2013 Moving Image Awards

Every year I have a silly award show for the best movies of the previous year. It's kind of like the Oscars, but with better nominations/winners and (unfortunately) no celebrities in attendance. So without further ado, here are the nominees.

Best Picture

Bastards

Faust

Her

Leviathan

Like Someone in Love

Night Across the Street

Passion

A Touch of Sin

Viola

You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet!

Best Director

Claire Denis, Bastards
Abbas Kiarostami, Like Someone in Love

Brian De Palma, Passion

Alain Resnais, You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet!

Raul Ruiz, The Night Across the Street

Aleksandr Sokurov, Faust

Johnnie To, Drug War

Best Lead Performance, Female

Cate Blanchett, Blue Jasmine

Julie Delpy, Before Midnight

Greta Gerwig, Frances Ha

Tallie Medel, The Unspeakable Act

Elizabeth Moss, Top of the Lake

Zhang Ziyi, The Grandmaster

Best Lead Performance, Male

Matt Damon, Behind the Candelabra

Leonardo DiCaprio, The Wolf of Wall Street

Ethan Hawke, Before Midnight

Sun Honglei, Drug War

Oscar Isaac, Inside Llewyn Davis

Joaquin Phoenix, Her

Best Supporting Performance, Female

Lola Creton, Bastards

Rooney Mara, Side Effects

Rachel McAdams, Passion

Jeanne Moreau, Gebo and the Shadow

Alba Rohrwacher, Dormant Beauty

Zhao Tao, A Touch of Sin

Best Supporting Performance, Male

Anton Adasinskiy, Faust

Mathieu Amalric, You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet!

James Franco, Spring Breakers

Nick Frost, The World's End

Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Pain & Gain

Peter Mullan, Top of the Lake

Best Ensemble Performance

Bastards

Computer Chess

Drug War

Gebo and the Shadow

Viola

You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet!

Best Original Screenplay

Andrew Bujalski, Computer Chess

Jane Campion and Gerard Lee, Top of the Lake

Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, Inside Llewyn Davis

Julie Delpy, Ethan Hawke, and Richard Linklater, Before Midnight

Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright, The World's End

Jia Zhangke, A Touch of Sin

Best Adapted Screenplay

Olivier Assays, Something in the Air

Darezhan Omirbaev, Student

Brian De Palma, Passion

Matias Pineiro, Viola

Alain Resnais and Laurent Herbiet, You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet!

Aleksandr Sokurov and Marina Kreneva, Faust

Best Cinematography

Jose Luis Alcaine, Passion

Benoit Debie, Spring Breakers

Bruno Delbonnel, Faust

Agnes Godard, Bastards

Matthias Grunsky, Computer Chess

Katsumi Yanagijima, Like Someone in Love

Best Editing

Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Verena Paravel, Leviathan

Douglas Cise, Spring Breakers

Annette Dutertre, Bastards

Francois Gedigier, Passion

Bahman Kiarostami, Like Someone in Love

Frederick Wiseman, At Berkeley

Best Sound

Erik Aadahl, To the Wonder
Makar Akhpashev and Fonin Andrey, Faust

Illiya Biserov, Student

Martin Boissau, Bastards

Pedro Costa, Sweet Exorcist

Nobuyuji Kikuchi, Like Someone in Love

Verena Paravel, Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Ernst Karel, and Jacob Ribicoff, Leviathan

