The Bob Awards

Well the top 20 list...yeah, that would take forever and I'd probably change my mind about some of them the instant I posted it. So no top 20. But who else has an award to recognize achievement in eyebrow acting?
And the winners are...

Art Direction

The Science of Sleep



Cinematography

Children of Men



Visual Effects

Pan's Labyrinth



Costume Design

Marie Antoinette



Film Editing

Conversations With Other Women



Sound

Children of Men



Score

The Illusionist- Philip Glass



Animated Film

Hoodwinked



Makeup

Pan's Labyrinth



Song

Idlewild- Outkast: "PJ and Rooster"



Sup. Actor

Rob Brydon- Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story



Sup. Actress

Meryl Streep- The Devil Wears Prada



Actor

(tie)

Sacha Baron Cohen- Borat: Cultural Learnings of America For Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan

and

Peter O'Toole- Venus



Actress

Ellen Page- Hard Candy



Adapted Screenplay

Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story- Frank Cotrell Boyce (credited as Martin Hardy)



Original Screenplay

Snow Cake- Angela Pell



Director

(tie)

Alfonso Cuaron- Children of Men

and

Paul Greengrass- United 93



Picture

United 93



And now the fun stuff…



Funniest Movie: OSS 117 (Do what you have to but get your hands on a copy of this movie!)



Funniest Performance: Sacha Baron Cohen- Borat



Peter Gallagher Award For Special Achievement in Eyebrow Acting: Jean Dujardin- OSS 117



Most Entertaining Movie- Casino Royale



"XXX" Award For Most Awesomely Over the Top Movie- Crank



"Unforgiven" Award For Movie Most Immersed in Badassery: (tie)- "Casino Royale" and "Crank"



Clint Eastwood Award For Most Badass Performance: Daniel Craig- Casino Royale



Best Villain: Meryl Streep- The Devil Wears Prada



Character I Most Wanted To Punch in the Face: Eno- Art School Confidential (There's one in every class.)



Best Child Performances: (Male) Jaden Smith- The Pursuit of Happyness

(Female) Abigail Breslin- Little Miss Sunshine



Self-Proclaimed Cult Movie That Doesn't Deserve One: Snakes on a Plane (Still have to love the personalized Sam Jackson phone messages.)



Most Disappointing Movie: Miami Vice



Most Pleasant Surprise: The Pursuit of Happyness



Best Ensemble Cast: (tie) Little Miss Sunshine; Snow Cake



Actor of the Year: Aaron Eckhart for bringing his awesomeness to "Thank You For Smoking," "Conversations with Other Women," and being the best part of "The Black Dahlia."



"Withnail and I" Award For Best On-Screen Friendship- Peter O'Toole and Leslie Philips in "Venus."



Best Cameo- Adam Brody in "Thank You For Smoking" (Seth Cohen lives!)



Funniest Scene- Borat goes to dinner. ("Where you want I put this?")



Best Fight Scene- Borat vs. Azamat (Ken Davitian)



Most Quotable Lines: An unimpressed Rob Brydon watches dailies of war scenes declaring, "I am leading literally tens of men."- Tristram Shandy.

"Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater because then all you get is a wet, critically injured baby."- For Your Consideration.



Good Movie Inexplicably Mistreated By Its Studio: Idiocracy (What was Fox worried about?)



Most Underrated Movie: Art School Confidential (Any movie that mercilessly shreds pretentious college students is pure gold… but maybe that's why most critics and college students hated it.)



Most Underseen Major Release: Stranger Than Fiction (Will Ferrell fans stayed away because it wasn't silly enough. Film buffs stayed away because it starred Will Ferrell. Both missed out on his best performance and a very smart and funny film.)



Best Crowd Pleaser (which incidentally deserved a much bigger crowd): The World's Fastest Indian



Most Overrated By Critics: Monster House



Most Overrated By Audiences: Apocalypto (The more I think about this movie the more I hate it.)



Most Overrated By Awards Organizations: Babel (Yeah it's good, but it's not thaaaat good.)



Best Movie With An Unfortunate Title: Wah-Wah (Richard E. Grant's first time as writer-director was an incredibly heart felt story of a young man getting through a difficult childhood.)



Best Movie Set in Africa: Wah-Wah (Finally a movie set in Africa that doesn't have the condescending Hollywood/Bono touch. Am I honestly the only one who's sick of the Hollywood/Bono crowd acting like nobody knew there were problems in Africa before they started talking about it?)



