Dracula Presents: The Fifth Annual Golden Stake Awards

Dracula 01-26-2012 09:53 AM

Dracula Presents: The Fifth Annual Golden Stake Awards



Has it been five years already? Wow. What have I been doing with my life. Anyway, like I did in 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010, I'm trying to put my opinions together in an award show format, with both nominees and a winner. This will feature both typical Oscar catagories and fun categories.



Bassicly what I want to do here is post one catagory a day for four weeks. The First week will be scene based catagories (best fight etc.), The second week will be technical awards (best editing etc.), The third week will be acting awards, and the last week will be genre awards and will culmimate in Best picture which will be announced in a top ten format.



These awards will be entirely based on my opinions, but I don't plan to have this being an entirely self indugent pursuit. I hope that each catagory will lead to discussion and that people will find themselves playing along and giving their opinions about these various catagories.



So, without further ado I'll give out the first of the scene based awards:



Fight of the Year

We begin our journey through 2011’s scene awards with the fight of the year. Fight scenes are all about melee combat between two individuals or an individual against multiple combatants, but not a battle scene involving groups of multiple individuals going up against one another. Swords, knives, clubs, or bare fists are all options. Choreography is a factor but so is creativity, overall execution, dramatic impact within a film, and general audacity.



Sir Francis Haddock Vs. Red Rackham- The Adventures of Tintin: Midway through Spielberg’s adventure film we get this unexpected flashback to the high seas exploits of Sir Francis Haddock as he gets into a big sea battle with Red Rackham. This is a large scale sword fight that takes place in a number of different stages, but the most fun part comes when Haddock starts to ignite a powder fuse and needs to fight Rackham off in order to keep it lit in order to destroy the ship. I suppose it’s a bit of a spoiler to say this ends with a bang, but… it does.



Driver’s Foot vs. Elevator Guy’s Skull- Drive: Calling this a “fight” might be a bit of a stretch, but what it lacks in elaborate choreography it makes up in sheer ****ing brutality. In the scene the Driver is in an elevator with the woman he’s been trying to protect, he knows that the man with them is likely an assassin and when that man strikes he’s ready to take action. We expect a Hollywood style fight, but instead we witness the driver graphically stomp the guy’s ****ing face in. The result was one of the year’s most discussed scenes.



Garage Fight- Hanna: The high concept of Hanna is that it’s about a teenage girl kicking ass, but the most interesting fight scene involves her father played by Eric Bana. In the scene Bana fights off four or five government agents that are trying to take him down. It’s a short scene but notable because it’s done entirely in one shot, and not in a distractingly showy way either. The choreography is spot on and it ends with a cool knife throw that acts as a really good cap on the whole thing.



Car Murders- I Saw the Devil: This is a scene that sees Drive’s graphic murder that sort of counts as a fight, raises it a victim and puts it into an even more cramped location. You can cut the tension with a knife seeing serial killer Kyung-chul sit in a taxi cab before finally seeing him pull out a knife and brutally murder the driver and a fellow passenger in a very bloody manner. You can see the victims struggle to react to this sneak attack and fight back in a frighteningly realistic manner and the fact that Kim Ji-woon was able to film it so effectively in such a small location speaks voumes.



Xavier vs. Magneto- X-Men: First Class: Taken on its own this scene probably lacks the scope or the length to really compete in this category. At the end of the day it is just a couple of guys having a tussle and throwing a couple ungraceful blows at one another. However, this is a fight that holds a major place in the overall mythology of this series and the fact that they’re ultimately fighting over the fate of humanity (or more specifically the missiles heading toward the ships) gives this fight a symbolic and emotional weight that is larger than the fight itself.



The Golden Stake Goes to…

Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:



Neverending 01-26-2012 10:03 AM

I haven't seen "Drive" or "Hanna" yet, so I'll reserve judgement.



PG Cooper 01-26-2012 11:27 AM

Good choice.



Thinking about though, I think Drive had the better fight scene. If nothing else because it's been permanently etched into my brain. Well deserved nomination for Hanna too.



Ramplate 01-26-2012 11:42 AM

Hanna was very good



FranklinTard 01-26-2012 03:01 PM

weak year for fights.



PG Cooper 01-26-2012 03:57 PM

Two of the year's best fights were in Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows and Warrior, but I'm pretty sure you didn't see either of those.



DarthVader 2004 01-26-2012 04:00 PM

I am gonna have a best fights award for sure. I don't think will do an MTVs best kiss award though.



I think another best fight not on the choices but should have been included was Hobbs vs Toretto.



shained 01-26-2012 04:14 PM

I haven't seen TinTin but no nomination for Warrior or Real Steel?



Think fights in both of them are more deserving than the Drive one.



IanTheCool 01-26-2012 04:42 PM

Tintin had an excellent pirate battle. Perhaps the best.



Dracula 01-26-2012 04:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PG Cooper (Post 2785611)

Two of the year's best fights were in Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows and Warrior, but I'm pretty sure you didn't see either of those.

You assume correctly



Quote:

Originally Posted by shained (Post 2785616)

I haven't seen TinTin but no nomination for Warrior or Real Steel?



Think fights in both of them are more deserving than the Drive one.

Didn't see them.



Neverending 01-26-2012 06:38 PM

I agree with the people. Warrior had some great stuff, especially any fight scene featuring Tom Hardy. They portrayed him as the Mike Tyson of MMA. And, Real Steel, despite being advertised as a corny film, is actually quite good and entertaining. The final fight scene was great, especially with the awesome Danny Elfman score, who once again, got overlooked at the Oscars.



Dracula 01-27-2012 12:06 AM

Best Use of Source Music

While there haven’t been a ton of truly memorable soundtracks this year, there have been a number of isolated scenes which have memorably incorporated popular music in order to spice up the proceedings. What I’m looking for here are choices that are creative and which effectively compliment their scenes, they do not necessarily have to be good songs on their own and the scenes don’t necessarily need to be great on their own either.



“Oh My Love” by Riz Ortolani ft. Katyna Ranieri- Drive: This category is usually about popular songs being recontextualized to scenes from films. This isn’t exactly what you’d call a “popular” song, in fact it’s a downright obscure song from a similarly obscure Italian movie called "Addio Zio Tom." It’s one of a number of similarly obscure songs used in Drive, but this song works most memorably to give an operatic feel to a scene involving an attack by a man in a Halloween mask.



“Orinoco Flow (Sail Away)” by Enya- The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo: Ah, the old Stanley Kubrick trick of using ironic music to underscore disturbing scenes. The perverse musical choice here is the corny New Age hit “Orinoco Flow” by Enya, which is played by the film’s villain on a reel to reel player while he tortures a major character in the film. The fact that the guy listens to this **** while he does his killing only makes him seem all the more evil.



“Gangster’s Paradise” by Coolio- The Green Hornet: The Green Hornet is all about what would happen if a Seth Rogen type dude decided to become a superhero just for ****s and giggles. What would someone like this do once they got a pimped out cool looking car? Cruise while playing a bomb ass song of course. And once you’re playing this nostalgic 90s rap song (on vinyl no less) what are you going to do? Sing along like a fool of course, and then have you Asian friend jump in on the hook.



“Ain’t That a Kick in the Head” by Tony Bennet- Mission: Impossible- Ghost Protocol: The prison escape scene early in Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol works because it has a certain rhythm to it as Tom Cruise runs from prison block to prison block. This rhythm is provided by this old school pop standard performed by Tony Bennet, which is an ironic choice given that heads are most certainly kicked in the scene.



“La Mer” by Julio Iglesias- Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy: Before seeing TTSS I read on Wikipedia that there would be a version of “La Mer” on the soundtrack and I sort of groaned. This is song that has been used and reused in every movie from The Diving Bell and Butterfly to Finding Nemo. What I didn’t realize is that this wasn’t Charles Trenet’s version of the song or even Bobby Darren’s English version “Beyond the Sea.” Instead it’s a disco rendition of the song by Julio Iglesias which, when applied to a montage in the film’s last moments, finally injects this dull movie with a bit of energy to end on a high note.



The Golden Stake Goes to…

Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:



JBond 01-27-2012 12:33 AM

Interesting category. Did you have this one last year?



And is the Kubrick comment in reference only to Singin' in the Rain? Or were there more?



Dracula 01-27-2012 12:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JBond (Post 2785723)

Interesting category. Did you have this one last year?



And is the Kubrick comment in reference only to Singin' in the Rain? Or were there more?

"We'll Meet Again" at the end of Dr. Strangelove comes to mind, "The Mickey Mouse Club" at the end of Full Metal Jacket, maybe.



I have had the category every year. Previous winners include "How You Like Me Now" as used in The Fighter, "The Times They Are A' Changin'" as used in Watchmen, and "Twist and Shout" as used in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.



JBond 01-27-2012 01:21 AM

Oh yeah, and "Funkytown" in The Shining.



PG Cooper 01-27-2012 04:53 AM

Drac, that most recent award proves you aren't a real human being or a real hero.



Neverending 01-27-2012 11:22 AM

It doesn't surprise me that Dracula would snub this:



VIDEO-CLick to Watch!:



shained 01-27-2012 01:21 PM

I wasnt as fond of drive as a lot of people but the soundtrack was by far and away the best of any film I watched last year.



Dracula 01-27-2012 03:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PG Cooper (Post 2785740)

Drac, that most recent award proves you aren't a real human being or a real hero.

I just wasn't under that movie's spell.



PG Cooper 01-27-2012 03:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dracula (Post 2785799)

I just wasn't under that movie's spell.

Well played sir.



Dracula 01-27-2012 08:31 PM

Shootout of the Year

Fighting with fists and swords is all well and good, but these days firearms are the true decider of combat scenarios, and the staging of epic gun fights has been a staple of cinema going back to The Great Train Robbery. A couple of the choices here are a little bit of a stretch I guess, but the way I see it this category is all about action scenes that primarily involve firearms, even if the bullets are only really going one way.



Hotel Room- Drive: This seems like a pretty quiet scene at first. The driver and his bank robbing accomplice are in a hotel room trying to regroup, and then out of nowhere his accomplice gets her ****ing head blown off by a damn shotgun through the bathroom window. The shooter tries to do the same to the driver but… that doesn’t work out too well. We don’t often see the gory results of gunfire in movies, but this very graphic scene shows that shootings can be just as gross as stabbings.



Dock Shootout- The Guard: While much of this film focuses on the less exciting aspects of police work, bullets do start to fly in its final scenes. This scene has Brendan Gleeson recklessly attacking a group of drug smugglers while Don Cheadle provides covering fire from higher up on the dock with a damn AK. It’s not particularly glamorous, but it gets the job done, and Cheadle really does look pretty cool while firing that assault rifle.



Daily Sentinel Shootout- The Green Hornet: The Green Hornet was an… interesting movie, sort of. It had its moments anyway, and this is one of them. The scene finds our heroes cornered in their own office and surrounded by henchmen, what to do? Shoot your way out of course. And when they’re done doing that they can escape police gunfire by driving out a damn window.



Van off bridge- Mission: Impossible- Ghost Protocol: Every Mission: Impossible movie has an elder agent handing down orders to Ethan and this time its Tom Wilkinson. This time Ethan gets his briefing in a van and everything is going according to plan when BAM, Wilkinson is shot in the head and the van is careening off of a bridge. Now Hunt is under water and he has half a dozen Russians shooting at him. What’s he to do? Well, he doesn’t know either but he has a hunch.



ATF Vs. The Five Points Trinity Church- Red State: The ending of Kevin Smith’s horror-satire-thriller largely consists of an epic standoff between ATF agents and the insane homicidal religious fanatics/gun nuts of the Five Points Trinity Church. Though the production values aren’t exactly through the roof, Smith adds a lot of interest to the scene firstly by making it clear that any of these characters are liable to be killed at any moment. Additionally, Smith adds a certain level of ambiguity to the scene by making the ATF’s methods less than noble, making the viewer question who they’re really rooting for.



The Golden Stake Goes to…

Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:



PG Cooper 01-27-2012 08:34 PM

I thought Drive's was a lot better. It was shorter sure, but unlike the one from Red State, I actually remember all the details of it.



Dhamon22 01-27-2012 08:37 PM

I would've went with Drive for both the shootout and fight scenes.



Dracula 01-27-2012 08:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PG Cooper (Post 2785857)

I thought Drive's was a lot better. It was shorter sure, but unlike the one from Red State, I actually remember all the details of it.

Is there an award that you don't want to give to Drive?



PG Cooper 01-27-2012 08:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dracula (Post 2785860)

Is there an award that you don't want to give to Drive?

Several, but of the three you've given so far, I've found Drive most deserving of at least two. Though I think the Best Fight of the year came from Warrior.



MovieBuff801 01-27-2012 11:36 PM

I'm actually with Drac on the Red State shootout. It overall more successfully put me inside the shootout than the one in Drive did. Plus, there was more time to appreciate the Red State shootout.



Dracula 01-29-2012 04:42 PM

Chase of the Year

The third of the scene awards is the chase of the year, which can consist of car chases, foot chases, or mid air chases. Of course there’s room for more than that if a film can come up with some sort of unique and original chase that doesn’t fit into any of those boxes.



