PRODUCTION

DIRECTOR

DATE

LOCATION

The phrase “American Heartland” conjures up the image of acres upon acres ofplains, wild and tamed, domed by a cathedral sky. It's a heroic but static vision; peoplein it tend to be no more than figures in a landscape, picturesque but posed and silenced.

Hollywood, too, has been something of a flatland recently. Movies have too oftensmothered emotions rather than unearthing them. The people in its movies, like thosefigures in the landscape, look like mannequins and, sadly, sound like them, too.

Luckily, this year we can celebrate movies that aren't taken in by the easy temptationto slouch through stereotypes. Rather, they have poked into crevices, mounted hills,knocked on doors, meandered through neighborhoods, and peered under the comfort-able façades of what we reassuringly – or maybe fearfully? – call “normal.”

broke the back of one of the most generalized and marketedAmerican types, the rugged, but emotionally non-committal cowboy. The landscape ofthe northern plains shrugs off its immutability and transforms into the pure physicalembodiment of tragic loneliness. Jack and Ennis, two men in love, have to invent alanguage to express themselves, words that both pierce and expend themselves infugitive echoes.

also featured a gay character, but sexuality was less at issue than thecontrasting variety of American experience. A patron saint of the literati volun-tarily engages the submerged, quotidian evil of middle-class respectability, only todiscover the chasms of his own divided self.

Filmmakers also took magnifying glasses in hand to ponder addiction in a smalltown in upstate New York and the imponderable, but viciouslyviolent movement of fate in an Indiana hamlet

Can you fit this burgeoning cinematic self-examination into some larger national orinternational pattern? Perhaps given the U.S.'s position in the world, we are given toquestioning our secret motives and camouflaged appetites. But maybe that's too easy,splicing together journalism with art only to produce a fragile hybrid.

After all, there's a current – a narrow one, perhaps, but also strong – in Americanfilmmaking that puts the ambiguities of national life in direct focus. John Ford comesimmediately to mind as an iconic filmmaker whose supposed validations of Americanheroism were actually dramatizations of fractures and hypocrisies. Our career achieve-ment award-winner, Richard Widmark, teamed with James Stewart in

to wrestle dramatically over the nature of duty and responsibility in a raciallysegregated world. A starker contrast erupted between Widmark's character and oneplayed by his friend – and his stand-in for tonight – Karl Malden in Ford's

an unjustly neglected feature whose very title encompasses loss, war, andhoped-for reconciliation.

As we learned from Ford, as we learn from tonight's filmmakers, this country'simages only seem stilled in photographic aspic. With a twist of a lens or a nudge from apan, these natural and human vistas awaken with victory and loss, the mire of humanity.

Brokeback Mountain

Capotehaute

(Down to the Bone)(A History of Violence).

Two RodeTogether

CheyenneAutumn,

Welcome

President, LAFCAHenry Sheehan–

Los Angeles Film Critics Association

,

,

Leonard Klady,

Alonso Duralde,

president

vice-president

secretary

treasurer

Henry Sheehan

Lael Loewenstein

Robert Abele

David Ansen

Jorge Camara

Charles Champlin

David Ehrenstein

Harold Fairbanks

Stephen Farber

F.X. Feeney

Juan Rodriguez Flores

Scott Foundas

Todd Gilchrist

Mike Goodridge

James Greenberg

Ray Greene

Ernest Hardy

Kirk Honeycutt

Andy Klein

Robert Koehler

Emanuel Levy

Sheri Linden

Wade Major

Leonard Maltin

Willard Manus

Todd McCarthy

Myron Meisel

Joe Morgenstern

Jean Oppenheimer

H.J. Park

John Powers

Claudia Puig

Peter Rainer

Michael Rechtshaffen

Harriet Robbins

Robert Rosen

Dean Sander

Richard Schickel

Brent Simon

Charles Solomon

Bob Strauss

Ella Taylor

Kevin Thomas

Kenneth Turan

Glenn Whipp

Best Music/ScoreJoe HisaishiHowl's Moving Castle

It's not every film composer who's as comfortable scoring the travels of a giantcat-bus as he is a gritty gangster shootout. But then it's not every film composer whowould be the go-to guy for acclaimed filmmakers as different as Hayao Miyazakiand Takeshi Kitano. Joe Hisaishi's collaborations with Miyazaki have includedsuch contemporary classics as

