2012 Oscars

The Oscars were quite enjoyable this year! Better than last year's production, I thought. Billy Crystal was an excellent host, told lots of very funny jokes (though I didn't really care for the awkward song he sang at the beginning). And I loved the Cirque du Soleil performance to Danny Elfman music, as well as Hans Zimmer's orchestrations for the whole awards show itself.

I was mostly satisfied with the winners, too. (As you can see below, 10 of the nominees I was rooting for took home gold.) The only thing that really disappointed me was that Harry Potter won nothing. I'm irked that it lost Best Make-Up to The Iron Lady. I think creating countless battle wounds and Voldemort's bald, creepy head look real is a greater achievement than making one actor look like someone else, but maybe that's just me...


YELLOW is the nominee I was rooting for. RED is the nominee who won.
ORANGE is the combination of both, when my favorite got the award.

Best Picture

The Artist  ~Thomas Langmann

The Descendants  ~Jim Burke, Alexander Payne, Jim Taylor

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close  ~Scott Rudin

The Help  ~Brunson Green, Chris Columbus, Michael Barnathan

Hugo  ~Graham King, Martin Scorsese

Midnight in Paris  ~Letty Aronson, Stephen Tenenbaum

Moneyball  ~Michael De Luca, Rachael Horovitz, Brad Pitt

The Tree of Life  ~TBA

War Horse  ~Steven Spielberg, Kathleen Kennedy


Lead Actor

Demian Bichir  (A Better Life)

George Clooney  (The Descendants)

Jean Dujardin  (The Artist)

Gary Oldman  (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy)

Brad Pitt  (Moneyball)


Lead 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)


Supporting Actor

Kenneth Branagh  (My Week with Marilyn)

Jonah Hill  (Moneyball)

Nick Nolte  (Warrior)

Christopher Plummer  (Beginners)

Max von Sydow  (Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close)


Supporting Actress

Berenice Bejo  (The Artist)

Jessica Chastain  (The Help)

Melissa McCarthy  (Bridesmaids)

Janet McTeer  (Albert Nobbs)

Octavia Spencer  (The Help)


Director

Michel Hazanavicius  (The Artist)

Alexander Payne  (The Descendants)

Martin Scorsese  (Hugo)

Woody Allen  (Midnight in Paris)

Terrence Malick  (The Tree of Life)


Animated Feature

A Cat in Paris  ~Alain Gagnol, Jean-Loup Felicioli

Chico & Rita  ~Fernando Trueba, Javier Mariscal

Kung Fu Panda 2  ~Jennifer Yuh Nelson

Puss in Boots  ~Chris Miller

Rango  ~Gore Verbinski


Animated Short

Dimanche/Sunday  ~Patrick Doyon

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore  ~William Joyce, Brandon Oldenburg

La Luna  ~Enrico Casarosa

A Morning Stroll  ~Grant Orchard, Sue Goffe

Wild Life  ~Amanda Forbis, Wendy Tilby


Live Action Short

Pentecost  ~Peter McDonald, Eimear O'Kane

Raju  ~Max Zahle, Stefan Gieren

The Shore  ~Terry George, Ooralgh George

Time Freak  ~Andrew Bowler, Gigi Causey

Tuba Atlantic  ~Hallvar Witzo


Documentary Short

The Barber of Birmingham: Foot Soldier of the Civil Rights Movement  ~Robin Fryday, Gail Dolgin

God is the Bigger Elvis  ~Rebecca Cammisa, Julie Anderson

Incident in New Baghdad  ~James Spione

Saving Face  ~Daniel Junge, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy

The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom  ~Lucy Walker, Kira Carstensen


Documentary Feature

Hell and Back Again  ~Danfung Dennis, Mike Lerner

If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front  ~Marshall Curry, Sam Cullman

Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory  ~Joe Berlinger, Bruce Sinofsky

Pina  ~Wim Wenders, Gian-Piero Ringel

Undefeated  ~TJ Martin, Dan Lindsay, Richard Middlemas


Foreign Language Film

Bullhead (Belgium)  ~Michael R Roskam

Monsieur Lazhar (Canada)  ~Philippe Falardeau

A Separation (Iran)  ~Asghar Farhadi

Footnote (Israel)  ~Joseph Cedar

In Darkness (Poland)  ~Agnieszka Holland


Adapted Screenplay

The Descendants  ~Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon, Jim Rash

Hugo  ~John Logan

The Ides of March  ~George Clooney, Grant Heslov, Beau Willimon

Moneyball  ~Screenplay by Steven Zaillian, Aaron Sorkin; Story by Stan Chervin

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy  ~Bridget O'Connor, Peter Straughan


