LA Film Critics best of '04
Posted by: Paul Heath
Date: Monday, December 13, 2004 9:00 PM

The awards season is hotting up and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association have announced their gongs for 2004.

The Hollywood Reporter, reports...

Lifting a glass of vintage pinot noir in a celebratory toast, the Los Angeles Film Critics Assn. on Saturday hailed Fox Searchlight's "Sideways" as its favorite film of the year. Alexander Payne's sad and funny but always sagacious coming-of-middle-age tale about the misadventures of two male friends in California wine country was voted best picture of 2004. The film collected five awards, including Virginia Madsen and Thomas Hayden Church as best supporting actress and best supporting actor. Payne, who two years ago claimed the L.A. Film Critics' best picture prize for "About Schmidt," was honored as best director and shared the best screenplay award with his longtime collaborator, Jim Taylor, for their adaptation of a novel by Rex Pickett. The critics chose Liam Neeson as best actor for his performance as the redoubtable sex researcher Alfred Kinsey in Bill Condon's biopic "Kinsey." The runner-up was Paul Giamatti from "Sideways." Imedla Staunton was named best actress for the role as a working-class mum and backroom abortionist in 1950s Britain in Mike Leigh's "Vera Drake." Julie Delpy came in second in voting for "Before Sunset."