and LAFCA's 2002 BestAnimation winner, For Hisaishi captures thepomp and grandeur of an unnamed, Ruritanian nation in the midst of war as well asthe delicate romance of a young girl's coming of age and falling in love. Whetherhe's implementing a small ensemble or a full orchestra, Hisaishi's exquisitelycrafted score perfectly shapes and guides Miyazaki's sweeping tale of battlingwizards, enchanted scarecrows, and, of course, moving castles. In the same waythat Miyazaki's masterpieces are anything but kids-only movies, Hisaishi's deftcompositions are robust, complex, and mature pieces of music. He's a rare musicianwhose moments of feel as integral as his Long may he provideperfect sounds to the work of great visionaries.

My Neighbor Totoro, Castle in the Sky, Kiki'sDelivery Service, Porco Rosso, Princess Mononoke,

Spirited Away. Howl's Moving Castle,

sotto violento.

– Alonso Duralde

Best Production DesignWilliam Chang Suk Ping2046

There are two kinds of great production designers: those who dazzle whenthey have millions to spend and those who dazzle us because they WilliamChang Suk Ping is one of the latter. Working with budgets one-tenth or one-twentieth the size of a big Hollywood film’s, this longtime collaborator of WongKar Wai (they've worked together since Wong's first film in 1988) has establishedhimself as one of the most brilliantly versatile, innovative – and influential –designers in all of world cinema. His work is a mother lode of visual ideas,stripmined by movies and commercials from Seoul to Stockholm. And why not?Chang is a dazzling manufacturer of imaginary worlds, from the martial artsfantasia of to the dreamy Buenos Aires of to theunforgettable double reality of with its seductive 1967 Hong Kong and itstrain hurtling through the glittering dystopia of the loveless year 2046. Whetherhe's conjuring up an imaginary Oriental Hotel (don't you wish you could check in?),designing costumes for Tony Leung and Zhang Ziyi, or editing the work of footage-happy Wong Kar Wai – he performed all three tasks in – here is an artistwhose rare talent puts us in the mood for movies.

-

don't.

Ashes of Time Happy Together2046,

2046

John Powers

Best CinematographyRobert ElswitGood Night, and Good Luck

opens in a gracefully appointed banquet hallwhere sophisticated, elegantly attired men and women mingle at an awards dinner.The black-and-white imagery is so dazzling it's like looking at a photograph byCecil Beaton. When these same men and women, now wearing business suits andsensible heels, gather the next day in the bustling CBS newsroom, they are bathedin a soft but high-contrast light that lends a feeling of almost tangible intimacy andimmediacy. Much of the credit for creating these two different but connectedworlds goes to director of photography Robert Elswit, whose exquisite black-and-white cinematography is not only stunning to look at but helps to capture the air ofauthenticity that infuses this masterful film. (So powerful is the sense that we areactually inside with the characters that the film might just as easily have been called

)

While Elswit designed his lighting plan with black-and-white in mind, the filmwas actually shot on color stock. The color was removed by way of a digitalintermediate, after which the film was printed out onto a color intermediate stockand, then, a black-and-white final print stock. This combination resulted in thesilvery luster that gives such a memorable look.

Good Night, and Good Luck

You Are There.

Good Night, and Good Luck

– Jean Oppenheimer

Best Documentary/Nonfiction FilmGrizzly Man

When cinematic giant Werner Herzog was handed an article by documentaryproducer Eric Nelson on the strange life and tragic death of an amateur naturalistnamed Timothy Treadwell, Herzog had no idea he'd found the subject for a newwork. Twenty-nine days later, Herzog's had been filmed and edited,combining new footage and an extraordinarily revealing and candid narration fromHerzog with excerpts from over 100 hours of alternately confessional and self-aggrandizing videotape shot by Treadwell himself during the last five of his 13summers among the bears of NorthernAlaska.

