Dracula
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Post by Dracula on Feb 13, 2022 10:15:37 GMT -5
For those who weren't here when I did this in 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 , and 2020 and this is part of a tradition of year-end rituals I put together each year and I'm ready to go through with this once again. Basically what I want to do here is post one category a day for four weeks. The First week will be scene based categories (best chase 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 culminate 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-indulgent pursuit. I hope that each category will lead to discussion and that people will find themselves playing along and giving their opinions about these various categories. Now, you may recall that last year, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, several award bodies including the Academy expanded their eligibility for their 2020 award to include several movies released in early 2021 but I did not do that for Golden Stakes and and instead stuck strictly to the 2020 calendar year with plans to make those movies eligible the next year. Well, it's "the next year" now so those movies are going to be eligible for this year's Golden Stakes. Hopefully this will be the end of weird messy qualification drama going forward. Please note that as of this posting on CS I have not yet seen the movie Cyrano. Should I see it sometime between now and when I finish posting all of this it may suddenly start showing up if it turns out to be awards worthy and I reserve the right to retroactively nominate it for stuff in the final draft of all this on my blog. I don't think anything else I've yet to see before closing the book on this year should come up unless Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom ends up being a corker Blanket Spoiler Warning Please note I have not held back when discussing spoilers of certain movies. On the old forum I could black these spoilers out but here I can't do that so easily. So, without further ado I'll give out the first of the scene based awards: Fight of the Year
And so we begin! As is now set tradition we will be beginning with out “Fight of the Year” award, which is given out to the best film sequence of the year to focus on melee combat of some sort. It can be a fight between two people or a fight between one person and multiple people, though battle scenes likely will not qualify. Combatants may have melee weapons like knives and swords and the like but too much of a focus on gun or projectile violence will move it out of the category. Aircraft Carrier Fight – Godzilla Vs. Kong: Far and away the best scene in the movie, this sequence in Godzilla Vs. Kong finally gave audiences exactly what the title promised and it did it in a rather unconventional environment. Set on a fleet of aircraft carriers that were transporting Kong in chains when they’re attacked by an underwater Godzilla, the sequence features the big “moneyshot” of the two standing on decks facing each other and the film uses a variety of techniques to show how frightening this would be for the people on these soon to be sunk boats while all this is happening. Almost justifies this whole rather shaky movie. The Duel – The Last Duel: When you title your movie The Last Duel and then structure it so as to build up to the fighting of said duel… you better deliver a scene that doesn’t disappoint, though in some ways it does slightly subvert your expectations. The bout begins as a straight up joust, but one that’s far more brutal than what you see at Renaissance Fairs and which is as dangerous to the horses and bystanders as it is to the combatants. Eventually it devolves to two guys wrestling in the mud and ends with a bit of brutality that is climactic but also ugly and off-putting in a way that makes you consider the ethics of such a spectacle. Police Station fight – Malignant: Though perhaps not the most elegant piece of work this absolutely nuts scene that acts as a climax to Malignant is nonetheless wildly memorable. In it we finally get an explination for all the weird stuff that we’ve been seeing: the protagonist had a conjoined twin who is still alive and periodically controls her and here he takes over her body completely and his face emerges from the back of her skull… which I can only assume is completely medically accurate. In this form “Gabriel” starts to kind of walk backwards and engage in a bunch of extremely gory hand to hand murders in a holding cell before breaking out and going on a rampage through a police station both with its hands and with a knife. The absolute chaos of all this mixed with the character’s unconventional movements are really something. Bus Fight – Nobody: For whatever reason 2021 was a big year for fight scenes set on board public transportation as this is the first of two sequences of chaos on a bus we’ll be looking at. This one isn’t the most elaborate but it’s certainly the most brutal. The inciting incident of the film, it finds Bob Odenkirk riding a bus and seeing a woman being accosted by a gang of thugs and he feels a need to intercede. He’s older and certainly looks less tough than his opponents but it quickly becomes clear that he has a “very particular set of skills” that gives him a chance, but he’s still outnumbered and everyone involved becomes winded as they engage in this combat. Bus Fight – Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings: We first learn that “Shaun” is more than meets the eye in this first act set-piece from Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings in which he’s attacked while sitting on an articulated San Francisco bus and what follows is an extended scene where he needs to take on a pair of thugs and a giant with a big knife for a hand. All the while the movie Speed is happening in the background as the buses brakes are out and it’s speeding through the streets and Shang-Chi must move all over and also outside this vehicle in order to keep everyone safe. And the Golden Stake Goes To…Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
 Man, I really wanted to find an excuse to give this to The Last Duel. That seemed like a cooler choice and the one that’s a bit more resonant to its film on a story level. Really there are good arguments to be made for all of these scenes but upon reviewing them this MCU fight scene simply could not be denied. The sheer number of cool things going on in this scene, whether it’s the guy filming it with a cell phone or the various other environmental factors at play and you get this wild sequence that’s like a Jackie Chan fight scene on steroids and done with all the resources of the world’s biggest movie studios. Had the rest of the movie lived up to this sequence it would have really been a hell of a ride. |
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PhantomKnight
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Post by PhantomKnight on Feb 13, 2022 13:25:28 GMT -5
Ooooh, tough one. Shang-Chi's was honestly pretty great, but...maybe because of the sheer bonkers insanity of Malignant's, I might've given it to that.
