Las Vegas Film Critics Awards 2008

2008 Las Vegas Film Critics Society Awards
2008 Las Vegas Film Critics winners: December 18, 2008
 

Michael Sheen, Frank Langella in Frost/Nixon

 
Best Picture: Frost/Nixon
Best Foreign Film: Mongol
Best Documentary: Man on Wire
Best Animated Film: WALL-E
Best Director: Ron Howard, Frost/Nixon
Best Actor: Frank Langella, Frost/Nixon
Best Actress: Kate Winslet, Revolutionary Road and The Reader
Best Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
Best Supporting Actress: Marisa Tomei, The Wrestler
Best Screenplay: Peter Morgan, Frost/Nixon
Best Cinematography: Claudio Miranda, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Best Film Editing: Daniel P. Hanley and Mike Hill, Frost/Nixon
Best Score: James Newton Howard, Defiance
Best Song: "Another Way to Die," Quantum of Solace
Best Art Direction: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Best Costume Design: The Curious Case [...]

Houston Film Critics Awards 2009

2008 Houston Film Critics Society Awards
2008 Houston Film Critics Society award winners: December 17, 2008
 

Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
 

BEST PICTURE
THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON
BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
MONGOL
BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
MAN ON WIRE
BEST ANIMATED FILM
WALL-E
BEST DIRECTOR
Danny Boyle, SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE
BEST ACTOR
Sean Penn, MILK
BEST ACTRESS
Anne Hathaway, RACHEL GETTING MARRIED
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Heath Ledger, THE DARK KNIGHT
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Viola Davis, DOUBT
BEST ENSEMBLE CAST
DOUBT
BEST SCREENPLAY
Simon Beaufoy, SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Claudio Miranda, THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
MIRACLE AT ST. ANNA by Terence Blanchard
BEST ORIGINAL SONG
"Down to Earth," WALL-E
OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN CINEMA
Andrea Grover and the Aurora Picture Show
OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN FILM PROGRAMMING
Marian Luntz and the Museum of Fine Arts [...]

National Board of Review Awards 2008

2008 National Board of Review Awards
2008 National Board of Review Award winners: December 4, 2008
 

 

Best Film: Slumdog Millionaire
Top Ten Films (in alphabetical order):
Burn After Reading
Changeling
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Defiance
Frost/Nixon
Gran Torino
Milk
WALL-E
The Wrestler
Best Foreign Language Film: Mongol
Top Five Foreign Films (in alphabetical order):
The Edge of Heaven
Let the Right One In
Roman de Gare
A Secret
Waltz with Bashir
Best Documentary: Man on Wire
Top Five Documentaries (in alphabetical order):
American Teen
The Betrayal (Nerakhoon)
Dear Zachary
Encounters at the End of the World
Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired
Top 10 Independent Films of the Year:
Frozen River
In Bruges
In Search of a Midnight Kiss
Mr. Foe
Rachel Getting Married
Snow Angels
Son of Rambow
Wendy and [...]

Oscar 2008: Foreign Language Film Nominees Symposium

Katyn (top); The Counterfeiters (middle); Mongol (bottom)

The filmmakers of this year’s Academy Award-nominated foreign-language films will take part — "subject to availability" — in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences‘ Foreign Language Film Award Nominees Symposium on Saturday, February 23, at 10 a.m. at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills. [2008 Foreign Language Film Academy Award Symposium Photos.]
The event, which includes clips from the nominated films and a Q&A session with audience members, will be moderated by Oscar-winning producer and Foreign Language Executive Committee Chair Mark Johnson.
The 2007 Foreign Language Film nominees are:

Austria, The Counterfeiters, Stefan Ruzowitzky, director
Israel, Beaufort, Joseph Cedar, director
Kazakhstan, Mongol, Sergei Bodrov, director
[...]

Oscar 2008 Nominations: Foreigners and Those Missing in Action

Brad Pitt in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

Oscar 2008 Nominations: Part I
Roger Deakins is competing against himself in the best cinematography category: for The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and There Will Be Blood.
***
Jonny Greenwood’s much praised score for There Will Be Blood was deemed ineligible reportedly because "the majority of the music was not composed specifically for the film." Alan Menken’s score for Enchanted was also deemed ineligible because it was based on the "predominant use of songs" and not on actual scoring of dramatic/comedy scenes. There was no "best adapted/best song score" category this year — though apparently there should have been. (More at The Envelope.)
***
Best costume design nominee [...]

Oscar 2008: Nine Foreign-Language Film Semi-Finalists

Oscar 2008: Best Foreign-Language Film Semi-Finalists
The semi-finalist films, listed in alphabetical order by country, are:

Austria, The Counterfeiters, Stefan Ruzowitzky, director
Nazis have a Jewish prisoner create fake American and British currency in order to weaken their enemies’ economies

Brazil, The Year My Parents Went on Vacation, Cao Hamburger, director
In 1970, during the height of the military dictatorship in Brazil, a boy is left alone in São Paulo’s Jewish quarter after his parents "go on vacation"

Canada, Days of Darkness, Denys Arcand, director
A civil servant finds solace from his drab existence by coming up with all types of Walter Mitty-like fantasies

Israel, Beaufort, Joseph Cedar, director
Israeli platoon leaves the last [...]

Oscar 2008: Best Foreign-Language Film Semi-Finalists

The Unknown by Giuseppe Tornatore (top); The Counterfeiters by Stefan Ruzowitzky (bottom)

When I stated in my Oscar 2008 predictions that the Academy’s foreign-language film shortlist is the most difficult to predict, I wasn’t kidding.
Nowhere to be found in the list of nine foreign-language film semi-finalists are:

Cristian Mungiu’s 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days — last year’s Cannes Film Festival winner and considered by numerous U.S. critics one of the best films of 2007;
Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud’s much-ballyhooed and New York Film Critics Circle winner Persepolis, which may still get a best animated feature nod;
and Juan Antonio Bayona’s box-office hit and multiple-Goya nominee The Orphanage.

Additionally, there was a major surprise among those that [...]