If ever you find yourself in the LA area (and who doesn't, from time to time?), you'd be cheating yourself if you didn't take an afternoon to explore the Academy Museum. It's a four-floor exploration of the history of cinema, the Oscars, and all the people that helped to make both what they are. (There's also an incredible theater where I went to see Master and Commander accompanied by commentary from its sound designer Richard King which was arguably one of the best things that ever happened to me, but that's another story.) Do you know what overwhelmingly dominates the halls and exhibits through which you wander? I'll give you a hint--it's not actors, it's not directors, it's not even writers (though all of those people are represented). What you'll most see are props, costumes, effects demos, breakdowns of a scene's edit, interviews with cinematographers, music, and sound. The history of film is written by what hides in or controls the frame. Directors are great, actors are fun, but let me talk to the person who came up with the sound effects in The Wild Robot and the person who found or designed all the knitwear in Laapataa Ladies before I ever have to go talk to like Christian Bale or whatever (who is fine, obviously, but show me the knitwear he's designed and then we'll have something).
Point is, none of the movies you love could have been made without all the people behind the scenes pouring their passion in to them, and I want to take the time to pour some love right back their way. I also just love these categories, and everything they represent. At the Academy museum, they've got a hall of Oscars with different winners' Oscars from across the years displayed, and they're all amazing, but the only one that got me excited enough to take a picture was Eiko Ishioka's (if you don't know who she is, do a quick google image search and then bow down in praise like the rest of us). So I'm here to geek out and give these movie elements their day in the sun, and I'm gonna enjoy it even if it means that antagonistically name-dropping Christian Bale earlier will surely result in a miniature horde of Christian Bale fans besieging this blog and/or my home. This is the bit that I like best, and I'm gonna make a whole-ass meal of it. So let's dive in!
(Note: all pictures should enlarge if you click on them.)
Production Design
5. The End
(source)
Postapocalyptic bunkers! Way too much art (unless you are the last family alive)! Little models of the world you destroyed! Barren salt mines for all your dancing needs!
Postapocalyptic bunkers! Way too much art (unless you are the last family alive)! Little models of the world you destroyed! Barren salt mines for all your dancing needs!
4. The Fall Guy
A series of increasingly opulent apartments for people to try to kill you in! Confounding fake sci-fi! Probably the worst nightclub you've been this year, but make it fashion and/or neon!
3. Wicked
Huge and actually constructed palaces and universities! So much pink and green that each ticket comes equipped with a sentient color wheel ready to console you afterward! Have you considered how spinning around in a gyroscope library might improve your life?
2. The Brutalist
(source)
The most beautiful library you've ever seen in your meaningless life! The most austere community center since pilgrim times! Plenty of upsetting things in between!
The most beautiful library you've ever seen in your meaningless life! The most austere community center since pilgrim times! Plenty of upsetting things in between!
1. Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In
A massive and (largely) accurate reconstruction of Kowloon Walled City! Little personal flourishes in every frame! Enough space for a fistfight with someone who wields spirit powers, but not enough room to feel comfortable in your own skin!
Honorable mention: Dune: Part Two
Costume Design
5. Irish Wish
Clothes that look like someone threw a grenade into the factory that makes plaid clothing for rich dogs! An assault of power clashing so magnificent you may find yourself at the hospital! Impossible to tell if we're meant to be laughing with or at these clothes (or neither!), so fifth place, I guess!
4. Dune: Part Two
(source)
(source)
Enough dramatic headwear to start a holy war! Svelte desert attire and worm-riding goggles! The kind of battle armor you can imagine stabbing your cousin in!
Enough dramatic headwear to start a holy war! Svelte desert attire and worm-riding goggles! The kind of battle armor you can imagine stabbing your cousin in!
Wedding attire worth getting lost on a train for! Distinctive and memorable looks for a diverse spectrum of characters! Knitwear and scarves that belong in the Louvre!
