Press release
Winners Announced in Second Annual Seattle Film Critics Awards
December 18, 2003
Jack Valenti be damned! The second annual Seattle Film Critics Awards are here, despite Hollywood’s notorious ban on screeners. Fourteen of the most prominent print critics from the Puget Sound area have voted on the best in the film year, perhaps naively believing that movies should be seen on the big screen anyway.
The Seattle critics, all from print-only publications, handed major awards to small movies–yet found room for hobbits, too. AMERICAN SPLENDOR, the pixillated tale of Cleveland comic-book creator Harvey Pekar, won Seattle’s best picture award. The film’s screenplay, and leading lady Hope Davis, also got the nods in their categories. Meanwhile, Bill Murray won the best actor prize for LOST IN TRANSLATION, which makes us wonder how you say, “Now get outta here, ya knuckleheads” in Japanese.
In a category unique to the Seattle critics, a “Living Treasure” was also named, an award that honors some long-cherished movie notable deserving of career recognition. This year’s award went to Christopher Lee, the magnificently suave and sinister English actor whose work is gloriously associated with Hammer horror films, notably as perhaps the finest screen Dracula. No stranger to straight roles (THE PRIVATE LIFE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, THE THREE MUSKETEERS), Lee has lately found acclaim in both the newest STAR WARS trilogy and THE LORD OF THE RINGS…even if he was unceremoniously cut from THE RETURN OF THE KING. (Last year’s “Living Treasure” was Maureen O’Hara.)
A Special Citation was awarded to Rialto Pictures, for their stirring restorations and/or re-releases of a series of French classics in the past year, including LE CERCLE ROUGE, QUAI DES ORFEVRES, and TOUCHEZ PAS AU GRISBI.
Without further ado, the winners of the Seattle Film Critics Awards:
BEST PICTURE
American Splendor
Runners-up: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King; Lost in Translation
BEST DIRECTOR
Sofia Coppola, Lost in Translation
Runner-up: Peter Jackson, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
BEST ACTOR
Bill Murray, Lost in Translation
Runner-up: Paul Giamatti, American Splendor
BEST ACTRESS
Hope Davis, American Splendor
Runners-up: Charlotte Rampling, Swimming Pool, Charlize Theron, Monster
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Sean Astin, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Runner-up: Peter Sarsgaard, Shattered Glass
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Marcia Gay Harden, Mystic River
Runner-up: Patricia Clarkson, Pieces of April
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Lost in Translation (Sofia Coppola)
Runners-up: Finding Nemo (Andrew Stanton, Bob Peterson, David Reynolds); A Mighty Wind (Christopher Guest, Eugene Levy)
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
American Splendor (Shari Springer Berman, Robert Pulcini)
Runner-up: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Peter Jackson)
DOCUMENTARY
Capturing the Friedmans
Runner-up: Spellbound
ANIMATED FEATURE
The Triplets of Belleville
Runner-up: Finding Nemo
FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
The Man on the Train (France)
Runner-up: The Man Without a Past (Finland)
CINEMATOGRAPHY
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (Andrew Lesnie)
Runner-up: Girl With a Pearl Earring (Eduardo Serra)
MUSIC
A Mighty Wind (songs by Christopher Guest, John Michael Higgins, Eugene Levy, Michael McKean, Catherine O’Hara, Annette O’Toole, Harry Shearer, Jeffrey C.J. Vanston)
Runner-up: Lost in Translation (Brian Reitzell, Kevin Shields, William Storkson)
LIVING TREASURE
Christopher Lee
SPECIAL CITATION FOR FILM RESTORATION
Rialto Pictures
There is no Seattle film critics “group,” but a poll of the area’s top print film critics. The poll is organized by Parallax View: A Film Society, a group of film enthusiasts, professionals, and critics. The members of Parallax View are NOT the voters in the awards.
Critics voting in the 2003 awards:
Soren Andersen – Tacoma News Tribune
Tim Appelo – Seattle Weekly
William Arnold – Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Sean Axmaker – Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Sheila Benson – Seattle Weekly
John Hartl – Seattle Times
Robert Horton – The Herald
Richard T. Jameson – Queen Anne News
Moira Macdonald – Seattle Times
Derich Mantonela (Mike Anderton) – Seattle Gay News
Brian Miller – Seattle Weekly
Paula Nechak – Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Mark Rahner – Seattle Times
Bradley Steinbacher – The Stranger