Melissa Leo Wins Best Actress in a Supporting Role Oscar for "The Fighter"

Actress in a Supporting Role

Melissa Leo in “The Fighter” WINNER

Amy Adams in “The Fighter”

Helena Bonham Carter in “The King's Speech”

Hailee Steinfeld in “True Grit”

Jacki Weaver in “Animal Kingdom”

"Inception" Wins Best Cinematography Oscar

Cinematography

“Inception” Wally Pfister WINNER

“Black Swan” Matthew Libatique

“The King's Speech” Danny Cohen

“The Social Network” Jeff Cronenweth

“True Grit” Roger Deakins

"Alice in Wonderland" Wins Best Art Direction Oscar

Art Direction

“Alice in Wonderland” WINNERS
Production Design: Robert Stromberg; Set Decoration: Karen O'Hara

“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1”
Production Design: Stuart Craig; Set Decoration: Stephenie McMillan

“Inception”
Production Design: Guy Hendrix Dyas; Set Decoration: Larry Dias and Doug Mowat

“The King's Speech”
Production Design: Eve Stewart; Set Decoration: Judy Farr

“True Grit”
Production Design: Jess Gonchor; Set Decoration: Nancy Haigh

Complete List of Independent Spirit Award Winners; "Black Swan" Soars

The Independent Spirit Awards or Film Independent’s Spirit Awards were founded in 1984 and are awards dedicated to independent filmmakers. Film Independent is the non-profit arts organization that produces the Spirit Awards and also the Los Angeles Film Festival.
 
The 2011 winners were announced Sat., Feb. 26, 2011.
 
2011 Film Independent Spirit Award winners:
 
Best Feature
Black Swan; Producers: Scott Franklin, Mike Medavoy, Arnold W. Messer, Brian Oliver;

Best Director
Darren Aronofsky, Black Swan

Best Screenplay
The Kids Are All Right Writers: Stuart Blumberg & Lisa Cholodenko

Best Female
Natalie Portman, Black Swan

Best Male
James Franco, 127 Hours

Best First Feature
Get Low Director: Aaron Schneider
Producers: David Gundlach, Dean Zanuck

Best First Screenplay
Lena Dunham, Tiny Furniture

John Cassavetes Award (For the best feature made under $500,000)
Writers/Directors: Benny Safdie, Josh Safdie
Daddy Longlegs Producers: Casey Neistat, Tom Scott

Best Supporting Female
Dale Dickey, Winter's Bone

Best Supporting Male
John Hawkes, Winter's Bone

Best Cinematography
Matthew Libatique, Black Swan

Best Foreign Film
The King's Speech Director: Tom Hooper

Best Documentary
Exit Through The Gift Shop, Banksy

http://www.filmindependent.org/

"The Social Network" Wins Cesar Award

First given out in 1975, the César Award is the national film award of France. Some even think of the César Award as the French equivalent of the American Academy Awards. The nominations are selected by the members of the Académie des Arts et Techniques du Cinéma, and the award ceremony is held in Paris each February.  The name of the award comes from the late sculptor César Baldaccini, and the trophies are actual sculptures of the artist.

The 36th Cesar Awards were presented on Friday, February 25, 2011.  Of note to Americans, The Social Network won "Best Foreign Film."

The 36th (2011) César Award winners:

Best Film: "Of Gods and Men" ("Des Hommes Et Des Dieu")

Best Director: Roman Polanski, "The Ghost Writer"

Best Foreign Film: "The Social Network"

Best Actress: Sara Forestier, "Le Nom Des Gens" ("The Names of Love")

Best Actor: Eric Elmosnino, "Gainsbourg"

Best Supporting Actress: Anne Alvaro, "Le Bruit Des Glaçons" ("The Clink of Ice")

Best Supporting Actor: Michael Lonsdale, "Of Gods and Men" ("Des Hommes Et Des Dieux")

Best First Film: "Gainsbourg" ("Vie Héroïque")