2. Wicked
How many birds can inspire costumes? Turns out, it's all of them, and it works! Predatory peacocks, exploding flamingoes, feasts for crows! Also like a regal blue onesie for Fiyero, just for fun!
Architectural gowns with conveniently open (or closed) necks! A muted color palette like the kind the Easter Bunny would vomit! What I have to assume is the worst-smelling coat in the history of coats!
Honorable mention: The End
Visual Effects
5. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
5. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
Impeccably rendered apes for all your Roman empire allusion needs! Now the apes can swim! Water happens to them, and it looks great!
4. Hundreds of Beavers
Deeply absurd imagery on a shoestring budget! What if Looney Tunes were live action (ish) and were went to the same school of brutalist design as Adrien Brody in The Brutalist?
3. I Saw the TV Glow
Gorgeous and subtle background effects that only occupy the space they need! The insides of a CRT TV regurgitated and come to live across an infinite black!
2. Better Man
Another impeccably rendered ape, but this one's better (man)! An unbelievably hi-fi creation that neither gets lost nor feels out of place amongst the human characters! A digital performance so soulful and compelling that I was briefly like 'geez, am I gonna have to figure out who to nominate for best actor for this performance?'
1. Dune: Part Two
Worms! Worms from space! Worms in dust storms! Worms easting little digital men! Worms as successful transportation infrastructure! Small worms you're supposed to milk! Plenty of other non-worm-related achievements!
Honorable mention: Alien: Romulus
Makeup and Hairstyling
5. Dune: Part Two
Have you ever wanted to look like a spooky lizard boy? Did you ever dream of writing your favorite book on your face in its entirety and then going to church like that? You missed your chance! This movie was it, and now you can never do that again! Curse the heavens!
4. Wicked
Lived-in and battle-ready green skin! The kinds of glorious hairdos that will make you dig your hair curlers out of storage just so you can scream at them! Surely someone on this earth deserves a trophy for making Jonathan Bailey look like that!
3. Lisa Frankenstein
Hairstyles so big they need to put little blinking lights in them so as to warn oncoming planes! Splashy, vaguely overdone makeup that both suits the characters and looks like something a teenager would choose for herself! Hair so dramatic it made me rue my receding hairline!
2. Alien: Romulus
An all-practical newborn monster/fitness enthusiast and largely practical aliens! The kind of queasy practical gore effects that make you want to high five the makeup artists and ask them who hurt them at the same time!
1. The Substance
(spoilers ahead, so scroll past the next two pictures if you don't want to see them!)
Speaking of gore that makes you wonder about the wellbeing of your fellow citizens! A bacchanalia of blood, goop, sagging skin, and forlorn missing parts skittering into your heart!
Honorable mention: The Apprentice
Film Editing
(note: for the first time ever, I'm gonna try to add clips that illustrate what I like about each movie in this category.)
(note: for the first time ever, I'm gonna try to add clips that illustrate what I like about each movie in this category.)
5. Carry-On
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjFdEcZLDlY (some spoilers)
4. Trap
3. Kneecap
2. Nickel Boys
(there is apparently not a single scene of this movie on Youtube)
1. Challengers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvjURzTbRXc(already used this scene in the best scenes of the year list, but I can't think of a better way to demonstrate the editing--big spoilers in this clip)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvjURzTbRXc(already used this scene in the best scenes of the year list, but I can't think of a better way to demonstrate the editing--big spoilers in this clip)
Honorable mention: Conclave
Plenty of riches to celebrate this year, in an off the beaten path sort of way. Thrilled by Carry-On and Trap's wildly oppositional approaches to tension, Carry-On never letting up for a second, moving faster with each second as giddily pushes yet another screw into the audience's eyes, where Trap elects to find tension in stillness and slowness, turning its glacial glaze at each element in turn and letting the audience put together for themselves how nervous they should be. Points to Kneecap's juggling of multiple characters and timelines without losing its coherence, even dropping into the occasional music video without breaking its own propulsive rhythm. Nickel Boys brings definition to a series of half-remembered dreams and longings, carving a careful narrative out of the time and space that exists between 'bigger moments,' but I've got to go with Challengers for the win here. An achievement in maximalism and all its benefits when done well: every moment cut to the beat of a heart attack, every split second of the film slashed to ribbons and re-stitched using its own newfound important as a suture.
