Neverending
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Post by Neverending on Jan 29, 2020 23:10:13 GMT -5
I’m still waiting for the Fighting With My Family video essay. |
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Dracula
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Post by Dracula on Jan 30, 2020 7:53:24 GMT -5
Best Action Film
The Best Action Film category is usually pretty clear although there can be nuances that need to be sorted. For example, the movie Ad Astra has some actions scenes but that’s plainly not the focus so you won’t be seeing that here. Also I think Sam Mendes would take it as a rather backhanded compliment if I called 1917 a great action movie so I’m going to leave that out as well. Avengers: Endgame: Avengers: Endgame is like an action movie that doesn’t even need to exactly be filled to the brim with action. In fact after Thor beheads Thanos surprisingly early there really isn’t a whole lot of violence so much as there are effects-driven hijinks as they go through the time heist, but much of that is action none the less. Then there’s the big battle at the end which in many ways feels grander than it is simply because the Russo’s put it at the end of a film that wasn’t wall-to-wall action up to that point. Godzilla: King of the Monsters: This would certainly never be nominated for a Best Drama award I do think that it does hold some clear merit when looked at as an action movie. Kaiju movies are a somewhat rare novelty within the action genre and there are not too many places to get these sorts of set-pieces. Sequences like Rodan’s volcano escape are really strong and pretty much every scene where Ghidorah including the final battle scene are pretty much gold. Shame about that terrible script. John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum: The lone traditional R-rated gun violence focused nominee in this category, John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum held it down for the action film of yore this year. Following on the foundation of the first two films, this installment upped the ante for frantic Hong Kong inspired action once again with both the franchise’s signature gunfights as well as some quality melee fights as well as some cool chases. I have no idea how they plan to top themselves with a potential chapter four. Spider-Man: Far From Home: The Marvel films only kind of feel like action movies at this point as the characters and comedy and overall franchise story have kind of come to the forefront (which might be one of the secrets to their success) and this one in particular kind of feels like it has effects sequences more so than action scenes. That final action/battle scene does deliver though and so do other moments like the scenes where the “elementals” are attacking. Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker: Thinking of the Star Wars movies as action movies feels kind of weird given that the whole franchise feels like so much more in many ways but it would also be a mistake to overlook the many action thrills that are to be found in the films. This particular installment includes some solid action scenes like our heroes escaping from Stormtroopers with jet packs, the assault on the star destroyer to free Chewbacca, Rey’s fight with Kylo on Endor, and of course the film’s climactic battle scene which is the inspiration for a retooled Star Tours coming soon to Disneyland. And the Golden Stake goes to…John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum
 Shocking, I know. This wasn’t a hard choice but there are arguments to be made against John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum. The movie has some pacing issues and some of its action sequences do go on a little too long for their own good and the story ultimately leave Wick more or less in the same place he was in the beginning. As overall packages I’d say both of the MCU movies nominated are better overall packages… but neither of those movies have dudes getting knives stabbed through their eyes, so for this category the choice was pretty clear.
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IanTheCool
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Post by IanTheCool on Jan 30, 2020 7:59:52 GMT -5
I actually found John Wick 3 boring about halfway through, mostly because of the points you made, especially the action scenes going on too long. The dog scene broke me I think. But that knife store scene alone wins it this award.
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Dracula
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Post by Dracula on Jan 30, 2020 21:01:55 GMT -5
Best Comedy
This has seemingly been a terrible year for comedy coming out of Hollywood, or has it? Well, let’s just say it’s been a bad year for them financially because there have in fact been a decent assortment of good comedies in terms of quality, so many that I feel like I can restrict this category to pure comedies rather than stretch things and nominate semi-comedies like Parasite, Toy Story 4, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and Shazam. Booksmart: Booksmart is kind of the sleeper hit that wasn’t this year. Essentially a female Gen Z response to Superbad, the film follows two over-achieving teenagers who come to realize that the preconceptions they have about their classmates have been misguided and try to get wild for one night before graduation. Kaitlyn Dever and Beanie Feldstein both have pretty strong comedic chemistry and the film has a lot of strong side performances as well. Dolemite is my Name: The “the making of a bad movie” setup has become an oddly common format for comedic films going back to Ed Wood and more recently with The Disaster Artist and on top of that Dolemite is my Name looks at the life of Rudy Ray Moore, who was essentially a stand-up comedian. The film actually plays out more like a biopic than a comedy but it’s well aware of the comedic absurdities that the situation provides and milks them pretty effectively for laughs. Good Boys: Good Boys could be seen as something of a one joke movie… and not inaccurately. But that one joke does manage to hold up over the course of the film’s 89 minute run time. The film is all about having literal tween children go through a sort of wacky Seth Rogen-esque adventure and react to various raunchy hijinks through either inordinate disgust or naïve unfamiliarity. But like a lot of R-rated comedies from this century the film is able to find a moral center, in this case by saying something about what it’s like to hit that point where childhood friends start to grow apart. Long Shot: On paper Long Shot looks like it should be tired and to some extent it is. The idea of looking at the love life of a high profile politician has been done before and we’ve also seen Seth Rogen get into romances with women who are “too good for him.” But, well, the movie just kind of works. Rogen remains a solid comedic performer and Charlize Theron works well in the film as well. It’s not the most sophisticated satire of modern politics, but it does get in some good digs at Fox News and also finds some comedic takes on the way good ideas get watered down in Washington. Non-Fiction: They’re not letting Woody Allen release movies here anymore, fortunately Olivier Assayas has not been canceled and he was kind enough to step in and provide us with one of the best Woody Allen movies to not be made by Woody Allen in the form of Non-Fiction. The film follows a quintet of French intellectuals as they have a variety of affairs on one another and have various smart conversations, mostly about the effect that technology is having on the publishing industry, which is likely meant as a stand in for the effect that it’s having on the film industry. It’s not a laugh a minute kind of thing but there’s a lot of amusing stuff in it. And the Golden Stake goes to…Booksmart I actually wasn’t quite as taken by Booksmart as some people but despite that I think this wasn’t too hard of a choice to make as this kind of feels like the comedy this year with the fewest problems and which is the most likely to hold up over time. It’s got the best overall ensemble and it most clearly hits the beats people want out of a mainstream comedy… unfortunately people didn’t really seem to want a mainstream comedy of any kind this year, which is just weird.
