Dracula
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Post by Dracula on Jan 30, 2016 21:48:02 GMT -5
For those who weren't here when I did this in 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2014 this is an part of a tradition of year end rituals I put together each year and I'm ready to go through with this once again. Basically what I want to do here is post one category a day for four weeks. The First week will be scene based categories (best chase etc.), The second week will be technical awards (best editing etc.), The third week will be acting awards, and the last week will be genre awards and will culminate in Best picture which will be announced in a top ten format. These awards will be entirely based on my opinions, but I don't plan to have this being an entirely self indulgent pursuit. I hope that each category will lead to discussion and that people will find themselves playing along and giving their opinions about these various categories. So, without further ado I'll give out the first of the scene based awards: Best Fight SceneThey say drama is conflict and conflict doesn’t get much more pure than two people facing off head to head and beating the tar out of each other. That’s what this award is all about, sequences where two people engage in melee brawls. Short range weapons like swords and knives are allowed but guns, if present at all, cannot be the primary weapon of choice among the participants. Fights will be judged on choreography, dramatic effect, as well as creativity and ingenuity. Adonis Creed Vs. Leo Sporino- Creed: We’re really accustomed to seeing boxing matches presented in highlight form in films and for obvious reasons, but Creed decided to flip that convention on its head by not only showing a two round boxing match in its entirety but also showing it in one single continuous take. That alone would be impressive, but the boxing match itself is a virtuoso bit of exciting choreography and tension, easily the most visually enticing thing we’ve ever seen out of the Rocky series. Max in Chains vs. Furiosa et al- Mad Max: Fury Road: How do you follow up a badass car chase through a sandstorm? With about five minutes of peace followed by this blistering and creatively staged fight scene in which Max has to find his way out of the chains he’s been stuck with while also having to fight off Furiosa and the “wives she saved.” Eventually Nicholas Hoult’s Nux joins in to form an uneasy tag team with Max and a pistol comes into play in a cool and creative way. Opera Catwalk Fight- Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation: This fight comes on the heels of a cool cat and mouse chase through an operahouse where Giacomo Puccini’s Turandot is being performed. Upon realizing that a man with a flute rifle is in the rafters Ethan Hunt takes the initiative and engages in a high risk fight with this assassin and must work with the limited foot room afforded by this fighting space. When he finally fells his opponent he must then find a way to save the assassination target from the two gunmen who are after him resulting in a split second decision that would make Jack Traven proud. Glass Vs. Fitzgerald- The Revenant: The second half of The Revenant is setting up a collision course between Hugh Glass and John Fitzgerald which bubbles up in a final confrontation that begins with a very cool little ambush and continues with a really awesome knife fight between these two guys across a snowy clearing. The fight itself is really well choreographed and features a really cool moment where Tom Hardy gets a couple fingers cut off and the camera doesn’t even flinch. Crashed Car Fight- Wild Tales: The highlight of Damián Szifron’s anthology film is almost certainly its third segment “The Strongest” which is sort of like a “When Keepin’ it Real Goes Wrong” sketch taken to its violent extreme. It starts with a guy flipping someone off on the road and ends with the fight between two guys inside of a car that’s dangling from the side of the cliff. The sheer hatred of the two combatants along with the novelty of the fight occurring in such a confined space make this fight something special. And the Golden Stake Goes To…
Creed
 You know, I’m getting close to demanding a moratorium on the whole “single continuous shot” thing, but this sequence is proof positive that the technique hasn’t quite jumped the shark. Here that technique is not just to show off and actually has purpose, it’s to show just how in the moment a fighter is when he’s in the ring and just how long two rounds of punishment can be. That they were able to include so many moving parts in the sequence (which I’m told was done “legit”) is pretty dame impressive. |
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PG Cooper
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Post by PG Cooper on Jan 31, 2016 13:59:39 GMT -5
Excellent start.
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IanTheCool
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Post by IanTheCool on Jan 31, 2016 14:23:49 GMT -5
Good mad max choice. I've heard about the Creed fight and it sounds quite good.