Treadwell believed his status as a self-appointed steward of the land gave hima special connection with the wilderness, and with the animals who populate it.Herzog's approach is dialectical: He respects Treadwell's need for self-mythologyand the grandiose poetry of Treadwell's footage, while remaining skeptical andeven appalled by the reckless and delusional actions Treadwell took in his efforts tofind communion with the massive grizzlies.

Like many Herzog protagonists, Treadwell is a man in the grip of acompulsion. In Timothy Treadwell, Herzog has found a real-world successor toAguirre and Fitzcarraldo, with the fascinating additional complication thatTreadwell shares with Herzog the filmmaker's vocation. From these human andstructural complexities, Herzog has shaped the most exhilarating and terrifyingfilm of 2005 – a documentary that is also an essay, and a character study that isequally a personal memoir. can stand next to the best work of Herzog'scareer, which puts it beside the best films – narrative or documentary – anyone hasever made.

Grizzly Man

Grizzly Man

– Ray Greene

Directed by Werner Herzog

Best Supporting ActressCatherine KeenerThe 40-Year-Old Virgin, The Ballad of Jack and Rose,Capote, The Interpreter

It's a perennial lament that the movies rarely know how to use great femaleactors in an age where alpha dog males dominate and women are relegated to mainsqueeze/second banana/best friend/wife/mother scraps that hardly qualify as sup-porting parts and usually feel like wasted opportunities. This year, however, in fourdifferent films, Catherine Keener proved that when given the chance – playing thelead's tragically optimistic, single-mom girlfriend (in

), or his bitingly funny, mannish colleague (in ), or hissensually-spirited and emotionally volatile deflowerer (in )or his calm voice of moral reason (in ) – then a movie doesn't have to feellike a star-centered vacuum.

When someone with the gift for timing and character nuance like Keener isalong for the ride, the possibility of a movie expands: Suddenly the boundaries offeeling are being prodded and explored, revealing how a laugh can be heart-breaking, how something sad can be funny, and how a beautifully open face with ascreen-stretching smile can make labels like “star” or “character actor” or “indiequeen” seem pointless. If size matters at all in Keener's career, it's how herperformance can make any movie exponentially better.

The Ballad of Jack andRose The Interpreter

The 40-Year-Old VirginCapote

– Robert Abele

Best Supporting ActorWilliam HurtA History Of Violence

He comes into the picture late in the game, being the haunted hero's demonic,long lost brother.Yet William Hurt brings such a luminous jolt of hell-bent comedicenergy with him that we fully believe it when, in the space of a single sequence, theonce-doomed hero turns his fortunes around. Whether leading or supporting, Hurtis so deeply truthful that whoever is in the room is energized to the highest pitchesof spontaneity and authenticity. High praise to director David Cronenberg forhaving the wit and insight to cast him. For as Richie the mobster, Hurt must not onlyproject a menace more subtle and terrifying than any we've met thus far. (Coming inafter Ed Harris's vulture-eyed Fogarty, that's a tall order.) He must also, by thesparks of giddy, greedy, even self-destructive fury in his eyes, make visible the very“history” of violence his brother Tom has been from running from in himself.Viggo Mortensen has already communicated the depth of Tom’s pain andbewilderment. Hurt gives his fellow actor the shot of pure oxygen that allows us tosee, at last, not just the killer inside Tom -- but the escaped slave.

- F.X. Feeney

is a compelling and disturbing psychological thriller. Michael Haneke'sstory, which unfolds with long, almost painful takes, is unsettling, tense and evenshocking. The pacing is both fluid and methodical, as befits the plot. Superficially,this is a tale of a well-off family terrorized by a series of videotapes showing themunder surveillance by an unknown voyeur. But there are several layers to thiscomplex and superbly-made film. Embedded at its heart is a mystery, but equallycritical are its exploration of class issues and the repercussions of casual cruelty aswell as the tenuous façade of bourgeois intellectualism.