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PG Cooper
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Post by PG Cooper on Feb 13, 2022 14:08:30 GMT -5
Nice. Love The Golden Stakes.
Pretty competitive first category too. Seems any of these have a valid shot. I might personally lean The Last Duel but Shang-Chi's scene was indeed the highlight of the film and possibly the best piece of escapist action filmmaking all year.
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thebtskink
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Post by thebtskink on Feb 13, 2022 14:49:32 GMT -5
Stacked category to kick it off. I'm on board with Coop, that bus scene is the best action in Shang Chi.
Though the chair throw in Malignant gave me the biggest grin, and the Last Duel scene was just brutal.
Still haven't seen Nobody. Adding that to my 2021 watch list for our top 10s.
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Post by Neverending on Feb 13, 2022 15:20:30 GMT -5
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Dracula
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Post by Dracula on Feb 14, 2022 11:54:26 GMT -5
Shootout of the Year
Our second specific action scene category is the shootout of the year, a category for the action scenes this year in which firearms (or other projectile weapons) are used to engage in what are usually intense body count laden spectacles. Scenes can feature individuals or teams against many are the norm but scenes that veer to close to being all out war/battle scenes are usually disqualified. This year we have a fun assortment of big spectacle films and b-action movies competing against one another. Panther Headquarters Shootout – Judas and the Black Messiah: This sequence acts as something of a turning point in Judas and the Black Messiah and occurs after one of the panthers has shot a police officer in a poorly executed intervention attempt. This greatly heightens tension in the city and when the police park outside the panther headquarters and begins taunting them the panthers in the building end up taking up arms and pointing them out the window. Eventually shots start ringing out and after the two parties fire at each other for a minute one of the panthers ends up hit and they surrender. There’s an unglamorous reality to this which is admirable, it’s much closer to how these shootouts likely happen in real life but it’s an exciting scene nonetheless. It’s also important for how Bill O'Neal acts through all this first by trying to escape undetected and then by possibly instigating the whole thing on the roof.