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Dracula
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Post by Dracula on Jan 31, 2016 18:55:17 GMT -5
Best Musical Performance
This is a funny little category in which I look at scenes from movies where characters perform a song on screen for whatever reason. There aren’t always a ton of options but for whatever reason I do end up finding five fairly worthy nominees each year and this year was no exception, in fact it was one of the better slates I’ve seen in quite a while. Please note, I’m evaluating these as scenes in their entirety and not necessarily the musical qualities of the performance itself (although at can help as well). Christmas Dinner- Brooklyn: This is part of a larger scene in which the film’s protagonist volunteers to serve food on Christmas to down on their luck older Irish men who had immigrated to America in earlier generations. Over the course of the dinner one of the men, who is an Irish singer (played by real irish singer Iarla Ó Lionáird) is invited to sing an a Capella rendition of the Gaelic folk song called “Casadh an Tsúgáin,” a sad rendition which acts as a sort of call to action for the character to make something out of her life in New York. Opening Rap Concert- Chi-Raq: Spike Lee’s ambitious if somewhat messy Chi-Raq opens with a scene in a hip-hop club where the film’s central rapper/gang leader Chiraq is on stage performing a rap song called “My City” (not to be confused with the similarly titled “Pray 4 My City) which establishes the conflict with the fictional Spartan and Trojan gangs and ends with a shooting in the audience. There’s something kind of weird about hearing fictional gangs getting called out in earnest with lyrics like “And I got that Magnum ‘cause I don’t fuck with Trojans.” “Jim Jones at Botany Bay” - The Hateful Eight: This scene somewhere in the middle of The Hateful Eight has the villainous Daisy Domergue picking up a guitar and singing a traditional Australian folk song about an English convict being transported across the ocean and being hijacked by pirates. That this song somewhat mirrors Domergue’s situation is plainly clear but she goes ahead and makes them explicit when she changes the last line of the song into an ominous threat against her captor, leading him to smash her guitar. “Speak Low” – Phoenix: Christian Petzold’s Phoenix in many ways all leads up to this haunting final scene which is easily its highlight. The whole film is built around the suspense of trying to find out when the main character’s husband will realize that the woman he’s been scheming with is actually his supposedly dead wife and it’s only in this scene where she signs this jazz standard in front of him and his family that he finally realizes what’s been going on and responds as if he’s seen a ghost.
Detroit Concert- Straight Outta Compton: This scene depicts a legendary concert that N.W.A. performed at Detroit’s Joe Louis Arena where they were warned by the police that “eff the Police is not to be performed.” Being the rebels that they were Ice Cube, Dre, Ren, and Eazy weren’t having that so toward the end of their show they stand up on stage and play the song anyway. Long story short it ends with them being chased out of the arena by police and arrested (which is a bit of dramatic license for the movie) but the ultimate coda to the whole scene happens when a look of absolute glee and relief comes over the group’s faces when they’re thrown in the back of the police van. And the Golden Stake Goes To…
Phoenix
 This choice will not be surprising to many of the people who saw the movie; in fact I pretty much knew it had it in the bag as soon as I left the theater despite some stiff competition. On top of the dramatic impact of the scene Nina Hoss’ singing in the scene is pretty beautiful in and of itself and there is a special resonance to this English language song, which was written by the German-Jewish composer Kurt Weill in 1943 a good decade after he fled Germany to avoid Nazi persecution, just one of many many people in such situations and he was one of the “lucky” ones. In some ways so was the woman in this movie.
