Borat Crashes Critics Awards

Los Angeles critics have made benefit for the glorious acting of Sacha Baron Cohen.

Cohen, the star and instigator behind the litigation-inspiring Borat, was named Best Actor Sunday by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association.

Cohen shared the honor with Forest Whitaker, likewise named Best Actor for his turn as dictator Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland.

Whitaker's win was his second in four days—the National Board of Review earlier made him its Best Actor choice, too.

The L.A. critics, who, as the Cohen pick demonstrates, don't often seem concerned with keeping up with the awards show Joneses, seemed almost completely in sync with the historians of the NBR.

Like the NBR, the L.A critics tapped Clint Eastwood's Letters from Iwo Jima Best Picture, The Queen's Helen Mirren Best Actress, and the Al Gore-narrated An Inconvenient Truth Best Documentary.

Borat, meanwhile, found further Oscar-ad fodder from the American Film Institute, which was out Sunday with its own year-end awards.

The guerrilla comedy, pitting Cohen's Kazakhstani alter ego against unaware Americans, made the AFI's Movies of the Year list, an alphabetical accounting of the top 10 U.S.-made films.

Letters from Iwo Jima made the AFI cut, too; Flags of Our Fathers, Eastwood's companion piece, didn't.

Eastwood almost, but not quite notched a Best Director win for both World War II films from the L.A critics—his second-place finish a matter of the public record as the group announces runners-up in each category.

Besting Eastwood, the icon, was Paul Greengrass, the Bourne Supremacy Brit, who won for his gut-wrenching account of one of the doomed 9/11 flights, United 93.
 
Other top L.A. Critics winners were best appreciated after a visit to IMDb: Romania's Luminita Gheorghiu was named Best Supporting Actress for the black comedy The Death of Mr. Lazarescu and Michael Sheen was named Best Supporting Actor for standing in British Prime Minister Tony Blair's shoes in The Queen.

Overall, The Queen, a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II in the wake of Princess Diana's death, rated a field-best L.A. critics honors, including a Best Music honor for its composer Alexandre Desplat, who also was cited for his work on The Painted Veil.

Sunday's awards did nothing to boost the Oscar stock of The Departed. Martin Scorsese's latest gangland offering, which fared well with NBR voters, was ignored by both the AFI and the L.A. critics.

The Queen, named Best Picture runner-up by the L.A. scribes, didn't make the AFI list either, but it had a good excuse: It didn't qualify on account it's a British-produced movie.

Presumed Oscar frontrunner Dreamgirls earned a spot on AFI's honors list, but got nothing from the L.A. group, save a Best Supporting Actress runner-up mention for Jennifer Hudson.

Hudson, the former American Idol contestant, looks to be the musical's best bet for an Oscar acting nomination; last week, she was lauded with a Breakthrough Performance by an Actress award by the NBR.

Awards season continues unabated Monday, with the New York critics scheduled to weigh in with their choices.

The L.A. critics are scheduled to present their trophy-case fillers Jan. 14.

Here's a review of the 32nd Annual Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards:

• Film: Letters from Iwo Jima
• Actor: (tie) Sacha Baron Cohen, Borat, and Forest Whitaker, The Last King of Scotland
• Actress: Helen Mirren, The Queen
• Supporting Actor: Michael Sheen, The Queen
• Supporting Actress: Luminita Gheorghiu, The Death of Mr. Lazarescu
• Director: Paul Greengrass, United 93
• Screenplay: The Queen
• Foreign Film: The Lives of Others
• Documentary: An Inconvenient Truth
• Production Design: Pan's Labyrinth
• Animation: Happy Feet
• Music: Alexandre Desplat, The Painted Veil and The Queen
• Cinematography: Children of Men
• New Generation: Michael Arndt, Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris for Little Miss Sunshine
• Career Achievement: Robert Mulligan (director, To Kill a Mockingbird)

The AFI awards, which also honor television, are scheduled to be presented Jan. 12.

Here's a review of the AFI Awards 2006:

Movies of the Year (alphabetical order)

• Babel
• Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
• The Devil Wears Prada
• Dreamgirls
• Half Nelson
• Happy Feet
• Inside Man
• Letters from Iwo Jima
• Little Miss Sunshine
• United 93

TV Programs of the Year (alphabetical order)

• Battlestar Galactica
• Dexter
• Elizabeth I
• Friday Night Lights
• Heroes
• The Office
• South Park
• 24
• The West Wing
• The Wire