Best Original Screenplay: Baya Kasmi, Michel Leclerc, "Le Nom Des Gens"

Best Adapted Screenplay: Robert Harris, Roman Polanski, "The Ghost Writer"

Best Documentary: "Océans"

Best Animated Film: "L’Illusioniste" ("The Illusionist")

Best Short Film: "Logorama"

Best Newcomer (Female): Leïla Bekhti, "Tout Ce Qui Brille"

Best Newcomer (Male): Edgar Ramirez, "Carlos"

Best Original Score: Alexandre Desplat, "The Ghost Writer"

Best Sound: Daniel Sobrino, Jean Goudier, Cyril Holtz, "Gainsbourg"

Best Cinematography: Caroline Champetier, "Of Gods and Men" ("Des Hommes Et Des Dieux")

Best Editing: Hervé de Luz, "The Ghost Writer"

Best Costume Design: Caroline De Vivaise, "La Princesse De Montpensier"

Best Art Direction: Hugues Tissandier, "Les Adventures Extraordinaries D'Adèle Blanc-Sec"

"Night Catches Us" Dominates 2011 Black Reel Awards

The Academy Awards are tomorrow night.  As we get closer, I'm catching up on movie awards from other organizations.  A few weeks ago, the winners of the Black Reel Awards were announced.  Night Catches Us dominated, while Tyler Perry's For Colored Girls only won 3 of the 10 nominations it received.  It is a shame that neither film received a single Oscar nomination.

2011 Black Reel Award winners:

Outstanding Film
Night Catches Us, distributed by Magnolia Pictures

Outstanding Director
Albert Hughes, Allen Hughes-The Book of Eli

Outstanding Actor
Anthony Mackie – Night Catches Us

Outstanding Actress
Kerry Washington – Night Catches Us

Outstanding Supporting Actor
Wesley Snipes – Brooklyn’s Finest

Outstanding Supporting Actress
Phylicia Rashad – For Colored Girls

Outstanding Score
The Roots – Night Catches Us

Outstanding Song
“Shine” by John Legend from Waiting for Superman

Outstanding Ensemble
For Colored Girls, distributed by Lionsgate

Outstanding Breakthrough Performance
Tessa Thompson - For Colored Girls

Outstanding Feature Documentary
Waiting for Superman

Outstanding Independent
Preacher’s Kid, distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures

Outstanding Independent Short
Katrina’s Son - Ya’ke

Outstanding Independent Documentary
For the Best and For the Onion

Outstanding Television Documentary
If God is Willing and Da Creek Don’t Rise


http://blackreelawards.wordpress.com/

Review: "Sweeney Todd" is Bloody Good" (Happy B'day, Dante Ferretti)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 21 (of 2008) by Leroy Douresseaux

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007)
Running time: 116 minutes (1 hour, 56 minutes)
MPAA – R for graphic bloody violence
DIRECTOR: Tim Burton
WRITER: John Logan (based on the musical by Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler; originally stage by Harold Prince)
PRODUCERS: Richard D. Zanuck, Walter Parkes, Laurie MacDonald, and John Logan
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Dariusz Wolski, ASC
EDITOR: Chris Lebenzon, A.C.E.
2008 Academy Award winner

MUSICAL/DRAMA/HORROR

Starring: Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman, Timothy Spall, Sacha Baron Cohen, Jamie Campbell Bower, Jayne Wisener, and Edward Sanders

Tim Burton (Beetlejuice, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) brings the music and lyrics of Stephen Sondheim to life in his wonderfully gruesome film, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, based on the Tony Award-winning musical by Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler. Burton keeps most of the songs from the musical and joins his frequent leading man, Johnny Depp, for the sixth time to make fantastically macabre movie magic, one that demands that the audience accept the gory reality of murder if it’s going to be entertained by bloody revenge.

