Dracula Presents: The Fourteenth Annual Golden Stake Awards

The right movie won. I'm also glad you nominated Tenet for this. I like the sound design.

I was in awe of the sound in your winner.

Best Art Direction
Art direction is one of the staple elements of filmmaking. It refers broadly to production design, the design and construction of sets as well as other elements of design world building and in my definition that also includes costumes to some extent. I must say this was one of the harder years to pick a slate. A lot of the year’s standout films seemed to take place largely outdoors and many of the other ones were sort of predominately set in places that had more of a simple realist aesthetic than the kind of fantastical worlds that really stand out.

#Alive: #Alive is in many ways an attempt at combining Dawn of the Dead with Rear Window, and like Rear Window that means we get an intense focus on the layout of a couple of apartments and a courtyard in-between them and that means they kind of need to deck those areas out with a lot of detail. The set decorators here clearly have a keen eye for the look of modern Korean young person décor and manage to tell you some things about our main characters by what they have in their rooms. The set decoration also does a good job of storytelling by how these places kind of decay and break down as the zombie apocalypse starts doing damage.

Bacurau: The title of Bacurau refers to the name of the film’s fictional town in the Pernambuco region of Brazil and the lifestyle of that town is key to the film. The movie was filmed in an actual town called Parelhas and I’m not entirely positive how much of the film was pre-existing architecture in that town and how much was built, but I’m sure there are interiors here that were created by Kleber Mendonça Filho and his team and certain key locations like the town museum and a house inhabited by some local eccentrics really stand out as places that were pointedly designed to make a point. Location and community have been key to all of Filho’s movies and that’s especially true of this one and these sets are a big part of that.

Gretal and Hansel: This odd little horror movie didn’t make too much of an impact when it came out early in the year (and that was pre-pandemic too) and I was a little snarky about it when I watched it but it does remain an interesting little curio and one of the most noteworthy things about it is its set decoration and specifically the decoration of the witch hut that much of the film takes place in. The traditional Hansel and Gretal story of course involves a hut in the woods made out of gingerbread or candy and while the film doesn’t replicate that it certainly makes this place seem otherworldly and its constantly being shot at odd angles to suggest that it’s always in shift.

Mank: Mank is likely the set decoration job out of all of these that required the most effort and research. Like all aspects of the film Fincher seems to have taken a very deep dive into anything and everything about 1940s Hollywood and that certainly includes the décor. The film recreates studio backlots and offices with a lot of precision and perhaps even more notably builds out a recreated approximation of William Randolph Hearst’s famous San Simeon estate, which was previously parodied as the Xanadu estate from Citizen Kane. That set along with the rest of the locations attest to Fincher’s famous attention to detail.

Tenet: The settings of Tenet more closely resemble the modern contemporary world than other Christopher Nolan movies like Inception or Interstellar but there are nonetheless some very interesting sets to decorate over its runtime. The “Freeport” archive that a major setpiece takes place in, for example, is a pretty adventurous location for a heist scene and given that they go through it twice you know extra thought was put into its layout. Similar care was clearly put into the quarry the film’s finale was set in, but beyond those big signature locations there was also clearly a lot of care put into making some of the more “normal” locations like Sator’s yacht extremely decadent.

And the Golden Stake goes to…

I have to echo Coop and say I'm appreciating all the Tenet noms.

Yay! My boy won something.

Best Score
This category always requires a bit more time and effort from me since I try to listen and re-listen to the various scores before narrowing things down and making my choice. This year was particularly tricky because there were a lot of scores in contention though only a few really rose to the level of being real contenders for the win, so I had to make some tricky cuts. As always this is an award for how well the score serves the film, not for what sounds the nicest on an album.

Minari:

Minari is a movie that’s meant to reflect a sort of hazy memory, it’s not exactly told from the point of view of a child but in some ways it sort of feels like it is. The film’s score, by relative newcomer Emile Mosseri, does a very good job of evoking that sense of nostalgia throughout the movie. Like the film, the music isn’t unaware of the struggles the family occasionally goes through but it’s also not defeated by them and in many ways it helps emphasize how these people are kind of continuing on with their lives undaunted by them and it surprises you occasionally with tracks that have added vocal elements.