Magical Door Chase- The Adjustment Bureau: This chase doesn’t necessarily work the way most Hollywood chases do, but it makes up for this through creativity and for its context in the overall movie. One of the major science fiction ideas at the center of the film is that there’s a network of teleporting doors that allow people to quickly travel from place to place. In the film’s final moments Matt Damon jacks this technology and runs off with his love interest from place to place in an attempt to escape the regulators in suits who are closing in. The scene gives the viewer a feeling of breaking out of an established order that gives the scene a power that’s grander than its run time.



Bagghar Chase- The Adventures of Tintin: This chase through the fictional Moroccan port city of Bagghar is certainly the year’s largest and most ambitious chase sequence. The scene begins with a motorcycle chase, incorporates the flooding of a large valley, has a tank rushing through the streets with a architectural structure attached to it, and culminates in Tintin zip-lining down a line while chasing an intelligent hawk that’s stolen something from him… that’s a lot of stuff.



Chasing the Nazi Spy- Captain America: Most heroes need to spend some time to get used to their new powers, but Captain America launched into a big action sequence just a few minutes after he was turned into a super spy in Captain America: the First Avenger. Chasing the Nazi spy who shot his creator through 1940s New York, Steve Rogers shows his sheer determination by refusing to give up on the chase even when a submarine comes into play.



Opening Heist- Drive: The driver in Drive promises to help people escape in five minutes or less and in the opening scene he lives up to that promise. Using a simple looking but powerful car he helps a set of bank robbers escape with their loot by using police radios against his pursuers and then carefully outrunning his pursuers. The audience isn’t quite sure how he’s going to get out of this situation, but once he manages to use a crowd at the Staples center in his final escape you feel he’s earned it.



Sandstorm Chase- Mission: Impossible- Ghost Protocol: Shortly after the already famous hotel climbing sequence we get this chase scene that begins in the lobby of that hotel and continues on foot as Ethan Hunt and his target run straight into a sand storm. Here the film makes good use of the lowered visibility in order to give the scene a cool tension, especially once Hunt and his target finally get into some cars and play a high stakes game of blind chicken.



The Golden Stake Goes to…

Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:



shained 01-29-2012 05:57 PM

Would have went with MI personally







IanTheCool 01-29-2012 06:15 PM

That Tintin chase was simply awesome.



shained 01-29-2012 06:16 PM

No one wanted to go see that :-(



DVD shouldn't be too far away now though.



PG Cooper 01-29-2012 07:11 PM

Yay!!!!



Good nominees too. The only one I disagree with is The Adjustment Bureau. On a technical level, the chase was fine, but I found the movie became a bit of a mess at that point.



Neverending 01-29-2012 07:35 PM

I haven't seen Drive yet, but the Tintin chase scene was beyond awesome!



clow1 01-30-2012 10:32 AM

good movie



Dracula 01-30-2012 11:05 AM

Best Musical Performance

Every year I think that I’m not going to find five nominees for this category and that I’m going to have to drop it, and yet every year I seem to find five worthy entrants by year’s end. Almost none of these scenes are from actual musical films, but all of them show a character engaging in a musical performance of sorts within the film’s plot. To be clear, I’m not judging this by which scene depicts the most talent or skill, in fact some of these performances are outright bad. The key is that the performance needs fit with the plot and work within the scene.



Tap Dance- The Artist: The Artist is all about a silent movie actor trying to find a place in the world of sound cinema. In the real world there was no place for these people, but in the world of this movie there is a place: movies that consist of nothing but two straight hours of nothing but dancing. That would seem stranger if we saw any more of the film than the one scene we do, but that one scene is pretty damn good, and the movie breaks its silence gimmick in order to let the audience hear the tapping sounds as the two dancers do their Astaire/Rogers thing.



Propaganda Number- Captain America: You don’t often expect to see musical numbers in the middle of your superhero movies, but a third of the way into Capitan America we see the hero performing in a propaganda performance accompanied by a Rockettes-like chorus line singing an original song about a “star-spangled man with a plan” in the middle of all this there’s a clever reference to the iconic cover of the first Captain America comic book.



Marcy’s Song- Martha Marcy May Marlene: During Martha/Marcy May’s time in the commune/cult she joins she becomes enraptured with a song that cult-leader Patrick writes for her. The thing is, this song doesn’t make the slightest bit of sense, it’s just a bunch of pretentious ramblings. She doesn’t realize this though because it sounds sort of cool and mysterious and she’s flattered by the attention she’s getting. In this sense it’s a good allegory for her overall indoctrination by this group.



The Daughter’s Song- Moneyball: When you’re making a movie that could be reduced to “the baseball statistics movie” you kind of have to do a lot to turn up the human factor. One way they did this was by incorporating a sub-plot about Billy Beane’s daughter and her budding musical hobby. At one point the kid sings a cover of this twee little song (I think it was from a commercial or an episode of Scrubs or something) and does well for an amateur. A recording of her doing this song is then reused to great effect at the end of the film, where the lyrics seem to tie in with Beane’s mood.



New York, New York- Shame: The song “New York, New York” debuted in the in a Martin Scorsese movie and has since been covered by Frank Sinatra himself, so it takes balls to use it in your own New York film, but the ever fearless Steve McQueen does just that in a pivotal scene in Shame. Carey Mulligan sings a stripped down version in a restaurant with a lot of pauses, it’s not a cover that makes you think she really wants to “be a part of it,” but it’s captivating nonetheless.



The Golden Stake Goes to…

Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:



PG Cooper 01-30-2012 02:45 PM

Damn, I really wanna see Shame.



Justin 01-30-2012 03:20 PM

Same here. I'm actually surprised I missed it, considering how much I loved Hunger.



PG Cooper 01-30-2012 03:28 PM

My theater didn't get it



Justin 01-30-2012 04:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PG Cooper (Post 2786071)

The only one I disagree with is The Adjustment Bureau. On a technical level, the chase was fine, but I found the movie became a bit of a mess at that point.

I agree. I thought the ending was pretty cheap.....



Dracula 01-30-2012 04:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Justin (Post 2786164)

I agree. I thought the ending was pretty cheap.....

I also thought that the ending was lame, but the chase leading up to that stupid deus ex machina was interesting.



PG Cooper 01-30-2012 04:28 PM

I actually thought his first encounter with the bureau, the one in the office building, was way more interesting. Though I don't know if it would really count as a chase.




Neverending 01-30-2012 05:15 PM

The best musical moment of 2011 is:



VIDEO-CLick to Watch!:



Dracula 01-31-2012 12:37 AM

Set-piece of the Year

The “set-piece of the year” award is sort of a catch-all for big, ambitious, and expensive looking scenes that don’t quite fit in with any of the other categories. Past winners have included the Waterloo Station scene from the Bourne Ultimatum, The Battle of Santa Clara from Che, and the theater fire from Ingourious Basterds. In short, it’s a great big “other” category, that I can use to honor scenes that I loved and wouldn’t otherwise be able to categorize.



200 vs. 13- 13 Assassins: We’ve seen what happens when seven samurais take on fourty bandits in a Kurosawa film, but what happens when thirteen assassins take on two hundred trained guards in a Takashi Miike film? Utter chaos and badassery, that’s what happens. We get something like thirty minutes of carnage with dozens upon dozens of men getting sliced with swords, shot by arrows, exploded by gunpowder, and run over by flaming bulls. The sheer scale of the scene and its dependence on choreography rather than visual effects dwarf the accomplishments of many Hollywood films.



Dubai Mountaineering- Mission: Impossible- Ghost Protocol: Much the way you expect to see Indiana Jones go through a room filled with unpleasant creatures, you expect to see Ethan Hunt dangle from a rope at some point during every Mission: Impossible movie. Brad Bird takes things a step further by taking the rope away for much of the already iconic Dubai climbing scene where Tom Cruise uses magical (yet not overly reliable) suction gloves to climb the outside of a glass hotel. Not for the acrophobic, but certainly good stuff.



The Golden Gate Bridge Battle- Rise of the Planet of the Apes: What would you do if you were a cop tasked with standing your ground at one end of the Golden Gate Bridge as a swarm of intelligent apes began to charge you for all directions? Probably run. Anyway, this scene paints that scenario with great effects and creativity. At times I feel like I should make a separate category for “best climactic action scene.” That’s a category that this would surely be a big contender for.



Train Crash- Super 8: There’s a story (almost a legend at this point) that a young Steven Spielberg once tied fireworks to his toy trains and crashed them so that he’s have an effects shot for his amateur home movie. Well, J.J. Abrams has a better effects budget to work with in his Spielberg tribute, and the result is the single biggest and most intense bit of pyrotechnics this year. In fifteen plus years of destroying major landmarks Roland Emmerich has never matched the intensity that Abrams is able to elicit in this relatively small scale disaster.



Dawn of Time- The Tree of Life: In one of the most audacious flashbacks of all time, Terrence Malick contextualizes the events of his film by showing us that it is all the result of billions of years of cosmic formation, evolution, and history. After consulting scientists and employing the visual effects artist Douglas Trumbull (who did similar work in the science fiction classic 2001: A Space Odyssey), Malick creates a thrilling and truly gorgeous montage that I won’t soon forget.



The Golden Stake Goes to…

Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:



JBond 01-31-2012 02:01 AM

That scene had to win something.



PG Cooper 01-31-2012 05:26 AM

Can't argue with that.



ViRUs 01-31-2012 12:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neverending (Post 2786169)

The best musical moment of 2011 is:



VIDEO-CLick to Watch!:

Lol, I definitely agree.



Neverending 01-31-2012 01:58 PM

"Man or Muppet" is too low-brow for Dracula.



IanTheCool 01-31-2012 05:22 PM

I like it. Though both the Dubai and the train crash were also very worthy.



Justin 02-01-2012 02:03 AM

Good pick, although I missed a few of those nominations--namely Rise of the Planet of the Apes, 13 Assassins and Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol.



JBond 02-01-2012 03:56 AM

Just saw Drive today. That opening scene was brilliant.



Justin 02-01-2012 03:57 AM

Yeah, it was great.



JBond 02-01-2012 04:01 AM

Though I have to admit I wasn't that thrilled about the rest of the movie. Didn't resonate with me.



Dracula 02-01-2012 11:11 AM

Best Makeup

I’ve never really had a category for general visual effects, firstly because I often don’t see the biggest of the summer CGI-fest like Transformers, but also because it tends to be kind of obvious what film has the biggest budget and thus the best special effects. Makeup on the other hand seems like a more interesting form of visual effects category that can come in a variety of forms.



13 Assassins: Gore baby, gore. The gore effect in this movie are positively ill. We see dudes getting split up by swords and getting their blood spilled all over the ****in’ place. Director Takashi Miike has always been a talented distributor of fake plasma, and while nothing here has quite the disgusting quality of some of his horror movies, it makes up for it in quantity. This is like the ceiling on the Sistine Chapel of blood spilling.



Captain America: Captain America himself is a rather human superhero who doesn’t really need makeup very much… but his villain isn’t. Johann Schmidt (AKA Red Skull) is a dude who’s had his skin removed by science and has a blood red face. Sometimes he wears a realistic mask over this freaky face (which is itself an impressive makeup effect), but by the film’s end we’re really seeing a dude with red all over his face and it looks pretty damn real.



The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo: This isn’t the kind of “special effects makeup” that I usually honor in this category, but when you consider that it’s the makeup department’s job to make the Lisbeth Salander look consistently interesting over the course of the film you beign to see that they deserve some praise. For one, they need to give her the titular tattoo, which is large and interesting. Also they give her this weird black makeup mask over her eyes during a pivitol revenge scene and that’s appropriately awesome too.



Uncle Boonmee Who Could Recall his Past Lives: Not every movie with cool makeup effects are visual effects spectaculars, in fact good makeup can be used to add realism to quiet and experimental arthouse films like Uncle Boonmee. One of the many things that happens to the titular uncle is that his son returns to him as a sort of ape monster (don’t ask me why), and while this monster isn’t brought to life with overly expensive effects he does have an iconic look because of his bright red eyes against dark fur that you can’t quite make out.



X-Men: First Class: Looking more toward the traditional “effects makeup,” this film is filled with characters who are in full makeup throughout the film including Mystique, Beast, and Azazel, among others. You almost take the makeup work for granted here, which is kind of an accomplishment. The performances come through the makeup quite effectively and you almost just think of these creatures simply as characters, an achievement that Prof. Xavier would be proud of.



The Golden Stake Goes to…

Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:





Best Sound

I don’t know what drove me to create this category when I did the First Annual Golden Stake Awards, because I’m decidedly unqualified to talk about movie audio. The audio sources at the various theaters I go to see movies are not remotely consistent and pretty much anything I saw on my pathetic home theater system has no real way to compete either. But the truth is that I wouldn’t even be able to judge this stuff if all my audio set ups were pristine, because when I’m seeing a movie the last thing I tend to pay attention to is the audio setup. So, usually I just give this to whatever seemed to be the loudest movie and that probably won’t change too much this year, so reading this will be sort of a waste of your time. You have been warned.



The Adventures of Tintin: When audio always seems to stick out when you’re dealing with animation because the viewer knows that nothing was recorded “on location” and everything was created in a soundstage. This may be inaccurate because people under-estimate just how much sound is added to live action cinema in post-production. Here we get a full scale action movie’s audio created in post-production, and it’s pretty damn loud.



Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark: Audio in horror movies is really important, sometimes because you want to jolt the audience with the foley equivalent of shouting “boo!” or because you want to create a generally creepy atmosphere. To this film’s credit it’s mostly doing the latter of the two. In order to make the film’s haunted house seem creepy as hell, director Troy Nixey filled his movie with odd scratches on the wall and creepy moaning from radiators that are very well designed.