Escaping two decades of false imprisonment in Australia, Benjamin Barker (Johnny Depp) returns to London and vows to kill the evil Judge Turpin (Alan Rickman) and his nefarious henchman, Beadle Bamford (Timothy Spall), who framed him on trumped-up criminal charge in order to steal his wife. However, Barker has learned that his wife, Lucy (Laura Michelle Kelly), poisoned herself, and his now grown daughter, Johanna (Jayne Wisener), is Turpin’s ward.

Adopting the guise of Sweeney Todd, Barker resumes his trade as a barber. He sets up his business in his old Barber Shop above the pie-making premises of Mrs. Nellie Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter), who falls for the mad barber. After killing a rival who threatens to expose Sweeney’s real identity, Todd devises with Mrs. Lovett an inhuman scheme that will both get rid of the body and save Mrs. Lovett’s ailing meat pie business. Todd begins to murder his customers, cutting their throats, and Mrs. Lovett uses their flesh as the filling for her pies.

Meanwhile, Anthony (Jamie Campbell Bower), the young sailor who rescued Sweeney from the sea, has fallen madly in love with Johanna and becomes the target of Turpin’s ire, for Turpin wants to marry his young ward. Mrs. Lovett’s pies soon become the talk of London, and as business booms, she dreams of respectability and a life at the seaside with Sweeney as her husband and her young charge, Toby (Edward Sanders), alongside as her adopted son. Sweeney Todd has only one thing on his mind – cutting Judge Turpin and Beadle Bamford’s throats so severely that their arterial sprays will paint his walls.

While it may be true that Johnny Depp doesn’t have a quality singing voice, he is a great actor, and his frequent collaborator Tim Burton is a great director. In Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, the two of them make a splendid film musical, as good, and in some ways better, than recent screen musicals Chicago, Dreamgirls, and Moulin Rouge.

Depp, all brooding, smoldering, and quite mad, as Sweeney Todd is mesmerizing on screen. His Todd is a rich character capable of so many moods and so very capable of feigning civility and humanity when there is never a moment in this movie when Todd isn’t at heart, a freaking homicidal maniac. It’s no wonder that Depp earned his third Oscar nomination as a lead actor. His colleagues in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences can see how wonderfully fertile this character is, simply because this amazing actor can create a profound character, almost out of thin air.

Burton, often criticized for focusing on whimsical, macabre, and almost pop gothic films instead of “serious” subject matter, seems to distill everything he has done thus far in cinema into this one gruesome, luminous jewel. Burton’s creative and technical collaborators have fashioned some of the most imaginative and decorative costumes and sets. His cinematographers, editors, and lighting crews have made inventive uses of the tools and equipment of their trades and crafts. Burton is not only able to get the best of his technical staff, he is also able to get them to go out of the ordinary when it comes to creating visual splendor. Sweeney Todd is the movie where everything he has done has come together to produce the epitome of his visual style. It’s like an astonishing colorful ode to Italian filmmaker, Mario Bava, an influence on Burton.

That’s not to say that this is the Burton/Depp show alone. Stephen Sondheim’s music is not only divine, but is also excellent at storytelling, character defining, and mood making. Helena Bonham Carter, a thoroughly underrated and underutilized actress, is a surprisingly spry singer with a beautiful voice. She’s a scene stealer here, and one can argue that the film is as much her Mrs. Lovett’s as it is Depp’s murderous Todd. To put it simply, the people who made this movie made a great movie, a deliciously demented great movie.

9 of 10
A+

NOTES:
2008 Academy Awards: 1 winner for “Best Achievement in Art Direction” (Dante Ferretti-art director and Francesca Lo Schiavo-set decorator) and 2 nominations: “Best Actor in a Leading Role” (Johnny Depp) and “Best Achievement in Costume Design” (Colleen Atwood)

2008 BAFTA Awards: 2 nominations: “Best Costume Design” (Colleen Atwood) and “Best Make Up and Hair” (Ivana Primorac)

2008 Golden Globes: 2 wins: “Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy” and “Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy” (Johnny Depp); 2 nominations: “Best Director - Motion Picture” (Tim Burton) and “Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy” (Helena Bonham Carter)

Friday, April 25, 2008

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