Best Family Film: Hoodwinked



Worst FF: Monster House (Less than ten minutes in the frightened child behind me justifiably says, "Mommy, I wanna go home.")



Worst Movie That I Actually Subjected Myself To: Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector



Probably the Actual Worst Movie: Little Man (I just couldn't.)



Worst Trailer: Little Man



Worst Actor: Sean Penn- All the King's Men



Most Egotistical Bit of Casting: M. Night Shyamalan casting himself as a man writing a book that will save the world in "Lady in the Water."



Best Action Sequence: "Crank"… the whole movie.



Most Boring Action Sequence: The car chase in "The Da Vinci Code"



Don't Worry, it's not your fault these movies sucked: Ian McKellen- The Da Vinci Code; Paul Giamatti- Lady in the Water; Hugh Grant- American Dreamz



Most Miscast: Hilary Swank- The Black Dahlia (Did anyone at all really think that she looked even remotely like Mia Kirshner?)



Worst Looking Movies- "Miami Vice" and "Apocalypto." Hey, Michael Mann and Mel Gibson: You guys are great directors whose movies look amazing…but only when you shoot them on FILM.



Best Magician Movie: "The Prestige" just slightly over "The Illusionist." "Scoop" was pretty good too.



"Hoosiers" Award For Inspirational Film That Is Genuinely Inspirational: (tie) The World's Fastest Indian; The Pursuit of Happyness



Names You Need To Remember: (Male) Max Minghella- Art School Confidential; James McAvoy- The Last King of Scotland (I don't care what anyone says, that movie belongs to him.)

(Female) Ellen Page- Hard Candy



Who Knew He Was This Good: Ben Affleck- Hollywoodland



Movies I wish I could have made it to: The Good German; The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (it's supposedly on DVD but danged if I can find it); Half Nelson; 49 Up; 13 Tzameti



Best Movie-Going Experience of 2006: Watching a 35mm British Technicolor print of the original cut of "Star Wars"… in a man's house!


Best Ending: The Prestige

FREAKAZOID!

Come on Warner Bros., put this show on DVD:

April 20 Can't Come Soon Enough!

Deputy Travis Junior

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The Day After Die Hard

Here They Are At Last...

THE BOB AWARD NOMINATIONS!!! Proof that I spent an awful lot of time watching movies over the past year. I counted all year long and in all I saw exactly 100 of the films released in 2006 plus two more that have yet to be released ("Snow Cake" and "OSS 117," both of which incidentally did very well). It's incomplete sure. I missed a few that might have been here. For instance two of my favorite movies of '05 ("Everything Is Illuminated" and "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang") I wasn't able to see until long after I'd made my list for that year. So yeah, it's not perfect but I did the best I could. Actually seeing as many as I did was quite an undertaking and honestly I doubt I'll be doing it again. It's just too much, man! When I announce the winners I'll also (probably) post my top 20 for the year. Yes, in some of the categories I have six nominees instead of five. You got a problem with that? Start up your own unofficial awards that don't actually mean anything and slap your name on it. So without further Apu here they are, once again putting the Oscars to shame:

Art Direction

The Fountain

The Illusionist

Pan’s Labyrinth

The Prestige

The Science of Sleep

Cinematography

Children of Men

The Illusionist

Marie Antoinette

OSS 117

United 93

The World’s Fastest Indian

Visual Effects

The Fountain

Pan’s Labyrinth

The Science of Sleep

Costume Design

The Devil Wears Prada

The Fountain

Marie Antoinette

The Prestige

V For Vendetta

Film Editing

Children of Men

Conversations with Other Women

The Prestige

The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada

United 93

The World’s Fastest Indian

Sound

Children of Men

The Descent

Flags of Our Fathers

Letters From Iwo Jima

V For Vendetta

Score

Flags of Our Fathers- Clint Eastwood

The Illusionist- Philip Glass

Joyeux Noel- Philippe Rombi

Notes on a Scandal- Philip Glass

The Prestige- David Julyan

Wah-Wah- Patrick Doyle

Animated Film

Cars

Hoodwinked

A Scanner Darkly

Makeup

The Descent

Nanny McPhee

Pan’s Labyrinth

The Queen

Slither

Song

Children of Men- Jarvis Cocker: Running the World

Idlewild- Outkast: PJ and Rooster

Little Miss Sunshine- Devotchka: ‘Til the End of Time

Sup. Actor

Adam Beach- Flags of Our Fathers

Rob Brydon- Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story

Eddie Murphy- Dreamgirls

Leslie Philips- Venus

Michael Sheen- The Queen

Mark Wahlberg- The Departed

Sup. Actress

Abigail Breslin- Little Miss Sunshine

Blythe Danner- The Last Kiss

Carrie-Anne Moss- Snow Cake

Meryl Streep- The Devil Wears Prada

Emma Thompson- Stranger Than Fiction

Actor

Sacha Baron Cohen- Borat: Cultural Learnings of America For Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan

