"No Country" adds honors in pre-Oscar awards blitzTue Feb 19, 2008 2:11am EST
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Oscar front-runner "No Country For Old Men" picked up two awards during the weekend as the countdown to the Academy Awards entered its final week.
The film won the top prize in sound mixing at the 44th annual Cinema Audio Society awards on Saturday.
The award was accepting by production mixer Peter Kurland and re-recording mixers Skip Lievsay, Craig Berkey and Gregg Orloff, who will compete at the Oscars on Sunday against the teams from "The Bourne Ultimatum," "Ratatouille," "3:10 to Yuma" and "Transformers."
The grim Western picked up eight Oscar nominations, tying with "There Will Be Blood" as the leading contender.
Also Saturday, "No Country for Old Men" was named best contemporary film at the 12th annual Art Directors Guild awards. The prize was accepted by Jess Gonchor, who did not receive an Oscar nomination.
Instead, two other Art Directors Guild winners "There Will Be Blood" (period film) and "The Golden Compass" (fantasy film) will compete for the Oscar against "American Gangster," "Atonement" and "Sweeney Todd."
But "No Country" was not able to secure a clean sweep during the weekend awards blitz. A day later, "The Bourne Ultimatum" and "Sweeney Todd" won the top prizes at the 58th annual American Cinema Editors Eddie Awards, for drama and musical/comedy, respectively.
"The Bourne Ultimatum" will compete for the Oscar against "No Country," "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly," "Into the Wild" and "There Will Be Blood."
Reuters/Hollywood Reporter
http://www.reuters.com/article/filmNews/idUSN1821326220080219