Post by Dracula on Oct 11, 2014 16:52:20 GMT -5
Dracula 01-25-2011 02:03 AM
Dracula Presents: The Fourth Annual Golden Stake Awards
It's that time of year again, Golden Stake season. I completed this in 2007, 2008, and 2009 and I'm doing it again now. This is a year in review in the format of personal award shows which covers both traditional Oscar type awards and other fun categories.
Last year I started late and needed to do multiple categories a year, but the pace will be a bit slower this year. 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
We’ll be kicking off once again with fight of the year, a category dedicated to honoring all the best melee scuffles of the year. These fights may be conducted with fists or with hand held weapons of some kind, and while guns can be present they may not be the main instrument of the encounter.
Olyphant Vs. Crazy Doctor- The Crazies: I’m of the opinion that action scenes can come from some unlikely places, including horror movies. This is a short, but efficient little fight in which a zombified doctor comes at our hero (Tim Olyphant) with a bone saw and he’s forced to dodge these lethal strikes. Needless to say, the fight ends with a pool of someone’s blood and a macabre little piece of physical comedy.
Ward vs. Alfonso Sanchez- The Fighter: There are three major boxing matches in The Fighter, and for these purposes I’m going to have to choose the second one, firstly because it’s more important to the plot, secondly because it’s more suspenseful, and finally because it has a surprise ending that would be hard to believe if it weren’t entirely true. Like all of the fights in the movie, the picture has been softened in order to mirror early nineties HBO boxing broadcasts.
Distorted Gravity Fight- Inception: You’re in the second level of a dream (which looks like a high end hotel), the car you’re all in is in free fall and gravity is going crazy all while security is closing in, there’s nothing left to do but go hand to hand. If that description doesn’t make sense to you then you obviously haven’t experienced Inception. This fight scene was filmed in a large rotating set, we’ve seen sets like that in movies like The Fly, but we’ve never seen a full speed fight scene in an environment like that before.
Pilgrim Vs. Lucas Lee- Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World: It’s no secret that I found Scott Pilgrim obnoxious, but there’s no denying that it did have creative fight sequences even if they got old fast. The thing is a lot of them are sort of non-fights: one is a musical duel (don’t ask), one of them mostly comes down to a joke about veganism, and so on. The one fight that really seemed to put some emphasis on choreography was the second fight against a skateboarder/actor who sicks a bunch of stunt doubles on Scott. It ends quick but it looks pretty good for a while.
Discs- Tron Legacy: I suppose that the fact that this scene involves throwing things technically makes it a bit less of a melee than this category usually accommodates, but it certainly isn’t a shootout and the gladiatorial nature of it basically makes it a fight and a cool one at that. Held in a series of glass domes, this fight features a unique blend of aerial dodging and darting, and finally ends in a fall down into the arena. Discs aren’t quite lightsabers, but they’ll do.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
sshuttari 01-25-2011 02:41 AM
Distorted Gravity in Inception. Probably the only thing I saw this year that made my jaw drop.
PG Cooper 01-25-2011 05:59 AM
Good to see you back at it after my copy cat bulls*** :redface:
And excellent winner.
Dhamon22 01-25-2011 12:23 PM
Great choice. Awesome scene, it was head and shoulders above the rest.
Jack 01-25-2011 12:31 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by sshuttari (Post 2740877)
probably the only thing i saw this year that made my jaw drop.
qft
JBond 01-25-2011 03:41 PM
One of the best scenes of the year.
ViRUs 01-25-2011 07:09 PM
Agreed, I was really surprised to see Scott Pilgrim show up on this list, lol.
IanTheCool 01-25-2011 07:41 PM
Ah good. I love these. And yes, there was really only one clear winner for this category.
Dracula 01-25-2011 08:53 PM
Best Use of Source Music
I usually start with the musical performance category instead of the source music category, but I decided to switch it up this year. This is a category dedicated to the movies that can take an existing piece of music and incorporate it into a movie, creating a synthesis of song and imagery. Bear in mind that it is the use of the song and the relevance of the selection that I’m judging, not the quality of the song itself.
“Never Hear Surf Music Again” by Free Blood- 127 Hours: I was tempted to nominate Bill Wither’s “Lovely Day” for its place in the soundtrack because it was such a nice song, but this caustic opening track proved to be the more striking combination with the film’s visuals. Played over a montage of Aron Ralston getting ready for his fateful hike and a lot of city imagery, the scene perfectly establishes the modern world Ralston is leaving and the sort of punky urge that makes him want to leave.
“You and Me” by Penny & the Quarters- Blue Valentine: There’s an interesting story behind this obscure soul song, which was only discovered over thirty years after it was recorded, but I’m only here to talk about its use in the movie. “You and Me” is established as the central couple’s special song, and it’s used to heartbreaking effect both in the segments where they are falling in love and when they are at their lowest point later on.
“How You Like Me Now” By The Heavy- The Fighter: For a film that’s loaded to the brim with famous classic rock, it’s interesting that the stand out track is actually a contemporary song from a mostly unknown band that makes the nomination. Interestingly it’s a contemporary song that’s been built to sound like a relic from the 70s. Its use is in a really snappy opening sequence where Ward and Eklund are walking through their neighborhood, the scene doesn’t really affect the plot but it perfectly introduces these characters and their place in the community.
“Shame Shame on You” By Spade Cooley- The Killer Inside Me: Here’s where crate digging can really pay off. This obscure country/western song from the fifties fits perfectly within the film’s Texas setting, but more importantly it fits the film’s sleazy tone to a T. The lyrics, which look at a heartbreak with a sort of twisted point of view that places all of the blame on a woman perfectly fits with the main character’s sociopathic point of view.
“Baby You’re a Rich Man” By The Beatles- The Social Network: Nothing in movies like Se7en or Fight Club really leads one to assume that David Fincher is a Beatle-maniac, but he managed to win this category in 2008 for his use of Twist and Shout in Benjamin Button and now he’s back with another expensive Beatles track in tow, one that fits into the movie for obvious lyrical reasons, but it also slyly pokes fun at the emptiness of Zuckerberg’s accomplishment.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
JBond 01-25-2011 10:36 PM
Odd category.
krushgroove19 01-26-2011 12:08 AM
I'm glad that one won. I've been obsessed with that song since seeing the movie, and my friend and I both agreed it was very fitting.
PG Cooper 01-26-2011 06:02 AM
I hadn't thought about The Fighter for this award, but yeah, it does work perfectly. Good choice.
Jack 01-26-2011 10:29 AM
Good picks. Would have gone with "You and Me." Certainly broke my heart. Haven't seen The Fighter yet, not really a sports movie guy.
Couple more I enjoyed:
- Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds "O Children" in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 for being a Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds song in the middle of a Harry Potter movie and creating a great character moment out of it.
- Edith Piaf "Non Je ne Regrette Rien" in Inception for it's subtle and not so subtle incorporation with the score.
- Nas "Bridging the Gap" in A Prophet for working despite being an upbeat American rap song in the middle of a fairly grim French thriller.
- Air Supply "I'm All Out of Love" in Animal Kingdom for showing how atmospheric and downright creepy 80s pop music can be when used in the right context.
- Richard Hawley "Tonight the Streets Our Ours" in Exit Through the Gift Shop for setting the right tone in the opening credits over footage of street artists running from the man.
PG Cooper 01-26-2011 12:28 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jack (Post 2741060)
Good picks. Would have gone with "You and Me." Certainly broke my heart. Haven't seen The Fighter yet, not really a sports movie guy.
Couple more I enjoyed:
- Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds "O Children" in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 for being a Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds song in the middle of a Harry Potter movie and creating a great character moment out of it.
- Edith Piaf "Non Je ne Regrette Rien" in Inception for it's subtle and not so subtle incorporation with the score.
I did my own awards and both these were nominated.
Dracula 01-26-2011 01:43 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jack (Post 2741060)
- Edith Piaf "Non Je ne Regrette Rien" in Inception for it's subtle and not so subtle incorporation with the score.
- Nas "Bridging the Gap" in A Prophet for working despite being an upbeat American rap song in the middle of a fairly grim French thriller.
I thought about the Edith Piaf song, but I ultimately felt that the song itself (Cotillard in-joke aside) could have been switched for almost any song and would have had the same basic function in the film, which kind of makes it a bit of a different beast than what I'm looking for here.
For the record, I'm considering A Prophet a 2009 film (though I'm probably going to rethink my rules for foreign film eligibility next year). If I did consider it a 2010 movie it might have ended up being the best film of the year.
PG Cooper 01-26-2011 02:50 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dracula (Post 2741089)
I thought about the Edith Piaf song, but I ultimately felt that the song itself (Cotillard in-joke aside) could have been switched for almost any song and would have had the same basic function in the film, which kind of makes it a bit of a different beast than what I'm looking for here.
For the record, I'm considering A Prophet a 2009 film (though I'm probably going to rethink my rules for foreign film eligibility next year). If I did consider it a 2010 movie it might have ended up being the best film of the year.
I'd agree that almost any song would fit, but the Piaf song seemed to fit so perfectly. Plus, I love how the song was integrated so well with the score.
Dhamon22 01-26-2011 04:15 PM
I liked the song from Blue Valentine for this.
Dracula 01-26-2011 09:13 PM
Shootout of the Year
We’ve done the melee thing, now let’s deal in long range combat. Pistols, assault rifles, shotguns, sniper rifles… they’re all up for grabs in this category. However, keep in mind that this does need to be a two sided fight. There were scenes in both Shutter Island and Salt which I considered, but which were ultimately disqualified because they were one sided slaughters rather than full on gunfights.
Showdown on Main- The Book of Eli: This movie was in many ways a western set in a post-apocalypse, and what’s a western without a showdown in a town? Here Eli, one of the cooler looking badasses of the year, is standing in the middle of the road when he’s fired upon by a group of thugs, in response he just stoically pulls out a pistol and makes some well placed shots at people down the road and on roof tops before pulling out his sawed off shotgun and dodges behind a car.
Snow Fortress- Inception: This is a tricky choice because the actual shooting in this scene gets interrupted frequently, but I think if you were to splice together the actual shootout, there would be a pretty good scene here. That’s true of a lot of Inception, it’s a movie with a lot of good gunplay but it rarely combines into a full blown firearm fight. This one features snowmobile on skier shooting, some cool sniper play, and some grenade tossing. What’s not to like?
Warehouse Shootout- Kick-Ass: This is a really cool scene in an otherwise obnoxious film in which Nicholas Cage’s Big Daddy character goes toe to toe with a number of thugs in a warehouse. It’s only about a minute long and I’m not in love with the way they “borrowed” the music from 28 Days Later, but the character looks really cool when he’s doing it and the scene is edited in a cool way that give the impression of disconnected moments within a complete scene.
Iron and War Machine Vs. Drones- Iron Man 2: Iron Man 2 was not the triumph that many hoped and it was plagued by a terrible middle act and an overload of in-jokes, but I think it did manage to pull off some pretty solid action in its finale. This scene, taking place in a greenhouse, has Iron Man and War Machine taking down dozens of unmanned robotic drones with a variety of advanced weapons, ending in a crazy laser blast.
Fill Your Hands, You Son of a *****!- True Grit: This movie had some tough boots to fill, the original John Wayne movie was well liked by an entire generation of people and the climactic horseback gunfight was one of the most iconic shootouts of 60s cinema. The Coens don’t necessarily re-invent the wheel with their rendition of the scene, but they do refine it, using modern film techniques to make the shootout even more visceral than it was in its original form.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
PG Cooper 01-26-2011 09:21 PM
No love for The Town?
Dracula 01-26-2011 09:54 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by PG Cooper (Post 2741166)
No love for The Town?
Stongly considered it, but I couldn't really get over the fact that the scene felt like Heat-lite, in a trying-too-hard-and-not-making-the-grade kind of way. I ended up replacing it with the Kick-Ass scene.
docstop 01-27-2011 09:48 AM
Good choice with True Grit. Liked the War Machine - Iron Man vs. Drones seem but it didn't last long enough.
Jack 01-27-2011 10:49 AM
I'd go with The Town. Heat rehash for sure, but it still scratched that itch for me. Or A Prophet, but I understand why it is not up.
MovieBuff801 01-27-2011 01:14 PM
I'd actually have gone with The Town as well which, as a movie, I prefer to Heat. *dodges trash*
PG Cooper 01-27-2011 02:07 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by moviebuff801 (Post 2741285)
I'd actually have gone with The Town as well which, as a movie, I prefer to Heat. *dodges trash*
:omg:
MovieBuff801 01-27-2011 03:18 PM
Don't get me wrong, I REALLY LIKE Heat...but no matter how many times I watch it, I just can't come to love it.
PG Cooper 01-27-2011 03:22 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by moviebuff801 (Post 2741298)
Don't get me wrong, I REALLY LIKE Heat...but no matter how many times I watch it, I just can't come to love it.
I'm surprised. Though I suppose I understand. Personally, I love the hell out of Heat. One of the most rewatchable movies ever for me.
Dracula 01-27-2011 10:03 PM
Best Musical Performance
This is an award for the best scene of people doing a musical performance, and it’s kind of strange every year. The thing is, they aren’t exactly making a lot of music-related movies and there aren’t a ton of choices to choose from. This is not about the quality of the performance itself, although that certainly doesn’t hurt, this is about the scene as a whole and its function within the movie.
You Only Hurt the Ones You Love- Blue Valentine: A staple of the movie’s marketing, this was a scene where the central couple are young and falling in love. They stop at the sign of the road and Gostling starts playing a ukulele in order for Williams to show off her awkward tap dancing. Gostling says that he can only sing “funny,” and that’s not a lie. He goes into a bizarre rendition of the pop standard “You Always Hurt the Ones you Love.” It’s a WTF moment out of context, but it feels really natural and important in the movie.
The Clap- Get Him to the Greek: This category has long been a haven for scenes of people singing silly songs in comedies, and that seems particularly appropriate for this movie given that it’s about a crazy rock star. In this scene he’s performing for the today show and interrupts his ridiculous protest song in order to perform an old favorite. The song is actually well produced and performed by Russell Brand, you could mistake it for a real song if it weren’t a ridiculous Gonorrhea anthem that the crowd was mindlessly cheering on.
“Black Sheep”- Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World: As one of the few music related movies of the year, Scot Pilgrim felt like it needed to be a nominee, but frankly I didn’t like much of the music in it. Pretty much my only memory of musical moments in the movie consisted of that drummer chick shouting “we are Sex Bob-omb” followed by some really generic punk rock and it was really unclear if this was supposed to be good or deliberately poor music played by amateurs. Then I remembered this moment where the rival band Clash at Demonhead played, which is (appropriately) a lot more professional and the scene makes for a good bit of jealous mourning.
“I Swear” A Cappella- The Social Network: As a rule, college a cappella groups are not known for adventurous song selection. That’s why the Harvard a cappella coir is seen here performing a less than trendy All-4-One song from the mid 90s. This is a good example of how diegetic live music can be used in much the same way that random source music can be used to accentuate a scene. It also provides a dramatic moment in which the group is interrupted when Zuckerberg’s rivals learn of a betrayal.
Family Hootenanny- Winter’s Bone: The main element that people tend to highlight from Winter’s Bon is its authentic depiction of its Ozarks setting. One scene that really drives this home is a moment where our hero runs into a hillbilly family jamming with a banjo and piano to some weird bluegrass music. These weird people have almost Herzogianly bizarre faces, especially the grandmother who is singing the lead vocals.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
Drizzt240 01-28-2011 12:30 AM
Yo drac, good fight scene. Fighter doesn't deserve to win any category involving sound.
Slow year for shoot outs.
Dhamon22 01-28-2011 08:07 AM
Good pick.
Jack 01-28-2011 09:48 AM
I'd say the Blue Valentine performance was almost too on-the-nose...but it'd get my vote too. =)
Dracula 01-29-2011 12:19 AM
Chase of the Year
Chases are a staple of the action movie; they’ve been making them since the silent days. They’re probably at their most popular when they take the form of a car chase. This award, however, reaches beyond the mere car chase and looks at a wide spectrum of chase scenes including foot chases, motorcycle chases, ariel chases, and if they invent any other kind of chase that will be eligible too.
Ferry Chase- The Ghost Writer: Movie chases are often characterized by speed, and in that category this foot chase probably wouldn’t really stack up. But there’s more to a great chase than that, and in this case it’s all about staging. This is a neat little cat and mouse chase through a ferry in the harbor which leads to an escape the way the hero came. This is a chase to see who’s the smartest, while also fitting well with the paranoid tone of the movie.
Chase Through Bagdad- Green Zone: Beginning with a nice little scuffle following a harsh interrogation, this scene has Matt Damon rushing into the streets trying to chase down and hopefully capture the Iraqi general who might be able to prevent the insurgency. There’s a lot going on here: helicopters monitor it with cool dot things over the people’s heads, a chopper gets shot down, there’s a race against another pursuer, etc. Greengrass uses his signature style to form a really cool footchase.
Escape- Salt: Highway overpasses have long been an important part of chase scenes and Salt has one of the better stunts involving the structures. This begins as a typical little footchase, but once Salt jumps off of an overpass onto the top of a moving semi-truck all bets are off. What follows is some cool stuntwork and eventually a jump onto a motorcycle. It’s like a (slightly) more realistic version of the chase from The Matrix Reloaded.
Armored Car Robbery- The Town: The best car chases tend bring out aspects of a city they’re located in. The Bullitt chase emphasizes San Francisco’s Hills, The French Connection emphasizes NYC’s transit system, To Live and Die in L.A. emphasized L.A.’s freeways, etc. Boston’s main automotive legacy are a series of old, narrow, un-navigable roads and this chase emphasizes the claustrophobia of trying to have a car chase in Beantown. Either way it has a cool explosion and ends with a pretty sweet little joke.
Lightcycles- Tron: Legacy: One of the most memorable parts of the original Tron was the introduction of things called lightcycles: CGI motorcycles that left a trail of… laser stuff… behind it as it as it drove around in a gladiator like arena. They were also kind of creepy the way they robotically turned at right angles. Computers aren’t creepy anymore, they kick ass, and so can the new glowing lightcycles which turn in any direction they wants.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
MasterChief117 01-29-2011 12:08 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by moviebuff801 (Post 2741285)
I'd actually have gone with The Town as well which, as a movie, I prefer to Heat. *dodges trash*
*throws tons of trash*
Not sure how we managed to be friends for this long and you pull a move like that...Not cool.
MasterChief117 01-29-2011 12:09 PM
Good pick by the way Drac. I completely agree, not really memorable but I think you went with the best choice. Probably one of the best scenes in Tron:Legacy.
PG Cooper 01-29-2011 05:03 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dracula (Post 2741353)
“Black Sheep”- Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World: As one of the few music related movies of the year, Scot Pilgrim felt like it needed to be a nominee, but frankly I didn’t like much of the music in it. Pretty much my only memory of musical moments in the movie consisted of that drummer chick shouting “we are Sex Bob-omb” followed by some really generic punk rock and it was really unclear if this was supposed to be good or deliberately poor music played by amateurs. Then I remembered this moment where the rival band Clash at Demonhead played, which is (appropriately) a lot more professional and the scene makes for a good bit of jealous mourning.
Completely summed up my feelings on the music in Scott Pilgrim.
I'm also really glad you nominated The Ghost Writer for Best Chase. Such a great and unconventional sequence.
Dracula 01-29-2011 11:02 PM
Set-Piece of the Year
Not every set-piece can be placed squarely into a stock box, sometimes the most impressively staged moments of a movie isn’t necessarily going to be a chase, a fight, or a shootout. That’s what this category is for; it’s a miscellaneous category for scenes that feel like action scenes but which think outside the box.
Snake- Buried: Most of the set pieces here are all about big stunts, big effects, and big ideas, but this nomination is all about generating intense cinema out of something small. Late in the hero’s ordeal he’s horrified to find that a seemingly poisonous desert snake has slithered into the coffin that he’s trapped in. It’s a really suspenseful scene as there’s nowhere to run and nowhere to hide and you’re on the edge of your seat trying to figure out how he’s going to get out of this one.
Plane Scene- The Expendables: People go to movies like this looking for simple pleasures: they want to see people get shot, to see things explode, and to see improbable stunts performed by geezers. This scene provides all of this. We get Stallone jumping onto a plane, we get a plane circling around and machine-gunning the hell out of evil mercenaries, and for the coup de grace we get to see the people who somehow survived the machine-gunning get drenched in gas and then incinerated by an explosion that’s vaguely akin to the napalm scene from Apocalypse Now.
Opening Dream- Inception: Though Inception mostly focuses on one major heist that takes up the second half of the film, it’s easy to forget that it also opens with a wicked little dream heist scene that functions both as an exciting opening but also as a neat way of establishing some of the rules of the world of the film. This part feels like a genuine spy film with Di Caprio stealthing his way through the hallway wasting fools with a silenced pistol, all leading up to some neat water effects and a cool reveal at the end.
Dachau- Shutter Island: For a second I thought about including this scene as a shootout, but the one sided nature of the scene ultimately made it more appropriate as a set-piece. This is one of the psychologically loaded flashbacks from the film, in particular this shows the Di Caprio character’s experience as one of the soldiers liberating the Dachau concentration camp. It ends with an unforgettable moment at the end which function both as a catharsis while being itself rather frightening. Either way it’s impeccably staged by a master.
Opening Robbery- The Town: This has proven to be a really good year for effective and exciting opening scenes. This opening to The Town doesn’t differ much from your average run of the mill bank robbery, but the execution really turns it into something special. The way that the actors move going in, the brutality of an assault towards the end, and (most of all) the extremely cool skeleton outfits that they choose for the robbers.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
Doomsday 01-29-2011 11:14 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by moviebuff801 (Post 2741285)
I'd actually have gone with The Town as well which, as a movie, I prefer to Heat. *dodges trash*
VIDEO-CLick to Watch!:
MovieBuff801 01-29-2011 11:33 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by MasterChief117 (Post 2741553)
*throws tons of trash*
Not sure how we managed to be friends for this long and you pull a move like that...Not cool.
I remember telling you my opinion of Heat a LONG time ago, so don't act surprised.
Look, I think Heat is a very strong film with great acting and whatnot...I just don't think it's a masterpiece.
Dracula 01-29-2011 11:45 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by moviebuff801 (Post 2741644)
I remember telling you my opinion of Heat a LONG time ago, so don't act surprised.
Look, I think Heat is a very strong film with great acting and whatnot...I just don't think it's a masterpiece.
And The Town is?
MovieBuff801 01-29-2011 11:57 PM
I wouldn't neccessarily say The Town is, either, but I WILL say I was more involved with that movie than I was with Heat.
I know this is probably a cliched complaint, but I'm sorry, 3 hours is just too long for a bank robbery movie. Heat has a lot of great scenes, but bits of it either drag or just go on longer than they should.
Dracula 01-30-2011 12:52 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by moviebuff801 (Post 2741647)
I wouldn't neccessarily say The Town is, either, but I WILL say I was more involved with that movie than I was with Heat.
I know this is probably a cliched complaint, but I'm sorry, 3 hours is just too long for a bank robbery movie. Heat has a lot of great scenes, but bits of it either drag or just go on longer than they should.
Maybe, but at least its story doesn't hinge on Robert De Niro having an implausible affair with his former hostage/only person who could identify him. It also doesn't try to make De Niro into some kind of hero just because he seems a little nicer than the other people around him.
MovieBuff801 01-30-2011 12:59 AM
Oh, there's a lot more to The Town than that. You've got Jeremy Renner in a snaky and menacing performance, Ben Affleck giving a surprisingly solid performance, some interesting dynamics between Doug and Jem and Doug and Krista, some really good dialogue scenes and of course, some truly entertaining action scenes.
Are parts of The Town implausible? Sure, but what makes the film so good is that the overall level of storytelling keeps things interesting enough for us to go along with those implausibilities without questioning it too much.
Dracula 01-30-2011 01:02 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by moviebuff801 (Post 2741659)
Oh, there's a lot more to The Town than that. You've got Jeremy Renner in a snaky and menacing performance, Ben Affleck giving a surprisingly solid performance, some interesting dynamics between Doug and Jem and Doug and Krista, some really good dialogue scenes and of course, some truly entertaining action scenes.
Are parts of The Town implausible? Sure, but what makes the film so good is that the overall level of storytelling keeps things interesting enough for us to go along with those implausibilities without questioning it too much.
To each his own, but I was certainly questioning it plenty.
PG Cooper 01-30-2011 06:14 AM
Good choice for Best set Piece. I'm also really glad you nominated Shutter Island because that was a really great scene.
Dracula 01-30-2011 09:01 PM
Moving on to technical awards
Best Makeup
Makeup can be an odd mistress, in prestige awards it’s a category that seems to be evenly split between dainty period pieces and gory action movies. Given the types of movies I see and the way I tend to judge them, my nominations tend to lean towards the later. It can sometimes be hard to tell where makeup ends and special effects begin, but I try my best with the knowledge I have.
Black Swan: This might be a ballerina movie, but its visuals have a lot of ties to body horror, a heavily makeup dependent genre that was pioneered by David Cronenberg in the 80s. As Nina takes a decent into madness we see her visual hallucinations in which she begins to take the attributes of a swan in weird and kind of disturbing ways. In a movie with this kind of gritty tone, bad makeup would be jarring, which is why this team needed to make it work.
The Crazies: Zombie makeup is done pretty often, but we shouldn’t take the challenges of this work for granted. This is a bit different from most zombie movies in that these people aren’t dead and they also aren’t quite as hyper as the 28 Days Latter “zombies.” So they need to make more of a minimalist approach adding some blood here and some rashes there, making them look just off enough to be distinctly different from the survivors.
