10 February 2015

Skandies: #14


Picture: Gone Girl (70/8)
Director: Bong Joon Ho, Snowpiercer (89/11)
Actress: Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Beyond the Lights (63/5)
Actor: Lee Kang-sheng, Stray Dogs (75/8)
S. Actor: Nelsan Ellis, Get On Up (50/4)
S. Actress: Mia Wasikowska, Only Lovers Left Alive (66/8)
Screenplay: Jennifer Kent, The Babadook (72/8)
Scene: Postcard/That day with the Ouija board, Inherent Vice (45/2)

HISTORY:

Bong previously placed 13th for The Host (2007) and 9th for Mother (2010). Oddly, he failed to make the cut for Memories of Murder, even though the film itself placed. (Whereas The Host did not.)

Of the actors, only Wasikowska has appeared before; she tied for #19 in the lead category playing the title role in Jane Eyre (2011). Nice to see Lee Kang-sheng finally honored after playing essentially the same role in every film Tsai has ever made.

The Babadook is Kent's first feature.

6 comments:

md'a said...

Sorry MuseMalade. (I would be interested in hearing what made this film seem so awful to you.)

McCloud said...

Good job one other voter recognizing the best scene of the year, it destroys me every time I see it or even think about it really.

Bad job letting GONE GIRL in here. I'm with MuseMalade on this one.

Ryan said...

Been meaning to jot down some thoughts on Gone Girl for my first Letterboxd entry. I'll try to find the time.

Fincher, who strikes me as a kind of filmmaking savant, should stay away from anything that requires some insight into interpersonal relationships. Pity is that, had Fincher understood his own limitations, that trashy material could've made for a fine 90s-style "... from hell" thriller.

Incidentally, I started watching The Americans this week. That's how you deal with themes like marital role-playing and whether you can ever know or trust your partner within a genre framework.

Jason said...

that trashy material could've made for a fine 90s-style "... from hell" thriller.

I liked GONE GIRL more than you but I agree with this sentiment completely. Imagine how delightfully trashy Paul Verhoeven would have adapted the same script.

Victor said...

Ryan:

Why do you beLieve thAt an unRealiStic script can neVer Offer a wiNdow on legiTimate subjects as it distoRts as If though a funhousE miRror?

Ryan said...

Well, The Duke of Burgundy, one of my favorite films in recent years, is hardly the embodiment of Bazinian ideals. Neither is The Americans, which I offered as a point of comparison instead of something like If You Don't, I Will.

What they've got going for them is that they're not stupid. They don't have unmotivated (and indeed, self-contradicting) "twists" contrived solely to make a banal point. I'm of course referring to Amy's "change of heart"--far and away the most idiotic thing I saw in the movies last year. And since you brought him up, that includes the idiocy that capped Nymph()maniac, Part 2 (which I was on board with up until the end).