Warehouse Shootout – Nobody: You know… in retrospect Nobody is a pretty weird movie. By the time it gets to its climax you’ve kind of become accustomed to it but there is really something pretty novel about Hollywood studio film ending with a massive warehouse shootout in which Bob Odenkirk, Christopher Lloyd, and The RZA as brothers in arms mowing down a warehouse full of Russian mafia thugs. The scene features some rather novel trick shots with a sniper rifle as well as a truly nutty finale involving a rather unintuitive and implausible use of an explosive. Cuba Shootout – No Time To Die: Whatever problems I had with No Time to Die as a Bond fan, I do think it’s quite successful as an action movie and things really pick up in this mid movie action scene set in the aftermath of a Spectre party in Cuba that’s been poisoned. In it Bond and a fellow agent played by Ana de Armas try to capture a corrupt scientist while a rival agent played by Lashana Lynch tries to do the same while guard are firing on both parties. Bond himself gets some good shots in but the real revelation is de Armas who looks incredibly on point while wielding high powered weapons in an elegant party dress. House Shootout – Riders of Justice: Riders of Justice is kind of meant to be an anti-action movie at least on some theoretical level but it is not above presenting its gun violence in very entertaining fashion. In this climactic scene the titular motorcycle gang invades the home of Mads Mikkelsen character (who has “a very particular set of skills”) in retailiation for what that character and his makeshift crew have been up to through the movie. There’s some shooting in the house but it all climaxes in a standoff where they hold his daughter and her boyfriend hostage which ends in bloody fashion. Stealth Infiltration – The Suicide Squad: This early scene in The Suicide Squad has the characters in the main squad, particularly Bloodsport and Peacemaker, testing each other as they infiltrate an enemy camp they believe Rick Flag is being held prisoner in. They attack early in the morning when the men least suspect and do everything they can to silently take out as many of the soldiers as they can without raising the alarm. It’s a bit unconventional as a shootout scene as the targets here mostly aren’t shooting back but that’s mostly a testament to how effective the squad is and we see them making use of several different odd ranged weapons over the course of the entire infiltration all leading up to a really darkly comedic twist when they reach their objective that makes you rethink what you just watched. And the Golden Stake Goes To…No Time to Die
 In terms of shootouts No Time to Die almost tops itself late in its runtime with a cool scene where Bond goes through a set of corridors with an assault rifle taking out a number of henchmen. That scene is cool but I did opt to nominate the earlier scene here just because I think the Cuba shootout is generally more fun and less video-gamey and also just because it feels a bit more in the James Bond spirt in general. Still both scenes are really impressive and between the two of them No Time to Die more than proved itself to be the gun violence film of choice for 2021.
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PG Cooper
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Post by PG Cooper on Feb 14, 2022 13:12:04 GMT -5
Well-deserved. That scene is indeed awesome. I remember at that point thinking this may well be my 2nd favourite of the Craig era. Little did I know.
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Post by Neverending on Feb 14, 2022 13:18:54 GMT -5
Well-deserved. That scene is indeed awesome. I remember at that point thinking this may well be my 2nd favourite of the Craig era. Little did I know. Quantum of Solace remains his favorite. |
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Post by PhantomKnight on Feb 14, 2022 15:04:26 GMT -5
No arguing with that win.
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Dracula
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Post by Dracula on Feb 15, 2022 9:09:58 GMT -5
Chase of the Year
For out third specific action scene award we look at the classic chase scene. Car chases are of course the staple of chase scene but for out purposes any kind of chasing will do whether it’s foot chases, motorcycle chases, horse chases, airplane chases, some combination thereof… you name it. This year though, with one exception, we do mostly stick to traditional car and motorcycle chases as Hollywood gave us all sorts of elevated versions of the familiar. Tbilisi Chase – F9: You would think that by the ninth film the Fast and Furious team will have run out of ways to keep their car chases fresh and I do suspect they’re struggling at this point and yet they do manage to come up with at least one inspired idea per film and for this film that idea is: magnets motherfucker! We first experienced the high powered magnets in an earlier chase scene but out crew really finds their use for them in this climax in Georgia where they put them on their own cars and use them to push and pull on their enemies while trying to disrupt a motorcade manned by the villains. A truly elaborate climax to the film that satisfies the spectacle quotient fans of the series have come to expect. Animated Chase – The French Dispatch: This category tends to be dominated by major blockbusters but Wes Anderson’s indie anthology managed to slip in with this imaginative chase scene which uses animation to stand out. In it the villain of the third segment leads the police in a fanciful chase around some crazy turns and sometimes with an animated strongman clinging to its windshield. The animation itself is reminiscent of the cartoonwork that The New Yorker became famous