The personal story is entwined in a larger political commentary. The manner inwhich this conflict is approached is both clear-eyed and emotional and particularlytimely in its personalizing of the tension between Algerian immigrants and nativeFrench citizens. The blending of the intimate story of a family feeling besieged andthe victimization of a troubled Algerian immigrant reminds us of the inequity thatFrench ofAlgerian descent have endured. DanielAuteuil and Juliette Binoche givepowerful, understated performances. Their transformation from comfortable andprivileged to panic-stricken reveals the flimsiness of the foundations upon whichwe build our lives.

-

Caché

Claudia Puig

Best Foreign-Language FilmCachéDirected by Michael Haneke

For over half a century Peter Watkins has cinematically what it meansto be independent, experimental, and above all political. With

he has made what one might very well be tempted to call his masterpiece,save for the fact that the creator of and

might well reject such a classification, much as he's rejected everyaspect of what he calls the “monoform” of audio-visual representation thatdominates the media worldwide.

Like its predecessors, mixes documentary and fictionaltechniques recreating the events that took place in Paris in the waning days of theFranco-Prussian war when socialist self-governments briefly reigned before beingdestroyed in a massacre in which 20,000 to 30,000 men, women and children died(an event barely taught by historians to this day). Wakins utilizes techniques fullyopen to viewer evaluation at all times.

Shot in an abandoned factory that once was the site of Georges Méliès's filmstudios with a cast of more than 220 (approximately 60% of whom had no prioracting experience), Watkins has made a film of over five hours in length that wastesnot a nanosecond. is arguably the greatest political film ever made,and we are privileged to honor it with this award.

-

definedLa Commune (Paris

1871),The War Game, Privilege, Punishment Park

Edward Munch

La Commune

La Commune

David Ehrenstein

The Douglas EdwardsIndependent ExperimentalFilm/Video AwardPeter Watkins

La Commune (Paris 1871)

Best AnimationWallace & Gromit in the Curse of the Were-Rabbit

In directors Nick Park andSteve Box succeed in moving the stars of the Oscar-winning shorts

to a feature. Chaplin, Keaton and the other great silentcomics made that transition, keeping their personas intact. But the shift to longerforms has proved more difficult in animation.Attempts to adapt Mickey Mouse andthe Warner Bros. characters to features have proved unsatisfying.

Comparisons to the silent comedians seem particularly appropriate, as themost articulate character in is mute. In the shorts, Park and his fellowAardman artists proved that stop-motion animation of clay characters could be assubtle as the best drawn animation. When Gromit looked up from his knitting at theridiculous yet sinister Penguin in audiences believed a little claydog was thinking.

That subtlety of performance continues in While Wallacedithers, Gromit solves the mystery. His wordless eloquence continues a comictradition that stretches back to silent movies, pantomime and the

Gromit takes his place among the great silent clowns, and hisperformance helps to make a wonderfully funny film.

Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit,The Wrong

Trousers and A Close Shave

Were-Rabbit

Wrong Trousers,

Were-Rabbit.

commediadell'arte.

Curse of the Were-Rabbit

– Charles Solomon

Directed by Nick Park and Steve Box

Career AchievementRichard Widmark

On his first day on the set of his first movie, Richard Widmark plowed his wayright into movie history: As the baby-faced gangster Tommy Udo in HenryHathaway's (1947), he pushed Mildred Dunnock's wheelchair-boundMa Rizzo down a steep flight of stairs, giggling all the way. Of the role, whichwould earn Widmark his first (and only) Oscar nomination, James Agee wrote, “Itis clear that murder is one of the kindest things he is capable of,” and indeed,Widmark was so very good at being bad that he was immediately typecast as aheavy – as the germophobic, wife-beating gangleader of(1948) and as the insanely jealous owner of the titular establishment in(1948).

