Another Good American Gone Too Soon

I woke up Friday to terrible news. I have been a big fan of Anthony Bourdain since 2004 or so. He worked with French oyster fisherman for a summer as a teenager. He worked summers in Provincetown as a sous-chef in his twenties. He moved to New York in the 80s, working as sous-chef at The Supper Club, One Fifth Avenue, and finally Les Halles, where he worked his way up to executive chef in 1998. He used his gift of writing to compose both fiction and a journal, the latter of which became his memoir of long days, whiskey and beer lunches, and cocaine nights, Kitchen Confidential (2000). Instant fame followed, with two Emmy-award winning food travel shows (roughly the same show but on two different networks). 

Tony was a young man in New York at the right time - right at the end of the classic CBGB / punk era. He saw Blondie and Talking Heads gigs there. He idolized Iggy Pop and David Bowie. He became friends with Iggy. I don't think he ever met Bowie (who quietly moved to New York in 1993). Just a few months ago, Bourdain did retrace Pop and Bowie's footsteps in 1976 Berlin when they made their incredible trio of albums with Brian Eno (and couldn't avoid the heroin and cocaine).  

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I just watched the Hong Kong episode of Parts Unknown on CNN. He spent half the shoot with Wong Kar-Wai's former cameraman, the always drunken and talented Christopher Doyle. It's a classic Bourdain episode, with him eating and boozing his way through one of his favorite places in the world. Tony's world was Hong Kong, Vietnam, Thailand, New York, Provincetown and France. 

And he took his life where his life began, in France. His best friend, hotel staff and Éric Ripert found his body in his hotel room Friday morning, June 8.

Our world is depressing. And if Tony Bourdain, a man who lived for travel, food, music and sex, lost his will to live, then that doesn't bode well for anyone. 

He leaves behind an 11 year-old daughter, Airiane. I think he never wanted kids. He said so before he had one. And now he has hurt someone who didn't deserve this. Just like Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, who shot himself with what was probably a vintage .45 pistol in February 2005 with his teenage son in the next room. What is it with my favorite alpha male writers?

A Song For Our Apocalypse

Editors have a new album. It's their sixth. And it's good. I would rank it as their fifth best in an overall strong and diverse discography. Yeah, Editors hold a special place in my heart. Their worst album, despite some poor arrangements and nods to Journey and Phil Collins, is still pretty good.  

I like 7 of the 9 tracks on the album. One song, No Sound But The Wind, was originally inspired by Cormac McCarthy's The Road. But it has gone through two different iterations.

The first recorded version was a demo that somehow made it onto the Twilight: New Moon soundtrack. You can see how it fits into a teen vampire romantic drama. Lyrics are below the video. 

We can never go home
We no longer have one
I'll help you carry the load
I'll carry you in my arms
The kiss of the snow
The crescent moon above us
Our blood is cold
And we're alone
But I'm alone with you

Help me to carry the fire
We will keep it alight together
Help me to carry the fire
It will light our way forever

If I say shut your eyes
If I say look away
Bury your face in my shoulder
Think of a birthday
The things you put in your head
They will stay here forever
Our blood is cold
And we're alone, love
But I'm alone with you

Help me to carry the fire
We will keep it alight together
Help me to carry the fire
It will light our way forever

Help me to carry the fire
We will keep it alight together
Now help me to carry the fire
It will light up our way forever

If I say shut your eyes
If I say shut your eyes
Bury me in suprise
Where I say shut your eyes

Help me to carry the fire
We will keep it alight together
Help me carry the fire
It will light our way forever

The band never formally recorded the song as it was originally written, with lyrics inspired by the premise of The Road. They started playing the original version live in 2010 and finally recorded it in 2017. But the world has changed quite a bit from 2010. And hearing this song for the first time in March 2018, I interpreted it as a song for a world with a broken EU and a US being driven into the ground by Donald Trump's GOP. It's a song for our Theresa May and Donald Trump apocalypse. Lyrics are below the video. 

