Oscar results, photos, and video highlights

Over with another edition of the Academy Awards in a year I was extremely happy with many of the films, therefore leaving room in my conscience to accept many variations of the the final poles. Mainly predictable, I was only shocked right off the overture when Richardson took over Lubetzki, because despite having done a wonderful job in Hugo, this was the goal of honor Tree of Life deserved so bad. As you can see by my picks, I didn't for a minute believed Meryl would ravish her third statuette but I joyfully applauded. Angus Wall and Kirk Baxter won their second consecutive Oscar (Best Editing), after The Social Network.

My red carpet highlights would be the powerful Brad and Angie, dazzling Jessica Chastain, enthralling Penélope Cruz, gorgeous Emma Stone, sparkling Mila Jovovich, plus Nick Nolte, George Clooney, Jean Dujardin and the irreverent The Dictator (scroll to bottom to watch the video).

 

A much more sober ceremony that last year's, host by an inspired and witty Billy Crystal, dedicated in its numbers and performances as much as in its awards to the history and the past of the seventh art. We all giggled at imagining how would Dujardin deal with the necessity of a speech in case of win and I must underline it was my favorite speech of the night. The best introduction, Ben Stiller and Emma Stone.

The Artist and Hugo took home 5 golden men, followed by The Iron Lady with 2.

WHITE UNDERLINED: Got it right.

BLUE UNDERLINED: Didn't get it.

WHITE CROSSED: Got it wrong.

Score without alternatives: 16 out of 21 (76%)

Score with alternatives: 18 out of 21 (85%)

Woody didn't show up, The Dictator did.

 

BEST FILM
The Artist
Alternative: Hugo
Second alternative: The Descendants

BEST DIRECTOR 

Michel Hazanavicius (The Artist)

Alternative: Martin Scorsese (Hugo)

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Midnight in Paris (Woody Allen)
Alternative: A Separation (Asghar Farhadi)

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY 

The Descendants (Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon and Jim Rash)

Alternative: Moneyball (Steve Zaillian, Aaron Sorkin and Stan Chervin)

BEST ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE
Jean Dujardin (The Artist)
Alternative: George Clooney (The Descendants)


BEST ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE

Mery Streep (The Iron Lady)

Viola Davis ("The Help")
Alternative: Michelle Williams (My Week with Marilyn)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Christopher Plummer (Beginners)

Alternative: Kenneth Branagh (My Week with Marilyn)


BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Octavia Spencer (The Help)
Alternative: Jessica Chastain (The Help)


BEST ANIMATED FILM

Rango
Alternative: Puss in Boots


BEST FOREIGN FILM
A Separation (Iran)
Alternative: Footnote (Israel)


BEST DOCUMENTARY

Undefeated

Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory
Alternative: Hell and Back Again



 BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

Hugo (Robert Richardson)

Tree of Life (Emmanuel Lubetzki)
Alternative: The Artist (Guillaume Schiffman)


BEST EDITING

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Hugo
Alternative: The Descendants


BEST ART DIRECTION
Hugo
Alternative: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2


BEST COSTUME DESIGN
Hugo
Alternative: The Artist


BEST MAKE-UP
The Iron Lady
Alternative: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2


BEST SOUND MIXING
Hugo
Alternative: War Horse


BEST SOUND EDITING
Hugo
Alternative: Drive


BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
Hugo
Alternative: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2


BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
War Horse (John Williams)

Alternative: The Artist (Ludovice Bource)

BEST ORIGINAL SONG
Man on Muppet (The Muppets)

SPECIAL

WILL WOODY ALLEN SHOW UP

 No.

WILL THE DICTATOR SHOW UP

Yes.

The Artist (2011): a silent film that will echo in time

In an era of profuse technological progress, with remarking parallels in history, the film industry is boxing its frames into our homes with distinctive quality, sharpness and novelty extras (blu-ray), while at the same time the community cibernetically assaults their delivery trucks and unboxes them into our homes for distinctive camaraderie and share. Things are changing in the movie business and have been for a few years now, as home video screening sessions have risen as some of the highest accommodation and entertainment patterns. Things are changing too when the first culmination point hits The Artist's characters and although the world would never go back to silent films, we still have one steady buried foot on the somewhat sandy shore of theatrical exhibition. Let you get the other foot and make that step back this time, drive yourself to a cinema and don't waste this experience on a tiny-inch screen.

Hazanavicious' film, which I so far consider the strongest possible 2012 Oscar contender (three actors, script, directing, cinematography, editing, music), is an homage to the first years of this baby art-form stamped as the seventh. It is genuine and marvelously dignifying, without being flamboyant, and brings a pedagogical expectation of arousing in a mass audience the taste for the history of film. Maybe that's one of the reasons why the director worked a style I'd say takes so much of the classics (beginning credits, the smooth backlighted editing in the conversations, the wonderful montage sequences) as of their followers (the perfect Dutch shots or that extraordinary 180º swivel shot to the little whiskey puddle).

Being technically exquisite (the black and white, how the editing works the reactions or how the camera swifts focus with an impressive smoothness), this is also a very compelling story. As a global object, it is the typical melodrama of the time, told in a classic, simple, clear, three-act way (we have the cute dog character, a family movie element). However, the stones that lift this piece are the details on the set and characters (take the treatment of the Peppy's "birthmark"), the intelligent and delightful although few inter titles (the woman that regrets that the dog doesn't speak), the good rhythm and the great scenes (Peppy and Valentino meet each other's legs; P and V's coat; P and V dancing scene takes; V's dream sequence; the fire; and so many others). I'm missing the amazing cast, which wouldn't have done without the very well written characters. Jean Dujardin, brilliant, interprets a falling silent movie star, who I believe is loosely inspired on the figure of Douglas Fairbanks (the physical similarities; Valentino played Zorro and when Zimmer calls him to give the bad news he seems to be playing a musketeer, being that Fairbanks both starred as Zorro and D'Artagnan). Bérénice Bejo, also extraordinary, plays a rising sound film star and they're backed up by the great John Goodman as a film producer as well as by a very nice cameo by Malcom McDowell.


Last night was a solemn moment of connection with the past, with a Golden Age, as Woody Allen would've noticed, a feeling maybe enhanced by the enormous, carved, red benched room and by the introduction by a colored restored version of George Méliés' A Trip to the Moon. Reminder of other great films, such as Billy Wilder's Sunset Blv. The silence, the mimics, the grimaces and mugging, will echo as the bells of an old church would still peal after one hundread years of muteness. And let us hope one day we won't watch a film about the transition from huge screens to TV screens or from 2D to 3D. But then again, am I sounding as those early withholders ?