The SpyGlasses Full (2009): Official Winners

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Alright, kids; even though I still haven't yet had a chance to see Richard Linklater's Me and Orson Welles, the calendar dictates that the awards must be issued and so issued the awards will be. I think, I'll proceed into issuing them in the same way as how I did two years ago, when I announced their winners in daily installments for the week.

To begin then, I now announce the winners of the sonic and technical categories:

Best Sound Editing

Christopher Boyes & Gwendolyn Yates Whittle, Avatar

Jason George & Geoffrey G. Rubay, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

Brent Burge & Chris Ward, District 9

Paul N. J. Ottosson, The Hurt Locker
Michael Silvers & Tom Myers, Up

Best Sound Mixing

Christopher Boyes, Gary Summers, Andy Nelson, and Tony Johnson; Avatar

Joe Barnett, Todd Beckett, & Mathew Waters; Crazy Heart

Michael Hedges & Gilbert Lake, District 9

Paul N. J. Ottosson & Ray Beckett, The Hurt Locker
Ren Klyce, Where the Wild Things Are

1 March 2010: Make-Up and Visual Effects

Best Make-Up

Barney Burman, Mindy Hall, & Joel Harlow; Star Trek

Leon von Solms, Sarah Rubano, & Joe Dunckley; District 9

Sarah Monzani, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

Jean Ann Black & Fríða Aradóttir, A Serious Man

Kate Biscoe & Cydney Cornell, A Single Man

Best Visual Effects
Volker Engel & Marc Weigert, 2012

Joe Letteri, Stephen Rosenbaum, Richard Baneham, and Andrew R. Jones; Avatar

Dan Kaufman, Peter Muyzers, Robert Habros, and Matt Aitken; District 9

2 March 2010: Music - Original Score and Original Song

Best Original Score

Michael Galasso, Séraphine

Michael Giacchino, Up

Marvin Hamlisch, The Informant!

Rolfe Kent, Up in the Air

Abel Korzeniowski with Shigeru Umebayashi, A Single Man

Best Original Song
"Hideaway" by Karen O. & the Kids, Where the Wild Things Are

"Sirens of the Sea" by Bruno Coulais, Michele Mariana, and Bernard Paganotti; Coraline

"Up in the Air" by Kevin Renick, Up in the Air

"The Weary Kind (Theme from Crazy Heart)" by Ryan Bingham and Joseph Henry 'T-Bone' Burnett, Crazy Heart

"You've Got Me Wrapped around Your Little Finger" by Beth Rowley & Ben Castle, An Education

3 March 2010: Writers - Original and Adapted Screenplays

Best Screenplay (Original)
Pedro Almodóvar, Los Abrazos Rotos (Broken Embraces)

Olivier Assayas, L'Heure d'Été (Summer Hours)

Mark Boal, The Hurt Locker

Kore•eda Hirokazu, 歩いて も 歩いても (Still Walking)

Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds

Best Screenplay (Adapted)
Wes Anderson & Noah Baumbach, Fantastic Mr. Fox

Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci, & Tony Roche; In the Loop

Neil Blomkamp & Terri Tatchell, District 9

Scott Cooper, Crazy Heart

Jason Reitman, Up in the Air

4 March 2010: Sets, Shirts, and Shots: Art Direction, Costuming, and Cinematography

Best Art Direction

Philip Ivey, District 9

Nelson Lowry, Fantastic Mr. Fox

Anastasia Masaro & Dave Warren, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

Mark Ricker, Julie & Julia

David Wasco, Inglourious Basterds

Best Cinematography

Barry Ackroyd, The Hurt Locker

Greig Fraser, Bright Star

Robert Richardson, Inglourious Basterds

Robbie Ryan, Fish Tank

Yamasaki Yutaka, 歩いても 歩いても (Still Walking)

Best Costuming

Janet Patterson, Bright Star

Sandy Powell, The Young Victoria

Monique Prudhomme, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

Anna B. Sheppard, Inglourious Basterds

Casey Storm, Where the Wild Things Are

5 March 2010: Editing and Animation

Best Editing

James Cameron, John Refoua, & Stephen Rivkin; Avatar

Julian Clarke, District 9

Chris Innis & Bob Murawski, The Hurt Locker

Kore•eda Hirokazu, 歩いても 歩いても (Still Walking)

Barney Pilling, An Education

Best Animated Film (Feature-Length)
Coraline

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

Fantastic Mr. Fox

The Secret of Kells

Up

Best Animated Film (Short)
The Cat Piano

La Dama y la Muerte (The Lady and the Reaper)