We can never go home
We no longer have one
I'll help you carry the load
I'll carry you in my arms
We walk through the ash
And the charred remains of our country
Keep an eye on my back
I'll keep an eye on the road

Help me to carry the fire
To keep it alight together
Help me to carry the fire
This road won't go on forever

If I say shut your eyes
If I say look away
Bury your face in my shoulder
Think of a birthday
The things you put in your head
They will stay there forever
I'm trying hard to hide your soul, son
From things it's not meant to see

Help me to carry the fire
To keep it alight together
Help me to carry the fire
This road won't go on forever

Help me to carry the fire
To keep it alight together
Help me to carry the fire
This road won't go on forever

If I say shut your eyes
If I say shut your eyes
Bury me in surprise
When I say shut your eyes, eyes

Help me to carry the fire
To keep it alight together
Help me to carry the fire
This road won't go on forever

A Perfect Circle Came Back At The Perfect Time

Fourteen years. That's how long it has been since we've had an album from A Perfect Circle, the supergroup fronted by Tool's Maynard James Keenan. 

In 1999, Tool had released one EP and two studio albums for the decade, and there were strong indications that there wouldn't be new Tool material while the band was tied-up in record company contracts. So a side project from one of the greatest lead vocalists in rock was more than welcome. And while the lyrics in APC songs are not as complex or as profoundly pretentious as Tool songs, thunderous musicianship and atypical time signatures are still employed. Take their latest track, Talk Talk. It's an incredibly well-timed song about the uselessness of "thoughts and prayers," and has references to Christ that Keenan has done before. But what makes the song good is its use of the 3/4 time signature. Guitarist Billy Howerdel and company made the song ready for recording when they switched the tempo from 4/4 to 3/4.   

I thought this band was dead. I had forgotten that one of the greatest guitarists of the 1990s, James Iha, had joined A Perfect Circle in 2003. The 90s was a decade full of virtuoso guitarists, and I had simply assumed that the band would never record original songs with Iha. But then, in December 2017, this dark song dropped. A Perfect Circle had returned with dark tracks for these very dark times. I love The Doomed because, well, we are doomed. 

Keenan is having one of the busiest years of his life. The new APC album comes in April. He and his Tool bandmates are almost ready to record their fifth album (and first in twelve years). And he might be recording new tracks with his other side project, Puscifer, now. 

It's Still A Masculinity Crisis

Professor Sut Jhally wrote about it 18 years ago.

He spoke about it 8 years ago (above).

I wrote about it 11 years ago.

We got possibly the biggest reminder of it in world history last fall.

The world has a serious masculinity crisis. And in the US, that crisis is directly linked to its gun violence epidemic. 

Laura KIssel raised the topic again this week. And the comments prove two things. First, they strengthen her argument. And second, they prove we will never even try to address this crisis. Not even try. 

The gun violence epidemic in the United States is both a public health and a cultural crisis. Since I last raised this topic in 2007, the number of firearms in the US surpassed the number of living citizens. 100 million new guns. This is our crisis now and until the end of this broken republic. 

Try Not To Die If You're Famous

Memo to celebrities: don't die during the Trump administration. There's so much chaos, you won't get a proper send-off. It's like the weeks after 9/11, except life doesn't settle down. It has been unsettled since March.

This Little Blog is 10 Years Old

Five days ago, this blog turned 10. I have several posts getting cold in draft status. So I will just mark 10 years similar to the way I started the blog - with a music video.

Aesop Rock dropped the best rap album of 2016 about a year ago. The second track, Rings, can be used to sum-up up my lack of productivity on this blog pretty well. Hobbies slip.

I could describe a couple of posts in-progress the way Aesop describes his unfinished paintings:

Then a week goes by and it goes untouched
Then two, then three, then a month
And the rest of your life, you beat yourself up

More posts soon. 2017 will have more than double the number of posts that 2016 had.

30 Years Ago Today: The Joshua Tree

30 years ago today, we got The Joshua Tree. A front-heavy rock album. Not as consistently great as The Unforgettable Fire (1984). But it was the commercial peak U2 fans knew they were capable of. Suddenly, I was not alone in choosing U2 on the jukebox in my favorite pizza joints in Brockton, Massachsusetts. I was in my final weeks in junior high, surrounded by kids who loved Bon Jovi and Motley Crue, and they HATED U2. Come September, I was in a high school where if you didn't love U2, you were considered way out of touch. You could love R.E.M. You could secretly listen to New Order or Depeche Mode. Or you could be so far ahead of the curve like me and own three Pixies albums by 1989. But if you didn't express your love of U2, you were an automatic outsider.