for, which makes it an appropriate medium to shift to here in a budget saving method that gives this segment an audience pleasing climax. Running for an Exit – The Matrix Resurrections: There are basically three stages to the action finale of The Matrix Resurrections and the second stage is a neat little motorcycle chase in which Trinity speeds away from the coffee shop confrontation with Neo on the back using his deflection powers to push away various threats coming their way. It’s not as long as something like the highway chase in The Matrix Reloaded but it has some neat touches like a really cool jump using a flipped car and a rather macabre touch in which the machines use their “agent possessing” powers to force people in the buildings above to turn themselves into dive bombs. Matera Chase – No Time to Die: This James Bond installment certainly starts with a bang with its extended pre-credits scene climaxing in this sequence in the Italian city of Matera that begins with Bond being cornered on a bridge and stealing a motorcycle and then extends into a scene with Bond behind the wheel of one of his signature tricked out Aston Martins with which he makes some classic maneuvers like deflating tires with jacks. Then there’s a standoff where the villains try to break through his wildly effective bulletproof glass before he unleashes on them with the car’s gatling guns. Doctor Strange Chase – Spider-Man: No Way Home: This scene pits hero against hero as Spider-Man steals the artifact Strange is planning to use to send the various alternate universe villains to their deaths and swings away. Strange pursues him and opens up a portal to the mirror dimension which he expects will give him the upper hand but Spider-Man proves more able to navigate the world than expected. The sequence brings back some of the trippy visuals we got from Dr. Strange’s solo film and they prove to be a solid setting for this high flying pursuit sequence. And the Golden Stake Goes To…
No Time To Die
We’d gotten some teases of the “James Bond car” in earlier Daniel Craig era movies and got some moments out of them in Skyfall and Spectre but this was the first time in the era where one was really used correctly and successfully brought the trope into the modern era. The motorcycle stuff earlier in the scene is nothing to sneeze at either and between those two elements you definitely get your spectacle’s worth here, but what really puts the scene over the top is just Craig’s performance as he increasingly believes he’s been betrayed and you really see the rage inwardly rising in him as the scene escalates leading to a fateful decision at the end when he arrives at the train station leading into the opening song.
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Post by PG Cooper on Feb 15, 2022 9:41:56 GMT -5
Another good choice for a movie I don't really like, though I might have leaned towards French Dispatch. Maybe I'm giving too much credit to its sheer novelty but I found that whole sequence positively delightful.
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thebtskink
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Post by thebtskink on Feb 15, 2022 10:11:22 GMT -5
Only seen those last 3, but it's the right choice. Genuinely thrilling.
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PhantomKnight
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Post by PhantomKnight on Feb 15, 2022 12:07:56 GMT -5
Yeah, good call on this one.
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Post by Doomsday on Feb 15, 2022 14:28:45 GMT -5
The Strongman jumping back onto the windshield in French Dispatch gave me a big laugh for sure.
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Post by Neverending on Feb 15, 2022 21:58:50 GMT -5
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Dracula
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Post by Dracula on Feb 16, 2022 8:47:06 GMT -5
Best Set-Piece
The set-piece category is basically a catch-all category of large scale sequences that don’t really fit into one of the three prescribed action scene categories I generally work with. Sometimes that’s because they’re what I’d call “Hybrid” action scenes that combine elements of the fight, the shootout, and/or the chase into single scenes that can’t rightly be called any one of those things. But other scenes here are larger scale moments that aren’t necessarily action scenes at all and just feel like big moments unto themselves. A Meeting With St. Winifred – The Green Knight: This sequences is a bit smaller scale and low key than some of the scenes that tend to show up here but I think it fits. With it we essentially get a folk story within a folk story as it invokes the legend of St. Winifred, a supposed martyr who is said to have been beheaded for refusing a man’s sexual advances in order to become a nun only to then have her head miraculously re-attached by someone. Here that’s combined with the traditional ghost story about a spirit guiding someone to re-unite their body with its head in the form of a spectral Winifred guiding Sir Gawain after he stumbles into her abandoned house and getting him to dive into a nearby pond to pick up her skull and bring it back to her body which lies in the bed, and the presence of the fox here suggests that this is all a partial manifestation of The Green Knight as he gives him a second chance after losing the axe. The Green Knight isn’t really a horror movie but it certainly plays with traditional forms of the genre here and gives us a gem of a mini-movie because of it. Entering the 60s – Last Night in Soho: The assortment of award categories I selected for this whole thing have never been terribly great for dance sequences, sometimes they fit in the song categories but if they’re not