Inception: This is not a movie that comes to mind right away when you think about makeup as it isn’t really prominent through large portions of the movie. However, there is one scene that really shows off makeup process in which Ken Watanabe is seen wearing heavy old age makeup. This must have required heavy latex or something, but they pull it off. At the end of the day quality is more important than quantity.
The Killer Inside Me: This is another movie that isn’t awash in makeup effects but which uses it in one key scene very effectively. Gore effects are common in cinema, but they are rarely used to quite the effect that they are in one of this movie’s murder scenes in which an actress is beaten to death and her face seems to just fall apart with each punch. It’s a visceral and disturbing scene and this could go down as one of those great underground gore moments.
Splice: Makeup in science fiction has a long and often not-so-illustrious legacy. We all know about those old B-movies with fake looking monsters and how much that can detract from the experience. That’s not a concern here as this movie has some really cool monster effects that look very realistic and also really fantastical. The creature is meant to be a hybrid of human and animal DNAs and what makes it work so well is that they were willing to make the creature really human, but… not.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
PG Cooper 01-30-2011 09:09 PM
The only film I haven't seen is the winner...
Dracula 01-30-2011 09:52 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by PG Cooper (Post 2741781)
The only film I haven't seen is the winner...
Rent it, it's a nice little science fiction B-movie.
PG Cooper 01-30-2011 10:01 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dracula (Post 2741796)
Rent it, it's a nice little science fiction B-movie.
I just might. I considered grabbing it at the video store a bunch of times.
Dracula 01-31-2011 10:59 PM
Best Sound Design
After four years of doing Golden Stakes, I’ve come to realize I probably shouldn’t do this award. I don’t really know much of anything about sound design; I barely understand the difference between sound editing and mixing and to make matters worse I saw a bunch of this year’s action movies on my TV which doesn’t even have surround sound. Even when I did watch the movies in proper aural environments, the sound mix tends not to have been the element I most remember. I mainly still do this out of a sense of tradition. Just bear with me.
127 Hours: For a movie that only has one character and takes place almost entirely outdoors, this movie has a really adventurous soundscape. Sound is used to great extent in many key moments of this movie like the boulder’s drop and a fantasy sequence where the canyon floods, but the real standout is the climactic “cutting” scene, in which well timed sounds are used to represent a particularly difficult moment in which Ralston is forced to cut into some nerves.
Inception: There’s a lot going on in Inception, there are fist fights, gunfights, an driving score, lots of shouting, and some crazy dream effects. Taking all of these elements and making them blend into a sweet mix is not easy, all of that could turn into a complete mess if not for the intervention of people who know what they’re doing.
The Social Network: The Social Network is largely a movie which shows people talking about computers in dark rooms, but it still has some of the most talked about audio mixing of the year. David Fincher is a believer in aural realism; he isn’t going to have people be the only ones making a sound when they’re standing in a crowded room. He does this subtlety for much of the movie, but it really becomes clear in the much talked about club scene where a pivotal conversation comes this close to being (deliberately) drowned out by music.
Splice: Splice isn’t a very loud movie, but it does have a unique sound design challenge just the same. In creating Dren, the people involved needed to create a variety of sounds and noises for the monster to make that sound clearly unhuman and creepy while also being kind of cute. I don’t know exactly what they did to create these but it’s pretty cool just the same.
Tron: Legacy: The only movie this year that I saw in an IMAX theater was Tron: Legacy, and that probably gives it an advantage over the rest of these movies that might be unfair. Certainly this was the most room-shakingly loud movie I saw all year, which is the same experience I had with last year’s IMAX wonder Avatar. In fact I’m told the two movies used the same sound mixer.
The Golden Stake goes to…
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IanTheCool 02-01-2011 12:40 PM
I like the nod to Social Network. The opening scene in the pub was the same way. There was a ton of background conversations which made it feel like a real pub.
Drizzt240 02-01-2011 09:00 PM
I think we should define set-piece because I think Avatar Deku Tree won this last year. So now a snake and a deku tree have
JBond 02-01-2011 09:05 PM
Heh, aren't Deku Trees from Ocarina of Time?
Dracula 02-01-2011 09:40 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Drizzt240 (Post 2742091)
I think we should define set-piece because I think Avatar Deku Tree won this last year. So now a snake and a deku tree have
Neither the snake nor the tree won, both were nominated but the theater scene from Inglourious Basterds won last year and the opening dream from Inception won this year. You are clicking the spoiler tag to see the winners right?
Dracula 02-02-2011 10:10 AM
Best Original Score
Almost every year I start this category out by saying that this is a difficult category for me and that scores usually aren’t the main thing I’m paying attention to when I watch a movie. Not this year. This has been a landmark year for interesting and innovative scores that you can’t help but notice, and not in a bad “this is standing out to much” kind of way. Hollywood really opened itself up to new and interesting talent and it paid back in dividends.
127 Hours: I thought it was pretty crazy when Danny Boyle brought back A. R. Rahman to score his follow-up to Slumdog Millionaire, and frankly I’m ashamed at myself for doing so. Rahman more than proves himself to be far more than the “local flavor” that he seemed to be in that last film. Here he provides a really tense guitar driven score that ratchets up the suspense of the situation at the film’s center and perfectly melds with the source music in the film.
Inception: Baaaaaaoooooo! Baaaaaaoooooo! You know that sound I’m talking about; that loud bass hit at the center of Hans Zimmer’s intense score for Inception. It’s one of the more striking music effects since Brad Fiedel banded his kitchen pot for the score of the Terminator movies. It obviously doesn’t end there, this movie has a driving orchestral assault that builds and builds upon itself at all times. This isn’t a quiet score that accentuates things here and there; it’s big music for a big movie.
The Social Network: I’ve been a Nine Inch Nails fan for years and I’ll say right now that I think it’s cool as hell that Trent Reznor is in the middle of a highly acclaimed film, but that’s not going to give him a leg up, especially given that this actually sounds kind of different from his work as a rock star. What is going to give him a leg up is that he made one of the most interesting and appropriate scores of the year which completely alters the mood of the film.
Tron: Legacy: Daft Punk is a group that has reached almost unprecedented levels of success for a hardcore House outfit, they’re the best there is at what they do and their somewhat kitchy robot schtick made them an absolutely awesome choice to do this score. There is a lot of really good toe tapping electronica here, but it is often combined with some really majestic orchestrations. As an album this has charted higher than any score since The Phantom Menace, and I understand why, I’d probably enjoy litening to this in that format than any of the other nominees.
True Grit: Deep down the Coen brothers are jokesters, dry jokesters, but jokesters just the same. True Grit can be a very funny movie and it can also be an exciting action movie, but it also has serious undercurrents and a beating heart at its center and Carter Burwell’s score is a big part of why that is. The score was disqualified from the Oscar race because it was heavily based on a number of hymns, a fact I can’t personally verify. To my ears though, this is some great music that makes the movie a lot better.
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PG Cooper 02-02-2011 11:45 AM
Good choice. And I agree that all five were fantastic scores.
JBond 02-02-2011 01:53 PM
Baaaaaaoooooo! Baaaaaaoooooo!
Dracula 02-05-2011 03:06 AM
Best Art Direction
Art directors are in charge of a film’s sets and their overall physical appearance. They need to draw up designs for the film’s sets and props and then they need to bring them to life. Often the director has a lot of influence over this, and the visual effects department also influences it a lot, but it’s the Art Director who needs to make it all happen.
Green Zone: This Paul Greengrass thriller has the challenge of recreating places that we’ve seen on the news for the last decade in meticulous detail. Most impressive is the title location, the green zone, which is brought to life as this sort of surreal place of western imperialism not unlike the Cairo base from Lawrence of Arabia.
Inception: Most movies can come up with an overall design and just kind of run with it, but in Inception things get shaken up a lot. There’s the eastern design of Saito’s house, the very modern real world environments, the urban sprawl of the first dream level, the noir hotel of the second level, the snow fortress on the third level and of course the all-bets-are-off limbo area. Each of these needs to be distinct so that the viewer will keep track of it all while levels shift while still fitting in with an overall aesthetic.
Never Let Me Go: Science fiction has traditionally been filled with metal walls and computers and stuff, but this movie takes a different approach to the genre. Set in an alternate version of the 20th century, this takes a post-Children of Men approach to world building in which things are subtley changed here and there. But this isn’t really being nominated for science fiction elements so much as it’s down to earth elements like its boarding schools, hospitals, and costal villages.
Shutter Island: Few films are improved quite as much by art direction than Shutter Island, a film that is made significantly more interesting by its creepy New England Gothic aesthetic. That insane asylum looks like a horrible place out of an H.P. Lovecraft story and the rest of that spooky island is no slouch either. It has a bit of an artificial look, but that’s by design too, and all the spiral staircases, dingy cells, and lighthouses really give the film atmosphere.
Tron: Legacy: While these other movies were doing variations on the real world to some extent, this Tron sequel had little to go on aside from the original ’82 movie which was going to need a major overhaul if it was going to impress modern audiences. But the design team was able to fight back with a slick neon glow design and a number of sweeping cyber cityscapes. In this they were mostly successful, the movie looks pretty damn cool.
The Golden Stake goes to…
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IanTheCool 02-05-2011 09:18 AM
I agree with your choice in score, it really set the mood well. And art direction too for that matter. A lot of great sets in Inception.
Dracula 02-08-2011 12:08 AM
Sorry I fell a bit behind
Best Soundtrack
The cavalcade of great scores this year did come at a bit of a price: there were very few good movies that were propelled by a source music soundtrack. By this I am of course referring to movies which use originally recorded music in order to accentuate various scenes. It’s an art that was mastered by people like Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarentino, but filmmakers have been surprisingly disinterested this year, forcing me to pick some movies that are… not great. And as one final asterisk, this is all about the use of songs in a movie, it has nothing to do with the actual soundtrack albums.
127 Hours: Musically, this is an odd film in that its musical engine is about 50% score and 50% source music and I think both of these contribute equally to the film. I’ve already discussed the film’s opening sequence set to Free Blood, and I had Bill Wither’s “Lovely Day” stuck in my head for days after I saw the film. As the film goes on we get treated to catchy oddities like “Ça Plane Pour Moi” (a French surf punk song) and atmospheric tracks like Sigur Ros’ “Festival.” It’s all topped off by the Oscar nominated Dido track “If I Rise.”
The Fighter: Nothing in the movies Three Kings or I Heart Huckabees led me to believe that David O. Russell was the kind of music geek who would put together a rock soundtrack like this, but low and behold here we have it. This is loaded with classic rockers that must have cost a fortune to licence. The Led Zeppelin song alone must have cost more than Mellissa Leo’s salary, but they still had money left over to pay The Rolling Stones, Aerosmith, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Wang Chung, and Whitesnake among others. Not to mention that song by The Heavy that I praised.
Get Him to the Greek: The heart of the music in this movie are the comedic rock songs performed by Aldus Snow’s band Infant Sorrow. Those songs are… interesting… but what I’m really looking at there are the various original rock songs from elsewhere in the soundtrack like The Rolling Stone’s “Rocks Off” or The Sex Pistol’s “Anarchy in the UK” (played appropriately during some English debauchery). It’s almost like they were trying to hearken back to a time when rock stars were still relevant.
Hot Tub Time Machine: There are many opinions about Hot Tub Time Machine: some called it “stupid,” others called it “very stupid,” others called it just plain bad. I probably agree with all of that, in fact I might go so far as to call it the worst movie I saw last year, but one thing it does pretty well is loading itself to the brim with songs that are “totally eighties.” All of those quintessentially eighties songs seem to pop up here and they don’t seem particularly interested in choosing un-predictable songs. Still all the tracks in here must have cost some coin and I guess I appreciate the quantity if nothing else.
Kick-Ass: Most soundtracks stick pretty closely to a particular aesthetic, but this one skews more towards a particular attitude. There are a number of neat little touches like the “Banana Splits” remix that plays in Hit Girl’s slaughter, or the Gnarls Barkley track that Kick-Ass and Red mist listen to while cruising in a car. The track I’m really glad I was introduced to was “Stand Up” by The Prodigy, which seemed to really fit the movie in a very appealing way.
The Golden Stake goes to…
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PG Cooper 02-08-2011 07:19 PM
Good pick.
Dracula 02-09-2011 12:45 AM
Best Editing
True editing can be a really hard thing to judge because we aren’t privy to the footage that ended up on the cutting room floor. We don’t know how long each shot was before it was cut to perfection and we don’t know which alternate takes of various actors were strung together to build a great performance. What I’m sort of left to do is just get a sense of which film best managed to use cutting to create a rhythm and convey the story.
127 Hours: No matter how much cool stuff the average movie has, a ton of it is likely to consist of over-the-shoulder shot/reverse shot editing during conversations. Not this one, most of this movie consists entirely of one person, and the claustrophobic location he’s in forces creativity on the editing team to find creative ways of cutting around his situation. They also need to keep up with Danny Boyles’s wild flights of fancy.
Black Swan: Some of the most memorable editing of the last decade or so was in Darren Aronofsky’s first two films: Pi and Requiem for a Dream. His editing has calmed down since then in order to fit more down to earth movies, but it’s still inventive and precise. Here he is able to use editing to make the dance sequences particularly “in your face” while also integrating them into the overall story.
Green Zone: Few directors seem to own the editor’s chair to quite the extent that Paul Greengrass does. He and his partner-in-crime Christopher Rouse have built an entire style around careful editing around Greengrass’ intense visual style. This film is an extention of this signature style, and while it doesn’t necessarily advance the style as much as some of their previous collaborations have, it’s still ahead of the pack.
Inception: Action movies can be just as much of a showcase for editing as they are for visual effects, especially when they are big movies filled with big ideas which need to feel a lot shorter than they actually are. The action here is some of the best we’ve seen, well… since Nolan’s last movie, and it’s made to look very smooth by the film’s excellent editing work from Nolan and editor Lee Smith make the whole thing silky as hell.
Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World: I’ve had my opinions about this film known, but I can recognize solid elements in less than solid movies. The editing here isn’t so much related to the work within the scenes (though that is solid) so much as the way that many of the scenes are able to transition between scenes in creative and entertaining ways that often function as jokes in and of themselves. I’m not exactly sure how they did some of the most memorable cuts here, but it was pretty cool.
The Golden Stake goes to…
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Deexan 02-09-2011 06:29 AM
This was the major stand-out for me in terms of lack of acknowledgement from the Academy, those last 45 or so minutes are insanely well done.
Ramplate 02-09-2011 06:39 AM
Cool thread :cool:
PG Cooper 02-09-2011 03:30 PM
Must have been tough choosing between 127 Hours, Black Swan, and Inception.
Dracula 02-10-2011 09:13 AM
Best Cinematography
Cinematography is one of the most accessible categories of technical filmmaking, and yet also one of the trickier ones to judge. Often a rather subdued look will be the best approach to a given film, but that’s not always the easiest thing to single out for awardage, and sometimes the movies that superficially look the best aren’t necessarily the most creative works either. At the end of the day you sort of just need to go with your instincts.
The Book of Eli: The thing about cinematography is that a lot of sub-par movies tend to excel at it. People with low narrative standards still like looking at pretty pictures and this movie provides a lot of them. The movie employs a high gloss look throughout rooted in extremely bright skies contrasted with otherwise dark environments. It’s kind of the opposite of the extremely dark skies of last year’s The Road, but the effect is just as striking.
I Am Love: This Italian production chronicles a personal story within a world of great wealth and privilege. Though the film is set during modern times, its production feels like a lavish period piece and the cinematography is a big part of that. Its interiors feel like lush Victorian palaces and the exteriors look like renaissance paintings, but it does it all while still feeling like a look into the everyday lives of people in 2010.
Never Let Me Go: This dark prestige picture can be appropriately gloomy in look and tone, but there are moments when it’s able to capture landscapes and sunsets with such magnificent beauty that it creates an effect on the story that is almost poetic. In a movie about people who must come to appreciate the finer moments in life before it is over, there’s something really appropriate about having sunshine enter the frame amidst a lot of gloom.
Shutter Island: Deep down, I don’t think Martin Scorsese was tremendously passionate about the story he was telling on this project, but he was happy to use it in order to flex his visual filmmaking muscles. To do so he’s employed Robert Richardson, a giant of Hollywood photography to give the film a really beautiful look that’s one part noir and one part high class horror film.
True Grit: Roger Deakins has filmed almost all of the Coen brother’s films since 1991’s Barton Fink, and it has become a very fruitful relationship over the years. Here he has the opportunity to film western landscapes of the John ford variety and also gas lit interiors of the kind that many cinematographers would kill to film. He also films sun going through windows like it’s nobody’s business.
The Golden Stake goes to…
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Jack 02-10-2011 10:54 AM
Fair choice - about the only thing interesting going on in that movie.
Couple of my favorites were Black Swan, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1, Mother, A Prophet and The Social Network. Black Swan is in general my technical marvel of 2010. And I really think the Harry Potter franchise is underrated in the technical competence category among film fans. The past few films have just been gorgeous to look at and feature some pretty stunning design and effects.
Ramplate 02-10-2011 12:03 PM
I don't think the match scene was scary enough - it was very creepy in the book and missed the mark in my opinion - the rest of it all looked outstanding though.
On the whole, the book was much better
Dracula 02-10-2011 12:06 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ramplate (Post 2743692)
I don't think the match scene was scary enough - it was very creepy in the book and missed the mark in my opinion - the rest of it all looked outstanding though.
On the whole, the book was much better
I thought the cinematography in the book was overrated.
Ramplate 02-10-2011 12:08 PM
lol yeah I'm talking about the descriptive nature of the atmosphere in the book vs the visual result in the film
PG Cooper 02-10-2011 05:04 PM
Surprised Black Swan didn't get nominated. Shutter Island is a good pick though.
Dracula 02-10-2011 05:23 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by PG Cooper (Post 2743741)
Surprised Black Swan didn't get nominated. Shutter Island is a good pick though.
Yeah, I appreciate the camera movement involved in that movie, but I don't really think the grainy look really worked as well in that movie as it did in The Wrestler.
Ramplate 02-10-2011 05:30 PM
Yeah the filming style of The Wrestler was appropriate
Dracula 02-11-2011 01:19 AM
Commencing with the Character and Actor Awards
Best Villain
We all know how much a villain you love to hate can help make a movie great. The thing is, I’m a purist when it comes to classifying people as a villain. To compete in this category the character needs to actively be an antagonist within a movie (in other words, a guy who’s the main character of a film is inelligible even if he’s a truly evil S.O.B.), also I’m only nominating humans (so the Rock from 127 Hours is out), and I won’t be getting cute and calling “poverty” or “the government” or something a villain.
Martin Vanger- The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo: I’m probably going to have to blank out this whole paragraph, because it gives away the solution to the mystery, but the nomination is certainly earned. If nothing else, this Swedish adaptation of the best-selling novel is great at establishing it’s villains as truly vile bastards. This is a guy who murdered dozens of people in depraved ways and he tries to do similarly grizzly things to our heroes.
Frank D'Amico- Kick-Ass: The mob boss thing has kind of been done to death, but Mark Strong finds new ways to breathe life into the archetype with his performance in Kick-Ass. It’s in many ways a comical performance, with the character having to do mundane things while still being a cold blooded killer. But D’Amico can also be a rather physical villain who will kick you in the head and shoot you in the face.
Sir Godfrey- Robin Hood: Holy ****, this was a great year for Mark Strong playing evil bald people, and in this one he even has a scar on his face. The character is a spy, working for France but serving in the English court, and his ultimate goal is to weaken England from within to prepare for a French invasion. The guy is also a cold blooded killer who has no problem killing innocents to reach his goals.
Lucky Ned- True Grit: Lucky Ned doesn’t show up until really late in the run of True Grit, and we don’t realize that he’s the true villain until just as late. Barry Pepper has the distinction of sharing his last name with the character, but that’s trivial, what really matters is that he’s made the guy into a truly evil varmint. This character is a psycho not unlike Ben Foster’s work in another recent Western remake: 3:10 to Yuma.
Thump Milton- Winter’s Bone: We don’t see a whole lot of Thump Milton on screen in Winter’s Bone, but he’s built up spectacularly and when he finally does show up he definitely makes an impression. Played by an amateur named Ronnie Hall, this is an imposing figure, a hillbilly Vitto Corleone if you will. His actions seem to back up his reputation too, but we only really see the tip of the iceberg, the real appeal is the vile things we can only imagine him having done.
The Golden Stake goes to…
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Dhamon22 02-11-2011 02:28 PM
Good choice but I would've went with Dragon Tattoo.
PG Cooper 02-11-2011 03:08 PM
It's too bad Casey Affleck was out of the race by default.
Dracula 02-11-2011 09:31 PM
Best Cameo
Good things can come in small bites sometimes, and that can also include performances. Some of these are brief walk-ons that largely work because of unexpected celebrity placements. Other nominees here would function more as “limited roles,” where actors create entire performances within a few short minutes. Yeah, the people in the later category probably have an advantage, but hey, them’s the breaks.
Bruce Willis- The Expendables: Tons of hype was spewed onto the fact that Arnold Schwarzenegger had a cameo in this movie, and frankly it was a waste. The dude just showed up out of nowhere, did nothing, and then left. Bruce Willis wasn’t around much longer, but his role had more of a purpose and he seemed to be having a lot more fun with his role. I guess it shouldn’t be a surprise that Willis has more charisma than Schwarzenegger, but still.
Brandon Routh- Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World: There are a lot of super-powered exes in Scott Pilgrim, and their almost all defined by the fact that they make the main character really jealous. What’s going to give someone an inferiority complex more than Superman himself, albeit a Superman who isn’t particularly well remembered. The fact that Routh was pretty much cast in that iconic role for very superficial reasons just helps to underscore how vapid his character was here.
Daft Punk- Tron: Legacy: If nothing else, this functions as pretty much the only movie that Daft Punk could show up for a cameo, in their regular costume, and fit in with the surroundings perfectly. The duo plays a pair of MP3 files who function as a pair of DJs at a techno-computer nightclub run by a Ziggy Stardust channeling Martin Sheen. Wow, that’s a lot of radness.
Josh Brolin- True Grit: Every year I find myself nominating someone in this category who seems to push the limits of what can really be called a cameo. Brolin actually plays a character who is pretty important to the movie’s plot in spite of his limited screentime, still, this casting has that feeling of “hey, that’s josh Brolin” which I think sort of defines what a cameo is supposed to be.
Justin Long- Youth in Revolt: Michael Cera’s other coming of age quirk-fest from 2010 probably didn’t generate the buzz of Scott Pilgrim but it had some personality of its own. Justin Long, who has a surprisingly large number of cool cameos on his resume given that he’s deeply annoying in regular roles, plays the burnout stoner brother of the main character’s manic pixie dream girl. It’s one of the movie’s funniest aspects.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
Ramplate 02-11-2011 09:37 PM
still, this casting has that feeling of “hey, that’s josh Brolin” which I think sort of defines what a cameo is supposed to be.
Sean Connery made a great cameo like that in Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves
(except I didn't think "Hey! Josh Brolin!")
IanTheCool 02-11-2011 11:19 PM
Perhaps the greatest cameo I've seen is Charleton Heston in Wayne's World 2.
Dracula 02-12-2011 06:17 AM
Best Supporting Actress
I enter into this category with one major regret: that I never got a chance to see Jacki Weaver’s work in the movie Animal Kingdom. I didn’t have the time to go out to the one theater in my area that was playing the movie and seeing it on DVD hasn’t worked out either (it’s been sitting on “very long wait” at the top of my Netflix queue for a while). Outside of that, I still think I was able to put together a fairly solid roster of nominees.
Mellissa Leo- The Fighter: Mellissa Leo is an old pro, and I loved her work in the 90s on the show “Homicide: Life on the Street.” Recently she seems to have made a rise to prominence, largely because of some good work she did in the movie Frozen River. Here she plays the larger than life blue collar mother from hell. You could say she’s just chewing scenery, but her character is supposed to be larger than life, and I’d say it was an appropriate choice.
Mia Wasikowska- The Kids Are All Right: Sitting pretty in the “best newcomer” corner is Mia Wasikowska, who followed up a noticeable role on HBO’s “In Treatment” with roles in the high grossing “Alice in Wonderland” and this critical darling. These kind of teenage roles can often become grating, but Wasikowska is able to turn her character into a “nice girl” without coming off saccharine or precocious. She makes the audience care about the character as much as the mothers do.
Keira Knightley- Never Let Me Go: A lot of people like to make fun of Keira Knightley, but she finds a way to keep surprising me. In this film she’s in the background, playing a foil to Carey Mulligan’s lead role. In doing so she also greatly de-glamorizes herself, especially towards the end of the film where she turns into an almost unrecognizable sickly character who needs to seem old while still being young. Disturbing stuff.
Delphine Chanéac- Splice: This is the kind of performance that’s easy to overlook, firstly because it’s different from what we usually look for in a performance and secondly because it’s from an actress who is completely unknown. Playing a genetically spliced monster, Chanéac needs to straddle the line between human and inhuman, generating sympathy for an entity that’s completely foreign to humanity. That she does this under heavy makeup and without spoken lines adds to the achievement.
Blake Lively- The Town: Blake Lively is one of those actresses who I hear the name of all the time, but who manages to never make a single movie that catches my interest. I have no interest in seeing any of those movies, but her work here as the main character’s baby-mama certainly impressed me. She does the Boston thing well in a year where everyone was doing it and was still able to stand out while doing it.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
PG Cooper 02-12-2011 07:22 AM
I found Mia Wasikowska one of the weaker links in The Kids Are All Right.
