Aviator Has Icarus-Like Flight

February 27, 2005

The Aviator started out Oscar evening extremely well, but it was Million Dollar Baby that won the biggest prizes at the 77th annual Academy Awards.

And the winners are:

Best Picture

• Million Dollar Baby

Best Director

• Clint Eastwood for Million Dollar Baby

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role

• Hilary Swank in Million Dollar Baby

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role

• Jamie Foxx in Ray

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role

• Morgan Freeman in Million Dollar Baby

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role

• Cate Blanchett in The Aviator

Best Animated Feature Film

• The Incredibles

Best Writing for an Original Screenplay

• Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Best Writing for an Adapted Screenplay

• Sideways

Art Direction

• The Aviator

Cinematography

• The Aviator

Costume Design

• The Aviator

Film Editing

• The Aviator

Best Makeup

• Lemony Snicket's a Series of Unfortunate Events

Sound Editing

• The Incredibles

Sound Mixing

• Ray

Visual Effects

• Spider-man 2

Music - Original Score

• Finding Neverland

Music - Original Song

• Al Otro Lado Del Río from The Motorcycle Diaries

Best Foreign Language Film

• The Sea Inside - Spain

Documentary Film - Feature Length

• Born into Brothels

Documentary Film - Short Subject

• Mighty Times: The Children's March

Short Film - Live Action

• Wasp

Short Film - Animated

• Ryan

Some initial reactions to the awards:

• The Aviator cleaned up earlier in the evening, winning several technical awards. But when it came to the big four, the film was shut out. However, it did walk away with 5 wins, the most of any film.
• Martin Scorsese lost out again. This was his seventh nomination, (5 for directing, 2 for writing), but he has yet to take home any hardware. One consolation: he's got a long way to catch up to Kevin O'Connell, who has been nominated 17 times for Best Sound without a single win.
• Million Dollar Baby won four of its seven nominations, including the biggest two awards and half the acting awards.
• On that note, Hilary Swank beat Annette Bening, again.
• Sideways started award season strong, but in the end only took home one award, for best adapted screenplay.
• Finding Neverland also took home just the one award out of the seven nominations it earned.
• Vote splitting didn't affect Jamie Foxx too much as he won the Best Actor Oscar.
• The Incredibles and Ray joined The Aviator and Million Dollar Baby as the only multiple award winners of the evening.

Submitted by: C.S.Strowbridge

Source: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

Filed under: Spider-Man 2, The Incredibles, Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, The Aviator, Million Dollar Baby, Ray, Sideways, Finding Neverland, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Motorcycle Diaries, Born Into Brothels: Calcutta's Red Light Kids, Mar adentro