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Our nation's film critics are commendably proficient at arriving at year-end localized consensus, not so much when it comes to scattering the news. As their God-like pronouncements of 2005's most deserving motion picture achievements continue to tumble forth, we bring you part two of our awards round-up:
· The Boston Society of Film Critics hop on the tastefully decorated bandwagon and give Brokeback Mountain the film that artfully reminded us of the tender cowboy love currently missing from our bleak lives the year's top honor, with Ang Lee's contribution acknowledged as best director. A shut-out Steven Spielberg spends the day shaking his head and repeating to himself, "Assassins don't win Oscars. Sad cowboys win Oscars." Reese Witherspoon picks up a best actress nod for her work in Walk the Line, but Joaquin Phoenix is again snubbed, losing to what is quickly looking to be this year's Best Actor frontrunner, Philip Seymour Hoffman.

· There must be a dreamy-eyed Jack Twist in the The New York Film Critics Circle's past, as they too surrender to Brokeback magic, naming the film best picture and Lee best director of the year, sensitively announced in the NY Daily News with the headline "NY film critics say 'the gay cowboy movie' is year's best." Heath Ledger takes his first best-actor win from reigning champ Hoffman, with the Critics Circle finding his perfomance just that much sadder, gayer and lonelier than Hoffman's. Witherspoon picks up her second award for her June Cash potrayal; Joaquin still batting zero.
· The National Board of Review gives its big prize to George Clooney's largely gay cowboy free (though it does feature some forbidden co-worker love courtesy of Robert Downey Jr. and Patricia Clarkson) Good Night and Good Luck. In case someone in the current White House press corps still doesn't get the hidden message: this film is about you, you lily-livered Bush PR wonk! Felicity Huffman gets fake congratulations from her Desperate Housewives castmates (who wouldn't be caught dead playing an m2f pre-op tranny) for her best actress nod in Transamerica, and Hoffman is named best actor once again, which magically and permanently turns him into the real Truman Capote. Lee again takes best director, and best supporting actor goes to Jake Gyllenhaal, whose Brokeback eyelash-batting successfully kept Heath's mind off the sheep.