Now the album itself does not move me like the next three U2 albums did. I still think Achtung Baby is their best masterpiece. But there are very few rock albums that open as strongly as The Joshua Tree. We're talking Led Zepplin IV or Back In Black-caliber openings. Where The Streets Have No Name is a soaring opening - peak classic U2. I Still haven't Found What I'm Looking For is this emotional gospel rock anthem. And despite its basic four bars, and resemblance to another Eno-produced four-bar classic, Once In A Lifetime, With Or Without You is still, still a great song thanks to the lyrics and Edge's galloping riffs. Then they follow that up with Bullet The Blue Sky, the leftist, violent song about Reagan's proxy wars, among other things. And then, THEN, U2 give us another anthem - the major-keyed song about heroin addiction, Running To Stand Still. Holy shit, this album. 30 years, kids.

The Power of The F Word

Shortly before Christmas, I received another reminder from my RSS feed that I hadn't written enough posts in 2016. A story boomeranged and got recycled by lesser news outlets 11 months after it first made the rounds. Way way back in January 2016, a teenage hero named Charlotte Heffelmire rescued her dad from a house fire. How did she do it? Well, he was pinned under a car in his garage, so she found superhuman strength and lifted the car off of him.  That prompted the editor at Jezebel (then still park of Gawker Media) to use this great headline, containing the F word.

I forwarded the story to my parents, who liked it, but my mom felt some reservations about the use of the word fucking in the headline. She shot an email back:

"...here's my complaint. Since when does the four letter " F " word appear everywhere?? It's a noun, verb, adjective, adverb ( just add an ly or an ing) etc. Serious stories and reviews often descend into vulgarity in the use of this word. It's lost all shock value and bite. The use of the word is supposed to be effective? Or a shock? Or describe something so harrowing that the word adds raw emotion and fierce meaning to the event? The overuse of what used to be a word, though vulgar, had a particular place in our verbal lexicon. The article that complained about the vulgar exchange between the public spectacle of Gervais and Gibson used the "F" word. Need I say more?"

Now this news story came out the same week as the Golden Globes. And in 2016, I believe Ricky was the first host to drop an F-bomb. 

"What the fuck does sugar tits even mean." - Ricky Gervais

The word is powerful and should be used sparingly. I like the modern journalist standard of using it in a quote, but not in the copy or editorially in a headline. The late Gawker Media used the word liberally, so that's why we see it above in the headline.

The word has been with us since the 1600s. But I feel it went mainstream during the Nixon administration. The Vietnam war popped that bubble, and a Nixon official used the term "ratfucking" in the media.

I always liked Hunter S. Thompson's restraint. He used the word most often in quotes, often quoting himself. Those were his exclamations. But in describing things, he used very eloquent language. I always liked that mix. There was the character writing the story, and there was the story.

Fuck is a tool. Respect it and use it wisely. Like a cymbal crash. 

London Sets New All-Time Population Record

London finally made it. It is a true top 20 megacity.

London is roughly three to four times the size of Paris, and the pace is exhausting. In some ways, England has always been two countries. Metropolitan London is very different from the rest of the nation. I love England, and I see it as two countries. London, and everyone else.

The Most Requested Photo In The US National Archives

This is one of the funniest pictures of the twentieth century. An obviously drug-addled Elvis Presley (then age 35), visiting a cynically bemused Richard Nixon, shaking hands in the White House and discussing the recently declared "War on Drugs," has to be one of the jaw dropping moments of recent history. Is this a great country or what!

The news item, that this picture is still in high demand, made me think: we don't obsess with Evis as much as we did 30 years ago. History remembers him. His legacy is safe. But the current culture doesn't include him in conversation nearly as much as it did in the 1980s and 1990s. It seemed to reach a peak from 1987 (the 20th anniversary of his death) to about 1997. Notable American pop culture examples include the movies Honeymoon in Vegas (1992), and True Romance (1993) which both reference The King. And for me personally, two of my favorite guilty-pleasure songs from that period include Elvis is Dead (1990) and Elvis Ate America (1995).

The King is dead. America just took a while to move on.

Does Everyone Want To Be Normal?

