Video highlights of the ACE Eddie Awards

Being an organization of savvy film editors, the American Cinema Editors compiled a reel of highlights from the ACE Eddie Awards held Saturday night at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. The video is below. See the list of winners here.

Being a journalist who is often not savvy about video operations, I shot two segments on my own that offer extended looks at two peak acceptance speeches: Christopher Nolan ("Inception") offering thanks for the honorary filmmaker of the year award, and Angus Wall and Kirk Baxter ("The Social Network") accepting the prize for best editing of a dramatic feature. Both videos are after the jump -- and are a bit jumpy, truth be told, due to my unsteady grip on the camera. Sorry!

-- Tom O'Neil

Does ACE Eddie victory boost 'Social Network's' Oscar hopes?

Now that "The Social Network" won the ACE Eddie Award from the American Cinema Editors, it's the favorite to win the equivalent prize at the Oscars: best film editing. As you can see from the chart below, the two awards have matched up for the last five years. Many Oscarologists believe that there is a mysterious connection between the Oscars for editing and the award for best picture -- they've agreed four times in the last five years. Hmmm ... does this mean that "The Social Network" has renewed hope of beating "The King's Speech" for the top Academy Award?

	ACE EDDIE AWARD	OSCAR: Film Editing	OSCAR: Best Picture
2009	"The Hurt Locker"	"The Hurt Locker"	"The Hurt Locker"
2008	"Slumdog Millionaire"	"Slumdog Millionaire"	"Slumdog Millionaire"
2007	"The Bourne Ultimatum"	"The Bourne Ultimatum"	"No Country for Old Men"
2006	TIE: "The Departed," "Babel"	"The Departed"	"The Departed"
2005	"Crash"	"Crash"	"Crash"
2004	"Ray"	“The Aviator"	"Million Dollar Baby"
2003	"Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl"	"Lord of the Rings: Return of the King"	"Lord of the Rings: Return of the King"
2002	"Chicago"	"Chicago"	"Chicago"
2001	"Moulin Rouge!"	"Black Hawk Down"	"A Beautiful Mind"
2000	"Almost Famous"	"Traffic"	"Gladiator"

-- Tom O'Neil

Photo: A scene from the "The Social Network." Credit: Columbia Pictures

'Social Network' and 'Alice in Wonderland' win editing awards

 
"The Social Network" and "Alice in Wonderland' won the feature film Eddie Awards presented by the American Cinema Editors on Saturday evening at the International Ballroom of the Beverly Hilton Hotel.
"The Social Network" earned best edited feature film drama for Angus Wall, A.C.E., and Kirk Baxter, and "Alice in Wonderland" received best edited feature film comedy or musical for Chris Lebenzon, A.C.E.

"Toy Story 3" won best edited animated feature for Ken Schretzmann and Lee Unkrich, while Tom Fulford and Chris King won best edited documentary for "Exit Through the Gift Shop."
 
The 61st annual awards also handed out Eddies in TV categories. "Modern Family" received the award for Jonathan Schwartz for best half-hour edited series for TV; "The Walking Dead: Days Gone Bye," edited by Hunter Via, won for best edited one-hour series for commercial TV; Kate Sanford, A.C.E., and Alexander Hall received best edited one-hour series for non-commercial TV for "Treme: Do You Know  What It Means."

Leo Trombetta, A.C.E., won best edited miniseries or motion picture for televison for "Temple Grandin," while "If You Really Knew Me: Colusa High," edited by Rob Goubeaux, Jeremy Gantz, Hilary Scratch, Ken Yankee, Mark S. Andrew, A.C.E., Heather Miglin, John Skaare and Paul J. Coyne, won best edited reality series.
 
Ruben Jacques Sebban of the AFI won the Student Editing Competition. Christopher Nolan took home the ACE Golden Eddie Filmmaker of the Year Award, and Lifetime Achievement Awards went to Michael Brown, A.C.E., and Michael Kahn, A.C.E. Edgar Burcksen, A.C.E., and Vincent LoBrutto earned the Robert Wise Award.

