Addicts 2008: Sound Editing & Sound Mixing

Sound Mixing

The Dark Knight
Ed Novick & Agce Ulas

Heath Ledger's distinctive cackle may be the most resonant snippet of audio that The Dark Knight has to offer, but it's only a towering component of the film's sound library. While the heavy, dramatic, overloaded score threatens to dominate, the sound mixing ensures that this seems like a rather tense countdown of the ilk you're accustomed to seeing every five minutes on 24, and the dialogue, similarly heavy, is punctuated with booming effect. This film is loud but rarely turgid.

Doomsday
Derek Mansvelt

Another loud film; not that I think loud necessarily equals worthy, as you'll see further down. Neil Marshall's Doomsday is a runaway fledgling of B-movie anarchy, and the vehicular carnage that becomes its trademark custom feels wholly diegetic to the senses. The mobbish, grating platform of sound feels über-pulpy, and heightens the on-going battle, perpetuating the 'doom' half of its appropriate title.

The Strangers
Jeffree Bloomer, Marti D. Humphrey & Chris M. Jacobson

Horror movies are churned out ten-a-penny these days, so finding one that legitimately "scares" you is a tiresome task in itself. Enter The Strangers, which understands that the success of shocking the audience relies primarily on the quality and effect of the soundwork, as well as its mystery and unpredictability. The film is not perfect, but neither is it predictable, introducing bursts of sound that stir you to the point where you can't really accept them as manipulative devices. The contrapuntal bursts of folk music provide a certain eeriness by themselves.

The Wackness
Ken Ishii, Eric Justen & Jeffrey Perkins

Set in a time when Hip-Hop was still a revelation, The Wackness has a rather catchy and relevant song score to accompany its vehemently 'indie' circumstances. I realise that this is a sound mixing category, and was incredibly impressed with both how the film was put together, and particularly how it integrated the sounds of the period into its plot, without these moments appearing too focus-pulling, deliberate, or self-conscious. These moments also gave the film a much-needed (at times) energy.

Wall-E
Ben Burrt, Zach Martin, Tom Myers, Michael Semanick & Tony Sereno

Wall-E is a quiet, patient, and modest film that does everything you'd really want it to, and the sound is indicative of this. From Wall-E's voice, robotic but intricate and emotional, to the subtle, pattering score, to the institutional chaos of life in outer space. It's all interesting, involving, and perhaps encourages us to ruminate a little more about what's going on. Kind of like an animated version of 2001.

Winners: Jeffree Bloomer, Marti D. Humphrey & Chris M. Jacobson (The Strangers)
Runner Up: Ben Burrt, Zach Martin, Tom Myers, Michael Semanick & Tony Sereno (Wall-E)

Sound Editing

The Dark Knight
Michael Babcock, Richard King, Michael W. Mitchell & Hamilton Sterling

More bombs than you can shake a stick at (although why you'd want to, I don't know) and countless numbers of crashes, smashes, and thuds litter the latest Batman installment, and it's testament to the sound department that it doesn't become repetitive or tiresome, like other parts of the film.

Eagle Eye
Christopher Assells, Karen Baker Landers, Albert Gasser, Per Hallberg, Peter Staubli & Bruce Tanis

If action films are supposed to be thrill rides, Eagle Eye is a pretty top-billed fairground attraction. You know this when it almost deters you from seeing the flaws through sheer energy and confidence. The film feels so mapped-out and is full of plot holes, but its super-slick, never-say-die attitude extends to some wonderful sound effects (explosions, electronics, mammoth vehicles) that it's often a joy to sit through.

The Strangers
Scott A. Hecker, Rick Hromadka & Cliff Latimer

Containing some of the sharpest sound-work I've ever seen in a horror film it playfully and torturously terrifies; whether it be banging, scraping, shooting, or otherwise.
Taken from Review

Wall-E
Ben Burrt, Dustin Cawood, Teresa Eckton, Al Nelson & Matthew Wood

The mechanism of the sound in Wall-E is far from standard. The sharp, clanging, rickety nature of the moving robot a fascinating observation in the film's opening minutes, and the introduction of the highly-strung, bubbling electronica of Eve another smart touch. The conveyor-belt consumerism of space allows for more recognition, but in theory, so it should. All-in-all, fascinating variety.