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Dracula
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Post by Dracula on Jan 31, 2020 18:20:09 GMT -5
Best Horror Film
This has been kind of a mixed year for horror cinema as there have been some pretty high highs but also some unfortunate disappointments. As to eligibility, I’m ruling that The Lighthouse is not a real horror film (though that one is borderline) and despite depicting some things that are horrific I would not call The Nightingale a horror film either. Crawl: Crawl represents a pretty damn good example of the creature feature brand of the horror genre, which often shares a lot of DNA with what are essentially action spectacles and with the disaster elements here there’s a lot of that. It was however directed by Alexandre Aja, who is a horror veteran, and he keeps at least one foot pretty firmly planted in that world. The alligator attacks are nicely vicious and Aja also gets a lot out of that dark basement location. It’s an effective little unpretentious project. Midsommar: The latest horror offering from A24 is Ari Aster’s follow-up to his Golden Stake winning horror film Hereditary and is probably less scary than that film but perhaps better overall. The film is a throwback to the “folk horror” sub-genre that was briefly prominent during the British cinema of the late 60s and early 70s but resets it from the British Isles to northern Sweden and focuses in on the dread of wondering what these wacky cultists are going to do to our protagonists, but when the movie does start to get gory it gets really gory. Pet Sematary: There were three major Stephen King adaptations this year and if you had told me after I watched this one that it would be the one that ultimately felt the most successful of them I would have been pretty disappointed. It’s a comparison I make hesitantly because It: Chapter 2 and Doctor Sleep both failed through taking big swings while Pet Sematary is a fairly straightforward horror film but it’s one that was mostly effective even if it wasn’t wildly creative. Ready or Not: Ready or Not is part of a sort of mini-genre that exists now of movies that are clearly working within the tropes of the horror genre but which aren’t really trying to “scare” you per se. Rather the film is meant to be a sort of violent parable about a weird old-money family who made a pact with the devil which is forcing them to try to hunt down and kill the latest person to marry into the family. The various scenes of her being stalked are rooted more in dark humor and spectacle than suspense but it still provides the thrills that genre fans are looking for. Us: For his sophomore film Jordan Peele doubled down on the horror genre with Us, a film about a family being stalked by alternative shadow versions of themselves who are hell-bent on revenge. In this early stage the film resembles a home invasion movie but eventually the film broadens out to be more of an apocalyptic vision and then it kind of abandon’s conventional logic entirely to become something of a waking nightmare vision. That it managed to do all this in the year’s twelfth highest grossing movie is kind of amazing. And the Golden Stake goes to…Us
 One of the more controversial choices I’ve made in over ten years of doing the Golden Stakes was to not nominate Get Out in this Best Horror category and I do stand by that because whatever works about that movie has very little to do with horror. And while I wouldn’t say that Us is a movie that is first and foremost “scary” it is most definitely a true horror film in ways that Get Out wasn’t and it also largely excels in that arena.
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frankyt
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Post by frankyt on Jan 31, 2020 18:28:53 GMT -5
You're wrong. But I respect it.
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Deexan
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Post by Deexan on Jan 31, 2020 20:33:54 GMT -5
You're right.
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thebtskink
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Post by thebtskink on Jan 31, 2020 22:53:39 GMT -5
Wrong, and I've lost all respect for you.
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1godzillafan
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Post by 1godzillafan on Jan 31, 2020 22:56:04 GMT -5
The correct choice and I've never had respect for you.
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PhantomKnight
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Post by PhantomKnight on Jan 31, 2020 23:08:35 GMT -5
The wrong choice.
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Deexan
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Post by Deexan on Jan 31, 2020 23:34:56 GMT -5
Y'all are tethered ass motherfuckers.