-- Susan King

Photo: Andrew Garfield and Jesse Eisenberg in "The Social Network." Credit: Columbia Tristar

Editing prize not something to cut (or count) out

What’s the most important awards ceremony remaining before the Academy Awards?

The obvious answer is Saturday’s Writers Guild of America awards, even though “The King’s Speech” isn’t eligible. But an arguably more important bellwether is Feb. 19’s Eddie Awards, the somewhat obscure trophies presented by the American Cinema Editors.

Over the last five years, the winning film of the Eddie has gone on to win the best picture Oscar. The only exception was when 2007’s “The Bourne Ultimatum” won the Eddie, a year in which “No Country for Old Men” was named the best picture. A year earlier, the editors split the prize between “Babel” and “The Departed,” with the latter film taking the top Academy Award.

Because the Eddies are presented to dramas and musicals or comedies (like the Golden Globes), the editing prizes have a better chance of predicting the Oscar winner. But a closer look at the film that wins the editing Academy Award reveals why this category is so crucial. In the last five years, the only movie that didn’t win the best picture statuette after taking the editing Oscar was “Bourne,” which was clearly a more ambitiously cut film than “No Country for Old Men.”

This year, four of the five Eddie nominees (in the drama category) are also nominated for the editing Academy Award: “The King’s Speech,” “The Social Network,” “The Fighter” and “Black Swan.” Oscar voters picked “127 Hours” for the fifth editing slot, while the Eddie voters chose “Inception.”

It’s not just its predictive powers that make the Eddies important.

If “The Social Network” doesn’t win the 61st annual Eddie honor, it likely might be on track to win only one Oscar out of eight nominations on Feb. 27—for adapted screenplay.

--John Horn

Matt Damon in "The Bourne Ultimatum." Credit: Universal Pictures

ACE Eddie Award noms continue sci-fi's strong showing with 'Avatar,' 'Star Trek'

Science fiction films soared in the best edited feature film category for the American Cinema Editors' 60th Annual ACE Eddie Awards announced Monday evening.

"Avatar" (Stephen Rivkin, John Refoua & James Cameron), "District 9" (Julian Clarke), and "Star Trek" (Maryann Brandon and Mary Jo Markey) were nominated in the dramatic feature film category along with "The Hurt Locker" (Bob Murawski and Chris Innis) and "Up in the Air" (Dana Glauberman). Nominees in the comedy or music category are "(500) Days of Summer" (Alan Edward Bell), "The Hangover" (Debra Neil-Fisher), "Julie & Julie" (Richard Marks), "A Serious Man" (Roderick Jaynes, who is actually Joel and Ethan Coen) and "It's Complicated" (Joe Hutshing and David Moritz).

Vying in the animated feature film category are "Coraline" (Christopher Murrie and Ronald Sanders), "Fantastic Mr. Fox" (Andrew Weisblum) and "Up" (Kevin Nolting).

On the television front, the nominees in the best-edited half-hour series for television category include Ken Eluto for the "Apollo Apollo" episode for "30 Rock," Steven Rasch for the "Bare Midriff" episode of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" and Steven Sprung for the "The Sorkin Notes" installment of "Entourage."  Nominees for best-edited one-hour series for commercial television are Leon Ortiz Gil for the "8 p.m. to 9 p.m." episode of "24;" Lynne Willingham for the "ABQ" episode of "Breaking Bad;" Randy Jon Morgan and Jacque Toberen for the "And in the End" episode of "ER;" Karen Stern for the "Hardwired" installment of "Law & Order: SVU;" and Christopher Nelson for the "The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham" installment of "Lost." For more information on the nominees and the American Cinema Editors, go to the official site.

The winners will be announced Feb. 14 in a ceremony at the International Ballroom of the Beverly Hilton Hotel.

-- Susan King

Photo: Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) in "Avatar" and Spock (Zachary Quinto) in "Star Trek." Credit: 20th Century Fox / Paramount Pictures

A full list of nominees, provided by the American Cinema Editors, follows ...