Post by Dracula on Oct 11, 2014 16:49:18 GMT -5
Dracula 02-12-2010 02:45 PM
Dracula Presents: The Third Annual Golden Stake Awards
In 2007 and 2008 I did year in reviews in the format of personal award shows which covered both traditional Oscar type awards and other fun categories. It was a rewarding experience and I'm doing it again this year.
In the past I've posted a category a day, but I started this late this year so it will be two a day on most days. As usual I'll start with scene based categories (best fight etc.), then move onto technical awards (best editing etc.), acting and character awards, and finally genre awards. All this will culminate in Best picture which will be announced in the form of a top ten list.
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:
Fight of the Year
I love a good action scene. A lot of people think I can be a bit of a snob, but I really do have a deep respect for those who can put together a great scene of visceral action. That’s why I have three categories dedicated to action scenes and this is the first of them. We’ll look at best shootout and best chase shortly, but this is the category for melee combat. Guns can be present in the scene, but for the most part this needs to be about mano-e-mano clashes either with fists or bladed instruments.
He vs. She- Antichrist: From a straight up choreography standpoint, this isn’t going to match up to what the action movies have, but it makes up for it through perverse inventiveness. The tension in the film’s central relationship mounts throughout the movie, and then it all reaches a pinnacle as the movie breaks into reverse-domestic violence. Literal ball busting ensues. Not for all tastes but it had to take some courage to make something this sick so highbrow.
Jake and Neytiri vs. Colonel Miles Quaritch- Avatar: With all the talk of motion capture and third dimensions, it’s easy to forget how much of an achievement Avatar is simply as an action film. The climactic scene which solidified this happens after a mech-suit wearing villain chases the Na’vified Jake and a full on knife fight ensues. Both combatants are distanced by technology: a surrogate body in one case, and a suit of armor in another, but the fight is still pretty personal.
Christine Vs. Mrs. Ganush in the Car- Drag Me to Hell: Fought in the confines of a car, this fight is the culmination of Sam Raimi’s horror-meets-slapstick aesthetic. Of course the absurdity of having a fight between a young blonde and a sixty-six year old gypsy is wild enough, but to have them go at each other with everything they’ve got (including a stapler), turns this joke into high art… or at least high kitch.
The Comedian Vs. The Spoiler- Watchmen: In comic book form, the opening scene of Watchmen was able to keep the identity of one of the combatants brief simply by making the fight short and confined to a few frames. Because this is a Zack Snyder film, a lengthier fight scene was needed. I don’t necessarily agree with the decision to turn the scene in a long drawn out fight, but I admired how they could take this brutal fist fight and keep one of the fighters’ face off screen through the whole affair.
Wolverine and Victor Creed vs. Deadpool- X-Men Origins: Wolverine: There was a lot to dislike about this summer’s X-Men prequel, but I do think it delivered on some of its promise during a couple of actions scenes, and this was one of them. Fighting a strange hybrid of multiple mutants on top of a nuclear reactor, these two foes with a common enemy must employ unconventional tactics to persevere. It’s not perfect but I quite enjoyed the final kill shot... even if it was pretty stupid.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
FranklinTard 02-12-2010 02:49 PM
no love for district 9? i mean they had mech suits.
Dracula 02-12-2010 03:12 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by FranklinTard (Post 2673483)
no love for district 9? i mean they had mech suits.
The thing in District 9 with the mech suit was a shootout, not a fight.
DarthVader 2004 02-12-2010 03:20 PM
How can ya put Wolverine vs Creed and leave off Holmes and Watson versus that Big Guy or Viktor vs Lucian.
Dracula 02-12-2010 03:22 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by RedVader 2004 (Post 2673495)
How can ya put Wolverine vs Creed and leave off Holmes and Watson versus that Big Guy or Viktor vs Lucian.
Probably has something to do with me having not seen either of those movies.
DarthVader 2004 02-12-2010 03:30 PM
Yeah i suppose but certain could find a better fight then in Wolverine. I mean even Bumble Bee fighting and killing Ravage by pulling its spine out was cooler then that.
But matters not for Avatar won which figured it had too.
Jack 02-12-2010 08:20 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dracula (Post 2673480)
Christine Vs. Mrs. Ganush in the Car- Drag Me to Hell: Fought in the confines of a car, this fight is the culmination of Sam Raimi’s horror-meets-slapstick aesthetic. Of course the absurdity of having a fight between a young blonde and a sixty-six year old gypsy is wild enough, but to have them go at each other with everything they’ve got (including a stapler), turns this joke into high art… or at least high kitch.
My pick, easy. I'm sure this isn't representative of everyone's experience, however, when I saw Avatar, our packed theater was absolutely silent during the final mech showdown. When I saw Drag Me to Hell, our packed theater was hooting, hollering, laughing, and screaming during that fight. There is more craft and soul in that fight scenes than anything in Avatar. Of course, it sounds like Mr. Raimi may disagree with me on that one.
PG Cooper 02-12-2010 08:25 PM
Good choice with Avatar.
PG Cooper 02-12-2010 08:30 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jack (Post 2673571)
My pick, easy. I'm sure this isn't representative of everyone's experience, however, when I saw Avatar, our packed theater was absolutely silent during the final mech showdown. When I saw Drag Me to Hell, our packed theater was hooting, hollering, laughing, and screaming during that fight. There is more craft and soul in that fight scenes than anything in Avatar. Of course, it sounds like Mr. Raimi may disagree with me on that one.
Personally, I hated everything about Drag Me To Hell with the exception of that fight scene. But I still don't think it's as good as Avatar's or even Watchmen's.
Dracula 02-12-2010 08:50 PM
Best Musical Performance
This is the first of two music based scene categories. The nominated scenes here are all to contain music that is actually performed by a character on screen and it is not a category for the use of source music in the background. Bear in mind that the award is to judge the scene as a whole, not just the performance itself, in other words the actual music isn’t the only thing being judged.
Here Comes Your Man, Karaoke- (500) Days of Summer: The Pixies’ catalog has been pretty thoroughly mined since Fight Club made their music so popular among filmmakers. This is a phenomenon I’ve found kind of disturbing, but I can live with it here simply because the whole thing is used to such comic effect. While drunk off his ass on Karaoke night the Joseph Godron Levit character gets up on stage and delivers this horrendous rendition of the great “Doolitle” track. This is a much better representation of that horrible bar activity than we usually get.
Fallin’ & Flyin’- Crazy Heart: As much as I hate country music, I can’t really ignore a movie like Crazy Heart which has a whole lot of very good scenes involving this abomination of a music genre. While “The Weary Kind” is the song getting the most attention, I don’t really think it’s a particularly good song and it also doesn’t really have a definitive performance moment in the movie. The song Fallin’ & Flyin’ on the other hand has a pair of much more effective performances, particularly one scene where Bridge’s character tries to play it in front of a large crowd and can’t really get their attention until it turns into a duet with a more famous star.
Stu’s Song- The Hangover: Silly songs from raunchy comedies have sort of been a staple of this category; in fact Dracula’s Lament from Forgetting Sarah Marshall won the award last year. This little moment from The Hangover features a rather bizarre little diddy by Ed Helms asking the question that has troubled the great thinkers for ages: what do tigers dream of when they take a little tiger snooze? What makes it work is that the lyrics are obviously being made up as this frustrated character goes along. It’s a short scene but that means it doesn’t wear out its welcome.
Who Shot Ya- Notorious: Right in the middle of the section of this Notorious B.I.G. biopic dealing with the Biggie Smalls/Tupac beef came this tense little concert scene in which Big Poppa is facing a hostile 2pac supporting crowd. After being interrupted numerous times he finally decides to throw down the gauntlet and tells his DJ to start playing the beat to Who Shot Ya, a song that was misinterpreted as a diss track by Makaveli. Up to that point Frank White had avoided playing the song, but finally his frustration was at an end. He lays down the rap with a real anger and it’s in some ways the performance that would seal Biggie’s fate.
Bust a Move- Up in the Air: there were a lot of things that I expected to see in Up in the Air, but a Young MC cameo wasn’t one of them. The scene takes place at an industry party which Clooney and Co. snuck into without invitations. Among the attractions at this party is a private performance by the old school rapper, and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to guess which of his “many” hits he performed. The act was well chosen; he’s famous enough to be a recognizable performer but washed up enough to be a realistic act at industry event.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
Dhamon22 02-12-2010 10:50 PM
I probably would've went with Watchmen for fight scene, but Avatar's was great as well.
I liked the scene from Notorious the most out of the music nominees.
Jack 02-12-2010 10:56 PM
I liked that Up in the Air scene just because it makes you realize how incredibly goofy Clooney looks when he is not in that perfectly tailored suit.
jbailey84 02-12-2010 11:55 PM
that was a pretty cool fight in Avatar and that scene in Up In the Air i liked.
and that part in District 9 was more of a shoot out than a fight, which was a badass shoot out.
Dracula 02-13-2010 11:36 AM
Shootout of the Year
In the last two years, this shootout category has felt a bit bare compared to the other two action scene categories, but certainly not this year. This has been a tremendous year for gunfights, whether they’re battles with Tommy Guns, Sniper Rifles, or face melting lasers.
Breaking into the Base- District 9: While this scene of the main character and his alien partner in crime could have been pretty standard, Neill Blomkamp turns it into something divine by giving our heroes something the bad guys don’t have: the craziest sci-fi gun this side of Half-Life 2. When Wikus Van De Merwe shoots someone here, they don’t just die, they’re vaporized in a explosion of blood. The image of this is like a darkly comic jolt for the audience. There has been talk of another shootout scene later in the film, and I've opted for this one instead simply because it fits better in the overall film. It would be hard to award that other scene when I've been complaining all year about how out of place it was
Sniper Duel- The Hurt Locker: For a movie that’s supposed to be about bomb disposal, it’s interesting that the highlight of the whole thing doesn’t even have a bomb in sight. In fact, this is really the only part of the movie I’m comfortable calling an action scene. But as an action scene this one’s a doozy, full of tense pauses and dramatic twists. It's also one of the most authentic shootouts on the list. I can't claim to be an expert about sniping, but the procedure here looks about right.
Bar Shootout- Inglourious Basterds: The cool thing about this shootout is that it takes up about twenty seconds of a scene that lasts a good ten minutes. Like Leone before him, Tarentino makes scenes of violence as brief as possible after a long and suspenseful build up. But even if you’re only looking at that twenty seconds, you’ll still find more to it than in most other action scenes. Pretty much everyone in the bar is acting simultaneously, and rather than showing every detail, Tarentino just lets it all explode orgasmicly.
Guggenheim Shootout- The International: This Clive Owen thriller was mostly a pretty forgettable affair, but mid way through it was one scene that almost justified the viewing experience. Use of location is central to the scene’s success, the Guggenheim’s architecture proves to be the perfect place for a gunfight, what with its verticality and the amount of cover provided by its railings. Watching Clive owen spray bullets with an Uzi is pretty awesome and the movie doesn’t do a PG-13 wimp-out with the bullet hits either.
Little Bohemia- Public Enemies: When Michael Mann sets out to film a shootout, there are some pretty high standards. After all, this is the guy who made Heat, and while the main shootout of Public Enemies doesn’t live up to that masterpiece of an action scene it still has a lot going for it. Probably the scene’s biggest asset are the gunshot sound effects, Michael Mann uses these loud realistic gunshot sounds a lot and they add a whole lot to his scenes. This shootout was taken from a real historical incident and it feels like it.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
IanTheCool 02-13-2010 11:55 AM
I enjoyed the shoot-out in Public Enemies if for no other reason than that it briefly broke the monotony of the film so far.