The kid from Princeton, Illinois would soon prove as adept at heroism ashomicide (notably as the dogged public health official of[1950]), but Widmark was at his greatest playing characters capable of bothextremes – men of circumstance with one foot planted in each of two opposingworlds. So he was perfect for the literal and figurative shadows of wherehe became the doomed hustler Harry Fabian, trying (and failing) to get a break in

(1950), and the considerably more resourceful Skip McCoy,who reaches into a lady's handbag and pulls out a whole tangle of Red tape in

(1953). Widmark did westerns too, war pictures and even aDoris Day comedy – then, in 1991, he hung up his hat and retired, never to comeback. Perhaps he realized that Tommy Udo, Harry Fabian and Skip McCoy hadalready made him immortal. Of Udo, it is even said that real-life gangsters modeledthemselves on the role. But then again, who among us didn't once gaze at the screenand imagine what it might be like to be Richard Widmark?

Kiss of Death

The Street with No NameRoad House

Panic in the Streets

film noir,

Night and the City

Pickup on South Street

– Scott Foundas

Although actors expose their inner selves every time they step in front of acamera, they are arguably at their most vulnerable as they try to navigate a career.Terrence Howard has been at it for nearly twenty years. As recently as 2001, anarticle in called him “the best actor you never heard of.” It mustbe frustrating to see less talented people move ahead or grab the spotlight when onedoes consistently good work, but Howard has finally been rewarded for hispatience and persistence.

Howard's performances in 2005 commanded the screen, and demanded ourattention. His extraordinary opening monologue as a silver-tongued Memphispimp in may be a gift from filmmaker Craig Brewer, but Howardhits every note just right. The compromised TV director in has complexitiesone rarely finds in any screenplay, but it is the actor's interpretation that brings thisall-too-human character to life on film. Why it took this long for such a giftedperformer to gain widespread recognition, we'll never know. All that really mattersis that Terrence Howard has and it isn't likely we'll ever take our eyes off ofhim again.

The New York Times

Hustle & FlowCrash

arrived,

- Leonard Maltin

New GenerationTerrence Howard

Special CitationUnseen Cinema

It isn't often that a film, let alone a DVD release, can be said to rewrite history,but that's exactly the case with the new seven-disc box set, “Unseen Cinema: EarlyAmerican Avant-Garde Film 1894-1941.” The sheer mass alone–155 films,eighteen-plus hours – plus the curatorial collaboration between 60 film archivecollections coordinated by theAnthology FilmArchives, curator Bruce Posner andproducer/preservationist David Shepard, places this project in extremely rarifiedair. But what makes essential for any serious film lover is theargument it makes: That long before the post-war period of Maya Deren, StanBrakhage and Jonas Mekas, Americans were experimenting with film form andsubject matter.

This runs against received wisdom, which insists that a true American avant-garde in film, as in painting, didn't exist before World War II. Posner and companyhave compiled enough contrary evidence to shatter this notion. Consider this set'scollection of wild dance films shot in Thomas A. Edison's studio in the 1890s;Jerome Hill's mindblowing Orson Welles's first actual film,

that foreshadows all of his subsequent work; abstract films such asRalph Steiner's and the visually rhythmic projects by Mary Ellen Bute,Douglas Crockwell and Dwinell Grant; or radical narrative experiments like BorisDeutsch's and David Bradley's

There's no more transparently false idea in film criticism than the notion thateverything is cinema has been seen and written about–that there are no newdiscoveries. deliciously, deliriously puts a firm stop to thisfalsehood.

Unseen Cinema

La Cartomancienne;Hearts of Age,

H20,

Lullaby Sredni Vashtar.