Jean Dujardin- OSS 117

Anthony Hopkins- The World’s Fastest Indian

Peter O’Toole- Venus

Alan Rickman- Snow Cake

Will Smith- The Pursuit of Happyness

Actress

Judi Dench- Notes on a Scandal

Jennifer Hudson- Dreamgirls

Helen Mirren- The Queen

Ellen Page- Hard Candy

Sigourney Weaver- Snow Cake

Adapted Screenplay

Art School Confidential- Daniel Clowes

Children of Men- Alfonso Cuaron & Timothy J. Sexton and David Arata and Mark Fergus & Hawk Ostby

The Departed- William Monahan

Notes on a Scandal- Patrick Marber

Thank You For Smoking- Jason Reitman

Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story- Frank Cotrell Boyce (as Martin Hardy)

Original Screenplay

For Your Consideration- Christopher Guest & Eugene Levy

Joyeux Noel- Christian Carion

Little Miss Sunshine- Michael Arndt

OSS 117- Jean-Francois Halin and Michel Hazanavicius

Snow Cake- Angela Pell

Stranger Than Fiction- Zach Helm

Director

Alfonso Cuaron- Children of Men

Michel Hazanavicius- OSS 117

Marc Evans- Snow Cake

Marc Forster- Stranger Than Fiction

Paul Greengrass- United 93

Best Picture

Children of Men

OSS 117

Snow Cake

Stranger Than Fiction

United 93

Best "Supporting" Actress?

Jennifer Hudson is outstanding in "Dreamgirls." Totally deserving of an Oscar nomination. The problem is she's in the supporting category. Anyone who's seen the movie can tell you she's the main character. When Kevin Spacey won for "The Usual Suspects" the same thing happened. He has more screen time than anyone else in that film, his character drives the story and yet he won Supporting Actor. The main reason I haven't added to the seeming avalanche of praise for Forest Whitaker in "The Last King of Scotland" isn't because the performance is a let down. Far from it, he's outstanding. But James McAvoy is the lead and ultimately his character is the more interesting and complex, and most likely the greater acting challenge. If anybody from that movie should be considered for Best Actor it's him. Whitaker is a dominating figure to be sure (he's playing Idi Amin after all), but the lead? Here's a very good article from "The San Francisco Gate" that is yet another reminder that the Oscars really aren't about honoring the best achievements in film in a given year:

In "The Devil Wears Prada," plucky Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway) comes to New York in pursuit of a journalism career, endures professional and personal torture at the hands of beastly boss Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep), and emerges battle-tested, wiser and simply fabulous. Audiences will be surprised to learn that Andy is apparently not the film's protagonist.

In "The Last King of Scotland," idealistic young doctor Nicholas Garrigan (James McAvoy) wants to be anywhere but home, so he signs up to work in a clinic in Uganda. Unfortunately for him, the ascending Idi Amin (Forest Whitaker) takes the Scottish physician in his bruising embrace. McAvoy is in nearly every scene, but it's Whitaker, who's onscreen perhaps a third as much, whom awards-doling organizations call the film's lead.

Presumably, no one dared tell Streep or Whitaker they weren't the primary figures in their films -- hence the deluge of lead nominations for them.

"I think it does serious damage to the integrity of the awards bodies," says Nathaniel Rogers of the Web site the Film Experience. "These decisions continue to make most awards look like easily manipulated gift bags for stars, rather than any serious recognition of acting craft. ... It's a horrible shift that seems to be getting worse each year."

Among other contenders, one could argue that Golden Globe-nominated lead actress Beyoncé Knowles is no more prominent in "Dreamgirls" than Golden Globe-winning supporting actress Jennifer Hudson (the latter in a role that won the lead-actress Tony and Drama Desk awards for Jennifer Holliday). Leonardo DiCaprio, nominated as the lead in "The Departed" by the Golden Globes, the British Academy and the Broadcast Film Critics Association, is up for the supporting honor from his own union, the Screen Actors Guild.