Cinematography
5. The Brutalist
Desaturated grays, brown, and greens that come alive in moments of (literal) sparks! People crawling like ants around the bases of their own monumental creations! Dappled light that belies what's going to happen underneath it!
4. I Saw the TV Glow
The dull glow of TV status weaponized to cast the world in a nothing-light! The vaguely rotten hues of cheap 90s genre TV turned into nightmares! Fluorescent fuchsia fantasies as a brief reprieve from the herculean effort of being yourself!
3. Nosferatu
Pallid monochrome compositions, as if the camera were rotting from the inside! An ethereal carriage ride through some sepia-toned shade of hell! Just the right amount of illumination to make Count Orlok's wrinkly sagging nethers glow in the pale moonlight!
2. Challengers
Ever wondered what it would like to be a tennis ball during a match? Wonder no more! Ever wonder what that tennis match would like like from every possible angle while people sweat onto the lens? Stop wondering again! And then throw in a neon tornado for good measure!
1. All We Imagine as Light
Like looking at your hands through a wedding veil! A world of perpetual twilight illuminated only by fireworks, party lights, and the grainy textures of unfulfilled desires! A gorgeous movie and a shocking dearth of images or gifs on the internet that fully convey its appeal!
Honorable mention: Nickel Boys
Original Score
5. Kill-the spaghetti western/Bollywood mashup of your dreams (or nightmares), ready to provide an aggressive backdrop to all the carnage and mayhem you could ever hope to unsee.
4. All We Imagine as Light-a modest collection of music boxes powered by perseverance and whimsy as the softly ticking heart of a giant city.
3. Evil Does Not Exist-music that telegraphs nothing beyond its own existence and what a shame it is to be alive in the world right now. A dirge and a eulogy and a horror score to rival Bernard Hermann, all without even once having to raise its voice beyond a stifled shriek.
2. The Brutalist-Soundwaves like screaming machinery that only intermittently give way to the pure anthemic joys of getting to create something when and how you want to create it. Troughs and crescendos that never quite even out--a score composed entirely of alls and nothings.
1. Challengers-Ok, how many times have I mentioned this score throughout this year's posts? Surely not a surprise to anyone that Challengers' lurid dance beats, melodramatic backing chords, and occasional yeah yeah yeahs will forever hold the key to my heart.
Honorable mention: Nickel Boys
Sound Mixing
5. Blitz-the voice of an entire city being swallowed both from above and below, malevolent and stentorian angels shaking the ground and everything trying to hide inside it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1XLZl_VBmQ (the audio on this clip is terrible, which is a bummer, but it's the only clip I've got, so)
4. Challengers-I'm sure you're growing tired of reading Challengers superlatives, and I'm certainly running out of new ways to write them, so let's all just agree to love the way Challengers mixes the heightened and aggravated sounds of people who think there's nothing more important on earth than what they're doing right now, the bored sounds of the world around them, and the tempest of the score, all squished onto a tennis court.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffui1q5GTX0 (more spoilers in this clip)
3. Dune: Part Two-The soundscape of the desert, alien and uncomfortable in the first, become familiar and weaponized against the enemy in the second part, silence now more inviting than technology, the howl of the wind (or the worm) something to burrow inside and make your own.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rL2k3EkyNxY (spoilers in this clip)
2. Love Lies Bleeding-exactly what it sounds like to be lonely and heartsick in New Mexico, and also (I assume) exactly what it sounds like to have steroid-induced hallucinations in front of a crowd. Writhing, hideous work.
