Oscar Winners (and er, if we were doing the voting)

The first entry to a new Picturehouse blog. With Oscar-fever gripping the film world (and not far from most conversations in the Picturehouse Soho office), I thought I’d post the Oscar winners…and er, Oscar winners, if our humble little office were the Academy voters.

Who are we anyway? Picturehouse cinemas head office consists of a programming department, a marketing department, a design department and a few other absolutely vital individuals who don’t fall neatly into a ‘department’.

Our winners in bold, actual winners marked with *
Films with links are our Picturehouse Recommends titles.

BEST FILM
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button“
“Frost/Nixon”
“Milk“
“The Reader”
“Slumdog Millionaire“*

no surprises here

BEST ACTOR
Richard Jenkins, “The Visitor”
Frank Langella, “Frost/Nixon”
Sean Penn, “Milk“*
Brad Pitt, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button“
Mickey Rourke, “The Wrestler”

we didn’t see this one coming, poor old Mickey Rourke, those Academy voters are so unforgiving, back to the wilderness you go…

BEST ACTRESS
Anne Hathaway, “Rachel Getting Married“
Angelina Jolie, “Changeling”
Melissa Leo, “Frozen River”
Meryl Streep, “Doubt”
Kate Winslet, “The Reader”*

again, no surprises here. At least she didn’t cry.

BEST DIRECTOR
Danny Boyle, “Slumdog Millionaire“*
Stephen Daldry, “The Reader”
Gus Van Sant, “Milk“
David Fincher, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button“
Ron Howard, “Frost/Nixon”

we really like Danny Boyle, he found the time in January, mid-Oscar build-up, to do a Q&A with us which went down a storm. Congratulations!

SUPPORTING ACTOR
Josh Brolin, “Milk“
Robert Downey Jr., “Tropic Thunder”
Philip Seymour Hoffman, “Doubt”
Heath Ledger, “The Dark Knight”*
Michael Shannon, “Revolutionary Road”

you could have bet your house on this one

SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Amy Adams, “Doubt”
Penelope Cruz, “Vicky Cristina Barcelona“*
Viola Davis, “Doubt”
Taraji P. Henson, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
Marisa Tomei, “The Wrestler

a worthy winner, I think you’ll agree, although I quite fancied Marisa Tomei in “The Wrestler”

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
“WALL-E” – Andrew Stanton, Jim Reardon and Pete Docter
“Happy-Go-Lucky” – Mike Leigh
“Frozen River” – Courtney Hunt
“In Bruges” – Martin McDonagh
“Milk“* – Dustin Lance Black

our vote was tied for this one

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” – Eric Roth and Robin Swicord
“Frost/Nixon” – Peter Morgan
“Slumdog Millionaire“* – Simon Beaufoy
“Doubt” – John Patrick Shanley

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
“Bolt” – Chris Williams and Byron Howard
“Kung Fu Panda” – Mark Osborne and John Stevenson
“WALL-E”* – Andrew Stanton

another sure thing

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
“Revanche” (Austria) in German – Götz Spielmann
“The Class” (France) in French – Laurent Cantet
“The Baader Meinhof Complex” (Germany) in German
“Departures”* (Japan) in Japanese
“Waltz with Bashir” (Israel) in Hebrew – Ari Folman

we were quite surprised about this one, did the Academy really watch Waltz With Bashir, or The Class?