that inhabit that milieu (at least in Leigh’s oeuvre). Even so, Vera Drake cannot quite be considered a Mike Leigh Film. This bleak drama about a kind and gentle — if none too bright — part-time cleaning woman, part-time wife and mother, and part-time abortionist truly belongs to its leading lady, veteran stage and screen actress Imelda Staunton, whose superb tour de force carries the film to heights it would never have [...]

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