The 80th Academy Award winners and my thougts about them.
Best Motion Picture
WINNER: "No Country for Old Men"
• "Atonement"
• "Juno"
• "Michael Clayton"
• "There Will Be Blood"
I love the Coen Brothers and I'm happy they won a bunch of Oscars. My vote would have gone to “Atonement,” but that's because I'm obsessed with British entertainment.
Performance By An Actor In A Leading Role
WINNER: Daniel Day-Lewis in "There Will Be Blood"
• George Clooney in "Michael Clayton"
• Johnny Depp in "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street"
• Tommy Lee Jones in "In the
• Viggo Mortensen in "Eastern Promises"
There is no question that Daniel Day-Lewis is one of the best actors of our time. His win was not a shock, but I hoped the Academy would finally give Johnny Depp his due. Hopefully he'll get another shot.
Performance By An Actress In A Leading Role
WINNER: Marion Cotillard in "La Vie en Rose"
• Cate Blanchett in "
• Julie Christie in "Away From Her"
• Laura Linney in "The Savages"
• Ellen Page in "Juno"
I've only seen two of these films but Julie Christie was freaking amazing in "Away From Here." Netflix that today. Ellen Page was cute in "Juno," but come on, Best Actress?
Performance By An Actor In A Supporting Role
WINNER: Javier Bardem in "No Country for Old Men"
• Casey Affleck in "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford"
• Philip Seymour Hoffman in "Charlie Wilson's War"
• Hal Holbrook in "Into the Wild"
• Tom Wilkinson in "Michael Clayton"
This might have been the strongest category of performances. Tom Wilkinson is brilliant, but he has an Oscar. The exact same thing goes for Philip Seymour Hoffman. Hal Holbrook, who I thought was dead, should be up for an Honorary Award soon. Casey Affleck is the man and I expect to see him up on the Oscar podium in years to come.
Performance By An Actress In A Supporting Role
WINNER: Tilda Swinton in "Michael Clayton"
• Cate Blanchett in "I'm Not There"
• Ruby
• Saoirse Ronan in "Atonement"
• Amy Ryan in "Gone Baby Gone"
Tilda Swinton looked amazingly bad...ass when she accepted her Oscar. Amy Ryan is someone to watch. Be sure to check her out on "The Wire." The kid from "Atonement" is cute, but seriously, Best Supporting Actress?
Achievement In Directing
WINNER: Joel Coen and Ethan Coen for "No Country for Old Men"
• Julian Schnabel for "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly"
• Jason Reitman for "Juno"
• Tony Gilroy for "Michael Clayton"
• Paul Thomas Anderson for "There Will Be Blood"
The Coen Brothers RULE!
Adapted Screenplay
WINNER: "No Country for Old Men" by Joel Coen and Ethan Coen
• "Atonement" by Christopher Hampton
• "Away From Her" by Sarah Polley
• "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" by Ronald Harwood
• "There Will Be Blood" by Paul Thomas Anderson
The Coen Brothers=Awesome. Cormac McCarthy’s entire corpus is on my must read list. Look for Emily Muth's review of "Away From Her" coming soon to "Entertainment Matters".
Original Screenplay
WINNER: "Juno" by Diablo Cody
• "Lars and the Real Girl" by Nancy Oliver
• "Michael Clayton" by Tony Gilroy
• "Ratatouille" by Brad Bird, Jan Pinkava and Jim Capobianco
• "The Savages" by Tamara Jenkins
"Juno," the cute indie movie that could was written by a stripper. I can't write that well with my clothes on. See?
Achievement In Music Written For Motion Pictures (Original Song)
WINNER: Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova for "Falling Slowly" from "Once"
• Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz for "Happy Working Song" from "Enchanted"
• Jamal Joseph, Charles Mack and Tevin Thomas for "Raise It Up" from "August Rush"
• Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz for "So Close" from "Enchanted"
• Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz for "That's How You Know" from "Enchanted"
There was some controversy that “Falling Slowly,” a song that I've had on my iPod since last spring, wasn't written for the film. Who cares? The part it plays in the film is essential. All of the “Enchanted” songs, save for the sappy "So Close" are destined to be classics. Amy Adams' performance was magical. I love her. Seriously.
