Awards – Press Play Video Blog

VIDEO: What Does Oscar-Winning Cinematography Look Like?

As a bonus to the “Who Should Win” video essay series that identifies this year’s truly deserving Oscar winners, this video compiles some of the most impressive visuals from the five films nominated for the Academy Award for Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography. Of all the Oscar categories, this one may lend itself best to a simple video compilation of clips that lets you decide for yourself which movie deserves to win. All you have to do is watch and decide. Or is it really that simple?

Of course, one can’t evaluate all the films in their entirety in one sitting. I’ve limited the selections for each film to two standout clips not exceeding a total of 90 seconds. To do this, I enlisted the suggestions of the Twittersphere. Over a dozen people tweeted their standout shots and images from the nominated films, with several moments getting multiple mentions and thus finding their way into this compilation reel. Based on sheer number of enthusiastic tweets on their behalf, it seems that Skyfall and Lincoln are the popular favorites.

I made one additional tweak to the video by removing the audio from the clips. It may be a bit jarring to watch these scenes without a soundtrack, but it’s for the sake of placing sole emphasis on the images and camerawork. I hope you’ll agree with me that, by and large, the visual artistry on display speaks quite well for itself.

Looking at these clips, I have my own opinion on who should win, but I’ll keep mum, as I’d rather see you cast your vote in the comments section. Perhaps a subsequent discussion below might tease out my favorite.

VIDEO ESSAY: Why SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK Should Win Best Picture

https://vimeo.com/59024366

Part of "Who Should Win," a series of video essays co-presented by Indiewire Press Play and Fandor.

There are nine nominees for best picture, with no hands-down favorite to win. Five of them (Amour, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Lincoln, Life of Pi, and Silver Linings Playbook) are also nominated for best director, usually a sign of being a top contender. Argo wasn’t nominated for its director, but it still has the momentum from other awards, with Lincoln right behind. Both Argo and Lincoln are commandeering prestige pictures about America’s winners (though in both cases, winning involves dirty tricks and deception). But my favorite movie is a comedy about a flat out, honest-to-god loser.

Silver Linings Playbook is a more revealing reflection of the world we live in than any of the other nominees. Oscar movies are typically issues movies, and the surface issue in Silver Linings Playbook is psychological illness. Pat, played by Bradley Cooper, struggles with bipolar disorder and tries to put his life together after spending time in an institution. But watching this movie, what becomes apparent is that American society is a psych ward in itself.

It’s a world of people who are perpetually self-medicating through any number of socially acceptable escapes: materialism, sports, sex and even the climactic dance competition, which reflects TV game show culture. These are the empty vessels in which these characters invest so much time and energy, if only to keep them from dwelling on their own lack of fulfillment. Pat isn’t the only crazy person in the movie, just the only one that’s clinically diagnosed. The rest of the ensemble is the rest of us, caught up in a society that breeds a condition of compulsive distraction.

But somehow director David O. Russell makes us laugh at the madness. Part of his success is in that he’s able to channel the energies of classic screwball comedy, and with this film, he proves himself to be a rightful heir of the genre. In a career that’s dealt with all kinds of insanity both on and off screen, this is perhaps his most personal film. It’s certainly the most personal of the nine nominated, and fully deserves the Best Director oscar. Each character is on a different neurotic wavelength, and he orchestrates them with a jazz-like sense of harmony and tempo, conducting moods that twist and turn like one big dance party of manias. His screenwriting also finds poetry in people’s pathetic attempts to articulate their failings.

There’s a significance to the title, Silver Linings Playbook, because it reflects our collective yearning for happy endings, a theme that the movie itself embodies as much as it explores. It puts all its chips on the table for an incredible, improbable double-happy-ending climax, where the ensemble’s obsession with winning goes into overdrive. But the way it plays out on screen reveals something much more sublime than winning—a genuine sense of camaraderie among its characters, who seem inextricably tied together even battling each other’s craziness.

You see it in the climactic scene. Pat and Tiffany’s schizo dance routine, a thing of grotesque beauty that makes sense only to themselves, is something they fully embrace as an expression of themselves, and draws them closer than ever. And it’s this authentic feeling of a community brought to life on screen, people fighting against an insane world by speaking in their own idiom and following their own demented logic, that no other nominated film can claim.