The sniper scene in Hurt Locker was pretty good. It succeeded in what it was trying to do, which was to show that sniper battles aren't fast action sequences but long periods of waiting around. Whether that makes for good viewing is for you to decide, I suppose.
The bar scene in Basterds is an awesome scene because of the build up. I that that it was this scene where the movie really won me over.
DarthVader 2004 02-13-2010 02:47 PM
Drac do you mind if i do The Golden Saber Awards and It would be a one time deal. It will kinda match an all time selection not just this decades. Each one will have 7 choices.
Dracula 02-13-2010 02:56 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by RedVader 2004 (Post 2673704)
Drac do you mind if i do The Golden Saber Awards and It would be a one time deal. It will kinda match an all time selection not just this decades. Each one will have 7 choices.
I'm not opposed to it, do it a separate thread.
DarthVader 2004 02-13-2010 03:04 PM
I'll start posting it tomarrow in a thread after get back from seeing Wolfman.
Jack 02-13-2010 03:21 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dracula (Post 2673680)
Little Bohemia- Public Enemies: When Michael Mann sets out to film a shootout, there are some pretty high standards. After all, this is the guy who made Heat, and while the main shootout of Public Enemies doesn’t live up to that masterpiece of an action scene it still has a lot going for it. Probably the scene’s biggest asset are the gunshot sound effects, Michael Mann uses these loud realistic gunshot sounds a lot and they add a whole lot to his scenes. This shootout was taken from a real historical incident and it feels like it.
I think it lives up to Heat, and easily my favorite of the year. I love the setting of that lodge, and the lighting on some of those shots with the tommy guns going off creating that shutter effect really added a "wow" factor to the already phenomenal sound effects. Stephen Lang's shotgun blasts against those trees near the end of the sequence created a collective "whoa" from my audience. And I love Baby Face Nelson's last breath in the cold woods; just a great shot.
Dhamon22 02-13-2010 05:15 PM
I'd say a tie between The Hurt Locker and Inglourious Basterds for me.
shained 02-13-2010 09:07 PM
Glad to see The Internationals shootout getting some love. Was the only brilliant part of that film and did make a decent film worth watching. I loved the realism portrayed through Owen's character (shaking hands etc).
As much as I loved it I would have went with The Hurt Locker sniper scene as well.
Carnage Escobar 02-13-2010 10:42 PM
I would've went with Inglourious Basterds personally. The intensity leading up to that shootout alone would've been worth the nod.
Dracula 02-13-2010 11:12 PM
Best Use of Source Music
The second music-based scene category focuses not on music performed on screen and instead focuses on music that was previously recorded and then played in the film either non- dietetically or perhaps played on some sort of onscreen radio, record player, CD player etc. Bear in mind that this isn’t simply a matter of choosing the best song, but in using it in a way that works interestingly with the material that’s on screen.
Cat People (Putting Out Fire)- Inglourious Basterds: We all have that one song we like to listen to when we’re getting revved up to do something big. I usually liked to listen to Eminem’s Lose Yourself before I took big tests for example. For Shosanna that song is David Bowie’s Cat People (Putting Out the Fire), or at least that would have been her rev-up song if it hadn’t been written forty years after the events of the film. Not that that would stop Tarentino from playing it during her preparations to kick ass. How he decided to use this mostly forgotten Bowie song, I don’t know, but I’m glad he did.
I’m Walking on Sunshine- Moon: Here’s another good example of how context can change the familiar. Katrina and the Waves’ New Wave classic is a song that’s been so diluted by repeated usage in commercials that it’s almost strange seeing it in any other place. I especially didn’t think that it would turn up in this movie, whose vibe is decidedly not giddy or joyful. And yet, this scene in which Sam Rockwell dances manically to the song in a desperate attempt to take his mind off his problems while another person in the same predicament keeps turning off his radio is one of the most memorable moments in the film. It says a lot about this Rockwell character and the way he copes with stress.
Somebody to Love- A Serious Man: This Jefferson Airplane song turns up multiple times over the course of A Serious Man. Why this song? And why is it reiterated so often? Well, more than most other groups Jefferson Airplane conjures up images of a swinging flower-power 60s filled with long hair, protest, and a ton of acid. None of that is to be found in St. Louis Park, MN. The summer of love is going on during the time this film takes place but they’re only ever going to experience it on their radios.
Green Onions- A Single Man: You might not recognize the name of the song “Green Onions,” but if you listen to this instrumental by Booker T. and the MGs you’ll recognize it within seconds, it’s been ubiquitous in advertising and trailers. What makes it work so well is that it’s the only thing in the whole movie that brings the main character to abandon his inhibitions and simply let loose. After a short little dance scene with Julianne Moore the two fall to the floor at an odd angle, this is the image that ended up on the poster.
The Times They are A’ Changin’- Watchmen: In making an adaptation of Watchmen, Zack Snyder had a whole lot of a burden. One of the many challenges on his plate was the establishment of a pretty detailed back-story and one of the ways he accomplished this was through this brilliant opening credit sequence that first gave the audience an idea of this alternant Earth’s history and secondly got the audience used to the film’s blending of Twentieth Century history and superheroes.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
IanTheCool 02-13-2010 11:21 PM
I didn't really like the Bowie song in Basterds. I dunno, it didn't sit right with me.
Jack 02-13-2010 11:47 PM
Watchmen should be disqualified for Snyder's use of "Hallelujah" alone.
Dracula 02-14-2010 12:05 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jack (Post 2673819)
Watchmen should be disqualified for Snyder's use of "Hallelujah" alone.
The award is for the individual scene only.
Jack 02-14-2010 12:10 AM
Yeah, I get it. Just a joke.
JBond 02-14-2010 02:26 AM
Tarantino makes some of the best source music choices in his films.
PG Cooper 02-14-2010 09:27 AM
I loved Watchmen's credit sequence. Definitely deserved the award.
Dracula 02-14-2010 11:54 AM
Chase of the Year
The third of the action scene trifecta has traditionally been the strongest. 2007 and 2008 saw great chases from Grindhouse and The Dark Knight. This year? Not so much. Perhaps I’ve just been spoiled by two years in a row with landmark chase scenes, because this year’s lineup seems a bit lackluster in comparison. Still there are some good scenes here. This has always been open to all forms of chase including foot chases, which were in abundance this year.
Thanator Chase- Avatar: Early on in Avatar there’s a scene where Jake Sully manages to agitate an animal called a Thanator, which sort of resembles a big reptilian tiger. What follows is a pretty kinetic chase on foot through the jungle as Sully tries to hide, fight, and flee frantically. Finally the whole thing ends in an awesome moment in which Jake jumps off a waterfall and the camera follows him at neck level in the water.
Road Block- The Baader Meinhof Complex: At one key moment in this German historical drama (which I’m hesitantly qualifying as a 2009 release), two members of the RAF find themselves cornered, knowing that they’ll be stopped at a roadblock. In a tough spot they run away from the scene and are pursued by police. One of them is captured, but the other won’t be taken alive, and goes out shooting.
Ronnie Barnhardt Chases the Flasher- Observe and Report: After spending a movie obsessing over a flasher who’s been stalking his mall, Ronnie suddenly gets his chance to capture this exhibitionist. What makes the joke work is that the movie takes this rediculous pursuit every bit as seriously as its delusional protagonist does. Rogen chases this exposed man in slow motion for a lengthy amount of time while a cover of Where is My Mind plays in the background, ending in a pretty shocking moment of violence.
Race to the Bridge- Taken: As the generic-as-hell action thriller Taken finally comes to a close, Liam Neeson’s character finally learns that his daughter (who the villains have spend way too much time trying to keep) is being held on a luxury yacht. The only way to save her is to drive real fast against the flow of traffic and then jump off a bridge. While this against traffic thing has certainly been done before, the trick manages to still have some punch here.
Motorcycle Vs. Helicopter- X-Men Origins Wolverine: You know it isn’t a landmark year for actions scenes when the likes of X-Men Origins: Wolverine is nominated in two of the categories. There’s some questionable CGI in this scene, but I do like the way that Wolverine combines his claws with his fast and mobile vehicle to wrek the hell out of a couple of vehicles.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
IanTheCool 02-14-2010 12:23 PM
I'm glad to see that the category is not filled with car chases. I hate car chases in movies for the most part. But, Wolverine? Really?
Dracula 02-14-2010 12:47 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by IanTheCool (Post 2673943)
I'm glad to see that the category is not filled with car chases. I hate car chases in movies for the most part. But, Wolverine? Really?
It only got in by default
Dhamon22 02-14-2010 01:08 PM
Good choices to win with the last two categories.
I would say Observe And Report is a close second for me in the chase category.
ViRUs 02-14-2010 01:11 PM
Good choice there with Avatar, though I havent seen all of those movies for the chase category.
I'm glad the Stakes are back though.
Dracula 02-14-2010 11:50 PM
Set-Piece of the Year
The final award to focus on a single scene as opposed to an entire film, this one is a bit of a miscellaneous catch all category. Basically, if there’s a big set-piece that doesn’t really fit in with the fight, shootout, and chase categories, it goes here. I’ve decided to disqualify the final battle from Avatar from this, basically because that scene is so long and has so many segments that I don’t think it can really be called a single scene.
Destroying the Tree- Avatar: All right, so even with the big disqualification Avatar still finds itself in here. The destruction of the home-tree was a turning point in the movie, it was the point where both the sympathies of both the audience and the main character are fully invested in the Na’vi. It’s the point where I really wanted to see the goddamn humans die. The image of those choppers lined up and firing as the Na’vi are helpless is really compelling and the pain that the whole thing causes really pulls at the heart-strings.
Séance- Drag Me to Hell: Drag Me to Hell is generally a movie where Sam Raimi really just went balls out with the horror/comedy style he invented and nowhere is that more obvious than in the Séance scene. Strange things happen throughout the scene like floating bodies reminiscent of the possessed people from The Evil Dead, but the real punch line to the whole thing was the way a goat was utilized. I’ll leave it at that, needless to say, it’s an awesome scene.
Theater Fire- Inglourious Basterds: Quentin Tarentino is a certifiable cinepheliac so it probably makes sense that he’s going to end his masterpiece in a movie theater. This isn’t just Tarentino indulging his interest in cinema in the background of a WW2 revenge film, the use of a movie theater is central to his statement about art. But even without all of that, the fire in this scene along with Tarentino’s bold trashing of history are more than enough to put this scene here, not to mention that haunting image of the face in the smoke.
The Prison Escape- Public Enemies: I’m not talking about the opening scene here, I’m talking about the scene mid-way through the film in which John Dillinger manages to escape from jail using a fake wood pistol and his wits. This escape did happen in history and it solidified Dilinger’s larger than life reputation. Mann expertly crafts this scene using bold camera turns and long-ish shots to follow him throughout his escape. It’s an unsung highlight to an unsung film.