Ramplate 02-12-2011 07:54 AM
only saw The Town on that list
PG Cooper 02-12-2011 08:17 AM
I'm surprised Haley didn't get a nomination for his cameo in Shutter Island.
IanTheCool 02-12-2011 10:13 AM
I liked Wasikowska in Kids are Alright. I didn't find her a weak link at all, perhaps only in that she became less important to the movie in the second half.
I didn't think Lively stood out. To me it really seemed like she was trying too hard.
Dracula 02-12-2011 05:04 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by PG Cooper (Post 2744049)
I'm surprised Haley didn't get a nomination for his cameo in Shutter Island.
Forgot all about it. I re-watched the movie minutes after I posted that and realized my mistake.
Quote:
Originally Posted by IanTheCool (Post 2744052)
I didn't think Lively stood out. To me it really seemed like she was trying too hard.
Had trouble filling that fifth slot, thought about Kunis but ultimately decided she was a bit too close to her usual persona to really make it.
Drizzt240 02-12-2011 05:05 PM
Lame, I would of went with Daft Punk.
Dracula 02-14-2011 09:41 AM
Best Supporting Actor
Now this is rare: my taste and the tastes of the academy have lined up perfectly on something, at least at the nomination level. Part of the reason is that this is an unusually weak year in this category. Normally I have a multitude of good candidates and need to whittle them down, but this year it was pretty clear what the five main candidates were. I’m not sure if that speaks well of them or ill.
Christian Bale- The Fighter: I think the real brilliance of Christian Bale’s work in The Fighter is that he doesn’t shy away from the comedic side of the character he’s playing. It’s easy to focus on the tragic side of drug abuse, but that’s kind of self evident given the material, instead Bale focuses on turning Dickey Ecklund into a larger than life character of the kind who would over-shadow his brother. It’s similar to what Samuel L. Jackson did in Jungle Fever, but Bale is able to make the trick his own in this movie.
Mark Ruffalo- The Kids Are All Right: In The Kids Are All Right, Mark Ruffalo has the privilege and challenge of playing a character that has been masterfully dimentionalized by Lisa Cholodenko and Stuart Blumberg. Paul Hatfield is complicated, he’s basically a nice and decent guy, but he’s also someone who’s never really reached his full potential and who is maybe not the most stable person to bring into a family. Ruffalo needs to straddle the line between likability and unlikability in the movie and brings a lot of life into the project.
Geoffrey Rush- The King’s Speech: I’m sure there are other classy middle aged Australian actors with an aura of authority than Geoffrey Rush, but I certainly can’t think of them. Being the natural choice for a role definitely helps Rush’s case for nomination, but it doesn’t bring him across the finish line. What does earn him the nomination is that his work gives his otherwise stodgy movie something that’s essential to its success: fun and relatability.
Jeremy Renner- The Town: I never quite understood the rapturous response to Jeremy Renner’s work in The Hurt Locker (although that was true about a lot of things in that movie), but it was good work and it makes me appreciate his work in The Town even more. What makes this so impressive is the sheer difference between his work as a struggling bomb defuser in that movie and his work as a slightly psychotic robber in this one. He’s almost unrecognizable.
John Hawkes- Winter’s Bone: It could be argued that being an evil character is easy, and that it’s also easy to be a major hero, but the real challenge comes from playing a character who isn’t so easy to peg. That’s what John Hawks has to do here. Teardrop is a character who, on a narrative level, acts as the heroine’s ally. The catch is that he’s a scary son of a *****. You look at his face and you can tell that he’s more than likely killed someone with a broken bottle or something.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
Dhamon22 02-14-2011 10:48 AM
Definitely would've went with Bale here, but to be fair I haven't seen The Kids Are Alright yet.
PG Cooper 02-14-2011 03:22 PM
John Hawkes was one of the few things I really loved about Winter's Bone, so I'm glad he was nominated.
Drizzt240 02-14-2011 04:22 PM
Bull****.
Dracula 02-14-2011 07:58 PM
Best Actress
This has bay and large been a pretty good year for movies with female leads. Usually the lack of roles for female actors in Hollywood makes this category kind of hard to fill, but this year I didn’t have much trouble at all. I was able to find five worthy nominees without having had a chance to see Rabbit Hole or Another Year, and I still needed to leave off some prominent work from other films.
Natalie Portman- Black Swan: This is certainly the most talked about role of the year and also the role that probably sends its star through the emotional ringer through much of the film’s running time. That Portman is a perfect physical specimen to play a ballerina and that she learned a lot of her own dance moves is certainly worth noting, but what’s really getting people’s attention is obviously her decent into insanity, a challenge that Portman accepts with great gusto.
Michelle Williams- Blue Valentine: Michelle Williams’ career has been like a gift to the independent film world. She probably has the chops to be a star, but she is so often drawn to more challenging material like Blue Valentine. This is an “ordinary person” role, one that conforms to real world mannerisms, but it’s also a role that requires a lot of big emotions and a lot of shouting. That’s a tough line to straddle, and she also needs to let her character teeter towards and away from the audience’s sympathy.
Greta Gerwig- Greenberg: Some of the best and most oft-rewarded acting comes in the form of large theatrical performances. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s not the only game in town. Gerwig is one of the leading voices in a school of acting that seeks to replicate all the nuances of realistic mannerisms, warts and all. This was honed in a number of micro-budgeted “mumble-core” movies, but it translates nicely into a more conventional indie like Noah Baumbach’s Greenberg.
Annette Bening- The Kids Are All Right: The Kids Are All Right is a movie with two lead actresses in it, and there could be a strong argument for either of them being nominated (I’m not doing both, sorry). I ultimately went with Bening, not because she’s the one that most award groups are going with but because I ultimately thought she had the more difficult role. I found Bening to be deeply believable as someone’s mother, but she doesn’t always pander to the warmest image of what a mother is supposed to be, she has to bear the most responsibility in the family and must struggle with having to be “the bad guy” in family arguments. It’s difficult stuff, a lot more difficult than it is to be the “free spirit” to me.
Hailee Steinfeld- True Grit: I’m not the first person to argue that this is a lead role, not by a long shot. In fact, I think that a lot of what’s impressive about this is lost when the role is relegated to supporting status. Steinfeld needs to carry this movie, and that’s not an easy task for a thirteen year old. This is a character who often needs to act wise and strong beyond her years and that can easily become really annoying. That Stienfeld makes this believable and fun is a testament to her talent.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
IanTheCool 02-14-2011 09:28 PM
And she'll likely win the Oscar too.
I agree with you on Bening not having an easy role. She played it quite realistically.
shained 02-15-2011 04:00 AM
She probably will but personally would have went witht he girl from true grit
PG Cooper 02-15-2011 05:50 PM
Really glad Lawrence wasn't nominated for Winter's Bone. Ecstatic to see nominations for Benning and Steinfeld, and overjoyed to see Portman take the prize.
Dracula 02-15-2011 10:27 PM
Best Actor
Last year I famously (famous in my mind at least) gave Colin Firth an enthusiastic nomination and ended up leaving Jeff Bridges out of the running completely. This year, I find myself nominating Bridges and leaving Firth off the shortlist. I wasn’t doing the inverse of the Academy’s preferences on purpose and I didn’t disclude either from their respective years lightly.
James Franco- 127 Hours: James Franco’s work as a man stuck alone in a canyon in anguish has been discussed at length in many places. That’s all good, but I’m going to focus on what he does that’s really impressive: create a character. Aron Ralston could have easily come across as an unsympathetic douchebag, but Franco is able to make him into a really likable person from the get go and you can really see him evolve as a person throughout the character’s ordeal.
Ryan Gostling- Blue Valentine: What really impresses me about Ryan Gostling’s work in Blue Valentine is just how much his character seems to change between the film’s two timelines, while still sort of staying the same. You can see how he’s evolved into someone who would be less desirable to Michelle Williams, but you can also see the roots of what he’s become in those early years. Mix that with the scene by scene emotional acting and you’ve got a hell of a performance.
Casey Affleck- The Killer Inside Me: This year Casey Affleck has the unenviable position of having given an Oscar-worthy performance in a movie that very few people saw and which was seen as sort of a mess by the few who did. It’s unfortunate because Affleck is able to take his character from The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and apply it to this role as a sociopath who is simultaneously despicable and also sort of pathetic.
Leonardo DiCaprio- Shutter Island: Leonardo DiCaprio was in two major films in 2010, and while Inception was probably the greater work overall, I think he delivered the greater performance in Scorsese’s thriller. DiCaprio starts out by doing a riff on Sam Spade, and that’s pretty fun to begin with, but then they start putting him through the emotional ringer. This is in many ways the male equivalent to Natalie Portman’s role in Black Swan and while DiCaprion probably isn’t as through the roof as Portman was, he’s up there.
Jeff Bridges- True Grit: What impressed me about Bridges is how he was able to immediately get images of John Wayne out of the audience’s collective vision. While Wayne kept his signature personality through much of his interpretation of the Rooster Cogburn role, Bridges goes all out in his depiction of a rough, dirty, drunken frontier lawman. That he sounds remarkably similar to my chain-smoking and slightly redneck uncle only makes this more endearing to me.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
Neverending 02-15-2011 11:51 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dracula (Post 2744037)
Blake Lively- The Town: She does the Boston thing well in a year where everyone was doing it and was still able to stand out while doing it.
I'm sure her cleavage had something to do with that.
IanTheCool 02-16-2011 06:50 AM
Interesting and unexpected choice for best actor.
PG Cooper 02-16-2011 07:22 AM
Yes! I was hoping Casey would pick up a nomination. Glad Franco won though, I've agreed with both you're awards for lead actors.
Dracula 02-16-2011 02:22 PM
Best Ensemble
As much as we like to recognize individual achievements in acting, the truth is that filmmaking is in many ways a team sport. This award examines the film which managed to form a fully realized cast with actors who establish a chemistry amongst themselves. This is not simply an award for the movie that can sign on the most celebrities, this is about creating a roster that truly aids the film as a whole
Inception: Heist movies are often great places for good ensembles because they’re all about building a team. This team is particularly cutting edge, with Nolan bringing in a lot of actors who were right at the tipping point of their careers and giving them that extra push into stardom. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Tom Hardy, Marion Cotillard all prove themselves to be capable in action roles. Meanwhile, Nolan veterans like Michael Caine, Cillian Murphy, and Ken Watanabe show why the director keeps coming back to them. Add some veterans like Pete Postlethwaite and Tom Berenger and you’ve got a great cast.
The Kids Are All Right: Emphasizing quality over quality, this is a cast that’s built around solid and intimate chemistry. Annette Bening and Julianne Moore are very convincing both as a middle aged lesbian couple, and as mothers. Meanwhile Mia Wasikowska and Josh Hutcherson are both convincing siblings. And of course Mark Ruffalo is great as the interloper in it all. It isn’t all about the individual performances though, it’s also about how the personalities they create mesh with each other.
Shutter Island: Pretty much any actor will give up their first born in order to work with Martin Scorsese, so he can often fill his movies with A-list actors. Here he manages to bring in Ben Kingsley, Max Von Sydow, Mark Ruffalo, Jackie Earle Haley, Michelle Williams, Patricia Clarkson, Emily Mortimer, (catches breath) Ted Levine, and Elias Koteas. It goes even deeper than that, there are a lot of really good bit parts throughout, pretty much every part stands out as it otherwise wouldn’t had Scorsese not been able to bring this much talent in.
The Social Network: Bringing in a stable of veteran actors isn’t really a possibility for this film given that all the characters are under thirty. I was suspicious of Jesse Eisenberg before seeing this, but he really proved himself here with his take on Mark Zuckerberg, and Justin Timberlake was a brilliant casting choice as Sean Parker. Rising star Andrew Garfield earns some major cred, and of course Arnie Hammer made waves with his pseudo-dual role and the Winklevi.
True Grit: There’s no denying that the Coens were able to get some great performances out of Bridges, Damon, Pepper, and Brolin. There’s also no denying that Haley Steinfeld was a great find who really steals the show. But what really earns this film a nomination is the smaller parts that are so perfectly casted. I don’t know how they do it but the Coens seem to have a stable of bit-actors is interesting faces and voices that really seem to be a big part of their signature style.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
PG Cooper 02-16-2011 05:47 PM
Glad you didn't nominate The King's Speech.
Jack 02-16-2011 06:10 PM
Solid choice. The right one is Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, though.
Dracula 02-16-2011 10:50 PM
Best Line
And we’re on to the always controversial “best line” category. This is always difficult for me because, well, there are hundreds of lines in every movie and sorting through all of them in a year is never going to be easy. It’s also hard to tell ahead of time when a line is going to catch on and become iconic. The best I can do is highlight certain lines that stood out to me and which seem to stand up to some scrutiny. I’m sure I missed some good ones.
“I sold 26 of the ugliest cars in the middle of December with the wind blowing so far up my ass I was farting snowflakes into July.” –Get Low: There’s a sort of refreshing sincerity to Get Low, and this line is a bit of an example of it. The Bill Murray character speaking it is a salesman and exhibitionist prone to bragging and shameless sales tactics. This line shows his wit and also gives you a sense of his history.
“I actually hate coke. I hate it politically and I hate how it makes me feel.- Greenberg: This line, spoken by the film’s title character right before he snorts down a line at a high school house-party, is both amusing and kind of strange. What is coke politically? It conjures images of Wall Street brokers in the 80s and of upper-class decadence. In short it’s a drug for a**holes, the kind of people that this guy wants nothing to do with, but here he is diving in anyway. That he would say that out loud amuses me.
“Like every serial killer already knew: eventually fantasizing just doesn't do it for you anymore.” - Kick-Ass: This line, spoken in voice over early into the movie, delved into the kind of satire that I the movie as a whole would focus on before it sort of became what it set out to ridicule. Making a perfect analogy that expresses just how psychotic the idea of being a superhero would be in the real world, this is a funny line that shows just how bizarrely self-aware the main character is.
“…Did I adequately answer your condescending question?”- The Social Network: Note the ellipses at the front of this. They’re needed because this is the capper of a brutal speech that perfectly shows Mark Zuckerberg’s cockiness and how seriously he takes this lawsuit. It’s a great takedown and delivering it is also one of Jesse Eisenberg’s most fiery moments.
“Ground's too hard. Them men wanted a decent burial, they should have got themselves killed in summer.”- True Grit: This line highlights the brutal efficiency of Rooster Cogburn, a trait that defines both him and the environment that he exists in. Also notice the grammar here; “them men,” “got themselves,” this is frontier dialect and it stands out next to the hyper-formal speech that the other characters try to put on, further defining Rooster as a different kind of character.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
PG Cooper 02-17-2011 05:29 AM
Good choice.
IanTheCool 02-17-2011 09:21 AM
My personal favourite line was also from Social Network. "I'm 6'5", 220 lbs, and there's two of me."
Deexan 02-17-2011 11:58 AM
"I'm CEO, *****."
Dracula 02-18-2011 03:20 PM
Original Screenplay
Why do we divide adaptations and original screenplay? It usually isn’t readily apparent whether something is original or adapted when you watch a movie, and adaptations can often be loose. I suppose it’s because adaptations have a safety net that original screen plays don’t, they’re working with something that they know works. Original screenplays need to work from the ground up, and that often leads to this being the weaker categories, but not this year. I’m probably more confident in this roster of screenplays than I am in some of the adaptations.
Blue Valentine: It’s been well stated in a variety of interviews that a lot of the dialogue in Blue Valentine was improvised and that the written screenplay was disregarded in a number of ways. I don’t care. I haven’t read any of these screenplays and am in no position to comment on what was written on the page. As far as this goes, a screenplay consists of whatever makes it to the screen, and on that level Blue Valentine is most definitely worthy of this award.
Dogtooth: If nothing else, this is the most original of the original screenplays; in fact it’s the most original thing in many realms. This is a sly satire of closed off societies; be they totalitarian states, cult enclaves, or the suburbs. In its own small scale way it also has some very good world building that often doesn’t announce itself in overly obvious way. This is brave writing that’s possible to love or hate, but impossible to dismiss.
Greenberg: Greenberg is one of those small scale indies with a heavy focus on character and human interaction. Greenberg himself is an interesting and well developed character that carries the movie effectively and the film has some very solid dialogue and structure. I particularly like the film’s final moment, in which a climactic moment from a bit earlier is brought back in a clever way right before the credits role.
Inception: There seems to be a lot of nerdiness involved in the creation of science fiction scripts, I mean, it takes a special kind of person to create a universe in with numerous alien species with varying alliances and technological details. But most of those movies are still working within the traditions of the “space opera,” and many other sci-fi movies similarly follow stock concepts like “time travel” and “post-apocalypse.” But what formula do “dream-levels” derive from? You could argue they’re a form of the “virtual reality” genre, but it still invents most of its ideas. That is a rare accomplishment.
The Kids Are All Right: What I really love about the screenplay of The Kids Are All Right is the way it so deftly avoids cliché. The conventional Hollywood version of this story would have had a family confront a stereotypically homophobic father who, after some time, comes to accept the family and everyone lives happily ever after. Instead it makes Ruffalo a really likable person and leads the whole film in decidedly less predictable paths.
The Golden Stakes goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
JBond 02-18-2011 05:26 PM
Bravo. Good choice and explination.
PG Cooper 02-18-2011 06:40 PM
Ditto.
Dracula 02-18-2011 10:15 PM
Adapted Screenplay
Adapted would seem like an easier task than forming an original screenplay, but that isn’t really true all of the time. Sometimes a writer will be forced to adapt something that is categorically not easy to film, and he or she must find ways to make it filmable without destroying what made it work originally, and that can be a tricky balance. It is worth questioning just how “adapted” some of these are (was The Social Network really based on a book, or on original research), but I’ll play along.
127 Hours: Based on Aron Ralston’s non-fiction account “Between a Rock and a Hard Place,” the 127 Hours screenplay has the challenge of describing a movie with only one major character and relatively little dialogue. The movie that is created out of this script is consistently engaging and thematically cogent. Boyle and Beaufoy find a number of creative solutions to the film’s limitations, and the result is a really intense experience with a great catharsis.
The Ghost Writer: I feel like The Ghost Writer would be only moderately interesting as a book, but when adapted into a film screenplay by Roman Polanski, it becomes something altogether different. That the story seems to have remarkable parallels with Polanski’s real life legal ordeal is only the beginning, this also fits in perfectly with Polanski’s favorite theme: justified paranoia.
Shutter Island: How do I nominate a movie that had an ending which was… problematic. Well, I’ll start by pointing out that the adapted screenplay roster this year was surprisingly shallow. However, I still think there’s a lot to like about this script. For one thing, I like it’s re-contextualization of film noir, I also think it has some pretty good dialogue and I like the way it divvies out flashbacks and the way that it sets up a very ambivalent sense of reality.
The Social Network: Aaron Sorkin is one of the few people who has become sort of famous almost exclusively for writing film and televisions screenplays. This is for good reason because his rapid dialogue is always really fun to watch, and it’s in overdrive here. As I pointed out in the best line category, almost everything anyone says in this movie is interesting and quotable.
True Grit: Adapting Charles Portis’ novel for the second time, the Coens managed to stay true to his literary western tone while also making something that is unmistakably Coen in nature. At its heart are weighty themes of revenge, but the movie is also a very fun ride that’s highly accessible to the masses. It’s also loaded with witty, Coen-esque dialogue that is fun, but also feels appropriate to the period.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
PG Cooper 02-19-2011 06:03 AM
Agreed on both screenwriting choices.
Dracula 02-19-2011 10:01 AM
Best Trailer
I don’t think this has necessarily been the strongest year for trailers, but I still think I found some decent ones to choose. I guess what characterizes these is a lack of gimmickry, there aren’t any cute teasers here, it’s mostly traditional trailer-craft set to music. I am limiting this to movies that I’ve been able to see, so I can both judge how well it captures the true essence of the film and also make sure that it isn’t giving to much away.
The Expendables:
VIDEO-CLick to Watch!:
The Expendables ended up being a real dud as far as I’m concerned, it had the stars but the movie itself feels closer to a direct to DVD action film than one of the movies any of those guys would have made in their prime. That was not, however, readily apparent in this trailer, which effectively makes this look like a movie with a lot more weight (by dumb action movie standards) than it actually was. Make no mistake, the trailer makes it clear this is a Stallone joint, but it also makes it look like something a bit more… dignified, than the final product.
Inception:
VIDEO-CLick to Watch!:
What I admire about this trailer is its efficiency. It manages to give a reasonable explanation for the movie’s complicated presence (all without giving away many major plot points) while also selling it for its visual grandeur and as the badass action film it is. It also gives Hans Zimmer’s score a real workout and chooses just which visuals to give away without showing too much. And it does it all in two and a half minutes.
The Social Network:
VIDEO-CLick to Watch!:
Set to a choral version of Radiohead’s 1993 hit Creep, this trailer begins with now ubiquitous images from Facebook, before flashing back to 2003 and the site’s founding. You’re seeing images of smart kids doing smart things, but there’s an ominous tone to the whole thing. As the music digs deeper into its emotional desperation, the images become more and more intense, building up to some of the film’s more dramatic moments (out of context). You don’t know what these people are angry about, but you know you want to find out.
The Town:
VIDEO-CLick to Watch!:
Here’s another entry in the “make you movie look bigger than it really is file.” The Town itself is a wannabe, it really wants to be The Departed (it’s from the same studio!) meets Heat, but it isn’t, it’s ordinary and forgettable. But you wouldn’t know that from the trailer, which uses a thumping score and some really well chosen moments in order to make this look like a really dramatic crime thriller for the ages. It worked too, putting a lot of butts in seats.
True Grit:
VIDEO-CLick to Watch!:
Before the trailer debuted, we didn’t really know what to expect from True Grit (the Coen brothers remaking a John Wayne movie?), but once the trailers came in there really was no doubt that this was going to be a major film. The trailer sells the movie as a western epic (albeit one with some funny moments) and the use of Johnny Cash’s “Gonna Cut You Down” perfectly sells the films western brutality and the movie’s themes of revenge and retribution.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
PG Cooper 02-19-2011 10:13 AM
I think the Daybreakers trailer deserved a nomination since it's better than the actual film.
FranklinTard 02-19-2011 10:52 AM
actually the first time i saw the social networks ad i thought about this category. sad i know.
but definitely deserving of the win.
IanTheCool 02-19-2011 10:57 AM
I definitely think Social Network was the trailer of the year. You are right, there hasn't been a lot of great trailers, but that one certainly stood out regardless.
Dracula 02-19-2011 02:21 PM
Poster
I do love posters even if posters don’t always love me. All too often studios will go for simplistic designs with actor’s faces photoshopped in over an explosion, but some good ones still come out and it’s always cool when they do. As with all advertising categories, I’m only nominating material from movies that I’ve seen so that I can fully assess how well it represents its respective film.
Blue Valentine:
www.moviegoods.com//Assets/pr...732.1020.A.jpg
While many of the posters I’ll nominate here thrive on some very clever design, this one thrives on minimalism. The poster is sexy and passionate but in sort of a dangerous, Sid and Nancy kind of way. Even the tagline (a love story) is minimalistic, and so is the seemingly had written title. Sometimes all the design in the world is unneeded if you just have the perfect image you need.
Buried:
img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...2010Buried.jpg
How do you make a movie about a guy in a box? A lot of ways apparently, Buried actually has a number of good posters. This one is my favorite because it takes an element that’s often intrusive (critics quotes) and turns them into an artistic element. This text, including the title and release date, form a “Vertigo”-like spiral signifying the protagonist’s desperation.
Daybreakers:
www.moviegoods.com//Assets/pr...300.1020.A.jpg
So you’re making a proper vampire movie with a handful of name celebrities, what’s the easiest thing to put on a poster? A bunch of celebrities with fangs. They would do that eventually, but for this teaser poster they instead sold the much more interesting concept at the core of the film: a blood factory. It’s a little derivative of The Matrix, but it is still a pretty stark image to put up on a wall.
Exit Through the Gift Shop:
www.highsnobiety.com/news/wp-...y-poster-1.jpg
As a rule of thumb, I don’t include documentaries in most of these awards. It’s not out of a disrespect for non-fiction filmmaking, just a belief that they have very different goals from fictional narrative films and that they can’t be compared easily. However, because this award is all about something that is external to the films themselves I see no reason not to include them here. This is a particularly cool piece that incorporates both street art and conveys the film’s themes of commercialism’s bastardization of art.
Inception:
img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...0Inception.jpg
What I like about this poster is the way it manages to capture a number of the key elements of Inception (a movie that isn’t easy to sum up) into a single image. You’ve got the immense architecture, a stylishly dressed man, a hunt of action in that the man is holding a pistol, and then the water he’s standing in which gives the whole thing a dream-like quality. It also keeps DiCaprio’s back to the camera, and I always like it when they keep the star’s face out of these.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
IanTheCool 02-19-2011 02:25 PM
Eh, I don't really like quotes on movie posters or DVD covers, so I have to disagree with you there.
Dracula 02-19-2011 02:47 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by IanTheCool (Post 2745077)
Eh, I don't really like quotes on movie posters or DVD covers, so I have to disagree with you there.
I don't either, that's why I like seeing them used in a new and different way. It's like one of those artists who take garbage and use it to build statues and stuff.
PG Cooper 02-19-2011 03:55 PM
Glad Buried won, great poster.
shained 02-19-2011 09:04 PM
Just watched that tonight as well........good poster, maybe would have went with Giftshop personally.