Who cares if this film doesn’t win an Oscar for best picture? It’s already achieved the ultimate victory on screen.

Kevin B. Lee is Editor in Chief of IndieWire’s PressPlay Video Blog, Video Essayist for Fandor’s Keyframe, and a contributor to Roger Ebert.com. Follow him on Twitter.

VIDEO ESSAY: Who Should Win the Oscar for Best Lead Actress

Part of "Who Should Win," a series of video essays co-presented by Indiewire Press Play and Fandor.

This year’s Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role will be the first for whoever wins it. Each nominee plays a character who faces extraordinary circumstances, and in some cases I wonder if it’s the role that people are praising more than the performance.

Naomi Watts is nominated as a tsunami victim in The Impossible, but basically all she does is look traumatized for the entirety of the film. Her face plastered with disaster movie make-up, Watts essentially gets credit for playing a victim, and we project pathos and profundity onto her wounded appearance.

There’s a similar issue with Emmanuelle Riva’s role as a dying woman in Amour. I don’t understand why Riva has been getting most of the acclaim, when it’s her co-star Jean-Louis Trintignant who has the more difficult job as her husband, trying to make sense of her decline and manage their tragedy. Once again, the pathos of a character catches our attention more than the actual performance.

Compared to Watts and Riva, I actually prefer eight-year-old Quvenzhané Wallis in Beasts of the Southern Wild. As a young girl fending for herself amidst unspeakable poverty, she is a compelling presence. However, presence is not quite the same as performance. For the most part, Wallis’s standout work is made in the editing room, as short glimpses of her are interspersed among the film’s extravagant imagery. But there is one remarkable scene where her character has to stand up to her abusive, unpredictable father, and Wallis gives as good as she gets. Wallis is a diamond in the rough, and she has a ways to go to truly deserve an Oscar.

There might be some pathos to Jessica Chastain’s character, a female CIA agent caught in the dangerous world of Zero Dark Thirty. But Chastain doesn’t rely on our sympathy, and in fact she works against it when her character takes part in the movie’s notorious torture scenes. Chastain brings a no-nonsense professionalism to the role, and what’s really impressive about it is the force of her restraint. As she listens to interrogations and sifts through endless leads in her search for Osama bin Laden, you can see her mind processing all this information. And it’s that thoughtfulness that brings extra power to the moments when she does take bold action.

But ultimately it’s Jennifer Lawrence in Silver Linings Playbook who deserves to win, though part of it is due to the role, which is probably the most complex of the five roles to play. Tiffany is an emotionally disturbed widow fighting a sex addiction, looking to have a real relationship with a guy who has plenty of his own problems. That’s a lot of character issues for an actress to handle, but Lawrence grounds it all with an intelligence that’s disarmingly frank. In this early scene, she sets the terms. There’s so much hyper-awareness in her look and her voice, as if her character is too smart for her own wreck of a life. She thoroughly knows her problems but she doesn’t know what to do about them, and that makes her vulnerable.

But through all of Tiffany’s mood swings, Lawrence never plays them for pity. Even her destructive rages are informed by a piercing perceptiveness. And in this monologue which feels practically written to win an Oscar, Tiffany shares the tragedy of her husband’s death, but Lawrence doesn’t play up the melodrama. She simply treats it as a series of facts. All the emotion she needs to convey are in split-second blinks and eye twitches that betray her deadpan delivery.

Now that’s a pathos that doesn’t come easy, one that emerges through a performance that’s as smart as it is expressive, and is truly exceptional.

Kevin B. Lee is Editor in Chief of IndieWire’s PressPlay Video Blog, Video Essayist for Fandor’s Keyframe, and a contributor to Roger Ebert.com. Follow him on Twitter.

VIDEO ESSAY: Who Should Win the Oscar for Best Lead Actor

Part of "Who Should Win," a series of video essays co-presented by Indiewire Press Play and Fandor.

Two-time Oscar winner Denzel Washington earns his sixth career nomination as drunk airline pilot Whip Whitaker in Flight. Washington’s best moment is the film’s best moment: a riveting sequence where his plane is in free fall. Washington pilots the scene, cutting through the hysterics with a commanding cool. The rest of the film shows his character’s slow descent into alcoholic self-destruction, a chance for Washington to play ugly anti-hero. But there are few surprises to his portrayal of a self-hating drunk.