This is not a popular question, but I feel the need to ask it out loud. 30 years ago, when Act Up taught me how crucial it was for homosexuals to get the same civil rights I enjoy, in the face of a deadly pandemic, did they envision a future in which gays would become the new conservatives? The capitalists. The owners. The bankers and politicians. The same boys club that keeps women from getting birth control? The same club that doesn't blink when unarmed black teenagers are gunned down by police? What I'm asking is, do we all want to be this affluent New York couple? To be wealthy conservatives? Or am I reading too much in a Tiffany ad?

Every civil rights movement in the USA has begun from an edgy place. Secretive women's afternoon meetings. The pews of black baptist churches. Or a loud protest outside a gay bar in New York. The goal of every civil rights movement is to obtain equal rights for all, so anyone can be anything they want to be. But when I see capitalists embrace a group that was only recently kept out of the mainstream, I have to wonder, is that what we were fighting for? Did corporations embrace gays only when they realized how much disposable income they have?

And gay friends, do I even have a right to bring this up? Is this topic off-limits for straights?

Breaking Wind

When I was about thirteen and entering high school, I tried to read Ms. Mitchell's racist screed. Needless to say, I failed, but not before I found myself wishing that Lincoln and the Union had let the racist bastards secede and be done with it. Gone With the Wind is more like breaking wind. Soon, no one will care about the film anymore.

Chvrches Is Back With A New Single

Glasgow-based electronic pop trio, Chvrches is back with a catchy new single called Get Away. That's cool. This track has been added to the BBC-commissioned supplemental soundtrack for Nicholas Winding Refin's 2011 film, Drive, which is becoming a cult hit in the UK. That is also cool. Here's hoping this single and/or album is available to purchase soon.

Just What Was Tom Smith Thinking?

The stages of finding the first bad song by one of my favorite bands:

1. A grandiose breakup song. Okay.

2. Sustained falsetto. That's....different.

3. Holy shit, it's a Journey song!

4. But it's got a hook. Play it again. And again.

5. Singing along is actually possible, and fun, so long as you act sincere.

6. Oh hell, this is a cheesy Phil Collins song!

7. Some country band could cover this and make it a smash country hit. Just maybe.

Goodbye, R.E.M.

I've had two weeks to digest R.E.M.'s inevitable breakup announcement. I have to say, they went out with class. While they lost of lot of listeners after New Adventures in Hi-Fi (1996), the last four R.E.M. albums were all very good. They were true to the band's roots, involved a fresh dose of Brian Wilson influences, and a few times went back to the sound of perhaps their most loved album, Automatic for the People (1992).

R.E.M. spent over 10 years as a consensus choice as one of the best rock bands in the US. They shared that title with other acts that have come and gone, including Talking Heads, The Pixies, Living Colour, Soundgarden, Metallica, The Smashing Pumpkins, and Luna (and some that have stayed, such as Wilco and Interpol). They were not only one of the best bands in the US, but they were also part of the New Wave. They entered the scene thanks to airplay on American college radio alongside the likes of Talking Heads and U2. And they were simultaneously part of the Athens Georgia music scene, which, along with Boston, Chicago, and Seattle, is a founding city of the Indie music scene of the 1980s and 90s (later to be branded "Alternative" by the music industry). R.E.M. is one of the few bands (the only band?) to bridge the New Wave movement and the American Indie movement, and arguably helped to found the Indie movement. While their Athens counterparts, the B-52s, remained in the New Wave movement, R.E.M. established the framework of how a small band from a college town could get radio airplay nationwide and music videos on MTV. In just four short years, R.E.M. went from having a critically acclaimed, yet underground album (Murmur (1983)), to a breakthrough video on MTV in September, 1987 for The One I Love:

I entered high school with Document, graduated college weeks after drummer Bill Berry suffered a ruptured aneurysm on atage (and bought a Georgia farm in preparation for his retirement), and firmly settled into New York to the sounds of New Adventures in Hi-Fi. I rocked out in my dorm room to the contemporary, distortion pedal sounds of Monster (1994) and enjoyed drinks in a bar in north Amherst with friends and the occasional female to the sounds of the honest, somber masterpeice, Automatic for the People.

There have been magnificent articles and books written about R.E.M. I close this post with some recent articles I've read in the past few years.