Neverending 02-19-2011 11:47 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dracula (Post 2744974)
It took Nolan nine years to write this and I’m sure he has a notebook sitting around somewhere with the time differences between four dream levels meticulously written down.
And a DuckTales comic book next to it.
Dracula 02-20-2011 09:12 AM
Under-appreciated
Oh they always find, yeah they always find something wrong, they’ve been putting down films for way too long. They’re so gifted at hatin' so that they can boast. So I think it’s time for us to have a toast. Let’s have a toast for the insulted, let’s have a toast for the dissed on, let’s have a toast for the stray dogs, which deserved a lot better. Let’s have a toast for the underrated, which should have been tolerated. Baby I got a plan, give them the best award that I can.
Buried: Buried is a great example of a movie that feels like it could gain a bit of a cult following on DVD even though audiences largely ignored it in theaters. I can’t exactly blame mainstream audiences for their disinterest in it, it does sound like a pretty grueling experience on paper, but the movie was some really effective and entertaining work that they would have like if they gave it a chance. I think audiences are more receptive to high concept things like this when it’s an evening rental.
Green Zone: Sometimes I think movies like Green Zone just need a better release date in order to get a better reception. The film came out in mid march, right after 2009’s Oscar season, and standards were extremely high. If this had come out in late summer, in the wake of garbage like Grown Ups, I think people would have been much quicker to embrace this display of Paul Greengrass’ filmmaking prowess and the film’s passionate political message.
The Killer Inside Me: I actually gave The Killer Inside Me a negative review when it came out and I stand by that, but there’s a lot in it that I think deserved recognition. It had a great lead performance, a good tone, and strong filmmaking behind it. I don’t think it should have become a critics favorite, but I do think it deserved to make more of an impact than it did. In general I just wish more people would have seen it so they could know about its positive quality.
Never Let Me Go: I have pretty similar feelings about Never Let Me Go as I did about The Killer Inside Me. It’s a movie that I didn’t exactly write a glowing review of (maybe I’m part of the problem), but months after my first viewing it has stuck with me. As far as these sort of English prestige pictures go this is a cut above and it also has strong acting and production values.
Robin Hood: When this was first put out is was basically discarded. It was lumped in with other underperforming summer films like Prince of Persia and The Last Airbender, and while this is definitely a flawed film I think it deserved better than that. Maybe I’m just a sucker for Ridley Scott and the scope he brings to epic stories, the guy is just a master at production values andat making the worlds of his movies look big and real.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
Jack 02-20-2011 09:48 AM
I really didn't like Green Zone and wrestled with some of the same questions you pose. I strongly believe action movies can be political and have every right to wear their politics on their sleeve. Green Zone is just saddled with a bad script with no bite. Instead of engaging a discussion, it is pandering to one that has already been had by anyone with even a degree of interest in the Iraq war. I'm the target market for this movie, and I could feel it all the way through.
There is something refreshing about any mainstream film that doesn't back down from politics, and I appreciate their efforts to pull our foreign policy into a black and white "this is right, this is wrong" moral universe. I just think the script completely misses every opportunity to flesh out any character, and when you don't buy the characters, their political/emotional conviction just gets muddled. Even The Bourne Ultimatum was a more powerful political statement because we understand how betrayed and tired Bourne is by the end of that film because of what his government put him through. "Look at what they make you give" is infinitely more compelling than "The reasons we go to war always ****ing matter!"
All that said, there are many weaknesses outside of Green Zone's political compass that just bring it down further. The action stuff is OK, but not on the level that the Bourne movies were. All of the supporting cast features terrible turns by usually reliable folks. I'm still not sure what accent Brendan Gleeson was putting on and Amy Ryan looked bored out of her mind. Greg Kinnear is appropriately slime-y, but there is nothing subtle or sinister there, he just makes the guy an easy target and clocks out. I hated the Iraqi sidekick who literally explains his actions to the audience in a third act twist that is so obvious it could have just been left unsaid. Obvious. I think that's the key word here. Everything about Green Zone is abundantly clear and obvious and leaves no room for the audience to interpret or feel their way around anything. It talks down to the audience, and I just hate that.
PG Cooper 02-20-2011 11:17 AM
I really dug Green Zone, definitely deserved to win.
FranklinTard 02-20-2011 12:05 PM
i made it fifteen minutes into green zone on hbo. talk about forgettable.
shained 02-20-2011 12:28 PM
Watched Buried last night and thought it was decent but doesn't deserve to be raved about and while the same can be said about The Green Zone I thought it was a considerably better watch, would say Robin Hood was better than the pair though.
Dhamon22 02-20-2011 03:43 PM
Didn't like Green Zone or Robin Hood. Would've went with one of the other three.
JBond 02-20-2011 04:34 PM
Robin Hood was better than I had expected. 3 stars.
Justin 02-20-2011 04:39 PM
I would've gone with The Killer Inside Me or Never Let Me Go. I had the same problem with Green Zone as Jack did, apparently.
Dracula 02-20-2011 10:01 PM
Best Action Movie
A big part of finding the action movie of the year has to do with eligibility. What constitutes an action movie? Does a western with a couple shootings like True Grit an action movie? How about the medieval epic like Robin Hood with a few battles? Is the Town an action movie or a crime drama with a few notable set-pieces? I decided not to include those, but I still found five films that seem to hold the action movie torch this year.
Green Zone: I spent the better part of 2009 hearing people misrepresent The Hurt Locker as an action movie (even though it only had one action scene), and then Green Zone came along and showed us what an actual action movie set in Iraq would look like. This movie really effectively mixes a wartime thriller with trademark Greengrass action scenes. It maybe doesn’t reach the action heights of the director’s Bourne movies, but it’s pretty intense just the same.
Inception: People have talked at length about Inception’s special effects, complex storytelling, and general mind-bendingness the fact that it’s also a top of the line action movie sometimes gets lost. People forget that everyone on Leonardo DiCaprio’s team is armed and willing to do battle with the dream-security people on all levels. Plus, distorted gravity fight... ‘Nuff said.
Iron Man 2: The superhero genre took a bit of a break this year as the industry reved up for the onslaught of dudes in capes we’re going to get next year. Iron Man 2 was the one lone mainstream superhero film this year to tide people’s appetite, and while it was a highly flawed work I think it does mostly hold up as an action movie. The finale, with Iron Man and War Machine fighting the drones, is definitely an improvement over the lame finale of the first Iron Man, and there was also a pretty cool fight on a race track.
Predators: The Predator series was always a kind of strange version of action because they traditionally begin with a massive shootout, but then becomes a cat and mouse suspense movie, albeit one with an alien and a mini-gun. This installment in the series was nothing special, but it was nice to see that it was being made by someone who gives a damn. There’s a great cast of tough guys here and they bring many different brands of badass represented.
Salt: This movie has received a lot of hate from various channels, but I found it to be a refreshingly adult take on the action movie in an era filled with juvenilia. It has some very cool chases and some fairly intense fights and shootings. Characters really die in this movie and I admired that the director doesn’t pussyfoot around the violence (it should be noted that I saw the unrated cut). It’s not a classic by any stretch, but it is the kind of movie that I could easily get sucked into if I flipped to it on cable.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
PG Cooper 02-20-2011 10:32 PM
Great winning choice. But a nomination for Salt, really?
MovieBuff801 02-20-2011 10:39 PM
Agreed; Salt was bland, boring and really awful.
Neverending 02-21-2011 01:09 AM
Dracula and I have had our share of disagreements, but we seem to agree about Salt. Meanwhile, the rest of the world hates it.
shained 02-21-2011 09:00 AM
Inception is well deserving of the win. I didn't mind Salt, nothing special by any means but still a decent film. Pretty sure I saw the uncut version as well.
Dracula 02-21-2011 09:35 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jack (Post 2745151)
I really didn't like Green Zone and wrestled with some of the same questions you pose. I strongly believe action movies can be political and have every right to wear their politics on their sleeve. Green Zone is just saddled with a bad script with no bite. Instead of engaging a discussion, it is pandering to one that has already been had by anyone with even a degree of interest in the Iraq war. I'm the target market for this movie, and I could feel it all the way through.
There is something refreshing about any mainstream film that doesn't back down from politics, and I appreciate their efforts to pull our foreign policy into a black and white "this is right, this is wrong" moral universe. I just think the script completely misses every opportunity to flesh out any character, and when you don't buy the characters, their political/emotional conviction just gets muddled. Even The Bourne Ultimatum was a more powerful political statement because we understand how betrayed and tired Bourne is by the end of that film because of what his government put him through. "Look at what they make you give" is infinitely more compelling than "The reasons we go to war always ****ing matter!"
All that said, there are many weaknesses outside of Green Zone's political compass that just bring it down further. The action stuff is OK, but not on the level that the Bourne movies were. All of the supporting cast features terrible turns by usually reliable folks. I'm still not sure what accent Brendan Gleeson was putting on and Amy Ryan looked bored out of her mind. Greg Kinnear is appropriately slime-y, but there is nothing subtle or sinister there, he just makes the guy an easy target and clocks out. I hated the Iraqi sidekick who literally explains his actions to the audience in a third act twist that is so obvious it could have just been left unsaid. Obvious. I think that's the key word here. Everything about Green Zone is abundantly clear and obvious and leaves no room for the audience to interpret or feel their way around anything. It talks down to the audience, and I just hate that.
Those are all fair points I guess. I suppose when I go to a Paul Greengrass movie I don't go in expecting great new insights so much as I expect a very visceral look at an issue. I don't think we learned anything new from Bloody Sunday or United 93, but we did get this very exciting look at what happened. Green Zone does differ from those in that it's heavily fictionalized, but it does still give a pretty eye opening look at what it was like on the ground in the early days of the war.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Neverending (Post 2745313)
Dracula and I have had our share of disagreements, but we seem to agree about Salt. Meanwhile, the rest of the world hates it.
It's more like everyone on CS hates it. It got generally positive reviews, I think it's like 65 on Metacritic. Ebert even went so far as to give it four stars (which is crazy). I see it as being the kind of movie that will probably be in heavy rotation on TNT or FX and will probably get a reputation because of it.
Dracula 02-21-2011 09:44 AM
Best Horror Movie
Classification can be just as hard for horror films as it is for action films. Depending on what you consider a horror movie, this has either been one of the best years for horror or one of the worst. Does Black Swan count as a horror movie? How about Shutter Island? What about Buried? I finally did decide to include Buried, but the other two were too much of a stretch. As such, we’re left with a pretty damn weak year for the genre, and it looks like Hollywood is in search for a new trend in horror now that the torture porn thing is kind of over.
Buried: Though it plays out like more of a thriller than a horror movie at times, the fact remains that this movie largely acts as a visceral experience, and thus seems more closely aligned with horror than some of the other possible nominees that were disqualified. This would certainly be a horror movie for someone with claustrophobia and the basic concept is certainly horrific to think about.
The Crazies: The Crazies has the distinction of being the best entirely mainstream horror film of the year and of being one of the best horror remakes in a while. I’d also call it an all around improvement on George Romero’s deeply flawed 1973 version of the story. This is a slick production with some good zombie slaying and a really dark ending.
Daybreakers: If nothing else, Daybreakers has a fairly original concept to carry it. It probably isn’t the first story to envision a world where vampires are the majority, but it does realize such a world in a way that is pretty fascinating. Also, when the vampires get to doing what vampires do it is appropriately gory and when they “go feral” they are pretty freaky.
The Last Exorcism: Make no mistake, this movie has an incredibly stupid ending which brings down the movie immeasurably. However, there are some genuinely creepy moments in the lead-up that does earn the film a nomination here. Ashley Bell is genuinely creepy in her performance as a seemingly possessed girl contorting herself into all kinds of crazy poses. Also, there does seem to be some blood left in the found footage style against all odds.
Splice: More a monster film than a horror film, this is an example of a movie that uses horror tropes in order to examine an issue, specifically the implications of biological breakthroughs. Like many great Frankenstien stories, the film walks a line between being horrified at the monster and being sympathetic to its plight. It’s also not afraid to channel its inner Cronenberg in order to bring its story into some uncomfortable sexual places.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
Jack 02-21-2011 10:33 AM
Splice gets my vote for so-bad-it-is-good film for the year, but for Horror I'd go Monsters (also a stretch) or Paranormal Activity 2.
Backtrcking a little bit...did you see Secret in Their Eyes/is Secret in Their Eyes a "2010" film or is it ruled out for the same reason A Prophet was? I ask because that was hands down the best chase sequence I've seen in some time and I didn't see it in your noms.
Dracula 02-21-2011 10:40 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jack (Post 2745344)
Splice gets my vote for so-bad-it-is-good film for the year, but for Horror I'd go Monsters (also a stretch) or Paranormal Activity 2.
Backtrcking a little bit...did you see Secret in Their Eyes/is Secret in Their Eyes a "2010" film or is it ruled out for the same reason A Prophet was? I ask because that was hands down the best chase sequence I've seen in some time and I didn't see it in your noms.
I am considering Secret in Their Eyes a 2009 film (basically anything that was eligible for the Foreign language Oscar last year is ineligible). I'm probably going to change my eligibility rules next year. I did see the movie, but not until after I wrote the "best chase" category anyway.
Justin 02-21-2011 01:00 PM
Splice was all right, but the ending was pretty bad. The Last Exorcism's was far worse, however.
unity768 02-22-2011 07:36 AM
Glad to see Splice win, it earned a spot on my list.
shained 02-22-2011 08:13 AM
Was pretty disappointed in Splice, would have picked The Crazies over it.
Neverending 02-22-2011 11:16 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jack (Post 2745344)
Paranormal Activity 2
I know PA2 is a horror flick, but I like to look at it as a comedy. The same applies to the original. Those two movies are so hilarious that I can't take them seriously as horror. And I'm not alone. When I saw PA2 in theaters, half the audience was laughing their butts off. It resulted in my favorite moviegoing experience for 2010. I had a blast. The audience was definitely tearing the movie apart.
Dracula 02-22-2011 12:19 PM
Best Comedy of the Year
I’ll say it upfront: this was a ****ty year for comedy, the worst in a long time. It feels like Apatow’s R-rated comedy bubble burst or something and what we’re getting now are the scraps left over. While all of the movies I nominated are comedies of some stripe, I only think two of them are really looking to be laugh out loud funny. Otherwise there’s a pretty long parade of movies from this year that did not look like they were worth my time.
Dogtooth: Seeing this on a list of comedies might shock some people, and I admit that it is not a comedy in the way most people define the term, but I’d argue that at its heart the movie is indeed a (very) dark comedy. To be clear, I’m not calling it a comedy because it’s “funny,” in fact I don’t think I laughed out loud at any point in the movie. But there is something perversely (and horribly) amusing about seeing they insane ways that an entire household has been twisted by a web of lies and misconceptions woven by a pair of parents and then undone by the influence of outside information.
Get Him to the Greek: Get Him to the Greek is probably one of the only straight-forward comedies on this entire list and it’s also the movie I liked the least. What can I say, it was this or Hot Tub Time Machine. To the movie’s credit, Russell Brand is a relevant comedian and Diddy has a surprisingly funny role here as well. Actually the more I think of it the less of an embarrassing nominee this is, but it still hurts me that the Apatow brand has been brought to this.
Greenberg: Greenberg is one of many films being nominated here that are only kind of/sort of comedies. This film has a sort of bone dry wit throughout, and it does star Ben Stiller, but to call it a “comedy” is kind of a hard sell. It certainly plays straight and doesn’t have a ton of belly laughs to its name, but there are humorous moments and lines like a late scene where Stiller snorts cocaine in the middle of a wild high school party.
Kick-Ass: Kick-Ass is a movie that ultimately wimps out and panders to its comic-con audience’s goofy sensibilities, but at times it does manage to bring Mark Millar’s dark and deeply sarcastic voice to the screen in some genuinely funny ways. Seeing the main character become a “superhero” and then get beaten up and injured because of it is pretty brutally funny. It’s only when the movie forgets that it’s supposed to be a satire and begins engaging in stupid jetpack-related antics that it loses its way.
The Kids Are All Right: Like a Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner for the 21st Century, The Kids are All Right deals with a societal issue by bringing it down to a human level and letting the audience laugh at the awkwardness of it rather than cringe at the tragedy that can potentially lie at its heart. This is not too far in tone from the indie dramedies that have been in vogue as of late, and it has the same sort of naturalistic laughs that we get from other like minded movies like Sideways and Little Miss Sunshine.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
Neverending 02-22-2011 01:04 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dracula (Post 2745514)
I’ll say it upfront: this was a ****ty year for comedy, the worst in a long time.
This was a horrible year for straight-forward comedy. But there was good stuff elsewhere. Toy Story 3 was humorous - as most Pixar films tend to be. Despicable Me was the funniest movie in 2010. True Grit was more comedy than anything else. Scott Pilgrim, as flawed as it was, is technically a comedy and worked in that sense. And speaking of Pilgrim, Kick-Ass isn't really a straight-forward comedy. It's an action-comedy.
I'd say the best straight-forward comedies in 2010 (of the ones I saw) were:
Easy A
Cyrus
Youth in Revolt
Due Date (although this movie was extremely flawed)
Diary of a Wimpy Kid
IanTheCool 02-22-2011 01:10 PM
I never thought of it but yes, this was a weak year for comedy.
PG Cooper 02-22-2011 05:01 PM
I hated Due Date, Despicable Me, and Diary of a Wimpy Kid.
Neverending 02-22-2011 09:09 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by PG Cooper (Post 2745541)
Due Date
Robert Downey, Jr. was great in it. I'd recommend it just for his performance.
Quote:
Despicable Me
farm6.static.flickr.com/5175/...724f0c4b_m.jpg
Quote:
Diary of a Wimpy Kid
It's a harmless family film.
Jack 02-22-2011 10:31 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Neverending (Post 2745507)
I know PA2 is a horror flick, but I like to look at it as a comedy. The same applies to the original. Those two movies are so hilarious that I can't take them seriously as horror. And I'm not alone. When I saw PA2 in theaters, half the audience was laughing their butts off. It resulted in my favorite moviegoing experience for 2010. I had a blast. The audience was definitely tearing the movie apart.
Well, with the audience on your side, you're probably right.
PG Cooper 02-23-2011 05:51 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Neverending (Post 2745589)
Robert Downey, Jr. was great in it. I'd recommend it just for his performance.
It's a harmless family film.
Downey couldn't save that film. As for Diary, it may be a harmless family film, but it was annoying, boring, and tedious to sit through. And not in anyway remotely funny.
Dhamon22 02-23-2011 06:13 PM
Yep, terrible year for comedy. I would've went with Kick-Ass or maybe Cyrus.
Dracula 02-27-2011 01:06 AM
Best Foreign Film
Yikes, this is sad. Yeah, you’re reading this right, there are only three nominees here and it’s because I’ve only really been able to see three foreign films this year. This is because I’ve been operating on a strict eligibility rule that only allowed films that are truly 2010 films into the running and not 2009 films that finally get released in 2010. In the past I’ve justified this saying to myself “if they wanted a chance at an award, they should have put it in my theaters on time.” But now that it’s resulted in this sad showing it’s clear to me that I can’t pretend I can use these rules anymore. I’ll use more reasonable eligibility rules next until now… bear with me.
Dogtooth: This Greek satire envisions a household in which a domineering father has chosen isolate his children and teach them that leaving the home would mean certain death. There’s something grimly humorous about seeing the resultant behavior, but the overall reaction the film is meant to elicit is shock and disgust. What’s most shocking is that this is actually a fairly plausible scenario, and the whole thing could easily be an allegory for the way nations like North Korea are run.
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo: I probably wouldn’t have nominated this film had I had a chance to actually watch more foreign films this year. The movie is a passable potboiler with a number of flaws, but it’s enjoyable enough. Still, aI’m kind of glad I’m nominating it because it represents the kind of release that more foreign films should have (I.E. one that can be seen in a timely manner by people who don’t live in New York). Hopefully it can lead the way for other foreign films that aren’t based on bestselling books.
I Am Love: This Italian film is a bit tricky to analyze because it takes a bit of a left turn in it’s third act which is… hard to judge. This is a film that shoots for greatness, employing top of the line set decoration, cinematography, and acting. The story is set in modern times, but it often feels like a sort of strange period piece in the way it deals with family politics and in how it seems to be set in elaborate villas. It’s a beguiling film, one that’s hard to fully appreciate in one viewing.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
Dracula 02-27-2011 01:09 AM
Documentary of the Year
Unlike the foreign category, I’d say that this has been a banner year for documentaries, both in terms of what’s been released and in terms of what I’ve actually gotten a chance to see. Well sort of, this is still a niche type of film and I haven’t been able to see everything. Actually I haven’t seen the year’s two highest grossing and most talked about docs (Waiting For Superman and Inside Job), and yet I’m still perfectly comfortable picking these five as high water marks for documentary filmmaking, and that shows just how deep the field is this year.
Exit Through the Gift Shop: How to talk about Exit Through the Gift Shop in so limited a space. I suppose what says volumes about the film is that pretty much everyone seems to love it except for a handful of people whose only complaint is that they think it’s a hoax. I don’t care about that, I’m not an investigative journalist and I’m not obsessed with keeping from getting fooled. All I care about is that a movie is fun, smart, well made, and thoughtful. “Exit” is all of the above.
Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work: If you only know Joan Rivers as “that old chick who ruined the Oscars,” you need to see this. These “profile documentaries” are a dime a dozen and a lot of them are awfully self serving, this one isn’t, it’s an unflinching look at the lifestyle of an important cultural icon. Over the course of a year we watch Rivers at her lowest and at her highest, and come to understand her in ways we didn’t realize we wanted to.
Restrepo: If nothing else, the makers of this documentary deserve commendation for their courage. These documentarians put themselves in harms way in order to document the lives of soldiers in a particularly dangerous area of Afghanistan. These filmmakers should also be congratulated for their detached journalistic approach to their subjects. The film is perhaps easier to respect than to like, but that’s still quite an accomplishment.
Smash His Camera: This film about paparazzi culture is in the interesting position of having a very likable protagonist, albeit a likeable protagonist that seems to be hated by absolutely everyone that’s interviewed for the film. Pioneering celebrity photographer Ron Galella, seems like a charming and harmless old man, but everyone calls him a creep and a locust. It’s an odd dichotomy and it’s at the center of a film that functions quite well as both a biography and as an exploration into the ethics of this strange career choice.
William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe: This certainly isn’t the most elegant of the nominees here, it has a workmanlike PBS-style presentation and mostly consists of stock footage and talking heads. However, this is a very informative documentary about a fascinating person I frankly feel ashamed for having not really known about beforehand. I suppose this would be less impressive to people who already knew a lot about the progressive lawyer at the center, but I learned a lot. This kind of informative historical documentary is easy to take for granted, and this one is a hell of a work.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
Dracula 02-27-2011 01:15 AM
And for the second straight year the clock runs out and I don't have time to really do my top ten in a timely manner. I would normally stretch these out over a couple days and write blurbs for each but... hell, I feel like I've written enough about all these movies, I think my opinions are clear.
The Number 10 Movie of the Year:
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
The Number 9 Movie of the Year:
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
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!:
JBond 02-27-2011 04:57 AM
Exit Through the Gift Shop was great. Best doc I've ever seen...though I don't tend to go for them or watch many. Thanks for recommending it to me, by the way.
And the right movie is #1.
PG Cooper 02-27-2011 06:49 AM
Good job on this and great top ten. Reminds me once again I need to see Blue Valentine.
Drizzt240 02-27-2011 09:24 PM
Where is the King's Speech?
JBond 02-27-2011 10:54 PM
Not in the top ten?
Dracula 02-27-2011 11:05 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by JBond (Post 2746166)
Not in the top ten?
Not in the top twenty
JBond 02-27-2011 11:22 PM
No, I was answering his question.
PG Cooper 02-28-2011 06:09 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dracula (Post 2746172)
Not in the top twenty
*Nods head in approval.
Deexan 02-28-2011 09:18 AM
Well done Drac, great thread as always.
docstop 02-28-2011 11:17 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dracula (Post 2746172)
Not in the top twenty
I loved the King's Speech. Why so low Drac?
Dracula 02-28-2011 11:36 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by docstop (Post 2746245)
I loved the King's Speech. Why so low Drac?
It's bland, formulaic, and undistinguished. It's basically The Karate Kid for old people (the scene with the record is wax on/wax off). Visually it's pretty much a Masterpiece theater episode. The acting is good, but it's not everything people are making it out to be. Basically it didn't interest me all that much, I gave it three stars and saw little reason to rate it higher.
ViRUs 02-28-2011 12:44 PM
Great job Drac, I didnt comment a whole lot, but I followed it every step of the way. Nice top ten, I still need to see Blue Valentine. But I definitely have to see Exit Through the Gift Shop now after what you had to say.
FranklinTard 02-28-2011 12:57 PM
don't forget inside job. its perfect. breaks down the entire financial crisis, from their ideology, to a play by play of how de-regulation lead us to this place. and how nothing has changed, and nothing will in the foreseeable future.
ViRUs 02-28-2011 01:00 PM
Really? I'll have to check that one out too.
docstop 03-01-2011 10:22 AM
I'm going to check out Inside Job too.
docstop 03-01-2011 10:24 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dracula (Post 2746248)
It's bland, formulaic, and undistinguished. It's basically The Karate Kid for old people (the scene with the record is wax on/wax off). Visually it's pretty much a Masterpiece theater episode. The acting is good, but it's not everything people are making it out to be. Basically it didn't interest me all that much, I gave it three stars and saw little reason to rate it higher.
