Dracula Presents: The Eighth Annual Golden Stake Awards

Best Chase

The chase scene is another staple of the action movie and this year did not have a real shortage of them. As always, the only real requirement here is that two or more parties in pursuit of one another. Car chases are the usual standard, but foot chases are also eligible and if some other vehicle is being used that counts too.

Nick Fury Ambush- Captain America: The Winter Soldier: Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury hasn’t been as big a part of Marvel’s second phase but he’s finally given an action showcase in this second Captain America film. The scene begins with a bunch of fake police cars wedging Fury’s futuristic SUV and trying to shoot through it, this fails and Fury is eventually able to lead them into a very destructive chase through the streets of New York. The chase finally ends when The Winter Soldier himself manages to take out Fury’s vehicle in a fairly badass fashion.

Truck Chase- A Most Violent Year: The protagonist of A Most Violent Year is not really a man of action, but desperation thrusts him into that role when he learns that one of his trucks has been hijacked. Determined, the character slowly chases the truck until the thieves try to drive the thing onto some train tracks Spoiler Warning and crash it off screen. From there it transitions into a foot chase where Oscar Isaac’s character carefully pursues the surviving driver through an elevator train and finally tackles him and puts a gun in his face. The scene isn’t as sensational as some of its competition, but it has a (relatively) realistic edge that makes it stand out.

Traffic Mayhem- Lucy: This short but memorable chase scene from Lucy begins with Lucy, who has never driven a car before, insisting on driving a police car to get to her destination incredibly fast. She does this by using her supernatural mental powers to anticipate traffic patterns and then use her reflexes to seamlessly weave in and out of traffic and cause all sorts of chaos along the way. What makes the scene work so well is that she never breaks a sweat or makes a less than perfect maneuver along the way.

Post-Diner Chase- Nightcrawler: Dan Gilroy’s Nightcrawler gets a big jolt of energy in its climax with this chase scene through the streets of Los Angeles. What makes the scene unique is its perspective. Rather than focusing on the cops or robbers, the focus here is on the cameraman going after them and trying to film the whole thing all while driving just as fast and taking just as much of a risk. It’s a thrilling action scene to finish what is otherwise more of character drama but it doesn’t feel out of place at all and is actually pretty important to the plot.

The Chase- The Raid 2: The Raid: Redemption was notable for having some great shootouts in addition to its hand to hand fight scenes, but I never considered that they’d branch into vehicular chaos in the sequel and certainly never expected them to handle said vehicular chaos in a way that was every bit as assured as the fight sequences. This sequence has a lot going on in it: a fistfight in the backseat of a car, a car obliterating a shed, a shootout with a motorcyclist who’s trying to leap into the driver’s seat of a car, a dude leaping from the back of a moving SUV onto the hood of a moving car… it’s pretty spectacular stuff.

And the Golden Stake Goes To…

Best Set-Piece

The set-piece of the year award is sort of a catchall for well rendered visual moments from movies that don’t really fit in the usual action scene categories like best chase and best fight. Sometimes they’re hybrid action scenes that incorporate various different modes of action, sometimes they’re miscellaneous effects scenes that do things a little outside the box, and sometimes they’re smaller scale scenes that nonetheless leave a distinct visual impression.

What Audiences Want- Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance): First thing's first, I realize that praising this scene is probably an irony on par with nominating the song “Everything is Awesome” for an Oscar, but a good scene is a good scene. In it Riggan Thomson is having a breakdown on the streets of New York and his Birdman alter ego starts taunting him and a Hollywood style CGI action scene starts playing out on the streets. It’s meant to be a manifestation of Thomson’s temptation to return to empty Hollywood fare and the film almost dares you not to enjoy what you’re watching.

Final Battle - Captain America: The Winter Soldier: A lot of critics were annoyed at how long and CGI driven the final action scene of Captain America: The Winter Soldier was and they might have been right, but taken in isolation I definitely think this scene is too awesome to be denied. This is a scene where an all-out battle is waged between our three heroes and an army of Hydra troops across three flying aircraft carriers which almost all blow up real good. All of it leads up to a cool fight between Captain America and The Winter Soldier and as far as pure unadulterated superhero spectacle went this year, this was probably tops.

Boxcutter- Gone Girl: Gone Girl is rated R for (among other things) “a scene of bloody violence,” and what a scene of bloody violence it is. Spoiler Warning  It’s not a long scene but it is impactful, it shows Amy Dunne seeming to seduce her savior/captor only to pull out a boxcutter she’d stashed away and cut his damn throat in one quick slice. A moment of shock goes over his face before both parties are drenched in blood. Dunne spins the man over and rises like a feral Carrie White. The moment that really sends the scene into the stratosphere is a moment at the end when Rosemond pike gives a sudden flick of the hair that sort of snaps her out of her psychotic trance. It’s a scene that melds the sex and the violence at the film’s heart in a way that is fittingly uncomfortable and cinematic.

Imploding Person – Under the Skin: Under the Skin is a movie that rarely stops to explain what’s going on, but it finds a fairly spectacular way to clarify some of the goings on in this scene which provides one of the most earned “jump scares” of the year. In it, Spoiler Warning the huntress captures a second man in her oil like trap and as he’s stuck there he sees the earlier victim and his skin seems to be rippling. Then suddenly he fucking implodes, leaving only his empty skin behind. It’s a strange and shocking image that wouldn’t have been out of place in a Jonathan Glazer music video.

