The AFIs

The Winners
Best Film:Look Both Ways
Best Direction: Sarah Watt, Look Both Ways
Best Actress: Cate Blanchett, Little Fish
Best Actor: Hugo Weaving, Little Fish
Best Supporting Actress: Noni Hazlehurst, Little Fish
Best Supporting Actor: Anthony Hayes, Look Both Ways
Best Original Screenplay: Look Both Ways
Best Adapted Screenplay: Three Dollars
Best Editing: Little Fish
Best Original Music Score: The Proposition
Best Production Design: The Proposition
Best Costume Design: The Proposition
Best Cinematography: The Proposition
Best Documentary: Landminds - A Love Story
Best Short Film: Jewboy
Best Animation Short: The Mysterious Geographical Explorations of Jasper Morello
International Award for Best Actress (Australian Actress in a Foreign Film): Emily Browning, Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events
International Award for Best Actor: Russell Crowe, Cinderella Man
Internation Award for Excellence in Filmmaking: Roger Savage, House of Flying Daggers (Sound)

So, I can't really complain AT ALL about the winners. The deserving winners won! How about that. Shocking.

Look Both Ways (ie; the best Australian film of 2005) winning for Best Picture, Direction and Screenplay was completely worthy, and it's Supporting Actor win was won purely because that category was so dead. Hugo Weaving probably should've been placed there and allowed David Wenham (Three Dollars) or Alex O'Loughlin (Oyster Farmer) to be nominated in his place in Best Actor. Cause, it's extremely odd that neither of them were nominated.

Cate Blanchett was a good choice, although I wouldn't have been upset if Justine Clarke had won, either. Noni Hazlehurst! NONI FREAKIN HAZELHURST! God, she's brilliant in Little Fish. She owns every single scene she's in in that movie. A true world-class nominee. "What do you want Trace?" she was excellent.

The only film I hadn't seen of the major players (excluding docos and the like) was Wolf Creek and Three Dollars. It was odd that neither Human Touch or Peaches got any nominations. Jacqueline MacKenzie should've easily grabbed a nod in Best Actress over someone like Saskia Burmeister, who I like but wasn't exactly the best thing about Hating Allison Ashley, which (let's be honest) was not one of the finer moments of Australian cinema this year. Twas also odd that Oyster Farmer was nominated for Best Picture and Cinematography and then nothing else. That was a great movie, my second favourite Aussie film of the year.

But, still, 2005 was a good year for Aussie movies. The best since 2001, when there was Moulin Rouge!, Lantana, The Bank, La Spagnola, The Diaries of Vaslav Nijinski, etc...

and, well, anything is better than last year when Somersault won EVERY SINGLE AWARD. Blech.

But, really, I'm discussing Australian movies in a positive light so something must be right!
I don't really understand how Emily Browning won the Best International Actress award thing. It was also presented really strangely. They didn't even know they were having the category! They just sprung it on her. Russell is apparently quite good in Man, and I haven't seen it, so I can't comment.

The awards themselves were still pretty weak. What was with having Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman and Naomi Watts present awards VIA SATELLITE. WTF? Russell Crowe as the host was... tolerable. Sometimes he's be really annoying, but other times he was actually genuinely funny. And Geoffrey Rush was great. "I am the face of Loreal Paris gone completely wrong". I love Geoffrey Rush! Oh, Cate Blanchett wasn't there to accept her award though so she had a video acceptance, but it wasn't as funny as when she won at the IF Awards a few nights back (which I didn't watch, but I saw her acceptance speech), and what it was was George Clooney sitting in a chair pretending to be Cate Blanchett. "I'm currently filming The George Clooney Story and couldn't be there tonight" and continued doing this, until his makeup artist (ie; Cate) came on the screen and started retouching him. She whispered him something and George goes "Oh, and thank you mum". Heheh.

The Mysterious Geographical... winning makes me even more excited to see it. It starts screening at CinemaNova soon as a double bill alongside (and, this is one of the oddest combos i've heard of) The Man With The Movie Camera, an experimental Russian movie from the 30s (i think it's the 30s, i can't really remember though). It's a very oddball twosome, but whatever. I've wanted to see Movie Camera since I read about it in 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die and it's in the cinema, so... whatev.

Oh! The TV Awards, i forgot to mention them because they were boring as batshit.
If you didn't already have enough hate John Saffran, you do now. John Saffran Vs. God won, like, 4 awards! And most of them were against We Can be Heroes, so it's even worse!!! I heart Ja'mie. And then Chris Lilley lost Best Actor on Television! TO SHANE BOURNE!!! Although, Shane did give a funny speech, but whatever. Chris Lilley! Who knew anything good (and THAT good) would come out of Big Bite. At least Shane Bourne acknowledged him.



Ja'mie for Prime Minister!!! (she's such a fox)

And I've never seen Love My Way (hi FOXTEL!!) so I can't comment on it's winning every award it was up for basically.

I'll leave you with an image of Ja'mie looking hot as hell (at the Detention Centre!). She's so lucky. Genes like that don't just occur by accident.




Ciao!