Found it a little bland myself and there weren't a lot of new elements but I liked the time it was set in and the acting was amazing. I agree its not the best thing to come along in movie history but I always enjoy a movie where a personal struggle is overcome.
Dracula Presents: The Fourth Annual Golden Stake Awards
It's that time of year again, Golden Stake season. I completed this in 2007, 2008, and 2009 and I'm doing it again now. This is a year in review in the format of personal award shows which covers both traditional Oscar type awards and other fun categories.
Last year I started late and needed to do multiple categories a year, but the pace will be a bit slower this year. 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
We’ll be kicking off once again with fight of the year, a category dedicated to honoring all the best melee scuffles of the year. These fights may be conducted with fists or with hand held weapons of some kind, and while guns can be present they may not be the main instrument of the encounter.
Olyphant Vs. Crazy Doctor- The Crazies: I’m of the opinion that action scenes can come from some unlikely places, including horror movies. This is a short, but efficient little fight in which a zombified doctor comes at our hero (Tim Olyphant) with a bone saw and he’s forced to dodge these lethal strikes. Needless to say, the fight ends with a pool of someone’s blood and a macabre little piece of physical comedy.
Ward vs. Alfonso Sanchez- The Fighter: There are three major boxing matches in The Fighter, and for these purposes I’m going to have to choose the second one, firstly because it’s more important to the plot, secondly because it’s more suspenseful, and finally because it has a surprise ending that would be hard to believe if it weren’t entirely true. Like all of the fights in the movie, the picture has been softened in order to mirror early nineties HBO boxing broadcasts.
Distorted Gravity Fight- Inception: You’re in the second level of a dream (which looks like a high end hotel), the car you’re all in is in free fall and gravity is going crazy all while security is closing in, there’s nothing left to do but go hand to hand. If that description doesn’t make sense to you then you obviously haven’t experienced Inception. This fight scene was filmed in a large rotating set, we’ve seen sets like that in movies like The Fly, but we’ve never seen a full speed fight scene in an environment like that before.
Pilgrim Vs. Lucas Lee- Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World: It’s no secret that I found Scott Pilgrim obnoxious, but there’s no denying that it did have creative fight sequences even if they got old fast. The thing is a lot of them are sort of non-fights: one is a musical duel (don’t ask), one of them mostly comes down to a joke about veganism, and so on. The one fight that really seemed to put some emphasis on choreography was the second fight against a skateboarder/actor who sicks a bunch of stunt doubles on Scott. It ends quick but it looks pretty good for a while.
Discs- Tron Legacy: I suppose that the fact that this scene involves throwing things technically makes it a bit less of a melee than this category usually accommodates, but it certainly isn’t a shootout and the gladiatorial nature of it basically makes it a fight and a cool one at that. Held in a series of glass domes, this fight features a unique blend of aerial dodging and darting, and finally ends in a fall down into the arena. Discs aren’t quite lightsabers, but they’ll do.
The Golden Stake goes to…
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sshuttari 01-25-2011 02:41 AM
Distorted Gravity in Inception. Probably the only thing I saw this year that made my jaw drop.
PG Cooper 01-25-2011 05:59 AM
Good to see you back at it after my copy cat bulls*** :redface:
And excellent winner.
Dhamon22 01-25-2011 12:23 PM
Great choice. Awesome scene, it was head and shoulders above the rest.
Jack 01-25-2011 12:31 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by sshuttari (Post 2740877)
probably the only thing i saw this year that made my jaw drop.
qft
JBond 01-25-2011 03:41 PM
One of the best scenes of the year.
ViRUs 01-25-2011 07:09 PM
Agreed, I was really surprised to see Scott Pilgrim show up on this list, lol.
IanTheCool 01-25-2011 07:41 PM
Ah good. I love these. And yes, there was really only one clear winner for this category.
Dracula 01-25-2011 08:53 PM
Best Use of Source Music
I usually start with the musical performance category instead of the source music category, but I decided to switch it up this year. This is a category dedicated to the movies that can take an existing piece of music and incorporate it into a movie, creating a synthesis of song and imagery. Bear in mind that it is the use of the song and the relevance of the selection that I’m judging, not the quality of the song itself.
“Never Hear Surf Music Again” by Free Blood- 127 Hours: I was tempted to nominate Bill Wither’s “Lovely Day” for its place in the soundtrack because it was such a nice song, but this caustic opening track proved to be the more striking combination with the film’s visuals. Played over a montage of Aron Ralston getting ready for his fateful hike and a lot of city imagery, the scene perfectly establishes the modern world Ralston is leaving and the sort of punky urge that makes him want to leave.
“You and Me” by Penny & the Quarters- Blue Valentine: There’s an interesting story behind this obscure soul song, which was only discovered over thirty years after it was recorded, but I’m only here to talk about its use in the movie. “You and Me” is established as the central couple’s special song, and it’s used to heartbreaking effect both in the segments where they are falling in love and when they are at their lowest point later on.
“How You Like Me Now” By The Heavy- The Fighter: For a film that’s loaded to the brim with famous classic rock, it’s interesting that the stand out track is actually a contemporary song from a mostly unknown band that makes the nomination. Interestingly it’s a contemporary song that’s been built to sound like a relic from the 70s. Its use is in a really snappy opening sequence where Ward and Eklund are walking through their neighborhood, the scene doesn’t really affect the plot but it perfectly introduces these characters and their place in the community.
“Shame Shame on You” By Spade Cooley- The Killer Inside Me: Here’s where crate digging can really pay off. This obscure country/western song from the fifties fits perfectly within the film’s Texas setting, but more importantly it fits the film’s sleazy tone to a T. The lyrics, which look at a heartbreak with a sort of twisted point of view that places all of the blame on a woman perfectly fits with the main character’s sociopathic point of view.
“Baby You’re a Rich Man” By The Beatles- The Social Network: Nothing in movies like Se7en or Fight Club really leads one to assume that David Fincher is a Beatle-maniac, but he managed to win this category in 2008 for his use of Twist and Shout in Benjamin Button and now he’s back with another expensive Beatles track in tow, one that fits into the movie for obvious lyrical reasons, but it also slyly pokes fun at the emptiness of Zuckerberg’s accomplishment.
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JBond 01-25-2011 10:36 PM
Odd category.
krushgroove19 01-26-2011 12:08 AM
I'm glad that one won. I've been obsessed with that song since seeing the movie, and my friend and I both agreed it was very fitting.
PG Cooper 01-26-2011 06:02 AM
I hadn't thought about The Fighter for this award, but yeah, it does work perfectly. Good choice.
Jack 01-26-2011 10:29 AM
Good picks. Would have gone with "You and Me." Certainly broke my heart. Haven't seen The Fighter yet, not really a sports movie guy.
Couple more I enjoyed:
- Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds "O Children" in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 for being a Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds song in the middle of a Harry Potter movie and creating a great character moment out of it.
- Edith Piaf "Non Je ne Regrette Rien" in Inception for it's subtle and not so subtle incorporation with the score.
- Nas "Bridging the Gap" in A Prophet for working despite being an upbeat American rap song in the middle of a fairly grim French thriller.
- Air Supply "I'm All Out of Love" in Animal Kingdom for showing how atmospheric and downright creepy 80s pop music can be when used in the right context.
- Richard Hawley "Tonight the Streets Our Ours" in Exit Through the Gift Shop for setting the right tone in the opening credits over footage of street artists running from the man.
PG Cooper 01-26-2011 12:28 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jack (Post 2741060)
Good picks. Would have gone with "You and Me." Certainly broke my heart. Haven't seen The Fighter yet, not really a sports movie guy.
Couple more I enjoyed:
- Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds "O Children" in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 for being a Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds song in the middle of a Harry Potter movie and creating a great character moment out of it.
- Edith Piaf "Non Je ne Regrette Rien" in Inception for it's subtle and not so subtle incorporation with the score.
I did my own awards and both these were nominated.
Dracula 01-26-2011 01:43 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jack (Post 2741060)
- Edith Piaf "Non Je ne Regrette Rien" in Inception for it's subtle and not so subtle incorporation with the score.
- Nas "Bridging the Gap" in A Prophet for working despite being an upbeat American rap song in the middle of a fairly grim French thriller.
I thought about the Edith Piaf song, but I ultimately felt that the song itself (Cotillard in-joke aside) could have been switched for almost any song and would have had the same basic function in the film, which kind of makes it a bit of a different beast than what I'm looking for here.
For the record, I'm considering A Prophet a 2009 film (though I'm probably going to rethink my rules for foreign film eligibility next year). If I did consider it a 2010 movie it might have ended up being the best film of the year.
PG Cooper 01-26-2011 02:50 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dracula (Post 2741089)
I thought about the Edith Piaf song, but I ultimately felt that the song itself (Cotillard in-joke aside) could have been switched for almost any song and would have had the same basic function in the film, which kind of makes it a bit of a different beast than what I'm looking for here.
For the record, I'm considering A Prophet a 2009 film (though I'm probably going to rethink my rules for foreign film eligibility next year). If I did consider it a 2010 movie it might have ended up being the best film of the year.
I'd agree that almost any song would fit, but the Piaf song seemed to fit so perfectly. Plus, I love how the song was integrated so well with the score.
Dhamon22 01-26-2011 04:15 PM
I liked the song from Blue Valentine for this.
Dracula 01-26-2011 09:13 PM
Shootout of the Year
We’ve done the melee thing, now let’s deal in long range combat. Pistols, assault rifles, shotguns, sniper rifles… they’re all up for grabs in this category. However, keep in mind that this does need to be a two sided fight. There were scenes in both Shutter Island and Salt which I considered, but which were ultimately disqualified because they were one sided slaughters rather than full on gunfights.
Showdown on Main- The Book of Eli: This movie was in many ways a western set in a post-apocalypse, and what’s a western without a showdown in a town? Here Eli, one of the cooler looking badasses of the year, is standing in the middle of the road when he’s fired upon by a group of thugs, in response he just stoically pulls out a pistol and makes some well placed shots at people down the road and on roof tops before pulling out his sawed off shotgun and dodges behind a car.
Snow Fortress- Inception: This is a tricky choice because the actual shooting in this scene gets interrupted frequently, but I think if you were to splice together the actual shootout, there would be a pretty good scene here. That’s true of a lot of Inception, it’s a movie with a lot of good gunplay but it rarely combines into a full blown firearm fight. This one features snowmobile on skier shooting, some cool sniper play, and some grenade tossing. What’s not to like?
Warehouse Shootout- Kick-Ass: This is a really cool scene in an otherwise obnoxious film in which Nicholas Cage’s Big Daddy character goes toe to toe with a number of thugs in a warehouse. It’s only about a minute long and I’m not in love with the way they “borrowed” the music from 28 Days Later, but the character looks really cool when he’s doing it and the scene is edited in a cool way that give the impression of disconnected moments within a complete scene.
Iron and War Machine Vs. Drones- Iron Man 2: Iron Man 2 was not the triumph that many hoped and it was plagued by a terrible middle act and an overload of in-jokes, but I think it did manage to pull off some pretty solid action in its finale. This scene, taking place in a greenhouse, has Iron Man and War Machine taking down dozens of unmanned robotic drones with a variety of advanced weapons, ending in a crazy laser blast.
Fill Your Hands, You Son of a *****!- True Grit: This movie had some tough boots to fill, the original John Wayne movie was well liked by an entire generation of people and the climactic horseback gunfight was one of the most iconic shootouts of 60s cinema. The Coens don’t necessarily re-invent the wheel with their rendition of the scene, but they do refine it, using modern film techniques to make the shootout even more visceral than it was in its original form.
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PG Cooper 01-26-2011 09:21 PM
No love for The Town?
Dracula 01-26-2011 09:54 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by PG Cooper (Post 2741166)
No love for The Town?
Stongly considered it, but I couldn't really get over the fact that the scene felt like Heat-lite, in a trying-too-hard-and-not-making-the-grade kind of way. I ended up replacing it with the Kick-Ass scene.
docstop 01-27-2011 09:48 AM
Good choice with True Grit. Liked the War Machine - Iron Man vs. Drones seem but it didn't last long enough.
Jack 01-27-2011 10:49 AM
I'd go with The Town. Heat rehash for sure, but it still scratched that itch for me. Or A Prophet, but I understand why it is not up.
MovieBuff801 01-27-2011 01:14 PM
I'd actually have gone with The Town as well which, as a movie, I prefer to Heat. *dodges trash*
PG Cooper 01-27-2011 02:07 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by moviebuff801 (Post 2741285)
I'd actually have gone with The Town as well which, as a movie, I prefer to Heat. *dodges trash*
:omg:
MovieBuff801 01-27-2011 03:18 PM
Don't get me wrong, I REALLY LIKE Heat...but no matter how many times I watch it, I just can't come to love it.
PG Cooper 01-27-2011 03:22 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by moviebuff801 (Post 2741298)
Don't get me wrong, I REALLY LIKE Heat...but no matter how many times I watch it, I just can't come to love it.
I'm surprised. Though I suppose I understand. Personally, I love the hell out of Heat. One of the most rewatchable movies ever for me.
Dracula 01-27-2011 10:03 PM
Best Musical Performance
This is an award for the best scene of people doing a musical performance, and it’s kind of strange every year. The thing is, they aren’t exactly making a lot of music-related movies and there aren’t a ton of choices to choose from. This is not about the quality of the performance itself, although that certainly doesn’t hurt, this is about the scene as a whole and its function within the movie.
You Only Hurt the Ones You Love- Blue Valentine: A staple of the movie’s marketing, this was a scene where the central couple are young and falling in love. They stop at the sign of the road and Gostling starts playing a ukulele in order for Williams to show off her awkward tap dancing. Gostling says that he can only sing “funny,” and that’s not a lie. He goes into a bizarre rendition of the pop standard “You Always Hurt the Ones you Love.” It’s a WTF moment out of context, but it feels really natural and important in the movie.
The Clap- Get Him to the Greek: This category has long been a haven for scenes of people singing silly songs in comedies, and that seems particularly appropriate for this movie given that it’s about a crazy rock star. In this scene he’s performing for the today show and interrupts his ridiculous protest song in order to perform an old favorite. The song is actually well produced and performed by Russell Brand, you could mistake it for a real song if it weren’t a ridiculous Gonorrhea anthem that the crowd was mindlessly cheering on.
“Black Sheep”- Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World: As one of the few music related movies of the year, Scot Pilgrim felt like it needed to be a nominee, but frankly I didn’t like much of the music in it. Pretty much my only memory of musical moments in the movie consisted of that drummer chick shouting “we are Sex Bob-omb” followed by some really generic punk rock and it was really unclear if this was supposed to be good or deliberately poor music played by amateurs. Then I remembered this moment where the rival band Clash at Demonhead played, which is (appropriately) a lot more professional and the scene makes for a good bit of jealous mourning.
“I Swear” A Cappella- The Social Network: As a rule, college a cappella groups are not known for adventurous song selection. That’s why the Harvard a cappella coir is seen here performing a less than trendy All-4-One song from the mid 90s. This is a good example of how diegetic live music can be used in much the same way that random source music can be used to accentuate a scene. It also provides a dramatic moment in which the group is interrupted when Zuckerberg’s rivals learn of a betrayal.
Family Hootenanny- Winter’s Bone: The main element that people tend to highlight from Winter’s Bon is its authentic depiction of its Ozarks setting. One scene that really drives this home is a moment where our hero runs into a hillbilly family jamming with a banjo and piano to some weird bluegrass music. These weird people have almost Herzogianly bizarre faces, especially the grandmother who is singing the lead vocals.
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Drizzt240 01-28-2011 12:30 AM
Yo drac, good fight scene. Fighter doesn't deserve to win any category involving sound.
Slow year for shoot outs.
Dhamon22 01-28-2011 08:07 AM
Good pick.
Jack 01-28-2011 09:48 AM
I'd say the Blue Valentine performance was almost too on-the-nose...but it'd get my vote too. =)
Dracula 01-29-2011 12:19 AM
Chase of the Year
Chases are a staple of the action movie; they’ve been making them since the silent days. They’re probably at their most popular when they take the form of a car chase. This award, however, reaches beyond the mere car chase and looks at a wide spectrum of chase scenes including foot chases, motorcycle chases, ariel chases, and if they invent any other kind of chase that will be eligible too.
Ferry Chase- The Ghost Writer: Movie chases are often characterized by speed, and in that category this foot chase probably wouldn’t really stack up. But there’s more to a great chase than that, and in this case it’s all about staging. This is a neat little cat and mouse chase through a ferry in the harbor which leads to an escape the way the hero came. This is a chase to see who’s the smartest, while also fitting well with the paranoid tone of the movie.
Chase Through Bagdad- Green Zone: Beginning with a nice little scuffle following a harsh interrogation, this scene has Matt Damon rushing into the streets trying to chase down and hopefully capture the Iraqi general who might be able to prevent the insurgency. There’s a lot going on here: helicopters monitor it with cool dot things over the people’s heads, a chopper gets shot down, there’s a race against another pursuer, etc. Greengrass uses his signature style to form a really cool footchase.
Escape- Salt: Highway overpasses have long been an important part of chase scenes and Salt has one of the better stunts involving the structures. This begins as a typical little footchase, but once Salt jumps off of an overpass onto the top of a moving semi-truck all bets are off. What follows is some cool stuntwork and eventually a jump onto a motorcycle. It’s like a (slightly) more realistic version of the chase from The Matrix Reloaded.
Armored Car Robbery- The Town: The best car chases tend bring out aspects of a city they’re located in. The Bullitt chase emphasizes San Francisco’s Hills, The French Connection emphasizes NYC’s transit system, To Live and Die in L.A. emphasized L.A.’s freeways, etc. Boston’s main automotive legacy are a series of old, narrow, un-navigable roads and this chase emphasizes the claustrophobia of trying to have a car chase in Beantown. Either way it has a cool explosion and ends with a pretty sweet little joke.
Lightcycles- Tron: Legacy: One of the most memorable parts of the original Tron was the introduction of things called lightcycles: CGI motorcycles that left a trail of… laser stuff… behind it as it as it drove around in a gladiator like arena. They were also kind of creepy the way they robotically turned at right angles. Computers aren’t creepy anymore, they kick ass, and so can the new glowing lightcycles which turn in any direction they wants.
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MasterChief117 01-29-2011 12:08 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by moviebuff801 (Post 2741285)
I'd actually have gone with The Town as well which, as a movie, I prefer to Heat. *dodges trash*
*throws tons of trash*
Not sure how we managed to be friends for this long and you pull a move like that...Not cool.
MasterChief117 01-29-2011 12:09 PM
Good pick by the way Drac. I completely agree, not really memorable but I think you went with the best choice. Probably one of the best scenes in Tron:Legacy.
PG Cooper 01-29-2011 05:03 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dracula (Post 2741353)
“Black Sheep”- Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World: As one of the few music related movies of the year, Scot Pilgrim felt like it needed to be a nominee, but frankly I didn’t like much of the music in it. Pretty much my only memory of musical moments in the movie consisted of that drummer chick shouting “we are Sex Bob-omb” followed by some really generic punk rock and it was really unclear if this was supposed to be good or deliberately poor music played by amateurs. Then I remembered this moment where the rival band Clash at Demonhead played, which is (appropriately) a lot more professional and the scene makes for a good bit of jealous mourning.
Completely summed up my feelings on the music in Scott Pilgrim.
I'm also really glad you nominated The Ghost Writer for Best Chase. Such a great and unconventional sequence.
Dracula 01-29-2011 11:02 PM
Set-Piece of the Year
Not every set-piece can be placed squarely into a stock box, sometimes the most impressively staged moments of a movie isn’t necessarily going to be a chase, a fight, or a shootout. That’s what this category is for; it’s a miscellaneous category for scenes that feel like action scenes but which think outside the box.
Snake- Buried: Most of the set pieces here are all about big stunts, big effects, and big ideas, but this nomination is all about generating intense cinema out of something small. Late in the hero’s ordeal he’s horrified to find that a seemingly poisonous desert snake has slithered into the coffin that he’s trapped in. It’s a really suspenseful scene as there’s nowhere to run and nowhere to hide and you’re on the edge of your seat trying to figure out how he’s going to get out of this one.
Plane Scene- The Expendables: People go to movies like this looking for simple pleasures: they want to see people get shot, to see things explode, and to see improbable stunts performed by geezers. This scene provides all of this. We get Stallone jumping onto a plane, we get a plane circling around and machine-gunning the hell out of evil mercenaries, and for the coup de grace we get to see the people who somehow survived the machine-gunning get drenched in gas and then incinerated by an explosion that’s vaguely akin to the napalm scene from Apocalypse Now.
Opening Dream- Inception: Though Inception mostly focuses on one major heist that takes up the second half of the film, it’s easy to forget that it also opens with a wicked little dream heist scene that functions both as an exciting opening but also as a neat way of establishing some of the rules of the world of the film. This part feels like a genuine spy film with Di Caprio stealthing his way through the hallway wasting fools with a silenced pistol, all leading up to some neat water effects and a cool reveal at the end.
Dachau- Shutter Island: For a second I thought about including this scene as a shootout, but the one sided nature of the scene ultimately made it more appropriate as a set-piece. This is one of the psychologically loaded flashbacks from the film, in particular this shows the Di Caprio character’s experience as one of the soldiers liberating the Dachau concentration camp. It ends with an unforgettable moment at the end which function both as a catharsis while being itself rather frightening. Either way it’s impeccably staged by a master.
Opening Robbery- The Town: This has proven to be a really good year for effective and exciting opening scenes. This opening to The Town doesn’t differ much from your average run of the mill bank robbery, but the execution really turns it into something special. The way that the actors move going in, the brutality of an assault towards the end, and (most of all) the extremely cool skeleton outfits that they choose for the robbers.
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Doomsday 01-29-2011 11:14 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by moviebuff801 (Post 2741285)
I'd actually have gone with The Town as well which, as a movie, I prefer to Heat. *dodges trash*
VIDEO-CLick to Watch!:
MovieBuff801 01-29-2011 11:33 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by MasterChief117 (Post 2741553)
*throws tons of trash*
Not sure how we managed to be friends for this long and you pull a move like that...Not cool.
I remember telling you my opinion of Heat a LONG time ago, so don't act surprised.
Look, I think Heat is a very strong film with great acting and whatnot...I just don't think it's a masterpiece.
Dracula 01-29-2011 11:45 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by moviebuff801 (Post 2741644)
I remember telling you my opinion of Heat a LONG time ago, so don't act surprised.
Look, I think Heat is a very strong film with great acting and whatnot...I just don't think it's a masterpiece.
And The Town is?
MovieBuff801 01-29-2011 11:57 PM
I wouldn't neccessarily say The Town is, either, but I WILL say I was more involved with that movie than I was with Heat.
I know this is probably a cliched complaint, but I'm sorry, 3 hours is just too long for a bank robbery movie. Heat has a lot of great scenes, but bits of it either drag or just go on longer than they should.
Dracula 01-30-2011 12:52 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by moviebuff801 (Post 2741647)
I wouldn't neccessarily say The Town is, either, but I WILL say I was more involved with that movie than I was with Heat.
I know this is probably a cliched complaint, but I'm sorry, 3 hours is just too long for a bank robbery movie. Heat has a lot of great scenes, but bits of it either drag or just go on longer than they should.
Maybe, but at least its story doesn't hinge on Robert De Niro having an implausible affair with his former hostage/only person who could identify him. It also doesn't try to make De Niro into some kind of hero just because he seems a little nicer than the other people around him.
MovieBuff801 01-30-2011 12:59 AM
Oh, there's a lot more to The Town than that. You've got Jeremy Renner in a snaky and menacing performance, Ben Affleck giving a surprisingly solid performance, some interesting dynamics between Doug and Jem and Doug and Krista, some really good dialogue scenes and of course, some truly entertaining action scenes.
Are parts of The Town implausible? Sure, but what makes the film so good is that the overall level of storytelling keeps things interesting enough for us to go along with those implausibilities without questioning it too much.
Dracula 01-30-2011 01:02 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by moviebuff801 (Post 2741659)
Oh, there's a lot more to The Town than that. You've got Jeremy Renner in a snaky and menacing performance, Ben Affleck giving a surprisingly solid performance, some interesting dynamics between Doug and Jem and Doug and Krista, some really good dialogue scenes and of course, some truly entertaining action scenes.
Are parts of The Town implausible? Sure, but what makes the film so good is that the overall level of storytelling keeps things interesting enough for us to go along with those implausibilities without questioning it too much.
To each his own, but I was certainly questioning it plenty.
PG Cooper 01-30-2011 06:14 AM
Good choice for Best set Piece. I'm also really glad you nominated Shutter Island because that was a really great scene.
Dracula 01-30-2011 09:01 PM
Moving on to technical awards
Best Makeup
Makeup can be an odd mistress, in prestige awards it’s a category that seems to be evenly split between dainty period pieces and gory action movies. Given the types of movies I see and the way I tend to judge them, my nominations tend to lean towards the later. It can sometimes be hard to tell where makeup ends and special effects begin, but I try my best with the knowledge I have.
Black Swan: This might be a ballerina movie, but its visuals have a lot of ties to body horror, a heavily makeup dependent genre that was pioneered by David Cronenberg in the 80s. As Nina takes a decent into madness we see her visual hallucinations in which she begins to take the attributes of a swan in weird and kind of disturbing ways. In a movie with this kind of gritty tone, bad makeup would be jarring, which is why this team needed to make it work.
The Crazies: Zombie makeup is done pretty often, but we shouldn’t take the challenges of this work for granted. This is a bit different from most zombie movies in that these people aren’t dead and they also aren’t quite as hyper as the 28 Days Latter “zombies.” So they need to make more of a minimalist approach adding some blood here and some rashes there, making them look just off enough to be distinctly different from the survivors.
