Dracula Presents: The Eighth Annual Golden Stake Awards

That nomination was largely rooted in that film's expert use of handheld photography in an action context while still looking damn good.  Take a look at some of the angles in this scene:



badass.

There's a porn factory fight scene?

Best Score

I’ve said it many times before, and I’ll say it again this year because it’s a necessary disclaimer: I’m not a film score aficionado. I don’t buy score soundtracks and more often than not I really don’t pay a whole lot of attention to the background music in films unless it really stands out. As such my nominations in categories like this often trend towards scores that are showy and unique and that may or may not be the most fair approach, so maybe take this with a grain of salt.

Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance): Sometimes a great score has less to do with brilliant composition than simply coming up with the right idea for the right movie. That’s sort of the case with the music to Birdman, which I’d say is interesting but largely unremarkable outside of the context of the film. Composed by Jazz musician Antonio Sánchez and performed almost entirely on a drum set, the score is minimalist but perfect for the film. Acting as a sort of metronome for the theatrical banter of the film and really holds the whole thing together.

The Grand Budapest Hotel: Alexandre Desplat has been astonishingly busy this year, having composed the score for no fewer than six different major motion pictures. Out of all that work, his score for The Grand Budapest Hotel is easily his most distinct and most fun. Desplat’s score incorporates a lot of folk music melodies in order to give the film its exotic European flavor and also does a great job of keeping up with the film’s sometimes frantic pace. On top of that, the score is able to play into the film’s whimsy and really give it this sense of mystery and nostalgia.

Inherent Vice: Paul Thomas Anderson probably could have gotten away with sending his composer on vacation and just filled Inherent Vice with classic rock, but instead he had Johnny Greenwood compose yet another stellar score. Given the film’s relatively comical nature one might have expected something a little breezy from Greenwood but instead he plays into the film’s noir elements and crafts a score that’s somewhat reminiscent of Bernard Hermann. It’s an oddly somber score, perhaps emphasizing the doomed (but not doomed) nature of the film’s central relationship, or perhaps mourning the hope of the 60s as America transitions into the cynical 70s.

Interstellar: In his previous collaborations with Christopher Nolan, Hans Zimmer found a sort of propulsive theme and used it to power through his score. Rather than do that again, Zimmer has instead made a score for Interstellar that is characterized by how all over the place it is. The score is largely piano driven and doesn’t stray too far from traditional orchestrations. That doesn’t mean the score isn’t able to give the film a certain grandeur, in fact most of the music in it really builds on itself and the songs really become quite powerful as they go.

Under the Skin: The score for Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin might not be the most accomplished score of the year, but it’s certainly the most atmospheric. Composed by experimental musician Mica Levi, the score will almost certainly be remembered for what I’m going to call the “seduction theme,” a slinky little piece consisting of vaguely electronic sounding noises against what sort of sounds like Japanese inspired production. It’s music that is both sexual and alien, which would obviously be appropriate for this film.

And the Golden Stake Goes To…

It was definately number six for me. I almost broke down and added it at the last minute but couldn't decide what to drop in its place.

Ha!

There was enough shit talking about Gravity at last year's Golden Stake Awards. Let's move on before this turns into a bar fight.

I've dive in the way. Gravity rules.

Best Soundtrack

The best soundtrack category differs from the best score category in that it covers an assemblage of preexisting music rather than original musical accompaniment. While the presence of original songs won’t necessarily disqualify a movie, that isn’t what’s being judged here. Additionally, it should be noted that the award is judging the way music is used in the actual movie and not how it plays on a soundtrack album when removed from its original context. Also, what’s important isn’t so much the quality of the music so much as the way it plays with the images.

Boyhood: They say that popular music is the soundtrack of our lives. Richard Linklater certainly believes this and created the soundtrack of his own adolescence when he made the movie Dazed and Confused and with Boyhood he’s tried to put together the soundtrack of a new generation. The music choices he makes are poignant but not distracting and they also serve as a good marker of time passing in the movie. It starts with late 90s songs by the likes of Sheryl Crow and Blinck-182 and by the end it’s using relatively recent hits like Gotye’s “Somebody that I Used to Know.”

Chef: I read an interview with Jon Favreau where he talks about how kitchens in the United States have gone from being rooted in French culture to being rooted in Latino culture and Favreau’s film Chef and its soundtrack reflect that. The film is primarily loaded with classic Latin music, specifically Latin jazz and boogaloo. It also switches things up a bit as the movie goes to different locations, giving us some brass band music in the New Orleans scenes and blues during the Austin scenes.

Guardian of the Galaxy: The soundtrack album to Guardians of the Galaxy managed to top the Billboard chart and has since gone platinum. It’s the fifth best selling album of the year, which is a hell of an accomplishment in an era where you can simply download any one of its pre-existing songs at will. This speaks to how this collection of 60s and 70s hits has really struck a chord as a collection and while the juxtaposition of cheesy music with space opera was sort of gimmicky, there’s no denying that this music plays a big part in the movie’s comedy and attitude.

The Guest: I don’t know that The Guest has the best soundtrack of the year, but it’s certainly the one that someone put the most work into. This soundtrack takes the Drive approach of finding obscure tracks that all share a common sound, in this case dark 80s electronica, in order to create a specific mood. There are no standout radio songs here, everything’s a deep cut from semi-unknown bands like Clan Of Xymox and S U R V I V E, but they all come together really well and act almost more like a score for the film than as a soundtrack.

Top Five: Hip Hop generally hasn’t worked great as background music in movies over the years, mainly because it’s a genre that actually expects you to pay some attention to the lyrics, which can be a distraction away from whatever is in the foreground of a scene. Chris Rock seems to agree with that too because his comedy Top Five is largely scored by instrumental versions of various hip-hop classics, which is a good way to gain steam from that music’s energy while also blending better with the visuals. It was also a very good reminder of how awesome the Jay-Z/Kanye West song about the city of Paris was.

And the Golden Stake Goes To…