using source music or the performers aren’t singing it doesn’t really fit. But the best set-piece award exists for things that don’t fit elsewhere and this brilliantly staged sequence from Last Night in Soho is definitely good enough to compete. The scene has our meek protagonist waking up in the 1960s and walking into a nearby club where we’re introduced to a motif where she sees another woman in the mirror, establishing that she’s in her body and mind while time traveling and the two sort of switch places between inhabiting mirrors and living in the space for the whole scene leading up to a bravura dance scene done in a single take where the two are both switching off dancing with the Dan Stevens character. By all accounts this whole thing aside from one brief transition was done for real with both actresses actually switching off behind a mobile Steadicam. It’s not just showing off though, this scene is essential for explaining why the 60s would be intoxicating for this character at first and establishing her connection to the proceedings. Norway Chase/Woods Standoff – No Time To Die: Here we have scene that starts as a car chase then sort of becomes a shootout but also engages in bits of action that are a bit outside of my usual characterizations. In it Bond and Madeleine suddenly find themselves being pursued by a group of mercenaries in a variety of vehicles including a helicopter. He’s not in his customary Austin Marin in this and is instead in an SUV in keeping with the scenes off-road nature of the sequence and after the pursuit Bond finds himself in a dark forest area where he’s forced to get his “Rambo” on in order to take out the remaining mercenaries. He picks up a big assault rifle and takes out one truck with a grenade launcher, then grabs the tow cable from that truck and uses it as a tripwire that takes out a motorcycle and uses a tree trunk to flip another truck being driven by the film’s B-henchman, who he proceeds to coldly crush with his own truck. The efficiency with which Bond shoots the henchmen with that rifle is a really good touch and that car flip is quite the special effect and all of this works because that foggy Norwegian woods is just the perfect place to be setting a hybrid action scene like this. Harley Escape – The Suicide Squad: This action highlight from The Suicide Squad basically 50% a fight and 50% a shootout, making it actually the second Harley Quinn action scene with that problem in two years. But unlike the scene in Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn), which could be split down the middle and separated, this one basically goes back and forth between the two modes to the point where it really needed to be viewed as a hybrid action scene set-piece. Set to Louis Prima’s “Just a Gigolo,” the scene starts with Harley choking a guard with her theighs, picking up his pistol and shooting the guards outside the door and then doing the same in a cool clockwork fashion in nearby circular junction. She then runs out of ammo and fights some other nearby guards hand to hand, then machine gunning others. Of course at this point the scene is just getting warmed up and proceeds into a section where she picks up a javelin and begenst taking out more guards in brutal fashion, this time with her psychosis kicking in and making her envision animated birds and flowers fly oozing from her opponents wounds instead of blood sprays. It’s all just a really awesome progression of violence that keeps getting more and more impressive as it goes and it can’t be denied just because it doesn’t fit cleanly in one of my boxes. Titane - The Birth: Have you ever wondered what it would look like for a woman to give birth to a half human half car hybrid baby? Of course you have. Fortunately director Julia Ducournau has finally come along to provide us with all the gory details of what such a situation would entail. Childbirth scenes have actually been a somewhat regular feature of this Golden Stakes category with similarly complicated birth scenes from Pieces of a Woman and Roma having been nominated before and while those scenes are certainly both harrowing they are ultimately scenes where humans attempt to give birth to humans so I think this takes the cake. In it a highly pregnant Alexia, no longer able to feign androgyny finally reaches that terminal stage in her unusual pregnancy and ejects the child mostly in one epic push that ends up splitting her stomach open revealing a titanium lining beneath and also tearing out the steel plate in her skull. Wild as that sounds I think what makes the scene work is that there’s just enough restraint to it. It conceals the “business end” of the birth and then when it comes to the baby the film takes half a Rosemary’s Baby approach and only shows our metallic antichrist from behind and giving us just enough metal spine to imagine what this thing is going to become from there. And the Golden Stake Goes To…Titane SpoilerTitane is almost like a series of absolutely bugfuck moments that kind of surprise you at every turn. But this final scene isn’t exactly surprising per se as it’s the one big moment that the audiences has kind of been waiting for ever since the automobile reproduction concept was introduced. The final scene though doesn’t disappoint; it’s not needlessly long and despite how it sounds it isn’t trying to dwell unnecessarily on pain and gore even though there is a profound body horror to the whole thing. Instead the focus is on closing out this woman’s story arc and passing on this responsibility to the Vincent Lindon character and you really truly don’t know what will happen to him or frankly to the world once this movie is over and it caps things off with a hell of a final title card that has you leaving the theater with quite the feeling.