Opening Scene- Star Trek: The first fifteen minutes of Star Trek are so good they almost hurt the rest of the movie, which is never really able to top the opening. The birth of James T. Kirk is depicted to have happened over the course of an epic space battle which ends in the destruction of USS Kelvin and the ship’s acting captain: George Kirk. This act of heroism will inspire the soon to be iconic hero. It’s a pretty awesome bit of space opera and it make the upcoming gratuitous car chase look just silly.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
Drizzt240 02-14-2010 11:57 PM
Right choice.
shained 02-15-2010 01:53 AM
Not for me, Avatar or Star Trek would have got that one
Dhamon22 02-15-2010 10:26 AM
Great choice.
DAN! 02-15-2010 02:16 PM
all the nominations are great.
Dracula 02-15-2010 02:30 PM
Best Makeup
I’ve become a little bit disillusioned with this category over the years. A lot of makeup jobs in film these days are for prosthetic effects, and you know what, that’s basically the same as visual effects in many ways. Perhaps the two disciplines should just be lumped together. But I’m not disillusioned enough to de-commission the category, so here goes.
District 9: Peter Jackson productions have long been famous for their ability to mix both computer generated effects and more traditional makeup style effects. It appears that this skill has been passed on to Jackson’s Protégé Neill Blomkamp, who uses extensive prosthetic makeup to depict Wikus’ transformation into an alien creature.
Drag Me to Hell: Sam Raimi is another makeup veteran who spilled all sorts to red dyed corn syrup over the course of his Evil Dead series. Here he makes a really grotesque gypsy woman as well as an assortment of other creepy-crawly things and other bits of gross-out horror.
The Road: Throughout The Road we are seeing the effects of the world’s end. This is pretty obvious in the landscape, which is torn up and wasted, but it’s also present in the look of the people. Everyone is malnourished and dirty, covered in soot and ash. Almost everyone has a long unkempt beard and their hair is also a mess.
Sin Nombre: This South American set film depicts the harsh realities of gang violence in the third world. There’s some basic action makeup here but the real accomplishment is that the gang members all have really extensive tattooing that some of the gang members are wearing. The makeup artists had to apply temp tattoos every day and maintain continuity throughout.
Thirst: This South Korean vampire film features extensive bloody wound effects as the creatures of the night puncture their victims and drink their blood. The bigger challenge and thus bigger accomplishment would have to be the way the main character’s disease is rendered, which meant extensive makeup to the face.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
JBond 02-15-2010 02:32 PM
I dunno, Duvall is pretty old.
FranklinTard 02-15-2010 02:39 PM
sin nombre does have some crazy tattoos in it.
Dracula 02-16-2010 06:25 AM
Best Sound Design
They say that sound is fifty percent of the film going experience, but its also something that’s really really hard to judge if you aren’t specifically trying to examine it as you watch. This has always been a hard award for me to judge, firstly because it’s usually not the first thing on my mind when I watch and secondly because I don’t tend to watch ever movie with the same audio equipment.
Avatar: People talk a lot about the visuals of Avatar, but the movie also sounds really cool. From the shuttle noises to all the contrived animal sounds, the world of Pandora has been audio designed as efficiently as it has been visualized. Then there are the sub-woofer testing battle scenes which movie around the surround channels spectacularly.
Drag Me to Hell: There aren’t many horror movies that are this reliant on very loud sound mixes to achieve its scares. Actually, there are a lot of horror movies that are that reliant, but a lot of those kind of suck. What’s important is that this is the movie that relied upon it correctly, every time there was a big scare the mix really rallied and said boo!
Paranormal Activity: So, here’s another horror movie that uses audio to elicit fear, making this a landmark year or sonically diverse horror. The sound in this one isn’t so much in your face as it is in your mind. There are a lot of strange noises that needed to be subtly integrated into the film’s soundtrack in order to get under the viewer’s skin.
Public Enemies: There are two things that john Dillinger is very famous for: driving and shooting, and both of those need to be aurally integrated into the film’s soundscape. The driving here is good, but it’s clearly the shooting that makes the difference here. I don’t know how he does it, but Michael Mann somehow makes the gunshot sounds in his movies sound significantly better than they sound in other people’s films, and they make quite a difference. If this was only about sound effects editing, this would be a shoe-in.
The White Ribbon: This low key German film manages to make its sound tricks work in a much different way than its competitors do. The trick is that it uses silence in order to create a mood and then when something loud happens it stands out all the more. This isn’t the easiest way to find your way onto a slate like this, but I loved the way Haneke used quiet to create unease.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
IanTheCool 02-16-2010 09:40 AM
I think Avatar will win the Oscar for this one.
DAN! 02-16-2010 01:10 PM
Me too.
Dracula 02-16-2010 05:47 PM
Best Art Direction
The art director has a pretty big responsibility in a film. They need to design the overall look of the film, including sets, props, and other original elements. Basically, they are the master of the Mise-en-scène and are responsible for most of what is seen on the screen. It’s one of my favorites of the main technical categories.
Avatar: While most art directors need to design a few buildings or maybe a largish exterior, but the team behind Avatar needed to make an entire planet and they needed to do it from scratch. The landscapes on display in the film are completely alien and they didn’t have any real earthly reference point to work from. We’ve come a long way from those backlot planets from Star Trek.
Inglourious Basterds: Period settings are always good places to show off fine set decoration, and this one does so in a way that few World War Two films are able to. The real highlight here is the design of Shosanna’s theater, which is a pretty cool piece of period architecture from the screen to the basement to the projectionist’s booth.
In the Loop: This probably isn’t the type of film you’d expect to be honored here, after all most of it is filled with small, messy, and unspectacular offices. But that’s kind of the point. This is a movie that’s all about deglamorizing international politics and part of that is making the sets as drab as possible. This art direction is a far cry from the expensive looking surroundings seen in the average Hollywood political thriller.
The Road: Here we have a great example of outdoor art direction. To make the apocalyptic landscapes for the film they needed to do some clever location scouting, then make sure to film it at the right time for a dingy look and then fill the spots with the final remnants of a dead civilization that we know so well.
Watchmen: To recreate the panels from Alan Moore’s famous graphic novel, the Watchmen art direction team needed to create both period sets from across the twentieth century as well as build some very science fiction oriented locations like Dr. Manhattan’s Martian fortress and Ozymandias’ secret North Pole base.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
PG Cooper 02-16-2010 06:48 PM
I was pulling for Watchmen, but Avatar deserved it.
donny 02-16-2010 07:43 PM
Yeah Watchmen had great Art Direction, so did the Basterds.
Tornado 02-16-2010 08:03 PM
So... I take it you liked Avatar then.
Dracula 02-16-2010 08:06 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tornado (Post 2674540)
So... I take it you liked Avatar then.
Clearly I really liked its Art Direction, Sound Design, chase scene, and fight sequence. There are plenty of other things about it I like a lot and I will get into them later.
Dracula 02-17-2010 11:03 AM
Best Score
I’ve always had trouble identifying really good scores in spite of their accepted importance to most movies. For some reason I seem to miss a lot of scores when I see a movie, people will talk about a movie’s score and I will have to admit I didn’t remember much of it. Some scores do stand out for me though, and I’ve made sure to look up stand out scores and give them another listen, after that review the experience of hearing the score in the films usually come back to me. It should probably be noted that I haven’t seen either Sherlock Holmes or Up, and I know those are both well liked scores.
Avatar: There are some score aficionados have had problems with James Horner’s score to Avatar, saying that parts of it are derivative of other Horner scores. I can’t really speak to this, but what I can say is that this score worked really well for me in the context of the film. The score has a very percussive, tribal aspect to it, but it also has this sort of epic coral side to it as well. I enjoyed it a lot even if it perhaps isn’t the Star Wars score of our time.
The Brothers Bloom: While the film as a whole was a pretty derivative affair that pandered to hipster sensibilities, I thought the score by Nathan Johnson was pretty remarkable and creative. This is a Eastern European tinged score that incorporates a number of unconventional instrumentations. The main theme feels very playful, but with a more serious and melancholy undercurrent. If the film itself had been able to match this tone we really would have had something here.
The Informant!: Marvin Hamlisch may not be the most famous composer out there, but his work was really important in the 70s and 80s. This was actually his first score since 1996 and his older aesthetic worked perfectly for the deliberately retro styling’s of Soderbergh’s film. This is basically some old school lounge music, the kind of thing you’d expect to hear in the background of a high class party. It’s very unique when compared to the average score.
Moon: Clint Mansel is sort of a young turk within the music composer establishment. He represents a new generation of movie music, and has risen to prominence with his scores to movies like Requiem for a Dream, whose theme has become a staple of film trailers. His score to Moon is not his most accessible and is meant to be a rather moody piece that works better in the context of the movie than it does in your memory.
A Single Man: The score to A Single Man, which features pieces by both Abel Korzeniowski and Shigeru Umebayashi, adds a lot to the film’s emotional core. The film is all about a man who can’t express himself in public and the music needs to sort of speak for him. The music is heavy on the strings and makes for a pretty good listen.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
Justin 02-17-2010 11:08 AM
Moon's soundtrack was probably my favorite. I haven't heard the Brothers Bloom soundtrack, however, nor have I seen the film.
MovieBuff801 02-17-2010 11:34 AM
Too bad you didn't see Sherlock Holmes. Now THAT was a great score, and I'm sure many would agree.
DarthVader 2004 02-17-2010 11:52 AM
Yet Avatar i don't recall was in or very high on your decades list
Justin 02-17-2010 11:58 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by moviebuff801 (Post 2674730)
Too bad you didn't see Sherlock Holmes. Now THAT was a great score, and I'm sure many would agree.
That's true. Sherlock Holmes had a great score.
Dracula 02-17-2010 12:06 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by RedVader 2004 (Post 2674734)
Yet Avatar i don't recall was in or very high on your decades list
There are a lot of movies from this year that weren't on that list, this was a pretty lame year.
donny 02-17-2010 01:21 PM
Yeah, of those I have to say Moon's was the best.
JBond 02-17-2010 03:02 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by RedVader 2004 (Post 2674734)
Yet Avatar i don't recall was in or very high on your decades list
He explained why Avatar wasn't considered.
Dracula 02-18-2010 07:50 AM
Best Soundtrack
There are a lot of people who really get into original orchestral scores, but personally, I’m more interested in movies which use original source music in interesting ways throughout the film. That’s what this category is all about, source music used throughout movies. Bear in mind that this is meant to judge the use of music in the movie and the choices don’t necessarily reflect the music in the context of the official soundtrack album.
Adventureland: The goal of Greg Mattola in compiling a soundtrack for Adventureland is to paint a portrait of his main character’s life through music. The movie is set in the 80s, but he doesn’t always go for the obvious hits, the character is a bit of a music geek and he listens to more underground stuff like The Replacements and Husker Du, along with older stuff like The Velvet Underground and David Bowie. Of course some of the more crass music from the 80s like Falco and Inxs was unavoidable and it’s used appropriately in the movie.
An Education: Period settings are of course something that many soundtrack people love to work with, but An Education takes the hard road and avoids oldies hits. Instead the movie is filled with some of the hits from 1961 that time forgot and then some original songs that have a pretty retro feel and sort of fit in with the musical fabric of the movie as a whole.
The Hangover: It’s a truism without exception: everyone feels like their big **** when they go to Vegas. In order to convey this sense of coolness that “the gang” are feeling as they role down the strip or enter into their penthouse the film brings in a lot of epic Hip Hop cues by the likes of Usher, Kanye West and T.I. There are also other exiting rev-up songs like “Take It Off” by the Donnas. But this is a comedy and music is used for some pretty good gags too, like the effective use of the Flo Rida hit Right Round in the final gag and of course the film’s use of “In the Air Tonight.”
