Jump to content

79th Academy Awards

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Mike Hackney (talk | contribs) at 05:35, 27 February 2007 (→‎Notable events). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

79th
File:79aa poster domestic.jpg
DateSunday, February 25 2007
SiteKodak Theatre in Hollywood, California
Hosted byEllen DeGeneres
Preshow hostsChris Connelly
Lisa Ling
Allyson Wterman
Produced byLaura Ziskin
Directed byLouis J. Horvitz
Television coverage
Duration3 hours 47 minutes

The 79th Academy Awards ceremony, honoring the best in film for 2006, took place on February 25 2007 at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, California. Ellen DeGeneres hosted the ceremony for the first time.[1] This was the sixth time that the Kodak Theatre has hosted the ceremonies since its construction. It was also the 32nd time that the ceremony was televised in the United States by ABC, which is under contract through 2014.[2] The producer was Laura Ziskin.[3] The announcers were Don LaFontaine and Gina Tuttle.

The nominees were announced on January 23 at 5:38 a.m. PST (13:38 UTC) by Academy president Sid Ganis and actress Salma Hayek, at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in the Academy's Beverly Hills headquarters. Bolstered by three nominations for Best Song, the musical Dreamgirls received the most nominations (eight), but became the first film ever to receive the most nominations without being included among the nominees for Best Picture. Babel received the second-most nominations with seven.

Major winners

This is a breakdown of only major winners. For a complete list of nominees and winners, see: 79th Academy Awards nominees and winners

Feature films

Category Winner Producers/Country
Best motion picture of the year The Departed Graham King
Best foreign language film The Lives of Others Template:Flagcountry2
Best documentary feature An Inconvenient Truth Davis Guggenheim
Best animated feature film of the year Happy Feet George Miller

Acting

Category Winner Film
Best actor in a leading role Forest Whitaker The Last King of Scotland
Best actress in a leading role Helen Mirren The Queen
Best actor in a supporting role Alan Arkin Little Miss Sunshine
Best actress in a supporting role Jennifer Hudson Dreamgirls

Writing

Category Winner Film
Original screenplay Michael Arndt Little Miss Sunshine
Adapted screenplay William Monahan The Departed

Directing

Category Winner Film
Academy Award for Directing Martin Scorsese The Departed

Special honors

Category Winner
Academy Honorary Award Ennio Morricone
The Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award Sherry Lansing

Films with multiple nominations

Films with multiple wins

Four
Three
Two

Presenters

Performers

Voting trends

For the second year in a row, no film received more than eight nominations, with the selections scattered among numerous films. Continuing a trend of the previous two years in the major nominations, Academy voters favored films which had struggled at the U.S. box office, although the Best Picture nominees performed slightly better than those of the previous year due to the presence of one sizable hit. The Departed had the best showing through January 21 with $121.7 million, placing the film 17th among the year's releases. However, the next best showing among the five nominees was that of Little Miss Sunshine, which placed 50th with $59.6 million. The Queen ($35.6 million), Babel ($23.7 million) and Letters from Iwo Jima ($2.4 million) completed the Best Picture field, but did not place among the year's top 80 box office hits.

Among the rest of the top 50 releases of 2006 in U.S. box office through the weekend before the nominations, only The Pursuit of Happyness (12th), Borat (15th), The Devil Wears Prada (16th) and Dreamgirls (28th) received nominations for directing, acting or writing, with only Dreamgirls gaining more than one nomination in those areas. The top 16 films in box office received a total of only 13 nominations, with 4 going to the year's top hit, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, and 2 others in the category of Animated Feature. Six of the ten nominations for Best Actor and Best Actress went to films which had grossed less than $8 million each.

For the second consecutive year, four of the Best Picture nominees were rated R (under 17 requires accompanying adult). Of the 88 nominations awarded to non-documentary feature films (apart from the Foreign Film category), a majority of 56 went to R-rated films (up from 43 one year earlier), 28 to films rated PG-13, 2 to PG-rated films (down from 16 the year before, and both for Animated Feature) and 2 to a G-rated film (the final nominee for Animated Feature). In a precise duplication of the previous year, R-rated films captured 32 of the 40 nominations for Best Picture, directing, screenwriting and acting. Non-R-rated films received exactly half of the nominations (24 of 48) in the remaining categories, primarily those in "below the line" areas (the editing, original score and sound editing categories accounted for 13 of the 24 nominations for R-rated films, while the categories for costume design, song, visual effects and animated feature accounted for 14 of the 24 nominations for non-R-rated films).