Wanted
Margit Pfeiffer, Wylie Stateman & Jon Title

Although I doubted that Wanted would be embraced by the Academy's sound branch, I did enjoy the film's audio work in a similar way to Eagle Eye. In fact everything in the film is flash, but when you've got a budget as huge as this film was afforded, you'd kind of expect the soundwork to be good. A standout in that area is the gunfire, which feels wickedly gratuitous and certainly grips your attention.

Winners: Ben Burrt, Dustin Cawood, Teresa Eckton, Al Nelson & Matthew Wood (Wall-E)
Runner Up: Christopher Assells, Karen Baker Landers, Albert Gasser, Per Hallberg, Peter Staubli & Bruce Tanis (Eagle Eye)

2008, Or How Nothing Ever Changes

I wouldn’t be the first one to argue that 2008 represented a particularly thin filmic year, which offered up some interesting and unique prospects – Tomas Alfredson’s Let the Right One In, Ari Folman’s Waltz With Bashir, and the small-time originals penned by Courtney Hunt and Thomas McCarthy just the tip of the iceberg – but too often these films felt loaded with ideas that weren’t fully realised. One of the main themes to emerge from the year was a desire to dredge up the past; whether that be the renowned classic, the obligatory sequel, or the staple Oscar favourite. Two films were most obvious in their desire to hark back to, re-live, or even resurrect a revered golden age of cinema, and in their failings perhaps epitomise the doomed state of an artistic year (era if you want to look closer and more bleakly at it) that distinctly lacked quality.

Maybe I’m being unfair. Is this year really that much worse than 2003? Or even 2006, in which a number of films relied a little too heavily on inspired acting to make their points? Then there’s the question of whether I’m just getting fussier, but the general dislike for 2008 (at least that’s the attitude I’m guaging) seems to be dissuading me of this, and thus the apparent mini-consensus prevents me from feeling harsh for giving Milk a B and The Reader a B- (yes, those are the two I feel most guilty about at the moment).

But back to the films, which if you haven’t guessed yet are George Clooney’s Easter-released Leatherheads, a rare screwball outing which couldn’t even manage Renee Zelwegger a Golden Globe nomination (and we know how rare an occurrence that is) and the epic Australia, which saw Baz Luhrmann attempt everything to remind us of one of the best years in cinema, 1939, through both theme and spectacle. Sadly it failed to live up to any of the amazing films of sixty years ago.

Admittedly, there are issues as to whether Hawks’ classic comedies can ever be replicated successfully in the same vein, and further insight into this as my dissertation topic has led to social relevance suggesting that either ‘we’ as the audience, or ‘they’ as filmmakers are unable to tap into thirties’ reverence and knowledge of society, or flimsy female-led romance. A matter for discussion but in any case Luhrmann’s extravaganza sadly felt more like a Pirates of the Caribbean installment – event, event, comedy, event, event, kiss, effect, event, comedy, event etc. – than a sly, knowing melodrama, with genuinely imposing characters. Not that I’m saying the sight of Hugh Jackman’s chest didn’t impose upon me greatly, I just didn’t really get the passion his character had for both cattle driving and Nicole Kidman. For all of Rhett Butler’s ambivalence he was pretty dastardly passionate when he wanted to be, in that loner, “look at all the uneducated hicks creaming themselves over war” kind of way; although the fact that I’ve described his character in terms of a plot point makes the film all the more successful than him.

And if there was ever an example of characters evolving solely through plot points this year it was Brad Pitt’s Benjamin Button. Come rain or shine Benjamin Button would be doing something meaningful, whether it was changing appearance (that happened frequently), falling in love, going to war, or generally overcoming a disability that only challenged him in an aesthetic sense. A cinematographic-heavy lunge of sorts would be accompanied by a philosophical statement about either age, beauty, or the unpredictability of life, and one can really see it as a nursery rhyme; anecdotal, formulaic, and overtly simple to grasp. But all this bore enough hallmarks of traditional “importance” -- forbidden romance, black female matriarchs, against-the-odds achievement – that it garnered a rather ridiculous thirteen Oscar nominations. Similar Oscar fare reared its ugly head in the form of The Reader (which I do like despite major problems), Doubt, and the completely uninspiring Frost/Nixon. For purposes of sanity, I’m refusing to mention the eventual winner of that prize until I recover from the past three months of constant awardage.