Mission: Impossible- Ghost Protocol: A lot of people talk about how big the screen is at IMAX theaters, but IMAX theaters are also ****ing loud. I haven’t been to an IMAX screen that didn’t feature room shaking audio; in fact I bet they calibrate their subwoofers specifically so they will shake the theater. I saw this movie at an IMAX screen so it was ****ing loud too. The last two years I gave this award to loud movies I saw at IMAX theaters, so this one has a pretty good advantage to.



Super 8: There are some movies that are able to be a huge song showcase in a short period of time and that train explosion scene is one hell of a showcase. In fact I bet there are more than a few people who will use that scene in order to show off their new home surround sound systems. There’s more than that of course, I think I remember that alien making some cool noises too, so, that’s good sound design right?



Thor: You know what happens when you hit a dude with a club? You make a loud noise. You know what happens when you hit a dude with a hammer? You make an even louder noise. And what happens when you hit a dude with a magical hammer? You make a really loud noise. Thor is filled with loud noises like that all throughout the film, largely because Thor hits a whole lot of people with his big magical hammer.



The Golden Stake Goes to…

Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:



FranklinTard 02-01-2012 11:15 AM

for makeup... guessing you didn't see j edgar?



Dracula 02-01-2012 11:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FranklinTard (Post 2786407)

for makeup... guessing you didn't see j edgar?

No, and I've heard very mixed things about the makeup in it.



Neverending 02-01-2012 11:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dracula (Post 2786406)

If only Sam Raimi had the courage to do the same thing with The Green Goblin…

It has been 10 years. I think we can move on.



Dracula 02-01-2012 11:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neverending (Post 2786410)

It has been 10 years. I think we can move on.

Never!



Neverending 02-01-2012 11:58 AM

It worked within the context of the story. He was making military equipment after all.



IanTheCool 02-01-2012 05:30 PM

You nominated X-Men for makeup? Even with Beast? That made me think I was back in 1968 watching Planet of the Apes.



Neverending 02-01-2012 08:07 PM

You were alive in 1968?



IanTheCool 02-01-2012 08:09 PM

no, i suppose not.



JBond 02-01-2012 09:17 PM

He got there by time travel only to find it was actually the future, but there were apes, but it was also the past, and also Marky Mark was there.



Neverending 02-01-2012 09:56 PM

media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lyklai2Aje1qcsmi7.gif



Dracula 02-02-2012 03:52 PM

Soundtrack of the Year

Most of the time a year’s films will be almost evenly split between movies that have original scores and movies which have soundtracks culled from existing recordings. Not this year. This year was positively dominated by original scores and I needed to scrape just to find five movies that were even eligible for consideration in this category. Still, I’m mostly happy with the five nominees I was able to find even if they’re kind of in here by default. Also to be clear I’m examining the music as it was used in the film, not the soundtrack albums which may or may not have been released.



50/50: Jonathan Levine’ first film, The Wackness, was filled with music from the 90s and his musical taste hasn’t moved on much in his second film. The difference is that 50/50 focuses on the rock and roll side of that decade rather than the Hip-Hop side. The two standout music choices are Radiohead’s High and Dry, which mirrors the main characters sense of isolation in a key scene as well as the use of Pearl Jam’s gibberish anthem Yellow Ledbetter over the end credits.



The Descendants: The Descendants is one of those movies that makes a big deal of showcasing its location and to do that it makes extensive use of traditional Hawaiian folk music. I can’t say that I’m all that familiar with Hawaiian music, but I sense that this soundtrack would be a good primer for anyone looking to get into it. It’s probably not all that easy to comb a genre of music like this in order to pick out the various tracks that will underscore various scenes correctly.



Drive: Just to be clear, this nomination is strictly focusing on the five pre-existing songs used in Drive, not Cliff Martinez’ original work. Fortunately those five songs prove to be really memorable. Kavinsky & Lovefoxxx’ “Nightcall” has this hypnotic croaking vocals thing going on, College’s “A Real Hero” is an earworm that you can’t get out of your head as you leave the theater, Chromatic’s “Tick of the Clock” is positively propulsive, and I already talked about how effective Riz Ortolani “Oh My Love” was in the Best Use of Source Music category.



The Green Hornet: In its own oddly forgettable way, The Green Hornet’s soundtrack is an embarrassment of riches. In fact it was one of the few movies all year with a traditional soundtrack made up of a large assortment of very popular and instantly recognizable tunes. It’s got everything from The White Stripes “Blue Orchid” to The Digital Underground’s “Humpty Dance” to Johnny Cash’s recording of “I Hung My Head.” The downside is that this soundtrack’s eclecticness is a reflection of the movie it’s from, which is a mess that varies widely from scene to scene.



Shame: Shame had some original music, but not much, most of it is from existing sources. The soundtrack is even split between old dance tunes by groups like Chic, Tom Tom Club, and Blondie which reflect the glamorous surface that Brandon’s lifestyle occasionally seems to have and melancholy instrumental pieces that reflect the way he actually feels. These instrumental pieces are mostly from the collected recordings of the Canadian pianist Glenn Gould. I tend to shy away from collections of classical music in this category, but they are meant to clash with the popular songs so I’ll give it a pass.



The Golden Stake Goes to…

Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:



Neverending 02-02-2012 11:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dracula (Post 2786406)

I’m decidedly unqualified to talk about movie audio.

Paramount made this for people like you:



VIDEO-CLick to Watch!:



PG Cooper 02-03-2012 05:49 AM

Good choice for Best Soundtrack, though I think Cliff Martinez's score is equally awesome.



shained 02-03-2012 06:13 AM

Completely agree with Drive winning the soundtrack.



Dracula 02-03-2012 09:12 AM

Best Original Score

In retrospect, this has been an amazing year for original scores with damn near every movie I saw having a score that was at least worth noting. It’s been so good that I had to make some difficult choices in order to narrow down the options. I had to omit great work by noted composers like Alexandre Desplat, Michael Giacchino, Alberto Iglesias, and Trent Reznor. Hell, I even had to omit not one but two new John Willaims scores.



The Artist: Given that The Artist is a silent film, it’s only natural that the film’s score is going to be front and center. This poses some interesting challenges for composer Ludovic Bource and one of the more interesting side effects is that the soundtrack is constantly in flux. While most scores find a theme and just do variations on it for much of the film, this score really changes a lot as the film goes on. That many of the different sections are in their own way worth remembering says a lot.



Contagion: Scores have increasingly incorporated electronic sounds recently and Cliff Martinez’ work on Contagion was an excellent example of how these sounds could be used without sounding out of place at all. Considering that the film is about the spread of an invisible plague, this pulsing music is almost like a manifestation of the disease spreading through the air. It’s great stuff to have stressed out characters in difficult situations do walk and talks to.



A Dangerous Method: Wager loomed large over cinema this year, playing a major musical role in both Melencholia and A Dangerous Method. The use of Wagner’s music is particularly appropriate in A Dangerous Method given the film’s setting, but that’s not what I’m awarding here. What I’m awarding is the original music by Howard Shore, particularly the film’s main theme, which I suspect will be used in half of the movie trailers that are cut in the next couple of years.



Hanna: There’s been a recent trend of popular electronica artists making film scores, and this score from The Chemical Brothers is probably the most adventurous one yet. When the action scenes take off the score is impressively percussive and intense, but the music really excels in its depiction of the film’s twisted fairy tale tone. There’s a song on here which sounds like some kind of insane psychedelic amusement park, and that’s enough for a nomination right there.



Take Shelter: David Wingo has been working as a composer for the last ten years, but hasn’t gotten a lot of recognition for his work. For Take Shelter he needs to bring a very menacing tone to the table, but also make it fit in when played against some seemingly mundane locales. What he’s essentially done is made a horror film’s score, and insert it into film that hues much closer to being a standard drama for much of its running time. The results aren’t necessarily going to be something you are humming when leaving the theater, but within the movie they’re haunting.



The Golden Stake Goes to…

Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:



PG Cooper 02-03-2012 01:57 PM

Particularly happy to see Contagion and Hanna nominated.



Justin 02-03-2012 02:19 PM

Same here, especially Hanna.



Neverending 02-03-2012 03:20 PM

Some of my favorite scores of the year:



SHAME BY HARRY ESCOTT



VIDEO-CLick to Watch!:





X-MEN: FIRST CLASS BY HENRY JACKMAN



VIDEO-CLick to Watch!:





PIRATES 4: ON STRANGER TIDES BY HANS ZIMMER & COMPANY



VIDEO-CLick to Watch!:





MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 4 BY MICHAEL GIACCHINO



VIDEO-CLick to Watch!:





REAL STEEL BY DANNY ELFMAN



VIDEO-CLick to Watch!:



iv3rdawG 02-03-2012 03:28 PM

Yeah, the score for Shame was probably my favorite. Particularly during the amazing scene near the end of the film. It was so incredibly loud in the theater that I saw it in. 12 minutes of excellence. Similar to what Neverending posted but in full, here it is.



VIDEO-CLick to Watch!:



Neverending 02-03-2012 03:33 PM

I haven't seen Drive or Hanna yet, but if I were to pick a #1 score for 2011 at this moment, it would be Shame... with The Artist at a close #2.



iv3rdawG 02-03-2012 03:41 PM

It really depends on what you like. Shame is more of a conventional score while Drive and Hanna aren't, though were seeing more of that lately and I'm not complaining. Ugh, thinking about it more I might have to go with Drive. It's a toss up between the two.



JBond 02-03-2012 05:39 PM

I was talking about the Oscars with my sister who's not into film and she mentioned how The Artist (she hasnt seen it) would be a good choice for the Best Score Oscar. I was so happy. I thought she was becoming a cynic just like me. Not only was she being sarcastic, she thought silent movies didn't have music. Because, you know...they're silent.



:/



Neverending 02-03-2012 05:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by iv3rdawG (Post 2786681)

Shame is more of a conventional score while Drive and Hanna aren't

I love movie scenes where music fills the gap. I posted the train scene because Michael Fassbender and that woman are just staring at each other, but the music is telling the whole story. I know some people prefer subtlety in their film scores, but I've never been that way. I love obvious, in-your-face music.



MovieBuff801 02-03-2012 07:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neverending (Post 2786699)

I know some people prefer subtlety in their film scores, but I've never been that way. I love obvious, in-your-face music.

I'm the same way. Some of my favorite scores of the year include Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part Two, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, X-Men: First Class, Sherlock Holmes 2, Pirates 4, Transformers 3 and Contagion.



Neverending 02-03-2012 07:32 PM

I should also point out that my favorite "Needle Drop" in 2011 was Gore Verbinski using Danny Elfman's Kingdom theme in Rango:



VIDEO-CLick to Watch!:



IanTheCool 02-03-2012 09:47 PM

I wasn't really a fan of Drive's soundtrack.



Justin 02-04-2012 03:11 AM

Martinez has done better.



Dracula 02-04-2012 09:29 AM

Best Film Editing

This is always a tough category to call, because it isn’t always easy to remember the intricacies of how a film was cut in retrospect. What’s more, there are many who would argue that the best cutting is invisible cutting, the editing that you don’t think about while you watch the film. Still, I always give this a shot just the same. I’m looking for films that establish a fast pace overall, but which also construct individual scenes in efficient and expressive ways.



The Adventures of Tintin: While most animated films do everything they can to follow the rules and patterns of live action film (except with talking animals), Spielberg seemed much more intent to use this new medium in order to do thing he wouldn’t normally be able to do with actors and cameras. Most aptly, he does a lot of really interesting scene transitions that sort of dissolve certain elements into a scene seamlessly.



Drive: The strength of Drive’s editing is obvious during the various action scenes (say what you will about Winding Refn, but the dude knows just the right moment to cut away from a crushed skull), but here I’ll focus on how his leisurely editing during the quiet scenes allows the film to have a really chilled out and moody vibe.



The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo: While TGWTDT runs a lengthy 158 minutes. It does drag at times, but that has more to do with the script than anything. On the editing front I think Fincher and his editing team have done a remarkable job of keeping things moving without making the film feel rushed at all. Consider also the excellent way he’s able to cross-cut between certain sequences and the way he’s able to put together certain set pieces, and the nomination is more than earned.



Moneyball: It’s easy to show your editing prowess in an action film, but it can be more difficult to show your skill in a talky drama. The thing is, Moneyball has a lot of interesting factors it has to deal with including stock footage, flachbacks, montages, sports footage, and also that brisk Sorkin dialogue that demands attention when cutting between actors. Moneyball handles all of this effectively while maintaining a certain lazy but enjoyable pace that’s rather appropriate to the sport of baseball.



The Tree of Life: Terrence Malick’s films have always used editing to give themselves a sort of ethereal quality, and this one takes his style to its logical extreme. Formed in a non-linear stream of conscious fashion, the editing of The Tree of Life mirrors the thought patterns that we have when contemplating “big” issues and reminisce about things past. There’s a real art to knowing exactly when and where to cut to a landscape or to an extreme close up and do it lyrically rather than randomly.



The Golden Stake Goes to…

Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:


PG Cooper 02-04-2012 09:47 AM

The only one I disagree with is Moneyball, which I thought was insanely slow.