Unseen Cinema

– Robert Koehler

Bruce Posner and David Shepard

Special CitationKevin Thomas

Filmmakers in the indie, experimental, foreign, avant-garde or, until veryrecently, documentary fields desperately need critics. Lacking money for apromotional campaign and forced to rely on word-of-mouth, these filmmakershave found no better friend over the past 40-plus years than Kevin Thomas of the

Hard to believe there once was a time in antediluvian LosAngeles when majorcritics shunned anything with subtitles.And drive-in movies were certainly beyondthe pale. So it fell to Kevin to alert Angelenos to the French New Wave and to suchgiants as Akira Kurosawa, Ingmar Bergman, Federico Fellini, Luchino Viscontiand Andrei Tarkovsky. He also discovered talented newcomers doing interestingwork in films from Roger Corman and American International Pictures. Indeed, hewas the first journalist to interview a young actor named Jack Nicholson.

His love of avant-garde and experimental films led him to be the onlycritic to review films by Kenneth Anger and Andy Warhol. Since 1984 his SpecialScreenings column in the has been the lifeblood for venues that exhibit filmsfor brief runs or even one night. In short, no one in the Los Angeles criticalestablishment has done more to create an awareness and appreciation of filmculture than Kevin Thomas.

Los Angeles Times.

Times

Times

– Kirk Honeycutt

In a quietly devastating first feature by Debra Granik abouta working class drug addict in upstate NewYork, Vera Farmiga plays Irene, a lovingmother of two boys who, after humiliating herself by trying to buy cocaine with herchildren's birthday money, checks herself into a drug rehab clinic. Based on a real-life family saga, the movie is shot verité-style, and as the hand-held camera followsIrene through her snow-bound, downscale neighborhood, from her dreary home toher dreary job as a supermarket checkout clerk to the dreary (but helpful) clinic, wetag along with her struggle to get and stay clean. She says very little, but herhunched demeanor – now slumped and defeated, now gathering resolve – speaksvolumes.

Farmiga, whom you may have seen as Liev Schreiber's long-lost love inor as Detective Susan Branca in television's

sinks her stunning Slavic beauty into this woman's quiet desperation with suchunderstated conviction that when at last she smiles, it's as though the sun came outfrom behind a lowering cloud. In a performance as ego-less as it is sensitive tonuance, Farmiga makes you see why it is that this intelligent young woman does hertedious job so much better when she's high than when she's clean.

Down to the Bone,

TheManchurian Candidate Touching Evil,

– Ella Taylor

Down to the Bone

Best ActressVera Farmiga

Philip Seymour Hoffman is one of our finest and most versatile actors, andafter seeing him as Truman Capote, I'm prepared to say he may be our greatest.What he does is so astonishing and so far beyond mere mimicry that you just sitthere awestruck at the alchemy that allows for such a gift. Part pasha, part genius,his Capote is an outsider on the inside. With his raised pinkies, baby-blue bathrobesand Bergdorf scarves, it's easy to spot him as an intruder in the Kansas countryside.But Hoffman makes us aware of how spiritually isolated Capote was even in hisbeloved New York jet set. Wherever he found himself, he was a man immolating inhis own slow flame. Hoffman delves into the psychology, the duplicity of what itmeans to be an artist. It's a fully fleshed-out portrait that captures the dainty whineand lizardly savoir faire of the man. He lays bare the creepiest recesses of theauthor's psyche. could just as easily have been called exceptthat title was already taken.

Capote In Cold Blood,

– Peter Rainer

Capote

Best ActorPhilip Seymour Hoffman

Capote

Best ScreenplayDan Futterman

Dozens of films have been made showing tortured writers at work. And, as weknow, the process can be deadly dull. The mystery of creation is abstract, and typingis not wildly cinematic. All the more credit to Dan Futterman, whose script for

makes the inner workings of an artist's mind come to life. Futterman, anactor by trade, had never written a screenplay. But after reading Gerald Clarke'sbiography he became obsessed with the story of how Truman Capote mined the rawmaterial of a family's brutal murder in Kansas and turned it into the genre-bendingmasterpiece Futterman wrestled with the screenplay for six years. Inthe final product, we can almost see the wheels turning in Capote's head as herecognizes the literary mother lode he has stumbled on and figures out how toexploit it.