Inglourious Basterds: Quentin Tarentino is of course the undisputed master of soundtracks, but setting a movie in World War 2 presented a problem: he had to make the movie feel somewhat in period. Of course he could be anachronistic once or twice as he did with Bowie’s Cat People, but too much of that would pose a problem. So, his solution was to take clips from older film scores by Italian masters like Ennio Moricone and re-purpose them.
Watchmen: Superhero movies are not generally known for having good pop music behind them, but the Watchmen aren’t typical superheroes. While the movie is set in the 80s, it was the events of the tumultuous 60s that resonate and the soundtrack emphasizes this with hits from the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Simon & Garfunkle, and Bob Dylan. The actual song selections aren’t always the boldest, but I admire that Snyder was willing to fill his blockbuster with appropriate oldies.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
Dhamon22 02-18-2010 01:01 PM
Good choice.
Dracula 02-18-2010 06:45 PM
Best Editing
Some would say that editing is the most important aspect of cinema and there are been all sorts of theories written about it. Some directors embrace the long shot and invisible edit, others like to cut at lightning fast speeds, but whether you’re Michal Bay or Bela Tarr this is an aspect of filmmaking you’re going to have to tackle and this category rewards achievements in that field.
Avatar: A team which includes James Cameron himself did the cutting for this epic feature and I think they did a great job. In order to accommodate the 3D presentation Cameron had to adjust the typical film language. Bourne style quick-cuts, for example, wouldn’t have worked in the format and I think one of the reasons that the movie sort of stands out is that they had to avoid all of that stuff. And contrary to what some haters will tell you, the movie moves pretty fast for a movie of this length.
Brüno: There must have been hundreds of hours of footage for this thing, and the editing team needed to sort through it all. In addition to that challenge, they need to use editing in order to create perfect comic timing, with many of the unwilling participants not helping. The editors needed to get the perfect shot and reaction edits in order to make the jokes land just right.
The Hurt Locker: The suspense genre is long known for its reliance on perfect editing in order to build the tension and then release it at just the right moment. The bomb defusal scenes are a good example of this; the team needs to cut between the defusal agent, the team supporting him, and the suspicious crowds around them, all while focusing on the bomb itself and its status.
Inglorious Basterds: Sally Menke has been Tarentino’s editor since Reservoir Dogs and it seems like she’s quickly becoming his Schoonmaker. He’s stuck with her for a reason; it feels like the two of them have struck a rapport with each other that’s as invaluable as her basic skills in her trade. Here she needs to cut some really tense scenes, especially noteworthy is the shootout at the bar in which she needs to make complete chaos totally coherent.
The White Ribbon: Only the rare talent has a distinctive editing style, and Michael Haneke is one of them, and that this distinctive style is pretty subtle only makes it all the more impressive. Haneke has explained that he tries to eliminate everything at the beginning and end of a scene that is unneeded, and these abrupt transitions have the duel effect of speeding the story along while also giving the whole thing a clear feeling of unease.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
Jack 02-18-2010 07:15 PM
I'd make a case for The Hurt Locker, but you're right on with this one. The editing is excellent throughout Basterds, adapting to the varying tone well.
ViRUs 02-18-2010 08:14 PM
Is Bruno another one of those comedies that wasnt that good and still got a nomination? Or did you like that?
Dracula 02-18-2010 08:29 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by ViRUs (Post 2675264)
Is Bruno another one of those comedies that wasnt that good and still got a nomination? Or did you like that?
I didn't love bruno, but there were parts of it that I found exceptionally funny. I'm not sure what you mean by "another one of those comedies," I mean I could completely hate a film but still give it a nomination if it had steller editing.
DAN! 02-18-2010 08:43 PM
There are so many movies from this year I haven't seen
Drizzt240 02-18-2010 10:33 PM
wtf on the last two.
Dracula 02-19-2010 10:59 AM
Best Cinematography
Cinematography is probably the best known of the technical awards that are often talked about. Often, whenever a movie seems fairly technically proficient, people will use cinematography as a catch-all, but it really only refers to camera movement and the film’s cinematic look. That said, this is probably one of the harder categories for me to talk about, so bear with me.
Antichrist: The cinematography in Antichrist seems like something that was twenty years in the making. While the opening scene’s black and white artificiality seems like a deliberate attempt on Lars Von Trier’s part to divorce himself from the Dogme 95 movement, it’s clear from the rest of the film that he has learned lessons from that trend. The camera work here is hand held, but this is no attempt to imitate a documentary look, this is stylized and beautiful.
The Girlfriend Experience: This is one of Soderbergh’s smaller experimental films, but he isn’t going to let it look like one. Soderbergh shoots in a full 2.35:1 ratio and manages to get some really lush colors out of seemingly mundane surroundings. The even more interesting thing is that this was shot on the much buzzed about Red camera, and I’m shocked that they made something this good looking with it.
The Road: John Hillcoat has long been known for his films’ tough, muscular looks and this film carries on the tradition. This is a great example of how to do outdoor cinematography well. They clearly needed to be careful to film in perfect whether and when they didn’t they must have done some careful color correction.
Thirst: Park Chan-Wook’s films have always had a really vivid look to them and I think this one was the pinnacle in that regard. Like most vampire movies, this has to have a really dark look, but there’s also a lot of contrast. I was particularly impressed by the way blood looked in the film when contrasted with the background.
The White Ribbon: I almost feel like I should disqualify Black and White movies from categories like this, because that monochrome look just strikes me as beautiful no matter what the actual craftsmanship behind it is. But my admiration for this film’s look goes beyond my fetishisation of that medium. Haneke makes everything in the film look wildly menacing and elegant at the same time.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
ViRUs 02-19-2010 06:22 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dracula (Post 2675273)
I didn't love bruno, but there were parts of it that I found exceptionally funny. I'm not sure what you mean by "another one of those comedies," I mean I could completely hate a film but still give it a nomination if it had steller editing.
I just kind of meant how you previously mentioned the other two mediocre comedies that made their way onto your nominations.
Dracula 02-20-2010 07:56 AM
Best Villain
What do Star Wars, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and Chinatown all have in common? They all have classic villains. If drama is conflict, then heroes must have villains, consequently the role of the bad guy is essential to many films. But I’m not letting anything in here, only clear antagonists are eligible here, in other words they need to be actual enemies of the hero. Secondly, they do need to be an actual character, not some kind of group like terrorists or abstract entity like racism.
Colonel Miles Quaritch- Avatar: On his surface, Quaritch is a pretty stereotypical military loony. So why did I yearn for his death in a way that I didn’t for a lot of the other villains on this list. It’s mainly for what he represents: the closed minded stupidity of the military side of the military-industrial complex. An honorable mention should probably be given to Giovanni Ribisi’s character who represents the equally dangerous half of that equation, but that character has the disadvantage of having never manned a mech suit, that goes a long way as far as my enjoyment of a character.
Mrs. Ganush- Drag Me to Hell: Mrs. Ganush may not be the greatest villain, but she’s certainly the most willfully loopy. Ganush is a sixty-some year old vengeance seeking gypsy woman, and when I say gypsy I mean that she looks like a fortune teller statue in from one of those coin operated carnival machines. So why put such an over the top character in your movie? Well… because it’s an over the top movie, and having a villain who matches that sets the tone really quickly and effectively.
Col. Hans Landa- Inglorious Basterds: Nazis have been the villains in Hollywood movies since, before World War 2 began, but I don’t think I’ve seen a better fictional Nazi character onscreen than Hans Landa. What’s so special about the character is that he’s actually a pretty funny guy, there’s an absurdity to him that a lesser film wouldn’t dare explore. One moment he’ll seem like a fairly charming goofball, the next moment he’ll be doing something frightening and psychotic.
Linton Barwick- In the Loop: This character from In the Loop is a Washington D.C. warhawk who will do any slimy, despicable thing in order to allow his war policy to go through, and what makes him so detestable is that he’s probably just like a lot of people really making things happen in politics. Making him all the more frustrating is the clean cut Ned Flanders act he puts on, making him someone who’s very willing to invade a sovereign nation for dubious reasons, but unwilling to swear in public, an absurd contradiction fitting of a movie like this.
Lil' Mago - Sin Nombre: Crime films like this exist on a plane of relative morality. Many characters will be amoral and, some would say villainous, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t still going to be an antagonist, and that antagonist usually has to out-evil the other morally dubious characters. That’s what this gang leader from Sin Nombre does. This is a completely crazy and grotesquely tattooed killer and rapist that makes the film’s other characters look like boy scouts.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
Justin 02-20-2010 08:40 AM
No question.
PG Cooper 02-20-2010 02:29 PM
Agreed
donny 02-20-2010 02:43 PM
Easily.
JBond 02-20-2010 03:20 PM
That's a bingo.
Dracula 02-20-2010 03:38 PM
Best Cameo
A nice way to inject a film scene with some energy is to cast an over-qualified actor in an otherwise unworthy role. My definition of “cameo” for purpose of this award is pretty loose and would perhaps be better served by the label “best small part.” The actor in question does not necessarily need to be famous but they do need to have a very short one or two scene part that stands out from the rest.
Aziz Ansari- Funny People: There were a lot of good cameos throughout Funny People, and while Ansari was not the most famous person doing one, he was probably the most memorable. Playing a really bad comedian who shamelessly panders to audiences, his character is something of a rival to Seth Rogen’s character. Especially memorable was his role in the film’s viral marketing, which is normally not within the scope of my consideration, but, sue me.
Ralph Fiennes- The Hurt Locker: One of the more interesting patterns in The Hurt Locker is its habit of bringing in recognizable actors… and then killing them. They do something like that with Guy Pearce in the opening, something I take issue with, but the technique works a lot better here as Fiennes is introduced as a mercenary and is subsequently shot by a sniper out of nowhere.
Steve Coogan- In the Loop: Playing the kind of lunatic that many local politicians have to deal with, Steven Coogan is pretty funny as a constituent that’s constantly pestering the main character about a wall that might fall into his yard. This is not much of a concern for the film’s central character, after all he is in the middle of a major foreign policy situation, but this jerk keeps nagging at him. Though the whole sub-plot sort of exists in order to point towards a sting at the end that’s a little too obvious, Coogan still gives a pretty funny turn here.
Robert Duvall- The Road: The father and son characters are pretty much the only roles in The Road that wouldn’t qualify as cameos under my loose definition of the term, but John Hillcoat is careful to put someone whose eminently qualified into all the small roles along the titular road and the best of them is Robert Duvall. The veteran actor brings a lot of depth to the part of a really sad, beat down drifter.
Zach Galifianakis- Up in the Air: In an act of true wit, my local Landmark theater decided to advertise this Clooney film as “Up in the Air starring Zach Galifianakis” on its marquee. There were a number of small actors in the movie they could have used for that little joke, but it makes sense that they used Galifianakis because he’s been having a great year and his part in the movie as a disgruntled ex-employee is really darkly comical. It’s not just a gratuitous cameo either, as it illustrates exactly what the benefits of Clooneys termination consultant job are.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
donny 02-20-2010 03:40 PM
Yeah, these are all good ones. I love Coogan in In the Loop.