French Roast

Partly Cloudy

Runaway

6 March 2010: The Actors

Best Actor
Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart

George Clooney, Up in the Air

Colin Firth, A Single Man

Tahar Rahim, Un Prophète (A Prophet)

Jeremy Renner, The Hurt Locker

Best Actress

Yolande Moreau, Séraphine

Carey Mulligan, An Education

Robin Wright Penn, The Private Lives of Pippa Lee

Saoirse Ronan, The Lovely Bones

Meryl Streep; It's Complicated, Julie & Julia

Best Supporting Actor
Robert Duvall; Crazy Heart, The Road

Michael Fassbender; Fish Tank, Inglourious Basterds

Woody Harrelson, The Messenger

Stanley Tucci; Julie & Julia, The Lovely Bones

Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds

Best Supporting Actress

Anna Kendrick, Up in the Air

Kiki Kirin, 歩いても 歩いても (Still Walking)

Julianne Moore, A Single Man

Rosamund Pike, An Education

Blanca Portillo, Los Abrazos Rotos (Broken Embraces)

7 March 2010: Director and the Live-Action Films
Best Live-Action Film (Feature-Length)

歩いても 歩いても (Still Walking)

Avatar

The Hurt Locker

Inglourious Basterds

The Messenger

Best Director

Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker

James Cameron, Avatar

Kore•eda Hirokazu, 歩いても 歩いても (Still Walking)

Jason Reitman, Up in the Air

Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds

Best Documentary Film (Feature-Length or Short)
The Beaches of Agnès

The Cove

Food, Inc.

Best Foreign-Language Film (Live Action or Animated, Feature-Length or Short)

Los Abrazos Rotos (Broken Embraces)

歩いても 歩いても (Still Walking)

L'Heure d'Été (Summer Hours)

Un Prophète (A Prophet)

Séraphine

Review: The Last Station

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Genre: Drama

I have to say, I wasn't quite sure of what I was expecting of this film when I was purchasing my tickets at the electronic kiosk this past weekend. I knew, of course, that two of its prominent actors, save the seemingly forever over-glanced Mr. McAvoy, had been nominated for the golden man in their respective categories; however, knowing also the rather shoddy choices that the people behind that man can and do often make (see here for starters), I didn't put too much stock in the promise of those nominations. Rather, I think, if I had been putting stock into any part of this film that may have been knowable before seeing it, I put it rather in the promise of the actors themselves, whose work I know in other films has been quite good (see The Queen [2006] and - duh - Captain von Trapp [The Sound of Music, 1965]).

Perhaps it was this expectation that led me to the distinct feeling of disappointment, creeping upon me like a puce liquid tide, briny and cold like salted Russian fish, while I sat watching the film. It wasn't exactly the performances per se that were so disappointing; no, rather it seemed to be settings of the performances that in comparison, like poor settings for decent precious stones, dulled and awkwardly exaggerated the nuanced features that went into each rôle. No doubt, in film studies, this bastardizing setting is aptly called the director and screenwriter, Mr. Michael Hoffman, who attempts to salinize an already sensationalized minor stop in history as if attempting to impregnate an old ovary that was scraped almost inadvertently from the bottom of a barrel.

Are these overly harsh words that I post onto this film? Perhaps; the work as a melodrama isn't really all that bad - Mr. McAvoy particularly stood out well to me and the art direction was certainly embellished enough. Still, watching an otherwise nearly endless repetition of hollow trades of ambition among rather unimpressive and relatively 2-dimensional characters was just winnowing on the eye and on the ear. I longed for the fully mature version of such tugs-of-war-like antics, for the great The Lion in Winter (1968), in place of what can best be comparatively characterized as the blind and utterly squashable pupa The Last Station.

So, Dame Mirren, Mr. Plummer, congratulations on your nominations this year; but let's try to really do something, more than just flaccor-redemptive work, in our next project, shall we?

Grade: C; meh.

P. S. Good lord, casting director Leo Davis, what ever possessed you to think that Paul Giamatti was in any way the right man for the rôle of Vladmir Chertkov? It's not that I know very much about Chertkov, but obviously obviously - yes, two "obviously" - a Mr. Giamatti he was not....