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Dracula
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Post by Dracula on Feb 1, 2016 8:09:06 GMT -5
Best Shootout
The shootout category is where largish gunfights belong. These scenes are a staple of action cinema but for whatever reason this category is never really a filled up as the other two action categories. Michael Mann’s movie was shockingly anemic this year so there wasn’t a lot in the way of traditional ballistic action, fortunately there were some non-traditional options to fill some of the gaps. Final Rescue- ’71: ’71 is a highly underappreciated British film about the height of “The Troubles” which works shockingly well as a visceral action film despite its deadly serious subject matter. The film ends with a small but interesting shootout where the film’s protagonist has been captured and troops are moving into a hideout to save him. The shootout is partly interesting in that it isn’t terribly clear to anyone involved who’s a friend and who’s an enemy with some tragic results. Shootout with Arikaras- The Revenant: Qualifying this scene as a shootout is a little tricky in that one side is using bows and arrows, but those are still projectile weapons and I think it counts. This scene depicts a sneak attack by a group of Native Americans and the ambush nature of the attack is front and center. It begins with people being hit with arrows they didn’t see coming and proceeds in a chaotic manner with Di Caprio’s character being one of the few white people prepared for this kind of combat. Border Crossing- Sicario: I hesitated about even including this scene because the shooting in it is rather one sided. In fact the scene is characterized more by tension than by actual shooting but it is a memorable scene just the same. It features a standoff in which the DEA taskforce at the film’s center is stalled on a busy highway and believes they’re in a lot of danger. Soon they identify the cars which are a threat and after a short standoff the cartel men are dead and our heroine finds herself defending herself from a related ambush. Final Shootout- Slow West: Slow West is a movie that feels decidedly different from your average western but it’s not particularly easy to put a finger on why. Similarly, this shootout feels different from your average climactic western shootout but for reasons that aren’t terribly clear. The shootout features bounty hunters laying siege to a cottage in the middle of a wheat field, pretty typical, but our heroes are neither the invaders nor the besieged so much as a couple of confused outsiders who seem to have stumbled into someone else’s movie. Takodana Battle- Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens: This mid-film action scene from The Force Awakens depicts a large scale shootout between The First Order and The Resistance and has a handful of mini-dramas throughout like Finn giving lightsaber fighting a whirl and Han Solo coming to realize why Chewbaca is so fond of the Bowcaster as a firearm of choice. It finally ends with X-wings intervening, by which point it’s clear that the First Order is one hell of a threat. And the Golden Stake Goes To…
The Revenant
 Once you get past the somewhat iffy proposition of including a shootout where one side doesn’t have guns this becomes a pretty obvious choice. Alejandro G. Iñárritu shoots the hell out of this scene and gives his movie an incredibly visceral opening that feels decidedly different from the “cowboys and Indians” battles of old. The whole sequence is filled with awesome little moments like when Di Caprio spins and shoots a sniper out of a tree and by the time the fur trappers make it to their boat you feel a palpable sense of relief on their behalf.
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PG Cooper
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Post by PG Cooper on Feb 1, 2016 10:26:58 GMT -5
I love that scene, but I too am not entirely sure whether I view it as a shootout or not.
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Dracula
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Post by Dracula on Feb 1, 2016 11:22:45 GMT -5
I love that scene, but I too am not entirely sure whether I view it as a shootout or not. I ultimately decided that its "shootout" not "gunfight" and since you do "shoot" arrows it counted. |
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Post by PG Cooper on Feb 1, 2016 11:57:27 GMT -5
I love that scene, but I too am not entirely sure whether I view it as a shootout or not. I ultimately decided that its "shootout" not "gunfight" and since you do "shoot" arrows it counted. Solid logic. |
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Post by RedVader on Feb 1, 2016 12:18:35 GMT -5
Out of Revenant I think The Bear encounter was bets fight in the whole movie. Other wise the selections was top notch.
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Post by IanTheCool on Feb 1, 2016 19:09:26 GMT -5
I loved the border crossing scene in Sicario. Seriously loved it.
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Post by Dracula on Feb 1, 2016 21:22:39 GMT -5
Best Use of Source Music
One of the most effective tricks in the repertoire of modern filmmaking tricks is to throw in a well-chosen pop song to accentuate a scene in a film. This category is all about scenes that perfectly meld music to visual in order to make a special effect. To be eligible a song must be pre-existing rather than an original song (so, no “See You Again”) and has to be a recording rather than a live performance in the film. “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” by The Platters- 45 Years: This song is used in the trailer for 45 Years and it’s also brought up twice in the movie before it’s finally played in the very final scene, so you know that something special is going to happen given all the build-up. What follows is a tense little slow dance at a party between the film’s central characters which the Charlotte Rampling character starts to have something of a revelation about her life up to that point, finally leading to a subtle but fascinating gesture and look right as the film cuts to credits. It’s a tantalizing scene that invites the audience to speculate as to what they just witnessed.
