The Nighthawk Awards: 2009

You can read more about this year in film here.  The Best Picture race is discussed here, with reviews of all the nominees.  First there are the categories, followed by all the films with their nominations, then the Globes, where I split the major awards by Drama and Comedy, followed by a few lists at the very end.  If there’s a film you expected to see and didn’t, check the very bottom – it might be eligible in a different year.  Films in red won the Oscar in that category (or Globe, in the Globes section).  Films in blue were nominated.  Films (or directors) in olive are links to earlier posts that I don’t want to have show up in blue and be mistaken for a nominee.  Films with an asterisk (*) were Consensus nominees (a scale I put together based on the various awards) while those with a double asterisk (**) were the Consensus winners.

I’m listing the top 15 in the categories but only the top 5 earn Nighthawk nominations.  I’m only going with the Top 15 because there are 15 **** films and several categories don’t even get that far.  It’s a weak year all around.

Nighthawk Awards:

• Best Picture

1. Inglourious Basterds  *
2. The Hurt Locker  **
3. A Serious Man  *
4. Up  *
5. Broken Embraces
6. An Education  *
7. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
8. Up in the Air  *
9. A Single Man
10. District 9  *
11. The White Ribbon
12. The Informant
13. Sin Nombre
14. Coraline
15. Revanche

Analysis:  As mentioned above, I went with 15 films because that’s how many **** films there are in this year.  That the Oscars nominated seven of them (as well as my #16 film, Precious) speaks well of their first year with 10 nominees in 66 years.

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The History of the Academy Awards: Best Animated Film – 2009

“I was hiding under your porch because I love you.” My favorite film dog of all-time.

The 82nd Academy Awards for the film year of 2009.  The nomination were announced on 2 February 2010 and the awards were held on 7 March 2010.

Best Animated Film:  Up

• Coraline
• The Fantastic Mr. Fox
• The Secret of Kells
• The Princess and the Frog

Most Surprising Omission:  Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

Best Eligible Film Not Nominated:  Ponyo

Rank (out of 16) Among Best Animated Film Years:  #8

Oscar Score:  87.5

Alternate Oscar Score:  97.2

 

Best Adapted Screenplay: 1962

“The trick, William Potter, is not minding that it hurts.” That line is nowhere in the book but neither is almost any other line of dialogue in the film.

My Top 10:

1. Lawrence of Arabia
2. To Kill a Mockingbird
3. Jules and Jim
4. The Manchurian Candidate
5. Throne of Blood
6. Lolita
7. Billy Budd
8. The Music Man
9. Sweet Bird of Youth
10. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

Note:  There are 20 films on my list.  Only one of the other ten is reviewed: #12 – The Miracle Worker while the rest are listed down towards the bottom.

 

The Nighthawk Awards: 2008

No one knows how to bring you back around better than Danny Boyle.

You can read more about this year in film here.  The Best Picture race is discussed here, with reviews of all the nominees.  First there are the categories, followed by all the films with their nominations, then the Globes, where I split the major awards by Drama and Comedy, followed by a few lists at the very end.  If there’s a film you expected to see and didn’t, check the very bottom – it might be eligible in a different year.  Films in red won the Oscar in that category (or Globe, in the Globes section).  Films in blue were nominated.  Films (or directors) in olive are links to earlier posts that I don’t want to have show up in blue and be mistaken for a nominee.  Films with an asterisk (*) were Consensus nominees (a scale I put together based on the various awards) while those with a double asterisk (**) were the Consensus winners.

I’m listing the top 20 in the categories but only the top 5 earn Nighthawk nominations.

Nighthawk Awards:

• Best Picture

1. Slumdog Millionaire  **
2. The Dark Knight
3. Wall-E  *
4. Milk  *
5. Revolutionary Road
6. Rachel Getting Married
7. Let the Right One In
8. I’ve Loved You So Long
9. Happy-Go-Lucky
10. The Visitor
11. In Bruges
12. Iron Man
13. Doubt
14. Burn After Reading
15. Vicky Cristina Barcelona
16. A Christmas Tale
17. The Reader
18. The Wrestler
19. Changeling
20. Paranoid Park

 

The History of the Academy Awards: Best Animated Film – 2008

One of film’s most lovable couples.

The 81st annual Academy Awards, for the film year 2008.  The nominations were announced on 22 January 2009 and the awards were held on 22 February 2009.

Best Animated Film:  Wall-E

• Kung Fu Panda
• Bolt

Most Surprising Omission:  Waltz with Bashir

Best Eligible Film Not Nominated:  Waltz with Bashir

Rank (out of 16) Among Best Animated Film Years:  #11

Oscar Score:  81.8

Alternate Oscar Score:  91.8

 

Best Adapted Screenplay: 1961

“We’re disturbed, we’re disturbed / We’re the most disturbed / Like we’re psychologically disturbed” (p 207)

My Top 10:

1. West Side Story
2. The Hustler
3. One, Two, Three
4. Breakfast at Tiffany’s
5. The Bridge
6. Elevator to the Gallows
7. A Raisin in the Sun
8. Pocketful of Miracles
9. The Misfits
10. Macario

Note:  There are 16 films on my list.  Three of them are listed below, as they were Consensus nominees (The Guns of Navarone – #13, Fanny – #15, Judgment at Nuremberg – #16).  The other three are all the way down at the bottom.
Note:  Unfortunately, this is a year where there were several source materials I was unable to get, so I had to do the best I could.

 

RCM: La Bamba

Revisiting Childhood Movies Part XXI:

La Bamba

• Director:  Luis Valdez
• Writer:  Luis Valdez
• Producer:  Bill Borden  /  Taylor Hackford
• Stars:  Lou Diamond Phillips, Esai Morales, Rosanna DeSoto, Elizabeth Peña
• Studio:  Columbia
• Award Nominations:  Golden Globe – Picture (Drama)
• Length:  108 min
• Genre:  Musical (Biopic)
• MPAA Rating:  PG-13
• Release Date:  24 July 1987
• Box Office Gross:  $54.21 mil  (#15 – 1987)
• Ebert Rating:  ***
• My Rating:  ***
• My Rank:  #30 (year)
• Nighthawk Nominations:  none
• Nighthawk Notables:  Best Soundtrack
• First Watched:  on video when first released
• Number of Times Watched as a Kid:  5 or so

As a Kid:  I wasn’t that much into music yet in 1987.  Yes, I had been watching videos on MTV for a few years but I didn’t know that much, especially about older music.  In fact, I had a tendency to believe that any song that I didn’t know who was singing it (“Eve of Destruction”, “American Pie”, “The Longest Time”) that it was being sung by The Beatles (when my brother John corrected me on these, he explained that he could understand if I had thought “Eve of Destruction” was sung by Springsteen, but by The Beatles?  I explained that I assumed every major song was sung by The Beatles.).  I hadn’t yet seen The Buddy Holly Story but I had a vague notion of The Day the Music Died because of growing up with “American Pie”.  Then this film came out.  More importantly, since I didn’t see this film in the theater, the soundtrack came out, a soundtrack that my brother Kelly bought during a summer that he and I shared a room.