OVP: Best Sound Editing (2009)
The Nominees Were...
Christopher Boyes and Gwendolyn Yates Whittle, Avatar
Paul N.J. Ottosson, The Hurt Locker
Wylie Stateman, Inglourious Basterds
Mark Stoeckinger and Alan Runkin, Star Trek
Michael Silvers and Tom Myers, Up
My Thoughts: Sound Editing frequently, like Visual Effects, becomes a bit of a hodgepodge of action films, sci-fi films, and maybe the occasional Best Picture war movie. However, with the newly expanded Best Picture race, a ten-wide field tends to yield a plethora of Best Picture contenders, and indeed, only one of these films missed for the Best Picture nomination (and quite frankly, I think that movie was in eleventh place). You can say what you will about this (I'm kind of the mind that I wish there was more spread-the-wealth across the tech categories), but at least it's forgivable with this much Oscar-bait with flashy sound design.
The big enchilada from the looks of the list is surely Avatar, which has all of the machinery, aliens, and battle scenes that make this category go pitter patter. I remember distinctly the battle cry of the Toruk and the consistent splendor of the sound work in the film. In writing these pieces, while I am not an "expert" on any of the fields, there are ones that I'm better at than others, and sound is probably the one I least am in control of how to judge, but I have to admit that the sound work here is iconic and not transferable over to other movies. What I'm looking for in a field like this is crispness, distinction, adapting to the movie and its characters/settings, and of course overall quality. About the only complaint about Avatar I can make is that the sound mixing might even be better, and that the score occasionally takes over when the sound editors could have had a more robust impact (think of something like the Flight Scene). Otherwise, this is flawless escapist fun, and very much in-line with the best of the field.
Where there's Avatar, as we've found out, there's usually The Hurt Locker, and this is indeed the case here. The Hurt Locker probably succeeds the most in the tech fields in the sound categories, however, and so I'm not going to get into my usual quibbles about the film (if you have lost track of where I was at with this series, as it's been spread over multiple months, check out all of the links to past 2009 contests at the bottom of this article). The movie has arguably an even better control over its sound work than Avatar, with the scenes alternating between quiet and noise maintaining a stronger balance. However, that is more the job of the sound mixer, and while the film has some brilliant explosions and manufactured battles, it doesn't quite have the grandeur that Cameron's movie attains.
I initially rated Inglourious Basterds considerably higher than a lot of the rest of the field, but upon further examination, I'm not 100% certain why I did (I find that the more you dissect a particularly aspect of a film, the more you see that your initial impression may have been based more on your like of the film than the actual quality of the product, which may explain the many, many sweeps and group thinks that occur with AMPAS). Basterds, like most such films about war, has the exposion and fight scenes down pat-so many movies about violence have come before it that it's taken for granted that the sound work will be exceptional even in the most mundane of flicks. However, I don't see anything particularly compelling about this film from this particular angle. The fire scene is probably the best example, but even then it's more a visual than an aural feast, and though this movie is certainly not bad, it's not great in the level of its fellow Best Picture nominees.
Star Trek, as I alluded to above, is the movie that managed to just miss the Best Picture lineup. Going back to 2009, it's kind of hard to believe that Avatar, Up, and District 9 managed to sneak in while the other populist hit was kept at the sidelines (we'll get to A Serious Man in a bit, but isn't that one of the oddest Best Picture nominees you've seen in the past twenty years?). Star Trek doesn't quite have the specificity in its aural design that some of the other installments in the series does, but that doesn't mean that the movie itself falls flat. Quite the contrary-what the film sacrifices in plot it makes up for in large-scale visual and sound work, and when the movie is going big, it's really quite remarkable. However, I will say that the quieter scenes don't pop as well. This probably falls more on the Sound Mixers, but in a film so consumed by visuals and effects, you have to give this branch a bit of a debit as well.
Finally, we have Up, part of a long tradition of Pixar getting nominated in this category (with one exception, every film from the studio from 2001-2010 got nominated in this category, though that luck seemed to vanish after Cars 2, despite Brave being more deserving than a chunk of the films that actually have been nominated). Up of course doesn't disappoint in this category (Pixar films rarely did during their heyday), but I have to admit that this nomination puzzles me a bit. The movie definitely has sound editing (the Kevin character, for example), but nothing about this movie reaches the awe of some previous entries like The Incredibles or WALL-E)-I am not faulting it for being subtle, but there's nothing huge to notice about this film's sound editing-the score is the star here aurally, and I feel like this may have just been a default nomination for a widely-admired Best Picture nominee.
Other Precursor Contenders: The Golden Reel Awards separate their categories into animated, foreign (though not necessarily, it should be noted, foreign-language) and feature film, and so Up got a very easy win in 2009 over 9, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Coraline, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Monsters vs. Aliens, and The Princess and the Frog (so...basically every animated film of the year made in the United States). The Feature category was just as filled with nominations, with Avatar triumphing over 2012, The Hurt Locker, Inglourious Basterds, Push (yes, the Chris Evans/Dakota Fanning movie, and I too forgot that this movie had been made), Star Trek, Transformers, and Watchmen. Finally, Foreign Film went to District 9, taking the trophy easily over An Education (what precisely was a sound effect in this movie-the rain?), The Baader Meinhof Complex (ineligible at the Oscars since it had been nominated the year before for Best Foreign Film), Coco Before Chanel (same complaint as An Education), Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and Red Cliff. In theorizing who was in sixth place, a solid argument could be made for District 9 or even Harry Potter, but my money would be on Transformers-this is the only time in the franchise's history so far that it has missed a nomination in a sound category.
Films I Would Have Nominated: We'll see in a second who they're bumping, but I would definitely have found room for the aliens of District 9 (possibly the only film that could have given my gold medal a run for its money) and the robots of Transformers (I know it's been done before, but this is consistently wonderful work and even if the films are crap the effects and sound are generally top drawer).
Oscar’s Choice: In what may have been the closest race of the night between the two films (the other times they faced it seems like one was clearly on-top), The Hurt Locker beat out Avatar.
My Choice: Avatar, by a considerable margin. I'd follow the film with The Hurt Locker, Star Trek, Up, and finally Inglourious Basterds.
Those are my thoughts-how about yours? Were you also taking sides in the Hurt Locker vs. Avatar battle, or did you go for one of the other three nominees? If so, who do you vote for? And what was the best overall sound editing of 2009? Share in the comments!
Also in 2009: Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2009
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