1st Annual Filmiest Awards - Winners (Part 1)

1st ANNUAL FILMIEST AWARDS - WINNERS ANNOUNCEMENT

     Welcome, welcome. What a year it has been. Unlike most years, it was hard to choose a winner for each category.  Nevertheless, here we are to present the best in film in sixteen categories.  Let's get right to it.

The nominees for Best Original Song are:

“Big Machine” from Safety Not Guaranteed
“Freedom” from Django Unchained
“Safe and Sound” from The Hunger Games

“Skyfall” from Skyfall

“Who Did That To You?” from Django Unchained

And the award goes to...

"BIG MACHINE" from SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED

written by Ryan Miller; performed by Mark Duplass

"Skyfall" was the biggest original song written for a film of the year, yes, but in terms of contribution to the plot of the film, "Big Machine" genuinely moved me from little indie dramedy Safety Not Guaranteed.  In addition to being a great song, it's the type of song I'll look back on 2012 in film and remember it best.

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The nominees for Best Supporting Actor are:

Dwight Henry as Wink in Beasts of the Southern Wild

Phillip Seymour Hoffman as Lancaster Dodd in The Master
Samuel L. Jackson as Stephen in Django Unchained
Eddie Redmayne as Marius Pontmercy in Les Miserables

Christoph Waltz as Dr. King Schultz in Django Unchained

And the award goes to...

PHILLIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN as LANCASTER DODD in THE MASTER

Phillip Seymour Hoffman has been doing great character work for years, but this is easily his best role since his Oscar-winning performance in Capote.  A lesser actor would have made the many conversations in The Master quite disengaging, considering their length, but Hoffman infuses Lancaster Dodd with such a watchable complexity that you forget you're watching a movie. It is simply one man talking to another about life. 

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The nominees for Best Original Score are:

Argo 

Beasts of the Southern Wild

Cloud Atlas

Life of Pi

The Master

And the award goes to...

CLOUD ATLAS

Music by Tom Tykwer, Johnny Kilmek & Reinhold Heil

Cloud Atlas has been touted by some as a remarkable achievement unlike anything we've seen in cinema and others as a complete failure, but one thing critics can agree on is the score.  The full orchestra infuses each scene with depth and meaning; the subtle swells and epic crescendos are goosebump-inducing with or without the spectacular visuals of the film, the true mark of a great film score.

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The nominees for Best Supporting Actress are:

Amy Adams as Peggy Dodd in The Master

Doona Bae as various characters in Cloud Atlas

Emily Blunt as Sara Rollins in Looper
Jennifer Ehle as Jessica in Zero Dark Thirty
Anne Hathaway as Fantine in Les Miserables

And the award goes to...

ANNE HATHAWAY as FANTINE in LES MISERABLES

 Even listening to her now famous rendition of "I Dreamed a Dream" outside of the context of the film, the strength of Anne Hathaway's performance in Les Miserables is undeniable.  People may accuse her of Oscar-baiting, of wanting it too much, but personal politics aside, the physical transformation she underwent and the rawness of her performance is breathtaking.
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The nominees for Best Art Direction are:

Django Unchained

Les Miserables

Life of Pi

The Master

Moonrise Kingdom

And the award goes to...

LIFE OF PI

Production Design by David Gropman; Set Decoration by Anna Pinnock

More than anything else, Life of Pi is a thing of beauty, an astonishing visual achievement  unlike anything I've seen since Avatar. The intensity of color combined with the 3D effect creates such a vivid world that real life looks dull by comparison.

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The nominees for Best Cinematography are:

Django Unchained

Life of Pi

The Master

Skyfall

Zero Dark Thirty

And the award goes to...

LIFE OF PI

Cinematography by Claudio Miranda

The beauty of Life of Pi wouldn't be the same without the amazing camerawork by Claudio Miranda.  Just look at the shots in this scene alone, the variety of angles, the shallow depth of field, the POV shots, every shot contributes to telling this story.  Side note: I want to give special mention to all five of these nominees, each one of them could be a winner in any other year; it speaks to the level of cinematography filmmakers have achieved.

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The nominees for Best Costume Design are:

Cloud Atlas

Django Unchained

Les Miserables

Lincoln

Moonrise Kingdom

And the award goes to...

LES MISERABLES

Costume Design by Paco Delgado

Much of the attention for Les Miserables has been on the singing (good and bad), the closeups (mostly bad) and the editing (spotty).  One true positive of the film is the costume design.  Each character goes through a variety of clothes, all of which accurately reflect their status in life.  The film takes place over the course of decades, which must have been a challenge for Delgado but each costume is visually interesting.

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And now, the final category for Part 1: Best Editing. The nominees are:

Argo

Life of Pi

The Master

Skyfall

Zero Dark Thirty

And the award goes to...

ZERO DARK THIRTY

Edited by Dylan Tichenor & William Goldenberg

Zero Dark Thirty takes place over the course of 10 years. It's also a two-and-a-half hour movie. Tichenor and Goldenberg make it feel drawn-out enough to feel Maya's struggle but no scene goes to waste.  A lot of things happen in Zero Dark Thirty and it must have been difficult to know where to cut certain scenes, since so many are important, but they managed to pull off a perfect mix of frenzied paranoia and slow-burning drudge work.
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TOMORROW NIGHT I WILL REVEAL THE WINNERS OF THE FINAL EIGHT CATEGORIES.

Stay Tuned!