 Josh Modell, Spin:

Here, [in Collapse Into Now], they discover the glow of middle age, warmly acknowledging the past -- hello again, Peter Buck's mandolin -- while realizing that the present can feel just as comforting. The sober, pretty "Uberlin" sounds like a happier cousin to "Drive." Twinkling ballad "Every Day Is Yours to Win" updates "Everybody Hurts" for the other side of despair, when optimism seeps back in. "Discoverer" and "All the Best" deliver sexy crunch for Monster fans. It's R.E.M.'s many faces, collapsing into now.

Annie Zaleski, Salon:

Even as the band’s popularity increased — Top 10 Billboard hits, MTV heavy rotation, arena tours, mainstream radio airplay — there was nothing overtly contemporary about their music.

 Chris Sullentrop, Slate:

From almost the beginning, there's been something backward-looking about R.E.M. fandom, a secret wish that R.E.M. never become more than a heralded but middling-selling college band from Athens, Ga.—even though such obscurity would mean that the vast majority of R.E.M. fans engaged in this Edenic pining would never have discovered them.

 Dan Kois, Slate:

Even R.E.M.'s "political" songs of the era, like "Fall on Me" or "Exhuming McCarthy," are tricky to parse. " Fall on Me" could maybe be about acid rain, or maybe air pollution in general, or maybe, uh, missile defense? Whereas U2's political songs of the 1980s are a little easier to work out: "Pride (In the Name of Love)" is about Martin Luther King Jr., for example, and "Sunday, Bloody Sunday" is about Bloody Sunday. Stirring as those songs are, there's very little a listener can bring to them; they are Bono's take, not yours, unlike "Fall on Me," which, for me, in 1987, was a deeply personal song about the crushing whatever of existence.

2007 Oscar Nominees Announced

80th Academy Awards
Announced Categories

Performance by an actor in a leading role
George Clooney in "Michael Clayton" (Warner Bros.)
Daniel Day-Lewis in "There Will Be Blood" (Paramount Vantage and Miramax)
Johnny Depp in "Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" (DreamWorks and Warner Bros., Distributed by DreamWorks/Paramount)
Tommy Lee Jones in "In the Valley of Elah" (Warner Independent)
Viggo Mortensen in "Eastern Promises" (Focus Features)

Performance by an actor in a supporting role
Casey Affleck in "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" (Warner Bros.)
Javier Bardem in "No Country for Old Men" (Miramax and Paramount Vantage)
Philip Seymour Hoffman in "Charlie Wilson's War" (Universal)
Hal Holbrook in "Into the Wild" (Paramount Vantage and River Road Entertainment)
Tom Wilkinson in "Michael Clayton" (Warner Bros.)

Performance by an actress in a leading role
Cate Blanchett in "Elizabeth: The Golden Age" (Universal)
Julie Christie in "Away from Her" (Lionsgate)
Marion Cotillard in "La Vie en Rose" (Picturehouse)
Laura Linney in "The Savages" (Fox Searchlight)
Ellen Page in "Juno" (Fox Searchlight)

Performance by an actress in a supporting role
Cate Blanchett in "I'm Not There" (The Weinstein Company)
Ruby Dee in "American Gangster" (Universal)
Saoirse Ronan in "Atonement" (Focus Features)
Amy Ryan in "Gone Baby Gone" (Miramax)
Tilda Swinton in "Michael Clayton" (Warner Bros.)

Best animated feature film of the year
"Persepolis" (Sony Pictures Classics): Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud
"Ratatouille" (Walt Disney): Brad Bird
"Surf's Up" (Sony Pictures Releasing): Ash Brannon and Chris Buck

Achievement in art direction
"American Gangster" (Universal): Art Direction: Arthur Max; Set Decoration: Beth A. Rubino
"Atonement" (Focus Features): Art Direction: Sarah Greenwood; Set Decoration: Katie Spencer
"The Golden Compass" (New Line in association with Ingenious Film Partners): Art Direction: Dennis Gassner; Set Decoration: Anna Pinnock
"Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" (DreamWorks and Warner Bros., Distributed by DreamWorks/Paramount): Art Direction: Dante Ferretti; Set Decoration: Francesca Lo Schiavo
"There Will Be Blood" (Paramount Vantage and Miramax): Art Direction: Jack Fisk; Set Decoration: Jim Erickson