But enough of all that negative talk; Richard Jenkins is not in my cherished top seven of this year’s Best Actor candidates, but his nomination for an April release is the earliest in the calendar since Anthony Hopkins was noted and rewarded for his menacing Silence of the Lambs turn. An achievement, certainly since the role isn’t particularly showy and he lingered in the background for much of the race. It was a similar story for Melissa Leo, whose Frozen River saw the light of day in the summer. Her buzz carried the film to an additional nomination in the Screenplay category in an altogether despondent year for Leading Actresses, but nevertheless a fiercely contested one.

The Dark Knight and WALL·E made a ton of money, which hasn’t dissuaded Academy Members of biting a line in the past, but maybe Louis B. Mayer’s philosophy still rings true 81 years later, and in a polarised environment between industry and “quality” these films simply don’t have what it takes to fall close enough to the Oscar threshold. Frankly, I’m convinced that these will be the movies truly remembered and netflixed when the film fans of the next generation come to explore this limp year.

I recently bought Inside Oscar and from reading the first few chapters the overwhelming insight into the awards process is that it doesn’t change. I’m sure that fifty-odd years ago teenagers were incensed at Around the World in Eighty Days winning Best Picture (if they weren’t they fucking should have been) and in a cultural sense they’d probably have more reason to be than our admonishment of today’s Indian tale. But whether it’s testy European humour or third-world positivity that really gets your goat, you can be sure that when the pickings are slim people will jump on the wagon for an ephemeral escape.

Personally I’m itching for a permanent escape from 2008, and after I complete my Addict awards (they start in a couple of days) I’m gonna look to the past to provide some much-needed inspiration. And not in the form of empty fairytales, holocaust movies, or political one-upmanship.

2008 Oscar Preview & Predictions: Screenplays & Sound

Original Screenplay

Frozen River
Happy-Go-Lucky
In Bruges
Milk
Wall-E

What Should Have Been Nominated? I suspect that the Coen's Burn After Reading finished relatively close behind, along with the other three or four screenplays that were in with a chance at the eleventh hour. It would have been a worthier nominee than a couple of these picks. Jonathan Levine's The Wackness didn't have a cat in hell's chance but it meanders topics previously treated as token in indie comedies chiefly and callously turns its characters inside out.

What Deserves To Win? Andrew Stanton's Wall-E, which I've gushed and gushed about for seemingly forever.

What Will Win? In Bruges will get a few votes but it may be stretching things to think it has reached a Lost in Translation or Eternal Sunshine level of revered originality. I think it more likely that Milk will win because its only other chance is for Sean Penn, and although Wall-E has a record number of animations for an Animated film it couldn't get a BP nod and it doesn't have a lot of dialogue.

Adapted Screenplay

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Doubt
Frost/Nixon
The Reader
Slumdog Millionaire

What Should Have Been Nominated? Anything else???? The Dark Knight, The Fall, Let the Right One In, Savage Grace...

What Deserves To Win? Definitely David Hare's adaptation of The Reader, which undeniably trips itself up on occasion but is often thoughtful.

What Will Win? That movie about kids in India.

Original Score

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Defiance
Milk
Slumdog Millionaire
Wall-E

What Should Have Been Nominated? James Newton Howard and Hans Zimmer's collaboration for The Dark Knight, which was apparently disqualified. Similarly, last year's masterful There Will Be Blood score got the chop. Also a special shout-out to John Powell's Horton Hears a Who score, which got nominated for a Golden Satellite and Golden Reel but couldn't manage anything else.

What Deserves To Win? A.R. Rahman will have many of the Indian headlines on Monday morning, and in terms of this set of nominees, a win for him here would be justified. Slumdog's towering, colourful music is the best thing about it.

What Will Win? Slumdog Millionaire.

Original Song

Slumdog Millionaire - "Jaiho"
Slumdog Millionaire - "O Saya"
Wall-E - "Down to Earth"

What Should Have Been Nominated? Bruce Springsteen's song from The Wrestler, and for all the world I can't understand why it isn't here.

What Deserves To Win? I'm in the O Saya camp. The Slumdog soundtrack is great.

What Will Win? It's tough because I like Peter Gabriel, he's the only big name nominee in this line-up, and there's the possibility of vote-splitting, but there are two things that suggest to me that Jaiho will probably win. The first is that when Lord of the Rings was as unstoppable as Slumdog seems this year it managed to wrestle this prize away from three superior songs. I love Annie Lennox but Into the West is nothing great. The second is the Hustle and Flow win over Dolly Parton in 2005, which proves that you don't need to be a big name or have an easy-listening track to prevail.

