Letters From Iwo Jima has landed another award. The film was the first to gain recognition in this 2006 award season when the National Board of Review awarded them Best Film last week. Now Clint Eastwood’s war movie is getting top honors from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. Here comes the Oscar buzz.
Sunday night the group selected Letters from Iwo Jima as the year’s best film, with the incredibly boring Princess Diana humping movie The Queen coming in second place. The bad news is that even though the incredibly overrated The Queen didn’t win Best Picture, it did end up getting the most awards, with wins for Best Actress Helen Mirren, Best Supporting Actor Michael Sheen, Screenwriter Peter Morgan, and Alexandre Desplat for best music.
Best Director went to the very deserving Paul Greengrass for his brilliant 9/11 movie United 93. Second place fell to Clint for Iwo Jima.
Best Actor ended up in a tie. Sacha Baron Cohen for Borat and Forest Whitaker in The Last King of Scotland share the honor. You know what? Cohen deserves it. Whatever you think of the film, there’s no denying that he’s taken total commitment to his character to an entirely new level, and he’s doing it, not on some controlled soundstage, but out wandering around in the street with a chicken. That’s real acting folks.
A full breakdown of Lost Angeles Film Critics Association 2006 winners is below. Awards will be handed out at a banquet held January 14th.
Best Picture - Letters from Iwo Jima
Best Director - Paul Greengrass, United 93
Best Actor - (TIE) Sacha Baron Cohen, Borat / Forest Whitaker, Last King of Scotland
Best Actress - Helen Mirren, The Queen
Best Supporting Actor - Michael Sheen, The Queen
Best Supporting Actress - Luminita Gheorghiu, The Death of Mr. Lazarescu
Best Screenwriter - Peter Morgan, The Queen
Best Music - Alexandre Desplat, The Queen
New Generation Award - Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, Little Miss Sunshine
Foreign Language - The Lives of Others
Best Documentary - An Inconvenient Truth
Best Cinematography - Emmanuel Lubezki, Children of Men
Best Animated Film - Happy Feet
Independent/Experimental Award - Old Joy, In Between Days
