‘Button,’‘Knight,’‘Slumdog’ take ADG Awards
The Art Directors Guild didn’t really veer from the expected last night, handing their awards to “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” in the period category, “The Dark Knight” in fantasy and “Slumdog...
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TECH SUPPORT INTERVIEW: The crafts of ‘Benjamin Button,’ part one
Thirteen Oscar Nominations. Very few films in Academy history have achieved that status and, prior to this year, no film had secured that many nods since “Chicago” in 2002. But “The Curious Case of...
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THE LISTS: Top 10 pet peeves of the 2008-2009 Oscar season
The season is winding down this week. The slow President’s Day holiday yesterday seemed to be more of a harbinger than a lull in the excitement. This time next week, we’ll probably be over the...
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TECH SUPPORT INTERVIEW: The crafts of ‘Benjamin Button,’ part two
Yesterday was the first of our two-part look at the crafts artists behind “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.” Today, I feature conversations with cinematographer Claudio Miranda, visual effects...
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Who almost starred in the season’s Oscar nominated films?
The folks at notstarring.com have put together a list of the year’s Oscar contenders and the stars who turned down opportunities to star in them. There is, of course, Nicolas Cage in “The Wrestler”...
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Not so very shocking
Dave Karger has posted a list of ten potential “shockers” that he thinks could (however faintly) foreseeably shake things up on Oscar night. Many of them have been raised before, and are suitably...
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TECH SUPPORT: Final predictions
After six months of Tech Support previews and interviews, the films have arrived, the nominations have been announced and the guilds, the critics and BAFTA have all announced their preferences. Today...
View ArticleWho deserves it? Poll results!
The readership of In Contention has spoken. Here’s who you all think deserves to win across the 24 Oscar categories we polled you on. A couple of these races were very close but we didn’t have time...
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OFF THE CARPET: Taking a final stab
Well, this is what it all boils down to. I almost DON’T want to go on the record, but I kind of have to, right? Anyway, this is the first year I’ve actually seen every single nominated frame of film...
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Contributors’ picks
Well, this is it. The big show is Sunday night and we’re pretty much out of things to discuss at this stage, no? But I’ve gone ahead and wrangled up all of our contributors’ predictions in each...
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Want to win cinematography? An art direction nod helps.
I’m surprised I completely forgot about this little, some might say meaningless statistic, but with all the predictions for “Slumdog Millionaire” taking the cinematography win at tomorrow night’s Oscar...
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You were right, I was wrong: Guy’s final predictions
(Expanded thoughts and reasonings on yesterday’s list of predictions.) It’s years like 2008 when I throw my hands up and admit (albeit with great reluctance) that my family and friends have been right...
View ArticleTwo more industry awards: MPSE and VES
We should link to these for closure, so “The Dark Knight,” “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” “Slumdog Millionaire” and “WALL-E” won big at the Motion Picture Sound Editors awards, while “Button”...
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Andy Trudeau reviews the Oscar nominated scores for NPR
One of my favorite pre-Oscar specials is music critic Andy Trudeau’s analysis of the Oscar nominated original scores on NPR’s weekend edition. He used to stretch the piece over two weekends and...
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TECH SUPPORT: Postmortem
What can I say? It was a big night for “Slumdog Millionaire” at the 81st Annual Academy Awards on Sunday. While I do like the film a great deal, I found its dominance this awards season unnecessarily...
View ArticleToo much, too soon?
I’m not as outraged as some are by the news that “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” is to be granted a Criterion Collection DVD release in May — as has been pointed out, if not one but two Michael...
View ArticleVote on the next Criterion Blu-ray release
I’ve gone head-first into the tank for Blu-ray ever since I broke down and bought a player last year. And despite a high retail tag in most quarters, Amazon.com remains the number one spot for finding...
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‘Button’ sparkles on Criterion Blu
The Criterion release of David Fincher’s “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” is a superlative piece of home entertainment to say the least, especially on Blu-ray. Claudio Miranda’s photography was...
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TECH SUPPORT: Kicking the tires on a new season
Today marks the beginning of a fourth year of Tech Support here at In Contention. Over the past four years, we’ve sought to bring the otherwise under-reported crafts categories and crafts artists the...
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Desplat wins Composer of the Year award
You’d be hard pressed to disagree that Alexandre Desplat is pretty much at the top of the game in contemporary film scoring. In addition to his genius (“Birth” looks likely to remain my favorite score...
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