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Dracula
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Post by Dracula on Jan 31, 2020 23:58:03 GMT -5
Best Documentary
On balance I don’t think this has been a great year for documentaries. It’s been a good year certainly, and there’s certainly been a large quantity of good documentaries but there haven’t been a ton of real homeruns at least not when compared to what we’ve gotten during some recent years. But there has certainly been enough good stuff to fill out a pretty good slate of nominees here. The Amazing Johnathan Documentary: I’ve come to really be sick of documentaries that exist to be these biographical profiles of celebrities who are on their deathbeds. There are a million of them, they’re all the same, and they only seem to exist to kiss the asses of their various subjects. So I was kind of happy when I learned that this film about the comedy magician The Amazing Johnathan was both not really like that but was in many ways meant as something of a deconstruction of that format. The film began with its director, Benjamin Berman, trying to make a documentary about Johnathan as he embarked on his farewell tour only to realize that there was also another documentary crew following him at the same time resulting in much post-modern reflection. American Factory: American Factory is one of those documentaries that you watch and think “how were the filmmakers allowed to keep filming all this?” The film chronicles the opening of an auto-glass factory in Dayton Ohio by a Chinese company who were hoping to transplant a lot of their overseas practices to America. It did not go smoothly. Over the course of the film we see some pretty harsh culture clashes as well as a unionization attempt all caught on film by Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar’s fly-on-the-wall cameras. The factory in question does not come off terribly well in all of it and you wonder why they keep letting the movie be made and don’t appear to have tried to prevent its release. Not sure why. The Biggest Little Farm: The Biggest Little Farm was a documentary I resisted for a while but when I finally saw it I got the appeal. The film follows two people who get the idea to buy a farm in Southern California and follow the advice of a mentor who tells them to build out this farm in a unique way that forms a sort of ecosystem across the land and allows for the raising of a wide variety of crops and animals. Again, that premise doesn’t appeal to me on its face and sounds like some hippy foodie nonsense, but the movie is really well photographed and becomes an interesting procedural about building this place, kind of a first world companion piece to Honeyland. Fyre: Fyre, a Netflix documentary about the ill-fated Fyre Festival (and not to be confused with Hulu’s less award-worthy Fyre Fraud, about the same topic) was actually the very first new movie I watched in 2019 and I didn’t expect it to still be standing as a nominee here come year end but the movie has stuck with me. The film chronicles how a bunch of young social media obsessives with high ambitions and connections to Ja Rule convinced themselves that they could launch a music festival in the Bahamas and did not succeed. The film really successfully captures the hubris of all this, explains how it all went wrong, and produces some very funny stories while also pretty effectively indidcting the vapid culture that made this story possible. Honeyland: The nation of North Macedonia is not generally known as a hotspot for filmmaking but they managed to pull off something pretty big with Honeyland, a film about a woman in a remote area who collects honey using traditional beekeeping methods. Upon first glance it’s easy to wonder how this is going to become entertaining: this lady looks like an extra from a Borat movie and beekeeping is only going to be so interesting. Then some new neighbors move in. I don’t want to give away too much of the dynamic after that but it does become rather interesting to watch these people and the film ends up acting as a sort of parable about wider environmental concerns. . And the Golden Stake goes to…
American Factory
 These nominees were fairly evenly matched so I ultimately went with the one that I think ultimately gave me the most food for thought. After all the plight of blue collar rust belt workers as well as the economic rise of China have been the center of political attention for much of the decade and this movie manages to find the two intersecting. The film also does a very good job of presenting the Chinese side of this whole story with the same empathy they bring to the American workers and while it certainly has a point of view it doesn’t treat the executives as one dimensional villains. It’s a mature piece of Direct Cinema that’s worth watching with strong consideration.
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PG Cooper
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Post by PG Cooper on Feb 1, 2020 0:02:32 GMT -5
Drac is very right. Us is fantastic.
He MIGHT be wrong in not at least nominating The Lighthouse, but I do agree that a straight horror label is not entirely accurate.
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PhantomKnight
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Post by PhantomKnight on Feb 1, 2020 0:47:24 GMT -5
Drac is very wrong. Get Out is fantastic. Fixed. |
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Deexan
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Post by Deexan on Feb 1, 2020 0:54:15 GMT -5
Best Documentary
On balance I don’t think this has been a great year for documentaries. It’s been a good year certainly, and there’s certainly been a large quantity of good documentaries but there haven’t been a ton of real homeruns at least not when compared to what we’ve gotten during some recent years. But there has certainly been enough good stuff to fill out a pretty good slate of nominees here. The Amazing Johnathan Documentary: I’ve come to really be sick of documentaries that exist to be these biographical profiles of celebrities who are on their deathbeds. There are a million of them, they’re all the same, and they only seem to exist to kiss the asses of their various subjects. So I was kind of happy when I learned that this film about the comedy magician The Amazing Johnathan was both not really like that but was in many ways meant as something of a deconstruction of that format. The film began with its director, Benjamin Berman, trying to make a documentary about Johnathan as he embarked on his farewell tour only to realize that there was also another documentary crew following him at the same time resulting in much post-modern reflection. American Factory: American Factory is one of those documentaries that you watch and think “how were the filmmakers allowed to keep filming all this?” The film chronicles the opening of an auto-glass factory in Dayton Ohio by a Chinese company who were hoping to transplant a lot of their overseas practices to America. It did not go smoothly. Over the course of the film we see some pretty harsh culture clashes as well as a unionization attempt all caught on film by Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar’s fly-on-the-wall cameras. The factory in question does not come off terribly well in all of it and you wonder why they keep letting the movie be made and don’t appear to have tried to prevent its release. Not sure why. The Biggest Little Farm: The Biggest Little Farm was a documentary I resisted for a while but when I finally saw it I got the appeal. The film follows two people who get the idea to buy a farm in Southern California and follow the advice of a mentor who tells them to build out this farm in a unique way that forms a sort of ecosystem across the land and allows for the raising of a wide variety of crops and animals. Again, that premise doesn’t appeal to me on its face and sounds like some hippy foodie nonsense, but the