Inception: This is not a movie that comes to mind right away when you think about makeup as it isn’t really prominent through large portions of the movie. However, there is one scene that really shows off makeup process in which Ken Watanabe is seen wearing heavy old age makeup. This must have required heavy latex or something, but they pull it off. At the end of the day quality is more important than quantity.
The Killer Inside Me: This is another movie that isn’t awash in makeup effects but which uses it in one key scene very effectively. Gore effects are common in cinema, but they are rarely used to quite the effect that they are in one of this movie’s murder scenes in which an actress is beaten to death and her face seems to just fall apart with each punch. It’s a visceral and disturbing scene and this could go down as one of those great underground gore moments.
Splice: Makeup in science fiction has a long and often not-so-illustrious legacy. We all know about those old B-movies with fake looking monsters and how much that can detract from the experience. That’s not a concern here as this movie has some really cool monster effects that look very realistic and also really fantastical. The creature is meant to be a hybrid of human and animal DNAs and what makes it work so well is that they were willing to make the creature really human, but… not.
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PG Cooper 01-30-2011 09:09 PM
The only film I haven't seen is the winner...
Dracula 01-30-2011 09:52 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by PG Cooper (Post 2741781)
The only film I haven't seen is the winner...
Rent it, it's a nice little science fiction B-movie.
PG Cooper 01-30-2011 10:01 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dracula (Post 2741796)
Rent it, it's a nice little science fiction B-movie.
I just might. I considered grabbing it at the video store a bunch of times.
Dracula 01-31-2011 10:59 PM
Best Sound Design
After four years of doing Golden Stakes, I’ve come to realize I probably shouldn’t do this award. I don’t really know much of anything about sound design; I barely understand the difference between sound editing and mixing and to make matters worse I saw a bunch of this year’s action movies on my TV which doesn’t even have surround sound. Even when I did watch the movies in proper aural environments, the sound mix tends not to have been the element I most remember. I mainly still do this out of a sense of tradition. Just bear with me.
127 Hours: For a movie that only has one character and takes place almost entirely outdoors, this movie has a really adventurous soundscape. Sound is used to great extent in many key moments of this movie like the boulder’s drop and a fantasy sequence where the canyon floods, but the real standout is the climactic “cutting” scene, in which well timed sounds are used to represent a particularly difficult moment in which Ralston is forced to cut into some nerves.
Inception: There’s a lot going on in Inception, there are fist fights, gunfights, an driving score, lots of shouting, and some crazy dream effects. Taking all of these elements and making them blend into a sweet mix is not easy, all of that could turn into a complete mess if not for the intervention of people who know what they’re doing.
The Social Network: The Social Network is largely a movie which shows people talking about computers in dark rooms, but it still has some of the most talked about audio mixing of the year. David Fincher is a believer in aural realism; he isn’t going to have people be the only ones making a sound when they’re standing in a crowded room. He does this subtlety for much of the movie, but it really becomes clear in the much talked about club scene where a pivotal conversation comes this close to being (deliberately) drowned out by music.
Splice: Splice isn’t a very loud movie, but it does have a unique sound design challenge just the same. In creating Dren, the people involved needed to create a variety of sounds and noises for the monster to make that sound clearly unhuman and creepy while also being kind of cute. I don’t know exactly what they did to create these but it’s pretty cool just the same.
Tron: Legacy: The only movie this year that I saw in an IMAX theater was Tron: Legacy, and that probably gives it an advantage over the rest of these movies that might be unfair. Certainly this was the most room-shakingly loud movie I saw all year, which is the same experience I had with last year’s IMAX wonder Avatar. In fact I’m told the two movies used the same sound mixer.
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IanTheCool 02-01-2011 12:40 PM
I like the nod to Social Network. The opening scene in the pub was the same way. There was a ton of background conversations which made it feel like a real pub.
Drizzt240 02-01-2011 09:00 PM
I think we should define set-piece because I think Avatar Deku Tree won this last year. So now a snake and a deku tree have
JBond 02-01-2011 09:05 PM
Heh, aren't Deku Trees from Ocarina of Time?
Dracula 02-01-2011 09:40 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Drizzt240 (Post 2742091)
I think we should define set-piece because I think Avatar Deku Tree won this last year. So now a snake and a deku tree have
Neither the snake nor the tree won, both were nominated but the theater scene from Inglourious Basterds won last year and the opening dream from Inception won this year. You are clicking the spoiler tag to see the winners right?
Dracula 02-02-2011 10:10 AM
Best Original Score
Almost every year I start this category out by saying that this is a difficult category for me and that scores usually aren’t the main thing I’m paying attention to when I watch a movie. Not this year. This has been a landmark year for interesting and innovative scores that you can’t help but notice, and not in a bad “this is standing out to much” kind of way. Hollywood really opened itself up to new and interesting talent and it paid back in dividends.
127 Hours: I thought it was pretty crazy when Danny Boyle brought back A. R. Rahman to score his follow-up to Slumdog Millionaire, and frankly I’m ashamed at myself for doing so. Rahman more than proves himself to be far more than the “local flavor” that he seemed to be in that last film. Here he provides a really tense guitar driven score that ratchets up the suspense of the situation at the film’s center and perfectly melds with the source music in the film.
Inception: Baaaaaaoooooo! Baaaaaaoooooo! You know that sound I’m talking about; that loud bass hit at the center of Hans Zimmer’s intense score for Inception. It’s one of the more striking music effects since Brad Fiedel banded his kitchen pot for the score of the Terminator movies. It obviously doesn’t end there, this movie has a driving orchestral assault that builds and builds upon itself at all times. This isn’t a quiet score that accentuates things here and there; it’s big music for a big movie.
The Social Network: I’ve been a Nine Inch Nails fan for years and I’ll say right now that I think it’s cool as hell that Trent Reznor is in the middle of a highly acclaimed film, but that’s not going to give him a leg up, especially given that this actually sounds kind of different from his work as a rock star. What is going to give him a leg up is that he made one of the most interesting and appropriate scores of the year which completely alters the mood of the film.
Tron: Legacy: Daft Punk is a group that has reached almost unprecedented levels of success for a hardcore House outfit, they’re the best there is at what they do and their somewhat kitchy robot schtick made them an absolutely awesome choice to do this score. There is a lot of really good toe tapping electronica here, but it is often combined with some really majestic orchestrations. As an album this has charted higher than any score since The Phantom Menace, and I understand why, I’d probably enjoy litening to this in that format than any of the other nominees.
True Grit: Deep down the Coen brothers are jokesters, dry jokesters, but jokesters just the same. True Grit can be a very funny movie and it can also be an exciting action movie, but it also has serious undercurrents and a beating heart at its center and Carter Burwell’s score is a big part of why that is. The score was disqualified from the Oscar race because it was heavily based on a number of hymns, a fact I can’t personally verify. To my ears though, this is some great music that makes the movie a lot better.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
PG Cooper 02-02-2011 11:45 AM
Good choice. And I agree that all five were fantastic scores.
JBond 02-02-2011 01:53 PM
Baaaaaaoooooo! Baaaaaaoooooo!
Dracula 02-05-2011 03:06 AM
Best Art Direction
Art directors are in charge of a film’s sets and their overall physical appearance. They need to draw up designs for the film’s sets and props and then they need to bring them to life. Often the director has a lot of influence over this, and the visual effects department also influences it a lot, but it’s the Art Director who needs to make it all happen.
Green Zone: This Paul Greengrass thriller has the challenge of recreating places that we’ve seen on the news for the last decade in meticulous detail. Most impressive is the title location, the green zone, which is brought to life as this sort of surreal place of western imperialism not unlike the Cairo base from Lawrence of Arabia.
Inception: Most movies can come up with an overall design and just kind of run with it, but in Inception things get shaken up a lot. There’s the eastern design of Saito’s house, the very modern real world environments, the urban sprawl of the first dream level, the noir hotel of the second level, the snow fortress on the third level and of course the all-bets-are-off limbo area. Each of these needs to be distinct so that the viewer will keep track of it all while levels shift while still fitting in with an overall aesthetic.
Never Let Me Go: Science fiction has traditionally been filled with metal walls and computers and stuff, but this movie takes a different approach to the genre. Set in an alternate version of the 20th century, this takes a post-Children of Men approach to world building in which things are subtley changed here and there. But this isn’t really being nominated for science fiction elements so much as it’s down to earth elements like its boarding schools, hospitals, and costal villages.
Shutter Island: Few films are improved quite as much by art direction than Shutter Island, a film that is made significantly more interesting by its creepy New England Gothic aesthetic. That insane asylum looks like a horrible place out of an H.P. Lovecraft story and the rest of that spooky island is no slouch either. It has a bit of an artificial look, but that’s by design too, and all the spiral staircases, dingy cells, and lighthouses really give the film atmosphere.
Tron: Legacy: While these other movies were doing variations on the real world to some extent, this Tron sequel had little to go on aside from the original ’82 movie which was going to need a major overhaul if it was going to impress modern audiences. But the design team was able to fight back with a slick neon glow design and a number of sweeping cyber cityscapes. In this they were mostly successful, the movie looks pretty damn cool.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
IanTheCool 02-05-2011 09:18 AM
I agree with your choice in score, it really set the mood well. And art direction too for that matter. A lot of great sets in Inception.
Dracula 02-08-2011 12:08 AM
Sorry I fell a bit behind
Best Soundtrack
The cavalcade of great scores this year did come at a bit of a price: there were very few good movies that were propelled by a source music soundtrack. By this I am of course referring to movies which use originally recorded music in order to accentuate various scenes. It’s an art that was mastered by people like Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarentino, but filmmakers have been surprisingly disinterested this year, forcing me to pick some movies that are… not great. And as one final asterisk, this is all about the use of songs in a movie, it has nothing to do with the actual soundtrack albums.
127 Hours: Musically, this is an odd film in that its musical engine is about 50% score and 50% source music and I think both of these contribute equally to the film. I’ve already discussed the film’s opening sequence set to Free Blood, and I had Bill Wither’s “Lovely Day” stuck in my head for days after I saw the film. As the film goes on we get treated to catchy oddities like “Ça Plane Pour Moi” (a French surf punk song) and atmospheric tracks like Sigur Ros’ “Festival.” It’s all topped off by the Oscar nominated Dido track “If I Rise.”
The Fighter: Nothing in the movies Three Kings or I Heart Huckabees led me to believe that David O. Russell was the kind of music geek who would put together a rock soundtrack like this, but low and behold here we have it. This is loaded with classic rockers that must have cost a fortune to licence. The Led Zeppelin song alone must have cost more than Mellissa Leo’s salary, but they still had money left over to pay The Rolling Stones, Aerosmith, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Wang Chung, and Whitesnake among others. Not to mention that song by The Heavy that I praised.
Get Him to the Greek: The heart of the music in this movie are the comedic rock songs performed by Aldus Snow’s band Infant Sorrow. Those songs are… interesting… but what I’m really looking at there are the various original rock songs from elsewhere in the soundtrack like The Rolling Stone’s “Rocks Off” or The Sex Pistol’s “Anarchy in the UK” (played appropriately during some English debauchery). It’s almost like they were trying to hearken back to a time when rock stars were still relevant.
Hot Tub Time Machine: There are many opinions about Hot Tub Time Machine: some called it “stupid,” others called it “very stupid,” others called it just plain bad. I probably agree with all of that, in fact I might go so far as to call it the worst movie I saw last year, but one thing it does pretty well is loading itself to the brim with songs that are “totally eighties.” All of those quintessentially eighties songs seem to pop up here and they don’t seem particularly interested in choosing un-predictable songs. Still all the tracks in here must have cost some coin and I guess I appreciate the quantity if nothing else.
Kick-Ass: Most soundtracks stick pretty closely to a particular aesthetic, but this one skews more towards a particular attitude. There are a number of neat little touches like the “Banana Splits” remix that plays in Hit Girl’s slaughter, or the Gnarls Barkley track that Kick-Ass and Red mist listen to while cruising in a car. The track I’m really glad I was introduced to was “Stand Up” by The Prodigy, which seemed to really fit the movie in a very appealing way.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
PG Cooper 02-08-2011 07:19 PM
Good pick.
Dracula 02-09-2011 12:45 AM
Best Editing
True editing can be a really hard thing to judge because we aren’t privy to the footage that ended up on the cutting room floor. We don’t know how long each shot was before it was cut to perfection and we don’t know which alternate takes of various actors were strung together to build a great performance. What I’m sort of left to do is just get a sense of which film best managed to use cutting to create a rhythm and convey the story.
127 Hours: No matter how much cool stuff the average movie has, a ton of it is likely to consist of over-the-shoulder shot/reverse shot editing during conversations. Not this one, most of this movie consists entirely of one person, and the claustrophobic location he’s in forces creativity on the editing team to find creative ways of cutting around his situation. They also need to keep up with Danny Boyles’s wild flights of fancy.
Black Swan: Some of the most memorable editing of the last decade or so was in Darren Aronofsky’s first two films: Pi and Requiem for a Dream. His editing has calmed down since then in order to fit more down to earth movies, but it’s still inventive and precise. Here he is able to use editing to make the dance sequences particularly “in your face” while also integrating them into the overall story.
Green Zone: Few directors seem to own the editor’s chair to quite the extent that Paul Greengrass does. He and his partner-in-crime Christopher Rouse have built an entire style around careful editing around Greengrass’ intense visual style. This film is an extention of this signature style, and while it doesn’t necessarily advance the style as much as some of their previous collaborations have, it’s still ahead of the pack.
Inception: Action movies can be just as much of a showcase for editing as they are for visual effects, especially when they are big movies filled with big ideas which need to feel a lot shorter than they actually are. The action here is some of the best we’ve seen, well… since Nolan’s last movie, and it’s made to look very smooth by the film’s excellent editing work from Nolan and editor Lee Smith make the whole thing silky as hell.
Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World: I’ve had my opinions about this film known, but I can recognize solid elements in less than solid movies. The editing here isn’t so much related to the work within the scenes (though that is solid) so much as the way that many of the scenes are able to transition between scenes in creative and entertaining ways that often function as jokes in and of themselves. I’m not exactly sure how they did some of the most memorable cuts here, but it was pretty cool.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
Deexan 02-09-2011 06:29 AM
This was the major stand-out for me in terms of lack of acknowledgement from the Academy, those last 45 or so minutes are insanely well done.
Ramplate 02-09-2011 06:39 AM
Cool thread :cool:
PG Cooper 02-09-2011 03:30 PM
Must have been tough choosing between 127 Hours, Black Swan, and Inception.
Dracula 02-10-2011 09:13 AM
Best Cinematography
Cinematography is one of the most accessible categories of technical filmmaking, and yet also one of the trickier ones to judge. Often a rather subdued look will be the best approach to a given film, but that’s not always the easiest thing to single out for awardage, and sometimes the movies that superficially look the best aren’t necessarily the most creative works either. At the end of the day you sort of just need to go with your instincts.
The Book of Eli: The thing about cinematography is that a lot of sub-par movies tend to excel at it. People with low narrative standards still like looking at pretty pictures and this movie provides a lot of them. The movie employs a high gloss look throughout rooted in extremely bright skies contrasted with otherwise dark environments. It’s kind of the opposite of the extremely dark skies of last year’s The Road, but the effect is just as striking.
I Am Love: This Italian production chronicles a personal story within a world of great wealth and privilege. Though the film is set during modern times, its production feels like a lavish period piece and the cinematography is a big part of that. Its interiors feel like lush Victorian palaces and the exteriors look like renaissance paintings, but it does it all while still feeling like a look into the everyday lives of people in 2010.
Never Let Me Go: This dark prestige picture can be appropriately gloomy in look and tone, but there are moments when it’s able to capture landscapes and sunsets with such magnificent beauty that it creates an effect on the story that is almost poetic. In a movie about people who must come to appreciate the finer moments in life before it is over, there’s something really appropriate about having sunshine enter the frame amidst a lot of gloom.
Shutter Island: Deep down, I don’t think Martin Scorsese was tremendously passionate about the story he was telling on this project, but he was happy to use it in order to flex his visual filmmaking muscles. To do so he’s employed Robert Richardson, a giant of Hollywood photography to give the film a really beautiful look that’s one part noir and one part high class horror film.
True Grit: Roger Deakins has filmed almost all of the Coen brother’s films since 1991’s Barton Fink, and it has become a very fruitful relationship over the years. Here he has the opportunity to film western landscapes of the John ford variety and also gas lit interiors of the kind that many cinematographers would kill to film. He also films sun going through windows like it’s nobody’s business.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
Jack 02-10-2011 10:54 AM
Fair choice - about the only thing interesting going on in that movie.
Couple of my favorites were Black Swan, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1, Mother, A Prophet and The Social Network. Black Swan is in general my technical marvel of 2010. And I really think the Harry Potter franchise is underrated in the technical competence category among film fans. The past few films have just been gorgeous to look at and feature some pretty stunning design and effects.
Ramplate 02-10-2011 12:03 PM
I don't think the match scene was scary enough - it was very creepy in the book and missed the mark in my opinion - the rest of it all looked outstanding though.
On the whole, the book was much better
Dracula 02-10-2011 12:06 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ramplate (Post 2743692)
I don't think the match scene was scary enough - it was very creepy in the book and missed the mark in my opinion - the rest of it all looked outstanding though.
On the whole, the book was much better
I thought the cinematography in the book was overrated.
Ramplate 02-10-2011 12:08 PM
lol yeah I'm talking about the descriptive nature of the atmosphere in the book vs the visual result in the film
PG Cooper 02-10-2011 05:04 PM
Surprised Black Swan didn't get nominated. Shutter Island is a good pick though.
Dracula 02-10-2011 05:23 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by PG Cooper (Post 2743741)
Surprised Black Swan didn't get nominated. Shutter Island is a good pick though.
Yeah, I appreciate the camera movement involved in that movie, but I don't really think the grainy look really worked as well in that movie as it did in The Wrestler.
Ramplate 02-10-2011 05:30 PM
Yeah the filming style of The Wrestler was appropriate
Dracula 02-11-2011 01:19 AM
Commencing with the Character and Actor Awards
Best Villain
We all know how much a villain you love to hate can help make a movie great. The thing is, I’m a purist when it comes to classifying people as a villain. To compete in this category the character needs to actively be an antagonist within a movie (in other words, a guy who’s the main character of a film is inelligible even if he’s a truly evil S.O.B.), also I’m only nominating humans (so the Rock from 127 Hours is out), and I won’t be getting cute and calling “poverty” or “the government” or something a villain.
Martin Vanger- The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo: I’m probably going to have to blank out this whole paragraph, because it gives away the solution to the mystery, but the nomination is certainly earned. If nothing else, this Swedish adaptation of the best-selling novel is great at establishing it’s villains as truly vile bastards. This is a guy who murdered dozens of people in depraved ways and he tries to do similarly grizzly things to our heroes.
Frank D'Amico- Kick-Ass: The mob boss thing has kind of been done to death, but Mark Strong finds new ways to breathe life into the archetype with his performance in Kick-Ass. It’s in many ways a comical performance, with the character having to do mundane things while still being a cold blooded killer. But D’Amico can also be a rather physical villain who will kick you in the head and shoot you in the face.
Sir Godfrey- Robin Hood: Holy ****, this was a great year for Mark Strong playing evil bald people, and in this one he even has a scar on his face. The character is a spy, working for France but serving in the English court, and his ultimate goal is to weaken England from within to prepare for a French invasion. The guy is also a cold blooded killer who has no problem killing innocents to reach his goals.
Lucky Ned- True Grit: Lucky Ned doesn’t show up until really late in the run of True Grit, and we don’t realize that he’s the true villain until just as late. Barry Pepper has the distinction of sharing his last name with the character, but that’s trivial, what really matters is that he’s made the guy into a truly evil varmint. This character is a psycho not unlike Ben Foster’s work in another recent Western remake: 3:10 to Yuma.
Thump Milton- Winter’s Bone: We don’t see a whole lot of Thump Milton on screen in Winter’s Bone, but he’s built up spectacularly and when he finally does show up he definitely makes an impression. Played by an amateur named Ronnie Hall, this is an imposing figure, a hillbilly Vitto Corleone if you will. His actions seem to back up his reputation too, but we only really see the tip of the iceberg, the real appeal is the vile things we can only imagine him having done.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
Dhamon22 02-11-2011 02:28 PM
Good choice but I would've went with Dragon Tattoo.
PG Cooper 02-11-2011 03:08 PM
It's too bad Casey Affleck was out of the race by default.
Dracula 02-11-2011 09:31 PM
Best Cameo
Good things can come in small bites sometimes, and that can also include performances. Some of these are brief walk-ons that largely work because of unexpected celebrity placements. Other nominees here would function more as “limited roles,” where actors create entire performances within a few short minutes. Yeah, the people in the later category probably have an advantage, but hey, them’s the breaks.
Bruce Willis- The Expendables: Tons of hype was spewed onto the fact that Arnold Schwarzenegger had a cameo in this movie, and frankly it was a waste. The dude just showed up out of nowhere, did nothing, and then left. Bruce Willis wasn’t around much longer, but his role had more of a purpose and he seemed to be having a lot more fun with his role. I guess it shouldn’t be a surprise that Willis has more charisma than Schwarzenegger, but still.
Brandon Routh- Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World: There are a lot of super-powered exes in Scott Pilgrim, and their almost all defined by the fact that they make the main character really jealous. What’s going to give someone an inferiority complex more than Superman himself, albeit a Superman who isn’t particularly well remembered. The fact that Routh was pretty much cast in that iconic role for very superficial reasons just helps to underscore how vapid his character was here.
Daft Punk- Tron: Legacy: If nothing else, this functions as pretty much the only movie that Daft Punk could show up for a cameo, in their regular costume, and fit in with the surroundings perfectly. The duo plays a pair of MP3 files who function as a pair of DJs at a techno-computer nightclub run by a Ziggy Stardust channeling Martin Sheen. Wow, that’s a lot of radness.
Josh Brolin- True Grit: Every year I find myself nominating someone in this category who seems to push the limits of what can really be called a cameo. Brolin actually plays a character who is pretty important to the movie’s plot in spite of his limited screentime, still, this casting has that feeling of “hey, that’s josh Brolin” which I think sort of defines what a cameo is supposed to be.
Justin Long- Youth in Revolt: Michael Cera’s other coming of age quirk-fest from 2010 probably didn’t generate the buzz of Scott Pilgrim but it had some personality of its own. Justin Long, who has a surprisingly large number of cool cameos on his resume given that he’s deeply annoying in regular roles, plays the burnout stoner brother of the main character’s manic pixie dream girl. It’s one of the movie’s funniest aspects.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
Ramplate 02-11-2011 09:37 PM
still, this casting has that feeling of “hey, that’s josh Brolin” which I think sort of defines what a cameo is supposed to be.
Sean Connery made a great cameo like that in Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves
(except I didn't think "Hey! Josh Brolin!"
)IanTheCool 02-11-2011 11:19 PM
Perhaps the greatest cameo I've seen is Charleton Heston in Wayne's World 2.
Dracula 02-12-2011 06:17 AM
Best Supporting Actress
I enter into this category with one major regret: that I never got a chance to see Jacki Weaver’s work in the movie Animal Kingdom. I didn’t have the time to go out to the one theater in my area that was playing the movie and seeing it on DVD hasn’t worked out either (it’s been sitting on “very long wait” at the top of my Netflix queue for a while). Outside of that, I still think I was able to put together a fairly solid roster of nominees.
Mellissa Leo- The Fighter: Mellissa Leo is an old pro, and I loved her work in the 90s on the show “Homicide: Life on the Street.” Recently she seems to have made a rise to prominence, largely because of some good work she did in the movie Frozen River. Here she plays the larger than life blue collar mother from hell. You could say she’s just chewing scenery, but her character is supposed to be larger than life, and I’d say it was an appropriate choice.
Mia Wasikowska- The Kids Are All Right: Sitting pretty in the “best newcomer” corner is Mia Wasikowska, who followed up a noticeable role on HBO’s “In Treatment” with roles in the high grossing “Alice in Wonderland” and this critical darling. These kind of teenage roles can often become grating, but Wasikowska is able to turn her character into a “nice girl” without coming off saccharine or precocious. She makes the audience care about the character as much as the mothers do.
Keira Knightley- Never Let Me Go: A lot of people like to make fun of Keira Knightley, but she finds a way to keep surprising me. In this film she’s in the background, playing a foil to Carey Mulligan’s lead role. In doing so she also greatly de-glamorizes herself, especially towards the end of the film where she turns into an almost unrecognizable sickly character who needs to seem old while still being young. Disturbing stuff.
Delphine Chanéac- Splice: This is the kind of performance that’s easy to overlook, firstly because it’s different from what we usually look for in a performance and secondly because it’s from an actress who is completely unknown. Playing a genetically spliced monster, Chanéac needs to straddle the line between human and inhuman, generating sympathy for an entity that’s completely foreign to humanity. That she does this under heavy makeup and without spoken lines adds to the achievement.
Blake Lively- The Town: Blake Lively is one of those actresses who I hear the name of all the time, but who manages to never make a single movie that catches my interest. I have no interest in seeing any of those movies, but her work here as the main character’s baby-mama certainly impressed me. She does the Boston thing well in a year where everyone was doing it and was still able to stand out while doing it.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
PG Cooper 02-12-2011 07:22 AM
I found Mia Wasikowska one of the weaker links in The Kids Are All Right.