Quote: On the Animated Short Films (2009)

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Ed González of The House Next Door has recently posted his take on this year's Oscar-nominated films in the Animated Short category, a take which - despite its typing error(s) - more often than not accurately describes also my take on these 'quaint' short works. In particular:

• "In the last few years, [the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences] has accorded spots in this category to quite a number of films fixated on death. [...] This year's The Lady and the Reaper [English title; hyperlink added; lays] on the sentiment thick in its early moments before devolving into a familiarly anarchic spectacle of opening and closing doors that poorly tips its hat to the infinitely more inspired work of Warner's Dadaïst impresario Chuck Jones.
• "Infinitely worse, though, is Nicky Phelan and Darragh O'Connell's meaningless trifle Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty [hyperlink added], in which a bizarrely voiced granny inexplicably terrorizes her sexually ambiguous granddaughter with the banal bedtime story of a mean old fairy who damns a curvy lot of younger ones to death should they ever lay themselves to sleep.
• "Bound to get more attention is Nicolas Scherkin's apocalyptic Logorama[hyperlink added;, ...] impressive insofar that the filmmakers incorporated over 2,000 logos into their story [yet still] crudely drawn, with its message - that we live in a world so saturated by media and advertising that it's only a matter of time [until such saturation] gets the better of us [...] - feeling easily and predictably delivered."

Though I don't conclude by sharing Mr. González' views on the deserving winner of this group of five films - especially in my own awards (see my nominations here), primarily because Aardman Studios' A Matter of Loaf and Death had qualified for nomination in this category last year (see here) - I did appreciate the accurate majority of his observations of these films, observations which were also fairly funny - idea(l)s of sexual conformity in appearance (e. g., "sexually ambiguous granddaughter") aside.

Announcement: The May Criterion Releases!

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From The Criterion Collection's homepage:

In May, Criterion will take viewers on wild rides—way out west, to the outback, to the darkest corners of the outlaw mind and the outermost regions of experimental film. There’s a Blu-ray and DVD bounty: John Ford’s seminal western Stagecoach, fully restored; Nicolas Roeg’s spellbinding Walkabout; Fritz Lang’s M, now high-def; the long awaited By Brakhage, Volume Two on DVD, and the definitive Brakhage Blu-ray collection. Plus, an Eclipse set of five of Nagisa Oshima’s most subversive films.

Excitment!

Interview: Quentin Tarantino

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Great(!) interview between Quentin Tarantino and Rachel Maddow, bubblingly exposing the historical allusions built within his 2009 film Inglourious Basterds and fantastically lodging that film within the historical spectrum of not only the actual events, the martial strategies, and the cinematic tendencies of World War II but also the same of the periods both before (e. g., Apache terrorism) and beyond (e. g., contemporary parallelism) - watch it here.

Quote: Jeremy Renner

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Via Awards Daily, Jeremy Renner comments in a pinch about what it really means to receive an Oscar-nomination: “A blazing stamp in the passport of an artist that can never be taken away and will always be cherished.”

Thoughts: Charlie Rose, 2 February 2010

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I'm sitting here, watching Charlie Rose discuss the Oscar nominations (announced this morning) with a panel of film critics, and I'm feeling compelled to post a thought that I'm having while doing so. I'm feeling compelled to post, namely, that it's ridiculous for the guest critic from Salon.com to try to sidestep her way around the racial issues at the very core of The Blind Side while giving a plot-synopsis of the film. I mean, I know race can be a delicate issue for some people, especially when it is dealt with in such a class-linked manner as it is in The Blind Side, but come on, lady: loose yourself of your petty, over-sensitive, race-averse spoken mantras and dig into it. Excerpting the racial elements from that film is like excerpting the cooking from Julie & Julia or, more comparably, the unemployment from Up in the Air; doing so is just flat-out embarrassing for you - or it should be. Are you that culturally oppressed? Can you not even confront an obvious and plot-essential trait of a story - that, yes, may be a tad socially awkward - in an intelligent and academically dispassionate way? If you can't, why why why are you a film-critic? and, moreover, how does someone (i. e., your editor at Salon.com) give you the official 'O. K.' to keep being one? Ugh, I'm so bored with you, it's painful. Go back to your cubicle and write about how Brokeback Mountain (2005) was a beautiful Western about camping ranchers and nothing else, or - better - about how Juno (2007) was a fun flick about teen angst and nothing else, or - best of all - about how Lolita (1962) was cerebral piece about unrequited affection and - yes, you guessed it - nothing else. Gosh, step up or stop commenting on art.

That's all.

Announcement: The Oscar Nominations

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Note: Due to an internet difficulty, my original posting (below) has been delayed from the time of its original submission.