Daniel Day Lewis is also a two-time winner, and he’s the favorite to win another as the title role in Lincoln. It’s a complete performance, fully studied in physical manner, every gesture carefully considered and invested with charismatic warmth. But there’s something kind of self-contained about it, to a lesser degree than Denzel Washington’s. All the same, the kind of performance that you feel obligated to revere, like staring at an animatronic version of the Lincoln memorial.

The contender most likely upset Day Lewis is Hugh Jackman. His appearance in Les Miz is one of the best things about the film—he does the best job of selling the movie’s live performance concept. Even when his singing is off, it seems work, as a way of expressing his character’s conflicted moral state. And while the film is aimed to squeeze every teardrop out of its material, Jackman doesn’t dwell on the melodrama. He portrays a man’s journey to salvation with a survivalist urgency and vigor.

But I’m most impressed by two performances that aren’t favorites to win, even though both actors are in nearly every scene of their films, and convey a risk-taking vulnerability that deserves recognition.

Bradley Cooper surprised a lot of people with a breakthrough performance as Pat, a man fighting bipolar disorder inSilver Linings Playbook. Cooper runs his character through a gauntlet of manias and rages. With a simple shift of his voice, or a darting eye movement, he flips the switch to show his character’s mind jumping off the tracks. but he never overplays these emotions, giving room to reveal the comic absurdity of his condition. And for all his antic outward energy, he also does a lot of taking in. Over the course of this movie, he has to interact and respond to a dozen different characters with their own issues and button-pushing tendencies. There are moments where Pat’s reactions show an ability to see outside himself, which takes his character and Cooper’s performance to another dimension.

Finally there’s Joaquin Phoenix, who lays it on the line as Freddy Quell in The Master. This is a film whose success or failure mostly hinges on the credibility of its lead, whose self-destructive impulses lead to displays of outrageous, alienating behavior. The key question is whether Phoenix is just chewing scenery, or is really tapping into a genuine sense of torment.

Some of his acting choices tread close to gimmickry, his body bent in anguish, his mouth twisted like Popeye the Sailor. But over time, Phoenix reveals what’s behind his grotesque appearance. The crucial scene is his initial psychological processing. Here he his challenged to confront his inner demons and the result is one of the most riveting scenes of the year.

This truly is acting that feels alive like nothing else. It’s here that Phoenix’s character reveals his conscience. And from this point on, Phoenix takes us through a turbulent journey of a soul awaking to recognize itself. The Master is a wild, unresolved movie that at times loses control in its probing of a group movement. But what stays true throughout is Joaquin Phoenix, a performance totally committed to its character in all its ugliness and wonder.

Kevin B. Lee is Editor in Chief of IndieWire’s PressPlay Video Blog, Chief Video Essayist for Fandor’s Keyframe, and a contributor to Roger Ebert.com. Follow him on Twitter.

VIDEO ESSAY SERIES: Who Really Should Win the Oscars

Press Play presents "Who Should Win," a series of videos that evaluates the nominees of each major Oscar category to decide who really deserves to win the Academy Awards. This is the second year that Press Play has applied its video essay power to make its Oscar determinations (see last year's video series). This year's video series is co-presented by Indiewire Press Play and Fandor.

In case you haven’t noticed from all the TV commercials, full-page ads, talk show appearances, news articles and blog posts, the annual Oscar game is in full swing. Academy Awards voters have until February 4 to cast their ballots, basing their decisions on any number of factors, namely all of the aforementioned campaigning plus any word-of-mouth buzzing through Hollywood.

We aren’t fully privy to insider knowledge, but we do have access to the one thing that, in a perfect world, really should matter the most: the movies themselves. And so, with the purpose of centering the Oscar conversation back to where it really belongs, we present “Who Should Win,” a video series co-presented by the Press Play video blog at Indiewire and Fandor.

For the benefit of your Oscar pool ballot, inside each video you’ll also find our predictions for who is expected to win. But the web is cluttered with so many of these prognostications that we lose sight of could be the most fulfilling aspect of this exercise: discussing the merits of each of these nominated artists. Let the debate begin.

Who Should Win: Best Lead Actor

Who Should Win: Best Supporting Actor

Who Should Win: Best Supporting Actress

Other categories to come soon. Keep checking back and weighing in!