Sound Editing

The Dark Knight
Iron Man
Slumdog Millionaire
Wall-E
Wanted

What Should Have Been Nominated? Eagle Eye - top notch action, and The Strangers has some spine-tingling sound effects too.

What Deserves To Win? Good category, but I think that The Dark Knight definitely trumps the others. It's so audacious and hammers home the audio thrills and spills with unflinching force.

What Will Win? I don't want to say Slumdog so I'll go for The Dark Knight, because it's not going to win a lot, and this seems to be the category where they go for loud/action.

Sound Mixing

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Slumdog Millionaire
Wall-E
Wanted

What Should Have Been Nominated? Again, The Strangers. Making horror films scary is a lot more dependent upon the sound now with the countless number of visual sights we've been subjected to. Doomsday has that loud, epic but crucially natural cult grit.

What Deserves To Win? The patient, perfect mechanism of system in Wall-E; whether that be robots, spaceships, the clasp of a hand, or a foray into American musicals as cultural irony.

What Will Win? Slumdog Millionaire. They favour films with lots of music in it.

Down To 65 Seconds

Peter Gabriel's decision to pull out of the Oscars certainly gets my backing. Artists should not be forced to compromise for anything or anyone. It's like Radio Edits -- they're very rarely (if ever) better than the original cut. But if they're cutting down on the song performances then what on earth are they going to fill the time with?

We already know that there's going to be a tribute to comedy, which is pretty ironic given that the Academy have always treated comic films with an err of inferiority. Here are some suggestions as to how else they can fill the void:-

• Lengthen everyone's clips to 30 seconds, and add brief clips for the tech categories.
  
• Allow the winners at least 90 seconds to give their speech.
• Give Hugh Jackman a musical number to sing, and preferably in a see-through top? ;-)
• Let Meryl Streep do an improptu 10-minute stand-up
• Show clips of Academy members exiting screenings, reacting to screenings, or recounting their favourite moments in cinema of the year. There's few things more generous of Actors than expressing their passion for film and disclosing their personal faves in the way we cinephiles do.

2008 Oscar Preview & Predictions: Animated, Documentary, Foreign, Shorts

Animated Feature Film

Bolt
Kung Fu Panda
Wall-E

What Should Have Been Nominated? I'd make a case for the major casualty in this category, Waltz With Bashir, which has a lot more merit than the panda movie. Horton Hears a Who is probably better than them both, and even made me cry. Sshh! :-)

What Deserves To Win? I found Kung Fu Panda very overrated, and culturally pretty dim in truth. I'm seeing Bolt next week, but in any case I highly doubt that it's better than the majestic Wall-E, which I gave an A-. If it is, I'll update you. The space adventure is my favourite animated film since Finding Nemo and is certainly in an All-Time Top Ten of those sorts. But if only enough of the Academy could have widened their horizons as much as Andrew Stanton's film this could have shown up in the Best Picture 'elite'.

What Will Win? Wall-E, which has the most nominations of any Animated Film (tied with Beauty and the Beast), and the only one to ever win a major critics prize.

Animated Short Film

La Maison en Petits Cubes
Lavatory - Lovestory
Oktapodi
Presto
This Way Up

What Should Have Been Nominated? Beats me.

What Deserves To Win? The only one of those I've seen is Presto, because they played it before Wall-E. I liked but didn't love.

What Will Win? I'd say that Presto has the edge because it's Pixar, but La Maison has its share of fans.

Documentary Feature Film

The Betrayal
Encounters at the End of the World
The Garden
Man on Wire
Trouble the Water

What Should Have Been Nominated? I do regret not seeing as many documentaries as I should. It's something I'm trying to remedy but it's rather difficult when there are minimal theatrically-released features (Trouble the Water has seemingly been and gone -- you can be forgiven for missing it) and the impetus to watch these documentaries on DVD in April/May evapourates fairly quickly. As it turns out the only ones I caught this year were the runaway frontrunner Man On Wire, and the ambiguous docu-nature of Waltz With Bashir. Both of these are great. Up the Yangtze, which I count as 2007 because of its release in other countries, was eligible for a place this year, and is bloody brilliant, so shame on the Academy (not for the first time!).