IanTheCool 02-20-2010 04:56 PM
Landa is of course the best villain of the year. And I'm glad you didn't go with the Zombieland cameo.
Dracula 02-20-2010 05:43 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by IanTheCool (Post 2675671)
Landa is of course the best villain of the year. And I'm glad you didn't go with the Zombieland cameo.
Never saw Zombieland, meant to mention that in the category's preamble.
Supporting Actress and Supporting Actor tomorrow
donny 02-20-2010 05:59 PM
Supporting Actor should be same result as the Villain.
JBond 02-21-2010 12:57 AM
Whats the Zombieland cameo?
DAN! 02-21-2010 01:57 AM
I assume they are just referring to Bill Murray which was the best cameo of 09 easy. If you want to call it a cameo.
jbailey84 02-21-2010 02:00 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by DAN! (Post 2675773)
I assume they are just referring to Bill Murray which was the best cameo of 09 easy. If you want to call it a cameo.
ditto, one of the best
Dracula 02-21-2010 12:13 PM
Best Supporting Actress
I’m not going to waste to much time writing an intro for this or the other acting awards; there aren’t any special concerns about this category.
Diane Kruger- Inglorious Basterds: Quentin Tarentino has long been known for giving strong roles to women and there are two such roles in his World War 2 epic. Playing the fictional German actress Bridget von Hammersmark, Kruger needed to stand toe to toe with both the hillbilly swagger of Brad Pitt’s character and the freakish evil of Christoph Waltz’ character in key scenes. She also needs to be a charismatic celebrity with a secret alliance. She accomplishes both.
Mo’nique- Precious: I hate Precious as a film and think the rave reviews it’s been receiving are ridiculous. However, there is one element to the film that has lived up to the hype and that’s the acting by its two leading ladies. The work of comedienne Mo’nique was particularly noteworthy because this jokester was somehow able to transform herself into the most hellish mother imaginable.
Marion Cotillard- Public Enemies: It seemed like I was one of the few people who was utterly unimpressed by Cotillard’s ghastly performance in La Vie En Rose which somehow won her an Oscar. But in this movie she really won me over. The minute you saw her in the movie you completely understood why John Dillinger would want her to be the Bonnie to his Clyde. Her excellent presence in what is otherwise a rather anemic role gives some much needed heart to the movie.
Julianne Moore- A Single Man: What’s probably the best scene of A Single Man is a scene towards the end of the second act in which Colin Firth’s character visits his friend played by Julianne Moore. The two actors have really good chemistry and you can tell why these two characters function well as friends. While her character is sort of a ditz, the way Moore plays her makes the character into something more.
Anna Kendrick- Up in the Air: I did not know who Anna Kendrick was before seeing Up in the Air, but I must say I was impressed. I have a few issues with the way that her character was written and some of those weaknesses affect the performance, but I won’t hold that against her, and in some ways her ability to transcend some questionable dialogue is a virtue. She’s so good in this that she manages to completely upstage a vet like Vera Farmiga, and that’s impressive.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
Dracula 02-21-2010 09:56 PM
Best Supporting Actor
I’m not going to waste to much time writing an intro for this or the other acting awards; there aren’t any special concerns about this category.
Alfred Molina- An Education: Creating good parent characters in movies about teenagers is usually a pretty tough proposition. You basically need the audience to go along with the teenager’s dismissive view of the parent even though you know that view is really kind of shortsighted. That’s what Molina needs to do with his role here, by being a goofball he needs to make you disrespect him even though you know you shouldn’t.
Christoph Waltz- Inglorious Basterds: Quentin Tarentino is a mad viewer of obscure pop culture, but I don’t know how even he was able to dig this up. Waltz’ filmography thus far consists only of obscure German movies, German TV work and a minor role in a forgotten Kevin Spacy movie; and here he is giving the most talked about performance of the year. Extensively speaking three different languages onscreen is only the beginning of what makes this performance so tantalizing.
Peter Capaldi- In the Loop: There are a lot of great things to like about In the Loop, but the movie will probably be forever remembered for the character of Malcolm Tucker. This profane Scottish enforcer from the Prime Minister’s office is like a comical force of nature. Throwing around insults that would make Don Rickles blush, Capaldi steals the show and is even able to stand up to Tony Soprano himself: James Gandolfini.
Fred Melamed- A Serious Man: Melamed is one of those character actors that you recognize but can’t place a name on. Although he was in a variety of Woody Allen films in the late 80s and early 90s, his role as the excellently named Sy Ableman in the Coen Brother’s A Serious Man is the best display of his talents yet. Melamed brings passive aggressive behavior to the level of art in this role as the smug bastard who’s trying to steal the main character’s wife.
Jackie Earle Haley- Watchmen: One of the hardships of acting in a superhero film is that you’ll have to give a good performance while having much of your face covered by a mask. That’s certainly a problem that Jackie Earle Haley has in this film. This is practically a voice acting performance for much of the movie, but you can really feel the performance seeping through that cloth mask. This is the best depiction of unadulterated psychotic rage that I’ve seen in a while.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
PG Cooper 02-22-2010 05:58 AM
Good choice. I'm also glad you gave Jackie Earle Haley a nomination as well.
frankywade 02-22-2010 06:19 AM
I enjoyed the shoot-out in Public Enemies if for no other reason than that it briefly broke the monotony of the film so far.
Dracula 02-22-2010 12:21 PM
Best Actress
I’m not going to waste to much time writing an intro for this or the other acting awards; there aren’t any special concerns about this category.
Charlotte Gainsbourg- Antichrist: Aside from mischief making, the thing Lars Von Trier is most known for is his ability to elicit great performances out of women under what some would call torturous circumstances. This might be the zenith of that skill, because Gainsbourg’s performance here is really intense as her character is put under increasing psychological stress from the death of a child and from her demeaning husband.
Carey Mulligan- An Education: If there was a “new artist” category in the Golden Stakes like there is at the Grammys, Mulligan would probably win it, because An Education is a legitimate breakthrough. Playing a smart young girl who realizes she’s not as smart as she thinks she is, Mulligan’s performance reminded me a lot of Ellen Page’s work in Juno a few years back, while others have gone so far as to compare her to Audrey Hepburn. I hope Mulligan capitalizes on her breakthrough, because if she does the world is her’s.
Mélanie Laurent- Inglorious Basterds: Mélanie Laurent may not have played as large a part in the film’s advertising as Brad Pitt did, but her character is just as important to the film. Even more than Diane Kruger’s role, she fits in with a long lineage of strong women in Tarentino films; but unlike say, The Bride, the character is really a pretty ordinary person who must rise to the occasion in order to alter the events of the film. Plus, that laugh of hers at the end just might be the most memorable thing in the whole movie.
Gabourey Sidibe- Precious: Most people come out of Precious thinking that a big part of the film’s success was the discovery of Babourey Sidibe, someone who give such an authentic performance that she must have experienced much of the pain of her character. Those who thought that were wrong, Sidibe is a middle class- college educated young woman who’s said to talk like a genuine valley girl in real life. So how did she manage to look so authentic in the film? It’s called acting.
Kim Ok-bin- Thirst: Playing a seductive vampire hellcat, Kim Ok-bin delivers a pretty sweet performance in Park Chan-wook’s Thirst. Her character is pretty dangerous, but there’s also a comedic side to her work here. Also, she doesn’t start out the movie like this, there’s actually a pretty subtle change throughout the film that makes her character the way she is and Ok-bin is largely responsible for pulling it off.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
iv3rdawG 02-22-2010 01:52 PM
Great nominees. I definitely would have gone with either Gainsbourg or Laurent, so I'm happy they were both there.
JBond 02-22-2010 03:42 PM
Gabourey Sidibe DOES talk like a valley girl. I saw her on The Jay Leno Show. Interesting person, though, she's funny.
Dracula 02-22-2010 09:32 PM
Best Actor
I’m not going to waste to much time writing an intro for this or the other acting awards; there aren’t any special concerns about this category… actually it probably does have special concerns. You are reading this right, I haven’t nominated Jeff Bridges. This decision was not made lightly because his work was certainly worthy of award consideration even if I wasn’t as head over heels about it as some. This category was especially competitive this year he just didn’t make the cut, for what it’s worth, he was a close sixth place. Jeremy Renner might have also found his way in if the competition was less fierce.
Matt Damon- The Informant!: Playing a businessman who more closely resembles Ned Flanders than Gordon Gecko, Matt Damon unleashes his inner dork in Steven Soderbergh’s The Informant! What’s especially interesting about this character is that he isn’t a straight up lunatic but he does seem a little off for the whole movie, and I suspect that playing someone who’s only acutely mental is a lot harder.
Sam Rockwell- Moon: I guess this is a bit of a spoiler, but in Moon Sam Rockwell plays a double role, portraying both a worn out clone and his fresh faced counterpart. The two versions of the same character basically look the same but they behave quite differently, perhaps a bit too differently. Regardless, between the two Sams, Rockwell must display a really wide range of emotions. Needless to say, he’s the favorite 2009 actor of the internet.
Viggo Mortensen- The Road: Mortensen is a favorite actor of mine and when I heard he’d be starring in this anticipated Cormac McCarthy adaptation I knew he wouldn’t let me down. Sure enough, Mortensen gives yet another terrific performance here. Displaying all the anguish of life in a world that’s dying while simultaneously showing a father’s love of his son is not an easy task, but Mortensen pulls it off.
Michael Stuhlbarg- A Serious Man: Ever the spotters of untapped talent, the Coen brothers fearlessly cast this mostly unknown stage actor as the lead of their latest film. Here he gives a performance that can perhaps only be given in a movie directed by the Coens, a performance of increasing desperation which is affecting while still existing under a healthy lair of quirk and cynicism, while still seeming fairly realistic.
Colin Firth- A Single Man: Here’s a lesson in not underestimating an actor. I’ve never been a Firth fan, in fact I’ve barely ever seen any of his movies, but he really impressed me with his work in this film. A Single Man is based on one of those novels where all the action happens in the protagonists head and that places a huge burden on the shoulders of the lead actor, and Firth rises to the occasion. A masterclass in the portrayal of repressed emotions.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
ViRUs 02-22-2010 09:37 PM
I agree, great choice there.
unity768 02-23-2010 12:08 AM
I smiled when you gave Gainsburg the nod.
Dracula 02-23-2010 07:04 AM
Best Acting Ensemble
This is an award that most award bodies outside of the SAG tend to avoid. When analyzing an entire casts worth of performing can be a bit more of a calculating task than choosing an individual’s work, which can be a bit more of a call from the gut. This category is not simply a matter of picking the movie with the best slate of actors; it has more to do with how well the filmmakers dealt with casting challenges.
An Education: Carey Mulligan is the person that everyone is talking about when it comes to this movie, but there’s a pretty strong cast backing her up. Beginning with the main character’s family we get Alfred Molina’s lovable father and Cara Seymour as her mother. Then of course there’s Peter Sarsgaard as Mulligan’s slimy suitor. Even the smaller roles like those played by Dominic Cooper and Rosamund Pike play a really important role.
Goodbye Solo: It’s hard enough to fill a movie full of trained actors, it must be even harder to fill a movie with non-actors that will do just as well. That’s what Ramin Bahrani needed to do in order to cast this independent film, using a casting method that goes back to the Italian Neo-Realists. In doing so he fills his film full of interesting people like Souléymane Sy Savané, Red West, and Diana Franco Galindo who all add a great authenticity to the film.