movie is really well photographed and becomes an interesting procedural about building this place, kind of a first world companion piece to Honeyland. Fyre: Fyre, a Netflix documentary about the ill-fated Fyre Festival (and not to be confused with Hulu’s less award-worthy Fyre Fraud, about the same topic) was actually the very first new movie I watched in 2019 and I didn’t expect it to still be standing as a nominee here come year end but the movie has stuck with me. The film chronicles how a bunch of young social media obsessives with high ambitions and connections to Ja Rule convinced themselves that they could launch a music festival in the Bahamas and did not succeed. The film really successfully captures the hubris of all this, explains how it all went wrong, and produces some very funny stories while also pretty effectively indidcting the vapid culture that made this story possible. Honeyland: The nation of North Macedonia is not generally known as a hotspot for filmmaking but they managed to pull off something pretty big with Honeyland, a film about a woman in a remote area who collects honey using traditional beekeeping methods. Upon first glance it’s easy to wonder how this is going to become entertaining: this lady looks like an extra from a Borat movie and beekeeping is only going to be so interesting. Then some new neighbors move in. I don’t want to give away too much of the dynamic after that but it does become rather interesting to watch these people and the film ends up acting as a sort of parable about wider environmental concerns. . And the Golden Stake goes to…
American Factory
These nominees were fairly evenly matched so I ultimately went with the one that I think ultimately gave me the most food for thought. After all the plight of blue collar rust belt workers as well as the economic rise of China have been the center of political attention for much of the decade and this movie manages to find the two intersecting. The film also does a very good job of presenting the Chinese side of this whole story with the same empathy they bring to the American workers and while it certainly has a point of view it doesn’t treat the executives as one dimensional villains. It’s a mature piece of Direct Cinema that’s worth watching with strong consideration. Was this the Obama funded one? |
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Neverending
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Post by Neverending on Feb 1, 2020 0:59:26 GMT -5
Yes
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Dracula
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Post by Dracula on Feb 1, 2020 1:04:05 GMT -5
Best Documentary
On balance I don’t think this has been a great year for documentaries. It’s been a good year certainly, and there’s certainly been a large quantity of good documentaries but there haven’t been a ton of real homeruns at least not when compared to what we’ve gotten during some recent years. But there has certainly been enough good stuff to fill out a pretty good slate of nominees here. The Amazing Johnathan Documentary: I’ve come to really be sick of documentaries that exist to be these biographical profiles of celebrities who are on their deathbeds. There are a million of them, they’re all the same, and they only seem to exist to kiss the asses of their various subjects. So I was kind of happy when I learned that this film about the comedy magician The Amazing Johnathan was both not really like that but was in many ways meant as something of a deconstruction of that format. The film began with its director, Benjamin Berman, trying to make a documentary about Johnathan as he embarked on his farewell tour only to realize that there was also another documentary crew following him at the same time resulting in much post-modern reflection. American Factory: American Factory is one of those documentaries that you watch and think “how were the filmmakers allowed to keep filming all this?” The film chronicles the opening of an auto-glass factory in Dayton Ohio by a Chinese company who were hoping to transplant a lot of their overseas practices to America. It did not go smoothly. Over the course of the film we see some pretty harsh culture clashes as well as a unionization attempt all caught on film by Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar’s fly-on-the-wall cameras. The factory in question does not come off terribly well in all of it and you wonder why they keep letting the movie be made and don’t appear to have tried to prevent its release. Not sure why. The Biggest Little Farm: The Biggest Little Farm was a documentary I resisted for a while but when I finally saw it I got the appeal. The film follows two people who get the idea to buy a farm in Southern California and follow the advice of a mentor who tells them to build out this farm in a unique way that forms a sort of ecosystem across the land and allows for the raising of a wide variety of crops and animals. Again, that premise doesn’t appeal to me on its face and sounds like some hippy foodie nonsense, but the movie is really well photographed and becomes an interesting procedural about building this place, kind of a first world companion piece to Honeyland. Fyre: Fyre, a Netflix documentary about the ill-fated Fyre Festival (and not to be confused with Hulu’s less award-worthy Fyre Fraud, about the same topic) was actually the very first new movie I watched in 2019 and I didn’t expect it to still be standing as a nominee here come year end but the movie has stuck with me. The film chronicles how a bunch of young social media obsessives with high ambitions and connections to Ja Rule convinced themselves that they could launch a music festival in the Bahamas and did not succeed. The film really successfully captures the hubris of all this, explains how it all went wrong, and produces some very funny stories while also pretty effectively indidcting the vapid culture that made this story possible. Honeyland: The nation of North Macedonia is not generally known as a hotspot for filmmaking but they managed to pull off something pretty big with Honeyland, a film about a woman in a remote area who collects honey using traditional beekeeping methods. Upon first glance it’s easy to wonder how this is going to become entertaining: this lady looks like an extra from a Borat movie and beekeeping is only going to be so interesting. Then some new neighbors move in. I don’t want to give away too much of the dynamic after that but it does become rather interesting to watch these people and the film ends up acting as a sort of parable about wider environmental concerns. . And the Golden Stake goes to…
American Factory
These nominees were fairly evenly matched so I ultimately went with the one that I think ultimately gave me the most food for thought. After all the plight of blue collar rust belt workers as well as the economic rise of China have been the center of political attention for much of the decade and this movie manages to find the two intersecting. The film also does a very good job of presenting the Chinese side of this whole story with the same empathy they bring to the American workers and while it certainly has a point of view it doesn’t treat the executives as one dimensional villains. It’s a mature piece of Direct Cinema that’s worth watching with strong consideration. Was this the Obama funded one? It was produced by a company the Obamas own, yes. |
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PG Cooper
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Post by PG Cooper on Feb 1, 2020 3:11:19 GMT -5
Drac is very wrong. Get Out is fantastic. Fixed. I've watched Get Out every year since release for the course I TA and...Us is better. |
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PhantomKnight
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Post by PhantomKnight on Feb 1, 2020 12:39:52 GMT -5
I've watched Get Out every year since release for the course I TA and...Us is better.