Futterman's accomplishment, with an invaluable assist from his childhoodfriends Bennett Miller and Philip Seymour Hoffman, is capturing a man whoseessence is neither black nor white but all shades of gray. Yes, Capote istremendously ambitious and duplicitous, using his subjects ruthlessly, but at thesame time he is a kindred soul who understands their suffering. Futterman managesthe rare feat of both extolling and exposing Capote, and he does it with an economyof language and deft touch for revealing character. The turmoil of creating and theprice the artist pays for the privilege has never seemed more real.

-

Capote

In Cold Blood.

James Greenberg

The Squid and the Whale

Best ScreenplayDan Futterman

Anyone who has had the awkward misfortune to overhear a parental argumentor come of age during the 1980s will find an uncanny reflection in NoahBaumbach's keenly observed tragicomedy

Shot in 23 days on a $1.5 million budget, Baumbach's portrait of a family intransition is a timely reminder that you don't need dazzling effects or elaborate setpieces to make a good movie. You need a savvy director, a willing cast, and aboveall a solid script.

Baumbach's script is unassailable; it's literate, painfully funny andunflinchingly honest. As the Berkmans' marriage unravels, their Brooklyn ParkSlope neighborhood becomes a landscape for questionable behavior and shiftingalliances. No one is spared Baumbach's comically critical eye -- not the adolescentboys Walt and Frank, and certainly not their bickering parents Joan and Bernard.Allare complicit in the chaos around them. Baumbach nails precisely the way thatseemingly benign remarks can cut deeply, lies can be immediately transparent andstatements made in sincerity can be inadvertently absurd. It's impossible not tolaugh at even as you can't help but cringe at the painfulmemories it evokes.

-

The Squid and the Whale.

The Squid and the Whale,

Lael Loewenstein

Noah Baumbach

Brokeback Mountain

Best DirectorAng Lee

What is the essence of good direction?

Ah, there's the rub. There is no empiric value system to gauge Ang Lee'sachievement in Yet, its presence is felt. The camera is ideallysituated; the juxtaposition of shots enhances the drama (or comedy); theperformances are seamless.

There is no formula that addresses what makes someone ideally suited tointerpret a script. We can only applaud when it occurs as it has again and again in thefilms ofAng Lee.

He has a singular stamp. His work is informed by a literal and cinematicappreciation of the past and the good sense not to replicate it. He is a master of genreand not its slave, and exemplifies that trait. He takes thebedrock simplicity of the western and, without trampling on it, turns the cowboy'slife, work, sexuality and environment into a complex landscape. It is as apt acontemporary reflection as and are of pasteras.

We've come to expect fearlessness and precision from Ang Lee and the abilityto elicit the same qualities from his collaborators. Whether that's best or greatdirection is argumentative. It should be bottled and savored.

-

Brokeback Mountain.

Brokeback Mountain

Stagecoach, High Noon The Wild Bunch

Leonard Klady

Many people have felt, watching that they werewitnessing not only a movie but a historic breakthrough in the Americanconversation about sexuality, love and masculine stereotypes. This is certainly onereason to honor Ang Lee's achievement, but wasn't made to be alandmark. It was made because Lee, like Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana beforehim, recognized in Annie Proulx's tale of two young Wyoming ranch hands a greatand enduring love story. And that's what this painfully beautiful film gives us, andwhy it will be remembered long after any culture shock subsides. Made with apatient, compassionate, closely observant eye, acted with subtle, bone-deepconviction, takes us deep inside a passion that transforms andwounds at once, a bond that can't transcend a world of fear and disapproval. Fewfilms have captured so piercingly the desolation of repressed desire. Few filmshave rendered so acutely the paradoxical bleakness and grandeur of the West,where the myth of rugged individualism works only for those who play by the rules,and where love can suffocate in the wide open spaces.