Neverending 02-04-2012 07:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dracula (Post 2786736)

Best Film Editing

No Limitless? Oh, right. You HATED the movie. You also snubbed The Artist with it's rapid pace and energy that allowed a mass audience to appreciate a silent film made in 2011. Tintin is nice and all, but Rango is superior in every shape and form. You probably haven't seen the movie, but you should since it's a spaghetti western directed by Gore Verbinski and starring Johnny Depp. Attack the Block had that "action formula" you talked about and applied it to a story about aliens in the ghetto.



Dracula 02-04-2012 08:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neverending (Post 2786780)

No Limitless? Oh, right. You HATED the movie.

Hate is a bit strong. I did greatly dislike it and remember nothing about its editing.



Neverending 02-04-2012 08:11 PM

Let me refresh your memory:



VIDEO-CLick to Watch!:



Dracula 02-04-2012 10:14 PM

Best Art Direction

Art direction is the art of designing and populating a film’s sets and settings and crafting the overall look of the production. Detail is key here. Being able to create a huge environment with cool patterns and paint all through it is all well and good, but can you make it look like a place where people actually live and work? Can you make it look worn and aged like a real location would be? Can you find interesting details about it that give it that extra bit of relatability.



Contagion: Most art directors make sets that look at home on film, the team who made Contagion instead made sets that would look at home on CNN. The film tasked them with making realistic government facilities, homes that look like actual people live in them, and also large urban environments that have been laid to waste by disrepair and mass hysteria. All the while it avoids the temptation to make these locations look “cool” rather than “real.”



A Dangerous Method: Period “costume dramas” have long been huge draws for this category, but it should be noted that “costume drama” isn’t about royalty, it’s about psychologists. Consequently it’s filled with cluttered offices and overly sanitized hospitals. The film makes these settings seem less like gaudy “period detail” and more like actual places where people live and work. It avoids drawing attention to its budget as much as possible.



Hanna: The art direction in Hanna serves an interesting purpose in that it plays a big part in altering the film’s tone and giving certain scene a sort of odd element of the fantastic. Of course the whole movie isn’t like that, there are many scenes set in very normal environments, but whenever Hanna gets involved with any actual spy **** the locations take on a very odd and almost hallucinogenic design.



Hugo: The art direction in Hugo, much like the rest of the film, carefully walks a line between fantasy and reality. For example, the film’s central train station set seems like a pretty real representation of a train station circa 1931, but once you go behind the stations walls things get a little more fantastical. You start seeing elaborate clockwork gears and childhood hideaways. Also, this was the only art director who needed to compensate for 3D, for what that’s worth.



Thor: If this were an award for most art direction this would probably win it by default. In making the film the design team needed to build a completely foreign Asgard world from scratch and meld existing Viking tropes with science fiction technology and high fantasy trappings. They also needed to do this on a large scale and they needed to add a lot of little weird details before overseeing a CGI team that would bring many of their elaborate creations to life.



The Golden Stake Goes to…

Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:



Neverending 02-04-2012 10:31 PM

- Once again, you snubbed The Artist.



- Although I felt that Sherlock Holmes 2 didn't live up to the standards of the original, I still enjoy the look and feel of it. You talk about sets looking like they've been lived in and Sherlock certainly fits the bill.



- X-Men: First Class was just awesome. It captured the sexy, cool side of the `60s quite well.



- Red Riding Hood isn't gonna make anyone's top 10 list, but the sets and costumes were very impressive. It reminded me of the sets in Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow.



- Midnight in Paris did their period pieces really well. It wasn't "showy" but it felt organic nonetheless.



Justin 02-05-2012 02:52 AM

Hugo is a good choice. I think I would've went the same way. The Gare du Nord was amazingly well-detailed.



PG Cooper 02-05-2012 06:27 AM

I went with Hugo as well. And my other choices are all movies you haven't seen (I'm pretty sure anyway).



Dracula 02-06-2012 08:01 PM

Best Cinematography

Cinematography is a technical category that a lot of people understand, and which a lot of movies tend to excel at. Hollywood knows that value of a beautiful image and they employ some of the best talent. A beautiful image is certainly what I’m looking for here, but creativity matters too. Mere slickness is probably not going to be enough to get a film nominated here, the work also needs to match and enhance the film itself.



Drive: Using slick digital photography, cinematographer Newton Thomas Sigel is able to create a sort of hypnotic cityscape. Few films this year were as dependent on look and tone as Drive was, and much of that tone was provided by this meticulous Michael Mann inspired photography. The night scenes look excellent, but the day scenes have a distinct look too.



The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is almost a study in how much a film’s look can elevate it above some questionable material. Fincher has always been a master of making really cool dark imagery, and the Nordic environments and disturbing subject matter of this movie is perfectly suited for his look. This film is a testament to what that RED camera everyone is talking about is capable of.



The Ides of March: Political dramas don’t necessarily jump out as the ideal material for top of the line photography but they decided to lavish it with fine photography anyway. In a year filled with dark films, this one somehow managed to have some of the deepest blacks I’ve ever seen. I most vividly remember a shot of Ryan Gostling sitting in a car in the rain and having the shadows of the raindrops on his face like they were tears. It’s a trick that the legendary Conrad Hall invented, but Phedon Papamichael reuses it brilliantly.



Melancholia: Melancholia lacks the slickness of many of the other nominees, but Manuel Alberto Claro’s photography here manages to be both beautiful and also sort of deliberately messy. Much of the film has a handheld vérité feel to it, but it still has a glossy constructed look, especially during the gorgeous opening montage, where certain images are shown in isolation and are almost burned into the audiences mind from the word go.



The Tree of Life: Working equally well when photographing cosmic shifts, vivid landscapes, urban jungles, and intimate domestic scenes, Emmanuel Lubezki is able to give the film a distinct signature look that is both beautiful to look at and at the same time very free in its motions. This doesn’t feel like it’s been micromanaged to death, it feels like it’s been captured quickly but with purpose, like a painter stroking the canvas with a brush.



The Golden Stake Goes to…

Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:



PG Cooper 02-06-2012 08:11 PM

Surprised Hugo wasn't nominated.



Dracula 02-06-2012 08:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PG Cooper (Post 2787060)

Surprised Hugo wasn't nominated.

That movie had fairly one dimensional and bland teal and orange cinematography which is completely and utterly unworthy of praise in this category.



Neverending 02-06-2012 08:40 PM

The cinematography is the only thing about Tree of Life that I liked.



IanTheCool 02-06-2012 08:42 PM

Yeah, you've got to give the award to that movie. Hard not to.



Neverending 02-06-2012 08:57 PM

Limitless had some good cinematography too, but Dracula isn't fond of it. And he snubbed The Artist again.



PG Cooper 02-06-2012 08:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dracula (Post 2787062)

That movie had fairly one dimensional and bland teal and orange cinematography which is completely and utterly unworthy of praise in this category.

Well....I disagree



Dracula 02-06-2012 09:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neverending (Post 2787072)

Limitless had some good cinematography too, but Dracula isn't fond of it. And he snubbed The Artist again.

I don't know what it is you seem to see in Limitless, I thought it had gaudy and gimmicky cinematography.



The Artist seemed like pretty standard B&W cinematography to me, it was nothing compared to what we saw in movies like The White Ribbon or The Man Who Wasn't There.



JBond 02-06-2012 09:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neverending (Post 2787072)

Limitless had some good cinematography too, but Dracula isn't fond of it. And he snubbed The Artist again.





Neverending 02-06-2012 10:15 PM

Limitless:



VIDEO-CLick to Watch!:





The Artist:



VIDEO-CLick to Watch!:



Justin 02-07-2012 11:32 AM

I'm sorry, I don't see it in Limitless. I haven't seen it, but judging from the clip alone, the cinemaphotography isn't anything special.



Neverending 02-07-2012 11:40 AM

I never said it was "special", but it's definitely creative and different from all the other 2011 releases. I agree with Dracula that Tree of Life is the best, but Limitless is worthy of a nomination.



Dracula 02-07-2012 11:46 AM

Best Villain

Drama is conflict, and nothing causes conflict quite like a true villain. Figures of pure evil like Noah Cross or Frank Booth can elevate films in a big way, but there’s also something to be said for villains who are well intentioned and have a lot of good in them. That said, to be considered for this list the character must be a true antagonist within the film. Characters who are bad, or even evil, will not be considered if they are the main protagonist of the movie. Additionally, the villain must be a single tangible and sentient character. I will not be nominating any wild animals, natural disasters, large scale regimes, or meta-villains like “the economy” or “injustice.”



Alan Krumwiede- Contagion: Alan Krumwiede, played by Jude Law, seems like a decent person at the beginning of the film, but he quickly proves to be a vile opportunist. He never personally kills anyone, but by spreading disinformation he causes all sorts of trouble and mayhem that may well have killed millions. It’s never entirely clear if he does this out of a genuine sense of paranoia or if he’s simply doing this for profit, but either way his actions are disastrous.



Bernie Rose- Drive: Bernie Rose seems like such a nice guy… until he literally slits your throat. He clearly doesn’t want trouble and he wishes he could just relax and enjoy his ill-gotten gains, but people keep putting him in situations where he needs to pull out his knife collection and start killing people. But at least he’s polite when he kills them, and is willing to let them bleed out fast and mostly painlessly.



Hilly Holbrook- The Help: We’ve seen all kinds of vile racists on screen. We’ve seen murderous KKK members, we’ve seen hateful politicians from the old South, and we’ve seen vicious slave drivers, but we haven’t really seen the soft racism that would have been displayed by all these people’s wives. This detestable suburban housewife is like a high school “mean girl” who bullies around her maids and manipulates others to do the same, and then has the gall to put together a hypocritical benefit for African starvation.



Kyung-chul- I Saw the Devil: While Bernie Rose is someone who’d rather not kill you if he doesn’t have to, is the opposite, he’s go out of his way to murder you in the most painful way possible. We’ve seen a lot of evil serial killers on film, but this guy really takes the cake. He’s evil personified and it feels almost like he couldn’t stop killing people if he tried, and as he begins to duel with the film’s protagonist you also see that he’s very competent in his ruthlessness.



Patrick- Martha Marcy May Marlene: When we first meet Patrick he seems like a fairly harmless hippie type, maybe a bit full of ****, but not exactly a villain. But the more you learn about him the scarier he seems. Patrick is a manipulative leader, someone who has meant people’s minds so that they depend on him and follow him without question. The most disturbing thing about it is that he seems to believe his own hype, he’s not just manipulating people because he thinks they’re rubes, he really believes in the cult lifestyle he’s formed.



The Golden Stake Goes to…

Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:



FranklinTard 02-07-2012 12:22 PM

when i saw him listed i figured he would win.



still on netflix last i checked if anyone wants to check it out.



Jack 02-07-2012 04:27 PM

I understand the recognition but at the end of the day Kyung-chul is one-dimensional. His shtick (and the movie) wear thin by the 3 or 4th Saw-ish set piece. It is a good performance, but at its core, it is a predictable one. Bernie Rose surprised me so much more. His absolute disdain for physical violence is palpable and yet he is capable of horrific displays of it. I thought it created an interesting dynamic throughout the movie.



FranklinTard 02-07-2012 04:32 PM

it is also so typically asian... they always have to involve families, no matter what. and these families will be decimated by the end.



Justin 02-08-2012 01:10 AM

Still have yet to see I Saw The Devil, looked great though.



Dracula 02-08-2012 10:25 AM

Cameo of the Year

I’ve struggled to decide if this was really going to be a category about true walk on cameos and work that’s closer to being a supporting role but which is too limited to really compete in that category. I’ve never truly decided where my opinion lands on this, so I’ll be straddling that line with these nominees. Some of them pop up briefly, almost for the purposes of shock value, which is more an award for the producers who had the idea to cast them, while others are nominated more for their own ability to do great work with limited material.



Phillip Baker Hall- 50/50: The first of my “old dudes in dramedies” nomination subset is this nomination for Phillip Baker Hall, who shows up in the film as a cancer patient of the more conventional aged variety. The character forms an entertaining, but poignant, friendship with the film’s protagonist based on both a mutual problem and on a taste for medical marijuana. They could have easily casted a nobody in this part, but they paid for a veteran character actor and it paid off.



Robert Forster- The Descendants: Robert Forster was brought back from obscurity by Quentin Tarentino when he was cast in Jackie Brown. The next decade proved that getting a career resurrection by Tarentino isn’t always everything it’s cracked up to be, but that’s okay, because he did manage to get this small but memorable role in The Descendants. He’s playing something of a gruff grandfather archetype, but he brings a lot of humanity to the character.



James Franco- The Green Hornet: We’re introduced to Chudnofsky, the main villain of The Green hornet played by Christoph Waltz, in this amusing scene where he shakes down an upstart club owner/drug dealer named Danny Clear who clearly thinks he’s big ****. As it turns out he isn’t big **** and is promptly killed, however, before this happens we get to see James Franco give a very strange and deliberately douchey monologue about what it takes to be a criminal these days.



Adrian Brody- Midnight in Paris: There were a number of cameos in Midnight in Paris, with famous actors like Kathy Bates and Corey Stoll playing historical figures in the 1920s scenes, but the most memorable (and most cameo-like) one is from Adrian Brody and his portrayal of the famed surrealist Salvador Dalí. Brody certainly nails the comedicly broad Spanish accent and decadent mannerisms of Dalí, but I especially liked how his character became fixated on the work rhinoceros, err, excuse me “rhinoceros.”



