ACE Eddie Awards split on musicals, embracing "tick tick... BOOM!" while shunning "West Side Story"

by Nathaniel R

a split decision on the big musicals of 2021

The American Cinema Editor's Guild is the second of four guilds to announce on this unofficial "Super Thursday" in which PGA, ACE, DGA, and WGA are all announcing... It's the last big precursor announcement before Oscar nominations on February 8th. The biggest surprise if that they've shunned the energetic precision of West Side Story in Best Editing but somehow Don't Look Up (with considerable pacing / rhythm problems) was honored. tick, tick... BOOM!'s nomination is interesting given the West Side Story cold shoulder. The list of nominees and a few more comments after the jump...

BEST EDITED FEATURE FILM (DRAMATIC)

• “Belfast” Úna Ní Dhonghaíle, ACE, BFE
• “Dune” Joe Walker, ACE
• “King Richard” Pamela Martin, ACE
• “No Time to Die” Tom Cross, ACE, Elliot Graham, ACE
• “The Power of the Dog” Peter Sciberras

Notable misses here in terms of best picture dreams are CODA and West Side Story. West Side Story still feels possible for a nomination though since it's co-edited by the legendary Michael Kahn (8 nominations and 3 Oscar wins)

BEST EDITED FEATURE FILM (COMEDY)

• “Cruella” Tatiana S. Riegel ACE
• “Don’t Look Up” Hank Corwin, ACE
• “The French Dispatch of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun” Andrew Weisblum, ACE
• “Licorice Pizza” Andy Jurgensen
• “tick, tick…BOOM!” Myron Kerstein, ACE, Andrew Weisblum, ACE

I can't even talk about Zola missing here. "The flames... on the side of my face." But then the editors guild is arguably the worst of all guilds on a regular basis in terms of completely ignoring any titles that aren't firmly embedded in Oscar conversations. And if we're talking Comedy editing, why not Shiva Baby which has absolutely expert timing throughout. (Oh, right. Not in the Oscar conversation!)

BEST EDITED ANIMATED FEATURE FILM

• “Encanto” Jeremy Milton, ACE
• “Luca” Catherine Apple, ACE, Jason Hudak
• “The Mitchells vs. the Machines” Greg Levitan
• “Raya and the Last Dragon” Fabienne Rawley, ACE, Shannon Stein
• “Sing 2” Gregory Perler, ACE

It's as if these were the only five animated films released this year. It's these same five everywhere, reminding us of Disney and Netflix's strangehold on the industry, broken only by big hits (like Sing 2) when they occur.

BEST EDITED DOCUMENTARY (FEATURE)

• “Flee” Janus Billeskov Jansen
• “The Rescue” Bob Eisenhardt, ACE
• “Summer of Soul……Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised” Joshua L. Pearson
• “Val” Ting Poo, Leo Scott
• “The Velvet Underground” Affonso Gonçalves, ACE, Adam Kurnitz

Strong choices here!

BEST EDITED DOCUMENTARY (NON-THEATRICAL)

• “100 Foot Wave Sea Monsters” Abhay Sofsky, Adrienne Gits, Connor Culhane, Brandon Valentin
• “1971: The Year That Music Changed Everything “Starman” Sam Blair
• “Allen V. Farrow” (Episode 1) Mikaela Shwer, Parker Laramie & Sara Newens
• “The Beatles: Get Back” (Episode 3) Jabez Olssen
• “Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry” Greg Finton, ACE, Lindsay Utz, ACE

BEST EDITED MULTI-CAMERA COMEDY SERIES

• “Kevin Can F**k Himself” (Fixed) Kenneth LaMere ACE
• “Kevin Can F**k Himself” (The Grand Victorian)Ivan Victor, ACE
• “Kevin Can F**k Himself” (Live Free or Die) Daniel Schalk, ACE

Where are there only three nominees and why are they only from one show?