Inglourious Basterds: If you saw the advertising campaign for Quentin Tarentino’s opus you’d know that Brad Pitt was in it, but that only scratches the surface. Of course there’s Christoph Waltz, Mélanie Laurent, and Diane Kruger; great foreign actors who surprised everyone, but it doesn’t even end there. There’s also Michael Fassbender, the Brit actor who’s taking the world by storm, and there are other unsung greats like Daniel Brühl (the most underappreciated actor and character in the whole thing) and other cool presences like B.J. Novak and Jacky Ido.
In the Loop: Though James Gandolfini is pretty much the only really famous name on the bill, this British comedy is loaded with actors who make important contributions to the film. Peter Capaldi is obviously the standout; there are other great actors here like Tom Hollander, Paul Higgins, and Chris Addison. Then there’s the American side of the cast with performers like Mimi Kennedy, Anna Chlumsky, and David Rasche. All of these guys have really good chemistry and they deliver the film’s rapid dialogue with all due conviction.
The Road: The Road’s ensemble takes a quality over quantity approach. While the film doesn’t have many characters, John Hillcoat makes sure that every role has just the right person portraying them. Viggo Mortensen obviously anchors the whole thing, but he has a pretty good scene partner in the form of twelve year old Kodi Smit-McPhee (and I’m sure that casting a child for a large role in a serious drama is no easy task). Then there are the bit parts with overqualified actors like Charlize Theron, Robert Duvall, and Michael K. Williams (Omar!).
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
JBond 02-23-2010 04:42 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dracula (Post 2676313)
There’s no resurrecting of forgotten careers here
What about Mike Myers?
IanTheCool 02-23-2010 06:08 PM
yeah, absolutely. There were so many great performances in IB and seeing them all play off of each other was great.
Dracula 02-23-2010 06:21 PM
Best Line
One of the great contributions of the cinema to the wider world is the addition of iconic lines to the lexicon. I’ve judged these lines on a number of criteria: quotability, cleverness, the ability to work out of context, and serving an important purpose to the film. The line doesn’t need to fit all of these criteria, but if it falters on one it better soar on the others.
“Roses are Red, Violets are Blue… F**k you whore!” – (500) Days of Summer: As the Joseph Gordon Levitt character is wallowing in a low point in the film’s central relationship, he’s brought aside by his boss at the greeting card company who’s reads back the card he’s just written that reflects the problems in his love-life. That this is one of those one time only PG-13 curses and the fact that the man saying it looks like Ward Cleaver makes this all the more surprising and funny.
“Paging Dr. Fa**ot! Paging Dr. Fa**ot!”- The Hangover: The funniest moment in The Hangover is a study in careful comic time. There’s nothing funny about this line out of context, but spoken by a bunch of yahoos who pull up to the curb just seconds after the Ed Helms character assures his wife that his friends are more mature than she thinks they are. This sets the tone for the whole “Ed Helms lying to his fiancé” sub-plot.
“Polar bears cover their noses before they pounce on a seal. How do polar bears know their noses are black? Did they look in the water one day, see their reflection and say, ‘Man, I'd be invisible if it wasn't for that thing.’ Maybe, but that’s a lot of thinking for a bear.” – The Informant!: This little diddy doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, but I think it well represents one of the funniest aspects of The Informant, namely the strange non sequiturs that the scatter-brained central character delivers to the audience via the voice over. This is the best of those by far and I think it gives the audience a really good idea of the kind of nutty individual they’re dealing with.
“There's a special rung in hell reserved for people who waste good scotch. And seeing as I might be rapping on the door momentarily....*drinks*....I must say, damn good stuff, sir” –Inglourious Basterds: It’s no secret that Quentin Tarentino is a guy who can put together an awesome line, Pulp Fiction is one of the most quotable movies of all time after all. This line is spoken by the Michael Fassbender character at a crucial moment just before the bar shootout scene. One of the interesting things about the movie is the way the characters of different nationalities are representing the prototypical vision their nation has about their war-legacy and this one represents the stoic British self-vision.
“Y'know, I've come across a lot of psychos, but none as f**king boring as you. You are a real boring f**k. Sorry, sorry, I know you disapprove of swearing so I'll sort that out. You are a boring F, star, star, C**T!”- In the Loop: This British satire is filled with potential nominees for this category and I ultimately choose this one because it best represents the kind of aggressive profanity laced lines that litter this script. This line is, first and foremost, a very funny moment in which the Peter Capaldi character confronts a war hawk who refuses to curse in public and it’s partly a callback to an earlier moment in which that character used this “star star” thing to muffle a curse.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
JBond 02-23-2010 07:24 PM
Hah, I've got to see The Informant.
Drizzt240 02-24-2010 02:50 AM
Can't believe you gave 500 Days a nod......
And of all the Basterds lines you nominate that one......
Dracula 02-24-2010 08:51 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Drizzt240 (Post 2676528)
Can't believe you gave 500 Days a nod......
Hey, I didn't like the movie either but that line made me laugh, I give credit where it's due, that's part of what this is all about.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Drizzt240 (Post 2676528)
And of all the Basterds lines you nominate that one......
I thought about nominating "that's a bingo" but decided the appeal of that line had more to do with acting than the line itself.
Dracula 02-24-2010 02:11 PM
Adapted Screenplay
Adapting sounds like it would be the easier of the screenwriting disciplines, but in many ways it’s a lot harder. First of all, there’s a fanbase that you’re required to please while still making a unique product and often the idiosyncrasies of the original source may be really hard to smooth out. This year we’re seeing adaptations of two non-fiction pieces, two novels, and a T.V. show.
Nick Hornby- An Education: Nick Hornby was already famous for his original novels, which have often themselves been the sources for adapted screenplays, when he took it upon himself to write this screenplay based on a memoir by a British journalist named Lynn Barber. The original autobiographical piece was a short work without much dialogue and Hornby was able to inject it with his usual wit and insight.
Scott Z. Burns- The Informant!: When Scott Z. Burns decided to adapt Kurt Eichenwald’s non-fiction book about the ADM price-fixing scandal he had the challenge of making a stranger-than-fiction story and making it relatable. To do so, he focused in on the title character, an absolutely bonkers individual, and let the viewer sink into his wacky mindset, while also remaining at a safe distance. This is a great way to look at this scandal without leaving the viewer lost in the complicated details of corporate crime.
Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci, and Tony Roche- In the Loop: Seeing four names under the “written by” credit is usually a bad sign, but it seemed to work gloriously here. Adapted from a British television show called “The Thick of It,” this satire manages to skewer the rushed run-up to the Iraq war with all the necessary gallows humor. This is a very smart and very funny film, but also one that manages to create some really relatable characters and putting it all into a very authentic geopolitical situation.
Tom Ford and David Scearce- A Single Man: By far the nominee with the oldest source, A Single Man was based on a 1964 novel by Christopher Isherwood, an author who would seem to be pretty similar to the film’s main character. The fact that so much of what happens in this story exists in the head of the protagonist was the real challenge here, and on page I think Ford was able to express it without being to obvious, at least on the page.
Joe Penhall- The Road: This was easily the most hotly anticipated adaptation of the year and for a number of reasons. Cormac McCarthy novels have been hot properties ever since the Coen brothers triumphed with his No Country For Old Men. But this is no average McCarthy novel, it was a bestselling opus which managed to win the Pulitzer Prize. It was also an incredibly difficult text to adapt and while Penhall’s work perhaps wasn’t perfect, I think he made pretty much the best adaptation he could.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
donny 02-24-2010 02:14 PM
Yeah, perfect choice
FranklinTard 02-24-2010 02:31 PM
easy choice among those nominees if you ask me.
Jack 02-24-2010 09:36 PM
My two favorite screenplays from this year were examples of total adaptation overhauls: Where the Wild Things Are and Up in the Air. In the Loop is funny, but didn't hold up as well on the second viewing for me. The vicious wit is my kind of humor, but there is something exhausting about it all.
Dracula 02-25-2010 12:08 AM
Original Screenplay
The original screenplay category often feels like the bastard step-sibling to the adapted category. While the adapted category is often home to classy literary adaptations, the original screenplay category is all too often the resting place of also-rans and quirk fests. When I put together a slate of screenplays back in 2007 the two categories were pretty lopsided, but last year and this year I’d say they were a little more even, maybe there’s hope for the original screenplay yet. It’s also probably worth noting that each and every one of these was written by their directors while four of the five adapted nominees were not.
Judd Apatow- Funny People: While Funny People is hardly the most hilarious script that Judd Apatow ever wrote, but it’s probably the most mature and easily the most personal. Examining the lives of comedic entertainers almost certainly hits close to home for the filmmaker and he’s obviously using this mainstream comedy in order to explore them. I started out by saying this wasn’t hilarious, but that’s not entirely true, there’s some funny stuff here but it doesn’t pander to laughs and I respect that.
Quentin Tarentino- Inglorious Basterds: The screenplay to Inglourious Basterds is one of the most brave and unconventional pieces of writing that you’re ever going to see get a sizable budget from a Hollywood studio. Elements of the writing here like the really long scenes, the wild ending, and the extended passages in foreign languages are anathema to Hollywood script readers, but Tarentino has never been one to follow the rules and it took some real guts to get something like this made.
Duncan Jones and Nathan Parker- Moon: Decent science fiction is not easy to come by and decent science fiction rooted in dialogue and ideas is even harder to come by. These kind of two person (one person?) shows set in one location are harder to make than you’d think, you need to really have your structure everything perfectly and have all the twists planned out. This script could almost be a play at least if they were able to deal with one key special effect involving the main character.
Joel Coen and Ethan Coen- A Serious Man: The Coen brothers’ writing has always been creative, witty, and unconventional, but they took that to a bit of a height with A Serious Man. The Coens can sometimes make this kind of writing look easier than it is, the dialogue here is classic Coen but it’s still distinctive from anything in theaters right now. There are some pretty bold bits of weirdness here and the cynicism of this highly symbolic film can be pretty juicy.
Michael Haneke- The White Ribbon: If nothing else, Haneke deserves pretty big kudos for making a movie that’s pretty dissimilar from anything I’ve ever seen before, and he doesn’t do it by being particularly weird. The themes of national guilt that Haneke is exploring are fascinating and the use of sparse dialogue in the film contributes in a big way to Haneke’s signature tone and style.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
IanTheCool 02-25-2010 08:44 AM
Yup, and it will probably win the Oscar too.
Dracula 02-25-2010 10:09 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by IanTheCool (Post 2676960)
Yup, and it will probably win the Oscar too.
let's hope
Dracula 02-25-2010 03:28 PM
Trailer of the Year
Now we get into the tumultuous advertising awards, trailer and poster. Trailers are important, they give you an idea of the kind of movie you’re going to get but without giving away too much. Bear in mind that this is awarding the best trailer for a movie from 2009, not necessarily the best trailer seen in 2009. In other words, trailers for 2010 movies that debuted in 2009 aren’t eligible, similarly trailers for 2009 movies that premiered in 2008 are eligible. Furthermore, I’m only including trailers to movie that I’ve seen, so that I know the trailer correctly captures the film and doesn’t’ give too much away.