Hugh Jackman- X-Men: First Class: There’s a scene in the film where Xavier and Magneto need to track down other mutants circa 1963 and given that Wolverine has already been established as a virtual immortal, it would seem logical that they would try to approach him. Most movies would have just left this dangling, but here they decide to have a little fun with the idea and give Hugh Jackman a funny cameo where he only needs to say three words to move things along and make an impression.



The Golden Stake Goes to…

Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:



PG Cooper 02-08-2012 10:31 AM

Good choice. I'm sure you didn't see it, but Trust had a very memorable cameo.



JBond 02-08-2012 05:20 PM

I haven't seen some of these, but I would have gone with First Class. Hilarious and fits the definition of "cameo" better.



IanTheCool 02-08-2012 05:27 PM

I agree with JBond.



Dracula 02-08-2012 06:11 PM

Best Supporting Actress

We begin the main acting categories with the Best Supporting Actress category, and like most years it is an unfortunately weak field. It hard enough to find a film that has one good role for female actresses, but to find one that has a good role for both a lead actress and a supporting actress is really rare. Also be aware that I make my own judgments about what constitutes a supporting role and what constitutes a lead role, and they don’t always match what larger award bodies rule (yes Bérénice Bejo, I’m looking at you).



Kate Winslet- Contagion: This is a small role, almost a cameo more than a full fledged supporting role, but given that this is a purely ensemble based film I’m calling it a supporting role. Having an actress of Winslet’s caliber brings a lot to the table regardless of screen time. Emerging as a sort of fixer for the CDC, Winslett’s character emerges as a strong presence and puts up a good fight to keep the situation under control.



Shailene Woodley- The Descendants: Every year we get a “star is born” moment where a really young actress emerges as a really lovable screen presence. This was Woodley’s first feature film performance, and it’s a damn prominent role for someone with that kind of experience. Woodley manages to inhabit her character through a sort of subtle arc that begins comedic and chaildish but end on a note of general maturity.



Bryce Dallas Howard- The Help: The Help is an embarrassment of riches as far as female performances go, and while Octavia Spencer and Jessica Chastain have both gotten well deserved attention, I’m surprised no one is recognizing Bryce Dallas Howard’s performance in the film. I thought she was deliciously memorable as the racist ***** you love to hate. Her ability to portray this vile character in all her phoniness helped the film immensely.



Charlotte Gainsbourg- Melencholia: Lars Von Trier is known to drive the actresses he works with insane through torturous demands, and yet he’s managed to work with Charlotte Gainsbourg for two movies straight. She doesn’t have as showy a role as she did in Antichrist, and consequentially she doesn’t reach the heights she did in that film, but she does a very good job portraying the long suffering sister of a depressed woman.



Sareh Baya- A Separation: While A Separation might ultimately be a story about a husband and wife, Sareh Baya has a major role as the hired caretaker who sparks off much of the film’s central conflict. I won’t elaborate too much more on what she does in the film for fear of spoiling it, but she likely has more work to do than the lead actress. It’s impressive work for someone who was a complete unknown outside of her home country before she took this role.



The Golden Stake Goes to…

Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:



Neverending 02-08-2012 07:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JBond (Post 2787373)

I would have gone with First Class. Hilarious and fits the definition of "cameo" better.

And he said, "go f--k youself" which is essentially the character's catchphrase.



Justin 02-08-2012 10:51 PM

Charlotte Gainsbourg is a great choice.



donny 02-08-2012 10:53 PM

Doing your top 10 thread this year as well, Drac?



Dracula 02-08-2012 11:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by donny (Post 2787423)

Doing your top 10 thread this year as well, Drac?

Yeah, I usually do that something like a week or so before the Oscars.



Dracula 02-09-2012 10:29 PM

Best Supporting Actor

The Supporting actor category is typically the domain of character actors playing either sidekicks or villains, and sure enough there are two villains nominated here, but there’s another trend as well. This year we’ve seen a surprising number of good supporting performances from people playing fathers, father-figures, and mentors. I’m not sure why this is but it’s an interesting trend just the same.



Christopher Plummer- Beginners: Christopher Plummer is one of those Shakespearian type veteran actors who can be easy to give a pass to and just as easy to take for granted. Often these actors will play wise men of authority, but here we see Plummer playing a frail dying man who is looking back at the mistakes he made in his life. Usually characters like this are depressed King Lear types, but in this case Plummer is playing a character who is relieved to finally be finding some happiness.



Viggo Mortensen- A Dangerous Method: When playing historical figures, actors often go out of their way to imitate the mannerisms and appearances of their characters, but Viggo Mortensen bravely chooses not to do that in A Dangerous Method. Instead he makes the character of Sigmund Freud a character all his own; he turn him into a brilliant but prideful man prone to snap judgments and egotistical errors, yet still the one who’s usually right.



Choi Min-sik- I Saw the Devil: Choi Min-sik rose to prominence in the west as the protagonist of the awesome Park Chan-Wook film Oldboy, where he played a troubled but mostly sympathetic man seeking revenge. He does a 360 here, playing a psychotic killer. Min-sik doesn’t play this killer as some kind of icy murderer; rather he plays him like a sort of blue collar everyman who just so happens to think that murdering and dismembering women is a fun thing to do. The result is that he manages to simultaneously seem human and monstrous.



John Hawkes- Martha Marcy May Marlene: John Hawkes is kind of a funny looking guy, and you’d think he would have type-casted himself by now, but he continues to show an amazing amount of range. In 2009 he gained acclaim for playing a similarly blue-collar villain type, but he’s really much different here. While Teardrop was more or less a thug, Patrick is more of a spidery schemer, one who may or may not believe his own hype. Hawkes does a great job of keeping the character ambiguous rather that a clichéd slimeball.



Brad Pitt- Tree of Life: For all his esoteric touches, Terrence Malick has never shied away from casting major celebrities in his films. In fact every single one of his movies is loaded with A-list celebrities or young actors who have gone on to become A-list celebrities. This time his celebrity of choice was Brad Pitt, who rises to the occasion perfectly playing a larger than life father figure to the film’s main character who is played by a variety of actors at different ages.



The Golden Stake Goes to…

Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:



Neverending 02-09-2012 11:04 PM

We might as well call this the Tree of Life Awards.



Deexan 02-10-2012 06:13 AM

Bazinga.



Dracula 02-10-2012 12:18 PM

What can I say, the things Tree of Life did right it did REALLY REALY right. Now that we're done with the technical categories it probably isn't going to be as dominant going forward.



PG Cooper 02-10-2012 02:06 PM

Hurm, notable omissions:



-Albert Brooks, Drive



-Paul Giamatti and Philip Seymour Hoffman, The Ides of March



-Patton Oswalt, Young Adult



Still, interesting list of nominees and winner.



MasterChief117 02-10-2012 03:07 PM

I need to be seeing more movies, damn.

Dracula 02-10-2012 03:13 PM

Best Actress

All too often the Best Actress category seems inferior to its Best Actor sibling, in part because women are not offered as many quality roles as men. That wasn’t the case this year; in fact the Best Actress category may well be stronger than the Best Actor category. Most of the other acting categories have forced me to sort of choose a default winner amongst a handful of solid but unspectacular performances, but with this one I’m really torn between some excellent choices.



Bérénice Bejo- The Artist: Various award bodies have called this a supporting performance, but I think that’s bull****. She’s in the life of the leading man every step of the way throughout the film and there’s no other female performance that she is in service to over the course of the film. What’s more, she in many ways gives Jean Dujardin a run for his money when it comes to feeling at home in the world of a silent film. Seeing her on screen you can really see how her character could easily have been a star in the 30s.



Juliette Binoche- Certified Copy: Director Abbas Kiarostami has largely built his career off of movies that are made without professional actors, but Certified Copy makes it clear that he’s more than capable of directing fine performances when he’s given the talent to work with. Here Binoche needs to act in three different languages, often switching between them rapidly, and she is also put through a bit of an emotional ringer.



Viola Davis- The Help: Viola Davis wowed people with her brief appearance in Doubt, but that was mostly just a prelude for her star turn here. Playing a woman who has needed to deal with a lot of pain without expressing herself, you can see in Davis an anger deep down in her soul that you think is going to eventually spring forth but which never really does.



Rooney Mara- The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo: The word on the street is that the behind the scenes battle for who would land this role was positively fierce, that there were a number of young actresses fiercely fighting to play Lizbeth Salander. Rooney Mara seemed like an odd choice when it was announced that she would get the role, but that’s only because no one accounted for how much she’d be able to transform and inhabit the role. She’s about as far from that nice college girl at the beginning of The Social Network as it gets.



Elizabeth Olson- Martha Marcy May Marlene: This is Elizabeth Olson’s very first credited film role, and it’s a very challenging lead role to boot, but she really pulls it off. Olson, who is the younger sister of the famous “Olson twins,” plays a young woman who falls into and out of the grasp of a cult. By the chronological end of the film she has been withered down, she’s confused and frightened and highly sympathetic.



The Golden Stake Goes to…

Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:



Neverending 02-10-2012 03:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dracula (Post 2787551)

What can I say, the things Tree of Life did right it did REALLY REALY right. Now that we're done with the technical categories it probably isn't going to be as dominant going forward.

Nah... you're just trying to keep your snob street cred. Even the Oscars only gave the film three nominations.



Dracula 02-10-2012 03:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neverending (Post 2787569)

Nah... you're just trying to keep your snob street cred. Even the Oscars only gave the film three nominations.

If you say so... :rolleyes:



PG Cooper 02-10-2012 03:45 PM

I was rooting for Mara, but I haven't seen Certified Copy (though I really want to) so I can't judge. Of the three I've seen (Mara, Davis, and Bejo), they were all great.



Also, I'm gonna say you haven't seen My Week With Marilyn. I'm not saying you'd have nominated Michelle Williams if you had, but I get the feeling you didn't see it.



Neverending 02-10-2012 07:46 PM

I'm surprised Jessica Chastain didn't get nominated. It must pain him not to give Tree of Life more awards.



Dracula 02-10-2012 07:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neverending (Post 2787585)

I'm surprised Jessica Chastain didn't get nominated. It must pain him not to give Tree of Life more awards.

I strongly considered nominating Jessica Chastain... for Take Shelter. She barely says a word in Tree of Life.



iv3rdawG 02-10-2012 08:02 PM

VIDEO-CLick to Watch!:





I can't speak for her work in Take Shelter but I found her performance in The Tree of Life as good as anyone else in it. But then again, I love the film



FranklinTard 02-11-2012 12:44 AM

she's awesome in take shelter.



IanTheCool 02-11-2012 12:47 AM

Dracula, I say fro m now on, give every award to Tree of Life just to piss Neverending off.



JBond 02-11-2012 02:44 AM

Who's to say he hasn't been doing that already.



Neverending 02-11-2012 03:18 AM

For a movie that Dracula gave "3 stars" he sure has given it lots of awards.



FranklinTard 02-11-2012 12:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neverending (Post 2787606)

For a movie that Dracula gave "3 stars" he sure has given it lots of awards.

for someone else's awards for the year, you sure are *****ing a lot.



is that a hobby of yours? you seem to have perfected it over the past couple weeks.



Dracula 02-11-2012 01:25 PM

Best Actor

To many of the people that tune into award shows, this is the most important category, perhaps the second most important after Best Picture. I don’t necessarily agree, firstly because it under-values the Best Actress category, but mainly because acting is just one part of the filmmaking pie. It’s certainly a very visible part, but it’s still just one part.



Joseph Gordon Levitt- 50/50: More than anyone in this batch of nominees, Joseph Gordon Levitt is playing an everyman, at least from my perspective. It’s harder than you think to bring something to a role that in many ways could seem just like someone you really know, but Levitt really brings a heart and soul to the film he’s in. He makes you like and sympathize with his character, while still acknowledging some flaws he has.



Jean Dujardin- The Artist: If I were going to compare Jean Dujardin to any other contemporary actor right now it would probably be John Hamm. Like John Hamm he has a certain timeless quality to his face, one which maybe isn’t really reflective of what people looked like earlier in the twentieth century, but which is certainly reflective of what movie stars looked like in a bygone era. He uses that certain movie star look in order to feel like a really authentic presence in The Artist, and he has great comic timing to boot.



Peyman Moaadi- A Separation: Peyman Moaadi isn’t always playing the most likable person in the world in A Separation, but he isn’t playing an unlikable person either, and a big part of why he succeeds in the role is that he walks the line of likability so well. He plays a stubborn, but caring man who’s trying to get justice as he sees it, and he has a certain prideful dignity to his performance that makes his character believable even when he’s doing things differently than many people would do in certain situations.



Michael Fassbender- Shame: Michael Fassbender is a badass. Anyone who saw X-Men: First Class Knows this. He’s clearly someone I wouldn’t want to get in a fight with. That element of physical strength and outward confidence is needed for his role in Shame, but it’s also a role that requires an actor who is fully capable of seeming absolutely weak and vulnerable at certain moments and Fassbender is completely unafraid to show this side of himself as well.



Michael Shannon- Take Shelter: Michael Shannon is an actor who sort of specializes in playing crazy people, and within his oeuvre of crazy this is probably the Mona Lisa. Part of the reason for this is that we’re never really sure that Shannon’s character is crazy; in fact he seems perfectly rational for almost the entirety of the film and never becomes “mentally ill.” He’s more like an everyman who is put through a crazy situation.