Kevin B. Lee is Editor in Chief of IndieWire’s PressPlay Video Blog, Video Essayist for Fandor’s Keyframe, and a contributor to Roger Ebert.com. Follow him on Twitter.

VIDEO ESSAY: Who Should Win the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor

Part of "Who Should Win," a series of video essays co-presented by Indiewire Press Play and Fandor.

This year’s Best Supporting Actor nominees are all previous Oscar winners, which eliminates some of the career achievement concerns that can affect these awards. Let’s hope that puts more emphasis on the quality of the performances, which are all worthy of consideration.

As a wisecracking, world-weary Hollywood producer, Alan Arkin gives a light-hearted lift to Argo’s political thriller proceedings. In Lincoln, Tommy Lee Jones plays the salty senator Thaddeus Stevens. Jones’ performance lives in his eyes. It shows the mental activity of an old man challenged to rethink his politics in order to achieve his lifelong dream of abolishing slavery. Jones is currently the narrow favorite to win the Oscar, but I think there are three performances better than his.

In Django Unchained, Christoph Waltz is a ruthless bounty hunter whose conscience awakens when he helps a freed slave on his quest. Waltz is a master of playing surface-level civility. But in this film, he peels away those layers ever so gradually to reveal his moral outrage seething underneath.

Robert De Niro gives his best performance in years in The Silver Linings Playbook. He plays a football-fixated father, whose attempts to help his son are undermined by his own manic temperament. It’s a display of late-career virtuosity, showing the emotional range he’s mastered over a lifetime: from explosive menace to wisecracking warmth. In this film, he adds an extra dimension through a sense of advanced age and frailty, which he uses to disarming pathos in this scene. But as it turns out, this emotional display is a put-on, as he just wants to loop his son into a crazy scheme. De Niro’s character is an inspired creation of demented obsession, charged with startling vitality.

But I have to give the top prize to Philip Seymour Hoffman for his work as the self-help guru Lancaster Dodd in The Master. It surprises me to say this because I’m not even sure if it’s a complete performance—by the end, his character seems to disappear into the movie’s unresolved clouds of ambiguity. But for the first 90 minutes of The Master, Hoffman is key to making this film work. He’s a pillar of authoritative self-control, a counterbalance to Joaquin Phoenix’s utterly unhinged lead performance.

But Hoffman is doing more than just playing the straight man. There’s an unforgettable scene where Hoffman’s Dodd first processes Phoenix. From Dodd’s face and his line of questioning, we see a refined man fascinated by a wild beast of a human, but we catch a glimpse of that same wildness lurking in him as well. That wildness explodes in a later scene when Hoffman is ambushed, and his lack of self-mastery is exposed. In just these two scenes, Hoffman is able to chart out the entire three-dimensional psychic landscape of a character. It’s this richness that keeps us watching even as the film takes us to increasingly difficult territory.

Kevin B. Lee is Editor in Chief of IndieWire’s PressPlay Video Blog, Video Essayist for Fandor’s Keyframe, and a contributor to Roger Ebert.com. Follow him on Twitter.

VIDEO ESSAY: Who Should Win the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress

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Part of "Who Should Win," a series of video essays co-presented by Indiewire Press Play and Fandor.

Anne Hathaway is the favorite to win Best Supporting Actress as Fantine in Les Miserables, and that’s just wrong for three reasons. First, she gave a much richer performance as the sly Selina Kyle in The Dark Knight Rises. Second, she’s not even the best supporting performance in Les Miz—that honor goes to Samantha Barks, who’s more nuanced as Éponine—but of course, Éponine always gets overlooked. I think Anne Hathaway is a great actress, but this is the worst performance in this category. It’s a sad puppy act pitched at shrieking full volume, while ripping off Sinead O’Connor and Falconetti’s Joan of Arc. This performance doesn’t just beg for an Oscar, it grovels for it.

Sally Field has won two Oscars, and she’s nominated again as Mary Todd Lincoln in Lincoln, playing an unstrung, emotional foil to the constantly composed president. Field brings an intelligence and dignity that gives an edge to her character’s moments of hysteria. She’s able to convey a mind that’s alert and articulate even when it spins in sadness.

