Capote the favorite of National Society of Film
Critics

Capote was named best picture Saturday by the National Society of Film Critics in a hard-fought contest that saw the feature about Truman Capote's creation of the nonfiction book In Cold Blood prevail over David Cronenberg's A History of Violence by 12 votes to 11 on the group's sixth ballot. Wong Kar-wai's 2046 came in third in the balloting. In the best director vote, the positions shifted, however, and Cronenberg was named best director with 32 points, followed by Wong with 26, and Capote's Bennet Miller with 23.

For his lead performance in Capote, Philip Seymour Hoffman was named best actor, while Ed Harris, who portrays a menacing figure in Violence, was chosen best supporting actor. Reese Witherspoon took best actress honors for her performance as June Carter in Walk the Line, and Amy Adams was chosen best supporting actress for her role as a pregnant Southern girl in Junebug.

Noah Baumbach was hailed for best screenplay for The Squid and the Whale, which he also directed. 2046 earned best cinematography honors for Christopher Doyle, Kwan Pun-leung, and Lai Yiu-fai. Fatih Akin's Head-On was named best foreign film, and Werner Herzog's Grizzly Man was selected as best nonfiction picture.

The group issued two experimental awards: to William Greaves for the 1968 film Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One and the 2005 film Take Two, and to James Benning for three 2005 productions, 13 Lakes, Ten Skies, and 27 Years Later. It recognized the seven-disc DVD box set Unseen Cinema, assembled by Anthology Film Archives and Bruce Posner, with its Film Heritage Award. And it issued a Special Citation, commending and congratulating openly gay writer Kevin Thomas for his 44-year tenure as a movie critic at the Los Angeles Times. The National Society, which is chaired by David Sterritt and which is made up of 57 critics from around the country, met at Sardi's Restaurant in New York City. (Gregg Kilday, Reuters)