News of the World:

Composed by James Newton Howard, this would be the only scores out of these five nominees to come from one of the long time giants of film composing. For this movie he’s put together a pretty traditional though well done score that nicely fits the movie it’s accompanying. The score is anchored by some melancholy strings that emphasize the sadness of the Helena Zengel character’s situation but it also has some jaunty guitar/banjo sounding stuff that matches the western journey aspects of the movie. A fine example of Hollywood scoring done right.

Soul:

The score for Soul is a collaboration between three musicians: Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross and Jon Batiste. Batiste, who has a day job as Stephen Colbert’s bandleader, has New Orleans roots and is something of a jazz and R&B impresario. He provides the jazz music the protagonist plays as wells as a lot of the scoring during the earthly parts of the film on the New York streets. Reznor and Ross meanwhile provide the music during the heavenly parts of the film which is a sort of ethereal electronic music that is not of this world. The combination of the two styles really paint the dichotomy between the two worlds the movie flips between.

Tenet:

Tenet was the first film that Christopher Nolan has made in a while where he wasn’t working with Hans Zimmer (a composer who would have had a much busier year had all his movies not been pushed to 2021) so he instead he hired the upstart wunderkind Ludwig Göransson. Göransson does not go too far against the grain here and continues with the aggressively percussive approach that Zimmer took to Nolan’s movies but adds some more modern twists to the mix like incorporating breathing into certain tracks or subtly overlaying Travis Scott’s voice into certain themes. Perhaps the most notable thing about is that it’s a score that sometimes goes from zero to sixty really quickly and keeps you guessing.

Wendy:

Benh Zeitlin (in collaboration with a guy named Dan Romer) is one of the few directors who do the music on their own movies and I get the impression that I like his work as a composer more than a lot of people since I gave the Golden Stake to his excellent score for Beasts of the Southern Wild when very few other people were and if they weren’t going to give it to the music on that critical darling they certainly weren’t going to award it on this movie which basically flopped, but I think that on a musical level Zeitlin and Romer are still on point here delivering a nicely maximalist accompaniment that uses a variety of instruments and really captures the tone of adventure and whimsy they were going for.

And the Golden Stake goes to…

I liked the Mank score but it didn't stand out to me as much and while it didn't strictly disqualify it or anything the fact that Reznor/Ross were already being honored did make it an easier cut in favor of wider variety.

Best Soundtrack
The Best Soundtrack award is distinct form the Best Score award in that it looks at the use of popular music throughout a film rather than newly composed scores, specifically the accumulation of pre-existing songs. Specifically it’s about the use of this music within actual scenes in the movie, it’s not about looking at soundtrack albums that are separate from the movie. The category tends to be stronger in some years than others and this year it seemed pretty weak. Filmmakers seemed much more interested in scores this year for whatever reason and even movies like The Trial of the Chicago 7 and Wonder Woman 1984 which looked like they would be magnets for period music ended up being stingy with the needle drops.

Da 5 Bloods: Soundtracks are usually mixes and matches of various artists’ songs but every once in a while it makes sense to dedicate an entire soundtrack to one artists’ music. Spike Lee has actually done this before, for instance when he filled the soundtrack to Girl 6 with music by Prince. Here he’s given the spotlight to Marvin Gaye, but primarily Gaye’s landmark album “What’s Going On” (which Rolling Stone voted the greatest album of all time this year). Six of the nine tracks on that album are used in some capacity in the film in a variety of different ways and you get the impression Lee is hoping to show that anti-Vietnam protest music was not just a white thing.

The King of Satan Island: Judd Apatow has always been one to underscore his movies with popular songs of the day and given that Pete Davidson always struck me as fairly pop culture literate this seemed like an ideal vehicle for using some songs. The movie doesn’t really disappoint as it features some music of today mixed with some references to the past. There’s a memorable montage set to Fabolous’ “Girl You Be Killin’ Em” and a memorable use of The Wallflowers’ “One Headlight” when he’s hanging out with the firefighters, as well as some really recent stuff like Lizzo’s “Juice” and DNCE’s “Cake by the Ocean” in the film but the tracks it’s probably most associated with are some Kid Cudi tacks it uses which fit pretty well with its themes of stoned depression.