Well, I suppose, it was to be expected; I mean, from the moment of its announcement one couldn't really enjoy the prospect of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences (AMPAS) nominating 10 films, instead of the long-standing 5, for its Best Picture award without resigning oneself to the fact that there would be at least 1 film surprisingly included that would reek of the sheer maudlin mediocrity, predicability, and banality that have characterized some of this group's most characteristic flubs. This first time around, there is no doubt, that such a film is The Blind Side. (Precious was, sadly, not a film surprisingly included.) Now, I won't say that The Blind Side was truly abominable, just completely awful, F-grade cinema; but I will say that its quality was just about par with that of the other Bullock-featuring, AMPAS-nominated entry from 2005...{shudder}.

And, speaking of Bullock, let me say, "WHAT?!" I mean, she's relatively charming and all (as a person) and, I suppose, she did hit a lot of precursive awards - which mystified me too - but come on! How could you nominate her for Best Actress? and for The Blind Side?? I mean, even in her own bubble wherein she is her only competition, she was far better in 2009's The Proposal than she was in that ooky, racial drivel. Ugh, AMPAS has no self-respect, but then we sort of knew that already.

Other surprises include:

• Maggie Gyllenhaal making it in amongst the Supporting Actresses for her work in Crazy Heart, which was heartening a bit because she was worthy for it (as well as for her work in Away We Go) and because the nomination wasn't entirely expected but which was also disheartening more than a bit because it ostensibly ousted Julianne (Moore; see my nominees) from the category who, I believe, was doing some of her best work in A Single Man;

• Bruno Delbonnel making it in amongst the Cinematographers for his work on Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, which was quite overamped;

• Hans Zimmer and Buck Sanders & Marco Beltrami making it in amongst the Composers for their scores to Sherlock Holmes and The Hurt Locker respectively, which may not be all that surprising - given the relatively erratic track-record of the voting members of the Music branch of AMPAS;

• Reinhardt Wagner and Frank Thomas making it in amongst the Song-Writers for their song for Paris 36, which - oddly? - is a film that I don't think I've ever noticed before today;

• and the writers of (500) Days of Summer not making it in amongst the Original Screen-Writers, which is actually a good surprise as Alessandro Camon and Oren Moverman are much more deserving nominees for their play The Messenger than the (500) duo ever was.

Sadly, however, Mr. Camon and Moverman apparently weren't deserving enough for their film to have preceded The Blind Side in the 'main event'. I'm still befuddled; I shake my head.

For more dirt on the many items that, I think, AMPAS got totally wrong, do a quick comparison-check of their list here with my list here.

Nominations: The SpyGlasses Full (2009)

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Huzzah; another year, another list: Below, please, find my official list of nominees for this year in film. Congratulations to all those who are so recognized, and thanks to all others who showed consideration-worthy work this year.

Small disclaimer: As I have not had the chance to see a handful of potentially nominable feature-length films (i. e., Coco avant Chanel [Coco before Chanel], The Last Station, Me and Orson Welles, Nine, Un Prophète [A Prophet], The Secret of Kells, and The White Ribbon), as well as a larger group of potentially nominable short films, future viewings of such films (before the actual awarding in each relevant category) may not be considered ineligible for effecting revisions of this list.

Best Live-Action Film (Feature-Length)

歩いても 歩いても (Still Walking)

Avatar

The Hurt Locker

Inglourious Basterds

The Messenger

Best Director

Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker

James Cameron, Avatar

Kore•eda Hirokazu, 歩いても 歩いても (Still Walking)

Jason Reitman, Up in the Air

Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds

Best Actor
Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart

George Clooney, Up in the Air

Colin Firth, A Single Man

Tahar Rahim, Un Prophète (A Prophet)

Jeremy Renner, The Hurt Locker

Best Actress

Yolande Moreau, Séraphine

Carey Mulligan, An Education

Robin Wright Penn, The Private Lives of Pippa Lee

Saoirse Ronan, The Lovely Bones

Meryl Streep; It's Complicated, Julie & Julia

Best Supporting Actor
Robert Duvall; Crazy Heart, The Road

Michael Fassbender; Fish Tank, Inglourious Basterds

Woody Harrelson, The Messenger

Stanley Tucci; Julie & Julia, The Lovely Bones

Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds

Best Supporting Actress

Anna Kendrick, Up in the Air

Kiki Kirin, 歩いても 歩いても (Still Walking)