BEST EDITED SINGLE-CAMERA COMEDY SERIES

• “Curb Your Enthusiasm” (Igor, Gregor, & Timor) Steven Rasch ACE, Thomas Foligno
• “Curb Your Enthusiasm” (The Mormon Advantage) Chris Chandler, Roger Nygard, ACE
• “Hacks” (1.69 Million) Susan Vaill, ACE
• “Ted Lasso” (No Weddings and a Funeral) A.J. Catoline, ACE
• “Ted Lasso” (Rainbow) Melissa McCoy, ACE

BEST EDITED DRAMA SERIES

• “Euphoria” (Fuck Anyone Who’s Not a Sea Blob) Julio C. Pérez IV, ACE, Nikola Boyanov
• “Lupin” (Chapter 1) Jean-Daniel Fernandez-Qundez
• “Squid Game” (Gganbu) Nam Na-young
• “Succession” (All the Bells Say) Ken Eluto, ACE
• “Succession” (Chiantishire) Jane Rizzo

BEST EDITED MOTION PICTURE (NON-THEATRICAL)

• “Kate” Sandra Montiel, ACE, Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir, ACE
• “Lupe” Shiran Carolyn Amir
• “Oslo” Jay Rabinowitz, ACE

Why are there only 3 nominees here?

BEST EDITED LIMITED SERIES

• “Dopesick” (First Bottle) Douglas Crise, ACE
• “Mare of Easttown” (Fathers) Amy E. Duddleston, ACE, Naomi Sunrise Filoramo
• “Mare of Easttown” (Illusions) Amy E. Duddleston, ACE
• “The White Lotus” (Departures) John M. Valerio, ACE
• “The White Lotus” (Mysterious Monkeys) Heather Persons

BEST EDITED NON-SCRIPTED SERIES

• “Formula 1: Drive to Survive” (Man on Fire) Dan Ablett, Kevin Austin, Otto Burnham, Shane McCormack, Graham Taylor
• “MasterChef: Legends” (Semi Final Pt 3 Chef Showdown) Roger Bartlett, Matt Cluett, Greg Fitzsimmons, Dylan Hart, Ezra Hudson, James Messina, Rod Schultheiss, Austin Scott, Molly Shock ACE
• “Queer Eye” (Angel Gets Her Wings) Nova Taylor, Sean Gill

BEST EDITED VARIETY TALK/SKETCH SHOW OR SPECIAL

• “A Black Lady Sketch Show” (Sister, May I Call You Oshun) Daysha Broadway, ACE, Stephanie Filo, ACE, Jessica Hernández, ACE
• “Bo Burnham: Inside” Bo Burnham
• “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” (Union Busting) Ryan Barger, Anthony Milae

BEST EDITED ANIMATION (NON-THEATRICAL)

• “Bobs Burgers” (Vampire Disco Death Dance) Jeremy Reuben
• “Rick and Morty” (Gotron Jerrysis Rickvangelion) Lee Harting, ACE
• “What If?” (What If… Ultron Won?) Graham Fisher, Joel Fisher

Comments

[Peter]

Thrilled about tick...tick...BOOM but confused why it is in the Comedy category?

[Raul]

"Don't Look Up" is a terribly edited movie, I thought. But professional editors don't seem to think so. What do I know?

[Ryan T.]

Yay TICK TICK BOOM!

Boo DON'T LOOK UP. This movie appearing everywhere today has been depressing.

[Tom M]

Someone please explain to me why West Side Story isn't performing like the sure thing it felt like (and deserves to be)? is there a backlash? A sense that the box office wasn't there so why bother? Spielberg hate? I am stunned by how it is missing in certain places I thought it would be slam dunk.

[NATHANIEL R]

Raul -- you can trust your instinct. professional editors also nominated BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY one of those movies that has been proven through video essays to have objectively terrible editing ;)

[Collin Derby]

"Don't Look Up" - I don't understand why so many people like it, because all of the people I know, including me saw it, but didn't like it at all. The cast is great, but everything else....