Well the Oscars happened last night, and thanks to our
The first award of the evening went to veteran cinematographer Robert Richardson for Hugo (Richardson’s third), who may be more familiar to FilmDrunk readers as the wizard who appears when Quentin Tarantino does too much cocaine. Congratulations, Coke Wizard! Reached for comment, Richardson said, “Askwala Pasquala ishkabibble hazoo! It’s quite the wizard’s honor, to accept this from you!” and disappeared in a cloud of bong smoke. Someone turned over a rainstick.
Of course, the big story was The Artist, which won damn near everything it was nominated for, including Picture, Director, Actor, and Score. The backlash will be swift and noisy, I’m sure, but… eh. It seems so very precious and gimmicky and so Oscars that a silent movie from France would win best picture in 2012, but the movie itself… it was pretty good. Not life changing, but… cute. Better than The King’s Speech, Crash, Slumdog Millionaire, etc., certainly. Meryl Streep got the Best Actress trophy she so richly deserved for any number of prior films for that awful snotpile The Iron Lady, and immediately proved herself worthy by convincingly feigning surprise. What an actress! Anyway, things got pretty fuzzy for me after that. Last thing I remember was Jean Dujardin babbling something about “Doogloss Far Bonks.”
(List of winners below)
Best Picture – “The Artist” Thomas Langmann, Producer
Directing – “The Artist” Michel Hazanavicius
Actor in a Leading Role – Jean Dujardin in “The Artist”
Actor in a Supporting Role – Christopher Plummer in “Beginners”
Actress in a Leading Role – Meryl Streep in “The Iron Lady”
Actress in a Supporting Role – Octavia Spencer in “The Help”
Writing (Adapted Screenplay) – “The Descendants” Screenplay by Alexander Payne and Nat Faxon & Jim Rash
Writing (Original Screenplay) – “Midnight in Paris” Written by Woody Allen
Animated Feature Film – “Rango” Gore Verbinski
Art Direction – “Hugo” Production Design: Dante Ferretti; Set Decoration: Francesca Lo Schiavo
Film Editing – “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall
Cinematography – “Hugo” Robert Richardson
Costume Design – “The Artist” Mark Bridges
Documentary (Feature) – “Undefeated” TJ Martin, Dan Lindsay and Richard Middlemas
Documentary (Short Subject) – “Saving Face” Daniel Junge and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy
Foreign Language Film – “A Separation” Iran
Makeup – “The Iron Lady” Mark Coulier and J. Roy Helland
Music (Original Score) – “The Artist” Ludovic Bource
Music (Original Song) – “Man or Muppet” from “The Muppets” Music and Lyric by Bret McKenzie
Short Film (Animated) – “The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore” William Joyce and Brandon Oldenburg
Short Film (Live Action) – “The Shore” Terry George and Oorlagh George
Sound Editing – “Hugo” Philip Stockton and Eugene Gearty
Sound Mixing – “Hugo” Tom Fleischman and John Midgley
Visual Effects – “Hugo” Rob Legato, Joss Williams, Ben Grossman and Alex Henning
Banner Picture via IMDB, Dujardin via Helga Esteb / Shutterstock.com.