Jackie Weaver is the surprise nominee for Silver Linings Playbook as a mother trying to deal with her son’s bipolar disorder. She has only a handful of lines, mostly appearing in cutaway reaction shots; it’s practically a silent movie-type performance, and not a bad one at that. Expressive even in her silence, she’s a graceful, accepting presence amidst a cast of crazies.

Amy Adams has roughly 20 minutes of screen time in The Master, and boy does she make the most of it. She gives a hand job, turns her eyes black and gives the stare of death while naked and pregnant. Her unnerving intensity casts a spectre over The Master—it’s a pity that she wasn’t utilized more. She practically deserves her own movie.

Another character who deserves her own movie is Cheryl Cohen-Greene, the sex surrogate played by Helen Hunt in The Sessions. Hunt has nearly twice as much screen time as any of the other nominees, which may give her an unfair advantage. But this is the most full-bodied performance of the five. Not just because Hunt appears fully nude, but because she conveys a generosity that gives the film intimacy, as well as intrigue. Hunt’s character helps a disabled man experience the joy of sex. Her confident voice and reassuring gestures make a bizarre situation seem perfectly normal. And just like her character, Hunt manages to give so much of herself while not giving herself away. It’s a performance within a performance, one that explores the personal boundaries of a very unique profession, whether it be sex therapy or screen acting.

Kevin B. Lee is Editor in Chief of IndieWire’s PressPlay Video Blog, Video Essayist for Fandor’s Keyframe, and a contributor to Roger Ebert.com. Follow him on Twitter @alsolikelife

OSCARS DEATH RACE: A CAT IN PARIS

[EDITOR'S NOTE: Fearless Sarah D. Bunting of Tomatonation.com is making it her mission to watch every single film nominated for an Oscar before the Academy Awards Ceremony on February 26, 2012. She is calling this journey her Oscars Death Race. For more on how the Oscars Death Race began, click here. And you can follow Sarah through this quixotic journey here.]

At first I couldn't understand how A Cat In Paris had nabbed an Animated Feature nomination with animation this crude. In fact, at first I couldn't understand A Cat In Paris period. For reasons that don't bear explaining, I watched it without subtitles, and my French doesn't go much farther than cheeses, swears, and synonyms for "hurry up."

But after a few minutes, I realized that the animation isn't crude, exactly. It isn't realistic; an IMDb commenter remarked on the "incredibly tiny triangular feet which seem always to be drawn from the same angle no matter which way the rest of the body is pointing," which are rather distracting, especially on stairs, and the animation renders bare feet at an accurate size and shape…?

Yet the drawing is evocative enough to delineate the characters, and most of the plot. I picked up a word here and there in the dialogue, but primarily I got the story from looking at it.

Said plot (I…think; feel free to correct me in the comments) is more or less centered around the titular feline, Dino, who spends his days keeping a little girl, Zoé (Oriane Zani), company and bringing her tiny lizards he's caught; at night, the cat accompanies an art thief, Nico (the soothingly sexy voice of Bruno Salomone, who apparently plays in a parody band with The Artist's Jean Dujardin!), on his rounds. (This brought to mind that wonderful Samurai Jack sequence in which Jack apprehends a cat burglar and finds that the thief's sack is full of…actual cats.) Zoé's mother, Jeanne (Dominique Blanc), works all the time, and Zoé doesn't care for the heavily perfumed housekeeper she's often left with. Jeanne has her reasons; she's a detective who's trying to bring gangster Victor Costa (Jean Benguigui) to justice for, among other things, killing Zoé's father. Costa has also stolen a hoard of priceless artworks, and it's via all the stealing and re-stealing (and also the heavy perfume) that the characters eventually converge.

As I said, I don't entirely know the specifics, but I didn't need to. At just over an hour long, it gets you right into things, and while the rendering is sometimes off — everyone has giant pants and the aforementioned tiny feet, like Babe Ruth — the movie gets the bigger picture right every time. The vertiginous angles of the Parisian rooftops during the numerous chase sequences; the yappy-dog gag, paid off wonderfully thanks to a snowfall at the end of the film; the way Nico seems to wave like water through his scenes; and particularly the movements of the loyal cat and his frequent and judgmental cracking open of a single eye…it's suspenseful, clever in various workarounds, and at times breathtaking. Realism in animation is impressive, up to a point, but there are different kinds of accuracy, and I would rather see this kind, that understands the quality of light at sunrise, than a perfect shoe.

