NY Film Critics Circle Picks Brokeback Mountain
Those awards just keep coming in.
NEW YORK – The New York Film Critics Circle became the latest group to name the cowboy romance “Brokeback Mountain” as the year’s top film, while the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures gave its best-picture award Monday to “Good Night, and Good Luck,” George Clooney’s depiction of Edward R. Murrow’s on-air battles against Sen. Joseph McCarthy.
Both groups selected Ang Lee as best director for “Brokeback Mountain,” in which
Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal play cowboys who find forbidden, unexpected love in Wyoming during the summer of 1963.“‘Brokeback’ was an old-fashioned romance that also fulfilled the group’s impulse to be daring and original,” said Gene Seymour, film critic for Newsday and president of the New York Film Critics Circle. “It combines the best of both these elements.”
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The New York critics gave best-actor honors to Ledger, while Reese Witherspoon was named best actress for her spirited portrayal of June Carter Cash in “Walk the Line.”
“It seemed like such a daring departure from what he’d been known to do before,” Seymour said of Ledger, whose previous films include the comedy “A Knight’s Tale” and the skateboarding movie “Lords of Dogtown.”
As for Witherspoon, he said, “Even in the Hollywood, commercial, popcorn genre she’s worked in, she has extraordinary respect from a cross-section of critics here. She’s very, very engaged in her character — she really knows what to do in front of a camera, always.”
Two performers who underwent significant transformations for their roles received the top acting honors from the National Board of Review: Philip Seymour Hoffman as Truman Capote in “Capote,” and Felicity Huffman as a preoperative transsexual in “Transamerica.”
I love Reese Witherspoon. I’ve got to go see Walk the Line.