Angus Wall, ACE, and Kirk Baxter, editors of the David Fincher-directed The Social Network, won the Association of Cinema Editors (ACE) Eddie Award for best edited dramatic feature at the 61st annual ACE Eddie Awards ceremony on Saturday (2/19) at the Beverly Hilton.
Wall and Baxter, who cut commercials and branded content via editorial house Rock Paper Scissors, are also in the running for an editing Oscar on the strength of The Social Network. Winning the ACE honor bodes well for their Academy Award prospects as four out of the last five years the Eddie winner has gone on to earn the Oscar.
Wall and Baxter topped an Eddie field of nominees that also consisted of: Tariq Anwar for The King’s Speech; Pamela Martin for The Fighter; Lee Smith, ACE, for Inception; and Andrew Weisblum, ACE, for Black Swan. All these Eddie nominees–except for Smith–have also been nominated for this year’s editing Oscar. Editor Jon Harris is the other Academy Award nominee for the movie 127 Hours.
Chris Lebenzon, ACE, topped the feature film, comedy or musical category for Alice in Wonderland. Ken Schretzmann and Lee Unkrich, ACE, earned best animated feature film distinction for Toy Story 3.
And best edited documentary honors went to Tom Fulford and Chris King for Exit Through the Gift Shop.
The winning half-hour series for TV was the “Family Portrait” episode of Modern Family, cut by Jonathan Schwartz. The best edited one-hour series for commercial television was The Walking Dead‘s “Days Gone Bye” edited by Hunter Via.
The best edited one-hour series for non-commercial television was the Treme episode “Do You Know What It Means” cut by Kate Sanford, ACE, and Alexander Hall.
Temple Grandin was named best edited miniseries or motion picture for TV, the editor being Leo Trombetta, ACE.
And the best edited reality series was If You Really Knew Me‘s “Colusa High,” cut by Rob Goubeau, Jeremy Gantz, Hilary Scratch, Ken Yankee, Mark S. Andrew, ACE, Heather Miglin, John Skaare and Paul J. Coyne.
The Eddie student competition was topped by Ruben Jacques Sebban of the American Film Institute.
Maggie Smith, Star of Stage, Film and “Downton Abbey,” Dies At 89
Maggie Smith, the masterful, scene-stealing actor who won an Oscar for "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" in 1969 and gained new fans in the 21st century as the dowager Countess of Grantham in "Downton Abbey" and Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter films, died Friday. She was 89. Smith's sons, Chris Larkin and Toby Stephens, said in a statement that Smith died early Friday in a London hospital. "She leaves two sons and five loving grandchildren who are devastated by the loss of their extraordinary mother and grandmother," they said in a statement issued through publicist Clair Dobbs. Smith was frequently rated the preeminent British female performer of a generation that included Vanessa Redgrave and Judi Dench, with a clutch of Academy Award nominations and a shelf full of acting trophies. She remained in demand even in her later years, despite her lament that "when you get into the granny era, you're lucky to get anything." Smith drily summarized her later roles as "a gallery of grotesques," including Professor McGonagall. Asked why she took the role, she quipped: "Harry Potter is my pension." Richard Eyre, who directed Smith in a television production of "Suddenly Last Summer," said she was "intellectually the smartest actress I've ever worked with. You have to get up very, very early in the morning to outwit Maggie Smith." "Jean Brodie," in which she played a dangerously charismatic Edinburgh schoolteacher, brought her the Academy Award for best actress, and the British Academy Film Award (BAFTA) as well in 1969. Smith added a supporting actress Oscar for "California Suite" in 1978, Golden Globes for "California Suite" and "Room with a View," and BAFTAs for lead actress in "A Private Function" in 1984, "A Room with a View" in... Read More