Customarily, here in the midst of our year in review, it is time for me to fill out my ballot.
I do this every year, pretending, for one brief moment, to be one of the 6,000 members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and fulfilling my own fantasies about who does and does not deserve Academy recognition in their numerous categories.
Be sure to check back on Friday as we wrap up the “Year in Review” with a list of superlatives. There you will find the respective winners of the categories listed below (given the top ten list you can easily discern Best Picture), as well as a bevy of other random categories for your reading pleasure.
If I had a ballot:
Best Picture
Batman Begins (Warner Bros. Pictures)
Crash (Lions Gate Films)
A History of Violence (New Line Cinema)
Last Days (Fine Line Features)
March of the Penguins (Warner Independent Pictures)
Best Director
Christopher Nolan for Batman Begins
Paul Haggis for Crash
George Clooney for Good Night, and Good Luck.
David Cronenberg for A History of Violence
Gus Van Sant for Last Days
Best Actor
Pierce Brosnan in The Matador
Johnny Depp in The Libertine
Robert Downey, Jr. in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
Terrence Howard in Hustle & Flow
Joaquin Phoenix in Walk the Line
Best Actress
Joan Allen in The Upside of Anger
Toni Collette in In Her Shoes
Sarah Jessica Parker in The Family Stone
Reese Witherspoon in Walk the Line
Ziyi Zhang in Memoirs of a Geisha
Best Supporting Actor
Gary Beach in The Producers
Kevin Costner in The Upside of Anger
William Hurt in A History of Violence
Craig T. Nelson in The Family Stone
Gary Oldman in Batman Begins
Best Supporting Actress
Maria Bello in A History of Violence
Scarlett Johansson in Match Point
Diane Keaton in The Family Stone
Gong Li in Memoirs of a Geisha
Taryn Manning in Hustle & Flow
Best Adapted Screenplay
Batman Begins (David S. Goyer, Christopher Nolan)
Brokeback Mountain (Larry McMurtry, Diana Ossana)
Capote (Dan Futterman)
A History of Violence (Josh Olsen)
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (Shane Balck)
Best Original Screenplay
Crash (Paul Haggis, Robert Moresco)
The Family Stone (Thomas Bezucha)
Good Night, and Good Luck. (George Clooney, Grant Heslov)
Hustle & Flow (Craig Brewer)
The Weather Man (Steve Conrad)
Best Art Direction
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Alex McDowell; Peter Young)
Good Night, and Good Luck. (James D. Bissell; Jan Pascale)
King Kong (Grant Major; Dan Hennah)
Memoirs of a Geisha (John Myhre; Gretchen Mau)
The Producers (Mark Friedberg; Ellen Christiansen, Janine Pesce)
Best Cinematography
The Constant Gardener (César Charlone)
Good Night, and Good Luck. (Robert Elswitt)
Last Days (Harris Savides)
March of the Penguins (Laurent Chalet, Jérôme Maison)
Munich (Janusz Kaminski)
Best Costume Design
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Gabrielle Pescucci)
Memoirs of a Geisha (Colleen Atwood)
Mrs. Henderson Presents (Sandy Powell)
The Producers (William Ivey Long)
Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith (Trisha Biggar)
Best Film Editing
Batman Begins (Lee Smith)
The Constant Gardener (Claire Simpson)
Good Night, and Good Luck. (Stephen Mirrione)
King Kong (Jamie Selkirk)
March of the Penguins (Sabine Emiliani)
Best Makeup
Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith
King Kong
Memoirs of a Geisha
Best Music – Original Score
Batman Begins (James Newton Howard, Hans Zimmer)
Cinderella Man (Thomas Newman)
Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride (Danny Elfman)
A History of Violence (Howard Shore)
Memoirs of a Geisha (John Williams)
Best Music – Original Song
Nothing sticks out this year worth mentioning (ditto animated feature), but the tunes from Hustle & Flow are ALL quality.
Best Sound
Hustle & Flow
King Kong
Last Days
Munich
Walk the Line
Best Sound Editing
Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride
King Kong
Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith
Best Visual Effects
King Kong
Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith
War of the Worlds
And one category the Academy really needs to include, as I’ve gone on about in the past:
Best Ensemble Performance
The Cast of Batman Begins
The Cast of Crash
The Cast of The Family Stone
The Cast of Good Night, and Good Luck.
The Cast of Hustle & Flow