1. The Substance-A sound mix intent on destabilizing the viewer's hold on reality as much as the characters'--peaks, valleys, music and sound effects fighting to occupy the empty open spaces in which the characters rattle around like ping pong balls.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rk3u4_IH0cY (not many clips on Youtube that really communicate what this movie's doing, sound-wise, but I'll do my best)
Honorable mention: Gladiator II
Sound Editing
5. Love Lies Bleeding-malevolent ambient noise, surprisingly chunky violence, and the nice meaty squelch of when your steroids make your body mutate.
4. Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire-look, I can here you from here, you're yelling "but you've nominated every movie with Godzilla in its name in this category since you started writing these awards in 2008! You just want to listen to giant monsters yell at each other!" And like yeah, that is obviously the case, but I dare you to watch the clip below and then tell me that its sound effects aren't worth celebrating more than Emilia goddamn Perez.
3. The Wild Robot-robot mayhem, animal mayhem, natural disaster mayhem--all of my favorite mayhems are here (or most of them, anyway--furious bisexual mayhem isn't represented, Challengers is letting us down), and each is given a distinctive and memorable voice.
2. The Substance-the sounds of ordinary life (or, like, ordinary if you frequently do an at-home spinal tap on your clone) ramped up as high as they can go combined with the inhuman squeals of people losing their marbles to turn what is largely a movie about people sitting alone in their rooms into an unhinged cacophony. And on top of that you get probably the most fun any foley artists have had making splatter sounds in some time.
1. Dune: Part Two-possibly at the top spot just for the guttural, synth-y worm sounds, but I can't downplay the chirpy missiles and explosions, the roars of the desert, and the final dual like it's being fought with and on top of shattered glass.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rL2k3EkyNxY (forgive me, but I'm going to be lazy and link to the same clip as I did for sound mixing--generally I don't have quite as much overlap between the categories, but here we are.)
Honorable mention: Furiosa
Original Song
5. "Winter Coat"-Blitz-in a fairly miserable for this category, I'll admit that I've had to grasp the nearest available straws. Not sure the extent this song is an earth-shattering example of songcraft, but the scene in the movie is lovely enough, so here comes straw number one!
4. "Forbidden Road"-Better Man-Straw number two comes in the form of this totally passable and nice ballad at the end of everyone's favorite singing ape biopic. At the very least, this song is a very nice way to dry your stupid tears in the theater before staggering back out into the real world.
3. "Sick in the Head"-Kneecap-the first song on this list that isn't a straw to grasp (if, maybe a little straw adjacent). Always fun to see/hear Kneecap do their thing, and this little ditty about mental health is no exception.
2. "Claw Machine"-I Saw the TV Glow-thank god for I Saw the TV Glow coming along with its otherworldly song score to save us from ourselves and Emilia Perez. "Claw Machine" offers a needed down-tempo retreat, soft piano and lilting piano giving us all a chance to breathe before the movie plunges into something more stressful.
1. "Starburned and Unkissed"-I Saw the TV Glow-I'm sorry, did someone say 'retro alt-rock song about fitting in that falls suddenly into a huge synth chorus?" because that's what I heard and am now falling down several flights of stairs (out of joy, obviously). A special song in a special scene in a special movie--exactly what this category's meant for.
Honorable mention: "Ain't in Kansas Anymore"-Twisters
And that's it for this year's lists! And thank goodness, because much as I enjoy doing them, seven of my fingers have fallen off, and it would be nice to take a minute to sew them back on. But I have enjoyed it, and, as always, I am thrilled and grateful that y'all have come along on this ridiculous journey with me. I'll be back next week with final Oscar predictions, but until then, I'm going to spend some quality time with my fingers and a sewing needle.
For those playing along at home, these were the movies that showed up the most on my lists:
Challengers-7
Dune: Part Two-7
Wicked-5
All We Imagine as Light-4
Nickel Boys-4
Kneecap-4
As for wins, Challengers dominated, taking Picture, Director, Original Screenplay, Film Editing, and Original Score, with only Dune: Part Two and The Substance able to take home more than one award (Visual Effects and Sound Editing and Makeup and Sound Mixing, respectively).
And that's it! As always, thanks much for reading!
No comments:
Post a Comment