Spider-Man 2 stars Tobey Maguire. Here’s an ungodly bit of awards season news: Jesus Christ and Jason Bourne have lost out to Peter Parker, a.k.a. Spider-Man (“Spidey” among friends/crazy fans), at this year’s Critics’ Choice Awards.- Awards season news: The most memorable outcome at this year’s Critics’ Choice Awards had Jesus Christ and Jason Bourne losing out to Spider-Man.
- In other less riveting awards season news, two U.S.-based critics groups have picked Clint Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby as the year’s Best Film while singling out Martin Scorsese as their Best Director for The Aviator.
Awards season news: Crowd-pleaser Sideways & superhero flick Spider-Man 2 among this year’s Critics’ Choice Award winners
Alexander Payne’s audience-friendly road movie Sideways, easily this awards season’s favorite, was named Best Picture at the Broadcast Film Critics Association’s Critics’ Choice Awards on Jan. 10.
Additionally, Sideways performers Virginia Madsen and Thomas Haden Church topped the Best Supporting Actress and Best Supporting Actor categories, while also, along with Paul Giamatti and Sandra Oh, being included as members of the Best Ensemble of the year.
And finally, Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor took home the Best Adapted Screenplay trophy. Indeed, Sideways is the movie to beat for this year’s Oscar in that particular category.
More Critics’ Choice Awards
Other Critics’ Choice Award winners include:
- Best Actress Hilary Swank for Clint Eastwood’s sentimental boxing drama Million Dollar Baby.
- Best Actor Jamie Foxx for Taylor Hackford’s Ray Charles biopic Ray.
- Best Director Martin Scorsese for the reportedly $110 million budget The Aviator, starring Leonardo DiCaprio as mentally unstable industrialist/movie mogul Howard Hughes and featuring Cate Blanchett as one of Hughes’ romantic partners, actress Katharine Hepburn.
The Best Documentary was Michael Moore’s incendiary Fahrenheit 9/11, while Alejandro Amenábar’s Goya Award record-breaker The Sea Inside / Mar adentro was chosen Best Foreign Language Film.
In some ways reminiscent of Million Dollar Baby, the Spanish box office hit stars Javier Bardem as a tetraplegic man fighting for the right to end his own life.
Spidey beats Jesus & Jason
But most memorably – likely the most momentous awards season news of the … well, season – the Broadcast Film Critics Association had Napoleon Dynamite, Jason Bourne, Mr. Incredible, and Jesus Christ losing out to Spider-Man.
No, not in the You Can’t Make This Stuff Up category. See further below.
Lastly, Tom Cruise, whose credits range from Top Gun and Cocktail to Magnolia and Collateral, was given the BFCA’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
Cruise has been in movies since his brief appearance in Franco Zeffirelli’s Endless Love back in 1981. That’s 23 years ago.
(Extended) Awards Season News Update: Before (or after) you ridicule the Broadcast critics, bear in mind that Tom Cruise received a Special David – generally handed out as the Academy of Italian Cinema’s Lifetime Achievement trophy – at this year’s David di Donatello Awards.
Clint Eastwood in Million Dollar Baby with Hilary Swank. Two U.S. critics groups have chosen Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby as Best Film while selecting Martin Scorsese as Best Director for The Aviator.Further Awards season news: Clint Eastwood-Martin Scorsese split
In other awards season news, Clint Eastwood was twice voted Best Film – well, his boxing melodrama Million Dollar Baby was – while Martin Scorsese was twice voted Best Director for The Aviator.
The Best Film/Best Director split came courtesy of the Kansas City Film Critics Circle and the Dallas-Ft. Worth Film Critics Association, which announced their “year-end” preferences in early January.
According to the Las Vegas Film Critics Society, Martin Scorsese was not only the Best Director of 2004 but also the director of the year’s Best Film. The London Film Critics’ Circle, the Vancouver Film Critics Circle, and the Iowa Film Critics Association, for their part, opted for Critics’ Choice Award winner Sideways.
Another kind of Best Film/Best Director split
And here’s a Best Film/Best Director split of a different kind: The Central Ohio Film Critics Association chose Million Dollar Baby as their top movie while Alexander Payne was their top filmmaker for Sideways.
Lastly, the Online Film Critics Society made an unusual Best Film choice: Michel Gondry’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which also earned the filmmaker a Best Director citation.
Penned by Charlie Kaufman, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind has been faring much better in the, when available, Best Original Screenplay category.
The movie traces the relationship between a free-spirited woman (Kate Winslet) and a timid man (Jim Carrey) – both Long Island Rail Road train riders and former lovers whose memories have been erased so they’re unable to recall their life together.
Best Actress Kate Winslet
In the acting categories, Clint Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby surrogate daughter Hilary Swank was chosen Best Actress in Kansas City and Dallas-Ft. Worth, and Best (gender-neutral) Performer in Central Ohio.
The Las Vegas and Online critics, however, came up with a major surprise: Kate Winslet.
In Vegas, Winslet won for both Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Marc Forster’s Finding Neverland, in which she plays Sylvia Llewelyn Davies opposite Johnny Depp as a never-never version of Peter Pan author J.M. Barrie’s relationship with the Llewelyn Davies family. On the Online roster, only the first title shows up.
In London, Winslet was – incongruously – named Best British Actress (in a tie, see further below) for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind while the equally British Imelda Staunton was named Best Actress for Vera Drake.
Immediately below is a partial list of this year’s BFCA, London, Dallas-Ft. Worth, Las Vegas, Vancouver, Kansas City, Iowa, Online, and Central Ohio winners.
Critics’ Choice Awards
Film: Sideways.
Foreign Language Film: The Sea Inside.
Documentary: Fahrenheit 9/11.
Actress: Hilary Swank, Million Dollar Baby.