When Us starts embracing its horror routes, i.e. becoming a movie where people run around and get stabbed, that's when it loses something for me.
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Dracula
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Post by Dracula on Feb 2, 2020 19:45:21 GMT -5
Top Ten Films of 2019
10. Ash is Purest White
 Directed by: Jia Zhangke Written by: Jia Zhangke Starring: Zhao Tao and Liao Fan Distributor: Cohen Media Group Country: China Language: Mandarin Rating: Not Rated Running Time: 136 Minutes Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 Format: Digital Date Released: 3/15/2019 Date Seen: 3/31/2019 Worldwide Box Office Gross: $12 million # of Oscar Nominations: 0 # of Golden Stake Nominations: 1 (Original Screenplay) # of Golden Stakes Won: 0 In the past I’ve sometimes used the tenth slot of my top ten lists to give recognition to a film that I think needs extra attention but I’m not really doing that here as this is quite simply the movie I consider to be the year’s tenth best, but in some ways it could double as a movie that could use extra attention just the same. This has kind of been a movie a lot of critics have treated like homework and I can sort of see why given that Jia Zhangke doesn’t exactly make what you’d call “easy” cinema but he’s hardly Michael Haneke and there really is entertainment value to several scenes in his latest film. The film looks at Chinese society through the eyes of a woman who finds herself going to jail for protecting her hoodlum boyfriend and then has to find him again after she gets out. It’s ultimately a movie about a nation’s modernization but it’s a strong human story as well with some interesting moments and anecdotes along the way. The only reason it isn’t higher on the list is because, like Zhangke’s last movie, it runs into some third act problems at the end. Aside from that it’s strong world cinema that’s worth a look. 9. Marriage Story Directed by: Noah Baumbach Written by: Noah Baumbach Starring: Scarlett Johansson, Adam Driver, Laura Dern, Alan Alda, Ray Liotta, Julie Hagerty, Azhy Robertson, and Merritt Wever Distributor: Netflix Country: USA Language: English Rating: R Running Time: 136 Minutes Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1 Format: 35mm Date Released: 11/6/2019 Date seen: 10/19/2019 Worldwide Box Office Gross: Unknown # of Oscar Nominations: 6 (Picture, Original Screenplay, Actor, Actress, Supporting Actress, Score) # of Golden Stake Nominations: 5 (Musical Performance, Actress, Actor, Ensemble, Original Screenplay) # of Golden Stakes Won: 0 I didn’t have overly high expectations for Marriage Story when I went to see it. I’d heard some strong reviews out of Toronto and Venice, but I frequently haven’t been on the same wavelength as other critics when it came to the films of Noah Baumbach so I wasn’t sure what to expect out of his latest. I really shouldn’t have been worried though because this is plainly Baumbach’s best movie to date. The film is almost certainly inspired by Baumbach’s own recent experiences with divorce but is fictionalized in a number of ways and incorporates the experiences of various friends of his as well. It’s plainly a very personal project, but it doesn’t feel indulgent and doesn’t lose track of the fact that it’s supposed to be an entertaining movie with a clear sense of humor. The movie paints a vivid picture of everything that’s expensive and dehumanizing about the legal process of divorce but more than that it’s an exploration of a relationship right as it’s past the point where it can be fixed. As of late there’s been something of a parlor-game of people trying to decide which character the movie sympathizes with the most but that is perhaps the wrong approach as there’s really plenty of blame to go around for why this marriage didn’t work out and on some level it may never have worked out at all. 8. Birds of Passage Directed by: Ciro Guerra and Cristina Gallego Written by: Maria Camila Arias and Jacques Toulemonde Vidal Starring: Carmiña Martínez, Natalia Reyes, and José Acosta Distributor: The Orchard Country: Columbia Language: Wayuu Rating: Not Rated Running Time: 125 Minutes Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 Format: 35mm Date released: 2/13/2019 Date seen: 3/11/2019 Worldwide Box Office Gross: $1,409,188 # of Oscar Nominations: 0 # of Golden Stake Nominations: 2 (Poster and Under-Appreciated) # of Golden Stakes Won: 1 (Poster) Ciro Guerra was a filmmaker who seemed to come out of nowhere with his 2015 film Embrace of the Serpent, and while is follow-up is a bit less audacious but still very strong in its own way. Guerra, who co-directed this one with working with his (now) ex-wife Cristina Gallego, is once again looking at the indigenous population of his native Columbia but rather than looking at the inhabitants of the Amazon he is looking at the Wayuu people of the arid Guajira Peninsula who carry on some traditions while also existing in modernity. The film is specifically set in the 1960s and 1970s and focuses on a man who gets into the cannabis trade to pay off a dowry and ends up setting up quite the criminal enterprise as a result. So in a way it’s kind of the familiar Scarface type story but it’s elevated in a lot of ways by its setting and style. The film’s depiction of the Wayuu feels like a pretty good model of how to depict indigenous people onscreen as it manages to look at their traditions without completely exoticising them and certainly avoids any sort of “noble savage” nonsense and instead depicts them as flawed humans who are prone to the same impulses of greed and recklessness as anyone. Beyond that it’s simply a solid gangster flick that avoids cliché simply through its setting. 7. Little Women