There's nothing new about actors and studios jockeying for position during awards season; sometimes it's a legitimate wrangling over who, between roughly equal-size roles, should get the lion's share of the promotion (Think "Pulp Fiction," and the trumpeting of John Travolta as lead and Samuel L. Jackson as supporting). But if Jamie Foxx wasn't the lead in "Collateral" (2004), who was? The story started and ended with him, and he was onscreen for virtually the entire movie. The same is true of Ethan Hawke in "Training Day" (2001). Both men received supporting nominations from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, but who were they supporting?

And why does any of this matter?

Hollywood is notorious for following rather than leading, jumping on genre bandwagons and being slow to react to real-world issues. But during awards season, the studios have found it much better to lead than to support. A 2002 study by Colby College economics professor Randy A. Nelson found that films receiving best actor or actress nominations could get box-office boosts of up to $750,000 for each honor. He later revised that estimate toward a cool $1 million. And wins in those categories, he said, could be worth $5.6 million in grosses.

Supporting nods, however, resulted in no discernable box-office bump.

"The main categories that the public seems to pay attention to are picture, actor and actress," says Brandon Gray, president and publisher of the Web site Box Office Mojo. "Last year, George Clooney got nominated and won (best supporting actor) for 'Syriana' and it had no impact on that movie's business. ... It looks like (lead actress nominations) helped 'Monster' with Charlize Theron and 'Monster's Ball' with Halle Berry.

"Those are modest examples, but they made most of their money after being nominated, and those were the most significant awards they were up for. Prior to its nomination, the box office for 'Monster's Ball' was about $4 million; its eventual take was $31 million."

Gray is quick to add that the link between box-office take and awards can be a self-fulfilling prophecy, as studios often gear release patterns to maximize the honors' impact. Thus there is motive, but is there opportunity? The studios can spend like crazy to lobby for specific Oscar nods, but the final decisions are out of their hands.

"The actor's achievement is (automatically) eligible in both categories and it's entirely up to the actors' branch," says John Pavlik, director of communications for the Motion Picture Academy. "The leading and supporting categories are tabulated at the same time by Price Waterhouse. Let's say John Pavlik is up for an award and half of the voters think it's supporting and half think it's lead; whichever of those reaches the magic number first (about 20 percent of ballots cast) is the category he's nominated in."

So, if the votes come in for Polonius as the lead and Hamlet as support?

"If the actors as a group thought that Polonius was the lead in that particular performance of 'Hamlet,' that's the lead," Pavlik says.

Financial considerations don't explain the SAG Awards supporting nomination that DiCaprio received for "The Departed."

"We allow our actors to decide which category they wish to be considered for," says Kathy Connell, producer of the 13th annual SAG Awards. SAG rules stipulate that actors, their representatives or studios, with the actors' permission, make the submissions. "We're their union, and we think they know which category they should be considered for better than we ever could. ...

"Who is to say, for instance, in 'Babel,' who's lead and who's support? If you've done a 'Dirty Harry,' I think Dirty Harry is the lead. If it's James Bond, James Bond is the lead. There may be other (cases) in which there are dual performances; you may have multiple leads."

To be sure, "The Departed" has received much recognition for the work of its cast as a whole, but while it's not as clear-cut as it is in "Casino Royale" who the protagonist is in "Departed" (DiCaprio, Matt Damon or both), it's also not as murky as ensemble pieces such as "Babel" and "Dreamgirls."

"When DiCaprio is up for supporting actor for 'Departed,' it's pretty ridiculous when he's clearly the lead actor," Gray says, laughing. "It's absurd. Awards season is a political game, and those most interested in it are Hollywood and the media who dissect all the minutiae of the season."

Whatever confusion there might be hasn't generated complaints from SAG members.

"No, no," Connell says. "Occasionally one of the reporters will question it, but the actors have never complained."

That doesn't stop some industry observers from fuming about blurred borders.

"The most puzzling thing about it ... at least as far as (the) Oscars and SAG are concerned, is that actors vote on the nominations," Rogers says. "They don't seem to understand that honoring leading movie stars in these supporting categories prevents ... hardworking supporting players from receiving public appreciation. Below-the-title actors don't have the massive perks of stardom, and now they lose their one chance at industry honors, too? Shameful."

Michael Ordona is a freelance writer.