The Golden Stake Goes to…

Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:



Tornado 02-11-2012 01:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FranklinTard (Post 2787627)

for someone else's awards for the year, you sure are *****ing a lot.



is that a hobby of yours? you seem to have perfected it over the past couple years.

Seems like it.



PG Cooper 02-11-2012 02:00 PM

Gahh, I'm dying to see Shame.



Justin 02-11-2012 03:10 PM

I'll be seeing Shame on Monday.



As for Tree of Life, it does deserve the awards Drac has given it. Technically, it's one of the most well-made films of the year.



Neverending 02-11-2012 04:45 PM

Fassbender's penis should have gotten a Best Supporting Actor nomination.



JBond 02-11-2012 05:30 PM

You mean an MTV movie award?



Jack 02-11-2012 06:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neverending (Post 2787569)

Nah... you're just trying to keep your snob street cred. Even the Oscars only gave the film three nominations.

Yeah the street cred of a ****ing message board for comingsoon.net is worth its weight in gold. Drac's winners for the past couple of categories have been right on from the movies I've watched this year.



Neverending 02-11-2012 06:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JBond (Post 2787662)

You mean an MTV movie award?

I think teenage girls might be terrified when they see it.



Dracula 02-12-2012 10:37 AM

Acting Ensemble of the Year

Giving awards to individuals is all well and good, it gives certain celebrities bragging rights and it certainly saves on the cost of trophies, but really it’s the entire cast that the success of a film rests on. Much the way we lump entire departments on a film shoot into categories like “best cinematography” and “best art direction,” giving out an award for the full acting ensemble is like a blanket award for “best cast in a film.”



Contagion: Contagion has been widely compared to the Irwin Allen disaster films of the seventies. I don’t think this comparison holds water in the long run, but the one place where it does hold up is in its use of celebrities at almost every single turn. Some of these are major stars like Matt Damon, Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Kate Winslet, some of them are second tier stars like Laurence Fishburne, Marion Cotillard, and Elliott Gould, and others are well liked character actors like Bryan Cranston and John Hawkes. Any one of these recognizable faces might have been a distraction, but having nothing but famous people makes them all sort of blend in.



The Help: With roles for women begin what they are, it’s interesting that this high profile film managed to come along which had something like a half dozen major roles for the “fairer sex.” Of course Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer have high profile Award nominated performances, but the rest of the cast members like Bryce Dallas Howard, Jessica Chastain, and Allison Janney are also noteworthy. I wasn’t such a fan of Emma Stone in the film, but let’s not split hairs.



The Ides of March: George Clooney is really popular in Hollywood and because of it he can pretty much get whatever talent he wants in his movies. Clooney himself is very believable as a presidential candidate and Ryan Gosling is also more than capable in the lead. It’s really the supporting crew filled with character actors like Philip Seymour Hoffman, Paul Giamatti, Evan Rachel Wood, Marisa Tomei, and Jeffrey Wright that really puts the film over the top.



Midnight in Paris: Midnight in Paris seems like a typical Woody Allen cast at first. You’ve got Owen Wilson acting as an Allen-surrogate of sorts, you’ve got Rachel McAdams as the love interest and Michael Sheen as their obnoxious friend. Then the time travel aspect of the movie comes into play and then cool actors like Marion Cotillard, Tom Hiddleston, Corey Stoll, Kathy Bates, and Adrien Brody enter the film, and that’s when things really get going.



Super 8: This is where the ensemble category becomes less about the sheer number of notable performances by celebrities and becomes more of an award for the best casting. Casting child actors is not easy; in fact it’s downright dangerous given that you’re putting the weight of you film on people without a long and proven track record. Still, they were able to find a lot of charming child actors like Joel Courtney and Elle Fanning who really hold their own, and the lack of huge stars in the adult roles was also refreshing in its own way.



The Golden Stake Goes to…

Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:



PG Cooper 02-12-2012 11:12 AM

My choice for Best Cast as well.



IanTheCool 02-12-2012 11:19 AM

Yes, good choice. Hoffman in particular stole the show.



Dracula 02-13-2012 08:41 AM

Best Line

Picking out an individual line that really stands out in a film can be a very tricky proposition, at least when it’s this early into a film’s lifespan. Most of the really memorable lines in cinema really only catch on and enter the wider lexicon a few years after the film has been released. All I can really do now is find a handful of lines that seemed to stand out for me and seemed clever, then explain what made it clever.



“That doesn't make any sense though. I mean... I don't smoke, I don't drink... I recycle...”- 50/50: Being told you have cancer at 26 has got to be positively bizarre. That must be exceptionally true if you’ve spent your whole life following the advice of health officials and even refusing to drive yourself anywhere. That’s expressed here, when Joseph Grodon Levitt’s character goes so far as to invoke his recycling habit in reaction to the bad news.



“You can lie, you can cheat, you can start a war, you can bankrupt the country, but you can't **** the interns. They get you for that.” – The Ides of March: Alright, so I guess that even invoking this line is in itself a spoiler and so will talking about it. Much like the movie itself, this line doesn’t express overly original frustrations with the political process, but it expresses it succinctly and with style. If only someone had said this to Bill Clinton, and if only someone hadn’t said this to George W. Bush.



“Paradise? Paradise can go **** itself.” –The Descendants: This little tag at the end of a long introductory voice-over speech early in the film does a lot to set the tone of the film we’re about to see. We’re told immediately that while the film we’re about to see is set on Hawaii, the characters still need to deal with all the same problems everyone else does. It also gives the viewer a sense of the film’s irreverent sense of humor and also of the main character’s occasionally prickly but still likable personality.



“He's had a long standing sexual relationship with his co-editor of the magazine. Sometimes he performs cunnilingus on her. Not often enough in my opinion.” - The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo: There’s a lot of grim stuff in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, but Fincher does know how to add just a pinch of levity into the proceedings when necessary. This line, delivered by Salander when she recounts the information she’s taken about Blomkvist, certainly accomplishes that but it also gives an early indication of the character’s view of gender roles.



“Tourists call it ‘The Great Wall of Bull****’… yes sir, after the one in China.” – Red State: While having a phone conversation with his boss about the giant fence built by a now paranoid religious cult, this little gem is spoken with perfect deadpan timing by John Goodman. The basic idea of the joke (that his boss is so stupid that he needs that name clarified) isn’t wildly clever, but Goodman really delivers it perfectly.



The Golden Stake Goes to…

Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:



Jack 02-13-2012 09:41 AM

All solid nominations - I do love that line from Ides of March.



My pick would be "Guys like me are born loving women like you." from Young Adult. Maybe not earth-shattering, but the delivery and context is the biggest sucker punch of the year for me.



PG Cooper 02-13-2012 01:50 PM

I might have gone with the one from Ides, but 50/50's line is great too.



JBond 02-13-2012 03:45 PM

Yeah, good choices.



Justin 02-14-2012 01:51 AM

Love the line from The Descendants.



Dracula 02-14-2012 10:37 AM

Best Adapted Screenplay

This has been a really really really weak year for adapted screenplays. I checked and found that only 18 of the 45 movies I saw this year were adapted, which sounds like a lot but then you need to consider that 4 of those were at the rock bottom of the list and six of them were only “adapted” because they were sequels and/or based on comic book characters. Consequently I was left with only a handful of movies that I could realistically consider for this category. Still, there were some good choices to be found.



A Dangerous Method: Written by Christopher Hampton and based on his own play “The Talking Cure,” a Dangerous Method takes a subject which seems less than entertaining and turns it into something truly fascinating. Hearing about Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung’s intellectual discussions is interesting in and of itself, but hearing about Jung’s sordid relationship with Sabina Spielrein was also a very good story.



The Descendants: For whatever reason dramedies always seem to be noteworthy in screenplay form. Normally dramedy screenplays are original, but Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon, and Jim Rash (AKA the dean from Community) have crafted from a relatively obscure novel by the Hawaii native Kaui Hart Hemmings. There’s no real gimmick or high concept here, so its impressive that they recognized that such an interesting film could be made from this source.



The Ides of March: This is the second of the pair of play adaptations in this category, and this was also notably partly adapted by Beau Willimon, the author of the original play “Farragut North.” Willimon and co-authors George Clooney and Grant Heslov have written a film which is not as insightful about politics as I had hoped but which has great structure, pacing, and dialogue.



Moneyball: The idea of adapting Michael Lewis’ book about baseball statistics seemed like a crazy idea, but if anyone could pull off the task it was Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin. While I don’t think the results are perfect, I do give the writers a lot of credit for the degree of difficulty. In particular I enjoyed how the film was able to focus on all the minutia of baseball, like scout meetings, which we almost never see on film.



X-Men: First Class: While the dialogue in X-Men: First Class isn’t wildly notable, I was really impressed by how this team of six writers were able to put together such a coherent screenplay which managed to fit really well within the established continuity of the series while still functioning as a standalone adventure. Aspiring Hollywood screenwriters take note, this is how you make a fun action/effects spectacle while still telling a good story and without being tied to a tired formula.



The Golden Stake Goes to…

Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:



PG Cooper 02-14-2012 12:44 PM

I might have gone with Ides, but A Dangerous Method certainly had a great screenplay as well.



Justin 02-14-2012 02:55 PM

I didn't see A Dangerous Method, unfortunately. But of the ones I did see, I thought that The Descendants was a great translation to film.



Dracula 02-15-2012 09:42 AM

Best Original Screenplay

While the adapted screenplay category was quite weak, the original screenplay category has really picked up the slack. This category was so stacked that I needed to make some real sophie’s choices when narrowing down the field to five nominees. There are movies that could have come really close to winning in the adapted screenplay category which didn’t even get nominated here. I’m especially going to give a shout-out to 50/50, which got a best line win almost as a consolation prize.



Certified Copy: Abbas Kiarostami’s screenplay for Certified Copy had some very good dialogue and a solid minimalist structure, but what really sets it apart is its clever meta-concept. Juxtaposing an intellectual argument about the validity of copies next to original works with a mysterious relationship between a man and a woman, the film gives a whole lot of food for thought and it isn’t nearly as pretentious as it sounds.



Contagion: A lot of people think that a screenplay award is basically the same as a “best dialogue” award. Looked at from that perspective Contagion might not stack up particularly well in this category, but I give it a whole lot of credit for vision and authenticity. Screenwriter Scott Z. Burns clearly did a lot of research into the way diseases spread and how agencies like the CDC react to them, and has also put a lot of thought into how society as a whole would react.



A Separation: Beginning with a divorce proceeding and then spiraling out of control from there, Asghar Farhadi has created in A Separation a really complicated yet completely accessible film about a dispute between four fully formed and meticulously developed characters each with their own inward and outwardly conflicting agendas. I hesitate to talk about it in too much detail for fear of giving away certain early developments, but it is a decidedly excellent achievement.



Take Shelter: With Take Shelter, writer/director Jeff Nichols uses a simple story of a man who feels compelled to prepare for a disaster he believes is approaching in order to explore themes of sanity, paranoia, religion, and fatherhood. The film slowly rolls out its character’s seeming decent into madness while also dangling the possibility that he’s the one who’s in the right the whole time. Additionally I appreciated its attention to the economic realities of the character’s decisions and the way it erodes away his family life.



Weekend: What I really like about Andrew Haigh’s Weekend is that it was able to more or less turn a single extended conversation between two people into an entire film. We’ve seen this before in films like Before Sunrise and from its competitor Certified Copy, but this film had less of a high concept to work with than even those films. In fact the entirety of the film rests almost entirely on its script, and its ability to craft really interesting and well developed characters out of a pair of fairly ordinary people.



The Golden Stake Goes to…

Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:



Neverending 02-15-2012 11:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dracula (Post 2788254)

A lot of people think that a screenplay award is basically the same as a “best dialogue” award.

I don't know who would think such a thing. When a screenplay is well-written the director's job is just to provide strong visuals and get great performances out of the actors.



I've read a s--tload of scripts over the years and doing so you can tell who are the great writers in Hollywood. The Coen Bros, for example, put everything on the page. Their films are literal translations of the script. Christopher McQuarrie is a badass. The Usual Suspects is one of the most compelling scripts you'll ever read, to the point that you forget that you've seen the movie. Then you got people like Kevin Smith who'll write a paragraph of description followed by 10 pages of dialogue. Then he wonders why he doesn't win awards.



If you wanna read this year's screenplays, just go here: www.simplyscripts.com/movie.html



Dracula 02-15-2012 11:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neverending (Post 2788267)

I don't know who would think such a thing.

Stupid people.



Neverending 02-15-2012 11:44 AM

You and PG Cooper need new friends.



Dracula 02-16-2012 10:48 AM

Trailer of the Year

Posters can be really cool, but we all know that the real backbone of any film’s advertising campaign is its trailer. In the right hands a trailer can be cut beautifully and be an impressive work unto itself. That’s why I’ve created this award category, which focuses exclusively on trailers for movies from this year (so I won’t be including trailers for next year’s blockbusters). Also keep in mind that I’m only going to be nominating trailers for movies that I’ve seen, otherwise I can’t really tell if they’ve accurately captured the movie’s essence.