Best Design

K.K. Barrett, Her

Michael Bricker, Computer Chess

William Chang, The Grandmaster

Jack Fisk, To the Wonder

Jess Gonchor, Inside Llewyn Davis

Elena Zhukova, Faust

Best Original Score or Soundtrack

Jorge Arriagada, Night Across the Street

T. Bone Burnett, Inside Llewyn Davis

Pino Donaggio, Passion

Cliff Martinez and Skrillex, Spring Breakers

Tindersticks, Bastards

Alexander Zlamal, Faust

Best Appropriated Score or Soundtrack

Olivier Assayas, Something in the Air

Noah Baumbach, Frances Ha

Steven Price and Edgar Wright, The World's End

Best Music Video / Televised Musical Performance

"Beauty and the Beat" by Justin Bieber and Jon Cho

"Black Skinhead (Live on SNL)" by Kanye West

"Bound 2" by Nick Knight and Kanye West

"Suit & Tie" by David Fincher and Justin Timberlake

"You're Not the One (Live on Letterman)" by Sky Ferreira

Film Availability
The Act of Killing - Available for streaming on Netflix, Amazon ($5), and iTunes ($5)
Bastards - Available for pre-order on iTunes (4/8)
Before Midnight - Available for streaming on Amazon ($15) and iTunes ($15)
Behind the Candelabra - Available for streaming on Amazon ($20) and iTunes ($20)
Computer Chess - Available for streaming on Netflix, Amazon ($5), and iTunes ($5)
Drug War - Available for streaming on Netflix, Amazon ($5), and iTunes ($5)
Frances Ha - Available for streaming on Netflix and iTunes ($5)
Her - In Theaters
In the Fog - Available for streaming on Netflix, Amazon ($0 for Prime, $5), and iTunes ($5)
Inside Llewyn Davis - In Theaters
Leviathan - Available for streaming on iTunes ($5)
The Lone Ranger - Available for streaming on Amazon ($6) and iTunes ($6)
Man of Tai Chi - Available for streaming on Netflix, Amazon ($5), and iTunes ($5)
Museum Hours - Available for streaming on iTunes ($5)
Night Across the Street - Available for streaming on iTunes ($5)
Pain & Gain - Available for streaming on Amazon ($15) and iTunes ($15)
Passion - Available for streaming on Netflix, Amazon ($5), and iTunes ($5)
Riddick - Available for streaming on Amazon ($6) and iTunes ($6)
Side Effects - Available for streaming on Netflix, Amazon ($4), and iTunes ($4)
Something in the Air - Available for streaming on Amazon ($0 for Prime, $5), and iTunes ($5)
Spring Breakers - Available for streaming on Amazon ($0 for Prime, $5) and iTunes ($5)
To the Wonder - Available for streaming on Netflix, Amazon ($5), and iTunes ($5)
Top of the Lake - Available for streaming on Netflix, Amazon ($20), and iTunes ($20)
The Unspeakable Act - Available for streaming on iTunes ($5)
The Wolf of Wall Street - In Theaters
The World's End - Available for streaming on Amazon ($6) and iTunes ($6)
You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet - Available for streaming on Netflix and iTunes ($5)

April '13 Screening Log

A log of the best films I saw in April of 2013. Inspired by Peter Labuza's log. Tiered by colors. Red is 5 stars, orange is 4 1/2 stars, green is 4 stars, blue is 3 1/2 stars, purple is 3 stars (out of a maximum of 5 stars).

First Viewings
1. Passion (Jean-Luc Godard, Switzerland/France, 1982)
2. Bob le flambeur (Jean-Pierre Melville, France, 1956)
3. Scenario du film 'Passion' (Jean-Luc Godard, Switzerland/France, 1982)
4. Real Life (Albert Brooks, USA, 1979)
5. To the Wonder (Terrence Malick, USA, 2012)
6. Manhunter (Michael Mann, USA, 1986)
7. The Three Musketeers (Paul W.S. Anderson, USA/France/UK/Germany, 2011)
8. Pain & Gain (Michael Mann, USA, 2013)
9. Upstream Color (Shane Carruth, USA, 2013)

The Springboard of the Self and the Pool of Ignorance

Manhunter (Michael Mann, 1986)

An excerpt from a comment by one of the great critics of film criticism, Glenn Kenny, on his blog, Some Came Running:

 I remember an interview in Creem magazine (or was it Crawdaddy?) with Ian Anderson in the very early '70s which he bemoaned the musical ignorance of the average rock fan and suggested —jokingly—that punters be required to whistle a twelve-bar blues before being allowed admittance to a performance. I thought that was dumb and, as they say, elitist, even when I was a kid. (I used to have this rather naive belief that in the free arena of opinion exchange, the best idea best expressed would have to win, which didn't turn out well, but that's another story.) And of course critical thought and subjectivity are inextricably linked, and anyone who says they're not is rather willfully lying. That said, beyond the direct experience there can, and should, be some kind of genuine detachment at least attempted; thought ought to do double the work that feeling did during the experience being put up for discussion. This is why the phrase "soundboard for the self" rubbed me so severely the wrong way; when I'm participating in, or consuming, criticism, how someone feels about something is pretty low on the list of potential material. I'm not so much interested in what you feel as what, and how, you think. And if you glibly announce, for instance, that a work we'll call for the purposes of this exercise "MAX" is a stuffy European relic that's ripe for parody, without betraying the slightest hint of awareness that "MAX" is in fact kind of a parody to begin with, then no, I'm not going to respect either your conclusion or your process. Too often the springboard of the self dives straight into a pool of ignorance, which is then privileged with the protest, "Well, that's MY opinion, anyway, and who are you to say it's wrong?"

