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THERE WILL BE BLOOD, Radiohead's In Rainbows Prevail in Tight Edendale Shortlist Battle

The winners of the fifth annual Edendale Shortlist were announced Sunday night at the conclusion of the 80th Academy Awards in an extremely tight result in both the film and music categories.  Paul Thomas Anderson's THERE WILL BE BLOOD took the film prize by a single vote over Julian Schnabel's THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY, while Radiohead won the music prize by three votes for their album In Rainbows.

Continuing the tight results in film, the third place finisher - the Coen Brothers' Oscar winning NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN - was one vote behind DIVING BELL.  Much further back in fourth was Jason Reitman's JUNO.  David Fincher's ZODIAC was fifth and Judd Apatow's KNOCKED UP came in with the smallest number of votes among the shortlist.

Runners-up in music included Amy Winehouse's Back to Black, which finished three votes back of Radiohead.  Blonde Redhead's 23 came in third.

The 2007 Edendale Shortlist Nominees Unveiled

We're a bit behind in announcing the Edendale Shortlist, our annual, somewhat serious, yet surprisingly predictive, survey of more than 50 filmmakers, critics and writers, musicians, actors and film programmers.  This is due in part to the ongoing planning for the inaugural Cinema Eye Honors, an actual award ceremony, with actual awards.  But let's not let the comparison dull the luster of our fifth annual Edendale Shortlist:

The Edendale Shortlist for Film:

THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY
JUNO
KNOCKED UP
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
THERE WILL BE BLOOD
ZODIAC

The Edendale Shortlist for Music:

Ryan Adams - Easy Tiger
Blonde Redhead - 23
The National - Boxer
Radiohead - In Rainbows
Kanye West - Graduation
Amy Winehouse - Back to Black

For background on the previous year's winners and nominees, go here.  Winners will be announced Sunday night, February 24, after the Oscars.

Dreamgirls Snubbed? The Shortlist Predicted It

As I predicted here, a major surprise of this morning's Oscar nominations was the failure of presumed frontrunner Dreamgirls in not scoring nominations for Best Picture or Best Director.

As noted when I published this year's Edendale Shortlist, out of a total of 267 votes from filmmakers, writers, programmers, etc., there was not a single mention for Dreamgirls, and never in the history of the Shortlist has a film been nominated for Best Picture without at least one (and usually many more) nomination to the Shortlist.

So if anyone asks if you're surprised, just say, "no, the Edendale Shortlist told me so."

The Shortlist for Film Broken Down

While we keep preliminary totals for the Edendale Shortlist nominations under wraps until after the winners are announced (on February 26, the day after the Oscars), here's a full list of every film that received nominations for this year's Shortlist, including a list of runners-up and a tally of those films that received multiple votes:

The 2006 Shortlist Nominees for Film:
Borat
Children of Men
The Departed
Little Miss Sunshine
Pan's Labyrinth

6 Runners Up (including 2 films that tied for 10th place) in alphabetical order:
Babel
Half Nelson
Iraq in Fragments
Old Joy
The Queen
Volver

Films receiving multiple votes (in alphabetical order):
Army of Shadows
Brick
Casino Royale
Dance Party, USA
Days of Glory
L’Enfant
God Grew Tired of Us
An Inconvenient Truth
Inland Empire
Inside Man
Kurt Cobain About A Son
Letters From Iwo Jima
Little Children
The Lives of Others
La Moustache
The Proposition
A Scanner Darkly
Shut Up & Sing
Thank You For Smoking
This Film Is Not Yet Rated
The Trials of Darryl Hunt
Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story
United 93
V For Vendetta
What Remains
When the Levees Broke

Films Receiving a Single Vote (in alphabetical order):
Amongst White Clouds
Away From Her
Awesome I Fuckin' Shot That
Beauty Academy of Kabul
Blindsight
Blood Diamond
Cache
Can Mr. Smith Get to Washington Anymore?
Cars
The Chances of the World Changing
Clean
Climates
Dave Chapelle’s Block Party
The Death of Mr. Lazarescu
Deliver Us From Evil
The Descent
District B-13
Drawing Restraint 9
For Your Consideration
Four Eyed Monsters
Eragon
Factotum
Flags of Our Fathers
Forsaken Land
Happy Feet
Hard Candy
The Holiday
Homemade Hillbilly Jam
I Am A Sex Addict
Jackass Number Two
Jesus Camp
Land of Plenty
The Last King of Scotland
LOL
Mutual Appreciation
My Country, My Country
The Puffy Chair
The Road to Guantanamo
Running With Scissors
The Science of Sleep
Sherrybaby
Shortbus
Snakes on a Plane
So Much So Fast
Sorry, Haters
Step Up
Sweetland
Syndromes and a Century
Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby
Three Burials of Meliquades Estrada
Three Times
An Unreasonable Man
We Go Way Back
Why We Fight