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PG Cooper
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Post by PG Cooper on Feb 16, 2022 8:53:47 GMT -5
Definitely the right choice. The fact that it almost feels touching is an insane accomplishment.
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Post by donny on Feb 16, 2022 9:33:17 GMT -5
Nice. Would have gone Green Knight myself. Happy to see it here.
Probably need to see your choice again. Think it’s a movie I respect for going certain places more than I actually ended up liking it.
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thebtskink
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Post by thebtskink on Feb 16, 2022 9:51:33 GMT -5
Still haven't seen it.
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Dracula
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Post by Dracula on Feb 17, 2022 8:55:31 GMT -5
Best Musical Performance
This category, in which I look at the best scenes in which characters perform a song on screen, is usually a pain in the ass to assemble. I usually don’t have to dig too hard if I keep track and there usually are enough scenes like that to find five decent nominees even if I have to dig kind of deep into non-musical films to find them. That… was not a problem this year. Not really sure why, aside from the cultural ubiquity of Lin Manuel Miranda, this happened some somehow Hollywood decided that 2021 was the year they were going to release a ton of bona fide musicals each with a slate of major musical numbers. This year the bigger challenge was deciding which song from the various movies to nominate, not whether I would find nominees at all. And despite the abundance of musicals there were still some non-musicals that managed to edge their way in. “Everlasting Love” – Belfast: I’m a little weary about nominating this sequence from Belfast in musical performance because I’m not entirely sure if the Jamie Dornan character is actually supposed to be singing or if he’s lip-synching in a sort of proto-karaoke, because the song itself sounds almost identical to the recorded version by the band Love Affair the performance is supposed to be based around, in which case this is more of a use of source music… or maybe I’m over thinking this because the dude is certainly “performing” either way. Whatever’s going on, there’s definitely meant to be something of a touch of fantasy here, the character is not formally or informally a musician but just the same his performance of this really timeless song makes for a really cathartic goodbye celebration to the film’s titular city as they prepare to head for England to escape The Troubles and also as a display of how the people staying behind can still find escape in difficult times. “Wherever I Fall” – Cyrano: This is kind of an unusual scene in Cyrano as it does not include any of the principal characters and theoretically could have been cut with no one missing it, and yet it also feels like a highlight. The scene is set on the eve of a battle that has been called a suicide mission. This will eventually lead to some drama with Cyrano and Christian deciding what kind of letter they should send back to Roxanne, but before that the film steps out of that love drama to acknowledge some of their fellow soldiers are facing death as well and we hear three nameless soldiers played by Glen Hansard (of Once fame) and two lesser known actors named Sam Amidon and Scott Folan. Each tells a brief story in song form about someone back home who they miss or who will miss them, each painting a really vivid portrait of their life and ending their verse with the phrase “heaven is wherever I fall.” A very emotional scene that broadens the message of the whole film into something a little more universal. "Paciencia y Fe" – In the Heights: I had a lot of really strong numbers to choose from in In the Heights, it’s a movie that’s exceptionally good when the music starts up. Songs like “96,000” and the intro number include some really bombastic staging of the kind we haven’t seen at this budget level in a while and a song called "When the Sun Goes Down" features some next level visuals as the couple singing it dance up the side of a building. And yet the song that ultimately rose above for me was a more subdued one in which an elderly side character on her death bed sings a song called “Paciencia y Fe (Patience and Faith)” that sort of recounts her entire life story, which doubles as something of a history of the Washington Heights neighborhood. The song is performed by an actress named Olga Merediz, who originated the part on Broadway and clearly remains a spry performer today. “Boho Days” – Tick, Tick… Boom!: They say that musicals are about people who are so emotional that they need to sing their feelings… of course in the real world someone so inclined to burst into song can’t conjure an orchestra and a set of backup dancers. There’s an inherent unreality to it but this brief scene from Tick, Tick… Boom! actually finds a situation where someone with “music in their heart” acutally kind of manages to plausibly pull it