Ramplate 02-12-2011 07:54 AM
only saw The Town on that list
PG Cooper 02-12-2011 08:17 AM
I'm surprised Haley didn't get a nomination for his cameo in Shutter Island.
IanTheCool 02-12-2011 10:13 AM
I liked Wasikowska in Kids are Alright. I didn't find her a weak link at all, perhaps only in that she became less important to the movie in the second half.
I didn't think Lively stood out. To me it really seemed like she was trying too hard.
Dracula 02-12-2011 05:04 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by PG Cooper (Post 2744049)
I'm surprised Haley didn't get a nomination for his cameo in Shutter Island.
Forgot all about it. I re-watched the movie minutes after I posted that and realized my mistake.
Quote:
Originally Posted by IanTheCool (Post 2744052)
I didn't think Lively stood out. To me it really seemed like she was trying too hard.
Had trouble filling that fifth slot, thought about Kunis but ultimately decided she was a bit too close to her usual persona to really make it.
Drizzt240 02-12-2011 05:05 PM
Lame, I would of went with Daft Punk.
Dracula 02-14-2011 09:41 AM
Best Supporting Actor
Now this is rare: my taste and the tastes of the academy have lined up perfectly on something, at least at the nomination level. Part of the reason is that this is an unusually weak year in this category. Normally I have a multitude of good candidates and need to whittle them down, but this year it was pretty clear what the five main candidates were. I’m not sure if that speaks well of them or ill.
Christian Bale- The Fighter: I think the real brilliance of Christian Bale’s work in The Fighter is that he doesn’t shy away from the comedic side of the character he’s playing. It’s easy to focus on the tragic side of drug abuse, but that’s kind of self evident given the material, instead Bale focuses on turning Dickey Ecklund into a larger than life character of the kind who would over-shadow his brother. It’s similar to what Samuel L. Jackson did in Jungle Fever, but Bale is able to make the trick his own in this movie.
Mark Ruffalo- The Kids Are All Right: In The Kids Are All Right, Mark Ruffalo has the privilege and challenge of playing a character that has been masterfully dimentionalized by Lisa Cholodenko and Stuart Blumberg. Paul Hatfield is complicated, he’s basically a nice and decent guy, but he’s also someone who’s never really reached his full potential and who is maybe not the most stable person to bring into a family. Ruffalo needs to straddle the line between likability and unlikability in the movie and brings a lot of life into the project.
Geoffrey Rush- The King’s Speech: I’m sure there are other classy middle aged Australian actors with an aura of authority than Geoffrey Rush, but I certainly can’t think of them. Being the natural choice for a role definitely helps Rush’s case for nomination, but it doesn’t bring him across the finish line. What does earn him the nomination is that his work gives his otherwise stodgy movie something that’s essential to its success: fun and relatability.
Jeremy Renner- The Town: I never quite understood the rapturous response to Jeremy Renner’s work in The Hurt Locker (although that was true about a lot of things in that movie), but it was good work and it makes me appreciate his work in The Town even more. What makes this so impressive is the sheer difference between his work as a struggling bomb defuser in that movie and his work as a slightly psychotic robber in this one. He’s almost unrecognizable.
John Hawkes- Winter’s Bone: It could be argued that being an evil character is easy, and that it’s also easy to be a major hero, but the real challenge comes from playing a character who isn’t so easy to peg. That’s what John Hawks has to do here. Teardrop is a character who, on a narrative level, acts as the heroine’s ally. The catch is that he’s a scary son of a *****. You look at his face and you can tell that he’s more than likely killed someone with a broken bottle or something.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
Dhamon22 02-14-2011 10:48 AM
Definitely would've went with Bale here, but to be fair I haven't seen The Kids Are Alright yet.
PG Cooper 02-14-2011 03:22 PM
John Hawkes was one of the few things I really loved about Winter's Bone, so I'm glad he was nominated.
Drizzt240 02-14-2011 04:22 PM
Bull****.
Dracula 02-14-2011 07:58 PM
Best Actress
This has bay and large been a pretty good year for movies with female leads. Usually the lack of roles for female actors in Hollywood makes this category kind of hard to fill, but this year I didn’t have much trouble at all. I was able to find five worthy nominees without having had a chance to see Rabbit Hole or Another Year, and I still needed to leave off some prominent work from other films.
Natalie Portman- Black Swan: This is certainly the most talked about role of the year and also the role that probably sends its star through the emotional ringer through much of the film’s running time. That Portman is a perfect physical specimen to play a ballerina and that she learned a lot of her own dance moves is certainly worth noting, but what’s really getting people’s attention is obviously her decent into insanity, a challenge that Portman accepts with great gusto.
Michelle Williams- Blue Valentine: Michelle Williams’ career has been like a gift to the independent film world. She probably has the chops to be a star, but she is so often drawn to more challenging material like Blue Valentine. This is an “ordinary person” role, one that conforms to real world mannerisms, but it’s also a role that requires a lot of big emotions and a lot of shouting. That’s a tough line to straddle, and she also needs to let her character teeter towards and away from the audience’s sympathy.
Greta Gerwig- Greenberg: Some of the best and most oft-rewarded acting comes in the form of large theatrical performances. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s not the only game in town. Gerwig is one of the leading voices in a school of acting that seeks to replicate all the nuances of realistic mannerisms, warts and all. This was honed in a number of micro-budgeted “mumble-core” movies, but it translates nicely into a more conventional indie like Noah Baumbach’s Greenberg.
Annette Bening- The Kids Are All Right: The Kids Are All Right is a movie with two lead actresses in it, and there could be a strong argument for either of them being nominated (I’m not doing both, sorry). I ultimately went with Bening, not because she’s the one that most award groups are going with but because I ultimately thought she had the more difficult role. I found Bening to be deeply believable as someone’s mother, but she doesn’t always pander to the warmest image of what a mother is supposed to be, she has to bear the most responsibility in the family and must struggle with having to be “the bad guy” in family arguments. It’s difficult stuff, a lot more difficult than it is to be the “free spirit” to me.
Hailee Steinfeld- True Grit: I’m not the first person to argue that this is a lead role, not by a long shot. In fact, I think that a lot of what’s impressive about this is lost when the role is relegated to supporting status. Steinfeld needs to carry this movie, and that’s not an easy task for a thirteen year old. This is a character who often needs to act wise and strong beyond her years and that can easily become really annoying. That Stienfeld makes this believable and fun is a testament to her talent.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
IanTheCool 02-14-2011 09:28 PM
And she'll likely win the Oscar too.
I agree with you on Bening not having an easy role. She played it quite realistically.
shained 02-15-2011 04:00 AM
She probably will but personally would have went witht he girl from true grit
PG Cooper 02-15-2011 05:50 PM
Really glad Lawrence wasn't nominated for Winter's Bone. Ecstatic to see nominations for Benning and Steinfeld, and overjoyed to see Portman take the prize.
Dracula 02-15-2011 10:27 PM
Best Actor
Last year I famously (famous in my mind at least) gave Colin Firth an enthusiastic nomination and ended up leaving Jeff Bridges out of the running completely. This year, I find myself nominating Bridges and leaving Firth off the shortlist. I wasn’t doing the inverse of the Academy’s preferences on purpose and I didn’t disclude either from their respective years lightly.
James Franco- 127 Hours: James Franco’s work as a man stuck alone in a canyon in anguish has been discussed at length in many places. That’s all good, but I’m going to focus on what he does that’s really impressive: create a character. Aron Ralston could have easily come across as an unsympathetic douchebag, but Franco is able to make him into a really likable person from the get go and you can really see him evolve as a person throughout the character’s ordeal.
Ryan Gostling- Blue Valentine: What really impresses me about Ryan Gostling’s work in Blue Valentine is just how much his character seems to change between the film’s two timelines, while still sort of staying the same. You can see how he’s evolved into someone who would be less desirable to Michelle Williams, but you can also see the roots of what he’s become in those early years. Mix that with the scene by scene emotional acting and you’ve got a hell of a performance.
Casey Affleck- The Killer Inside Me: This year Casey Affleck has the unenviable position of having given an Oscar-worthy performance in a movie that very few people saw and which was seen as sort of a mess by the few who did. It’s unfortunate because Affleck is able to take his character from The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and apply it to this role as a sociopath who is simultaneously despicable and also sort of pathetic.
Leonardo DiCaprio- Shutter Island: Leonardo DiCaprio was in two major films in 2010, and while Inception was probably the greater work overall, I think he delivered the greater performance in Scorsese’s thriller. DiCaprio starts out by doing a riff on Sam Spade, and that’s pretty fun to begin with, but then they start putting him through the emotional ringer. This is in many ways the male equivalent to Natalie Portman’s role in Black Swan and while DiCaprion probably isn’t as through the roof as Portman was, he’s up there.
Jeff Bridges- True Grit: What impressed me about Bridges is how he was able to immediately get images of John Wayne out of the audience’s collective vision. While Wayne kept his signature personality through much of his interpretation of the Rooster Cogburn role, Bridges goes all out in his depiction of a rough, dirty, drunken frontier lawman. That he sounds remarkably similar to my chain-smoking and slightly redneck uncle only makes this more endearing to me.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
Neverending 02-15-2011 11:51 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dracula (Post 2744037)
Blake Lively- The Town: She does the Boston thing well in a year where everyone was doing it and was still able to stand out while doing it.
I'm sure her cleavage had something to do with that.
IanTheCool 02-16-2011 06:50 AM
Interesting and unexpected choice for best actor.
PG Cooper 02-16-2011 07:22 AM
Yes! I was hoping Casey would pick up a nomination. Glad Franco won though, I've agreed with both you're awards for lead actors.
Dracula 02-16-2011 02:22 PM
Best Ensemble
As much as we like to recognize individual achievements in acting, the truth is that filmmaking is in many ways a team sport. This award examines the film which managed to form a fully realized cast with actors who establish a chemistry amongst themselves. This is not simply an award for the movie that can sign on the most celebrities, this is about creating a roster that truly aids the film as a whole
Inception: Heist movies are often great places for good ensembles because they’re all about building a team. This team is particularly cutting edge, with Nolan bringing in a lot of actors who were right at the tipping point of their careers and giving them that extra push into stardom. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Tom Hardy, Marion Cotillard all prove themselves to be capable in action roles. Meanwhile, Nolan veterans like Michael Caine, Cillian Murphy, and Ken Watanabe show why the director keeps coming back to them. Add some veterans like Pete Postlethwaite and Tom Berenger and you’ve got a great cast.
The Kids Are All Right: Emphasizing quality over quality, this is a cast that’s built around solid and intimate chemistry. Annette Bening and Julianne Moore are very convincing both as a middle aged lesbian couple, and as mothers. Meanwhile Mia Wasikowska and Josh Hutcherson are both convincing siblings. And of course Mark Ruffalo is great as the interloper in it all. It isn’t all about the individual performances though, it’s also about how the personalities they create mesh with each other.
Shutter Island: Pretty much any actor will give up their first born in order to work with Martin Scorsese, so he can often fill his movies with A-list actors. Here he manages to bring in Ben Kingsley, Max Von Sydow, Mark Ruffalo, Jackie Earle Haley, Michelle Williams, Patricia Clarkson, Emily Mortimer, (catches breath) Ted Levine, and Elias Koteas. It goes even deeper than that, there are a lot of really good bit parts throughout, pretty much every part stands out as it otherwise wouldn’t had Scorsese not been able to bring this much talent in.
The Social Network: Bringing in a stable of veteran actors isn’t really a possibility for this film given that all the characters are under thirty. I was suspicious of Jesse Eisenberg before seeing this, but he really proved himself here with his take on Mark Zuckerberg, and Justin Timberlake was a brilliant casting choice as Sean Parker. Rising star Andrew Garfield earns some major cred, and of course Arnie Hammer made waves with his pseudo-dual role and the Winklevi.
True Grit: There’s no denying that the Coens were able to get some great performances out of Bridges, Damon, Pepper, and Brolin. There’s also no denying that Haley Steinfeld was a great find who really steals the show. But what really earns this film a nomination is the smaller parts that are so perfectly casted. I don’t know how they do it but the Coens seem to have a stable of bit-actors is interesting faces and voices that really seem to be a big part of their signature style.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
PG Cooper 02-16-2011 05:47 PM
Glad you didn't nominate The King's Speech.
Jack 02-16-2011 06:10 PM
Solid choice. The right one is Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, though.
Dracula 02-16-2011 10:50 PM
Best Line
And we’re on to the always controversial “best line” category. This is always difficult for me because, well, there are hundreds of lines in every movie and sorting through all of them in a year is never going to be easy. It’s also hard to tell ahead of time when a line is going to catch on and become iconic. The best I can do is highlight certain lines that stood out to me and which seem to stand up to some scrutiny. I’m sure I missed some good ones.
“I sold 26 of the ugliest cars in the middle of December with the wind blowing so far up my ass I was farting snowflakes into July.” –Get Low: There’s a sort of refreshing sincerity to Get Low, and this line is a bit of an example of it. The Bill Murray character speaking it is a salesman and exhibitionist prone to bragging and shameless sales tactics. This line shows his wit and also gives you a sense of his history.
“I actually hate coke. I hate it politically and I hate how it makes me feel.- Greenberg: This line, spoken by the film’s title character right before he snorts down a line at a high school house-party, is both amusing and kind of strange. What is coke politically? It conjures images of Wall Street brokers in the 80s and of upper-class decadence. In short it’s a drug for a**holes, the kind of people that this guy wants nothing to do with, but here he is diving in anyway. That he would say that out loud amuses me.
“Like every serial killer already knew: eventually fantasizing just doesn't do it for you anymore.” - Kick-Ass: This line, spoken in voice over early into the movie, delved into the kind of satire that I the movie as a whole would focus on before it sort of became what it set out to ridicule. Making a perfect analogy that expresses just how psychotic the idea of being a superhero would be in the real world, this is a funny line that shows just how bizarrely self-aware the main character is.
“…Did I adequately answer your condescending question?”- The Social Network: Note the ellipses at the front of this. They’re needed because this is the capper of a brutal speech that perfectly shows Mark Zuckerberg’s cockiness and how seriously he takes this lawsuit. It’s a great takedown and delivering it is also one of Jesse Eisenberg’s most fiery moments.
“Ground's too hard. Them men wanted a decent burial, they should have got themselves killed in summer.”- True Grit: This line highlights the brutal efficiency of Rooster Cogburn, a trait that defines both him and the environment that he exists in. Also notice the grammar here; “them men,” “got themselves,” this is frontier dialect and it stands out next to the hyper-formal speech that the other characters try to put on, further defining Rooster as a different kind of character.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
PG Cooper 02-17-2011 05:29 AM
Good choice.
IanTheCool 02-17-2011 09:21 AM
My personal favourite line was also from Social Network. "I'm 6'5", 220 lbs, and there's two of me."
Deexan 02-17-2011 11:58 AM
"I'm CEO, *****."
Dracula 02-18-2011 03:20 PM
Original Screenplay
Why do we divide adaptations and original screenplay? It usually isn’t readily apparent whether something is original or adapted when you watch a movie, and adaptations can often be loose. I suppose it’s because adaptations have a safety net that original screen plays don’t, they’re working with something that they know works. Original screenplays need to work from the ground up, and that often leads to this being the weaker categories, but not this year. I’m probably more confident in this roster of screenplays than I am in some of the adaptations.
Blue Valentine: It’s been well stated in a variety of interviews that a lot of the dialogue in Blue Valentine was improvised and that the written screenplay was disregarded in a number of ways. I don’t care. I haven’t read any of these screenplays and am in no position to comment on what was written on the page. As far as this goes, a screenplay consists of whatever makes it to the screen, and on that level Blue Valentine is most definitely worthy of this award.
Dogtooth: If nothing else, this is the most original of the original screenplays; in fact it’s the most original thing in many realms. This is a sly satire of closed off societies; be they totalitarian states, cult enclaves, or the suburbs. In its own small scale way it also has some very good world building that often doesn’t announce itself in overly obvious way. This is brave writing that’s possible to love or hate, but impossible to dismiss.
Greenberg: Greenberg is one of those small scale indies with a heavy focus on character and human interaction. Greenberg himself is an interesting and well developed character that carries the movie effectively and the film has some very solid dialogue and structure. I particularly like the film’s final moment, in which a climactic moment from a bit earlier is brought back in a clever way right before the credits role.
Inception: There seems to be a lot of nerdiness involved in the creation of science fiction scripts, I mean, it takes a special kind of person to create a universe in with numerous alien species with varying alliances and technological details. But most of those movies are still working within the traditions of the “space opera,” and many other sci-fi movies similarly follow stock concepts like “time travel” and “post-apocalypse.” But what formula do “dream-levels” derive from? You could argue they’re a form of the “virtual reality” genre, but it still invents most of its ideas. That is a rare accomplishment.
The Kids Are All Right: What I really love about the screenplay of The Kids Are All Right is the way it so deftly avoids cliché. The conventional Hollywood version of this story would have had a family confront a stereotypically homophobic father who, after some time, comes to accept the family and everyone lives happily ever after. Instead it makes Ruffalo a really likable person and leads the whole film in decidedly less predictable paths.
The Golden Stakes goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
JBond 02-18-2011 05:26 PM
Bravo. Good choice and explination.
PG Cooper 02-18-2011 06:40 PM
Ditto.
Dracula 02-18-2011 10:15 PM
Adapted Screenplay
Adapted would seem like an easier task than forming an original screenplay, but that isn’t really true all of the time. Sometimes a writer will be forced to adapt something that is categorically not easy to film, and he or she must find ways to make it filmable without destroying what made it work originally, and that can be a tricky balance. It is worth questioning just how “adapted” some of these are (was The Social Network really based on a book, or on original research), but I’ll play along.
127 Hours: Based on Aron Ralston’s non-fiction account “Between a Rock and a Hard Place,” the 127 Hours screenplay has the challenge of describing a movie with only one major character and relatively little dialogue. The movie that is created out of this script is consistently engaging and thematically cogent. Boyle and Beaufoy find a number of creative solutions to the film’s limitations, and the result is a really intense experience with a great catharsis.
The Ghost Writer: I feel like The Ghost Writer would be only moderately interesting as a book, but when adapted into a film screenplay by Roman Polanski, it becomes something altogether different. That the story seems to have remarkable parallels with Polanski’s real life legal ordeal is only the beginning, this also fits in perfectly with Polanski’s favorite theme: justified paranoia.
Shutter Island: How do I nominate a movie that had an ending which was… problematic. Well, I’ll start by pointing out that the adapted screenplay roster this year was surprisingly shallow. However, I still think there’s a lot to like about this script. For one thing, I like it’s re-contextualization of film noir, I also think it has some pretty good dialogue and I like the way it divvies out flashbacks and the way that it sets up a very ambivalent sense of reality.
The Social Network: Aaron Sorkin is one of the few people who has become sort of famous almost exclusively for writing film and televisions screenplays. This is for good reason because his rapid dialogue is always really fun to watch, and it’s in overdrive here. As I pointed out in the best line category, almost everything anyone says in this movie is interesting and quotable.
True Grit: Adapting Charles Portis’ novel for the second time, the Coens managed to stay true to his literary western tone while also making something that is unmistakably Coen in nature. At its heart are weighty themes of revenge, but the movie is also a very fun ride that’s highly accessible to the masses. It’s also loaded with witty, Coen-esque dialogue that is fun, but also feels appropriate to the period.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
PG Cooper 02-19-2011 06:03 AM
Agreed on both screenwriting choices.
Dracula 02-19-2011 10:01 AM
Best Trailer
I don’t think this has necessarily been the strongest year for trailers, but I still think I found some decent ones to choose. I guess what characterizes these is a lack of gimmickry, there aren’t any cute teasers here, it’s mostly traditional trailer-craft set to music. I am limiting this to movies that I’ve been able to see, so I can both judge how well it captures the true essence of the film and also make sure that it isn’t giving to much away.
The Expendables:
VIDEO-CLick to Watch!:
The Expendables ended up being a real dud as far as I’m concerned, it had the stars but the movie itself feels closer to a direct to DVD action film than one of the movies any of those guys would have made in their prime. That was not, however, readily apparent in this trailer, which effectively makes this look like a movie with a lot more weight (by dumb action movie standards) than it actually was. Make no mistake, the trailer makes it clear this is a Stallone joint, but it also makes it look like something a bit more… dignified, than the final product.
Inception:
VIDEO-CLick to Watch!:
What I admire about this trailer is its efficiency. It manages to give a reasonable explanation for the movie’s complicated presence (all without giving away many major plot points) while also selling it for its visual grandeur and as the badass action film it is. It also gives Hans Zimmer’s score a real workout and chooses just which visuals to give away without showing too much. And it does it all in two and a half minutes.
The Social Network:
VIDEO-CLick to Watch!:
Set to a choral version of Radiohead’s 1993 hit Creep, this trailer begins with now ubiquitous images from Facebook, before flashing back to 2003 and the site’s founding. You’re seeing images of smart kids doing smart things, but there’s an ominous tone to the whole thing. As the music digs deeper into its emotional desperation, the images become more and more intense, building up to some of the film’s more dramatic moments (out of context). You don’t know what these people are angry about, but you know you want to find out.
The Town:
VIDEO-CLick to Watch!:
Here’s another entry in the “make you movie look bigger than it really is file.” The Town itself is a wannabe, it really wants to be The Departed (it’s from the same studio!) meets Heat, but it isn’t, it’s ordinary and forgettable. But you wouldn’t know that from the trailer, which uses a thumping score and some really well chosen moments in order to make this look like a really dramatic crime thriller for the ages. It worked too, putting a lot of butts in seats.
True Grit:
VIDEO-CLick to Watch!:
Before the trailer debuted, we didn’t really know what to expect from True Grit (the Coen brothers remaking a John Wayne movie?), but once the trailers came in there really was no doubt that this was going to be a major film. The trailer sells the movie as a western epic (albeit one with some funny moments) and the use of Johnny Cash’s “Gonna Cut You Down” perfectly sells the films western brutality and the movie’s themes of revenge and retribution.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
PG Cooper 02-19-2011 10:13 AM
I think the Daybreakers trailer deserved a nomination since it's better than the actual film.
FranklinTard 02-19-2011 10:52 AM
actually the first time i saw the social networks ad i thought about this category. sad i know.
but definitely deserving of the win.
IanTheCool 02-19-2011 10:57 AM
I definitely think Social Network was the trailer of the year. You are right, there hasn't been a lot of great trailers, but that one certainly stood out regardless.
Dracula 02-19-2011 02:21 PM
Poster
I do love posters even if posters don’t always love me. All too often studios will go for simplistic designs with actor’s faces photoshopped in over an explosion, but some good ones still come out and it’s always cool when they do. As with all advertising categories, I’m only nominating material from movies that I’ve seen so that I can fully assess how well it represents its respective film.
Blue Valentine:
www.moviegoods.com//Assets/pr...732.1020.A.jpg
While many of the posters I’ll nominate here thrive on some very clever design, this one thrives on minimalism. The poster is sexy and passionate but in sort of a dangerous, Sid and Nancy kind of way. Even the tagline (a love story) is minimalistic, and so is the seemingly had written title. Sometimes all the design in the world is unneeded if you just have the perfect image you need.
Buried:
img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...2010Buried.jpg
How do you make a movie about a guy in a box? A lot of ways apparently, Buried actually has a number of good posters. This one is my favorite because it takes an element that’s often intrusive (critics quotes) and turns them into an artistic element. This text, including the title and release date, form a “Vertigo”-like spiral signifying the protagonist’s desperation.
Daybreakers:
www.moviegoods.com//Assets/pr...300.1020.A.jpg
So you’re making a proper vampire movie with a handful of name celebrities, what’s the easiest thing to put on a poster? A bunch of celebrities with fangs. They would do that eventually, but for this teaser poster they instead sold the much more interesting concept at the core of the film: a blood factory. It’s a little derivative of The Matrix, but it is still a pretty stark image to put up on a wall.
Exit Through the Gift Shop:
www.highsnobiety.com/news/wp-...y-poster-1.jpg
As a rule of thumb, I don’t include documentaries in most of these awards. It’s not out of a disrespect for non-fiction filmmaking, just a belief that they have very different goals from fictional narrative films and that they can’t be compared easily. However, because this award is all about something that is external to the films themselves I see no reason not to include them here. This is a particularly cool piece that incorporates both street art and conveys the film’s themes of commercialism’s bastardization of art.
Inception:
img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...0Inception.jpg
What I like about this poster is the way it manages to capture a number of the key elements of Inception (a movie that isn’t easy to sum up) into a single image. You’ve got the immense architecture, a stylishly dressed man, a hunt of action in that the man is holding a pistol, and then the water he’s standing in which gives the whole thing a dream-like quality. It also keeps DiCaprio’s back to the camera, and I always like it when they keep the star’s face out of these.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
IanTheCool 02-19-2011 02:25 PM
Eh, I don't really like quotes on movie posters or DVD covers, so I have to disagree with you there.
Dracula 02-19-2011 02:47 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by IanTheCool (Post 2745077)
Eh, I don't really like quotes on movie posters or DVD covers, so I have to disagree with you there.
I don't either, that's why I like seeing them used in a new and different way. It's like one of those artists who take garbage and use it to build statues and stuff.
PG Cooper 02-19-2011 03:55 PM
Glad Buried won, great poster.
shained 02-19-2011 09:04 PM
Just watched that tonight as well........good poster, maybe would have went with Giftshop personally.
Neverending 02-19-2011 11:47 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dracula (Post 2744974)
It took Nolan nine years to write this and I’m sure he has a notebook sitting around somewhere with the time differences between four dream levels meticulously written down.