What Deserves to Win? Obviously I can't judge that, but I will say that Man On Wire is an excellent film.

What Will Win? Man On Wire. It's been seen by at least twice as many people as any of the other nominees, and has won nearly every critic award.


Documentary Short Subject

The Conscience of Nhem En
The Final Inch
Smile Pinki
The Witness - From the Balcony of Room 306

What Should Have Been Nominated? N/A

What Deserves to Win? N/A

What Will Win? I'm guessing The Conscience of Nhem En because it's about liberty etc. etc.

Live Action Short Film

Auf der Strecke (On the Line)
Manon on the Asphalt
New Boy
The Pig
Spielzeugland (Toyland)


What Should Have Been Nominated? N/A

What Deserves to Win? N/A

What Will Win? Toyland. It's about the holocaust.

Foreign Language Film

The Baader Meinhof Complex (Germany)
The Class (France)
Departures (Japan)
Revanche (Austria)
Waltz with Bashir (Israel)

What Should Have Been Nominated Submitted? Nothing really stands out. Some will make a case that France should have opted for I've Loved You So Long over The Class. I've not seen the latter, but the the Scott-Thomas flick has a lot wrong with it. Germany could have submitted The Wave but I'm glad they didn't because it runs out of ideas very quickly, and I liked Baader-Meinhof.

What Deserves To Win? I can't judge because I've seen only two of five nominees, but Waltz With Bashir is different and engaging.

What Will Win? There's an apparent history of upsets in this category, but I'm not so sure that The Lives of Others (a film universally adored) triumphing over Pan's Labyrinth (something that won three oscars elsewhere) was that much of a shock. Neither was Tsotsi's win over Paradise Now. I don't think Waltz With Bashir is nailed on, but its snub in the Animated Feature category might encourage people to make sure it is truly rewarded with an "Oscar Win" label. But I wouldn't count out The Class.

**Final** Oscar Predictions Part 2: Screenplays, Animated etc.

Original Screenplay

Milk
Rachel Getting Married
Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Wall-E
The Wrestler

Alternate: The Visitor

If we're going on popularity of the films this seems like the five. Happy Go Lucky definitely has fans but isn't strong enough to predict above others that missed a WGA nomination.

Adapted Screenplay

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Doubt
Frost/Nixon
The Reader
Slumdog Millionaire

Alternate: Revolutionary Road

I'm really confident about these five since the weakest one of these, The Reader, seems to be trundling along nicely and its major competition, Revolutionary Road, doesn't. The Dark Knight could make it but I maybe think this is the only place where it can't shrug off comic book bias.

Animated Feature

Kung Fu Panda
Wall-E
Waltz With Bashir

Alternate: Bolt

Because of how people view animated films I think that Waltz With Bashir is in a bit of a shaky position. It does have an excellent critical showing though, so I'll leave it. Interestingly, I think if it isn't nominated here it's definitely going to win the Foreign award, whereas if it's nominated for both it could lose out altogether.

Foreign Film

The Baader-Meinhof Complex - Germany
The Class - France
Everlasting Moments - Sweden
Revanche - Austria
Waltz With Bashir - Israel

Alternate: Canada - Necessities of Life

I'd say Israel and Austria are strongest, and they're a fan of the Swedish director's work so that has to bode well for his entry. France have an unprecedented history with this category so I'm picking them, even though the film isn't very traditional. As for the final spot, The Baader Meinhof Complex is harsh -- both visually and thematically -- but it's largely good, and I haven't a clue about the others.

Documentary Feature

Blessed Is the Match: The Life and Death of Hannah Senesh
Man on Wire
Pray the Devil Back to Hell
Standard Operating Procedure
Trouble the Water

Alternate: Encounters at the End of the World

Well Man on Wire is the only lock, but Trouble the Water is about Hurricane Katrina, Standard Operating Procedure is about the mistreatment of suspected terrorists (appropriate since the new president wants to get rid of the Guantanamo Bay facility), Blessed is about the holocaust, and Pray the Devil is about Liberian peace with added feminist oomph. Major, major bait at play here.

The legendary Werner Herzog is my alternate but his doc is much less Oscary than most of the shortlist.

**Final** Oscar Predictions Part 1: Techs & Music

Alright, here we go. I haven't really been keeping up with the techs during awards season so I've had to do same major research. Still, you can do research until you're blue in the face. You never really know.