“Diamonds” by Rhianna – Girlhood: Girlhood (ignore the stupid ripoff title, it’s actually pretty good) is a movie about a group of rough and tumble Parisian girls and their difficult lives. This scene is something of an oasis for them in which they get enough money to rent out a hotel room and have sort of impromptu party where they dance to this mediocre Rhianna song. The movie holds on this moment for a surprisingly long time, practically playing the song in its entirety, like the film wants to give these characters their joy for as long as it possibly can before returning them to the ringer. “Give It Up” by KC and the Sunshine Band- Kingsman: The Secret Service: Most of the songs that get nominated in this category do so for adding a little non-diegetic mood to a scene but here the music is actually kind of part of the plot as the film’s villain decides to tie the unleashing his evil mass murder to this disco classic which fits in well with the movie’s anarchic spirit and has the unusual consequence of making you want the bad guy to win for a little longer just so the groove won’t stop. “Starman” by David Bowie- The Martian: Let the record show that I had already noted this as a probable nominee before David Bowie passed and there was a wave of remembrance. This is probably the highlight of The Martian’s disco soundtrack (even though it’s technically glam rock, not disco) and plays over a pretty important montage. The whole thing comes dangerously close to being a little too on the nose what with it being a song about a space man, but hey, at least they had the self-restraint not to use “Life on Mars.” “Ceiling Gazing” by Mark Kozelek and Jimmy LaValle - Youth: Youth is a movie about a classical composer but its musical landscape is actually rather eclectic. The centerpiece is probably this song which plays during an important montage, is a song that is a collaboration between singer/songwriter Mark Kozelek (AKA Sun Kil Moon) and an experimental instrumentalist named Jimmy LaValle. The song is the perfect hybrid of moodiness and melancholy for times past. And the Golden Stake Goes To…
45 Years
 This is one of the more heavily used songs in movies. According to Wikipedia it’s been used in no fewer than six other feature films including classics like American Graffiti and The Bitter Tears of Petra van Kant and in more recent films like Blue Valantine. Hell, the pilot episode of “Mad Men” was named after the damn thing. And yet, this may be the use that tops them all as it comes in a very memorable scene that the whole movie builds towards. You can also tell why they’d want to use this song in such a scene as it’s a recording that really culminates in a big final note at the end, and also because it so perfectly conjures the period when the two of them were younger.
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Post by Neverending on Feb 1, 2016 22:04:38 GMT -5
And the award for most random and awkward use of source music goes to...
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Dracula
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Post by Dracula on Feb 1, 2016 22:08:39 GMT -5
And the award for most random and awkward use of source music goes to... What hath Baz Luhrmann wrought... For the record that would be eligible for Musical Performance rather than use of source music. |
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Dracula
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Post by Dracula on Feb 2, 2016 18:28:46 GMT -5
Best Chase
The category is usually competitive but things got taken to another level this year with at least three or four chases here that easily could have won this thing any other year. People sure seemed to be in the mood for high speed mayhem this year. As always chases of any kind will be eligible here including foot chases, car chases, and whatever the hell the Mad Max chases would be classified as. Left Behind- ’71: ’71 is a movie about getting caught behind enemy lines and this is the scene where our protagonist finds himself in that position. Shortly after seeing his colleague executed on a city street this intense footchase breaks out in which an unarmed British soldier is chased through narrow Belfast alleys by young IRA types shooting at him with handguns. The scene has a real Paul Greengrass feel and while it isn’t nearly as elaborate as some of the scenes here it is just as intense and really brings you into this guy’s plight. Caucasus Chase- Furious 7: As crazy as the “Fast and Furious” franchise has gotten it must be said that they’ve never completely lost track of the vehicular carnage they were built upon. This particular chase is probably their masterpiece of automotive ridiculousness what with it beginning with cars parachuting out of a plane and culminates in Paul Walker running across a bus that’s teetering on a cliff, and I haven’t even gotten into the craziness in the middle. Finale- Mad Max: Fury Road: George Miller’s epic return to the Mad Max fold has a handful of inventive chase sequences in it, but it somehow manages to top itself with its final action scene in which our heroes take on Immortan Joe’s war party in the series’ trademark vehicular combat. This one is kind of a funny beast because the actual driving is often something of an afterthought compared to the fighting that’s going on as people move from car to car but it’s a pretty damn elaborate chase just the same. Motorcycle Chase- Mission Impossible-Rogue Nation: I’m no fan of the much maligned Mission Impossible II, but I am fond of the standout motorcycle sequence that takes up much of that film’s last quarter. I’m pretty sure Tom Crusie feels the same way and wanted to make another awesome motorcycle chase and put it into a movie that would be more worthy of it. That isn’t to say this is a complete re-do, in fact the vibe is quite different with Ethan Hunt being more of a smooth operating daredevil than a leather clad avenger. Millennium Falcon Escape- Star Wars: The Force Awakens: This category usually focuses on land vehicles and foot chases but every once in a while I find room for air chases and this is a pretty good one. It starts on land with Finn and Rey running to find a way off the planet and (through quite the cosmic coincidence) they find themselves on board the legendary Millennium Falcon. What follows is a fun chase where our heroes need to outrun and fight off a group of Tie Fighters seeking to end the movie before it begins. And the Golden Stake Goes To…
Mad Max: Fury Road
 I once heard someone make the fairly credible argument that comparing the chase scene from The Road Warrior to other iconic chase scenes was like comparing a ten minute prog-rock epic with a million things going on in it to more simple (if perhaps snappier) pop songs. That’s kind of what happened here as this elaborate set piece makes most of the competition (with the possible exception of the Furious 7 chase) look miniature by comparison. That combined with the fact that this movie has a number of other chase scenes that could compete here to made this one a pretty easy choice.
