Wednesday, January 24, 2007

79th Academy Award nominations

Surprise snubs for Dreamgirls (Best Picture), Volver (Best Foreign-Language Film), and Jack Nicholson (Best Supporting Actor)! Here's the list, with my score for each category.

Taken from Oscarwatch

Best motion picture of the year

Babel
The Departed
Letters from Iwo Jima
Little Miss Sunshine
The Queen

4/5. What happened to Dreamgirls? Letters was my alternate (#6), but I figured that either Babel or Sunshine would fall to it. Shocking.

Achievement in directing

Babel, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu
The Departed, Martin Scorsese
Letters from Iwo Jima, Clint Eastwood
The Queen, Stephen Frears
United 93, Paul Greengrass

4/5. Greengrass was my alternate (#6).

Performance by an actor in a leading role

Leonardo DiCaprio in Blood Diamond
Ryan Gosling in Half Nelson
Peter O’Toole in Venus
Will Smith in The Pursuit of Happyness
Forest Whitaker in The Last King of Scotland

4/5. Wow, Leo gets a nom for Diamond instead of for The Departed. It was #8 on my list, but I had expected an upset by Watanabe or Baron Cohen instead.

Performance by an actor in a supporting role

Alan Arkin in Little Miss Sunshine
Jackie Earle Haley in Little Children
Djimon Hounsou in Blood Diamond
Eddie Murphy in Dreamgirls
Mark Wahlberg in The Departed

4/5. It's this year's sympathy category, doling out noms for a vet (Arkin) and a comebacking actor (Haley). Happy about the Wahlberg nod, shocked at the Nicholson snub. Haley was #7 in my list, below Nicholson and Michael Sheen.

Performance by an actress in a leading role

Penelope Cruz in Volver
Judi Dench in Notes on a Scandal
Helen Mirren in The Queen
Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada
Kate Winslet in Little Children

5/5. Boringly predictable, and yet all of them are truly deserving.

Performance by an actress in a supporting role

Adriana Barraza in Babel
Cate Blanchett in Notes on a Scandal
Abigail Breslin in Little Miss Sunshine
Jennifer Hudson in Dreamgirls
Rinko Kikuchi in Babel

5/5. No surprises here.

Adapted screenplay

Borat Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
Screenplay by Sacha Baron Cohen & Anthony Hines & Peter Baynham & Dan Mazer
Story by Sacha Baron Cohen & Peter Baynham & Anthony Hines & Todd Phillips
Children of Men
Screenplay by Alfonso Cuaron & Timothy J. Sexton and David Arata and Mark Fergus & Hawk Ostby
The Departed
Screenplay by William Monahan
Little Children
Screenplay by Todd Field & Tom Perrotta
Notes on a Scandal
Screenplay by Patrick Marber

3/5. Borat and Notes take it from more expected nominees Dreamgirls and Thank You For Smoking.

Original screenplay

Babel
Written by Guillermo Arriaga
Letters from Iwo Jima
Screenplay by Iris Yamashita
Story by Iris Yamashita & Paul Haggis
Little Miss Sunshine
Written by Michael Arndt
Pan’s Labyrinth
Written by Guillermo del Toro
The Queen
Written by Peter Morgan

3/5. Pan's (the hot film of the year) and Letters displace Stranger Than Fiction and unjustly ignored Volver.

Best animated feature film of the year

Cars, John Lasseter
Happy Feet, George Miller
Monster House, Gil Kenan

3/3. No comment.

Achievement in art direction

Dreamgirls
The Good Shepherd
Pan’s Labyrinth
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest
The Prestige

2/5. Got Dreamgirls and Pan's.

Achievement in cinematography

The Black Dahlia, Vilmos Zsigmond
Children of Men, Emmanuel Lubezki
The Illusionist, Dick Pope
Pan’s Labyrinth, Guillermo Navarro
The Prestige, Wally Pfister

1/5. Eew. Only got Children right.

Achievement in costume design

Curse of the Golden Flower, Yee Chung Man
The Devil Wears Prada, Patricia Field
Dreamgirls, Sharen Davis
Marie Antoinette, Milena Canonero
The Queen, Consolata Boyle

3/5. Got Curse, Dreamgirls, and Marie Antoinette. Should have expected the nod for Prada.

