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Friday's American Cinema Editors nominations include all of the frontrunners for Best Picture at the Oscars.
"12 Years a Slave," "Gravity" and "Captain Phillips" vie on the drama side while "American Hustle" and "The Wolf of Wall Street" contends for the comedy/musical cutting award. These five films also lead our contenders for Best Editing at the Oscars.
Rounding out the drama slate at the Eddies are "Her" and "Saving Mr. Banks." The comedy/musical category also includes "August: Osage County," "Inside Llewyn Davis" and "Nebraska."
The winner of the Golden Eddie has proven to be one of the best indicators of which film takes home the Best Picture Oscar. Since 1990, the film that came up with the ACE went on to win the top prize at the Academy Awards 17 times.
In four of the six years when the ACE barometer was wrong, the Eddie champ was at least a contender for Best Picture. That includes 2010 when the team that cut critics' darling "The Social Network" (Angus Wall, Kirk Baxter) won over the Eddies and claimed the editing Oscar as well but saw their film fall to "The King's Speech" for the Best Picture prize.
In 2007, neither of the Eddie winners -- "The Bourne Ultimatum" nor "Sweeney Todd" -- made the final five contenders for Best Picture at the Oscars and 1999 the same fate befell "The Matrix" and "Being John Malkovich."
Though ACE has a good track record as a Best Picture predictor and a great one for forecasting who will win the Editing Oscar (19 out of 23 years), it is surprising that it is not all knowing when it comes to the Editing Oscar nominations. Since 1992, when the Eddies went to five nominees from three, 92 of the 105 Oscar nominees for Editing had first reaped a Golden Eddie nod.
Both last year and in 2011, five of the Eddie nominees comprised the Oscar slate. In 2010, four Eddie nominees contended at the Oscars ("127 Hours" got the fifth slot) while in 2009, only three of five ACE drama nominees -- "Avatar," "District 9" and "The Hurt Locker" -- reaped Oscar bids with "Inglorious Basterds" and "Precious" added to the mix.
Although this track record appears impressive enough, ACE doubled its chances of getting it right when it split Dramas and Comedy/Musicals into separate kudos in 1999. Four years ago, the Comedy/Musical Eddie went to Stephen Schaffer for "Wall-E." Schaffer -- a 2004 nominee for "The Incredibles" -- made history with this win as it was the first time an animated film had taken one of these kudos since they were first handed out back in 1950.
Since then, the Eddies have introduced a separate Animated cateogry. This year's nominees are: "Despicable Me 2," "Frozen" and "Monsters University."
The 64th annual edition of the Eddie Awards take place on Feb. 7 at the Beverly Hilton.
BEST EDITED FEATURE FILM (DRAMATIC): 12 Years a Slave - Joe Walker
Captain Phillips - Chris Rouse, A.C.E.
Gravity - Alfonso Cuarón & Mark Sanger
Her - Eric Zumbrunnen, A.C.E. & Jeff Buchanan
Saving Mr. Banks - Mark Livolsi, A.C.E.
BEST EDITED FEATURE FILM (COMEDY OR MUSICAL): American Hustle - Jay Cassidy, A.C.E., Crispin Struthers & Alan Baumgarten, A.C.E.
August: Osage County - Stephen Mirrione, A.C.E.
Inside Llewyn Davis - Roderick Jaynes
Nebraska - Kevin Tent, A.C.E.
The Wolf of Wall Street - Thelma Schoonmaker, A.C.E.
BEST EDITED ANIMATED FEATURE FILM: Despicable Me 2 - Gregory Perler, A.C.E.
Frozen - Jeff Draheim
Monsters University - Greg Snyder
BEST EDITED DOCUMENTARY (FEATURE): 20 Feet from Stardom - Douglas Blush, Kevin Klauber & Jason Zeldes
Blackfish - Eli Despres
Tim's Vermeer - Patrick Sheffield
