AFTERTHOUGHTS (54)
HEY, IF IT ISN’T OSCAR! 2008 (3)

So Oscar’s 80th has come and gone, and first off, here are the wins that had me cheering…

No Country For Old Men:
Best Picture
Best Director (Joel & Ethan Coen)
Best Supporting Actor (Javier Bardem)
Best Adapted Screenplay (Joel & Ethan Coen)

Once:
Best Song (“Falling Slowly”)

The Golden Compass:
Best Visual Effects (Michael Fink, Bill Westenhofer, Ben Morris, and Trevor Wood)

Juno:
Best Original Screenplay (Diablo Cody)

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street:
Best Art Direction (Dante Ferretti, Art Direction; Francesca Lo Schiavo, Set Decoration)

So, yeah, it’s still a sad thing that Zodiac didn’t get any love, and yes, it’s another sad thing that both Away From Her and Eastern Promises went home statue-less, but the night had some great surprises too.
Firstly, though I haven’t seen Michael Clayton, I’ve been a big fan of Tilda Swinton for ages, so I’m jazzed that she got Best Supporting Actress.
And while I’m happy The Golden Compass took Best Visual Effects (I was concerned either of the two box office juggernaut nominees would steal the award), and No Country For Old Men got a goodly amount of statues, the best bit of the night for me was “Falling Slowly” standing triumphant in the Best Original Song dust-up.
And when Jon Stewart brought Marketa back so she could speak her piece, well, that made the win and the moment even more precious.

Congratulations, one and all. (You can find a complete list of the night’s winners here.)

Parting shot: Was it just that I blinked and missed it, or were Roy Scheider and Brad Renfro really absent from the In Memoriam montage? (‘Cause if they were, shame on you, Oscar…)

Parting shot 2: Reviews of Away From Her, Eastern Promises, The Golden Compass, Juno, No Country For Old Men, Once, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, and Zodiac can be found in the Archive.

(The Golden Compass OS courtesy of aintitcool.com; all other OS’s courtesy of impawards.com.)

AFTERTHOUGHTS (25)

Man, you blink and all of a sudden, it’s time to buck up for another Oscar rush.
Below are the shortlists for Best Animated Feature Film and Best Documentary Feature, from which the final 3 and 5 nominees (respectively) will be chosen.

Best Animated Feature Film shortlist
Alvin and the Chipmunks
Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters
Bee Movie
Beowulf
Meet the Robinsons
Persepolis
Ratatouille
Shrek the Third
The Simpsons Movie
Surf's Up
Tekkonkinkreet
TMNT

Best Documentary Feature shortlist
Richard Berge and Bonni Cohen's The Rape of Europa
Weijun Chen's Please Vote for Me
Phil Donahue and Ellen Spiro's Body of War
Charles Ferguson's No End in Sight
Sean Fine and Andrea Nix's War/Dance
Alex Gibney's Taxi to the Dark Side
Bill Guttentag and Dan Sturman's Nanking
Bill Haney's The Price of Sugar
Daniel G. Karslake's For the Bible Tells Me So
Tony Kaye's Lake of Fire
Michael Moore's Sicko
Steven Okazaki's White Light/Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Peter Raymont's A Promise to the Dead: The Exile Journey of Ariel Dorfman
Tricia Regan's Autism: The Musical
Richard Robbins' Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience

Congratulations one and all, for achieving Oscar shortlist status, no mean feat, that.
Nominees for the 80th Academy Awards will be announced on January 22, 2008. Awards night is set for February 24, 2008, to be hosted by The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart, who also hosted the 78th Academy Awards.

(Jon Stewart image courtesy of oscars.org.)