I haven't seen the other nominees in the category, but I have a feeling this will remain my favorite — and, like The Illusionist was last year for me, a hopeless horse to bet come Oscar night.

Sarah D. Bunting co-founded Television Without Pity.com, and has written for Seventeen, New York Magazine, MSNBC.com, Salon, Yahoo!, and others. She's the chief cook and bottle-washer at TomatoNation.com. For more on how the Oscars Death Race began, click here.

2012 OSCAR NOMINATIONS: Open Thread

The 2012 Oscar nominations were announced this morning. Albert Brooks, Steven Spielberg and a lot of other expected nominees were snubbed. There were surprises in other categories, though: Demián Bichir as Best Actor for A Better Life, Rooney Mara as Best Actress for The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Melissa McCarthy as Best Supporting Actress for Bridesmaids and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close as Best Picture. The thread is open; dive in, folks.

Best Picture:
The Artist
The Descendants
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
The Help
Hugo
Midnight in Paris
Moneyball
The Tree of Life
War Horse

Best Actor:
Demián Bichir, A Better Life
George Clooney, The Descendants
Jean Dujarin, The Artist
Gary Oldman, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Brad Pitt, Moneyball

Best Actress:
Glenn Close, Albert Nobbs
Viola Davis, The Help
Rooney Mara, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady
Michelle Williams, My Week with Marilyn

Best Supporting Actor:
Kenneth Branagh, My Week with Marilyn
Jonah Hill, Moneyball
Nick Nolte, Warrior
Christopher Plummer, Beginners
Max von Sydow, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

Best Supporting Actress:
Berenice Bejo, The Artist
Jessica Chastain, The Help
Melissa McCarthy, Bridesmaids
Janet McTeer, Albert Nobbs
Octavia Spencer, The Help

Best Directing:
Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist
Alexander Payne, The Descendants
Martin Scorsese, Hugo
Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris
Terrence Malick, The Tree of Life

Best Foreign Language Film:
Bullhead (Belgium)
Footnote (Israel)
In Darkness (Poland)
Monsieur Lazhar (Canada)
A Separation (Iran)

Best Adapted Screenplay:
Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon and Jim Rash, The Descendants
John Logan, Hugo
George Clooney, Grant Heslov and Beau Willimon, The Ides of March
Steven Zaillian, Aaron Sorkin and Stan Chervin, Moneyball
Bridget O'Connor and Peter Straughan Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Best Original Screenplay:
Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist
Annie Mumolo and Kristen Wiig, Bridesmaids
J.C. Chandor, Margin Call
Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris
Asghar Farhadi, A Separation

Best Animated Feature Film:
A Cat in Paris
Chico & Rita
Kung Fu Panda 2
Puss in Boots
Rango

Best Art Direction:
The Artist
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
Hugo
Midnight in Paris
War Horse

Best Cinematography:
The Artist
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Hugo
The Tree of Life
War Horse

Best Sound Mixing:
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Hugo
Moneyball
Transformers: Dark of the Moon
War Horse

Best Sound Editing:
Drive
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Hugo
Transformers: Dark of the Moon
War Horse

Best Original Score:
The Adventures of Tintin, John Williams
The Artist, Ludovic Bource
Hugo, Howard Shore
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Alberto Iglesias
War Horse, John Williams

Best Original Song:
"Man or Muppet" from The Muppets, Bret McKenzie
"Real in Rio" from Rio, Sergio Mendes, Carlinhos Brown and Siedah Garrett.

Best Costume:
Anonymous
The Artist
Hugo
Jane Eyre
W.E

Best Documentary Feature:
Hell and Back Again
If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front
Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory
Pina
Undefeated

Best Documentary (short subject):
The Barber of Birmingham: Foot Soldier of the Civil Rights Movement
God is the Bigger Elvis
Incident in New Baghdad
Saving Face
The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom

Best Film Editing:
The Artist
The Descendants
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Hugo
Moneyball

Best Makeup:
Albert Nobbs
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
The Iron Lady

Best Animated Short Film:
Dimanche/Sunday
The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore
La Luna
A Morning Stroll
Wild Life

Best Live Action Short Film:
Pentecost
Raju
The Shore
Time Freak
Tuba Atlantic

Best Visual Effects:
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
Hugo
Real Steel
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Transformers: Dark of the Moon