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Post by RedVader on Feb 3, 2016 15:47:37 GMT -5
IDK The Ray Flying The Falcon was for me the best chase scene. I however felt best chase part in Fury Road was them leaving and you first see the guitar playing guy and them going into the sand storm was better then the return race.
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Dracula
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Post by Dracula on Feb 3, 2016 19:02:51 GMT -5
Best Set-Piece
The set-piece category is kind of an odd beast in that it seeks to reward visceral bits of filmmaking that don’t fit perfectly into the other three action scene category but there aren’t any hard and fast rules about what qualifies for the award. Sometimes the nominees here are sort of hybrid action scenes that incorporate combinations of chases, shootout, and/or fights other times it isn’t an action scene at all so much as a suspense scene or some kind of special effects showcase that deserves mention. Building Jump- Furious 7: The “Fast and Furious” movies have long been fighting a war against the laws of physics and this is probably the craziest stunt they’ve ever envisioned. Beginning as our band of thieves find themselves attempting to steal something from a car that’s been parked in a penthouse in Dubai and ending as they drive said sports car straight out of one tower and through another and finally ending when they jump through a third tower only to finally ditch the car and watch it plummet to the ground below. Church Battle- Kingsman: The Secret Service: This scene isn’t quite a shootout (because only one person is armed) and isn’t quite a fight (because most of the combatants get shot), and this is part of why it’s so strange, in movies you very rarely root for the guy who brings a gun to a fist fight but the movie’s anarchich attitude makes it work and there’s something incredibly satisfying about watching Colin Firth of all people slickly shoot a bunch of psychotic fundamentalist Christians in the head as they lunge at him. Bear Attack- The Revenant: This could sort of be seen as a fight scene but its special effects nature combined with the fact that it’s a rather one-sided fight up until the very end made its placement in the category a bit more appropriate. Some of the early reactions to the movie misreported this as a scene where Leonardo DiCaprio is raped by a bear, and while that isn’t literally true there is kind of something to reading the movie like that as there is a sort of horrifying violation involved in the way the attack plays out. Room- The Escape: Room has a major turning point about midway through its running time when, after a long buildup, the Brie Larson character finally enlists her son to make a daring escape attempt where he pretends to be dead and is carried out in a rolled up rug only to then jump out of the back of their captor’s pickup and attempt to reach safety. The ensuing scene is an incredibly tense bit of filmmaking within an otherwise dramatic film that’s shot with expert precision by Lenny Abrahamson.
Son of Saul- River Crossing: The visceral and emotional finale of Son of Saul comes in this scene where Saul is taking part in an attempted escape from Auschwitz but is stilling hoping to bury the child that he believes to be his murdered son. After the rabbi he’s brought along runs away he tries to cross a river while holding this body but soon finds he can’t hold on any longer. László Nemes keeps his camera right on the waterline of this river and really chronicles the desperation and eventual resignation on Saul’s face.
And the Golden Stake Goes To…
Room
 This scene is certainly less expensive than most of the scenes that win in this category but it’s a beautiful piece of suspense filmmaking that deserves to be highlighted and rewarded. The basic details of the escape require a bit of suspension of disbelief but once the plan is in motion Abrahamson doesn’t miss a beat from his point of view shots in the rug to the moment when Jack finally finds himself safely in a police car but not sure what to make of the experience.
