ACE Eddie Award Winners

The 65th ACE Editors were handed out by the American Editors Guild.  Here are the winners for best achievement in film editing, a category that in the Academy Awards is always pretty correlative to Best Picture.

FILM

FEATURE FILM (Drama): Boyhood- Sandra Adair
FEATURE FILM (Comedy or Musical): The Grand Budapest Hotel- Barney Pilling
ANIMATED FILM: The LEGO Movie- David Burrows, Chris McKay
DOCUMENTARY: Citizenfour- Mathilde Bonnefoy

TELEVISION

ONE HOUR SERIES (Non-Commercial Television): True Detective- "Who Goes There"- Affonso Goncalves
ONE HOUR SERIES (Commercial Television): Sherlock- "His Last Vow"- Yan Miles
HALF-HOUR SERIES: Veep- "Special Relationship"- Anthony Boys
MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE: The Normal Heart- Adam Penn
DOCUMENTARY: The Roosevelts: An Intimate History: Episode 3 / The Fire of Life- Erik Ewers
NON-SCRIPTED SERIES: Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown: Iran- Hunter Gross

ACE Eddie Award Winners

The American Cinema Editors announced their choices for the best in film editing for the 2013 movie year.  The tricky splicing of a feature film, the what that separates the movies from real life, the sometimes (but certainly not always) invisible art form that sculpts a movie.  The Best Film Editing Oscar is usually synonymous with Best Picture and the ACE Eddies can be accurate gauges of how the race may eventually turn out.  And other times, they're not; that's the way it goes.

BEST FILM EDITING (Drama)
Captain Phillips- Christopher Rouse

"I am the captain now."

Rouse previously earned the ACE Eddie Award and the Academy Award for Paul Greengrass' The Bourne Ultimatum, one of a handful of cases where the Editors went their own way rather than placing a bet on a probable Best Picture winner.  Can it happen again?  It appears to be a fierce race for the Best Picture Oscar for Gravity, 12 Years a Slave and American Hustle, but is Captain Phillips (which has no shot at the big prize) rallying to spoil in a few areas-- it's surprise WGA win and ACE Eddie prize point to plausible surprises on Oscar night.

BEST FILM EDITING (Musical or Comedy)
American Hustle- Jay Cassidy, Crispin Struthers & Alan Baumgarten

"You're nothing to me until you're everything."

Cassidy and Struthers won the same award last year and were up for the Oscar for Silver Linings Playbook (they lost to Argo, which won the ACE Eddie for Drama.)  All three are up for the Oscar again for American Hustle.

BEST FILM EDITING (Documentary)
20 Feet From Stardom- Douglas Blush, Kevin Klauber & Jason Zeldes

Searching For Sugar Man won the ACE Eddie last year for Documentary Feature before winning the Documentary Oscar prize-- could this back-up singer story have the same fate?

BEST FILM EDITING (Animated Feature)
Frozen- Jeff Draheim

TELEVISION
MINI-SERIES OR MOVIE: Behind the Candelabra- Mary Ann Bernard (Steven Soderbergh)
ONE HOUR SERIES (Commercial TV): Breaking Bad- "Felina"- Skip MacDonald
ONE HOUR SERIES (Non-Commercial TV): Homeland- "Big Man in Tehran"- Terry Kelley
HALF-HOUR SERIES: The Office- "Finale"- David Rogers & Claire Scanlan
TV DOCUMENTARY: The Assassination of President Kennedy- Chris A. Peterson

GOLDEN EDDIE AWARD: Paul Greengrass
CAREER ACHIEVEMENT AWARD: Richard Halsey

ACE Eddies Awards

The American Cinema Editors prize is a big one as the Best Film Editing prize is typically linked to the Best Picture prize (not that such things matter much as any more.)   The ACE Eddies are an integral guild mention.  Here are the winners:

BEST FILM EDITING

DRAMA: Argo- William Goldenberg
MUSICAL OR COMEDY: Silver Linings Playbook- Jay Cassidy & Crispin Struthers
ANIMATED FEATURE: Brave- Nicholas C. Smith
DOCUMENTARY: Searching for Sugar Man- Malik Bendjelloul

ACE Eddie Nominations

BEST FILM EDITING (Drama)
Argo- William Goldenberg
Life of Pi- Tim Squyres
Lincoln- Michael Kahn
Skyfall- Stuart Baird
Zero Dark Thirty- Dylan Tichenor & William Goldenberg

BEST FILM EDITING (Comedy or Musical)
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel- Chris Gill
Les Miserables- Melanie Ann Oliver & Chris Dickens
Moonrise Kingdom- Andrew Weisblum
Silver Linings Playbook- Jay Cassidy & Crispin Struthers
Ted- Jeff Freeman

BEST FILM EDITING (Animated Feature)
Brave- Nicholas C. Smith
Frankenweenie- Chris Lebenzon & Mark Solomon
Rise of the Guardians- Joyce Arrastia
Wreck-It-Ralph- Tim Mertins

BEST FILM EDITING (Documentary Feature)
Samsara- Ron Fricke & Mark Magidson
Searching for Sugar Man- Malik Bendjelloul
West of Memphis- Billy McMillin

ACE "Eddies" Awards

The American Cinema Editors Guild has spoken and the "Eddies" go to:

BEST FILM EDITING (Drama)
The Descendants

BEST FILM EDITING (Musical or Comedy)
The Artist

What does this tell us?  Absolutely nothing, except confirm The Artist as frontrunner status, and give The Descendants a small sting of potential spoiler status.