Original Screenplay

The Artist  ~Michel Hazanavicius

Bridesmaids  ~Annie Mumolo, Kristen Wiig

Margin Call  ~J. C. Chandor

Midnight in Paris  ~Woody Allen

A Separation  ~Asghar Farhadi



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


Original Song

"Man or Muppet" from The Muppets  ~Music & Lyrics by Bret McKenzie

"Real in Rio" from Rio  ~Music by Sergio Mendes and Carlinhos Brown, Lyrics by Siedah Garrett


Cinematography

The Artist  ~Guillaume Schiffman

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo  ~Jeff Cronenweth

Hugo  ~Robert Richardson

The Tree of Life  ~Emmanuel Lubezki

War Horse  ~Janusz Kaminski


Art Direction (Production Design/Set Decoration)

The Artist  ~Laurence Bennett (Design), Robert Gould (Set Deco)

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2  ~Stuart Craig (Design), Stephenie McMillan (Set Deco)

Hugo  ~Dante Ferretti (Design), Francesca Lo Schiavo (Set Deco)

Midnight in Paris  ~Anne Seibel (Design), Helene Dubreuil (Set Deco)

War Horse  ~Rick Carter (Design), Lee Sandales (Set Deco)


Costume Design

Anonymous  ~Lisy Christl

The Artist  ~Mark Bridges

Hugo  ~Sandy Powell

Jane Eyre  ~Michael O'Connor

W. E.  ~Arianne Phillips


Make-up

Albert Nobbs  ~Martial Corneville, Lynn Johnston, Matthew W. Mungle

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2  ~Nick Dudman, Amanda Knight, Lisa Tomblin

The Iron Lady  ~Mark Coulier, J. Roy Helland


Film Editing

The Artist  ~Anne-Sophie Bion, Michel Hazanavicius

The Descendants  ~Kevin Tent

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo  ~Kirk Baxter, Angus Wall

Hugo  ~Thelma Schoonmaker

Moneyball  ~Christopher Tellefsen


Sound Editing

Drive  ~Lon Bender, Victor Ray Ennis

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo  ~Ren Klyce

Hugo  ~Philip Stockton, Eugene Gearty

Transformers: Dark of the Moon  ~Ethan Van der Ryn, Erik Aadahl

War Horse  ~Richard Hymns, Gary Rydstrom


Sound Mixing

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo  ~David Parker, Michael Semanick, Ren Klyce, Bo Persson

Hugo  ~Tom Fleischman, John Midgley

Moneyball  ~Deb Adair, Ron Bochar, Dave Giammarco, Ed Novick

Transformers: Dark of the Moon  ~Greg P. Russell, Gary Summers, Jeffrey J. Haboush, Peter J. Devlin

War Horse  ~Gary Rydstrom, Andy Nelson, Tom Johnson, Stuart Wilson


Visual Effects

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2  ~Tim Burke, David Vickery, Greg Butler, John Richardson

Hugo  ~Rob Legato, Joss Williams, Ben Grossman, Alex Henning

Real Steel  ~Erik Nash, John Rosengrant, Dan Taylor, Swen Gillberg

Rise of the Planet of the Apes  ~Joe Letteri, Dan Lemmon, R. Christopher WHite, Daniel Barrett

Transformers: Dark of the Moon  ~Dan Glass, Brad Friedman, Douglas Trumbull, Michael Fink

What is whole heath?

I just finished reading a book called What's Up Down There? Questions You'd Only Ask Your Gynecologist If She Was Your Best Friend, which I loved, and so I went to author Dr. Lissa Rankin's website called Owning Pink. Lissa was a gynecologist for years until she became fed up with what she considered an incomplete system. She felt the medicine she was trained to practice was missing something, so she quit her job and spent some time coming up with a new, more holistic model that I think makes much more sense.

I'll be honest and say that if I had come across Owning Pink without having read Lissa's book and not knowing her background, I probably would have dismissed it as touchy-feely crap that somebody made up 'cause they don't like going to the doctor. That's not what this is. Dr. Rankin has extensive medical knowledge from being a physician for 8 years, and she had the courage to give up a secure job and stable life because she knew the system in which she worked was not quite right. It didn't jive with her picture of what it meant to be completely healthy.

Her view on "whole health" is not just about physical health, it includes spirituality, sexuality, relationships, financial issues, life purpose, and environment, among other things. The idea is that all aspects of your life need to be healthy in order for you to be "wholly" healthy, and if any of these parts are crumbling, your physical health deteriorates, showing signs of this unhealthiness. It's really very logical. I recommend you take a look at Lissa's own explain on her website. (The theory applies to both men and women, but most of the Owning Pink website is aimed at women.)