 Directed by: Greta Gerwig Written by: Greta Gerwig Based on: The novel “Little Women” by Louisa May Alcott Starring: Saoirse Ronan, Emma Watson, Florence Pugh, Eliza Scanlen, Timothée Chalamet, Laura Dern, Meryl Streep, Tracy Letts, Bob Odenkirk, and Chris Cooper Distributor: Columbia Pictures Country: USA Language: English Rating: PG Running Time: 135 Minutes Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 Format: 35mm Date released: 12/25/2019 Date seen: 12/31/2019 Worldwide Box Office Gross: $147.1 million # of Oscar Nominations: 6 (Picture, Adapted Screenplay, Actress, Supporting Actress, Costumes, Score) # of Golden Stake Nominations: 5 (Adapted Screenplay, Ensemble, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Score) # of Golden Stakes Won: 1 (Supporting Actress) Making an adaptation of a classic novel is a safe thing to do in the sense that you’re working with a known property but it can also be daunting because all too often that known property will overwhelm a film and cancel out any attempt to leave a filmmaker’s own mark. Greta Gerwig’s Little Women adaptation is kind of amazing because it basically retains all the basic elements of Louisa May Alcott’s beloved novel but also isn’t afraid to make some fairly bold changes to it and they’re changes that work. The film’s reorganized chronology solves a lot of the problems that previous adaptations encountered and the film’s metatextual ending manages to both honor the original text while making a very modern point for those who are interested to hear it. Beyond that it’s just a really great production. The film has what could pretty accurately be termed an all-star cast and features some particularly notable performances by Saoirse Ronan, Florence Pugh, and Timothée Chalamet and the film manages to feel fresh in its “costume drama” while more or less remaining historically accurate. It’s a movie that shows that Greta Gerwig’s directorial skills run much deeper than simply recreating her teenage coming of age story. 6. Uncut Gems
Directed by: Benny and Josh Safdie Written by: Ronald Bronstein, Benny Safdie, and Josh Safdie Starring: Adam Sandler, Julia Fox, Kevin Garnett, Lakeith Stanfield, Idina Menzel, and Eric Bogosian Distributor: A24 Country: USA Language: English Rating: R Running Time: 135 Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 Format: 35mm Date released: 12/25/2019 Date seen: 12/24/2019 Worldwide Box Office Gross: $47.7 million # of Oscar nominations: 0 # of Golden Stake Nominations: 2 (Editing and Cinematography) # of Golden Stakes Won: 0 Uncut Gems got a bit of a raw deal throughout the Golden Stakes process as it was in sixth or seventh place in a lot of categories (across all award shows there are three or four movies that really hogged up a lot of spots this year) and the movie can only compete so much with some of this year’s more epic offerings but it is definitely an excellent thriller. The film is basically a portrait of a lost soul with a crippling gambling addiction, one that extends beyond mere games of chance and into every aspect of his life. He spends basically the whole movie hustling and chasing down various schemes and scams, too many to keep track of at times, and you get the impression that what’s going on in the film is an only slightly more extreme version of what this dude’s life is like every day. Beyond that the film simply manages to capture a time and place beautifully; it’s a story about New York’s diamond district circa 2012 and has a clear eye for the energy of that place and for where the culture was at that particular time. The film also elicits a credible dramatic performance from Adam Sandler, which feels like it should be more notable than it is, but Sander seems to blend into this world that the Safdie’s build so effortlessly that it really does seem easier than it probably is and they also manage to get good work out of complete non-actors like Kevin Garnett and that dude that Julia Fox meets at the casino at the end. 5. UsDirected by: Jordan Peele Written by: Jordan Peele Starring: Lupita Nyong'o, Winston Duke, Shahadi Wright Joseph, Evan Alex, Elisabeth Moss, Tim Heidecker Distributor: Universal Country: USA Language: English Rating: R Running Time: 116 Minutes Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 Format: Digital Date released: 3/22/2019 Date seen: 3/21/2019 Worldwide Box Office Gross: $255.1 million # of Oscar Nominations: 0 # of Golden Stake Nominations: 7 (Best Fight, Source Music, Score, Cinematography, Villain, Actress, and Horror) # of Golden Stakes Won: 3 (Cinematography, Actress, and Horror) When I first watched Us I liked it a lot but I had some reservations. I wasn’t precisely sure what its message was and there were also some big questions I had about some of the logistics of what was going on in the movie. The more I think about it the more sure I am that the movie basically makes no logical sense and the more I end up liking that about it. I’m calling dream/nightmare logic on this one, I wouldn’t say Argento is a primary influence on the film but he’s in its DNA somewhere. Unlike Get Out, which was making one very specific statement, this one is a little harder to interpret in terms of subtext. It certainly has something to do with wealth inequality and a sort of revolt of the underclass and it might also have something to do with “red” America revolting against the bourgeoisie. However, it’s really the film’s quality as a horror film rather than as a political statement that really makes it stand out, which is a big part of why I view it as so much more of an accomplishment than Get Out. That’s not to say that I think the movie is wildly scary but it does have a level of filmmaking and atmosphere that Get Out didn’t and it has a number of well-staged horror set pieces and it builds on itself in consistently interesting ways until it finally gives us this chilling apocalyptic vision. Really, the fact that Peele managed to make several hundred million dollars off of a movie this crazy is a testament to how successful he was. 4.