Supporting Actress: Virginia Madsen, Sideways.
Actor: Jamie Foxx, Ray.
Supporting Actor: Thomas Haden Church, Sideways.
Director: Martin Scorsese, The Aviator.
Screenplay: Sideways.
Animated Feature: The Incredibles, dir.: Brad Bird.
Picture Made for Television: The Life and Death of Peter Sellers, dir.: Stephen Hopkins.
Popular Movie
The Bourne Supremacy.
The Incredibles.
Napoleon Dynamite.
The Passion of the Christ.
* Spider-Man 2.
London
Film: Sideways.
British Film: Vera Drake.
Foreign Language Film: The Motorcycle Diaries / Diarios de motocicleta, dir.: Walter Salles.
Actress: Imelda Staunton, Vera Drake.
British Actress (tie): Eva Birthistle, Ae Fond Kiss… & Kate Winslet, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
Actor: Jamie Foxx, Ray.
British Actor: Daniel Craig, Enduring Love.
British Supporting Actor: Phil Davis, Vera Drake.
British Supporting Actress: Romola Garai, Inside I’m Dancing.
Director: Martin Scorsese, The Aviator.
British Director: Mike Leigh, Vera Drake.
Screenwriter: Charlie Kaufman, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
British Screenwriter: Mike Leigh, Vera Drake.
Dilys Powell Award: Ken Loach.
Dallas-Ft. Worth
Film: Million Dollar Baby.
Foreign Language Film: A Very Long Engagement.
Documentary: Fahrenheit 9/11.
Actress: Hilary Swank, Million Dollar Baby.
Supporting Actress: Virginia Madsen, Sideways.
Actor: Paul Giamatti, Sideways.
Supporting Actor: Thomas Haden Church, Sideways.
Director: Martin Scorsese, The Aviator.
Animated Film: The Incredibles.
Original Screenplay: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
Adapted Screenplay: Sideways.
Russell Smith Award: Joshua Marston, Maria Full of Grace.
Las Vegas
Picture: The Aviator.
Foreign Language Film: Hero.
Documentary: Fahrenheit 9/11.
Actress: Kate Winslet, Finding Neverland & Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
Supporting Actress: Cate Blanchett, The Aviator & The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.
Actor: Jamie Foxx, Ray.
Supporting Actor: Clive Owen, Closer.
Director: Martin Scorsese, The Aviator.
Screenplay: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
Animated Film: The Incredibles.
Cinematography: Robert Richardson, The Aviator.
Editing: Thelma Schoonmaker, The Aviator.
Score: Michael Giacchino, The Incredibles.
Song: Mick Jagger & David A. Stewart’s “Old Habits Die Hard,” from Alfie.
William Holden Lifetime Achievement Award: Julie Andrews.
Vancouver
Film: Sideways.
Foreign Language Film: A Very Long Engagement.
Canadian Film: Childstar, dir.: Don McKellar.
Documentary: Fahrenheit 9/11.
Actress: Imelda Staunton, Vera Drake.
Canadian Actress: Joely Collins, The Love Crimes of Gillian Guess.
Supporting Actress: Virginia Madsen, Sideways.
Canadian Supporting Actress: Rebecca Jenkins, Wilby Wonderful.
Actor: Jamie Foxx, Ray.
Canadian Actor: Don McKellar, Childstar.
Supporting Actor: Morgan Freeman, Million Dollar Baby.
Canadian Supporting Actor: Dave Foley, Childstar.
Director: Clint Eastwood, Million Dollar Baby.
Canadian Director: Don McKellar, Childstar.
Kansas City
Film: Million Dollar Baby.
Foreign Language Film: A Very Long Engagement.
Documentary: Fahrenheit 9/11.
Actress: Hilary Swank, Million Dollar Baby.
Supporting Actress: Cate Blanchett, The Aviator.
Actor: Jamie Foxx, Ray.
Supporting Actor: Thomas Haden Church, Sideways.
Director: Martin Scorsese, The Aviator.
Adapted Screenplay: Sideways.
Original Screenplay: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
Animated Film: The Incredibles.
Iowa
Film: Sideways.
Actress: Imelda Staunton, Vera Drake.
Supporting Actress: Virginia Madsen, Sideways.
Actor: Paul Giamatti, Sideways.
Supporting Actor: Thomas Haden Church, Sideways.
Director: Alexander Payne, Sideways.
Best Movie Yet to Open in Iowa: Hotel Rwanda, dir.: Terry George.
Online
Film: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
Foreign Language Film: Hero.
Documentary: Fahrenheit 9/11.
Actress: Kate Winslet, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
Supporting Actress: Cate Blanchet, The Aviator.
Actor: Paul Giamatti, Sideways.
Supporting Actor: Thomas Haden Church, Sideways.
Director: Michel Gondry, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
Adapted Screenplay: Sideways.
Original Screenplay: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
Animated Feature: The Incredibles.
Breakthrough Filmmaker: Zach Braff, Garden State.
Breakthrough Performance: Catalina Sandino Moreno, Maria Full of Grace.
Central Ohio
Film: Million Dollar Baby.
Lead Performance: Hilary Swank, Million Dollar Baby.
Supporting Performance: Thomas Haden Church, Sideways.
Ensemble: I Heart Huckabees.
Director: Alexander Payne, Sideways.
Screenplay: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
Actor of the Year: Cate Blanchett, Coffee and Cigarettes, The Aviator & The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.
“Awards Season News” endnotes
Critics’ Choice Awards website.
Tobey Maguire Spider-Man 2 image: Columbia Pictures.
Hilary Swank and Clint Eastwood Million Dollar Baby images: Warner Bros.
“Awards Season News: Spidey Defeats Jesus & Jason” last updated in September 2021.