2nd Annual Noble Awards

G'Day and welcome to my 2nd Annual Film Awards!
What a great year for film and unlike the Oscars the Noble Awards only honors the very best. So without any further ado here are the nominees and winners (which are identified by being the largest picture) for the 8 categories...

Thanks for reading my awards!

For the record here are my winners from last year:

"No Country" Beats "Blood" in Western Showdown

Well after months of campaigning the Oscar seasons came down to 2 films for best picture: "No Country For Old Men" and "There Will Be Blood". At the end of the day although "Blood" picked up Lead Actor and best "Country" for Cinamatography it was "No Country" that nabbed Best Picture along with Director, Adapted Screenplay and Supporting Actor.

Here are my thoughts of the night:

GREAT

LEAD ACTOR: Daniel Day Lewis’ very deserving win for what is likely the best performance in film last year.

CINAMATOGRAPHY: Glad to see any love thrown Blood’s way

SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Great to not only see Michael Clayton honoured but also Swinton’s amazing performance in the film. The academy showed they are comfortable to go off the script to award the best.

ANIMATED FEATURE: Great to see the rat get an Oscar, although the film richly deserved to win more.

AVERAGE

DIRECTOR: The Coens would have been my 4th choice for the win (of the nominees) however I think the directing of this film was one of its strongest assets so am not too disappointed they won.

LEAD ACTRESS: I would have personally gone with Christie (or Linney who I haven’t seen), but Cotillard gave a good performance as well and I wasn’t too personally involved in this category. As long as Blanchett or Page didn’t win I was happy.

SUPPORTING ACTOR: I thought Wilkinson and Hoffman gave better performances and that Bardem should have been in lead. However a lot of people seem to think he’s supporting so I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and he gave a strong performance.

SONG: I’m glad those 2 won (how good were their speeches?) and everyone knows Menkin didn’t need another one. However I did think “That’s How You Know” was the slightly better song, so I cant put this win in my ‘great’ section.

EDITING/SOUND EDITING/SOUND MIXING: The Bourne mini-sweep came from left field and I wouldn’t have voted for it in any of the categories (although I haven’t seen it either) but it wasn’t disappointing in any way, just surprising.

COSTUME DESIGN/MAKEIP: No surprises here and both deserved, but I would have voted for Sweeney in costumes.

HOST: Jon Steart did a nice job and had me laughing throughout the night (his Vanity Fair joke was the highlight) however failed to give a memorable performance similar to the likes of Billy Crystal or Steve Martin.

TERRIBLE

PICTURE: Once again the academy have failed to recognise the (at least near) masterpiece in the midst of the best picture nominees, well I guess now the Citizen Kane references are more spot on for There Will Be Blood. However even worse they give it to a film that I feel is incredibly flawed and overrated.

SCREENPLAY: Ironically enough I think that the weakest element of both of the films that won screenplay was in fact the screenplay. I guess both seemed inevitable but I was hoping the academy would realise how poor these screenplays were and acknowledge the far superior ones in each category.

ART DIRECTION: Perhaps I’m being a little harsh as the Sweeney Todd art direction was good but nothing compared to the art direction of There Will Be Blood this year.SCORE: Overrated and poor score from Atonement beating the much better score from Ratatouille, heck I’d give it to Michael Clayton before Atonement.

VISUAL EFFECT: I haven’t seen any of these films but it seems like Transformers should have won this hands

Annual Noble TV Awards

G'Day,


Well the Emmy's did an OK job at honouring TV's best but here's my 2nd Annual Awards for TV - As voted by myself and various posters at theenvelope.com (underneath is my 1st annual awards in case you missed it):

Emmys "Rock" to a "Soprano" Tune

So, here’s my new blog which will cover both the Emmy and Oscar races as well as my own personal awards for TV and Film. With the 59th Emmys Awards a few months behind us I thought it would be a good idea to start this blog by looking back at the best and worst moments of the night. The big winners were The Sopranos which won its second outstanding drama series trophy for its final season and 30 Rock which won outstanding comedy series for its first year on the screen.

SIMPLY THE BEST
Terry O'Quinn winning was probably the highlight of the night for me, he's one of the best characters on TV and makes a category that has a very strong list of past winners even stronger.

James Spader, another case of the best tape prevailing. He didn't need screen time, he didn't need buzz, he didn't need the overdue factor he just needed to be great and he was.

Sally Field was another great surprise although I wouldn't have minded her losing as much as the others.

GOOD

The Sopranos winning drama series, I probably would have voted Boston Legal but this season was very impressive and makes for a winner that isn't in the least embarrassing (like Grey's Anatomy or House would have been).

30 Rock winning comedy series. This should have been The Office's but it's a very good show and one of the better winners of the decade.

Ricky Gervais winning comedy actor. I love Carell a bit more (have to see his submission to see if he was robbed) but out of the others Gervais had the best tape and he is amazing as was Stewart, Colbert and Carell's antics afterwards.

Jeremy Piven, he won last year so his win didn't make me estatic but it was well deserved.

The Office writing win (however they couldn't really go wrong with all 5 nominees being great)

BAD

The Ugly Betty wins weren’t really that bad but I don't really like the show and Parker should have won actress plus nothing should have beaten the [Scrubs] musical for direction.

Kennedy and Heidi had an amazingly directed opening scene however the episode in it's entirety wasn't as good as Battlestar Galactica, Lost, Friday Night Lights or Studio 60’s nominated episodes, so it was a poor choice for best direction in a drama. I haven’t seen the Sopranos final yet but I was disappointed Battlestar Galactica missed out on writing in a drama.

THE CRIMINAL DECISIONS

No one should have beaten Jenna Fischer (there isn't another supporting actress on comedy TV that's in her league) add to that I don't like My Name is Earl or Jamie Pressly.

Heigel is the worst actress of all the nominees in this category and had the worst tape in the category (which I found weak to begin with). This win is close to inexplicable.

Colbert losing again, that's so ridiculous (you think they'd have learnt from last years Manilow-Gate) but at least he was a good sport and had (the winner) Tony Bennett on his show.

The Stage (I lost count as to how many winners / presenters complained about it?) and Ryan Seacrest, I thought he said he wasn't going to try to be funny, well he tried and failed.

Overall it was a good night (for winners not the show itself), but like every year could have been better.

For the record, I predicted correctely: Writing Drama (Sopranos "Made in America"), Directing Comedy (Ugly Betty "Pilot"), Supporting Actor Drama (O'Quinn), Supporting Actor Comedy (Piven), Lead Actor Drama (Spader) and Lead Actress Comedy (Fererra)

giving me 6/14 in the series categories