And now, we return once again to our 2014 The Whole Damn Thing Awards. Just in time too. I think I hear the crowd getting restless. Let's kick things off with the award for Achievement in Sound Design. The
nominees are:
Goodbye to Language 3D,
for loud wet fart noises in the midst of snooty discussion
The Babadook, for
turning an absurd sounding phrase into the most unnerving sound byte of the
year
The Strange Little Cat,
for burning the impressionistic feeling of a cramped, loud family straight into
your brain
…and the award goes to…
The Strange Little
Cat!
What movie made the best use of montage? It’s time to find
out with the award for Achievement in Editing.
The nominees are:
Ramon Zurcher for The
Strange Little Cat, for creating everyday rhythms of particular intensity
Sandra Adair for Boyhood,
for the particular difficulties in paring down an assload of material into
coherence
Mathilde Bonnefoy for Citizenfour,
for generating tension within the confines of a hotel room
Jean-Christophe Hym for Stranger
By the Lake, for molding an episodic narrative into chapters instead of
chunks
…and the Whole Damn Thing goes to…
Ramon Zurcher for The
Strange Little Cat!
And now we turn to the award for Best Screenplay. This year’s nominees are:
Wes Anderson and Hugo Guinness for The Grand Budapest Hotel, for crafting a delightful desert of a
comedy with enough darkness that it lingers
Isao Takahata and Riko Sakaguchi for The Tale of the Princess Kaguya, for navigating its material
between modern humanism and ancient mysticism, giving neither the edge
Abderrahmane Sissako and Kessen Tall for Timbuktu, for being furious but never
simplistic
Walter Campbell and Jonathan Glazer for Under the Skin, for abandoning its concrete source to embrace
abstraction
Lisandro Alonso and Fabian Casas for Jauja, for creating scenes of unusual originality and vitality
…and The Whole Damn Thing goes to…
Wes Anderson and Hugo
Guinness for The Grand Budapest Hotel!
Moving right along we come to the heart of the medium – the visuals.
These are the nominees for Best
Cinematography:
Emmanuel Lubezki for Birdman
(or the Unexpected Virtue of Being
Ignorant), for creating a continuous series of shots that are as, if not
more effective than a traditionally made film
Sofian El Fani for Timbuktu,
for using the width of the frame to create tension, drama and beauty
Dick Pope for Mr.
Turner, for using digital cinema to create impressionistic natural
landscapes and textured character scenes alike
Fabrice Aragno for Goodbye
to Language 3D, for pushing the limits of beauty, ugliness and cinema on
low grade consumer video and 3D
Timo Salminen for Jauja,
for creating a fantastic landscape of wonder, humor and the unexpected in a 4:3
aspect ratio
…and the award goes to…
Fabrice Aragno for
Goodbye to Language 3D!
And now we get down to the big five. Who will take home the
glory? Well, first, we shall be presenting the award for Best Supporting Actress. The nominees are:
Agata Kulesza in Ida,
for creating fierceness out of pain without ever having to shout
Patricia Arquette in Boyhood,
for being the movie’s rock that you don’t even notice until you do
Gaby Hoffman in Obvious
Child, for being the earthiest and most practical best friend ever
Anjorka Strechel in The
Strange Little Cat, for being playful and vicious and bored and silly in
the course of a performance and have it all be bounded in character
Keira Knightley in The
Imitation Game, for livening up a deadly dull production and elevating both
its comedic and dramatic moments
…and the winner is…
Agata Kulesza in Ida!
Now, for their male counterparts. The nominees for Best Supporting Actor are:
Patrick D’Assumcao in Stranger
by the Lake, for simultaneously embodying wisdom and deep discomfort as the
only traditionally hefty man on a gay cruising beach
Edward Norton in Birdman
(or the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), for a versatile chameleonic
performance that flits from emotion to emotion in virtuoso fashion
Lam Suet in The
Midnight After, for doing his typical warm, earthy buffoon shtick but now
with an axe
Bradley Cooper in Guardians
of the Galaxy, for navigating comedy and difficult emotional territory
while also being a talking raccoon
Will Arnett in The
Lego Movie, for being one of the best Batmen
…and the award goes to…
Patrick D’Assumcao
for Stranger by the Lake!
The nominees for Best
Lead Actor are:
David Oyelowo in Selma,
for playing an icon as a human first and a leader second but never as a tired
piece of history
Ralph Fiennes in The Grand
Budapest Hotel, for the most perfect swearing in ages
Timothy Spall in Mr.
Turner, for the most diverse and expressive grunting ever caught on film
Michael Keaton in Birdman
(or the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), for navigating the emotional
registers in a film that gazes longer and more intensely than the Panopticon
Viggo Mortenson in
Jauja, for bringing tired and bewildered texture to the figure of Ethan
Edwards better than John Wayne ever did
…and The Whole Damn Thing goes too…
Ralph Fiennes for The
Grand Budapest Hotel!
The nominees for Best
Lead Actress are:
Scarlett Johansson in Under
the Skin, for honing the inhuman into a mythic unknown
Jennifer Kent in The
Babadook, for being both the hero and the villain with equal dedication and
effectiveness
Tilda Swinton in Only
Lovers Left Alive, for elevating the romantic Gothic vampire to its
pinnacle
Agata Trzebuchowska in Ida,
for weathering the great forces against her and swaying only when she wants to
Jenny Schily in The
Strange Little Cat, for being completely open and deeply closed all at once
…and the award goes to…
Scarlett Johansson in
Under the Skin!
Who stayed steadiest at the helm? The nominations for Best Director are:
Jean-Luc Godard for Goodbye
to Language 3D, for being an experimental enfant-terrible who still manages
to explode the cinema and people’s minds
Ramon Zurcher for The
Strange Little Cat, for the most perfect debut of the year
Laura Poitras for Citizenfour,
for bravery and talent of equal measure
Lisandro Alonso for Jauja,
for the most delightful surprises of the year
Isao Takahata for The
Tale of the Princess Kaguya, for the running scene, the procession from the
moon and every other portion of this movie
Jonathan Glazer for Under
the Skin, for a unique and terrifying vision of the other
Abderrahmane Sissako for Timbuktu,
for the patience, intelligence and anger that pulse through every scene
…and the winner is…
Jean-Luc Godard for
Goodbye to Language 3D!
And, finally, we present the moment you’ve all been waiting
for… the nominees for Best Picture are:
Goodbye to Language 3D,
for challenging cinema to be brave and new and exciting
The Tale of the
Princess Kaguya, for the most emotional climax of the year
Jauja, for the
evocation of a dream landscape of strange and intense potency
Manakamana, for
having nothing and everything all at once
The Grand Budapest
Hotel, for both the bitter and the sweet
Mr. Turner, for
embedding the artist in the social milieu without puffing up his stature
Under the Skin,
for a vision of abstract discomfort and alien emotion
…and the Whole Damn Thing goes to…
The Grand Budapest
Hotel!!!
Well, the Cinecdoche Academy of Motion Fiction Arts and
Sciences is delighted to have completed its first year of The Whole Damn Thing
Awards. We hope you’ve enjoyed it as much as we have. Have a good night and
remember to fall in love at the movies. Goodbye!
