So we’re in the home stretch as far as the awards season goes with the (newly revamped) Oscars now less than a week away, and now the final film guilds have handed out their trophies. First, let’s start with the big one, the Eddie Awards. If you’ll recall, the nominated films for this year’s ACE award were the exact same that are nominated for the Best Editing Academy Award, and they are “The Dark Knight,” “Benjamin Button,” “Frost/Nixon,” “Milk,” and “Slumdog Millionaire.” And the winner was…
“Slumdog Millionaire” – This basically ensures it the Oscar as if that wasn’t already understood.
“Wall-E” also won in the Musical/Comedy category and
“Man on Wire” in the documentary category.
Next up, is the ASC award, which is for the cinematographers society, and is a personal favorite of ours. Roger Deakins was pulling double duty again this year with “Revolutionary Road” and “The Reader” being nominated, along with “Benjamin Button”, “The Dark Knight”, and “Slumdog Millionaire.” And the winner was…
“Slumdog Millionaire” – This also basically ensures it the Oscar, which very well could’ve gone to “Benjamin Button” or “The Dark Knight.” [ed. note the first film shot on a
digital red cam to win an cinematography award? The first ever digitally shot cinematography award, period?
Third, we have the Art Directors Guild awards, which we dubbed earlier this year “the guild nobody cares about.” The results are interesting because you’ll notice they have three categories which they divide the films into, those being Period Films, Fantasy Films, and Contemporary Films. This way they award films that wouldn’t normally get recognition for Art Direction since it’s usually the Period Films that dominate the field. And the winners were…
“Benjamin Button” for Period – Which is the frontrunner for the Oscar.
“The Dark Knight” for Fantasy – Which is the dark horse for the Oscar.
“Slumdog Millionaire” for Contemporary – Which isn’t even nominated for the Oscar but still amazingly won here!
And last, we bring you the Cinema Audio Society awards. Nominated films included “The Dark Knight”, “Iron Man”, Quantum of Solace”, “Slumdog Millionaire” and “Wall-E.” “Slumdog,” “Dark Knight” and “Wall-E” are all up for both the Sound Editing and Sound Mixing Academy Awards, while “Iron Man” is just up for the editing part (don’t ask us the difference). And the winner was…
“Slumdog Millionaire” – This doesn’t guarantee it the Oscars, but it definitely doesn’t hurt.
In conclusion, “Slumdog Millionaire” has now swept the major guild awards, dominated the Golden Globes and the BAFTAS, won over the Critic’s Choice, and will certainly take home most of the gold statues next week, placing it’s grand total of award wins at an ironic ONE MILLION! – Jonathan Helm