ACE Eddie Nominations

Here's one of the biggies.  The ACE Eddies honor the best in film editing, which many have argued that without a complementary Best Film Editing Oscar nomination, a film simply cannot win Best Picture.  No motion picture has done so since 1980's Ordinary People, which Crash-fans rally as the defacto argument in its triumph over Brokeback Mountain in 2005.  Of course, the ACE Eddie offer both drama and comedy categories, so this honor helps only slightly.  Here are the nominees:

BEST FILM EDITING (Drama)
The Descendants- Kevin Tent
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo- Angus Wall & Kirk Baxter
Hugo- Thelma Schoonmaker
Moneyball- Christopher Tellefsen
War Horse- Michael Kahn

BEST FILM EDITING (Musical or Comedy)
The Artist- Anne-Sophia Bion & Michel Hazanavicius
Bridesmaids- William Kerr & Michael L. Sale
Midnight in Paris- Alisa Lepselter
My Week With Marilyn- Adam Recht
Young Adult- Dana E. Glauberman

BEST FILM EDITING (Animated Feature)
The Adventures of Tintin- Michael Kahn
Puss in Boots- Eric Dapkewicz
Rango- Craig Wood

The big snub: The Help

American Cinema Editors Nominations

The American Cinema Editors acknowledge the intangible work of film editing, the unsung heroes of the filmmaking process.  Much is noted in the necessity to be appreciated by the film editors to have any chance of a Best Picture win.  The last film to win Best Picture at the Oscars without a film editing Oscar was 1980's Ordinary People.

The nominees for the 2010 ACE "Eddies" are:

BEST DRAMA

• Black Swan- Andrew Weisblum
• The Fighter- Pamela Martin
• Inception- Lee Smith
• The King's Speech- Tariq Anwar
• The Social Network- Angus Wall & Kirk Baxter

And here again, we are reminded of our "top five."

BEST MUSICAL OR COMEDY

• Alice in Wonderland- Chris Lebenzon
• Easy A- Susan Littenberg
• The Kids Are All Right- Jeffrey M. Werner
• Made in Dagenham- Michael Parker
• Scott Pilgrim vs. the World- Jonathon Amos & Paul Machliss

Scott Pilgrim

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

• Despicable Me- Gregory Perler & Pam Ziegenhagen
• How to Train Your Dragon- Maryann Brandon & Darren T. Holmes
• Toy Story 3- Ken Schretzmann & Lee Unkrich

 BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

• Exit Through the Gift Shop- Tom Fulford & Chris King
• Inside Job- Chad Beck & Adam Bolt
• Waiting for 'Superman'- Jay Cassidy, Greg Finton & Kim Roberts

Banksy's cutting is award worthy

No True Grit means one of two things: the guilds aren't feeling the Coen Brothers western, thus perhaps a chance that the Academy won't come full circle with the film; or that's peaking later than the voting seasons of many of the guilds, which is likely the more truthful statement-- earning $100 million just before ballots are due won't hurt.  The good news is the joyful inclusion of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and Exit Through the Gift Shop.  The whatever news is the now predictive quality of the "top five," no matter the value of the individual film.  The bad news is the awful, lazy award acceptance of the dreadful Alice in Wonderland.

American Cinema Editors Nominations

Here's a critical guild that influences the best picture Oscar...the editors, the unsung heroes of filmmaking.



DRAMATIC FEATURE

• Avatar- Stephen Rivkin, John Refua & James Cameron
• District 9- Julian Clarke
  
• The Hurt Locker- Bob Murawski & Chris Innis
• Star Trek- Maryann Brandon & Mary Jo Markey
  
• Up in the Air- Dana Glauberman

I'm starting to warm to the idea of 3 sci-fi features actually getting into the best picture race...I'm fairly certain I might feel foolish after that statement, but the guilds are feasting on District 9 and Star Trek, along with the expected lust of Avatar-- it's telling more so here that films like Precious and Invictus were ignored, while the sci-fi trifecta looms large...

COMEDY FEATURE

• (500) Days of Summer- Alan Edward Bell
• The Hangover- Debra Neil-Fisher
• Julie & Julia- Richard Marks
• It's Complicated- Joe Hutshing & David Mortiz
• A Serious Man- Roderick Jaynes (the Coens)

ANIMATED FEATURE

• Coraline- Christopher Murray & Ronald Sanders
• Fantastic Mr. Fox- Andrew Weisblum
• Up- Kevin Nolting

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

• The Cove- Geoffrey Richman
• Food, Inc.- Kim Roberts
• This is It- Don Brochu