In the Loop: In the Loop’s satire has often been compared to Dr. Strangelove, and the people who made the trailer clearly decided to run with that comparison. Using Strangelove’s iconic trailer as a template (while also borrowing the William Tell overture from another Kubrick movie), this trailer strings together various out of context words from across the movie and turns them into sentences. Mixing this fast paced and clever method with witty title cards and more traditional trailer elements creates all new jokes for a movie that’s far from devoid of jokes of its own.
VIDEO-CLick to Watch!:
Observe and Report: In the opening moments of this trailer it looks like just another irreverent comedy, but as soon as the music transitions from an up-tempo trailer tune to The Animals’ House of the Rising Sun it becomes increasingly clear that this movie is something altogether darker. It becomes apparent that the character Seth Rogen is playing is a twisted and obsessive individual and the better part of its second half is mostly made up of Travis-Bickle like monologues.
VIDEO-CLick to Watch!:
A Serious Man: The Coen Brothers’ latest is not a particularly interesting movie to describe, it’s based more in tone and sensibility than in plot and the trailer wisely plays to the movie’s strengths. The first half uses sound effects from the movie and loops them into a sound pattern (kind of like the cash register sounds in Pink Floyd’s “Money”), this section well represents the sort of desperation the Coens put the title character. Then we see a pretty funny scene from the movie and the trailer quickly cuts to Jefferson Airplane’s “Somebody to Love.”
VIDEO-CLick to Watch!:
A Single Man: The trailer for A Single Man has become controversial with critics claiming that it goes out of its way to hide the homosexual themes of the film. There’s an argument to be made in regards to this, but either way I think this is a really well put together piece. Combining the film’s excellent score with the metronome-like ticking of a clock, the trailer provides a collage of beautiful images from the movie and builds a sort of appropriate intensity for it.
VIDEO-CLick to Watch!:
Up in the Air (teaser): The final trailer for Up in the Air is a bit of a snore (a trailer with Iggy Pop’s The Passenger? How shocking!), but the teaser was really interesting. Using only the Clooney character’s backpack speech and a little bit of score as its audio track, the trailer employs slow, out of context shots from the movie which intrigue the viewer towards the film’s content without actually revealing what it’s about. It's a fundamentally visual trailer to a talky movie, which is quite interesting.
VIDEO-CLick to Watch!:
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
PG Cooper 02-25-2010 05:12 PM
Agreed, best trailer by far.
IanTheCool 02-25-2010 05:40 PM
Star Trek and Wild Things both had amazing trailers. I'm a little disappointed with this set of nominations.
Dracula 02-27-2010 09:56 AM
Poster of the Year
Posters might be a bit of a relic as far as movie advertising goes, but in some way that’s good, they’re insubstantial enough to the overall campaign that artists sometimes get to do something pretty creative with them. There will be no movies that simply Photoshop in cast members heads over explosions here. As with trailers, I’m only allowing posters to movies I’ve seen into this.
The Girlfriend Experience:
kkwu.files.wordpress.com/2009...nce-poster.jpg
Of all the nominated posters, this is probably the one that thinks the furthest outside of the box. The idea of covering the picture with those… peg board thingies… was a really innovative and neat looking effect. Then there’s that barcode thing in the corner which I guess represents the way that the main character turner herself into a product, also notice the ® symbol after the title. Finally there’s the killer tagline- “See it with someone you ****.”
The Informant!:
img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...eInformant.jpg
Ignore that 40-Year-Old Virgin lookalike poster of Damon’s face that ended up being the poster the studio banked on, this one is the real poster to me. First of all, this much better represents the movie’s sense of humor, secondly I think it says something pretty interesting about the character. He’s a doofus, but he’s the kind of doofus that can actually be a danger to the people running his evil corporation. Also look at the hands on the shadow, is he just holding them up like a “boo!” of is he actually plugging his ears?
In the Loop:
img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...9IntheLoop.jpg
I’ve already discussed the fealty between the trailers to In The Loop and Dr. Strangelove, but there’s a similar fealty between the two movies’ posters. The symbolism of the imagery, mixed with the tagline, is beautifully simple and it really accurately represents the absurdity of the stakes. A note should also be made of some of the other posters involved in the movie’s advertising campaign, a lot of really funny parodies.
Precious:
img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...09Precious.jpg
I do love a good Saul Bass tribute poster and I think this is one of the best ones I’ve seen in a while. This poster is directly in the lineage of Anatomy of a Murder and Man With a Golden Arm posters, and it’s also able to make the tribute relevant instead of retro. Most like-minded posters would have been happy to stop at the shattered silhouette, but to make the strategically placed hand the source of the shattering is really sharp.
Up in the Air:
img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...UpintheAir.jpg
One of my favorite things in the world is when they put a huge star in a movie and then don’t put his face on the poster; it’s a triumph of art over commerce. This is a good example of finding just the right iconic image from the movie and then exploiting that. The whole thing really looks stylish, the reflection on the floor is a really nice touch and I didn’t even notice until recently that the two airport patrons next to Clooney were Kendrick and Farmiga.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
PG Cooper 02-27-2010 05:03 PM
Out of those posters, I liked the Girlfriend Experience.
Dracula 02-28-2010 02:57 PM
Underappreciated
Often movies will come out to great acclaim that’s well deserved, sometimes movies will come out to great acclaim that isn’t deserved at all. But then there are the times when movies get some degree of acclaim but not as much as they deserve and that’s what this category is all about. Bear in mind that Box Office is not a factor in this; I’m talking only about acclaim either among critics or within the cinema-going community.
Funny People: Here’s a classic example of a filmmaker trying to branch out and do different things only to have people come expecting more of the same and consequently being disappointed. Funny People is nowhere near as funny as Judd Apatow’s earlier films, but I don’t think it was really meant to be. It was a personal statement and I think that it was well executed and made for an enjoyable story, it will probably be better received in a few years when expectations are different.
The Informant: Soderbergh is one of our most important filmmakers, and yet this neat project of his was met with a shrug by critics. I’m going to call snobbery on this one, critics seem to demand that every movie Soderbergh makes should be an inaccessible micro-budget experiment like The Girlfriend Experience or Bubble and when he has the audacity to make a movie that the average filmgoer might also understand they freak.
Notorious: Musical biopics are a dime a dozen and I can kind of understand why this one wasn’t universally beloved. The film’s director seems like a fairly second rate talent and the script plays it pretty safe, not diverging too much from the routine biopic mold. However, as a fan of Biggie Smalls whose been pretty obsessed with 90s hip-hop for the last year or so, this was still something I was pretty interested to see and for the most part I think it delivers what it promises.
Red Cliff: This John Woo epic was a huge deal in its native China, but when it arrived on these shores it was a blip on the cinematic radar. This is in part thanks to domestic distributer Summit Entertainment, who (perhaps understandably) decided to merge the two film original into one decidedly shorter work. That was not cool among purists, but the version that remained was still pretty cool and definitely an entertaining visual spectacle that deserved more eyeballs.
The Road: If any movie’s icy reception baffled me the most it was this one. Granted, it’s certified fresh on RT, though only barely amongst the top critics; and the ones who liked it were pretty reticent. The most common complaint: “it was depressing.” Newsflash: movies about the end of the world probably should be depressing. This is the same critical community that not long ago championed 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days, what made them sissy out when it came to The Road?
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
IanTheCool 02-28-2010 02:58 PM
Interesting category. I think that I really should watch the Road.
donny 02-28-2010 03:01 PM
I agree on most. I understood what Funny People was about and all, just didn't think it was that good.
I liked your choice though.
JBond 02-28-2010 03:34 PM
I haven't seen any of those. However, I've purchased The Informant.
Sculder 02-28-2010 04:21 PM
Seen Funny People and The Informant. Liked both. Intend to see Red Cliff and The Road soon.
FranklinTard 02-28-2010 05:29 PM
notorious eh?
disagree with the choice... i'm not the biggest fan of the road. the book or the movie really.
Deexan 03-01-2010 09:59 AM
Excellent choice, the best film of '09.
Dracula 03-01-2010 11:06 AM
Best Action Film
Action cinema is one of the most entertaining genres, but also one of the most abused. This category honors them and only them. I’m going to take a second and explain why The Hurt Locker isn’t among the nominees: it isn’t an action movie. There’s one great shootout in the film, but that’s the only scene in it that I would classify as an action scene. There are more elements to Saving Private Ryan that could be called “action scenes” than there are in The Hurt Locker, but no one calls it an action movie.
Avatar: Avatar is often called a spectacle, a grandiose term that kind of distracts from what the movie is at its core: an action movie. Ending in a massive action scene/fight sequence and featuring a variety of set pieces throughout, Cameron makes this an adrenaline thrill ride on a large scale. People talk a lot about the CGI, but I think these action sequences would be awesome in any medium.
District 9: In a remarkably un-Hollywood move, the advertising for District 9 focused mainly on the movies mystery and its political parallels. As such, I wasn’t expecting this to really be an action movie and I was a bit disappointed when it suddenly shifted into Bruckheimer territory, nonetheless the action scenes here were quite strong within a vacuum. The film displays an interesting mix of science fiction and gritty violence.
Public Enemies: I qualify this as an action film only with the greatest hesitance, there weren’t many other options and I wanted to keep Taken out of this. This is mostly a drama, but there really are a lot of action scenes: there’s the Little Bohemia shootout, two slick prison escape scenes, and a bunch of action on vintage wheels. All of this is shot in Michael Mann’s gritty new style which gives the whole thing a unique feel.
Red Cliff: I’ve long been a fan of these Chinese period martial arts movies; possibly because they’ve been keeping the large scale period epic alive while Hollywood ignores it. It’s not unlike what Bollywood has done with the musical, but I digress. There’s a battle scene half way through this which would have worked as the finale of another film (which it was in the Chinese cut(s)), and the final battle is even more epic.
Star Trek: Star Trek may not have been a masterpiece, but it was able to offer some pretty good summer entertainment. The opening scene is a pretty amazing bit of space battle, and the scene where they freefall toward the drill is also quite good and original. The gunplay isn’t anything to write home about, but it mostly works. I don’t like the gratuitous car chase or creature chase so much, but for them most part the film delivers good thrills to go along with an overall fun movie.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
Sculder 03-01-2010 02:27 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dracula (Post 2678201)
there weren’t many other options and I wanted to keep Taken out of this.
Why ?
Dracula 03-01-2010 02:35 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sculder (Post 2678262)
Why ?
Because it sucks
DAN! 03-01-2010 02:36 PM
Because if Taken was one of the best action movies this year, then that would just further prove this was a down year.
I liked Taken very mildly. I was probably too forgiving to it because I heard the editing got screwed up when they decided to make it a pg13 movie. I have yet to see the uncut one, but I hear it is much better. But still, that shouldn't be in the top 5 of anything.
Dracula 03-01-2010 07:12 PM
Best Horror Film
Horror films are a really popular genre with a really devoted fanbase. You don’t see anywhere near the same kind of specialized resources dedicated to any other genre of film (except for maybe martial arts or something). This community has built up around the horror genre because there’s a sense of persecution among the genre’s fans, they feel the genre doesn’t get the respect it deserves. But they’ve got to admit, the genre’s disreputable for a reason: there are a lot of crappy horror movies. That’s why we need to celebrate the ones that really work.
Antichrist: This is an excellent movie, but I have mixed feelings about its inclusion in this category. There’s suspense to be found in this movie but I wouldn’t really say that generating fear was really the film’s primary goal. That said, the movie takes place in a really creepy and atmospheric woods and the spirits that seem to plague them are certainly discomforting. In retrospect, the gory scenes that everyone talks about are (deliberately) the least horror-movie-like part of the whole thing.