And a DuckTales comic book next to it.
Dracula 02-20-2011 09:12 AM
Under-appreciated
Oh they always find, yeah they always find something wrong, they’ve been putting down films for way too long. They’re so gifted at hatin' so that they can boast. So I think it’s time for us to have a toast. Let’s have a toast for the insulted, let’s have a toast for the dissed on, let’s have a toast for the stray dogs, which deserved a lot better. Let’s have a toast for the underrated, which should have been tolerated. Baby I got a plan, give them the best award that I can.
Buried: Buried is a great example of a movie that feels like it could gain a bit of a cult following on DVD even though audiences largely ignored it in theaters. I can’t exactly blame mainstream audiences for their disinterest in it, it does sound like a pretty grueling experience on paper, but the movie was some really effective and entertaining work that they would have like if they gave it a chance. I think audiences are more receptive to high concept things like this when it’s an evening rental.
Green Zone: Sometimes I think movies like Green Zone just need a better release date in order to get a better reception. The film came out in mid march, right after 2009’s Oscar season, and standards were extremely high. If this had come out in late summer, in the wake of garbage like Grown Ups, I think people would have been much quicker to embrace this display of Paul Greengrass’ filmmaking prowess and the film’s passionate political message.
The Killer Inside Me: I actually gave The Killer Inside Me a negative review when it came out and I stand by that, but there’s a lot in it that I think deserved recognition. It had a great lead performance, a good tone, and strong filmmaking behind it. I don’t think it should have become a critics favorite, but I do think it deserved to make more of an impact than it did. In general I just wish more people would have seen it so they could know about its positive quality.
Never Let Me Go: I have pretty similar feelings about Never Let Me Go as I did about The Killer Inside Me. It’s a movie that I didn’t exactly write a glowing review of (maybe I’m part of the problem), but months after my first viewing it has stuck with me. As far as these sort of English prestige pictures go this is a cut above and it also has strong acting and production values.
Robin Hood: When this was first put out is was basically discarded. It was lumped in with other underperforming summer films like Prince of Persia and The Last Airbender, and while this is definitely a flawed film I think it deserved better than that. Maybe I’m just a sucker for Ridley Scott and the scope he brings to epic stories, the guy is just a master at production values andat making the worlds of his movies look big and real.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
Jack 02-20-2011 09:48 AM
I really didn't like Green Zone and wrestled with some of the same questions you pose. I strongly believe action movies can be political and have every right to wear their politics on their sleeve. Green Zone is just saddled with a bad script with no bite. Instead of engaging a discussion, it is pandering to one that has already been had by anyone with even a degree of interest in the Iraq war. I'm the target market for this movie, and I could feel it all the way through.
There is something refreshing about any mainstream film that doesn't back down from politics, and I appreciate their efforts to pull our foreign policy into a black and white "this is right, this is wrong" moral universe. I just think the script completely misses every opportunity to flesh out any character, and when you don't buy the characters, their political/emotional conviction just gets muddled. Even The Bourne Ultimatum was a more powerful political statement because we understand how betrayed and tired Bourne is by the end of that film because of what his government put him through. "Look at what they make you give" is infinitely more compelling than "The reasons we go to war always ****ing matter!"
All that said, there are many weaknesses outside of Green Zone's political compass that just bring it down further. The action stuff is OK, but not on the level that the Bourne movies were. All of the supporting cast features terrible turns by usually reliable folks. I'm still not sure what accent Brendan Gleeson was putting on and Amy Ryan looked bored out of her mind. Greg Kinnear is appropriately slime-y, but there is nothing subtle or sinister there, he just makes the guy an easy target and clocks out. I hated the Iraqi sidekick who literally explains his actions to the audience in a third act twist that is so obvious it could have just been left unsaid. Obvious. I think that's the key word here. Everything about Green Zone is abundantly clear and obvious and leaves no room for the audience to interpret or feel their way around anything. It talks down to the audience, and I just hate that.
PG Cooper 02-20-2011 11:17 AM
I really dug Green Zone, definitely deserved to win.
FranklinTard 02-20-2011 12:05 PM
i made it fifteen minutes into green zone on hbo. talk about forgettable.
shained 02-20-2011 12:28 PM
Watched Buried last night and thought it was decent but doesn't deserve to be raved about and while the same can be said about The Green Zone I thought it was a considerably better watch, would say Robin Hood was better than the pair though.
Dhamon22 02-20-2011 03:43 PM
Didn't like Green Zone or Robin Hood. Would've went with one of the other three.
JBond 02-20-2011 04:34 PM
Robin Hood was better than I had expected. 3 stars.
Justin 02-20-2011 04:39 PM
I would've gone with The Killer Inside Me or Never Let Me Go. I had the same problem with Green Zone as Jack did, apparently.
Dracula 02-20-2011 10:01 PM
Best Action Movie
A big part of finding the action movie of the year has to do with eligibility. What constitutes an action movie? Does a western with a couple shootings like True Grit an action movie? How about the medieval epic like Robin Hood with a few battles? Is the Town an action movie or a crime drama with a few notable set-pieces? I decided not to include those, but I still found five films that seem to hold the action movie torch this year.
Green Zone: I spent the better part of 2009 hearing people misrepresent The Hurt Locker as an action movie (even though it only had one action scene), and then Green Zone came along and showed us what an actual action movie set in Iraq would look like. This movie really effectively mixes a wartime thriller with trademark Greengrass action scenes. It maybe doesn’t reach the action heights of the director’s Bourne movies, but it’s pretty intense just the same.
Inception: People have talked at length about Inception’s special effects, complex storytelling, and general mind-bendingness the fact that it’s also a top of the line action movie sometimes gets lost. People forget that everyone on Leonardo DiCaprio’s team is armed and willing to do battle with the dream-security people on all levels. Plus, distorted gravity fight... ‘Nuff said.
Iron Man 2: The superhero genre took a bit of a break this year as the industry reved up for the onslaught of dudes in capes we’re going to get next year. Iron Man 2 was the one lone mainstream superhero film this year to tide people’s appetite, and while it was a highly flawed work I think it does mostly hold up as an action movie. The finale, with Iron Man and War Machine fighting the drones, is definitely an improvement over the lame finale of the first Iron Man, and there was also a pretty cool fight on a race track.
Predators: The Predator series was always a kind of strange version of action because they traditionally begin with a massive shootout, but then becomes a cat and mouse suspense movie, albeit one with an alien and a mini-gun. This installment in the series was nothing special, but it was nice to see that it was being made by someone who gives a damn. There’s a great cast of tough guys here and they bring many different brands of badass represented.
Salt: This movie has received a lot of hate from various channels, but I found it to be a refreshingly adult take on the action movie in an era filled with juvenilia. It has some very cool chases and some fairly intense fights and shootings. Characters really die in this movie and I admired that the director doesn’t pussyfoot around the violence (it should be noted that I saw the unrated cut). It’s not a classic by any stretch, but it is the kind of movie that I could easily get sucked into if I flipped to it on cable.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
PG Cooper 02-20-2011 10:32 PM
Great winning choice. But a nomination for Salt, really?
MovieBuff801 02-20-2011 10:39 PM
Agreed; Salt was bland, boring and really awful.
Neverending 02-21-2011 01:09 AM
Dracula and I have had our share of disagreements, but we seem to agree about Salt. Meanwhile, the rest of the world hates it.
shained 02-21-2011 09:00 AM
Inception is well deserving of the win. I didn't mind Salt, nothing special by any means but still a decent film. Pretty sure I saw the uncut version as well.
Dracula 02-21-2011 09:35 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jack (Post 2745151)
I really didn't like Green Zone and wrestled with some of the same questions you pose. I strongly believe action movies can be political and have every right to wear their politics on their sleeve. Green Zone is just saddled with a bad script with no bite. Instead of engaging a discussion, it is pandering to one that has already been had by anyone with even a degree of interest in the Iraq war. I'm the target market for this movie, and I could feel it all the way through.
There is something refreshing about any mainstream film that doesn't back down from politics, and I appreciate their efforts to pull our foreign policy into a black and white "this is right, this is wrong" moral universe. I just think the script completely misses every opportunity to flesh out any character, and when you don't buy the characters, their political/emotional conviction just gets muddled. Even The Bourne Ultimatum was a more powerful political statement because we understand how betrayed and tired Bourne is by the end of that film because of what his government put him through. "Look at what they make you give" is infinitely more compelling than "The reasons we go to war always ****ing matter!"
All that said, there are many weaknesses outside of Green Zone's political compass that just bring it down further. The action stuff is OK, but not on the level that the Bourne movies were. All of the supporting cast features terrible turns by usually reliable folks. I'm still not sure what accent Brendan Gleeson was putting on and Amy Ryan looked bored out of her mind. Greg Kinnear is appropriately slime-y, but there is nothing subtle or sinister there, he just makes the guy an easy target and clocks out. I hated the Iraqi sidekick who literally explains his actions to the audience in a third act twist that is so obvious it could have just been left unsaid. Obvious. I think that's the key word here. Everything about Green Zone is abundantly clear and obvious and leaves no room for the audience to interpret or feel their way around anything. It talks down to the audience, and I just hate that.
Those are all fair points I guess. I suppose when I go to a Paul Greengrass movie I don't go in expecting great new insights so much as I expect a very visceral look at an issue. I don't think we learned anything new from Bloody Sunday or United 93, but we did get this very exciting look at what happened. Green Zone does differ from those in that it's heavily fictionalized, but it does still give a pretty eye opening look at what it was like on the ground in the early days of the war.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Neverending (Post 2745313)
Dracula and I have had our share of disagreements, but we seem to agree about Salt. Meanwhile, the rest of the world hates it.
It's more like everyone on CS hates it. It got generally positive reviews, I think it's like 65 on Metacritic. Ebert even went so far as to give it four stars (which is crazy). I see it as being the kind of movie that will probably be in heavy rotation on TNT or FX and will probably get a reputation because of it.
Dracula 02-21-2011 09:44 AM
Best Horror Movie
Classification can be just as hard for horror films as it is for action films. Depending on what you consider a horror movie, this has either been one of the best years for horror or one of the worst. Does Black Swan count as a horror movie? How about Shutter Island? What about Buried? I finally did decide to include Buried, but the other two were too much of a stretch. As such, we’re left with a pretty damn weak year for the genre, and it looks like Hollywood is in search for a new trend in horror now that the torture porn thing is kind of over.
Buried: Though it plays out like more of a thriller than a horror movie at times, the fact remains that this movie largely acts as a visceral experience, and thus seems more closely aligned with horror than some of the other possible nominees that were disqualified. This would certainly be a horror movie for someone with claustrophobia and the basic concept is certainly horrific to think about.
The Crazies: The Crazies has the distinction of being the best entirely mainstream horror film of the year and of being one of the best horror remakes in a while. I’d also call it an all around improvement on George Romero’s deeply flawed 1973 version of the story. This is a slick production with some good zombie slaying and a really dark ending.
Daybreakers: If nothing else, Daybreakers has a fairly original concept to carry it. It probably isn’t the first story to envision a world where vampires are the majority, but it does realize such a world in a way that is pretty fascinating. Also, when the vampires get to doing what vampires do it is appropriately gory and when they “go feral” they are pretty freaky.
The Last Exorcism: Make no mistake, this movie has an incredibly stupid ending which brings down the movie immeasurably. However, there are some genuinely creepy moments in the lead-up that does earn the film a nomination here. Ashley Bell is genuinely creepy in her performance as a seemingly possessed girl contorting herself into all kinds of crazy poses. Also, there does seem to be some blood left in the found footage style against all odds.
Splice: More a monster film than a horror film, this is an example of a movie that uses horror tropes in order to examine an issue, specifically the implications of biological breakthroughs. Like many great Frankenstien stories, the film walks a line between being horrified at the monster and being sympathetic to its plight. It’s also not afraid to channel its inner Cronenberg in order to bring its story into some uncomfortable sexual places.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
Jack 02-21-2011 10:33 AM
Splice gets my vote for so-bad-it-is-good film for the year, but for Horror I'd go Monsters (also a stretch) or Paranormal Activity 2.
Backtrcking a little bit...did you see Secret in Their Eyes/is Secret in Their Eyes a "2010" film or is it ruled out for the same reason A Prophet was? I ask because that was hands down the best chase sequence I've seen in some time and I didn't see it in your noms.
Dracula 02-21-2011 10:40 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jack (Post 2745344)
Splice gets my vote for so-bad-it-is-good film for the year, but for Horror I'd go Monsters (also a stretch) or Paranormal Activity 2.
Backtrcking a little bit...did you see Secret in Their Eyes/is Secret in Their Eyes a "2010" film or is it ruled out for the same reason A Prophet was? I ask because that was hands down the best chase sequence I've seen in some time and I didn't see it in your noms.
I am considering Secret in Their Eyes a 2009 film (basically anything that was eligible for the Foreign language Oscar last year is ineligible). I'm probably going to change my eligibility rules next year. I did see the movie, but not until after I wrote the "best chase" category anyway.
Justin 02-21-2011 01:00 PM
Splice was all right, but the ending was pretty bad. The Last Exorcism's was far worse, however.
unity768 02-22-2011 07:36 AM
Glad to see Splice win, it earned a spot on my list.
shained 02-22-2011 08:13 AM
Was pretty disappointed in Splice, would have picked The Crazies over it.
Neverending 02-22-2011 11:16 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jack (Post 2745344)
Paranormal Activity 2
I know PA2 is a horror flick, but I like to look at it as a comedy. The same applies to the original. Those two movies are so hilarious that I can't take them seriously as horror. And I'm not alone. When I saw PA2 in theaters, half the audience was laughing their butts off. It resulted in my favorite moviegoing experience for 2010. I had a blast. The audience was definitely tearing the movie apart.
Dracula 02-22-2011 12:19 PM
Best Comedy of the Year
I’ll say it upfront: this was a ****ty year for comedy, the worst in a long time. It feels like Apatow’s R-rated comedy bubble burst or something and what we’re getting now are the scraps left over. While all of the movies I nominated are comedies of some stripe, I only think two of them are really looking to be laugh out loud funny. Otherwise there’s a pretty long parade of movies from this year that did not look like they were worth my time.
Dogtooth: Seeing this on a list of comedies might shock some people, and I admit that it is not a comedy in the way most people define the term, but I’d argue that at its heart the movie is indeed a (very) dark comedy. To be clear, I’m not calling it a comedy because it’s “funny,” in fact I don’t think I laughed out loud at any point in the movie. But there is something perversely (and horribly) amusing about seeing they insane ways that an entire household has been twisted by a web of lies and misconceptions woven by a pair of parents and then undone by the influence of outside information.
Get Him to the Greek: Get Him to the Greek is probably one of the only straight-forward comedies on this entire list and it’s also the movie I liked the least. What can I say, it was this or Hot Tub Time Machine. To the movie’s credit, Russell Brand is a relevant comedian and Diddy has a surprisingly funny role here as well. Actually the more I think of it the less of an embarrassing nominee this is, but it still hurts me that the Apatow brand has been brought to this.
Greenberg: Greenberg is one of many films being nominated here that are only kind of/sort of comedies. This film has a sort of bone dry wit throughout, and it does star Ben Stiller, but to call it a “comedy” is kind of a hard sell. It certainly plays straight and doesn’t have a ton of belly laughs to its name, but there are humorous moments and lines like a late scene where Stiller snorts cocaine in the middle of a wild high school party.
Kick-Ass: Kick-Ass is a movie that ultimately wimps out and panders to its comic-con audience’s goofy sensibilities, but at times it does manage to bring Mark Millar’s dark and deeply sarcastic voice to the screen in some genuinely funny ways. Seeing the main character become a “superhero” and then get beaten up and injured because of it is pretty brutally funny. It’s only when the movie forgets that it’s supposed to be a satire and begins engaging in stupid jetpack-related antics that it loses its way.
The Kids Are All Right: Like a Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner for the 21st Century, The Kids are All Right deals with a societal issue by bringing it down to a human level and letting the audience laugh at the awkwardness of it rather than cringe at the tragedy that can potentially lie at its heart. This is not too far in tone from the indie dramedies that have been in vogue as of late, and it has the same sort of naturalistic laughs that we get from other like minded movies like Sideways and Little Miss Sunshine.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
Neverending 02-22-2011 01:04 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dracula (Post 2745514)
I’ll say it upfront: this was a ****ty year for comedy, the worst in a long time.
This was a horrible year for straight-forward comedy. But there was good stuff elsewhere. Toy Story 3 was humorous - as most Pixar films tend to be. Despicable Me was the funniest movie in 2010. True Grit was more comedy than anything else. Scott Pilgrim, as flawed as it was, is technically a comedy and worked in that sense. And speaking of Pilgrim, Kick-Ass isn't really a straight-forward comedy. It's an action-comedy.
I'd say the best straight-forward comedies in 2010 (of the ones I saw) were:
Easy A
Cyrus
Youth in Revolt
Due Date (although this movie was extremely flawed)
Diary of a Wimpy Kid
IanTheCool 02-22-2011 01:10 PM
I never thought of it but yes, this was a weak year for comedy.
PG Cooper 02-22-2011 05:01 PM
I hated Due Date, Despicable Me, and Diary of a Wimpy Kid.
Neverending 02-22-2011 09:09 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by PG Cooper (Post 2745541)
Due Date
Robert Downey, Jr. was great in it. I'd recommend it just for his performance.
Quote:
Despicable Me
farm6.static.flickr.com/5175/...724f0c4b_m.jpg
Quote:
Diary of a Wimpy Kid
It's a harmless family film.
Jack 02-22-2011 10:31 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Neverending (Post 2745507)
I know PA2 is a horror flick, but I like to look at it as a comedy. The same applies to the original. Those two movies are so hilarious that I can't take them seriously as horror. And I'm not alone. When I saw PA2 in theaters, half the audience was laughing their butts off. It resulted in my favorite moviegoing experience for 2010. I had a blast. The audience was definitely tearing the movie apart.
Well, with the audience on your side, you're probably right.
PG Cooper 02-23-2011 05:51 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Neverending (Post 2745589)
Robert Downey, Jr. was great in it. I'd recommend it just for his performance.
It's a harmless family film.
Downey couldn't save that film. As for Diary, it may be a harmless family film, but it was annoying, boring, and tedious to sit through. And not in anyway remotely funny.
Dhamon22 02-23-2011 06:13 PM
Yep, terrible year for comedy. I would've went with Kick-Ass or maybe Cyrus.
Dracula 02-27-2011 01:06 AM
Best Foreign Film
Yikes, this is sad. Yeah, you’re reading this right, there are only three nominees here and it’s because I’ve only really been able to see three foreign films this year. This is because I’ve been operating on a strict eligibility rule that only allowed films that are truly 2010 films into the running and not 2009 films that finally get released in 2010. In the past I’ve justified this saying to myself “if they wanted a chance at an award, they should have put it in my theaters on time.” But now that it’s resulted in this sad showing it’s clear to me that I can’t pretend I can use these rules anymore. I’ll use more reasonable eligibility rules next until now… bear with me.
Dogtooth: This Greek satire envisions a household in which a domineering father has chosen isolate his children and teach them that leaving the home would mean certain death. There’s something grimly humorous about seeing the resultant behavior, but the overall reaction the film is meant to elicit is shock and disgust. What’s most shocking is that this is actually a fairly plausible scenario, and the whole thing could easily be an allegory for the way nations like North Korea are run.
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo: I probably wouldn’t have nominated this film had I had a chance to actually watch more foreign films this year. The movie is a passable potboiler with a number of flaws, but it’s enjoyable enough. Still, aI’m kind of glad I’m nominating it because it represents the kind of release that more foreign films should have (I.E. one that can be seen in a timely manner by people who don’t live in New York). Hopefully it can lead the way for other foreign films that aren’t based on bestselling books.
I Am Love: This Italian film is a bit tricky to analyze because it takes a bit of a left turn in it’s third act which is… hard to judge. This is a film that shoots for greatness, employing top of the line set decoration, cinematography, and acting. The story is set in modern times, but it often feels like a sort of strange period piece in the way it deals with family politics and in how it seems to be set in elaborate villas. It’s a beguiling film, one that’s hard to fully appreciate in one viewing.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
Dracula 02-27-2011 01:09 AM
Documentary of the Year
Unlike the foreign category, I’d say that this has been a banner year for documentaries, both in terms of what’s been released and in terms of what I’ve actually gotten a chance to see. Well sort of, this is still a niche type of film and I haven’t been able to see everything. Actually I haven’t seen the year’s two highest grossing and most talked about docs (Waiting For Superman and Inside Job), and yet I’m still perfectly comfortable picking these five as high water marks for documentary filmmaking, and that shows just how deep the field is this year.
Exit Through the Gift Shop: How to talk about Exit Through the Gift Shop in so limited a space. I suppose what says volumes about the film is that pretty much everyone seems to love it except for a handful of people whose only complaint is that they think it’s a hoax. I don’t care about that, I’m not an investigative journalist and I’m not obsessed with keeping from getting fooled. All I care about is that a movie is fun, smart, well made, and thoughtful. “Exit” is all of the above.
Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work: If you only know Joan Rivers as “that old chick who ruined the Oscars,” you need to see this. These “profile documentaries” are a dime a dozen and a lot of them are awfully self serving, this one isn’t, it’s an unflinching look at the lifestyle of an important cultural icon. Over the course of a year we watch Rivers at her lowest and at her highest, and come to understand her in ways we didn’t realize we wanted to.
Restrepo: If nothing else, the makers of this documentary deserve commendation for their courage. These documentarians put themselves in harms way in order to document the lives of soldiers in a particularly dangerous area of Afghanistan. These filmmakers should also be congratulated for their detached journalistic approach to their subjects. The film is perhaps easier to respect than to like, but that’s still quite an accomplishment.
Smash His Camera: This film about paparazzi culture is in the interesting position of having a very likable protagonist, albeit a likeable protagonist that seems to be hated by absolutely everyone that’s interviewed for the film. Pioneering celebrity photographer Ron Galella, seems like a charming and harmless old man, but everyone calls him a creep and a locust. It’s an odd dichotomy and it’s at the center of a film that functions quite well as both a biography and as an exploration into the ethics of this strange career choice.
William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe: This certainly isn’t the most elegant of the nominees here, it has a workmanlike PBS-style presentation and mostly consists of stock footage and talking heads. However, this is a very informative documentary about a fascinating person I frankly feel ashamed for having not really known about beforehand. I suppose this would be less impressive to people who already knew a lot about the progressive lawyer at the center, but I learned a lot. This kind of informative historical documentary is easy to take for granted, and this one is a hell of a work.
The Golden Stake goes to…
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
Dracula 02-27-2011 01:15 AM
And for the second straight year the clock runs out and I don't have time to really do my top ten in a timely manner. I would normally stretch these out over a couple days and write blurbs for each but... hell, I feel like I've written enough about all these movies, I think my opinions are clear.
The Number 10 Movie of the Year:
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
The Number 9 Movie of the Year:
Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:
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!:
JBond 02-27-2011 04:57 AM
Exit Through the Gift Shop was great. Best doc I've ever seen...though I don't tend to go for them or watch many. Thanks for recommending it to me, by the way.
And the right movie is #1.
PG Cooper 02-27-2011 06:49 AM
Good job on this and great top ten. Reminds me once again I need to see Blue Valentine.
Drizzt240 02-27-2011 09:24 PM
Where is the King's Speech?
JBond 02-27-2011 10:54 PM
Not in the top ten?
Dracula 02-27-2011 11:05 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by JBond (Post 2746166)
Not in the top ten?
Not in the top twenty
JBond 02-27-2011 11:22 PM
No, I was answering his question.
PG Cooper 02-28-2011 06:09 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dracula (Post 2746172)
Not in the top twenty
*Nods head in approval.
Deexan 02-28-2011 09:18 AM
Well done Drac, great thread as always.
docstop 02-28-2011 11:17 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dracula (Post 2746172)
Not in the top twenty
I loved the King's Speech. Why so low Drac?
Dracula 02-28-2011 11:36 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by docstop (Post 2746245)
I loved the King's Speech. Why so low Drac?
It's bland, formulaic, and undistinguished. It's basically The Karate Kid for old people (the scene with the record is wax on/wax off). Visually it's pretty much a Masterpiece theater episode. The acting is good, but it's not everything people are making it out to be. Basically it didn't interest me all that much, I gave it three stars and saw little reason to rate it higher.
ViRUs 02-28-2011 12:44 PM
Great job Drac, I didnt comment a whole lot, but I followed it every step of the way. Nice top ten, I still need to see Blue Valentine. But I definitely have to see Exit Through the Gift Shop now after what you had to say.
FranklinTard 02-28-2011 12:57 PM
don't forget inside job. its perfect. breaks down the entire financial crisis, from their ideology, to a play by play of how de-regulation lead us to this place. and how nothing has changed, and nothing will in the foreseeable future.
ViRUs 02-28-2011 01:00 PM
Really? I'll have to check that one out too.
docstop 03-01-2011 10:22 AM
I'm going to check out Inside Job too.
docstop 03-01-2011 10:24 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dracula (Post 2746248)
It's bland, formulaic, and undistinguished. It's basically The Karate Kid for old people (the scene with the record is wax on/wax off). Visually it's pretty much a Masterpiece theater episode. The acting is good, but it's not everything people are making it out to be. Basically it didn't interest me all that much, I gave it three stars and saw little reason to rate it higher.
Found it a little bland myself and there weren't a lot of new elements but I liked the time it was set in and the acting was amazing. I agree its not the best thing to come along in movie history but I always enjoy a movie where a personal struggle is overcome.
