Ellar Coltrane, star of the Texas-based ‘Boyhood’
The Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association, of which I am a voting member, named the fantasy film Birdman as the top film of 2014 in its annual poll. Runaway favorite also took nodes for its star, Michael Keaton, who won best actor; Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu for direction and screenplay; and for its cinema-tography. Second on the list was the Texas-based Boyhood, which took place over a 12 year shooting scheduling.
The other films in the top 10 were The Imitation Game (No. 3), The Theory of Everything (No. 4), Texas-bred filmmaker Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel (No. 5), Whiplash (No. 6), Gone Girl (No. 7), Selma (No. 8), Wild (No. 9) and Nightcrawler (No. 10).
Reese Witherspoon was named best actress for Wild. Runners-up for best actor include Eddie Redmayne (as Steven Hawking) in The Theory of Everything, Benedict Cumberbatch (as gay mathematician Alan Turing) in The Imitation Game, Jake Gyllenhaal in Nightcrawler and Timothy Spall in Mr. Turner. Runners-up for best actress were Julianne Moore, Still Alice; Rosamund Pike, Gone Girl; Felicity Jones, Theory of Everything and Marion Cotillard, Two Days, One Night.
Best supporting performance nods went to actor J.K. Simmons in Whiplash and actress Patricia Arquette for Boyhood. Runners-up for supporting actor were Edward Norton for Birdman, Ethan Hawks, Boyhood, Mark Ruffalo, Foxcatcher and Alfred Molina, Love Is Strange; supporting actress also-rans were Emma Stone, Birdman, Keira Knightley, Imitation Game, Jessica Chastain, A Most Violent Year and Laura Dern, Wild.
Also named as the best directors were Richard Linklater, Boyhood (who was also the second-place finisher for Boyhood), Anderson, Budapest; David Fincher, Gone Girl; Ava DuVarnay, Selma.
Force Majeure was named best foreign language film (followed by Ida, Winter Sleep, Leviathan and Wild Tales); Citizenfour was named best documentary (followed by Life Itself, Jodorowsky’s Dune, The Overnighters and The Great Invisible); The Lego Movie took best animated feature. Best score went to Interstellar (which placed second for its cinematography).
The association also gives the Russell Smith Award, named for the late gay Dallas Morning News film critic who championed indie films, to Boyhood.
Read more about the association here.
Friday is Dallas Voice’s Hollywood Issue, which will include reviews of a number of new films and celebrity interviews; our Dec. 26 issue will include my own list of the best films of 2014 (which includes many from the critics’ poll).