The Old Guard: The Old Guard is one of the few movies I saw this year which really seemed to be trying to tap into the modern zeitgeist with its soundtrack selections. It’s largely filled with songs from the very recent past, mostly from moody R&B artists like Frank Ocean and Khalid, though those are the only two names on the album that really jump out as household names. The rest are more obscure tracks in a similar veign as wells as some more upbeat and electronic infused songs of various varieties. Not necessarily music I personally recognize and respond to but it was nice to see someone taking a different approach and it enhanced the film’s contemporary feel.

Palm Springs: The Andy Sandburg comedy Palm Springs features an eclectic and playful soundtrack that blends in pretty seamlessly with the movie. Some tracks are selected because they (or their titles) play in to the themes of the film like Demis Roussos’ “Forever and Ever” and Hall And Oats’ “When the Morning Comes” while others fit well within the film’s many wedding party scenes, particularly the song “Megatron Man” by Patrick Cowley, which is used in a pair of fairly memorable dance scenes. Then there are songs that fit well with the film’s more science fiction elements like Genesis’ “The Brazilian” and “Cloudbusting” by Kate Bush. They clearly dug pretty deep for some of this stuff rather than going with super obvious choices.

Promising Young Woman: Promising Young Woman is not a movie that’s overloaded with popular music but when song placements hit they hit pretty hard. I’ve already discussed its use of Juice Newman’s “Angel in the Morning” at the film’s climax but it also opens memorably with an ironic use of Charli XCX’ song “Boys.” Then somewhere around the middle of the film it even managed to get a memorable scene out of a prominent use of a song by Paris Hilton of all people, yes that Paris Hilton. And of course there’s also the film’s use of a special instrumental remix of Brittany Spears’ “Toxic,” which I think was created for the trailer but made its way into the film in a key scene as well.

And the Golden Stake goes to…

Best Editing
Editing. It’s a hard thing to judge. I think I say this every year but it’s pretty widely understood that at the end of the day it’s close to impossible to really know who performed miracles in the editor’s room without seeing what raw footage they were working with which is something you’re never really going to do just by watching the final film. However, you can make educated guesses and you can also judge how the final editing makes you feel, and that’s maybe the most you can ask for.

Mank: Citizen Kane is remembered for a lot of innovations, and one of them was Robert Wise’ expert cutting on that movie so with Mank Fincher and his editor Kirk Baxter had a lot to live up to, and while they don’t exactly re-invent the wheel like that here but they do engage in some fine cutting. This is one of many movies this year with a lot of shifts in time and needs to go back and forth into flashbacks a lot all while using some classy and traditional cuts.

Nomadland: Editing matters in slow dramas as it does in kinetic action movies and movies with wild shifts in chronology and careful editing feels particularly key to the success of Nomadland. Nomadland is set over the course of a year at multiple locations and while it’s basic structure was likely there in the screenplay I’m sure there were a number of decisions made in the editing room about exactly how long to spend at each location and exactly how to make each transition elegantly. Beyond that it’s a film populated with non-actors and probably some improvised dialogue so selecting just the right take for each shot was also probably very important.

Palm Springs: Editing can be a crucial part of even the most ordinary comedy but Palm Springs is not an ordinary comedy. Set in a time loop, the film needs to engage in all the usual tricks invented by movies like Groundhog Day but even if this isn’t the first movie to use these techniques that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be admired for using them well. Beyond all the crazy montages and repeated moments that the high concept necessitates, this is just a fine piece of comedic editing which manages to keep things feeling loose while not losing track of the story it’s supposed to be telling.

Tenet: When people talked about Memento as being a film told out of chronological order they were mistaken because that movie (well, the color segments anyway) was actually intensely chronological, it was just that it was going in reverse instead of forwards. Similarly, Tenet is a movie that feels like it’s told out of order when in fact it’s even more chronological than Memento despite the fact that time sort of bends and reverses at a certain point. Still, in cutting together this movie they needed to keep all of this lined up all while keeping the action scenes in tune.

The Trial of the Chicago 7: Though it’s not a movie inherently defined by its structure The Trial of the Chicago 7 does play outside of chronological order and employs handful of tricks to flip between the perspectives of the various characters while also keeping up with Sorkin’s rapid fire dialogue and preventing the audience from getting lost in it all. On top of that the film needs to edit around the chaos of the riot scenes, which are essentially action scenes of sorts in the middle of an otherwise talky courtroom drama and the editing keeps this from being jarring.

And the Golden Stake goes to…

All these Tenet awards have an asterisk.