March '13 Screening Log

A log of the best films I saw in March of 2013. Inspired by Peter Labuza's log. Tiered by colors. Red is 5 stars, orange is 4 1/2 stars, green is 4 stars, blue is 3 1/2 stars, purple is 3 stars (out of a maximum of 5 stars).

First Viewings
1. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (John Ford, USA, 1962)
2. Dead or Alive 2: Birds (Takashi Miike, Japan, 2000)
3. The Blackout (Abel Ferrara, USA/France, 1997)
4. Cold Water (Olivier Assayas, France, 1994)
5. Spring Breakers (Harmony Korine, USA, 2012)
6. The Strawberry Blonde (Raoul Walsh, USA, 1941)
7. Rock-A-Bye Baby (Frank Tashlin, USA, 1958)
8. Wichita (Jacques Tourneur, USA, 1955)
9. Viola (Matías Piñeiro, Argentina, 2012)
10. The American Soldier (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, West Germany, 1970)

Also Notable: Silver Linings Playbook (David O. Russell, USA, 2012)

Revisited
1. Miami Vice (Michael Mann, USA/Germany, 2006)

February '13 Screening Log

A log of the best films I saw in February of 2013. Inspired by Peter Labuza's log. Tiered by colors. Red is 5 stars, orange is 4 1/2 stars, green is 4 stars, blue is 3 1/2 stars, purple is 3 stars (out of a maximum of 5 stars).

First Viewings
1. Modern Romance (Albert Brooks, USA, 1981)
2. Heat (Michael Mann, USA, 1995)
3. Die Hard (John McTiernan, USA, 1988)
4. Distant Voices, Still Lives (Terence Davies, United Kingdom, 1988)
5. Life, and Nothing More... (Abbas Kiarostami, Iran, 1991)
6. The Traveler (Abbas Kiarostami, Iran, 1974)
7. Night Across the Street (Raúl Ruiz, Chile, 2012)
8. Where is the Friend's Home? (Abbas Kiarostami, Iran, 1987)
9. Homework (Abbas Kiarostami, Iran, 1989)
10. Two Solutions for One Problem (Abbas Kiarostami, Iran, 1975)

Also Notable: Lost in America (Albert Brooks, USA, 1985), Gebo and the Shadow (Manoel de Oliveira, Portugal/France, 2012), In Another Country (Hong Sang-soo, South Korea/France, 2012), Side Effects (Steven Soderbergh, USA, 2013), eXistenZ (David Cronenberg, Canada/United Kingdom, 1999), Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame (Tsui Hark, Hong Kong/China, 2010), Amuse-gueule #1: "Digital Destinies" (Gina Telaroli, USA, 2012), Penance (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Japan, 2012), Jonathan Rosenbaum, Present (Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, USA, 2013), The Bread and Alley (Abbas Kiarostami, Iran, 1970), The Report (Abbas Kiarostami, Iran, 1977), The Breaktime (Abbas Kiarostami, Iran, 1972), Solution (Abbas Kiarostami, Iran, 1978)

Revisited
1. Public Enemies (Michael Mann, USA, 2009)

January '13 Screening Log

A log of the best films I saw in January of 2013. Inspired by Peter Labuza's log. Tiered by colors. Red is 5 stars, orange is 4 1/2 stars, green is 4 stars, blue is 3 1/2 stars, purple is 3 stars (out of a maximum of 5 stars).

First Viewings
1. The Addiction (Abel Ferrara, USA, 1995)
2. Body Snatchers (Abel Ferrara, USA, 1993)
3. This Is Not a Film (Jafar Panahi and Mojtaba Mirtahasebi, Iran, 2011)
4. The Deep Blue Sea (Terence Davies, United Kingdom/USA, 2011)
5. King of New York (Abel Ferrara, USA/Italy/United Kingdom, 1990)
6. Tabu (Miguel Gomes, Portugal/Germany/Brazil/France, 2012)
7. Vamps (Amy Heckerling, USA, 2012)
8. The Day He Arrives (Hong Sang-soo, South Korea, 2011)
9. Resident Evil: Retribution (Paul W.S. Anderson, Germany/Canada, 2012)
10. Bernie (Richard Linklater, USA, 2011)

Also Notable: Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (Jim Jarmusch, Germany/Japan/USA/France, 1999), The Cabin in the Woods (Drew Goddard, USA, 2011)

Revisited
1. The Gay Divorcee (Mark Sandrich, USA, 1934)