The Irishman  Directed by: Martin Scorsese Written by: Steven Zaillian Based on: The biography “I Heard You Paint Houses” by Charles Brandt Starring: Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci, Ray Romano, Bobby Cannavale, Anna Paquin, Stephen Graham, and Harvey Keitel Distributor: Netflix Country: USA Language: English Rating: R Running Time: 209 Minutes Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 Format: 35mm/Digital Date released: 11/1/2019 Date seen: 11/23/2019 Worldwide Box Office Gross: Unknown # of Oscar nominations: 10 (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, Editing, Production Design, Visual Effects, Costume Design) # of Golden Stake Nominations: 9 (Best Shootout, Makeup, Soundtrack, Editing, Supporting Actor, Actor, Ensemble, Quote, and Adapted Screenplay) # of Golden Stakes Won: 3 (Supporting Actor, Quote, and Adapted Screenplay) It is perhaps ironic that Martin Scorsese got bogged down in an endless discourse about whether or not MCU movies are cinema because in an odd sort of way his latest film is a sort of Avengers for gangster movies. All of Scorsese’s great collaborators who aren’t Leonardo Di Caprio are here; De Niro, Pesci, Keitel, as is gangster movie stalwart Al Pacino, but the movie never feels like it’s just a reunion gimmick. Instead this feels like a movie that is constantly in dialogue with Scorsese’s older movies and not always in a way that’s flattering to them. In many ways it’s a movie that seems to be directed at the people who were maybe a little too enamored with the parts of Goodfellas about the “good times” and wants to make it abundantly clear that the mobsters in his movies are in fact sad broken men who either end up, dead, in jail, or in a psychological jail of their own making when they realize that the things they’ve been fighting for really don’t matter. In that sense it’s dramatically different from his other gangster movies (if anyone tells you we’ve “seen this before from him” don’t listen to them) and the movie also earns every minute of its rather lengthy runtime. It’s hard not to view this as a bit of a swan song for Scorsese even though it sounds like he has another major project lined up for production next and may well continue working for several more years, so perhaps it’s better to simply look at it as Scorsese’s Unforgiven: a final word on the genre he’s most closely associated with. 3.
The Lighthouse
 Directed by: Robert Eggers Written by: Robert Eggers and Max Eggers Starring: Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson Distributor: A24 Country: USA Language: English Rating: R Running Time: 109 Minutes Aspect Ratio: 1.19:1 Format: 35mm Date released: 10/18/2019 Date seen: 10/24/2019 Worldwide Box Office Gross: $14.9 million # of Oscar nominations: 1 (Cinematography) # of Golden Stake Nominations: 5 (Best Sound, Editing, Actor, Quote, and Original Screenplay) # of Golden Stakes Won: 2 (Sound and Editing) Robert Eggers is one of the most promising filmmakers in the world given that he has now made two straight movies that feel both disconnected from any existing trends in American cinema other than arguably the loose description of “elevated horror” and yet he feels completely confident behind the camera and very willing to go against the usual norms of indie filmmaking. For his second film, The Lighthouse, he gets increasingly impressionistic and nightmarish. Filmed in black and white and with an archaically narrow aspect ratio, the film has an otherworldly feel reminiscent of something like David Lynch’s Eraserhead but is a bit more gradual in revealing how weird it is. The film features only two speaking roles, one played by Robert Pattinson and the other played by Willem Dafoe, and both actors really dive right into the film’s unconventional period dialogue. Dafoe in particular needs to read off some really elaborate bits of New England dialect steeped in nautical slang that’s like a cross between Bostonian and pirate-speak. That easily could have descended into camp and the film does have a sense of humor about this to some extent but Eggers mostly just makes it work within the movie’s more ominous tone, mostly because he makes Dafoe’s character into this larger than life and possibly satanic figure that looms over the film and as it goes on things start to feel increasingly unreal and increasingly nightmareish. 2. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
 Directed by: Quentin Tarantino Written by: Quentin Tarantino Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Emile Hirsch, Margaret Qualley, Austin Butler, Dakota Fanning, Bruce Dern, and Al Pacino Distributor: Sony Pictures Country: USA Language: English Rating: R Running Time: 161 Minutes Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 Format: 35mm Date released: 7/26/2019 Date seen: 7/26/2019 Worldwide Box Office Gross: $389.2 million # of Oscar nominations: 10 (Picture, Director, Actor, Supporting Actor, Original Screenplay, Cinematography, Costume Design, Production Design, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing) # of Golden Stake Nominations: 10 (Best Fight, Source Music, Soundtrack, Editing, Cameo, Supporting Actress, Actor, Ensemble, Quote, and Original Screenplay) # of Golden Stakes Won: 3 (Soundtrack, Cameo, and Actor) Once Upon a Time in Hollywood came out towards the end of a long and at times rather frustrating summer movie season where the studios were releasing some truly inane nonsense and the counter-programing was kind of uninspired as well, so there was kind of a lot of pressure on Tarantino to finally give us something great. He did in fact do that but not necessarily in the way everyone expected. The film is in many way’s Tarantino’s most subdued film in a while, not unlike his 1997 film Jackie Brown which was also a movie that reveled in its Los Angeles setting. This is not, however, a movie that Tarantino was likely to make when he was younger as this is very much a film told from the perspective of an older artist who is questioning his place in pop culture. The film is after all set in 1969, a year where Hollywood was going through a pretty momentous transition and looks at the making of a western TV show, a genre that frequently focuses on men who don’t see a place for themselves in the new civilized west that they helped create. But as I re-watched the movie recently I came to realize that overthinking the movie like this really shouldn’t get in the way of simply enjoying what is additionally a really good Tarantino hang-out movie that perfectly captures its period and gives its characters some pretty fun banter even when they’re in a big of a low place. Then there’s that ending, which I think is meant to be received in a slightly more complicated way than it’s often given credit for. Suffice it to say that this is another winner from Tarantino and if his threats to retire are sincere we may not get too many more of them. 1.
