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24.2.13

Awards Season

You may be watching the Academy Awards tonight, so here are some thoughts on this year's best achievements in film. Lincoln is still leading the Ionarts poll for Best Picture of the Year, but our vote would go to Life of Pi, an excellent film we would also like to see get awards for Cinematography (Claudio Miranda), Directing (Ang Lee), Film Editing (Tim Squyres), Music--Original Score (Mychael Danna), Production Design, Visual Effects, and Writing--Adapted Screenplay (David Magee). (Writing--Original Screenplay should go to Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola for Moonrise Kingdom.) Best Actor in a Leading Role should go to Daniel Day-Lewis for Lincoln; Emmanuelle Riva should win Best Actress in a Leading Role for Amour, which should also win Best Foreign Language Film. (Marion Cotillard was overlooked in the latter category for her striking work in Rust and Bone.) Although Alan Arkin was the best part of Argo, the award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role should go to Philip Seymour Hoffman for The Master, while Anne Hathaway seems a lock as Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Les Misérables, which should also probably win Best Costume Design but not Best Makeup and Hair, which should go to those amazing dwarves in The Hobbit (not reviewed). For Best Animated Feature Film, we liked Brave (not reviewed), and Searching for Sugar Man (not reviewed) for Best Documentary Feature, Fresh Guacamole for Best Animated Short, and Curfew for Best Live Action Short.


Further thoughts on the films nominated by the Academy for Best Picture this year:
Amour
Argo
Beasts of the Southern Wild (not reviewed)
Django Unchained (not reviewed)
Life of Pi
Les Misérables
Lincoln
Silver Linings Playbook
Zero Dark Thirty

1 comment:

Charles T. Downey said...

Things went largely the way we thought they would, if not always the way we would have voted. Life of Pi received four of the awards we hoped it would (Directing, Cinematography, Score, Visual Effects), but not Best Picture or Adapted Screenplay (both to Argo). We were happy with Best Actor (Daniel Day-Lewis), Best Actress (Jennifer Lawrence), Animated Feature (Brave), Documentary Feature (Searching for Sugar Man), Foreign Language Film (Amour), and Live Action Short (Curfew). We will try to catch up with Django Unchained in the next couple weeks.