Best documentary feature

Deliver Us from Evil
An Inconvenient Truth
Iraq in Fragments
Jesus Camp
My Country, My Country

3/5. Missed Iraq and My Country.

Best documentary short subject

The Blood of Yingzhou District
Recycled Life
Rehearsing a Dream
Two Hands

Achievement in film editing

Babel, Stephen Mirrione and Douglas Crise
Blood Diamond, Steven Rosenblum
Children of Men, Alex Rodriguez and Alfonso Cuaron
The Departed, Thelma Schoonmaker
United 93, Clare Douglas, Christopher Rouse and Richard Pearson

3/5. Got Babel, The Departed, and United 93.

Best foreign language film of the year

After the Wedding, Denmark
Days of Glory (Indigenes), Algeria
The Lives of Others, Germany
Pan’s Labyrinth, Mexico
Water, Canada

3/5. Where the heck is Volver?! Got the German, Mexican, and Canadian entries right.

Achievement in makeup

Apocalypto
Click
Pan’s Labyrinth

2/3. Click? Ummm...ok. I thought it would be Pirates.

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original score)

Babel, Gustavo Santaolalla
The Good German, Thomas Newman
Notes on a Scandal, Philip Glass
Pan’s Labyrinth, Javier Navarrete
The Queen, Alexandre Desplat

4/5. Wow, some love for German. Then again, it's Thomas Newman. Missed out on him and (quite foolishly) predicted Shore instead for The Departed.

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original song)

"I Need to Wake Up" from An Inconvenient Truth, Music and Lyric by Melissa Etheridge
"Listen" from Dreamgirls, Music by Henry Krieger and Scott Cutler, Lyric by Anne Preven
"Love You I Do" from Dreamgirls, Music by Henry Krieger, Lyric by Siedah Garrett
"Our Town" from Cars, Music and Lyric by Randy Newman
"Patience" from Dreamgirls, Music by Henry Krieger, Lyric by Willie Reale

3/5. No love for Bobby; the Academy isn't interested in seeing Aretha Franklin sing at the Oscars? Three songs from Dreamgirls, with "Patience" being unpredicted by yours truly. Also missed out on "Our Towb," figuring that the voters would choose to have fun and nom Borat's "O Kazakhstan" instead.

Best animated short film

The Danish Poet, A Mikrofilm and National Film Board of Canada Production Torill Kove
Lifted - A Pixar Animation Studios Production, Gary Rydstrom
The Little Matchgirl - A Walt Disney Pictures Production, Roger Allers and Don Hahn
Maestro - A Kedd Production, Geza M. Toth
No Time for Nuts - A Blue Sky Studios Production, Chris Renaud and Michael Thurmeier

Best live action short film

Binta and the Great Idea (Binta Y La Gran Idea)
Eramos Pocos (One Too Many)
Helmer & Son
The Saviour
West Bank Story

Achievement in sound editing

Apocalypto, Sean McCormack and Kami Asgar
Blood Diamond, Lon Bender
Flags of Our Fathers, Alan Robert Murray and Bub Asman
Letters from Iwo Jima, Alan Robert Murray
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, Christopher Boyes and George Watters II

2/3(5). I only predicted three nominees instead of five, and of those only Letters and Pirates got in.

Achievement in sound mixing

Apocalypto, Kevin O’Connell, Greg P. Russell and Fernando Camara
Blood Diamond, Andy Nelson, Anna Behlmer and Ivan Sharrock
Dreamgirls, Michael Minkler, Bob Beemer and Willie Burton
Flags of Our Fathers, John Reitz, Dave Campbell, Gregg Rudloff and Walt Martin
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, Paul Massey, Christopher Boyes and Lee Orloff

1/5. Only got Dreamgirls. Never was good at the sound stuff. Good showing from Diamond.

Achievement in visual effects

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest
Poseidon
Superman Returns

2/3. Forgot about how the voters love sinking ships in this category. Mutants ignored for the 3rd time.

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