Here are my picks:-

Art Direction

Changeling
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Milk
Slumdog Millionaire

Alternate: The Reader

It seems wrong to include something that was shut out of the Art Directors' guild nominations, however much I want to believe that the gorgeous work in Australia will grab one of these spots. Slumdog was at its ultimate peak when ballots went out and so I expect it to pick up tech nominations like this one. The Reader seems like a rather traditional and obvious pick for this category but it didn't get ADG either so I'm not gonna include it.

Costume Design

Changeling

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

The Duchess
Revolutionary Road

Slumdog Millionaire

Alternate: Australia

Similarly, these all featured in the Costume Designers Guild nominations. Changeling's make up is one of the few things I admired about it. The Duchess draws a lot of attention to its costumes, as one would expect of a British costume drama. All five of these are either rich, clean, or colourful. Australia is all three, but it didn't get the CDG, so hmph.

Make Up

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

The Dark Knight

Tropic Thunder

Alternate: Synechdoche, New York

Of the seven contenders for this award you'd have to say Benjamin Button is the obvious pick for the nomination and win, given the major age gimmick. The Reader also has this, but isn't particularly special, and there isn't a great deal of old Kate in the film. Hellboy is a definite option but I fancy that it might be ousted in the fantasy stakes by Heath's joker-face in The Dark Knight. And I've gone for Tropic Thunder in the final spot, because of the nominations for Click and Norbit in recent years. I'm not necessarily saying that the makeup department has a habit of nominating bad films, I'm referring to the fat-suit pattern, which could mean Tom Cruise's cameo is popular with them. I haven't seen much evidence of Synechdoche, but I fancy that of all the shortlisted films this one will be the least watched, though I do have it as an alternate.

Cinematography

Australia
The Dark Knight
Defiance
Revolutionary Road
Slumdog Millionaire

Alternate: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Sometimes the cinematographers get wacky and fun. Last year was a boring, uniform example of people agreeing all awards season, but apart from The Dark Knight and the revered Slumdog nothing seems particularly assured this year. I'd expect Roger Deakins to make it for at least one of his two efforts for The Reader (shared with Chris Menges) and Revolutionary Road, and I fancy the latter is a bit more flash. I've gone for Australia, because it is so in-your-face (rather like Phantom of the Opera and The Illusionist were) that it's sure to have fans -- even if support for the film itself is distinctly lacking. Defiance is here because Edward Zwick films tend to pick up something somewhere, and although this film doesn't have the possibility of an Acting nomination as Blood Diamond and The Last Samurai did, it's a recent release that made NBR.

Film Editing

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Defiance
Frost/Nixon
Slumdog Millionaire

Alternate: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Editing historically matches Picture, which would seem to be backed up this year by the fact that the ACE noms match the PGA/DGA/Favourite Five for the main award. But as I'm not going for that five, I'm sticking Defiance in there (co-incidentally in an act of defiance) for similar reasons to the Cinematography prediction.

Visual Effects

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Iron Man

Alternate: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Since The Dark Knight appears to have transcended the label of summer blockbuster, Iron Man fills that void pretty well, especially since it got similarly impressive reviews. It also has better effects, if you ask me. But anyway yeah... there's a 15-film shortlist but these three look good.

Sound Mixing

The Dark Knight
Defiance
Iron Man
Slumdog Millionaire
Wall-E

Alternate: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

A mixture of war/action and uplifting sentiment.

Sound Editing

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Iron Man
Quantum of Solace
Wall-E

Alternate: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

The loudest, plus Wall-E. Animated films do well here.

Original Score

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Slumdog Millionaire
Wall-E

Alternate: Milk

John Williams is god to them. The rest are great.

Original Song

Bolt - "I Thought I Lost You"
Slumdog Millionaire - "Jaiho"
Slumdog Millionaire - "O Saya
"Wall-E - "Down to Earth
"The Wrestler - "The Wrestler"

Alternate: Gran Torino - "Gran Torino"

The usual suspects plus another bone for the dog.

