'Departed' receives love from Chicago critics

'Queen' earns prizes for actress Mirren, screenwriter Morgan

By DAVE MCNARY

'The Departed' picked up awards for picture, helmer and adapted screenplay from the Chicago critics.

Chicago's film critics have selected "The Departed" as the top feature of 2006, while the pic's Martin Scorsese took the director nod and William Monahan won for adapted screenplay.

"The Queen" was the only other film to win multiple prizes, for actress Helen Mirren and Peter Morgan (original screenplay).

Forest Whitaker drew actor kudo for "The Last King of Scotland." Supporting nods went to Jackie Earle Haley for "Little Children" and Rinko Kikuchi for "Babel." Sacha Baron Cohen took the most promising performer award for "Borat" and "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby."

Clint Eastwood's Japanese-language "Letters From Iwo Jima" won for foreign-language film, while "An Inconvenient Truth" took documentary.

Emmanuel Lubezki drew the cinematography gong for "Children of Men"; Clint Mansell won original score for "The Fountain"; and Rian Johnson was named most promising filmmaker for "Brick."

Runners-up for top pic were "Babel," "Little Miss Sunshine," "The Queen" and "United 93."

For actress, runners-up were Penelope Cruz for "Volver," Judi Dench for "Notes on a Scandal," Maggie Gyllenhaal for "Sherrybaby," Meryl Streep for "The Devil Wears Prada" and Kate Winslet for "Little Children." For actor, Whitaker bested Leonardo DiCaprio in "The Departed," Ryan Gosling in "Half Nelson," Peter O'Toole in "Venus" and Will Smith in "The Pursuit of Happyness."