off in the “real” world. In it the Johnathan Larson character finds himself singing a tune about the challenges of living the “bohemian life” in New York (a theme that would be expanded upon, rather annoyingly, in his more famous musical “Rent”) and starts singing it at a party by getting everyone around him to clap in rhythem while he sings basically using a cappella tricks. There are other songs in the movie I like a bit more musically (“Johnny Can’t Decide” certainly sounds better) but this one is catchy and I like the way it plays with musical diegesis. “Balcony Scene (Tonight)” - West Side Story: I must say I was a bit at a loss when it came to picking a single standout musical sequence from Steven Spielberg’s remake of West Side Story, and it certainly wasn’t for any disrespect for the film’s musical numbers so much as it was because of a respect for the film’s general consistency. In the case of some of the film’s more technically accomplished ensemble numbers like “America,” “Cool,” and “Gee Officer Krupke” I had various nitpicks comparing the songs to what was done in the 1961 version, but one musical number that I think was pretty unequivocally successful was this rendition of this love song between Tony and Maria. Where I never quite felt the chemistry between Natalie Wood and Richard Beymer I definitely bought it coming from Rachel Zegler and Ansel Elgort and Steven Spielberg really perfectly paces and stages this balcony meeting in a lot of ways that subtly improve on what came before without fully re-inventing it. And the Golden Stake goes to…In the Heights
 As I mentioned in my nomination write-up there were several musical numbers from this movie that I could have nominated and I think most of them could have won. That doesn’t mean In the Heights is necessarily the best musical of the year necessarily, I think it has some story and thematic issues, but when it was at the top of its game it was really kind of untouchable. I don’t say that lightly either, the movie was directly competing with a similarly themed movie from Steven Spielberg and still managed to prevail. I think West Side Story is stiff competition but its musical sequences probably work better as an overall package than it does as a competition between individual scenes.
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PG Cooper
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Post by PG Cooper on Feb 17, 2022 9:38:24 GMT -5
Happy to see Belfast sneak in here. That was a nice scene.
Still haven't seen In The Heights.
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PhantomKnight
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Post by PhantomKnight on Feb 17, 2022 12:01:41 GMT -5
Excellent choice.
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Neverending
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Post by Neverending on Feb 18, 2022 4:20:04 GMT -5
Fuck you.
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Dracula
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Post by Dracula on Feb 18, 2022 7:47:52 GMT -5
Best Use of Source Music
And here we come to the award for the best use of a pre-existing piece of popular music in a single scene in a movie. The award is confined to a single song usage in a movie and is judging the scene as a whole and how the musical selection impacts it. I must say this is quite the rebound from last year when a lot of the masters of the needle drop were sitting the year out but that certainly isn’t the case this year and I had a lot to choose from. “She’s a Rainbow” by The Rolling Stones – Cruella: Well, throw enough stuff at the wall and something’s eventually bound to stick. Cruella is a movie that uses popular music with reckless abandon and basically has one oldie or another playing in the background of damn near every scene in the movie with some of them chosen in ways that are decidedly cringy, but some of them do work and I was particularly fond of their use of this Rolling Stones classic. The song was probably chosen as a play on the main character’s multi-colored hair but it works in its own way to set a pace for this montage sequence of the title character’s gang establishing themselves as advanced pickpockets. It’s kind of an important moment since it starts playing right as the film switches from the child actress playing Cruella to Emma Stone playing her and the way the film uses instrumentals between choruses are perfect spots for the film’s voiceover. Kind of wish it’s impact wasn’t diluted by the rest of the soundtrack. “(There's) Always Something There to Remind Me” by Sandie Shaw – Last Night in Soho: There are a lot of song usages to choose from in in Last Night in Soho and the one I ultimately went with comes in a scene that follows up a sex scene that’s been interrupted by violent visions. You think things are going to slow down a bit after that but instead when Ellie goes back to school the next day she is once again attacked by sinister visions from Soho’s past. Sandie Shaw’s 1964 traditional pop take on the Burt Bacharach penned “Always Something There to Remind Me” (which would be