Achievement In Music Written For Motion Pictures (Original Score)
WINNER: Dario Marianelli for "Atonement"
• Alberto Iglesias for "The Kite Runner"
• James Newton Howard for "Michael Clayton"
• Michael Giacchino for "Ratatouille"
• Marco Beltrami for "3:10 to Yuma"
The typewriter in the “Atonement” score was awesome. I wish the Radiohead inspired score of “There Will Be Blood” would have nominated. It was intensly scary, but spot on for the film.
Achievement In Cinematography
WINNER: Robert Elswit for "There Will Be Blood"
• Roger Deakins for "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford"
• Seamus McGarvey for "Atonement"
• Janusz Kaminski for "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly"
• Roger Deakins for "No Country for Old Men"
The cinematography in "There Will Be Blood" captures the majesty of the American West perfectly. Shooting from the perspective of a one-eyed quadriplegic is an amazing achievement. It's also depressing. The only thing that happens in "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" is cinematography.
Achievement In Film Editing
WINNER: Christopher Rouse for "The Bourne Ultimatum"
• Juliette Welfling for "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly"
• Jay Cassidy for "Into the Wild"
• Roderick Jaynes for "No Country for Old Men"
• Dylan Tichenor for "There Will Be Blood"
There are so many cuts in "The Bourne Ultimatum" that I seriouly got a headache. Great job.
Achievement In Costume Design
WINNER: Alexandra Byrne for "Elizabeth: The Golden Age"
• Albert Wolsky for "Across the Universe"
• Jacqueline Durran for "Atonement"
• Marit Allen for "La Vie en Rose"
• Colleen Atwood for "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street"
How many awards can 16th century costuming receive? Apparently one more.
Achievement In Art Direction
WINNER: Dante Ferretti and Francesca Lo Schiavo for "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street"
• Arthur Max and Beth A. Rubino for "American Gangster"
• Sarah Greenwood and Katie Spencer for "Atonement"
• Dennis Gassner and Anna Pinnock for "The Golden Compass"
• Jack Fisk and Jim Erickson for "There Will Be Blood"
The blood pallet in "Sweeney Todd" was fully explored in glorious gruesome detail.
Best Animated Feature Film
WINNER: "Ratatouille"
• "Persepolis"
• "Surf's Up"
I don't know where Disney is going with the whole adorable rodent thing. You can't build an empire on something like that. I think the Academy is all penguined out. And a cartoon about Islamist oppression sounds cute and wholly depressing.
Best Animated Short Film
WINNER: "Peter & the Wolf"
• "I Met the Walrus"
• "Madame Tutli-Putli"
• "Même les Pigeons Vont au Paradis (Even Pigeons Go to Heaven)"
• "My Love (Moya Lyubov)"
These are the scariest and most bizarre cartoons I have ever scene. I liked (i.e. didn't want to hide from the scary images) “Peter and the Wolf” and “Even Pigeons Go to Heaven,” but even those where excessively morbid.
Best Live Action Short Film
WINNER: "Le Mozart des Pickpockets (The Mozart of Pickpockets)"
• "At Night"
• "Il Supplente (The Substitute)"
• "Tanghi Argentini"
• "The Tonto Woman"
Every single one of these films is worth seeing and I would have been happy with any of them winning. "The Mozart of Pickpockets" has a really cute thieving child and the dumbest criminal duo since those guys in “Home Alone.” "At Night" is a heart wrenching story about three women with cancer who spend New Year's Eve together in a hospital ward. "The Substitute" is an extremely funny story about the merits of misbehaving. "Tanghi Argentini" reassures audiences that giving is better than receiving. And finally, "The Tonto Women" is a western that deals with beauty and femininity in new and fascinating ways.
Best Documentary Feature
WINNER: "Taxi to the Dark Side"
• "No End in Sight"
• "Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience"
• "Sicko"
• "War/Dance"
Read my post about "Taxi to the Darkside", see the movie and then go see "No End in Sight" and "Operation Homecoming." I haven't seen "War/Dance" and "Sicko" is next in my queue, but I'm assuming they are both must see films. The real world matters and we can no longer afford to not see it.
