Budapest Hotel wins close vote

Next week, as has become our custom, we'll devote this space to other people's Top 10 movie lists. But this is the one week a year I run a press release in this spot. Earlier this week the Southeastern Film Critics Association announced the results of its annual poll. And I helped tabulate those results. So here's what I wrote -- with some annotations:

Two Texas directors fought it out for the No. 1 spot in the Southeastern Film Critics Association's (SEFCA) annual poll of the year's best films, with Wes Anderson's highly stylized comedy, The Grand Budapest Hotel, edging Richard Linklater's 12-years-in-the-making meditation on male adolescence, Boyhood, with Mexican director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's Birdman finishing a close third.

"This was one of the closest races I can remember," said SEFCA President Philip Martin, chief film critic at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. (It was actually close enough that had one or two members altered their ballots slightly, we could have had a different winner. Still, Budapest was named on slightly more ballots than either of the runners-up. And, while I think the group's Top 10 is a fine list, only one of the movies I voted for in my personal list -- which will be revealed in Sunday's Style section -- made it.)

In the Best Director race, Linklater edged out Anderson, while Budapest won for Best Ensemble and Best Original Screenplay. (Birdman was the runner-up in the two latter categories, and its director of photography, Emmanuel Lubezki, was cited for best cinematography.)

As far as the chief individual awards, Michael Keaton took Best Actor honors for his role as a troubled movie star trying to reinvigorate his career on Broadway in Birdman, while Julianne Moore won Best Actress for her turn as a linguistics professor afflicted by early-onset Alzheimer's in Still Alice.

The group's Wyatt Award, named in memory of SEFCA charter member Gene Wyatt and awarded annually to the film that best captures the spirit of the South, went to Selma.

(I didn't see Selma. But members who did voted overwhelmingly for it. I voted for the film that came in second, Jim Mickle's Cold in July.)

The SEFCA Awards are bestowed annually by the Southeastern Film Critics Association, which is made up of professional film critics in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia. This year, 54 critics cast votes.

2014 SEFCA RESULTS

Top 10

1. The Grand Budapest Hotel

2. Boyhood

3. Birdman or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance

4. Whiplash

5. The Imitation Game

6. Gone Girl

1. Snowpiercer

2. Nightcrawler

3. Foxcatcher

4. The Theory of Everything

Best Actor

1. Michael Keaton, Birdman or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance

2. Eddie Redmayne, The Theory of Everything

Best Actress

1. Julianne Moore, Still Alice

2. Reese Witherspoon, Wild

Best Supporting Actor

1. J.K. Simmons, Whiplash

2. Edward Norton, Birdman or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance

Best Supporting Actress

1. Patricia Arquette, Boyhood

2. Tilda Swinton, Snowpiercer

Best Ensemble

1. The Grand Budapest Hotel

2. Birdman or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance

Best Director

1. Richard Linklater, Boyhood

2. Wes Anderson, The Grand Budapest Hotel

Best Original Screenplay

1. The Grand Budapest Hotel: Wes Anderson and Hugo Guinness

2. Birdman or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Nicolas Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris, Armando Bo

Best Adapted Screenplay

1. Gone Girl: Gillian Flynn

2. Wild: Nick Hornby

Best Documentary

1. Life Itself

2. Citizenfour

Best Foreign Language Film

1. Force Majeure

2. Ida

Best Animated Film

1. The Lego Movie

2. Big Hero 6

Best Cinematography

1. Birdman or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance: Emmanuel Lubezki

2. The Grand Budapest Hotel: Robert Yeoman

The Gene Wyatt Award for the Film that Best Evokes the Spirit of the South

1. Selma

2. Cold in July

Email:

pmartin@arkansasonline.com

www.blooddirtangels.com

MovieStyle on 12/26/2014