Art Direction
Changeling
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
The Duchess
Revolutionary Road
What Should Have Been Nominated? There's a major argument for Wall-E, which has the most imaginative and defined production design of 2008. The Fall was never going to get nominated but it has such interesting, diverse arrangement, from the colourful expanse of fantasy to the murky grime of post-war healthcare.
What Deserves To Win? There are few things in this life more overwrought than Changeling but you can muster up an ounce of forgiveness for the richness of its production. The Dark Knight is great too.
What Will Win? I'd be surprised if The Curious Case of Benjamin Button didn't win. It's the only BP nominee of the five and whichever way you look at it the thirteen-nomination haul won't prove fruitful next week.
Cinematography
Changeling
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
The Reader
Slumdog Millionaire
What Should Have Been Nominated? Above all, the CFCA-nominated work in The Fall. I much prefer Roger Deakins' cinematography in Revolutionary Road to his nomination for The Reader, as he succesfully navigates the restricted visual artificiality of suburbia. I don't know how The Wrestler's Darren Aronofsky and Maryse Alberti couldn't manage a nomination between them, and it's the photography I find increasingly impressive about the gritty Mickey Rourke flick.
What Deserves To Win? The Dark Knight, which is definitely OTT, but certainly a whole lot more consistent with the tone and nature of the film than Slumdog's is. The rest don't excite me.
What Will Win? Slumdog Millionaire. It's very blatant in striking a visual chord and thus is memorable. It's also the BP frontrunner.
Costume Design
Australia
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Duchess
Milk
Revolutionary Road
What Should Have Been Nominated? This is a fine set of nominees but if I'd have had my way Eiko Ishioka's designs for The Fall (yes, again) would have been justly rewarded. Although ineligible, April Ferry's cutesy rural wartime outfits hit the spot in The Edge of Love, and don't actively seek attention in the way that some of this year's nominated costumers undoubtedly do. The Secret Life of Bees has such a bright, fantasy-style tone to it that's mimicked wonderfully by the attire of Queen Latifah et al.
What Deserves To Win? Australia and The Duchess have clothes that adhere to their respective periods and in both cases illustrate the flamboyance of their production, so it's difficult to pick a winner. Probably Australia because it seems to confound expectation and celebrate originality a little more.
What Will Win? The Duchess, since it's so definitely a costume drama. Even Milena Canonero won this in 2006 for Marie Antoinette, despite the film being unpopular and regarded as a failure by many. What do they know? :-P
Film Editing
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Frost/Nixon
Milk
Slumdog Millionaire
What Should Have Been Nominated? Burn After Reading's mechanical seamlessness contributes to the continual satire, and Quantum of Solace is one of the more well-put-together Bond films in recent memory, cool and engaging without ever going full-blown crazy/frantic.
What Deserves To Win? Elliot Graham's work on Milk is excellent, spanning years with ease and blending archival footage gracefully, without making these forays into the past seem sentimental or unnecessary.
What Will Win? The Slumdawg. Overdone, but they love lively.
Make Up
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Hellboy II: The Golden Army
What Should Have Been Nominated? Doomsday. Gore, disease, physical deformation, mutation, tribal beonging. Madness. I also love the makeup in Let the Right One In, which meshes well with the setting and like the film feels very natural amidst its own physical and thematic extremes.
What Deserves To Win? The Dark Knight. Joker and Two-Face. Creeeepy.
What Will Win? The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which wouldn't be my choice but isn't a bad one. Major gimmicky age make-up for everyone involved.
Visual Effects
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Iron Man
What Should Have Been Nominated? The wondrous effects-laden Eagle Eye, which regrettably offers up big budget theatrics with very little consideration for much else, and somehow manages to cast Shia LaBoeuf as someone called Jerry (surely he hasn't reached that stage yet?). But whatever, great FX.
What Deserves To Win? All of these films have so much money pumped into them that the effects were inevitably going to be impressive, but I think that the guys from The Dark Knight have the toughest job in making impact when everything around it is so equally dark and dangerous.
What Will Win? It's a semi-tough call because I'm not sure that The Dark Knight will win any other Tech awards, and so is in with a chance. But I can't help thinking that the win for The Golden Compass over Transformers last year means that cutesy and colourful wins the day, and so I'm willing to bet that Benjamin Button grabs this prize.
No comments:
Post a Comment