Achievement in cinematography
"The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" (Warner Bros.): Roger Deakins
"Atonement" (Focus Features): Seamus McGarvey
"The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" (Miramax/Pathé Renn): Janusz Kaminski
"No Country for Old Men" (Miramax and Paramount Vantage): Roger Deakins
"There Will Be Blood" (Paramount Vantage and Miramax): Robert Elswit

Achievement in costume design
"Across the Universe" (Sony Pictures Releasing) Albert Wolsky
"Atonement" (Focus Features) Jacqueline Durran
"Elizabeth: The Golden Age" (Universal) Alexandra Byrne
"La Vie en Rose" (Picturehouse) Marit Allen
"Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" (DreamWorks and Warner Bros., Distributed by DreamWorks/Paramount) Colleen Atwood

Achievement in directing
"The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" (Miramax/Pathé Renn), Julian Schnabel
"Juno" (Fox Searchlight), Jason Reitman
"Michael Clayton" (Warner Bros.), Tony Gilroy
"No Country for Old Men" (Miramax and Paramount Vantage), Joel Coen and Ethan Coen
"There Will Be Blood" (Paramount Vantage and Miramax), Paul Thomas Anderson

Best documentary feature
"No End in Sight" (Magnolia Pictures) A Representational Pictures Production: Charles Ferguson and Audrey Marrs
"Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience" (The Documentary Group) A Documentary Group Production: Richard E. Robbins
"Sicko" (Lionsgate and The Weinstein Company) A Dog Eat Dog Films Production: Michael Moore and Meghan O'Hara
"Taxi to the Dark Side" (THINKFilm) An X-Ray Production: Alex Gibney and Eva Orner
"War/Dance" (THINKFilm) A Shine Global and Fine Films Production: Andrea Nix Fine and Sean Fine

Best documentary short subject
"Freeheld" A Lieutenant Films Production: Cynthia Wade and Vanessa Roth
"La Corona (The Crown)" A Runaway Films and Vega Films Production: Amanda Micheli and Isabel Vega
"Salim Baba" A Ropa Vieja Films and Paradox Smoke Production: Tim Sternberg and Francisco Bello
"Sari's Mother" (Cinema Guild) A Daylight Factory Production: James Longley

Achievement in film editing
"The Bourne Ultimatum" (Universal): Christopher Rouse
"The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" (Miramax/Pathé Renn): Juliette Welfling
"Into the Wild" (Paramount Vantage and River Road Entertainment): Jay Cassidy
"No Country for Old Men" (Miramax and Paramount Vantage) Roderick Jaynes
"There Will Be Blood" (Paramount Vantage and Miramax): Dylan Tichenor

Best foreign language film of the year
"Beaufort" Israel
"The Counterfeiters" Austria
"Katyn" Poland
"Mongol" Kazakhstan
"12" Russia

Achievement in makeup
"La Vie en Rose" (Picturehouse) Didier Lavergne and Jan Archibald
"Norbit" (DreamWorks, Distributed by Paramount): Rick Baker and Kazuhiro Tsuji
"Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End" (Walt Disney): Ve Neill and Martin Samuel

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original score)
"Atonement" (Focus Features) Dario Marianelli
"The Kite Runner" (DreamWorks, Sidney Kimmel Entertainment and Participant Productions, Distributed by Paramount Classics): Alberto Iglesias
"Michael Clayton" (Warner Bros.) James Newton Howard
"Ratatouille" (Walt Disney) Michael Giacchino
"3:10 to Yuma" (Lionsgate) Marco Beltrami

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original song)
"Falling Slowly" from "Once" (Fox Searchlight) Music and Lyric by Glen Hansard and: Marketa Irglova
"Happy Working Song" from "Enchanted" (Walt Disney): Music by Alan Menken; Lyric by Stephen Schwartz
"Raise It Up" from "August Rush" (Warner Bros.): Nominees to be determined
"So Close" from "Enchanted" (Walt Disney): Music by Alan Menken; Lyric by Stephen Schwartz
"That's How You Know" from "Enchanted" (Walt Disney): Music by Alan Menken; Lyric by Stephen Schwartz