The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Red Band Version):

VIDEO-CLick to Watch!:



"Leaked" Red Band version: www.metatube.com/en/videos/61...-2011-Trailer/



Aggressive. That’s the one word that best describes this short and sweet teaser set to a Trent Reznor remix of Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song.” The trailer matches the speed of the song by giving us a split-second look at various intriguing images. That’s all leading up to one of the ballsiest taglines ever “the feel bad movie of Christmas.”



Limitless:

VIDEO-CLick to Watch!:



Most of the people who’ve followed my writings probably knows that I have a bit of affinity for the music of Kanye West, and I especially like his 2010 single “Power.” You know who else likes that song? Advertising executives. They’ve used it in many advertisements, but most memorably in the decidedly unmemorable Bradley Cooper vehicle Limitless. It’s a testament to Kanye’s power (no pun intended) that he could make this lame movie look so good.



Super 8 (Teaser):

VIDEO-CLick to Watch!:



J.J. Abrams is certainly a fine director, but it has really been his mastery of innovative marketing that has made him such a success. In particular, the guy has become a master of the surprise “What the ****” teaser trailer that emerges without much fanfare preceding it. This particular teaser gives us a taste of the film’s signature effects sequence, but it gives it to us from a different perspective from what is seen in the final film.



Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (Trailer 2):

VIDEO-CLick to Watch!:



While Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy ended up being a snore of a film, this trailer really made it look exciting. The reason it works is that it plays to the film’s strengths namely its art direction, its score, Gary Oldman, and the visually exciting Tom Hardy sub-plot. It brings us all of this at a faster pace and makes it all seem mysterious in a way that will actually be fun to unravel.



The Tree of Life:

VIDEO-CLick to Watch!:



No trailer this year had me more immediately sold on a movie than The Tree of Life’s trailer. Looking back on it now I feel like that has more to do with the inherent power of Terrence Malick’s images than it necessarily had to do with the way the trailer was cut, but that in itself says something good about the trailer. The people at Fox Searchlight never tried to lie to the audience and pretend that the movie was something it wasn’t (you know Harvey Weinstein would have).



The Golden Stake Goes to…

Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:



Neverending 02-16-2012 10:56 AM

I love how the trailer for TTSS uses Danny Elfman's Wolfman score:



VIDEO-CLick to Watch!:





It's funny how they used a freakin' werewolve movie to sell a spy drama. LOL.



PG Cooper 02-16-2012 11:08 AM

You made the right choice, though I agree with Neverending, the first TTSS trailer was the best one.



FranklinTard 02-16-2012 11:24 AM

i do think that trailer for dragon tattoo tricked some people, i know my buddy took his family over xmas to it, and needless to say they were not prepared for the parole officer scenes.



MovieBuff801 02-16-2012 11:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neverending (Post 2788414)

I love how the trailer for TTSS uses Danny Elfman's Wolfman score:



VIDEO-CLick to Watch!:





It's funny how they used a freakin' werewolve movie to sell a spy drama. LOL.

Plus, they used some of Henry Jackman's score for First Class in the teaser:



VIDEO-CLick to Watch!:


Dracula 02-16-2012 01:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neverending (Post 2788414)

I love how the trailer for TTSS uses Danny Elfman's Wolfman score:



VIDEO-CLick to Watch!:





It's funny how they used a freakin' werewolve movie to sell a spy drama. LOL.

Yeah scores like that get reused in trailers all the time. I read an article once about how there are dozens of trailers that use the score from this movie called The Life of David Gale.



Starwars411 02-16-2012 03:09 PM

The new Resident Evil: Afterlife trailer has music from Tron: Legacy, which was pretty funny.



shained 02-16-2012 05:53 PM

Still haven't managed to see TGWTDT but I was not impressed with the trailer at all. To me it would have been a Ross up between Limitless, which I really liked, and you're right that song goes very well to sell a lot of stuff or TTSS. The film was dull but that trailer sold me on going to see it the first week which is what they're ment to do.



Dracula 02-17-2012 12:17 PM

Poster of the Year

This is always one of my favorite categories because, for whatever reason, this is one of the few areas where marketing people are really allowed to let their creative juices flow. This year has been particularly challenging, and I was ultimately forced to cut some really strong posters from movies like The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Martha Marcy May Marlene, Source Code, Super 8, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, and Uncle Boonmee. Ultimately though, I’m pretty confident about my final choices.



13 Assassins:

www.moviegoods.com//Assets/pr...836.1020.A.jpg

I’m a sucker for posters that are drawn rather than photoshopped, and this one is particularly cool. This poster does a great job of conveying the film’s explosive final battle using a faux-traditional Japanese art style. The dude is in a really cool action pose and you really want to see him when he’s in motion. Also, this might be the first poster I’ve ever seen that has a VOD release date listed.



Captain America:

img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...ainAmerica.jpg

Let’s face it, Captain America is kind of a cheesy hero and he can look sort of strange at times. This poster does a great job of making him look like a character that can be taken seriously. I love the somber pose that they give the character and just the subtle simplicity of just showing the character from the knees up with battle ashes behind him. It does a great job of downplaying the costume without hiding it.



The Ides of March:



Alright, so you’ve got two really big stars in your movie and the marketing people insist you put both of their faces on the poster. How do you do that creatively? Well, the designers here found a way. By showing both actors in profile via the cool Time Magazine split screen thing they manage to pull off a cool visual trick while at the same time expressing the main character’s ambiguous feelings about the candidate he represents.



Midnight in Paris:

www.moviegoods.com//Assets/pr...368.1020.A.jpg

The poster for Woody Allen’s Parisian epic could have been ruined by incorporating obvious and over-exposed landmarks like the Eifel Tower or the Arc De Triomphe. Instead they take the clever approach of combining a photograph of Owen Wilson walking down a street with Vincent Van Gough’s masterpiece “The Starry Night.” It’s a perfect way of bringing the late night implied by the title into the picture in an appropriately fantastical way.



Moneyball:

img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...1Moneyball.jpg

Now this poster is like a study in the appropriate use of negative space. Posters all too often feel like they need to clutter themselves up with extra stuff (usually actors’ faces). Here the designers simply use the vastness of a baseball field to express Billy Beane’s feeling of inferiority. He’s a small fish in a vast metaphorical ocean and he does what he does far away from the actual diamond. It’s certainly better than that lame poster of Brad Pitt sititng on a bleacher and smiling anyway.



The Golden Stake Goes to…

Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:



PG Cooper 02-17-2012 12:24 PM

Good winner. I wouldn't have have nominated Ides or Moneyball though.



MasterChief117 02-17-2012 12:24 PM

The Midnight In Paris poster looks off to me...like the photoshopping looks weird but solid choice.



MasterChief117 02-17-2012 12:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PG Cooper (Post 2788576)

Good winner. I wouldn't have have nominated Ides or Moneyball though.

I love the Ides one.



PG Cooper 02-17-2012 12:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MasterChief117 (Post 2788578)

I love the Ides one.

I think it looks cool, but I don't think it's an accurate depiction of the film.



EdReedFan20 02-17-2012 12:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dracula (Post 2788438)

Yeah scores like that get reused in trailers all the time. I read an article once about how there are dozens of trailers that use the score from this movie called The Life of David Gale.

The theme from DragonHeart (Randy Edelman) is used a lot. Usually the music comes from movies where the music is not well known. You'll never hear music from Star Wars or Lord of the Rings in a trailer not related to those movies (unless they're parodies), but a lot of people wouldn't be able to tell you that the music from DragonHeart is from DragonHeart. Other themes I've heard many places are Waterworld (James Newton Howard), Crimson Tide (Hans Zimmer), and Liar Liar (John Debney).



The Waterworld theme starts around 1:30.





The Crimson Tide theme starts around 1:20





The Liar Liar theme starts around 1:30.





IanTheCool 02-17-2012 03:44 PM

I quite like the Moneyball poster , and Dracula's write up for it makes a good case for it. I also Like the trick in Ides.



Neverending 02-18-2012 04:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dracula (Post 2787564)

Bérénice Bejo- The Artist: Various award bodies have called this a supporting performance, but I think that’s bull****.

Awards season is a game for Harvey Weinstein:



www.deadline.com/2012/02/osca...d-with-images/



Quote:

AWARDSLINE: Peppy is a big role. Was there a reason you were submitted for Oscar consideration for supporting actress?



BÉRÉNICE BEJO: Harvey [Weinstein] said best actress is too complicated. Especially this year, with Meryl Streep and Glenn Close, Viola Davis for The Help, Michelle Williams as Marilyn Monroe.



Dracula 02-18-2012 11:28 AM

Under-Appreciated Film of the Year

When any given cinematic year ends there are always a handful of movies that get more kudos than they deserve and also movies that fall through the cracks or simply don’t find themselves taken seriously come the end of the year. These are films that were either unfairly maligned, didn’t get the quantity of regard that they deserved, or they never caught on with the general public when they deserved to.



50/50: There seem to be two routes to success for comedies: they can either be mainstream raunch-fests that cater to a certain 20-something core audience, or they can be quirky indie-films that build up “little engine that could” stories over the course of their release. It seems like there wasn’t much room for a film that straddles these two release strategy as evidenced by the fact that 50/50 only managed to achieve modest box office success and was mostly forgotten by critics after a week.



Contagion: Contagion made decent box office and had generally positive reviews, but it was never really able to break into the realms of true respectability when the end of the year came around. The film wasn’t on many year end top ten lists, at least not amongst professional critics and not only was it completely ignored by the Oscars but it hardly even made a dent when it came to second tier award shows. It couldn’t even get into the WGA awards with half of its competition disqualified.



Red State: This is a case where the story behind a film sort of over-shadowed the film itself. Of course this isn’t some kind of lost horror masterpiece; in fact it’s a complete mess in many ways. Its tone is all over the place and it isn’t overly well crafted in a number of ways, however, there are some interesting things going on in the film and I feel like it deserved a chance to be seen on its own merits rather than as an afterthought in a discussion of the future of film distribution.



Super 8: It’s interesting that the likely Oscar winner this year, The Artist, is a film that meticulously tries to recreate the look and feel of a film genre from the past and yet the film that did something similar in the year was dismissed as derivative. Easily J.J. Abram’s best film, Super 8 managed to act as a loving tribute to the Amblin films of the late 70s and early 80s. It wasn’t perfect, but its telling that it was pretty clearly better than not one but two actual Steven Spielberg films this year.



Weekend: Weekend got very positive reviews, and it has also been embraced but it hasn’t seemed to get so much as an ounce of crossover success. The film never had the long term buzz that other indies like Take Shelter and Martha Marcy May Marlene had and it ended up making less than $500,000 at the domestic box office. I feel like it could have gained the cult following of something like Once if it had just been marketed with a little more savvy.



The Golden Stake Goes to…

Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:



IanTheCool 02-18-2012 11:31 AM

I like Contagion, but I think 50/50 deserved this one.



JBond 02-18-2012 04:42 PM

Didn't really care for it.



PG Cooper 02-18-2012 04:49 PM

I was guilty of under appreciating Contagion. Love it now though.



MovieBuff801 02-19-2012 12:34 AM

Totally agree about Contagion. Just watched it a second time, and it really does get stronger.



Dracula 02-19-2012 01:21 PM

Comedy of the Year

2011 may well go down as the year when the R-rated comedy, and mainstream comedy in general for that matter, sort of jumped the shark. Of course I take this by reputation, because frankly there were a lot of comedies I didn’t even bother to see. I skipped The Hangover: Part 2, Bad Teacher, Horrible Bosses, Paul, and 30 Minutes or Less. I would have caught up with some of those on DVD, but time sort of passed me by. Consequently, the nominees here are sort of dominated by movies with a lot of dramatic elements rather than straightforward comedy. It’s not a perfect docket, but it’s what I have to work with.



50/50: I’ve talked a lot about this film’s dramatic elements, but what often gets lost in conversations about it is just how legitimately funny it can be. Granted it isn’t going to necessarily have the audience busting a gut with laughter, but the friendship between the Seth Rogen and Joseph Gordon Levitt characters does lead to some very funny dialogue and many of the film’s most pressing moments are quite well diffused by comedy.



The Artist: The silent films which seem to have the most resonance with modern audiences seem to have been the slapstick comedies released through Hollywood by people like Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. Compared to those giants, The Artist certainly doesn’t stack up, but there are some good jokes to be found in it just the same. There’s some amusing pantomime to be found in Dujardin and Bejo’s performances and the film is also able to get some laughs from the strategic use of title cards.



The Descendants: It’s often been said that comedy is shunned by the Academy, but this year three of the top five nominees (including the likely winner) are comedies. The least comedic of these was The Descendants, a film that’s so close to being a drama that I likely would have disqualified it from this category if it were a stronger year. Still, lets not forget that there is some funny stuff in this, usually surrounding the Nick Krause who has a habit of getting punched by old men and of quoting Wu-Tang torture methods.



The Guard: The 2008 film In Bruges was one part gangster film, one part dark irreverent comedy, and one part redemption drama. The 2011 film The Guard, starring In Bruges’ Brendan Gleeson and directed by John Michael McDonagh (brother of the In Bruges director Martin McDonagh), mostly focuses on the dark irreverent comedy part of the equation and to mixed results. The Guard didn’t really make me laugh all that much, but I could certainly admire the comic wit involved in a lot of the film’s dialogue.