Best Documentary Short Subject
WINNER: "Freeheld"
• "La Corona (The Crown)"
• "Salim Baba"
• "Sari's Mother"
"Freeheld" tells the story of a New Jersey police officer who earned a pension for her 24 years of service and as she was dying of lung cancer she wanted to make sure she could pass her pension benefits would be passed on to her spouse who happened to be a women. A powerful story that deserved the Oscar. "La Corona" tells the story of a beauty pageant in a Columbian woman's prison and it's hilarious. "Sari's Mother" tells the story of a child who contracts AIDS through a blood transfusion in Iraq. Done without narration, the harsh reality of the subjects lives is seared to the viewers mind. "Salim Baba" is a light-hearted story about a man in Kolkata who is passing his family movie business to his sons. The family pushes an old fashioned movie theater on wheels around the city. It's about the power of film blah blah blah, this is the only one of these films you should skip.
Best Foreign Language Film
WINNER: "The Counterfeiters" (Austria)
• "Beaufort" (Israel)
• "Katyn" (Poland)
• "Mongol" (Kazakhstan)
• "12" (Russia)
I saw none of these films. Thank God for Netflix.
Achievement In Visual Effects
WINNER: Michael Fink, Bill Westenhofer, Ben Morris and Trevor Wood for "The Golden Compass"
• John Knoll, Hal Hickel, Charles Gibson and John Frazier for "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End"
• Scott Farrar, Scott Benza, Russell Earl and John Frazier for "Transformers"
Great.
Achievement In Makeup
WINNER: Didier Lavergne and Jan Archibald for "La Vie en Rose"
• Rick Baker and Kazuhiro Tsuji for "Norbit"
• Ve Neill and Martin Samuel for "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End"
I really wanted Norbit to win an Oscar.
Achievement In Sound Editing
WINNER: Karen Baker Landers and Per Hallberg for "The Bourne Ultimatum"
• Skip Lievsay for "No Country for Old Men"
• Randy Thom and Michael Silvers for "Ratatouille"
• Christopher Scarabosio and Matthew Wood for "There Will Be Blood"
• Ethan Van der Ryn and Mike Hopkins for "Transformers"
Bourne was an auditory assault of Oscar worthy proportions. I defiantly understood more of what I heard then what I saw.
Achievement In Sound Mixing
WINNER: Scott Millan, David Parker and Kirk Francis for "The Bourne Ultimatum"
• Skip Lievsay, Craig Berkey, Greg Orloff and Peter Kurland for "No Country for Old Men"
• Randy Thom, Michael Semanick and Doc Kanefor "Ratatouille"
• Paul Massey, David Giammarco and Jim Stuebe for "3:10 to Yuma"
• Kevin O'Connell, Greg P. Russell and Peter J. Devlin for "Transformers"
Bourne was an auditory assault of Oscar worthy proportions. I defiantly understood more of what I heard then what I saw.
3 comments:
I would like to point out that I own you when it comes to Best Actor...
I completely agree that the score from "There Will Be Blood" should have been nominated. Johnny Greenwood is a musical genius and caused my parents and I to point out that the music is actually a character in the movie--it sets the scene so perfectly.
Tilda Swinton deserved the win. I would have liked to see Hal Holbrook; I thought his performance was a bit more nuanced than Bardem's, but the Academy loves it when people play psychos.
I really thought Paul Thomas Anderson deserved the directing Oscar. There Will Be Blood was his brainchild, his vision.
The Coen brothers always have a vision, and certainly deserve it for their amazing achievement in "No Country for Old Men"...however, they've been there. Anderson has made a name for himself with outstanding work in things like Boogie Nights and Magnolia. Even though he's erratic, I think his latest effort cements his place as an elite director.
What do you think?
Anywho, thanks for the place to pore over entertainment matters!
The release date of "There Will Be Blood" hurt Paul Thomas Anderson's chances of winning. The Coen's have been riding a wave of acclaim since "No Country" was released last year at Cannes. Anderson is clearly a master craftsman and he will recieve his glory in due time.
As for Best Actor, anyone could have predicted that Day-Lewis would win, but my anaylsis was still interesting and based on fact. That's how we role at Entertainment Matters.
Interesting that you mention there's a controversy over Falling Slowly not being written for the movie. Isn't that exactly why Come What May from Moulin Rouge wasn't nominated? Who makes the decision on whether a song is actually written for a film?
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