Julianne Moore, A Single Man

Rosamund Pike, An Education

Blanca Portillo, Los Abrazos Rotos (Broken Embraces)

Best Art Direction

Philip Ivey, District 9

Nelson Lowry, Fantastic Mr. Fox

Anastasia Masaro & Dave Warren, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

Mark Ricker, Julie & Julia

David Wasco, Inglourious Basterds

Best Cinematography

Barry Ackroyd, The Hurt Locker

Greig Fraser, Bright Star

Robert Richardson, Inglourious Basterds

Robbie Ryan, Fish Tank

Yamasaki Yutaka, 歩いても 歩いても (Still Walking)

Best Costuming

Janet Patterson, Bright Star

Sandy Powell, The Young Victoria

Monique Prudhomme, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

Anna B. Sheppard, Inglourious Basterds

Casey Storm, Where the Wild Things Are

Best Make-Up

Barney Burman, Mindy Hall, & Joel Harlow; Star Trek

Leon von Solms, Sarah Rubano, & Joe Dunckley; District 9

Sarah Monzani, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

Jean Ann Black & Fríða Aradóttir, A Serious Man

Kate Biscoe & Cydney Cornell, A Single Man

Best Visual Effects
Volker Engel & Marc Weigert, 2012

Joe Letteri, Stephen Rosenbaum, Richard Baneham, and Andrew R. Jones; Avatar

Dan Kaufman, Peter Muyzers, Robert Habros, and Matt Aitken; District 9

Best Original Score

Michael Galasso, Séraphine

Michael Giacchino, Up

Marvin Hamlisch, The Informant!

Rolfe Kent, Up in the Air

Abel Korzeniowski with Shigeru Umebayashi, A Single Man

Best Original Song
"Hideaway" by Karen O. & the Kids, Where the Wild Things Are

"Sirens of the Sea" by Bruno Coulais, Michele Mariana, and Bernard Paganotti; Coraline

"Up in the Air" by Kevin Renick, Up in the Air

"The Weary Kind (Theme from Crazy Heart)" by Ryan Bingham and Joseph Henry 'T-Bone' Burnett, Crazy Heart

"You've Got Me Wrapped around Your Little Finger" by Beth Rowley & Ben Castle, An Education

Best Sound Editing

Christopher Boyes & Gwendolyn Yates Whittle, Avatar

Jason George & Geoffrey G. Rubay, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

Brent Burge & Chris Ward, District 9

Paul N. J. Ottosson, The Hurt Locker
Michael Silvers & Tom Myers, Up

Best Sound Mixing

Christopher Boyes, Gary Summers, Andy Nelson, and Tony Johnson; Avatar

Joe Barnett, Todd Beckett, & Mathew Waters; Crazy Heart

Michael Hedges & Gilbert Lake, District 9
Paul N. J. Ottosson & Ray Beckett, The Hurt Locker

Ren Klyce, Where the Wild Things Are


Best Editing

James Cameron, John Refoua, & Stephen Rivkin; Avatar

Julian Clarke, District 9

Chris Innis & Bob Murawski, The Hurt Locker

Kore•eda Hirokazu, 歩いても 歩いても (Still Walking)

Barney Pilling, An Education

Best Screenplay (Original)
Pedro Almodóvar, Los Abrazos Rotos (Broken Embraces)

Olivier Assayas, L'Heure d'Été (Summer Hours)

Mark Boal, The Hurt Locker

Kore•eda Hirokazu, 歩いても 歩いても (Still Walking)

Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds

Best Screenplay (Adapted)
Wes Anderson & Noah Baumbach, Fantastic Mr. Fox

Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci, & Tony Roche; In the Loop

Neil Blomkamp & Terri Tatchell, District 9

Scott Cooper, Crazy Heart

Jason Reitman, Up in the Air

Best Animated Film (Feature-Length)
Coraline

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

Fantastic Mr. Fox

The Secret of Kells

Up

Best Animated Film (Short)
The Cat Piano

La Dama y la Muerte (The Lady and the Reaper)

French Roast

Partly Cloudy

Runaway

Best Live-Action Film (Short)


Best Documentary Film (Feature-Length or Short)
The Beaches of Agnès

The Cove

Food, Inc.

Best Foreign-Language Film (Live Action or Animated, Feature-Length or Short)

Los Abrazos Rotos (Broken Embraces)

歩いても 歩いても (Still Walking)

L'Heure d'Été (Summer Hours)

Un Prophète (A Prophet)

Séraphine