"Atonement"'s win over the much-lauded "No Country for Old Men" is, to my thinking, a harbinger of the Oscars to come. Not that the Keira Knightley literary adaptation will win best picture -- just that Academy voters will be searching for a movie that makes them feel better about themselves than the gritty, take-no-prisoners Coen brothers drama. I don't think it'll be "Sweeney Todd," as heartening as its win tonight is.
The writers' strike put the kibosh on an actual awards ceremonies, and after some ugly last-minute grandstanding by Dick Clark Productions, winners were announced by hosts Billy Bush and Nancy O?Dell, vamping heavily through an hour-long "special" on NBC. The general consensus is that they should have gone dark completely and simply issued a press release. Joanna Weiss has her take over at the Viewer Discretion blog.
But, hey, Daniel Day-Lewis won Best Actor, Drama for "There Will be Blood" and Johnny Depp won Best Actor, Musical or Comedy, for "Sweeney Todd," so hooray for dark, quixotic men who can really act. Marion Cotillard won Best Actress, Musical or Comedy, for "La Vie en Rose," and Julie Christie won the dramatic award for "Away From Her," so hooray for, uh, great European actresses.
Less surprisingly: Cate Blanchett got Supporting Actress for "I'm Not There" and Javier Bardem got Supporting Actor for "No Country." "Ratatouille" won Best Animated Feature only because "Persepolis" wasn't even nominated. "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" won Best Foreign Language Film and its director, Julian Schnabel, won Best Director. Best Screenplay? "No Country for Old Men." Best Score? "Atonement" (and that one does make sense, thank you, again only because Jonny Greenwood wasn't nominated for "There Will Be Blood."
There were also some TV awards. Full list of nominees and winners is right here.
Something tells me I am going to get flamed for this but, Atonement gravely disappointed me. In fact it bored me for the majority of its 130 minutes running time. I love Ian McEwan’s novels; Enduring Love was a brilliant book which they made into quite a good film. I can’t judge the translation from book to screen for Atonement as I never read it, but judging the film as it stands, it is quite simply - painfully slow. (more…)
I sometimes forget just how much can be done with today’s technology and a boatload (literally, in this instance) of hard work and determination. Case in point is this amazing bit of vfx work from three graphic designers working for BBC’s Timewatch (currently only available in the UK) to recreate the carnage and mayhem that was the Omaha Beach invasion of World War II.
Aside from the unforgivable music choice, watching the making-of montage is as much fun as beholding the end result. It’s clear that these three lads were motivated by an uncommon passion to pull off this feat. Based on the Timewatch production blog, their names are Neil Wilson, Steve Flynn and Colin Thornton. More from the blog (although it’s pretty evident in the featurette):
They are here for two days to film some basic drama reconstruction sequences that will form the basis of their D-Day landing scene. In order to catch low tide when the beach is at its widest, we head for the beach at dawn whereupon the three boys spent several exhausting hours dress up in the uniforms and run up and down the sand, as I operate the Z1 camera.
They carefully plan it so that each run is in a different part of the frame. That way, when they are back in the office, they can layer these frames up in the computer until it looks like there are hundreds of men landing on the beach – rather than just three. Later they will drop in beach obstacles and landing crafts, based on images they have gathered from books – and also small explosions, filmed separately again.
As well as the beach landing scene, they have to film a sequence of cliff climbing at Pointe du Hoc – to illustrate what Ike and his fellow Rangers had to do on D-Day. We find a small 10ft sand dune which the boys clamber up head-on into the camera. I help hold up the green screen making sure it fills the frame behind the boys. The green screen means that when it comes to the edit, they can drop in a different background – in this case, the sea and Pointe du Hoc cliff-line.
Something tells me I am going to get flamed for this but, Atonement gravely disappointed me. In fact it bored me for the majority of its 130 minutes running time. I love Ian McEwan’s novels; 