Brokeback Mountain,

Brokeback

Brokeback Mountain

– David Ansen

Produced by Diana Ossana and James Schamus

Best PictureBrokeback Mountain

LAFCA Best Picture Awards2005

2004

2003

2002

2001

2000

1999

1998

1997

1996

1995

1994

1993

1992

1991

1990

1989

1988

1987

1986

1985

1984

1983

1982

1981

1980

1979

1978

1977

1976 and (tie)

1975 and(tie)

Brokeback Mountain

Sideways

American Splendor

About Schmidt

In the Bedroom

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

The Insider

Saving Private Ryan

L.A. Confidential

Secrets & Lies

Leaving Las Vegas

Pulp Fiction

Schindler's List

Unforgiven

Bugsy

GoodFellas

Do the Right Thing

Little Dorrit

Hope and Glory

Hannah and Her Sisters

Brazil

Amadeus

Terms of Endearment

E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial

Atlantic City

Raging Bull

Kramer vs. Kramer

Coming Home

Star Wars

Network Rocky

Dog Day AfternoonOne Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Best Foreign Language FilmCACHÉ

Best Actor • Philip Seymour HoffmanCAPOTE

Best Supporting Actress • Catherine KeenerCAPOTE

Best Screenplay (Tie) • Dan FuttermanCAPOTE

Best Production Design • William Chang Suk Ping2046

LOS ANGELES FILM CRITICS ASSOCIATIONAND

OUR HONOREES

SALUTES

RUNNER UP

Best Supporting Actress • Amy AdamsJUNEBUG

Best CinematographyChristopher Doyle • Kwan Pun Leung • Lai Yiu Fai

2046

Best Foreign-Language Film2046

WINNER OF 5 AWARDS

would like to thank the

for naming

Best Animated Film

and congratulate all the other award winners.

DreamWorks

Los Angeles FilmCritics Association

Warner Independent Pictures and Warner Bros. PicturesThank the Los Angeles Film Critics

And Proudly Congratulate Robert Elswit

www.warnerindependent.com/awards

NEW LINE CINEMAThanks

NEW LINE CINEMAThanks

THE

LOS ANGELESFILM CRITICSASSOCIATION

AND CONGRATULATESOUR WINNER

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

WILLIAM HURT

THE

LOS ANGELESFILM CRITICSASSOCIATION

AND CONGRATULATESOUR WINNER

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

WILLIAM HURT

thank the Los Angeles Film Critics Associationand Congratulate werner herzog

©20

06

DC

I

WINNER

BEST DOCUMENTARY

LA Film Critics Association

A WERNER HERZOG FILM

©2005 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. All Rights Reserved.

CREATIVE ARTISTS AGENCYcongratulates our 2005 LAFCA Award Winners

Best Picture of the YearBROKEBACK MOUNTAIN

James SchamusProducer

Best Director

Ang LeeBROKEBACK MOUNTAIN

Best Actress

Vera FarmigaDOWN TO THE BONE

Best Supporting Actor

William HurtA HISTORY OF VIOLENCE

Thanks theLos Angeles Film Critics Association

and CongratulatesAll the Winners

mPRm Public Relations

This event has required an extraordinary effort from anumber of individuals and organizations.

The Los Angeles Film Critics Association is greatlyappreciative of all those who have worked to make

tonight’s event possible, and wish to extendspecial thanks to the following:

Dianne Greenberg-Dilenaand the staff of the Park Hyatt

Michael Lawson, James Lewisand the staff of mPRm

Nicole Campos

Sasha Carrera and Holley Hankinson

James Honoré

Steve Elzer

Craig O’Connor

Jerry Day Productions

Phil Alley

Laura Kim of Warner Independent Pictures

Sony Pictures Entertainment Media Services

Melody Korenbrot

Harlan Gulko of Focus Features

Lisa Edley of New Line Cinema

David Geisen, Debbie Silvermanand the staff of Burbank Printing

Acknowledgments

818.840-8013

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