Drag Me to Hell: Sam Raimi became a horror legend in the eighties when he made the first two Evil Dead movies but he never let himself be typecast. Having made some diverse movies like A Simple Plan, The Quick and the Dead, and three Spider-Man movies, Raimi never allowed this to typecast him. With Drag Me to Hell he’s returned to the fun, cartoonish style of horror that made him famous. Filled with outrageous set pieces, this is one of the few movies that really earns a “turn your brain off your brain and have fun” designation.
House of the Devil: As I write this, it has been less than 24 hours since I saw this neat little horror film which as far as I can tell was released directly to DVD. Sporting a pretty genuinely retro feel, this film feels a lot more like a 70’s horror film than most of the other films trying to ape that aesthetic recently. While I do feel like the film suffers from some serious run-time padding, there are sections of it that are among the best horror material around.
Paranormal Activity: The story of how this micro-budgeted project managed to become a regionally released phenomenon does not need to be reiterated. What probably should be re-iterated is how smartly the movie is able to use small things in order to generate large scares. The battle between this couple and a pretty unpleasant invisible demon managed to; once again utilize the surprisingly durable found footage motif in order to generate some scares.
Thirst: In the world of left-field Asian genre cinema, Park Chan-Wook is king. Chan-Wook’s previous films were violent and off-putting thrillers but they weren’t really horror flicks. The fact that his newest film is about vampires does push it into that genre, but it still doesn’t quite play like a real creep show. The film contains elements of comedy and romance, but both of those elements are going to be a bit warped when there’s this much bloodletting involved.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
donny 03-01-2010 08:02 PM
Taken had some awesome action. Bad movie though.
And I think Paranomal Activity is very overrated, so I am not on the same page as that.
DAN! 03-01-2010 11:57 PM
Thirst is one of my favorites from last year.
Dracula 03-02-2010 06:43 AM
Best Comedy Film
Make ‘em laugh. It was the motto of somebody somewhere, and it’s been making Hollywood a lot of money while giving audiences everywhere joy. 2007 and 2008 were in many ways banner years for the genre, and while this year wasn’t quite as strong as those years, there were still some pretty damn funny works out there.
Brüno: Sacha Baron Cohen is one of the funniest and most innovative comedians working in film and he proved with Borat that his style could also be very accessible to the masses. His follow-up, Brüno, is neither as innovative or consistently funny but there’s still a lot of good stuff in it. Between the audience pilot test from hell to warped baby auditions to a graphic encounter from beyond the grave, this provided some very large laughs.
Funny People: I have been saying that this works better as a movie about comedy than as a comedy in and of itself, perhaps I’ve been short selling it to a degree. There is some good comedy to be found in this movie even if that isn’t necessary it’s one and only mission in existence. Yeah, maybe it trades more in chuckles than belly laughs, but that isn’t entirely a bad thing. It’s not always easy to find the best balance in a dramedy and this one makes a valiant effort.
The Hangover: Maybe not the year’s best comedy, but clearly the most popular. This modest comedy was in a good position to be a sleeper hit, but nobody expected it to end up as the sixth highest grossing comedy of the year. This was achieved by taking the basic tone of the frat-comedies being made recently, putting together a funny cast with good chemistry, and giving it a clever if not overly challenging set-up. As an artistic achievement, this is not too high up there, but it’s certainly a funny flick.
In the Loop: Satire isn’t an easy thing to do. It requires some genuine understanding of the issues you’re taking on so that you can see past the surfaces and point out the absurdity. If that weren’t hard enough, you also need to make the jokes actually work. Even the famous Lenny Bruce reached a point when he focused so much on the social aspects of his shows that he forgot to actually tell jokes. In the Loop doesn’t have this problem at all. This is a movie that manages to be insightful and hilarious and not have either goal interfere with the other.
Observe and Report: The Apatow-esque comedy has occasionally been used for slightly dark effect on a few occasions, but it had never been used for something as edgy as Observe and Report. Now of course when I only say edgy when compared to other Hollywood material, but still the fact remains that this is a movie with some dark undertones. Sometimes this dark material isn’t executed perfectly, the movie is kind of a mess, but there’s still some biting comedy that comes to the surface sometimes.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
JBond 03-02-2010 03:33 PM
Great choice. Though I've only seen that and The Hangover...which I denounced in my review of In The Loop. Heh.
DAN! 03-02-2010 03:55 PM
I have seen all of them but bruno. Didn't care for "funny people." Mainly because of what he said, I just wasn't expecting a drama. In The Loop was a nice surprise this year. I didn't see it coming.
donny 03-02-2010 03:56 PM
I liked The Hangover quite a bit, Bruno was good, Observe was okay, but In the Loop was the best choice. Funny People wasn't funny.
Dracula 03-03-2010 07:39 AM
Foreign
This was a good year for foreign films, but it was a very bad year for foreign films that I actually had a chance to see. Maybe you can blame the recession or maybe you can blame fickle distributors, but it seems like nothing seems to come to stateside theaters in a timely manner, especially if you don’t have the luxury of living in New York. This is a compromised category and if a foreign favorite isn’t here it’s almost certainly because I haven’t seen it.
The Baader-Meinhoff Complex: I hesitate to call this a 2009 movie but considering that it started playing in my city in September I’m going to go with it. This film chronicles a turbulent decade or so of German history in which a radical group of anti-establishment youths picked up guns and decided to start a revolution. The film smartly walks the tightrope between sympathizing with these idealistic young people and condemning them.
Red Cliff: A lot of fine art emerges from world cinema, but sometimes we also get a fun action movie from abroad and this is a good example of just such a case. This movie was huge in china but the challenges of releasing two movies worth of epic martial arts was a bit daunting for distributors. The solution was to cut the two films into a single movie, not a pretty solution but it got the job done. All the same, this is a cool war movie with some good visuals and awesome battle scenes.
Sin Nombre: This is another movie of questionable qualification, it was made by an American director with a decent amount of American funding, but it’s a Spanish language film set in Latin America. The film has an interesting structure in which three seemingly disparate stories all organically connect in the middle and remain linked. More importantly, it’s an unflinching look at the gang culture of Central America.
Thirst: South Korea is something of a Mecca for strange and twisted cinema and Park Chan-Wook runs that town. It’s odd how Chan-Wook is someone who can be beloved by underground genre-crowds while still being accepted by highbrow festival crowds. His latest effort is hardly perfect (its second act is really problematic), but it still has more than enough cool set-pieces and twisted humor to rank up with some of the better movies of his filmography.
The White Ribbon: This is a very dark and serious film about generational guilt, and at its heart about questions of nature vs. nurture. The film is shot in stark black and white and edited in Haneke’s intense but patient style while set in an authentic feeling period town in the German countryside. The film presents a bleak picture that will haunt viewers long after it’s over.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
IanTheCool 03-04-2010 11:57 PM
I really want to see In the Loop. I would maybe see Funny People as one of those "go to the video store, can't decide what to rent" movie nights. No desire to see bruno or observe and report.
FranklinTard 03-05-2010 12:21 AM
observe and report is good viewing. its just interesting, the director seems to have the same sort of style in everything, its just insane, the whole way through. i really am looking forward to his future work.
krushgroove19 03-05-2010 02:44 AM
yeah, i really loved observe and report. it was a lot different than i expected, and i think it has my new favorite ending for a comedy.
Dracula 03-05-2010 12:07 PM
Documentary
My viewing patterns for documentaries have been a bit more consistent than my viewing of foreign films, though I’ll admit there were still plenty of titles I missed. I never got a chance to see We Live in Public, Burma VJ, The Beaches of Agnes, Food Inc, or Capitalism: A Love Story, but otherwise I think I’ve see a reasonable sample of this year’s acclaimed documentaries.
Anvil- The Story of Anvil: This documentary chronicling the has-been Canadian metal band Anvil is probably the people’s choice for documentary of the year. The band’s antics are so unsuccessful and so funny at times that many have compared them to the fictional band Spinal Tap, but the movie is not a staged joke… at least not entirely. Frankly, I do think the guys in this band are playing up to the camera a bit more than many would admit, still it’s a pretty good story told on film.
The Cove: This is a film about a group of animal activists who risk arrest and perhaps even their lives in order to expose the slaughter of dolphins in a hidden cove in Japan. In order to do this they pull into the Japanese village and employ high-tech visual equipment to covertly plant hidden cameras to capture the carnage. Meanwhile the film explores the political situation around Japanese whaling and the people interested in stopping it.
Not Quite Hollywood: In case you haven’t noticed, I’m pretty interested in movies. One of my favorite things to watch are documentaries about movies, a sub-genre that’s usually relegated to DVD special features. The world of Australian Exploitation Cinema did not seem like the kind of movies that would warrant a feature-length doc, but the package was so well made that it made the story behind this bizarre film industry pretty exhilarating.
Passing Strange: This is, in essence, a taping of a Broadway show filmed by the famous Spike Lee. The show itself is essentially a rock opera composed by cult rock musician Stew and performed both by himself and a group of actors performing the story onstage with a full band. I debated whether or not this should be qualified as a documentary, because the central story is fiction. However, I do think the average concert film does fall within the prevue of the documentary, and that’s essentially what this is.
Tyson: I never followed Mike Tyson when he was a famous boxer, but one of my favorite hobbies is looking up Youtube videos of him saying ridiculous things. The man is clearly quite insane and as such I saw a lot of potential in a movie profiling him. The movie takes the form of an extended interview. Tyson is not completely candid in his answers, but at the same time you get the sense that he really has convinced himself that the spin he puts on the stories are true.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
Dracula 03-07-2010 08:38 AM
Where does all the time go? I usually spread these out over a couple days and write a nice blub for each movie, unfortunately life has been getting in the way and I'm just going to have to throw all of my final top ten up at once and without blubs to boot.
Maybe in a week or two I'll come back and write some blurbs, but for now this stuff just needs to get posted.
The Number 10 Movie of the Year:
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
The Number 9 Movie of the Year:
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The Number 8 Movie of the Year
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
The Number 7 Movie of the Year:
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
The Number 6 Movie of the Year:
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
The Number 5 Movie of the Year:
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
The Number 4 Movie of the Year:
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
The Number 3 Movie of the Year:
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
The Number 2 Movie of the Year:
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
The Number 1 Movie of the Year:
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
IanTheCool 03-07-2010 09:37 AM
You have definitely made a case for In the Loop during these awards. I shall have to check it out soon.
FranklinTard 03-07-2010 11:41 AM
in the loop was my favorite of the year, but ingorious is right behind it.
still have to see goodbye solo... heard nothing but good things from bahrani.
Deexan 03-07-2010 02:33 PM
Aspect ratios?
JBond 03-07-2010 02:48 PM
Haha. I look at those first.
PG Cooper 03-07-2010 03:50 PM
Basterds is my number one as well. Good job on The Golden Stakes.
sniktawt 03-07-2010 04:28 PM
I'll have to see In The Loop for sure.
Jack 03-07-2010 04:37 PM
Antichrist!? Sicko.
Deexan 03-07-2010 05:45 PM
I just finished seeing In The Loop. Wow. Expected greatness and it delivered, hope it gets some recognition tonight (though I doubt it).
