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player ready...The National Society of Film Critics, in a departure from most year-end critics’ prizes, named the Spanish language picture “Pan’s Labyrinth” best film of 2006 at its 41st annual voting luncheon Saturday.
“Pan’s Labyrinth”–writer-director Guillermo del Toro’s imaginative tale of a girl’s dream world during Spain’s ’40s fascist era–defeated two other foreign language films: Cristi Puiu’s “The Death of Mr. Lazarescu” and Clint Eastwood’s “Letters from Iwo Jima.”
Best Actress honors went, in a landslide, to Helen Mirren, for her complex, sympathetic portrayal of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II in “The Queen.” The best actor race, by contrast, was a squeaker, with Forest Whitaker’s masterful playing as Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in “The Last King of Scotland” besting Peter O’Toole’s moving portrait of a dying matinee idol in “Venus” by a single vote–after the two tied on the first ballot.
Best supporting actress went to Meryl Streep for her parts in ?A Prairie Home Companion? as a country singer and in ?The Devil Wears Prada? as a domineering fashion magazine editor, while Mark Wahlberg took supporting actor honors as a wisecracking investigator in Martin Scorsese?s “The Departed” (this sentence as published has been corrected in this text).
The best director citation went to Paul Greengrass for his meticulous docudrama “United 93” and the screenplay prize went to William Monahan for “The Departed.” Emmanuel Lubezki was named best cinematographer for his virtuoso long take work in “Children of Men” and the non-fiction award went to the Al Gore global warming documentary “An Inconvenient Truth.”
The meeting, at Sardi’s Restaurant, was dedicated to the memory of Robert Altman.