03 February 2016

Skandies: #18


Picture: Magic Mike XXL (57/6)
Director: Guillermo Del Toro, Crimson Peak (40/4)
Actress: Karidja Touré, Girlhood (62/7)
Actor: Jacob Tremblay, Room (64/7)
S. Actor: Jason Mitchell, Straight Outta Compton (45/6)
S. Actress: Viola Davis, Blackhat (50/6)
Screenplay: Matt Charman and Ethan Coen & Joel Coen, Bridge of Spies (63/7)
Scene: Dance break, Ex Machina (40/5)




HISTORY:

Del Toro previously placed 6th for Pan's Labyrinth (2006).

All of the actors are new save for Davis, who placed 8th in Supporting for Doubt in 2008.

Charman has never placed before, whereas the Coens have appeared in Screenplay more frequently than any other writer(s). This marks the first time they've finished lower than 7th, as well as the first time they've made the list for a film directed by somebody else. The roster:

1. Burn After Reading (2008)
2. No Country for Old Men (2007)
3. Fargo (1996) [Original Screenplay; there was also Adapted that year]
3. The Man Who Wasn't There (2001)
3. Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)
4. O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)
4. A Serious Man (2009)
4. True Grit (2010)
7. The Big Lebowski (1998)


12 comments:

md'a said...

#SkandiesSoBlack

Anyone of the folks who put Mitchell in Supporting want to explain why they think that's the right category for frickin' Eazy-E in a film about N.W.A? Dre and Cube are leads and he isn't? You baffle me sometimes.

Victor Morton said...

Ensemble.

Victor Morton said...

Or to flesh out a little more, because STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON is fundamentally a story about a group, a corporate entity. And while they split up and have different individual fates, no one is greater than the other two. Contrasting example: THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS, which is also an ensemble but still one COULD argue that Tim Holt is still a lead and everyone else subordinate. COMPTON felt more equal, so all three would be supporting.

md'a said...

Okay. I guess in my mind the minimum number for an ensemble > 3.

Victor Morton said...

> 3 is more clear, I agree. With two, no problem — co-leads. But with three, you just judge case-by-case. For MADAME DE... in the 1953 Skandies, I'd definitely count Darrieux and Boyer as leads, and be on the fence about DeSica. Similarly, with Linklater's TAPE (which has only three people ever onscreen), I think I wound up at least short-listing Leonard and Hawke as leads and putting Thurman in supporting just because of her screen time and the structure thereof.

Anonymous said...

You guys have such a weird boner for this movie. Praising it for it's (sexual) politics, not because it has a good story or characters or anything.

md'a said...

With two, no problem — co-leads. But with three, you just judge case-by-case. For MADAME DE... in the 1953 Skandies, I'd definitely count Darrieux and Boyer as leads, and be on the fence about DeSica. Similarly, with Linklater's TAPE (which has only three people ever onscreen), I think I wound up at least short-listing Leonard and Hawke as leads and putting Thurman in supporting just because of her screen time and the structure thereof.

Okay, but those are cases in which two of the three are clearly leads and the third is iffy. Not the case with Compton—either there are three leads or there are no leads. And I guess I need a larger ensemble than three to conclude that there are no leads.

You guys have such a weird boner for this movie. Praising it for it's (sexual) politics, not because it has a good story or characters or anything.

If story and characters are your sole criteria for excellence, this probably isn't the voting body for you.

Anonymous said...

"If story and characters are your sole criteria for excellence, this probably isn't the voting body for you."

Maybe. Just seems weird to see such a mediocre film raised to the level of excellence just because it has a liberal attitude about sex.

Ryan said...

Speaking of ensembles, how about Spotlight? I had Keaton in a supporting role, but was on the fence.

You guys have such a weird boner for this movie.

To be fair, only six participants voted for this.

md'a said...

Speaking of ensembles, how about Spotlight?

Clearly an ensemble in my opinion, with focus divided among Keaton, Ruffalo, McAdams, D'Arcy-James, and Schreiber. Five equals is probably the point where I decide that the movie has no true leads. Four is right on the fence (though I think Closer, for example, has four leads). With the three guys in Compton—and I realize N.W.A had more than three members, but clearly the others are marginalized onscreen—it seems pretty clear-cut to me that they're all leads. But I accept the collective decision of the AVB.

Just seems weird to see such a mediocre film raised to the level of excellence just because it has a liberal attitude about sex.

I assume you're basing this conclusion on Vadim Rizov's Letterboxd review and my decision (during a holiday period when I was short on free time due to family stuff) to just point at it and say "ditto." There's plenty I love about XXL above and beyond its gender politics—it's basically a first-rate musical, as many have observed, and has a joyous spirit that I don't recall experiencing onscreen since Dave Chappelle's Block Party.

That's Ed, it's a rare case of a favorite film (#3 for me last year) for which I couldn't quite find room in either Director or Screenplay. Jacobs probably deserved points, but I wanted to recognize a number of directors—Leo Gabriadze, Alonso Ruizpalacios, Anna Marquardt, André Téchiné—who did superb work in films that were otherwise less than great imo (though I like Güeros a lot).

Victor Morton said...

I guess I just don't see how a requirement that a film be "fundamentally about that character" wouldn't imply a cutoff of 3.

md'a said...

You mean a cutoff of two, no? Anyway, no contradiction in my mind; Straight Outta Compton seems straightforwardly about Cube, Dre, and Eazy. (If it were about N.W.A, it wouldn't ignore the other members, nor would half the film follow them after the group's dissolution.)