Midnight in Paris: Woody Allen has made a lot of funny movies in his time, and Midnight in Paris is another one. That said, I didn’t necessarily laugh any more at this than I did at other Allen movies, but that says more about his skills as a writer/director over the years than it does about the deficiencies of this particular film. Like many Woody Allen films this is about a fish out of water among glamorous people and as always that proves to be a rather funny formula.



The Golden Stake Goes to…

Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:



MovieBuff801 02-19-2012 01:26 PM

That settles it. 50/50 is going to the top of my Netflix queue.



shained 02-19-2012 06:49 PM

I wouldn't class 50/50 as a comedy at all! Funny moments yes but it was more a drama than anything else.



Loved The Guard and found it hilarious. I think The Change Up was the funniest film out last year.



MovieBuff801 02-20-2012 12:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shained (Post 2788946)

Loved The Guard and found it hilarious. I think The Change Up was the funniest film out last year.

The Change-Up? Really? That was the WORST comedy of last year.



The funniest one would be Horrible Bosses.



shained 02-20-2012 01:28 PM

Was pissing myself laughing watching The Change Up. The dentists voice in Hirrible Bosses was so whiney. It went right through me. It was decent though.



Neverending 02-20-2012 04:42 PM

I agree with MovieBuff. Horrible Bosses was great, the Change-Up was horrible.



PG Cooper 02-20-2012 05:34 PM

I thought A Very Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas was the funniest film all year.



MovieBuff801 02-20-2012 05:44 PM

I never got into the Harold & Kumar movies.



Neverending 02-20-2012 06:13 PM

Me neither. Especially after one of my ex-girlfriends admitted that her and a friend did the whole "farting game" when they used the restroom.



Dracula 02-20-2012 06:14 PM

Action Film of the Year

To me, an action movie is more than just the presence of violence and/or special effects. In my view an action movie must not only possess these things but be absolutely driven by them. For example, Rise of the Planet of the Apes ends with an action scene, but otherwise it’s a science fiction drama. Drive has two chase scenes of sorts, but ultimately it isn’t any more “action packed” than The Godfather or A History of Violence. Super 8 has a lot of visual effects, but the characters usually don’t act as combatants. None of those movies were considered for this award.



13 Assassins: One could argue that the action in this film is as confined to a climax as Rise of the Planet of the Ape’s action, but its epic finale is a lot longer than that film’s and it takes up a larger percentage of the film’s runtime. And what a finale it is. Had I disqualified The Tree of Life from the Set Piece of the Year award this would have been the winner, the final set piece is that good.



The Adventures of Tintin: Steven Spielberg has long been a master of action cinema and his adaptation of Hergé’s Tintin comics show that this skill is still present when he works with motion capture as a medium. The film has a handful of very cool set-pieces like the pirate fight and the chase through a fictional North African city. The only thing it’s really missing is a sense of danger in the action scenes that would have really put it over the top.



Hanna: Overall, I didn’t really like Hanna, but when it stops trying to be some kind of bizarre fairy tale and starts to be a proper action film it seems to have a lot of potential. The film really ramps up whenever Hanna exits “innocent youth” mode and enters the “badass agent” mode and The Chemical Brothers’ music really gets things going just as much as Joe Wrights direction.



Mission: Impossible- Ghost Protocol: I began to feel like I was surrounded by pod-people when a lot of critics I had respect for got really hyperbolic in their praise for what I thought was overall a rather average film, however, there are enough very strong action scenes to be found here that it cannot be denied within this category. The Dubai sequence, the sandstorm chase, the prison escape, and the parking ramp fight were all very well staged and executed



X-Men: First Class: While at its center X-Men: First Class is a drama about the doomed friendship between Xavier and Magneto, the film also has a whole lot of action in it. Between Magneto obliterating a boat, the attack on the CIA headquarters, and the final Cuban Missile Crisis sequence, there is more than enough here to please anyone looking for simple blockbuster thrills.



The Golden Stake Goes to…

Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:



MovieBuff801 02-20-2012 07:58 PM

Hell yes! I watched First Class again over the weekend, and I agree -- everything just flows so naturally. I also agree about Ghost Protocol -- a lot of the time, I was going (sarcastically) "Oh, great...more action." I liked the movie, don't get me wrong, but it could've trimmed two or three action sequences.



Though, personally, Deathly Hallows Part 2 gets my vote. First Class is a very close second place.



JBond 02-20-2012 07:59 PM

Good choice...of course, I didn't see the other four.



IanTheCool 02-20-2012 09:05 PM

Interesting choice...



Dracula 02-23-2012 12:06 AM

Horror Film of the Year

For the most part this has been a piss-poor year for horror movies both in quality and quantity. There was hardly a horror movie in wide release in 2011 which wasn’t either a distasteful remake (The Thing, Fright Night) the umpteenth sequel in a franchise I hadn’t bothered to keep up with (Scream 4, Final Destination 5) or just some unwatchable looking crap (Priest, The Rite, Apollo 18, Shark Night 3D). I thought about bending my definition of horror to include stuff like Take Shelter, Martha Marcy May Marlene, Contagion, and I Saw the Devil, but ultimately I decided to stick to my guns even if it meant nominating some movies that were less than great.



Insidious: In its first half Insidious feels like an experiment to see what the Paranormal Activity movies would have been like without the “found footage” gimmick and with ghosts that are occasionally visible. Then midway through it reveals that the haunting at the film’s center is actually more interesting and original than it initially seemed and that it’s been leading to a climax that’s actually pretty cool. It’s certainly a much better movie than the trailers would have you believe.



Paranormal Activity 3: Given that just about every horror movie gets a sequel whether it needs one or not, I give producer Oren Peli credit for handling the annualization of the Paranormal Activity series a lot better than he could have. Paranormal Activity 2 didn’t work very well as a standalone horror film, but it did set up a fairly interesting mythology to explain the events of the first film in an interesting way. The third film takes that new framework and focuses on bringing more actual horror to the table, not entirely successfully, but there are some good moments along the way.



Red State: Red State is a hybrid of horror, comedy, and action, and it isn’t exactly “scary.” Still, given that it essentially uses the torture porn framework of “capture, torment, escape” I felt like it was still appropriate in this category. On more of a meta-level I find that the villains in this film are, in their own way, scarier than most horror villains because they aren’t too far removed from a lot of real people with hateful beliefs.



Stakeland: I wouldn’t exactly call this movie “scary,” but it’s about vampires, so it probably belongs here. Of course the “vampires” in this are basically zombies. They’re feral creatures who come out at night and mindlessly attack people and this doesn’t diverge too much from the basic zombie-apocalypse formula. It’s also pretty derivative of the Cormac McCarthy novel “The Road.” So the movie isn’t very original, but it is executed pretty well and deserved better than what was essentially a direct to DVD release.



The Woman: This film from Lucky McKee, director of the 2003 cult horror film May, didn’t get much of a release outside of the festival circuit until its DVD release but I think it’s at least worthy of consideration. It’s certainly a gory film and it trades in a sort of macabre that’s clearly horror in nature, but it’s not overly scary at least not until the end when things get a bit more intense. For much of its running time its more of a satire, almost an American response to last year’s Greek provocation piece Dogtooth. I didn’t love the movie or even like it all that much, but it’s certainly unique.



The Golden Stake Goes to…

Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:



PG Cooper 02-23-2012 05:45 AM

Yeah, Insidious was my top horror film this year too, and for the exact same reasons.



shained 02-23-2012 08:18 AM

I thought Insidious was down there as one of the worst films i've seen. Me and my brother shake are heads all the time at the fact we watched it all the way through.



His wife and mother in law left the room after 30 minutes or so.



Jack 02-23-2012 09:26 AM

There's some good things about Insidious but it lost me at candelabras and velvet curtains...



iv3rdawG 02-23-2012 03:07 PM

The Innkeepers for me.



Dracula 02-23-2012 09:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by iv3rdawG (Post 2789510)

The Innkeepers for me.

That's a 2012 film.



Dracula 02-23-2012 09:06 PM

Documentary of the Year

For whatever reason documentaries get released on DVD and on streaming services really quickly and since I don’t feel as obligated to write full reviews as I do with feature length fiction films I end up catching up with documentaries a lot more quickly. As such, I feel pretty confident about my ability to judge this category. My only real regret is that I didn’t see Werner Herzog’s Into the Abyss, but otherwise I feel like I’ve seen most of the year’s major documentaries.



Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop: This could have so easily been a puff piece, but director Rodman Flender has instead made a very blunt documentary about Conan O’Brien’s post-NBC pre-TBS live tour. Consequently we see O’Brien at his most frustrated and at times he lashes out at people because of it. Still, this is ultimately a story about a funny man trying to keep his cool and I had more respect for him after seeing his struggle and I also applaud him for letting this film be so honest.



The Interrupters: Steve James returns to the streets of Chicago nearly two decades after the release of his landmark documentary Hoop Dreams. This time he’s showing a much rougher side of the South Chicago experience as he documents Ceasefire, a group that tries to intervene in street violence and prevent violent confrontations between gang members. It lacks the epic scope of Hoop Dreams but it’s still a strong look at people trying to do whatever small thing they can to improve their community.



Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory: The release of the West Memphis Three late last year was a relief to anyone who’d paid attention to this documentary series, but it maybe wasn’t the best thing for this third film, which needed to address the last minute reprieve in a hastily constructed epilogue. Still, I couldn’t help but be engrossed all over again with this story of massive injustice, and while this one did have a happy ending you can’t help but wonder what happens to the wrongfully imprisoned people who don’t have documentaries and rock bands on their side.



Senna: Constructed almost entirely of stock footage, Senna tells the story of the famous Formula One racer Ayrton Senna from his childhood until his death in a crash in the mid 90s. I had no idea who Senna was before seeing the film, but I was certainly fascinated by his short but successful career and his rivalry with another racer named Alain Prost. Sorting through a lifetime of footage couldn’t have been easy and this is one of the best retroactive biographical documentaries I’ve seen since Tupac: Resurrection.



Tabloid: Errol Morris’ career has seemed to be evenly split between serious documentaries about weighty issues and quirkier films about seemingly frivolous issues that still have points to make about the issues that fascinate him. Tabloid is closer to the latter category, but it’s still a really well crafted piece of work. The film tells the sordid tale of Joyce McKinney a crazy woman accused of kidnapping her boyfriend while he was on a Mormon Missionary trip to England. The film ends up being a good exploration into the subjectivity of truth that you just can’t turn away from.



The Golden Stake Goes to…

Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:



iv3rdawG 02-23-2012 09:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dracula (Post 2789532)

That's a 2012 film.

So if a film is released on VOD in 2011 but hits theaters in 2012 it'd be considered 2012? (just wondering in reference to the rest of the awards). Also wondering if that applied to Kill List as well.



Dracula 02-23-2012 09:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by iv3rdawG (Post 2789534)

So if a film is released on VOD in 2011 but hits theaters in 2012 it'd be considered 2012? (just wondering in reference to the rest of the awards). Also wondering if that applied to Kill List as well.

It was on VOD on December 30th which is just barely 2011 to begin with and, well, I think VOD is stupid and generally ignore it.



Kill List never even appeared on VOD in the United States until 1/4/2012.



JBond 02-23-2012 09:41 PM

I only saw Conan's which I liked.



MovieBuff801 02-23-2012 10:43 PM

Me too.


Dracula 02-25-2012 07:39 AM

Revealing the Top Ten over the course of the day:



The Number 10 Movie of the Year:

Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:



PG Cooper 02-25-2012 08:48 AM

Good first pick. I certainly don't like it as much as you do, but it's hard not to admire.



Dracula 02-25-2012 09:41 AM

The Number 9 Movie of the Year:

Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:

 



Dracula 02-25-2012 11:53 AM

The Number 8 Movie of the Year:

Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:



Neverending 02-25-2012 01:18 PM

Did you do a Best Director award?! :confused:



Dracula 02-25-2012 01:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neverending (Post 2789741)

Did you do a Best Director award?! :confused:

Best director will be the number one film, the nominees will be five through one.



The Number 7 Movie of the Year:

Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:



Neverending 02-25-2012 01:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dracula (Post 2789749)

Best director will be the number one film, the nominees will be five through one.

Fascinating...



MovieBuff801 02-25-2012 02:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dracula (Post 2789749)

Best director will be the number one film, the nominees will be five through one.



The Number 7 Movie of the Year:

Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:

I absolutely agree. Take Shelter is incredible. Though I found that I actually kinda dug the ending.



Dracula 02-25-2012 02:44 PM

The Number 6 Movie of the Year:

Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:



Dracula 02-25-2012 03:33 PM

The Number 5 Movie of the Year:

Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:



Dracula 02-25-2012 05:06 PM

The Number 4 Movie of the Year:

Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:



Dracula 02-25-2012 06:47 PM

The Number 3 Movie of the Year:

Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:



Neverending 02-25-2012 07:24 PM

Your best director nominees are disappointing.



Dracula 02-25-2012 07:56 PM

The Number 2 Movie of the Year:

Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:



Dracula 02-25-2012 08:57 PM

The Number 1 Movie of the Year:

Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:



JBond 02-25-2012 10:33 PM

I still have to see Melancholia.



PG Cooper 02-26-2012 08:16 AM

Damn, good job Dracula. I feel bad though, I've only seen one film in your top five (50/50), and four in your entire list (50/50, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, Contagion, and The Tree of Life.



FranklinTard 02-26-2012 11:58 AM

i though take shelter's ending was just as ambiguous as the rest of the flick actually... open for many interpretations.