memorably covered by the New Wave band Naked Eyes in the 80s) lulls you into a bit of a false sense of security before we’re struck but some ghost visions that feel exactly timed to some of the swells in the music and blends in a bit with Steven Price’s ominous score. The song’s lyrics about never being free and the bits about someone always being a part of them take on much different and creepier meaning in this movie about someone being literally haunted by the past. “Let Me Roll It” by Paul McCartney (and Wings) – Licorice Pizza: There are quite a few strong soundtrack selections from Licorice Pizza including a pretty prominent use of David Bowie’s “Life on Mars” not long after the scene I’ve nominated, but the most striking musical moment in the movie to me belongs to Macca. As many a defensive discussion of the movie’s age-gap romance will remind you, the (maybe) romance between the Cooper Hoffman and Alana Haim is not consummated in the movie but they sure come close in this scene where the two have just run away from the botched motorcycle stunt and the two end up lying on one of the waterbeds they’re selling. Anderson lets this McCartney solo track play in the background as the two kind of wonder what to do with this moment as their adrenaline pumps. The Cooper Hoffman character reaches to feel a boob but pulls back and the Haim character clearly has feelings of their own. The lyrics pretty much come out and express the moment with the “I can't tell you how I feel / My heart is like a wheel” refrain, but the music isn’t necessarily romantic exactly, it’s rock and roll reflects a certain frustration more than anything. “All I Need is a Miracle” by Mike + The Mechanics – Spencer: Spencer is a movie that is ostensibly set sometime in the early 90s or late 80s but it generally isn’t too interested in signposting this and musically it’s largely characterized by its intentionally suffocating Jonny Greenwood score. But then in the film’s final moments the dam sort of breaks and Diana decides to spirit a tween Prince William and Prince Harry out of the palace they’ve been staying in, by hopping in their Porsche and flipping on the tape deck which is blaring this single by the Mike Rutherford side project Mike + The Mechanics. Diana’s attitude lifts instantly and she and the kids start singing along with the song and there’s some neat lyrical symmetry with the chorus blasting “all I need is you” as she realizes she only needs her kids and also a cheeky bit where the film cuts to Prince Charles’ face right as it goes “you never know what you got ‘til it’s gone.” “Dancing On My Own” by Robyn – Swan Song: Easily the smallest of the movies here, Swan Song is a movie about what queer life was and is like in a small Ohio town that’s a bit removed from the usual capitals of gayness like San Francisco. This scene occurs relatively late in the film is set at the last night of operation at this small town gay bar which the film’s septuagenarian protagonist played by Udo Kier has a lot of memories of. The scene is kind of the last dance on this last night and they start playing this anthem by a relatively recent gay icon and the Kier character is allowed to take the stage and starts leading the crowd in this rather odd dance and then, in a moment that’s likely a fantasy starts wearing an odd chandelier on his head. The song itself was never a huge commercial hit in the United States but it is a very well known one and I’m guessing the price of licensing it was not insubstantial to this very low budget movie but you can see why they went out of their way to get it the way the scene plays out. And the Golden Stake Goes to…Spencer This was a tough choice and I found some pretty good arguments for a few different options but I think what really sealed it was just how important this moment was for the movie as a whole on Spencer. I can imagine Cruella, Last Night in Soho, Licorice Pizza, and Swan Song working as films without these particular needle drops but I think Spencer would be a much different film if not for this very particular tempo change in its final moments. The moment act as an absolutely essential release after two hours of pressure and depression on the part of the film’s subject. The song itself fits the time period perfectly having come out a few years earlier and feeling like the kind of thing that would still be in the tape deck of someone like Diana and as a piece of music it’s nicely un-regal and formal in the way that the character needs.
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PG Cooper
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Post by PG Cooper on Feb 18, 2022 14:59:18 GMT -5
Glad to see Spencer get some love even if it also kills me to see Licorice Pizza lose here.
This might be a hottake, but I quite liked the way Eternals opened with Pink Floyd's "Time". Maybe an obvious choice, but I thought the music helped set a different type of atmosphere than we're used to from Marvel and was also perfect for transitioning from a primal ancient sound to something very modern.
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