Best motion picture of the year
"Atonement" (Focus Features) A Working Title Production: Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner and Paul Webster, Producers
"Juno" (Fox Searchlight) A Dancing Elk Pictures, LLC Production: Lianne Halfon, Mason Novick and Russell Smith, Producers
"Michael Clayton" (Warner Bros.) A Clayton Productions, LLC Production: Sydney Pollack, Jennifer Fox and Kerry Orent, Producers
"No Country for Old Men" (Miramax and Paramount Vantage) A Scott Rudin/Mike Zoss Production: Scott Rudin, Ethan Coen and Joel Coen, Producers
"There Will Be Blood" (Paramount Vantage and Miramax) A JoAnne Sellar/Ghoulardi Film Company Production: JoAnne Sellar, Paul Thomas Anderson and Daniel Lupi, Producers

Best animated short film
"I Met the Walrus" A Kids & Explosions Production: Josh Raskin
"Madame Tutli-Putli" (National Film Board of Canada) A National Film Board of Canada Production Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski
"Même Les Pigeons Vont au Paradis (Even Pigeons Go to Heaven)" (Premium Films) A BUF Compagnie Production Samuel Tourneux and Simon Vanesse
"My Love (Moya Lyubov)" (Channel One Russia) A Dago-Film Studio, Channel One Russia and Dentsu Tec Production Alexander Petrov
"Peter & the Wolf" (BreakThru Films) A BreakThru Films/Se-ma-for Studios Production Suzie Templeton and Hugh Welchman

Best live action short film
"At Night" A Zentropa Entertainments 10 Production: Christian E. Christiansen and Louise Vesth
"Il Supplente (The Substitute)" (Sky Cinema Italia) A Frame by Frame Italia Production: Andrea Jublin
"Le Mozart des Pickpockets (The Mozart of Pickpockets)" (Premium Films) A Karé Production: Philippe Pollet-Villard
"Tanghi Argentini" (Premium Films) An Another Dimension of an Idea Production: Guido Thys and Anja Daelemans
"The Tonto Woman" A Knucklehead, Little Mo and Rose Hackney Barber Production: Daniel Barber and Matthew Brown

Achievement in sound editing
"The Bourne Ultimatum" (Universal): Karen Baker Landers and Per Hallberg
"No Country for Old Men" (Miramax and Paramount Vantage): Skip Lievsay
"Ratatouille" (Walt Disney): Randy Thom and Michael Silvers
"There Will Be Blood" (Paramount Vantage and Miramax): Matthew Wood
"Transformers" (DreamWorks and Paramount in association with Hasbro): Ethan Van der Ryn and Mike Hopkins

Achievement in sound mixing
"The Bourne Ultimatum" (Universal) Scott Millan, David Parker and Kirk Francis
"No Country for Old Men" (Miramax and Paramount Vantage): Skip Lievsay, Craig Berkey, Greg Orloff and Peter Kurland
"Ratatouille" (Walt Disney): Randy Thom, Michael Semanick and Doc Kane
"3:10 to Yuma" (Lionsgate): Paul Massey, David Giammarco and Jim Stuebe
"Transformers" (DreamWorks and Paramount in association with Hasbro): Kevin O'Connell, Greg P. Russell and Peter J. Devlin

Achievement in visual effects
"The Golden Compass" (New Line in association with Ingenious Film Partners): Michael Fink, Bill Westenhofer, Ben Morris and Trevor Wood
"Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End" (Walt Disney): John Knoll, Hal Hickel, Charles Gibson and John Frazier
"Transformers" (DreamWorks and Paramount in association with Hasbro): Scott Farrar, Scott Benza, Russell Earl and John Frazier

Adapted screenplay
"Atonement" (Focus Features), Screenplay by Christopher Hampton
"Away from Her" (Lionsgate), Written by Sarah Polley
"The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" (Miramax/Pathé Renn), Screenplay by Ronald Harwood
"No Country for Old Men" (Miramax and Paramount Vantage), Written for the screen by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
"There Will Be Blood" (Paramount Vantage and Miramax), Written for the screen by Paul Thomas Anderson

Original screenplay
"Juno" (Fox Searchlight), Written by Diablo Cody
"Lars and the Real Girl" (MGM), Written by Nancy Oliver
"Michael Clayton" (Warner Bros.), Written by Tony Gilroy
"Ratatouille" (Walt Disney), Screenplay by Brad Bird; Story by Jan Pinkava, Jim Capobianco, Brad Bird
"The Savages" (Fox Searchlight), Written by Tamara Jenkins