Peter O'Toole – who received his first nomination for Best Actor 44 years earlier – set a record for most years between nominations in that category, breaking Henry Fonda's record of 41 years (Katharine Hepburn received Best Actress nominations 48 years apart). Kevin O'Connell increased his number of nominations to 19 in the Best Sound Editing category. He is still without a win.

For the second year in a row, no film received more than four awards, and the awards for Best Picture and the four acting categories again went to five different films. Forest Whitaker won for his performance as Idi Amin, and Helen Mirren won for her role as Queen Elizabeth II, making it the sixth time – and second consecutive year – that both lead acting awards went to performers playing real people. No individual person won more than one award.

Notable events

  • About one-third of the way through the ceremonies, former U.S. Vice President Al Gore (An Inconvenient Truth) appeared with Best Actor nominee Leonardo DiCaprio (Blood Diamond) to congratulate the organizers for using environmentally-friendly practices in producing the show. DiCaprio set up a gag with Gore, in which he [DiCaprio] asked Gore (whose potential candidacy for the presidency has drawn wide speculation) if there was anything he wanted to announce.

I guess with a billion people watching, it's as good a time as any. So my fellow Americans, I'm going to take this opportunity right here and now to formally announce my intentions ...,

Gore announced, his voice then trailing away as the orchestra cut him off. After accepting Best Documentary along with Davis Guggenheim, he finished his earlier "incomplete" speech that global warming is a moral issue.[4]

  • Sacha Baron Cohen was set to present an Academy Award. However, after learning that he could not present the award as his journalist character Borat Sagdiyev, Cohen opted out.[5]
  • Jack Black and Will Ferrell opened with a musical number where both actors sing about the lack of Oscar recognision for comedians and improvise by roasting on nominated actors:
    • Black commented that he would assault Peter O'Toole with his Nickelodeon award, which is obviously less prominent than an Oscar.
    • Ferrell screamed Mark Wahlberg's name and tries to think of an insult but ended up praising him for his The Departed performance.
    • Ferrell mentioned Ryan Gosling as "Hip and Now", but threatened to break his hip, "right now."

Eventually, John C. Reilly rose from his seat and told the two that instead of fighting, they should star in both comedic and dramatic roles, much like his career. Jack and Will realized that if they took John's advice, an Oscar and Helen Mirren "will come home with them". When Reilly appeared, Ferrell nearly called him "Jack Black," stopping just before he finished the name.

  • Intro by Errol Morris, in which nominees and other prominent Hollywood figures poke fun at themselves.
  • The group Pilobolus formed film logos, such as The Devil Wears Prada, Little Miss Sunshine, and Snakes On A Plane, where the "snakes" play around with DeGeneres. She stated backstage that the members of the group are actually nude.

Mistakes

As sometimes happens with live (no-retake) shows, problems occurred.

  • A mistake was made early in on the show when the awards were presented for Best Adapted Screenplay to The Departed where the announcer incorrectly referred to it being based on a Japanese film. In fact, it was based on a Hong Kong film, Infernal Affairs. However, Martin Scorsese correctly referred to the Hong Kong film in his acceptance speech for his win for Best Directing.
  • While discussing the international diversity present in the nominated films' subjects, actors, directors and production teams, Ellen DeGeneres implied that Best Actress nominee Penélope Cruz was from Mexico, like Alfonso Cuarón and Guillermo Arriaga, but later apologized and acknowledged that Cruz is from Spain, not Mexico.
  • Will Ferrell mistakenly started to introduce John C. Reilly as the already present Jack Black before correcting himself.
  • Clint Eastwood struggled with reading his introduction to Ennio Morricone. Just as the presentation was cutting to a collection of film clips of Morricone's work, Eastwood was heard to say, "I should have worn my glasses."
  • During Scorsese's speech after winning Best Director, the usual on-screen graphic that displays the winner's film and category was not shown.
  • Instead of reading who the winner was in the category of Best Animated Short, Jaden Smith went on to present the next award for Live Action Short.

See also

References

  1. ^ "Ellen DeGeneres to Host 79th Academy Awards® Presentation". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 2006-09-07. Retrieved 2007-01-12. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  2. ^ "ABC and Academy Extend Oscar® Telecast Agreement". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 2005-02-07. Retrieved 2007-01-12. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  3. ^ "Laura Ziskin Returns As Telecast Producer for 79th Academy Awards". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 2006-07-21. Retrieved 2007-01-12. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  4. ^ yahoo.com, Violent thriller "Departed" blows away Oscars competition (Yahoo! News with Reuters) accessed Febraury 26th 2007
  5. ^ IMDb.com, IMDb's News archives., accessed February 26, 2007.

External links

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=79th_Academy_Awards&oldid=111270404"