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IanTheCool
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Post by IanTheCool on Feb 3, 2016 20:41:05 GMT -5
If you gave it to that kingsman scene I may have thrown up.
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Post by PhantomKnight on Feb 4, 2016 1:24:00 GMT -5
But it still deserved to be on the list. Awesome sequence.
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Dracula
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Post by Dracula on Feb 4, 2016 6:47:13 GMT -5
Best Makeup
I don’t really have a Best Special Effects award because it would be boring as hell to just give that out to the most expensive movie of every year but I do like to give out an award for cool makeup effects. Increasingly I’ve come to incorporate hair-styling into the award as that often plays into the overall look of a character just as much as the makeup. Creed: We’ve seen a million movies where boxers get increasingly bruised and swollen over the course of a tough fight, but this one sort of seems to take it to the next level in the film’s final climactic fight where Adonis Creed’s eye seems to puff up as if there was a damn baseball underneath his skin. It does go to show just how determined this guy is to prove himself. The Hateful Eight: This being a Quentin Tarantino film there’s certainly some blood and gore for the makeup artists to indulge in and the certain bit that recalls Brian De Palma’s Carrie certainly helped, but this nomination actually had less to do with the makeup than with the hair styling. Namely I dug the wacked out old-timey beards that the movie gave to a bunch of the cast members which gave the film a certain surreal period detail. Macbeth: There are some neat little gore effects in this but that isn’t what really got it this nomination. Really there isn’t much in the way of really showy makeup effects here at all, but I wanted to highlight it anyway for how it was able to use a couple of less obvious makeup decisions like covering the titular king in war paint during the battles or adding blue around Lady Macbeth’s eyes to give the whole film a more rustic and tribal feel. Mad Max: Fury Road: It’s never made explicitly clear what caused the apocalypse in the Mad Max franchise but it seems to have caused some ill effects on the inhabitants of the wasteland. There are people in the movie that seem to almost be mutated and tumored, but there are other cool effects to be found as well like the bald and slightly ghostlike War Boys and vaguely albino-like Immortan Joe as well as some nice touches like the old lady with the complicated face tattoo or the black grease paint on Furiosa. The Revenant: The Revenant is one of those movies where a character goes from being somewhat healthy to being really messed up and injured by the end. It obviously starts after the bear attack where Di Caprio is covered with claw marks and continues after he finds himself starved and exhausted and finally finds himself covered in horse guts. The hairdressing is quality as well with more gangly beards and period haircuts. And the Golden Stake Goes To…
Mad Max: Fury Road
You had me at the War Boys. It’s hard to even talk about this one because there are just so many different places that the film uses makeup in interesting ways that there isn’t even a single unifying theme to it that I can land on. Just a really cool job all around for the Mad Max makeup team.
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Post by IanTheCool on Feb 4, 2016 22:00:37 GMT -5
But it still deserved to be on the list. Awesome sequence. Incorrect. |
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Post by IanTheCool on Feb 4, 2016 22:08:39 GMT -5
I probably would have given Revenant best make up, though I suppose mad max had more variety.
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Post by Dracula on Feb 4, 2016 22:10:10 GMT -5
Best Sound
This is the ninth Golden Stakes and thus the ninth time I’ve had to write a sort of disclaimer that I don’t know what I’m talking about in this category. I don’t spend much time listening for sound mixes and sound effects when I go to movies and don’t even own a surround sound system for when I’m doing home viewing. So take these with a grain of salt because they aren’t terribly well informed choices. Creed: Creating a quality punching sound effect is a fine art and when it goes wrong (as it did for many a low budget kung fu movie) it can be quite the distraction, but when it’s done right it can be pretty intense. The boxing scenes here are personified by some really loud and painful sounding blows as well as some well-chosen drops in the soundtrack after someone has been hit particularly hard. The Hateful Eight: This might actually be one of the relatively quiet nominees in this category, in part because Quentin Tarantino likes to have a sort of quiet/loud/quiet dynamic to his films. Here the name of the game is atmosphere. The sound of the windy storm outside the film’s cabin setting is a constant presence on the film’s soundtrack and so are the various creaks on the wood floors. The gunshots sound pretty great too. Love & Mercy: Love & Mercy is certainly the lowest budget of the movies here but its music setting gives it a lot to do. The most obvious audio showcase are the “Pet Sounds” and “Smile” recording sessions where we hear famous songs getting put together piece by piece. But this nomination isn’t