‘Brokeback Mountain’ is L.A. critics’ pick for best picture

By Zack McGhee | Saturday, December 10, 2005, 11:03 PM

The Los Angeles Film Critics Association has announced its annual awards. They’ve handed their top prize — their pick for 2005’s best film — to Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain, otherwise internationally known as That Gay Cowboy Movie. It hasn’t opened in Dayton yet (the Neon lists a “TBD” date on its website), but it opened in New York, Los Angeles and — surprise! — San Francisco this weekend. Brokeback director Ang Lee also snagged the group’s pick for Best Director.

The L.A. film critics are always boring and predictable. Philip Seymour Hoffman snags the award for Best Actor for his performance as Big Gay Truman Capote in Capote. Then, just so we don’t think all of the L.A. film critics have turned queer on us, they pick David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence as their runner-up for both best film and best director. (Though, to be honest, I felt a strange undercurrent of homoeroticism while watching that one, too.)

Here’s the full list. Like I said, boring and predictable. What do I want out of critics’ awards? Quite frankly, I want them to turn me on. I want to become so excited, so thoroughly filled with anticipation for movies so amazing, different, and otherwise overlooked, that I become physically aroused at the mere thought of seeing them. What do the L.A. film critics give us? Same old, same old.

The New York Film Critics Circle has always had a special place in my heart, though their choices aren’t usually much less cautious than their West Coast counterparts. (Last year, they picked Sideways. Boring. Predictable.) Their 2005 picks will probably be announced some time in the next week or so.

L.A. Critics Honor ‘Brokeback Mountain’ [AP via DDN]

Permalink | Comments (4) | Categories: Movies