A Well Earned Break (Link)

As you'll have been able to tell my posting has been few-and-far-between since the festive period began. Most of this involved heavy consumption of Stella Artois (will my stomach ever be the same? :'( ) and when the New Year began I was forced to confront the dreaded reality of Uni assignments. I'm currently wrestling (although 'cuddling' seems a more apt description) with a 2,500-word write-up on the treatment of life and death in animation. It's mainly Disney, with a little bit of Burton thrown in there for the macabre segment. Needless to say, this is taking up a lot of my time at the moment, so for the next week or so things are gonna stay relatively vacant -- apart from Golden Globe predictions and reaction of course!

I never got around to writing a review of Changeling, and likely won't. After seeing Courtney Hunt's Frozen River online this week I feel more compelled to write about its squandering of social knowledge in greater depth. As I've said though, it ain't gonna happen for at least a week. I've also seen Che: Part One, Vicky Cristina Barcelona (online again - don't judge), Man on Wire, and The Reader, which is probably my favourite of all those mentioned in this paragraph, though it does have its fair share of problems. I was actually really surprised to find that the screening of it I went to was packed. I could tell a good few liked it, too.

Anyway, let me link you to a few entertaining pieces, if you haven't seen them already...

And the Winner is..: New Oscar predictions. Gran Torino in 6th for Best Picture?

Awards Daily: All the details on the guilds this week (DGA announce later today). Boy, didn't The Dark Knight need that PGA nom? Where's the Wall-E love, people? I hear Stanton is ineligible so it looks like it's gonna have to cling on to critical and audience popularity if it's gonna make it.

BBC: The Times' writer James Christopher puts forward the notion of BANNING the biopic. Imagine if that happened. Would we get more original films creeping into AMPAS territory, or an even bigger influx of novel adaptations in the December crowd? An interesting thought. Oh and try to ignore the fact that he doesn't like Julia Roberts in Erin Brockovich. It took me a while to get past it but I succeeded.

Goatdogblog: Top Ten Rentals/Revivals of 2008, and it includes Gone With the Wind. Adoration does not fulfill my feelings for this epic masterpiece.

Film Experience Blog: Ever fallen asleep at the cinema?

In Contention: The BAFTA Foreign Language nominations. Pretty standard. I'm happy for Waltz With Bashir and Baader-Meinhof (despite its problems). I'm cooling on the Scott-Thomas flick a lot.

Mainly Movies: Hitchcock is the new guest oeuvre! Why does everyone love Notorious by the way? I love Hitch but I wasn't fussed by that one at all.

Enjoy! Back to the grind!

I Heart the LAFCA

The LAFCA have announced and it's utterly stupendously fantabolously awesome...

Picture: “Wall-E”Runner-up: “The Dark Knight”
Director: Danny Boyle, “Slumdog Millionaire”Runner-up: Christopher Nolan, “The Dark Knight”

Actor: Sean Penn, “Milk”Runner-up: Mickey Rourke, “The Wrestler”
Actress: Sally Hawkins, “Happy-Go-Lucky”Runner-up: Melissa Leo, “Frozen River”
Supporting actor: Heath Ledger, “The Dark Knight”Runner-up: Eddie Marsan, “Happy-Go-Lucky”
Supporting actress: Penelope Cruz, “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” and “Elegy”Runner-up: Viola Davis, “Doubt”
Screenplay: Mike Leigh, “Happy-Go-Lucky”Runner-up: Charlie Kaufman, “Synecdoche, New York”
Foreign-language film: “Still Life” Runner-up: “The Class”
Documentary: “Man on Wire” Runner-up: “Waltz With Bashir”
Animation: “Waltz With Bashir”
Cinematography: Yu Lik Wai, “Still Life” Runner-up: Anthony Dod Mantle, “Slumdog Millionaire”
Production design: Mark Friedberg, “Synecdoche, New York”Runner-up: Nathan Crowley, “The Dark Knight”
Music/score: A.R. Rahman, “Slumdog Millionaire”Runner-up: Alexandre Desplat, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
New Generation: Steve McQueen, “Hunger”

Not only have LA given the BEST picture of the year their "Best Picture" award, they've also awarded Sally Hawkins' performance in Happy-Go-Lucky, my favourite turn of 2008. It doesn't seem as if Hawkins is going away, although this by no means makes her a lock -- Vera Farmiga won this in 2005 and it isn't historically water-tight, but it's a major boost. The Oscar-bait isn't getting the critical acclaim in this category so far. Love the Waltz With Bashir win too, for a change. Wall-E is obviously winning Best Picture anyway, isn't it? I can dream....