Parasite
 Directed by: Bong Joon-Ho Written by: Bong Joon-Ho and Han Jin-won Starring: Song Kang-ho, Lee Sun-kyun, Cho Yeo-jeong, Choi Woo-shik, Park So-dam, and Chang Hyae-jin Distributor: Neon Country: South Korea Language: Korean Rating: R Running Time: 132 Minutes Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 Format: Digital Date released: 10/11/2019 Date seen: 10/25/2019 Worldwide Box Office Gross: $163.3 million # of Oscar nominations: 6 (Picture, Director, Original Screenplay, Production Design, Editing, Foreign Language) # of Golden Stake Nominations: 6 (Best Set-Piece, Art Direction, Supporting Actress, Ensemble, Original Screenplay, and Poster) # of Golden Stakes Won: 4 (Best Set-Piece, Art Direction, Ensemble, Original Screenplay) When I went into this process I didn’t really have a clear idea of what I wanted my number one film to be. Usually when that happens it’s because the pickings are slim but this year it was more because I had five really good contenders and wasn’t sure what deserved that top slot. Two of my top five (Us and The Lighthouse) were horror tinged thrillers with slightly abstract meanings that I will likely need to see several more times before I know exactly how I feel about them. Another two (The Irishman and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) are movies that feel like late career statements by filmmakers who are thinking about retirement and are pondering what legacy they’ll leave behind. Movies like that are important, but ultimately I feel like when picking a year’s best film in that year it makes more sense to honor the film that is being made by a filmmaker that’s in his prime and is looking forward rather than looking backward and this year that filmmaker is Bong Joon-Ho and that film is Parasite. Parasite is in many ways the culmination of a series of inventive genre films that have been coming out of South Korea since the turn of the century but it kind of feels like something bigger than that as it sort of defies any easy genre classification. Is it a crime movie? A dark comedy? A tense thriller? Really it’s all of those things but beyond that it’s a movie that manages to take a hard look at the wealth inequality that has come to pervade much of the developed world but it does it in a way that never detracts from the film’s entertainment value or gets in the way of it being a genuinely intriguing human story. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a perfect film but in a year filled with fascinatingly imperfect movies it was as close as it came to perfection.
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PG Cooper
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Post by PG Cooper on Feb 2, 2020 19:59:32 GMT -5
Dope list, and great work as always. I'd also agree this year didn't necessairly have a clear "best movie", but a handful of really amazing films that all deserved the top spot in their own way.
So is Parasite Bong Joon-ho's best movie?
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Dracula
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Post by Dracula on Feb 2, 2020 20:01:46 GMT -5
Dope list, and great work as always. I'd also agree this year didn't necessairly have a clear "best movie", but a handful of really amazing films that all deserved the top spot in their own way. So is Parasite Bong Joon-ho's best movie? By a pretty wide margin |
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IanTheCool
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Post by IanTheCool on Feb 2, 2020 21:27:36 GMT -5
Dope list, and great work as always. I'd also agree this year didn't necessairly have a clear "best movie", but a handful of really amazing films that all deserved the top spot in their own way. So is Parasite Bong Joon-ho's best movie? Yes, out of the... 4 Ive seen anyways.
Most top ten lists by most everyone has some pretty common DNA. There's a lot of solid films liked by many. Yes, there are some segregates like Joker, but otherwise most people out include Irishman, Parasite, Hollywood, etc. Is it me or does this seem to be more the case this year than other previous years?
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thebtskink
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Post by thebtskink on Feb 2, 2020 23:16:25 GMT -5
Dope list, and great work as always. I'd also agree this year didn't necessairly have a clear "best movie", but a handful of really amazing films that all deserved the top spot in their own way. So is Parasite Bong Joon-ho's best movie? Yes, out of the... 4 Ive seen anyways.
Most top ten lists by most everyone has some pretty common DNA. There's a lot of solid films liked by many. Yes, there are some segregates like Joker, but otherwise most people out include Irishman, Parasite, Hollywood, etc. Is it me or does this seem to be more the case this year than other previous years?
The popcorn entertainment doesnt lend itself that much to Top 10 this year. I agree theres a lot of common threads, but as a whole I think my Top 10 superceded any of my past 10 in overall quality. |
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Dracula
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Post by Dracula on Feb 2, 2020 23:19:42 GMT -5
Dope list, and great work as always. I'd also agree this year didn't necessairly have a clear "best movie", but a handful of really amazing films that all deserved the top spot in their own way. So is Parasite Bong Joon-ho's best movie? Yes, out of the... 4 Ive seen anyways.
Most top ten lists by most everyone has some pretty common DNA. There's a lot of solid films liked by many. Yes, there are some segregates like Joker, but otherwise most people out include Irishman, Parasite, Hollywood, etc. Is it me or does this seem to be more the case this year than other previous years?
Might be a bit more extreme this year, but there do usually tend to be some prestige movies each year that get love across the board. |
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