The 2006 Edendale Shortlist Unveiled

For the fourth year in a row, we’ve called out for nominations for the Edendale Shortlist.  This year, based on the votes of more than 50 filmmakers, critics & writers, musicians, actors and film programmers, we’re pleaseed announce the five films and five albums that made the 2006 Edendale Shortlist.

The Edendale Shortlist Nominees for Film are:

Borat
Children of Men
The Departed
Little Miss Sunshine
Pan’s Labyrinth

The Edendale Shortlist Nominees for Music are:

Band of Horses - Everything All the Time
Cat Power - The Greatest
Joanna Newsom - Ys
TV on the Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain
Tom Waits - Orphans

A couple of notable firsts on the film side:  For the first time in the Shortlist’s short history, a documentary failed to make the final 5 (previous nominees included Spellbound, Fahrenheit 9/11 and Grizzly Man).  This year, James Longley’s Iraq in Fragments came the closest to making the list.  And despite more than 50 voters (and a total of more than 260 individual votes), not a single person gave one of their five votes to Dreamgirls, which, should Dreamgirls get nominated for Best Picture, would be the first time a Best Picture nominee failed to get at least one vote in our shortlist.

On the music side, this year marks the first time that a previous Shortlister returns.  Joanna Newsom makes the final five again this year (she previously appeared on the 2004 list with her album The Milk-Eyed Mender) for her latest album, Ys.

More details on this year’s voting and a breakdown of votes to come.

Previous Edendale Shortlist Winners for Film:
2003 - (tie) City of God and Lost in Translation
2004 - Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
2005 - Good Night, and Good Luck.

Previous Edendale Shortlist Winners for Music:
2003 - Outkast - Speakerboxxx/The Love Below
2004 - Elliot Smith - From a Basement on the Hill
2005 - Sufjan Stevens - Illinois

"Good Night", Illinois Win Edendale Shortlist Prizes

Good Night, and Good Luck., George Clooney's ode to Edward R. Murrow and notions of aggressive journalism, was the surprise winner in the 3rd Annual Edendale Shortlist Prize for Best Film. Good Night edged front-runner Brokeback Mountain by a single vote. Werner Herzog's acclaimed documentary Grizzly Man came in third.

On the music side, Sufjan Steven's tribute to the Prarie State - "Illinois" (or Illinoise) - took the Edendale Shortlist Prize for Best Album. Illinois won a tightly fought competition, beating both "In the Reins" by Iron and Wine with Calexico and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah self-titled debut by a single vote. Coming in fourth was The Hold Steady's Separation Sunday.

Coming into Sunday's voting, Brokeback Mountain and Illinois lead their respective fields by nearly double digits. Both film winner Good Night, and Good Luck and music runner-ups Iron and Wine & Clap Your Hands seemed to receive the final vote from nearly everyone who nominated them in the first place, leading to the upset in the film category and near upset in the music category.

The Edendale Shortlist is a vaguely (un)serious prize, with nominations chosen by more than 40 filmmakers, musician, actors and others. Previous winners included City of God, Lost in Translation and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind in the film category, Elliot Smith and Outkast in the music category.

Full nominees for this year here.

The 2005 Edendale Shortlist Nominees

Just when you thought we couldn't possibly have another Best of 2005 list, here comes our own 3rd Annual Edendale Shortlist. Is this for real? Well, yes, in a way. I poll a bunch of people that I know and love - primarily filmmakers, musicians, actors - and ask them to submit a list of their five favorite films and albums of the past year. This year, the voters numbered more than 40 and they came up with a truly great list of films and records.

The Shortlist Nominees for Film are:

Brokeback Mountain
Capote
The Constant Gardener
Good Night, and Good Luck
Grizzly Man
The Squid and the Whale