BEST PICTURE: Pan's Labyrinth

BEST DIRECTOR: Paul Greengrass, United 93

BEST SCREENPLAY: Peter Morgan, The Queen

BEST ACTOR: Forest Whitaker, Last King of Scotland

BEST ACTRESS: Helen Mirren, The Queen

S. ACTRESS: Meryl Streep, A Prarie Home Companion + The Devil Wears Prada

S. ACTOR: Mark Whalberg, The Departed

CINEMATOGRAPHY: Children of Men

BEST NON-FICTION: An Inconvenient Truth

Experimental: Inland Empire

Nat'l Society of Film Critics awards "Pan's Labyrinth"
-- New York

The National Society of Film Critics met today and voted Guillermo del Toro's Spanish Civil War fantasy "Pan's Labyrinth" the best film of 2006.

Biographical and historical realism were common themes of the 41st annual awards given by the Society. While "Labyrinth" won best picture, Paul Greengrass was named best director for his work on the 9/11 drama "United 93." Forest Whitaker was voted best actor for his portrayal of Idi Amin in "The Last King of Scotland" and Helen Mirren was named best actress for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II in "The Queen." That film's Peter Morgan won for best screenplay. "An Inconvenient Truth," the Al Gore global warming documentary won best non-fiction film.

On a lighter note, the 58 voting members of the NSFC named Meryl Streep best supporting actress for her work in both "The Devil Wears Prada" and "A Prairie Home Companion," and Mark Wahlberg best supporting actor for "The Departed." Emmanuel Lubezki won best cinematography for the stressed-out imagery of the futuristic drama "Children of Men."

The voting was tight in some cases. Whitaker won best actor by one vote, narrowly beating out Peter O'Toole for "Venus." The best picture category was a horse-race between "Pan's Labyrinth," runner-up "The Death of Mr. Lazerescu," "The Queen," and Clint Eastwood's "Letters from Iwo Jima." By contrast, Mirren won best actress with hardly any competition.

David Lynch's "Inland Empire" was named best experimental film by the society, while Film Heritage awards were voted for the restored version of 1969's "Army of Shadows" and to the American Museum of the Moving Image in New York City for its retrospective of the works of French director Jacques Rivette.

In a unanimous vote at the start of the meeting, this year's awards were dedicated to the late Robert Altman.

I'm reallly pulling for a Wahlberg nomination as much as anything so this is music to my ears.

No category confusion here!

The final tallies from goldderby:

BEST PICTURE
*1. Pan's Labyrinth – 34 (Guillermo del Toro)
2. The Death of Mr. Lazurescu – 31 (Cristi Puiu)
3. Letters from Iwo Jima – 29 (Clint Eastwood)

BEST DIRECTOR
*1. Paul Greengrass – 21 (United 93)
2. Martin Scorsese – 15 (The Departed)
2. Guillermo del Toro – 15 (Pan’s Labyrinth)

BEST NONFICTION FILM
*1. An Inconvenient Truth – 26
2. Deliver Us From Evil – 24
3. Shut Up & Sing – 13

BEST ACTOR
*1. Forest Whitaker – 9 in tiebreaker – 54 (The Last King of Scotland)
2. Peter O’Toole – 8 in tiebreaker – 54 (Venus)
3. Ryan Gosling – 37 (Half Nelson)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
*1. Mark Wahlberg – 28 (The Departed)
2. Jackie Earle Haley – 18 (Little Children)
3. Alan Arkin – 17 (Little Miss Sunshine)

BEST ACTRESS
*1. Helen Mirren -94 (The Queen)
2. Laura Dern – 32 (Inland Empire)
3. Judi Dench – 25 (Notes on a Scandal)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
*1. Meryl Streep – 25 (The Devil Wears Prada and A Prairie Home
Companion)
2. Jennifer Hudson – 22 (Dreamgirls)
3. Shareeka Epps – 16 (Half Nelson)

BEST SCREENPLAY
*1. The Queen – 67 (Peter Morgan)
2. The Departed – 25 (William Monahan)
3. The Good Shepherd – 15 (Eric Roth)

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
*1. Children of Men – 66 (Emmanuel Lubezki)
2. Pan’s Labyrinth – 41 (Guillermo Navarro)
3. Curse of the Golden Flower – 10 (Xiaoding Zhao)

Awesome for Pan's. They usually miss (They're 50/50 usually), but that's what makes them awesome.

That Eastwood shutout is interesting. They gave him Director for Mystic River and Picture to Million Dollar Baby. Are people actually sick of him? Still, Greengrass winning is great.

Now to see if Marky Mark can overcome that SAG snub and internal competition to get nommed. . .

Wow, The Good Shepherd was third in Screenplay? Random.

And Dern being a (Distant) second in Actress is interesting. And them critics love their Mr. Lazurescu!

One thing I just haven't really gotten this season is the Mark Wahlberg love.

I mean, he was good, but... really. He's very dickish for about 10 minutes and then gets to fire a gun. I don't see how he was really any stronger than Alec Baldwin, for instance.

Probably because Marky Mark has come a long way from dropping his pants and rapping. Which, I suppose, makes the performance seem more surprising.

But between dropping his pants and rapping he did Boogie Nights, which he's far better in and was somewhat recognized for at the time. In my book, he was also pretty good in Three Kings and The Italian Job and okay in a few other films.

Is he good in that? I've been avoiding it. I don't even know if it's on DVD.

Dirk Diggler was a more impressive performance, he had to project much more naivety into the role and then evolve it over the course of two decades.

I also think I Heart Huckabees was slightly more challenging than The Departed maybe. Not that he was bad there, he just wouldn't be my choice as the representative BSA nomination.

He actually was really good in Invincible. And Huckabees.

I've actually kind of always liked him as an actor, personally. I even thought he was good in Fear (that Fatal Attraction movie for teens he did with Reese Witherspoon like ten years ago).

He was creepy in Fear.

Donnie Wahlberg isn't a bad actor either

I've always admired Marky Mark.