Quicksilver Vs. The Room- X-Men: Days of Future Past: The character of Quicksilver has been part of a protracted legal battle between 20th Century Fox and Disney over whether the character is more of an X-Man or more of an Avenger. Most speculated that he was only added to this movie in order to lay claim to him, and that was probably true, but it led Bryan Singer to create this very fun sequence where the character uses his super speed to take out three guards and re-route a number of bullets shot at our heroes. Its rendered by “stopping time” and showing Quicksilver moving at more or less regular speed and doing it all with a really amusing arrogance. Good luck topping that Whedon.

And the Golden Stake Goes To…

I haven't seen Under the Skin yet.

I also like that Guardians went traditional.

I also liked the roar.

Best Art Direction

Art direction, in this context, generally encompasses the visual design elements of a film but most specifically the set design and to some extent the props and costumes as well. This year the category is dominated by period pieces and science fiction films, but I guess that is sort of to be expected given the design requirements of those two genres.



The Grand Budapest Hotel: Aside from maybe Tim Burton I can’t think of a single director who has tied their signature to art direction to the extent that Wes Anderson has. That’s especially true with The Grand Budapest Hotel which needs to create from scratch as sort of fantastical fictional 1930s Europe. On top of that, the movie needs to then recreate those same hotel sets in a different condition for framing stories. It’s an interesting case where the art direction plays a rather intrinsic role in a film’s humor.

The Immigrant: The Immigrant is set in a 1920s that isn’t so roaring. The film needs to recreate a very specific type of New York neighborhood from the era. I don’t necessarily know how accurate the period detail is but it certainly matches the image most have of what tenement life in the era looked like. That the film was able to do this on a relatively low budget is pretty cool because it looks like they put a lot of resources into creating these buildings and apartments in great detail.

Interstellar: There have been quite a few space movies lately and each one comes with its own set of challenges and Interstellar had more than most. On Earth it needed to walk a fine line between futuristic technology and desolate dust bowl conditions. In space they needed to create detailed spaceships that looked functional and also unique. And most importantly the film needed to create two alien planets as well as a cool looking space station at the end. The movie succeeds at some of these better than others, but the degree of difficulty more than earns it a nomination.

Mr. Turner: Mr. Turner is set in the early Victorian era, which I suppose places it squarely in Masterpiece Theater territory, but it does a lot to set itself apart from the competition. The most memorable set is probably a strange gallery in the Royal Academy of Arts where the walls are covered with hundreds of paintings to the point where there are even paintings on these odd slants at the top of the wall. There are a number of other very notable period sets elsewhere like Turner’s house.

Snowpiercer: Snowpiercer is entirely set in a futuristic community that happens to be on a very long train that’s traveling through an otherwise post-apocalyptic world. The first third of the movie looks at dingy sections of the train meant to house the poor masses, but things get really interesting later on when they start going through train cars that are meant to house the wealthy passengers in luxury. There’s a nightclub car, a steambath car, a school car, a damn aquarium car… pretty much anything you could think of.



And the Golden Stake Goes To…

Even when I thought it was the bears, I knew it was the imma'gents.

I loved The Immigrant. Easily one of my favorites of the year.

Best Cinematography

Of all the tech awards, Best Cinematography seems to be the juiciest. I can hardly name a single editor that isn’t Thelma Shoonmaker, but there are quite a few DPs who most cinephilles know by name. It’s a category that even non-cinephiles can seem to grasp and have ideas as to what counts as a “good” and there’s enough talent out there that quality cinematography is almost essential now to really make your film, but even in that clouded climate these films were able to able to rise above and be noticed.

Ida: Ida is set in 1960s Poland and was shot in black and white both to capture that time period and to underscore the general sadness of the world it inhabits. It was also shot in the “Academy” aspect ratio, which goes a long ways towards making it look like an actual European movie from the period, but it also provides for some very creative framing and compositions. Characters will often be off center and objects will show up in different corners of the frame. It’s a little bit like what Tom Hooper does, but done in a more graceful way that really gives the film a unique look.

The Immigrant: It’s been long established that 1920s New York was a very golden-amber place, and neither James Gray nor his cinematographer Darius Khondji try to deflate this common wisdom with The Immigrant. It’s not the most original choice and I usually shy away from movies that lean too heavily on a single dominant color filter, but they really make it work for this one. The whole movie has this beautiful sepia-tinged look that really brings you into the popular image of what this time and place was all about.

Mr. Turner: There are certain pressures you have to deal with when you’re making a movie about a painter. You can’t laud someone’s ability to capture a landscape and then fail to beautifully capture a landscape yourself. Fortunately Mike Leigh and Dick Pope were able to really bring an artist’s view of the world to life with this beautiful photography, but what really sets it apart is how it’s able to do this without ever making it feel showy or distracting. It’s a great balance.

The Raid 2: The original The Raid: Redemption was an awesome action movie, but it was shot on cheap cameras and kind of looked like shit. So it is with a pretty big degree of surprise that the cinematography for its sequel is not only great but downright award worthy. The film was shot on a RED camera and certainly looks digital, but not in a bad way, rather it has a very crisp and clean look that fits the movie. But what really puts it over the top is its expert use of handheld camera work to film action in a completely coherent way all while using some very creative camera angles.

Winter Sleep: Nuri Bilge Ceylan and his cinematographer Gökhan Tiryaki are masters of atmospheric outdoor photography. They know just the perfect way to photograph the steppe in order to really make it a character in his movies. He does that in Winter Sleep too, but what really struck me about the movie were actually the indoor scenes. The rooms and houses the film is set in are dark places that are often lit by firelight but are perfectly clear here and really look like a million bucks.

And the Golden Stake Goes To…

Not really.  As a narrative it's kind of terrible, but there are certain things it does very well.

I'm sure the constant camera movements were very difficult to pull off, but the basic aesthetic of the movie is nothing too special.