2012 Academy Award Winners

Academy Awards 2012
[for films released in 2011]

Most Awards: The Artist (Michel Hazanavicius) and Hugo (Martin Scorsese), 5 each [Iron Lady won 2]

Best Picture: The Artist 
Best Director: Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist

Best Actress: Meryl Streep, Iron Lady [This was Streep's third Oscar, and her 17th nomination, the most ever; her 3rd for acting ties her with Katharine Hepburn]
Best Actor: Jean Dujardin, The Artist
Best Supporting Actress: Olivia Spencer, The Help
Best Supporting Male: Christopher Plummer, Beginners

Best Cinematography: Hugo (Robert Richardson)
Best Film Editing: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Angus Wall, Kirk Baxter)
Best Art Direction: Hugo (Dante Ferretti, Francesca Lo Schiavo)
Best Special Visual Effects: Hugo (Robert Legato, Joss Williams, Ben Grossmann, Alex Henning)
Best Makeup: Iron Lady (Mark Coulier, J. Roy Helland)
Best Adapted Screenplay: The Descendants (Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon and Jim Rash)
Best Screenplay Directly for the Screen: Midnight in Paris (Woody Allen)

Best Music: The Artist (Ludovic Bource)
Best Song: Brett MacKenzie, ‘Man or Muppet’ (The Muppets)
Best Sound Mixing: Hugo (Tom Fleischman, John Midgley)
Best Sound Editing: Hugo (Philip Stockton, Eugene Gearty)

Asghar Farhadi of Iran, with his 

Oscar for best foreign language film

Best Foreign Film: A Separation (dir. Asghar Farhadi, Iran)
Best Documentary: Undefeated (Daniel Lindsay, T.J. Martin, Rich Middlemas)
Best Animated Feature: Rango (dir. Gore Verbinski)

Best Live Action Short: The Short (Terry George, Oorlagh George)
Best Animated Short: The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore (William Joyce, Brandon Oldenburg)
Best Documentary Short: Saving Face (Daniel Junge, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy)

Note: Never one to miss a chance for propaganda, the Iranian government, which before denounced artists critical of the government and especially filmmakers winning awards at festivals, immediately proclaimed it's first Oscar for foreign language film as "a victory of Israel", which also had a film nominated. In Farhadi's speech, he said that he hoped his film, which is critical of the lack of freedom women possess in his fundamentalist nation, would help remove the "cloud that politics has placed over perceptions of the people of his country".

Top Ranked Films of Martin Scorsese

These are all the films of Scorsese’s that made the top 1000 in our 2011 update of the Top Ranked 1000 Films on the Net, all polls. Martin had 13 titles in all, second only to Hitchcock's 14, and in my opinion, a much better, more serious body of work than Hitch's.

1. Taxi Driver (1976) #3
2. Raging Bull (1980) bw #25
3. Goodfellas (1990) #26
4. Casino (1995) #120
5. Mean Streets (1973) #166
6. The Departed (2006) #191 [AA]
7. The King of Comedy (1982) #393
8. Age of Innocence, The (1993) #417
9. Last Temptation of Christ, The (1988) #494
10. After Hours (1985) #531
11. Shutter Island (2010) #567
12. My Voyage to Italy (1999) #755
13. Last Waltz , The (1978) #796

More ranked, but outside the top 1000
14. The Aviator #1265
15. New York, New York #1410
16. Gangs of New York (2002) #1681
17. No Direction Home #1824
18. Personal Journey w Martin Scorsese #2072

This list could also include the excellent Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, which won Ellen Burstyn her only Oscar®, so far anyway, as best actress. The one really missing in the top 1000 to me is Gangs of New York, which came it at #1681.

See the full list of top ranked 100 directors here: Top Ranked 100 Directors, 2011 Edition

Best 10 Films of Martin Scorsese

When Scorsese finally won a best director Oscar®,

 for The Departed, he said "I think I want a recount",

making fun of the 2000 Presidential election,

and the fact that he had never won an Oscar®

Ranked by my order of preference, click for my review

1. Raging Bull (1980) best actor Oscar® for Robert De Niro, No. 75 on the IMDB top 250, 21 awards overall [This is my favorite boxing film, and one of the greatest performances in cinema history. Thelma Schoonmacher's editing also won an Oscar®]
2. The Departed (2006) best picture Oscar® (four total), No. 58 on the IMDB 250, 53 awards overall [Oscars® for picture, director, editing, screenplay]
3. Goodfellas (1990) supporting actor Oscar® for Joe Pesci, No. 15 on the IMDB 250, 35 awards overall
4. Gangs of New York (2002) no Oscars® (10 nominations, a record for non-winners), 33 awards overall, including 17 for Daniel Day-Lewis
5. Taxi Driver (1976) No. 41 on the IMDB top 250, winner Palm d'Or at Cannes, 19 awards overall
6. The King of Comedy (1982)  3 awards overall (no Oscar® nods)
7. Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974) best actress Oscar® for Ellen Burstyn, BAFTA for best film, 5 awards overall
8. Mean Streets (1973) 3 awards (two for De Niro's supporting performance, no Oscar® nods)
9. The Age of Innocence (1993) one Oscar® ( for costumes, 11 nominations), 11 awards overall
10. The Aviator (2004) 5 Oscars®, incl supporting actress for Cate Blanchett, 50 awards overall [Oscars® for supp. actress, art direction, editing, cinematography, costume design]
11. Shutter Island (2008) No. 249 on the IMDB 250, 3 awards overall (no Oscar® nods)

[That's 236 awards total for just these films, including 14 Oscars®: 5 for Aviator, 4 for Departed, 2 for Raging Bull, 3 others 1 each.. Scorsese has won 85 awards himself, most for directing (41 were for individual feature films) but some are for screenplays - his only Oscar® is for directing The Departed]

Ok, so we gave Marty 11 films, all of his are worth seeing, especially these..

The last ones I eliminated were: The Last Waltz, (two awards) primarily because it was a documentary, and really just a music concert.. the other was the overlong musical New York, New York ..(one award, for De Niro's performance).. it just wasn't as involving as his typical films.. also The Last Temptation of Christ  -the casting was just too bizarre, Willem Dafoe as Jesus, Harvey Keitel as Paul, the list goes on.. it did win one award, at Venice - ironically, it's only Oscar® nomination was for Scorsese's directing

Thelma Schoonmaker has edited every Scorsese

film from Raging Bull on, and has won 3 Oscars®,

for Raging Bull, The Departed, and The Aviator.

She is one of the best editors ever

Martin almost went into the priesthood in 1956, but thankfully decided to get a film degree from NYU instead. A dedicated New Yorker (who never wanted any part of L.A.), many believe this is why he was shunned at the Oscars® for so many years. Backing up that argument, another die-hard New Yorker was the recently deceased Sydney Lumet, who never won an Oscar® after directing these classics: Network, 12 Angry Men, The Verdict, Equus, Dog Day Afternoon, Serpico, The Pawnbroker, Murder on the Orient Express. [He'll be the subject of a later Best 10 Films post..]

An interesting early film of Marty's is Boxcar Bertha.. starring Barbara Hershey, apparently it's based on a true story. "America in the 30's was a free country" - that's because nobody had any money left anyway.