01 February 2013

Skandies: #16

Picture: Damsels in Distress (59/7)
Director: Kleber Mendonça Filho, Neighboring Sounds (56/4)
Actress: Quvenzhané Wallis, Beasts of the Southern Wild (62/7)
Actor: Denzel Washington, Flight (62/6)
S. Actor: Javier Bardem, Skyfall (74/7)
S. Actress: Juno Temple, Killer Joe (56/8)
Screenplay: Julia Loktev, The Loneliest Planet (75/8)
Scene: Merde, Holy Motors (54/5)
[WARNING: This clip has been rated NSFW for sudden comic violence and the sight of a weird crooked boner.]
HISTORY:
Neighboring Sounds is Mendonça Filho's first Skandie-eligible feature.
Washington previously placed 18th for Courage Under Fire (1996), 15th for The Hurricane (1999), 2nd for Training Day (2001), and 17th for Inside Man (2006). Bardem won Supporting Actor in 2007 for No Country for Old Men and has also landed in the lead category twice, at #17 (Before Night Falls, 2000) and #5 (Vicki Cristina Barcelona, 2008). Both young women are new.
Loktev's screenplay for Day Night Day Night failed to place, and her only other feature is a documentary.



11 comments:

Mike Lee, director of Career Girls said...

Good job, Stillman fanboys.

Jeff said...

Lee (Walker that is, not Mike the director of Career Girls) should be pleased with the director nab here.

Wondering how many HOLY MOTORS seens are going to place this year.

Lee Walker said...

I will only be happy with this placement if KMF is above Whit Stillman and David O. Asshole, two guys whose sense of tone I just do not get.

Also Denzel at #16 is another thing I cared about placing too low...

When will we be done with KILLER JOE stuff?

md'a said...

YES. WHEN.

Anonymous said...

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Michael said...

Howdy!

Hello, lover.

This post couldn't be written any better!

Oh, I don't know. Maybe if it were scrawled across the internet in fecal matter with a finger, in cursive. I always appreciate the personal touch, don't you?

Reading this post reminds me of my previous room mate!

Ah, yes! You know, nostalgia is a fool's game, but I suspect none of us can be entirely free of its siren-like lure. Sometimes I read posts on Andrew Sullivan's blog and I'm reminded of my first girlfriend, who used to let me ejaculate between her buttocks after frottage. True story!

He always kept talking about this.

Wait. Holy shit. You mean to tell me this guy you lived with actually predicted Skandies 2012 #16, before the survey even began? How long ago was this? What was the nature of his obsession and, more importantly, his unique (and rather useless) prescience? Can it be put to any practical uses, like political or dog-track predictions? Where is this guy?

I will forward this write-up to him. Pretty sure he will have a good read.

But why? Apparently he foresaw the outcome some time ago!

Thank you for sharing!

No. Thank YOU, player.

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I'll pass.

Steve C. said...

Winner.

dd said...

What Steve said.

Back to Lee's question: presumably when McConaughey appears? Which I imagine will be not for quite a while yet. But I'll be surprised if it charts on Picture.

Is there any writing anyone can recommend on NEIGHBOURING SOUNDS? I was totally enamoured with the film at its start, but felt like it pretty much fell apart for me in the third act as its temporal and geographic scope expanded and the film suddenly felt like it needed to have a central plot resolution. But I'd like to give it another go - I still found enough of interest that KMF was on the shortlist for director points, and I'm not unused to missing the point on a first viewing (particularly in the middle of a busy festival).

Paul C. said...

I'm guessing that if Temple cracked the top 20, there'll be enough fans of the movie to ensure that Gershon will place as well. And McConaughey, obv.

Lee Walker said...

After several Glenlivets and Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ales, Michael's call and response is one of the funniest things I've read in a while. Well played, sir.

As for dd's Neighboring Sounds question... I wish I had the time to write something about it because I am totally on this film's wavelength. Any missteps that it makes are completely minor and forgivable in my mind. It's the most exciting debut I've seen in ages... and that's not just because I'm consumed with Brazil right now.

I know Aaron Cutler has written some solid reviews/interviews of the film and KMF. Dennis Lim might have written something good for Artforum. (I'm going from memory.)

I guess central plot resolution isn't my bag. Although I feel like the film wraps up in a satisfactory way. But ymmv.

Also, I like HOLY MOTORS just fine. But it's going to be a real drag if a sizeable percentage of the upcoming "best" scenes are from that film.

dd said...

I guess I wasn't clear - I guess I felt like NEIGHBOURING SOUNDS had too much "central plot resolution", rather than not enough - it felt like such a broad sprawling work that became about something much more circumscribed near its end. (Again, on a first viewing, I may have missed the point, et cetera.)

I had a similar problem with THIS MUST BE THE PLACE, another film that seemed like it was about almost everything, only to reach a resolution that made the film feel smaller in its end than it was during its runtime.