just for the music, it’s also because there are scenes where we get into Brian Wilson’s head and hear his mental illness manifest itself in aural ways like a dinner scene where he suddenly starts hearing every clank of a fork on every plate. Mad Max: Fury Road: Explosions dude, explosions. Also sounds of cars revving up and crashing into each other… and exploding. Chains rattling as people fight one another, gunshots ringing out, gas igniting and exploding. Workers drumming on the back of amplifier cars while a dude stands in front playing a guitar/slash flamethrower… then said car crashing into a cliff and exploding. A lot of stuff in this movie to show off an audio system with. The Revenant: This is one of those movies that would be almost unwatchable if all the sound effects were taken out. Would the film’s central bear attack sound like if the bear didn’t have its slobbery heavy breathing? Would that opening battle scene have worked as well if it didn’t sound like arrows and gun shots were coming from all directions? What would the marching through the snow have been without that distinct crunch on the ground. And the Golden Stake Goes To…
Love & Mercy
 Just about every year I’ve ended up lazily giving this award to the loudest action movie in the nominees and called it a day, but this year I’ve been inspired in another direction. Mostly it’s just that this musical biopic did one or two things with sound I hadn’t already seen (or rather heard) a million times before. Even within the musical biopic genre most of the most of the audio fireworks we’re used to seeing are rooted in live performances, which this movie is mostly devoid of.
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Dracula
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Post by Dracula on Feb 5, 2016 18:59:35 GMT -5
Best Art Direction
Art direction, or production design, generally refers to set decoration but can be expanded to the entire mise-en-scène of a film including the props, the design of certain visual effects, and even the costumes to some extent. This year’s crop of nominees were surprisingly mainstream and featured a lot of expensive tentpoles, perhaps signaling what a little extra cash can get you when staging a production. Carol: There were a lot of good movies this year set in the mid-twentieth century America and this was probably my favorite. Todd Haynes was really careful to meticulously reconstruct 1950s New York in a way that is never needlessly flashy and never calls too much attention to itself. Special kudos for the design of the department store that Therese works for. Crimson Peak: If ever there was a movie that could almost coast on art direction alone it was probably Guillermo del Toro’s gothic horror film Crimson Peak. Specifically the film get a lot from having one of the cooler looking haunted houses I’ve seen in a while vis-a-vie the titular manor. Having very bloodlike clay coming out of the ground at this estate was a stroke of genius and the creepy corridors in general were just really strong. Jurassic World: If you look back to the trailers for this movie you’ll remember that what really enticed people about it wasn’t the opportunity to see dinosaurs (we’ve seen those before) but the opportunity to see what Jurassic Park would be like if it had opened as planned. The film’s production design delivers on this with some interesting ideas like a glass spherical ride and a giant fish tank for a prehistoric alligator thing. Best of all these ideas also seem interestingly functional. Mad Max: Fury Road: You don’t often see a film set almost entirely in exterior locations become a strong contender for this category but low and behold we have a contender. Here we are looking beyond basic set decoration and into other design elements of the film including the elaborately designed vehicles and to some extend the costumes and character designs. The art department at large almost certainly had a field day expanding on the aesthetic George Miller invented. Tomorrowland: This movie had… problems, but there were a couple of things it did very well and one of them was the design of the titular city designed by scientists. This is exactly the kind of tantalizing vision that would spark in the film’s protagonist the determination to get there that drives much of the film’s plot. If there’s a key problem it’s that we don’t get to spend much time in that amazing city, but what we do see is tantalizing and creative. And the Golden Stake Goes To…
Mad Max: Fury Road
George Miller’s design of a post-apocalyptic future is one of the most influential aesthetics in film having been ripped off by countless movies, video games, and music videos. Miller could have easily rested on his laurels but instead he and longtime collaborator Colin Gibson opted instead to return to the post-apocalypse and update this punk wasteland for a new century and to generally outdo themselves along the way.
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Neverending
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Post by Neverending on Feb 5, 2016 19:15:20 GMT -5
Unfriended was robbed.
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PhantomKnight
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Post by PhantomKnight on Feb 5, 2016 19:36:16 GMT -5
But it still deserved to be on the list. Awesome sequence. Incorrect. Wow, Ian REALLY hates Matthew Vaughn. |
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