Awards Season - No Country but Plenty of Oscars for Old Men

February 25, 2008

The Oscars have all been awarded and No Country for Old Men was the big winner at the Oscars, taking home four major awards. (It was shut out of the technical nominations.) The second biggest winner of the night was The Bourne Ultimatum with three awards, all technical.

The categories and winners were...

Best Picture

• No Country for Old Men

Best Director

• Joel and Ethan Coen for No Country for Old Men

Best Actress in a Leading Role

• Marion Cotillard for La Vie en Rose

Best Actor in a Leading Role

• Daniel Day-Lewis for There Will Be Blood

Best Actor in a Supporting Role

• Javier Bardem for No Country for Old Men

Best Actress in a Supporting Role

• Tilda Swinton for Michael Clayton

Best Writing - Original Screenplay

• Diablo Cody for Juno

Best Writing - Adapted Screenplay

• Joel and Ethan Coen for No Country for Old Men

Best Documentary Feature

• Taxi to the Dark Side

Best Animated Feature

• Ratatouille

Best Animated Short

• Peter & the Wolf

Best Live Action Short

• Le Mozart des Pickpockets (The Mozart of Pickpockets)

Best Documentary Short

• Freeheld

Best Foreign Language Film

• The Counterfeiters (Germany)

Best Song

• Once for "Falling Slowly"

Best Score

• Dario Marianelli for Atonement

Achievement in Sound Editing

• The Bourne Ultimatum

Achievement in Sound Mixing

• The Bourne Ultimatum

Achievement in Visual Effects

• His Dark Materials: The Golden Compass

Achievement in Makeup

• La Vie en Rose

Achievement in Film Editing

• The Bourne Ultimatum

Achievement in Art Direction

• Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Achievement in Cinematography

• There Will Be Blood

Achievement in Costume Design

• Elizabeth: The Golden Age

Notes and Reactions...

• No Country for Old Men won four awards, including the most prestigious Best Picture and Best Director categories.
• Other major nominees were less fortunate with Atonement and Michael Clayton each picking up one award, while There Will Be Blood picked up two.
• Two of the biggest surprises came in the actress categories with underdogs Marion Cotillard and Tilda Swinton coming out on top over favorites Julie Christie and Cate Blanchett.
• Taxi to the Dark Side winning for Best Documentary was also a shock as No End in Sight and Sicko were heavily favored.
• On the flip side, Ratatouille win for Best Animated Film was the least surprising win of the evening, but sadly that was the film's only win out of five nominations.
• Transformers was shut out despite being picking as favorites for three technical awards by our readers. On the other hand, The Bourne Ultimatum swept the three categories it was up for. It will be interesting to see if this causes a bounce in its DVD sales.
• Juno won just one Oscar, Diablo Cody for Best Original Screenplay, but that was expected.
• Vote-splitting may have cost Enchanted an Oscar as none of its three Oscar-nominated songs were able to take home the hardware.

- C.S.Strowbridge

Filed under: Awards Season, The Bourne Ultimatum, Ratatouille, Juno, No Country for Old Men, The Golden Compass, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Atonement, Michael Clayton, There Will Be Blood, Elizabeth: The Golden Age, La Môme, Die Fälscher, Taxi to the Dark Side