My Award Nominations: Editing

My roster of personal nominees continues growing this weekend with the visual post-production categories and music.

It's one of those years when I wish I could include about seven or eight nominees for Best Editing. It pained me to make some of these cuts (heehee), but I like the final five I've wound up with:

The Artist cleans up with seven BAFTAs

The BAFTAs marked the one last pit stop for The Artist before its upcoming big night at the Oscars. The film won seven awards from the Brits: Best Picture, Director, Actor, Original Screenplay, Cinematography, Costume Design, and Original Score.

While no one can say that The Artist winning was unexpected, I have to say that its dominance at the BFTAs was a bit more pronounced than I might have thought. I mean, seven? I have doubts that it can translate that many of its Oscar nods into wins, but you never know. Even though I'm currently predicting different films to come out on top in Screenplay, Cinematography, and Costume Design, those are all still reasonable gets for The Artist.

The Oscar-snubbed doc Senna enjoyed a pair of wins for Best Documentary and Film Editing (I'm very pleased for editor Chris King, who should have been in the Oscar discussion last year for Exit Through the Gift Shop). Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy also took home a deuce for Best British Film and Adapted Screenplay, a bittersweet moment for Peter Straughan, whose wife and writing partner Bridget O'Connor's win came posthumously. Hugo also won for Best Production Design (unsurprising) and Sound. I do feel that those sound awards at the Oscars are ripe for the taking, but I'm sticking to my guns on War Horse.

All winners after the cut.

ACE Eddie winners!

Best Edited Feature Film (Dramatic): The Social Network
Best Edited Feature Film (Comedy or Musical): Alice in Wonderland
Best Edited Animated Film: Toy Story 3
Best Edited Documentary: Exit Through the Gift Shop

We can all pretend that Alice in Wonderland winning over The Kids Are All Right and Scott Pilgrim in the Comedy category never really happened right? Right?... Good. Glad we agree.

So other than that bit of unpleasantness, this is a pretty terrific group of winners. I'm doing cartwheels right now for Tom Fulford and Chris King, who were rightfully recognized for what is the best editing job of the year on Exit Through the Gift Shop. Gotta hand it to Lee Unkrich and Ken Schretzmann as well on their hard-earned win for editing Toy Story 3.

But the most encouraging sign of the night was Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall's win for The Social Network. ACE has awarded the eventual Oscar winner for Film Editing for the last nine years in a row! This gives me hope. I love Tariq Anwar's cutting of The King's Speech and all, but I couldn't help but think what a shame it would be if it beat the most impeccably paced film of the year to that Editing Oscar. Now I feel I can safely call The Social Network in that category. Fingers crossed!

My Award nominations: Film Editing

Best Film Editing:

Black Swan (Andrew Weisblum):
The slow build of tension is brilliantly controlled so that when we come to the jumps scares, they really do make you jump! The handling of Nina's hallucinations is essential to selling her descent into madness.

Exit Through the Gift Shop (Tom Fulford & Chris King):
A sharp sense of comic timing helps punctuate every hilarious phrase that leaves Guietta's mouth. To have sifted through the tens of thousands of hours of his amateur movie making alone merits some kind of Iron Man award.

Inception (Lee Smith):
Intertwines multiple dream levels into a cohesive and thrilling action extravaganza. The entire final hour of the film is a masterstroke of bravura storytelling, executed with infallible clockwork precision.

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (Jonathan Amos, Paul Machliss):

I've seen 'Scott Pilgrim' a few times now, but I always laugh as though it's the first time. It occurs to me that it's because the comedy isn't so much in the text as it is in the timing. The editing is so precise that I could watch it in a foreign language and still respond to every comic beat.

The Social Network (Kirk Baxter & Angus Wall):
Does justice to the back-and-forth structure of Sorkin's screenplay, as well as his rapid-fire dialogue. The editors need to be as on their toes as the actors, and they find a terrific rhythm to each scene.

Just missed: Fish Tank, How to Train Your Dragon,
The Kids Are All Right, The King's Speech, Toy Story 3