AFTERTHOUGHTS (49)
WHAT THE BAFTA?! 2008 (3)

Sunday night in London saw the BAFTAs handed out, and the wins that made me go “Woot!” were:

Control:
The Carl Foreman Award [for Special Achievement by a British Director, Writer or Producer in their First Feature Film] (Matt Greenhalgh, Writer)

The Golden Compass:
Special Visual Effects (Michael Fink/Bill Westenhofer/Ben Morris/Trevor Woods)

Juno:
Original Screenplay (Diablo Cody)

No Country For Old Men:
Director (Joel Coen/Ethan Coen)
Supporting Actor (Javier Bardem)
Cinematography (Roger Deakins)

This Is England:
Best British Film (Mark Herbert/Shane Meadows)

Not surprisingly, The Orange Rising Star Award, voted for by the public, went to Shia LaBeouf.
Sorry, Shia, but I was kind’a rooting for Sam Riley. Ah, well…

Congratulations to all the nominees and winners. You can check out the complete list here.

Parting shot: Reviews of Control, The Golden Compass, Juno, No Country For Old Men, and This Is England can be found in the Archive.

(OS’s and Control and This Is England UK quads [designs by All City] courtesy of impawards.com.)

AFTERTHOUGHTS (48)

48.1 WGA 2008 (2)
Just a few minutes before the start of the crucial WGA meeting last Saturday night to discuss the details of the tentative agreement that could put an end to the three-month long strike, this year’s recipients for the WGA awards were announced, and I’d just like to congratulate Joel and Ethan Coen, for winning Best Adapted Screenplay for No Country For Old Men, and Diablo Cody, for winning Best Original Screenplay, for Juno.
You can check out the complete list of winners here.

Now let’s all hope for the best with the on-going WGA ratification of the current on-the-table deal…

48.2 IN OTHER AWARDS NEWS…
… No Country For Old Men was also honoured at this year’s Producers Guild Awards. It’s now received awards from all four major guilds, SAG, DGA, WGA, and PGA.

Meanwhile, over in London, where the BAFTAs were handed out Sunday night (check out Afterthoughts (49) in the Archive), Guillermo Del Toro’s El Laberinto Del Fauno was honoured with this year’s BBC Four World Cinema Award, emerging at the top of a shortlist that included Turkey’s Iklimler (Climates), Germany’s Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others), Thailand’s Sang Sattawat (Syndromes and a Century), and the French-Italian co-production, La Science Des Reves (The Science of Sleep).

To all involved in both films, a hearty round of congratulations.

And on a BAFTA sidenote, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s Das Leben der Anderen took home the Film Not in the English Language Award last Sunday, as it did the Best Foreign Language Oscar last year.

Parting shot: Reviews of El Laberinto Del Fauno, Juno and No Country For Old Men can be found in the Archive.

(All OS’s and Pan’s Labyrinth UK quad [design by All City] courtesy of impawards.com.)

AFTERTHOUGHTS (46)
DIRECTIONS 2008

Over the past weekend, the DGA presented those big-a$$ medallions of theirs to the winners of their various Outstanding Directorial Achievement Awards for the year 2007.
Congratulations to all the winners, particularly Joel and Ethan Coen, for winning Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film for No Country For Old Men, and Barry Sonnenfeld, for winning Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Comedy Series Night for the “Pie-Lette” episode of Pushing Daisies.
Joel Coen had this to say after receiving the award:

"Ethan and I have a bookshelf in our office where we keep various plaques and such that we've gotten over the years that we call our ego corner. Whenever Ethan has a really bad day, he gets a bottle of Windex and a big can of silver polish and goes over and spit shines those medals for an hour or two. It makes him feel better. This is a really big one—in every respect. It's going to keep him busy."

You can check out all the winners here.

Parting shot: A review of No Country For Old Men and episodic recaps/reactions of Pushing Daisies can be found in the Archive.

(DGA award image courtesy of dga.org; No Country For Old Men OS courtesy of impawards.com; Pushing Daisies image courtesy of avclub.com.)

AFTERTHOUGHTS (40)
CHECK OUT THOSE GLOBES! 2008

So in light of the WGA strike and the terribly awkward and minimalist affair that was this year’s Golden Globes, I’d just like to say “Congratulations” to the following, for taking home the gold.

To the Coen brothers and Javier Bardem, for winning Best Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture, for the awesome No Country For Old Men. (See, Senor Bardem, that dodgy haircut was worth it.)

To Jeremy Piven, for winning Best Supporting Actor in a Series, Miniseries, or TV Movie, for his great work on Entourage.

And though I have yet to see either film, to Julie Christie for winning Best Actress in a Motion Picture Drama, for her work on Sarah Polley’s Away From Her; and to Johnny Depp, for winning Best Actor in a Motion Picture Comedy or Musical, for his work on Tim Burton’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, which also nabbed Best Motion Picture Musical or Comedy.

To one and all the rest of the Globe winners this year, congratulations! You can check out the complete list of nominees and winners here.

Parting shot: A review of No Country For Old Men can be found in the Archive, where episodic recaps and reactions of Entourage are also situated.

(No Country For Old Men and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street OS’s courtesy of impawards.com; Entourage image courtesy of hbo.com; and Away From Her image courtesy of sundance.org.)