Simon Dillon gives his opinion
Continued from page 1
Best Editing: Alfonso Cuaron, Mark Sanger (Gravity) - A no-brainer.
Best Production Design: Cathering Martin, Beverly Dunn (The Great Gatsby) - Actually, I'd have given this to The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. But Gatsby looked great too, and it's great that the most unfairly critically mauled mainstream film of last year actually won something.
Best Sound Editing: Glenn Freemantle (Gravity) - A no-brainer (although All is Lost was another very worthy contender).
Best Sound Mixing: Skip Lievsay, Christopher Benstead, Niv Adiri, Chris Munro (Gravity) - See above really.
Best Visual Effects: Tim Webber, Chris Lawrence, David Shirk, Neil Corbould, Nikki Penny (Gravity) - Yet another Gravity no-brainer. In fact, the most no-brainer no-brainer of all the awards Gravity won.
Best Foreign Film: The Great Beauty (Italy) - A decent win from a slightly odd selection of nominees (Denmark's The Hunt was released later in the US than in the UK, hence why it was nominated).
Best Documentary Feature: 20 Feet From Stardom - I've not seen this, but I'm very surprised The Act of Killing did not win.
One last quibble: Generally I was pleased the good but overrated American Hustle went away empty handed, but it should have won at least one award: Make-up and Hairstyling, as it contained the most monumental, landmark comb-over in cinema history. Shockingly it wasn't even nominated in that category, but I suppose since the Academy got so much else right this year, I'll add my congratulations to Adruitha Lee and Robin Matthews who won for Dallas Buyers Club.
Overall, I expect this year to be a blip in the Academy's long and proud record of outright injustices. I look forward to a far more vitriolic rant next year, when I expect business as usual at the Oscars.
The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.
A quick postscript: I realise Cate Blanchett won an Oscar for The Aviator, but that was a supporting role. What I meant by what I said above was I had been waiting for the Best Actress win since I saw the film last autumn. Should have worded it better really...