It's the final day of film awards at Sketchy Details. The last three categories for recognition are casting, music, and screenplay. Let's get to it.
Outstanding Casting of 2013
American Mary
Put aside the great leading turn by horror veteran Katherine Isabelle (she just missed out on my Leading category this year). American Mary has this fantastic montage sequence about halfway through where real people with real body modifications--piercings, tattoos, transdermal implants--and real disabilities (to fill in for voluntary amputation, a service offered in the film) are posing for photographs in Mary's lab. They are happy people of all shapes and sizes (tall, short, fat, thin) demonstrating the diversity of body modification culture. The range of people cast for this scene really drives home the greater point about body modification being more than shock value. These are everyday people who wanted to change their appearance and who are we to say otherwise?
The East
So many of the performers in this film--Ellen Page, Brit Marling, and Alexander Skarsgård among others--came so close to getting on my acting lists; Ellen Page was the last cut in Supporting and it hurt. The latest collaboration between sci-fi master Brit Marling and director Zal Batmanglij is their most exciting yet because of the expansive cast. Like Sound of My Voice, The East is another film about an alleged cult with criminal undertones. That's where the similarities end. The huge cast is filled with people from all walks of life fighting against the corporate culture that personally harmed them. The constant shift of missions and the rotating major players on any particular espionage "jam" never feels forced because this particular group of actors is more than capable of blending in or standing out as necessary (even for mere seconds at a dinner table).
Much Ado About Nothing
Joss Whedon's Much Ado About Nothing plays as a who's who of Whedon collaborators. These actors were invited to his house to shoot an adaptation of a Shakespeare's comedy play over a very short period. We're talking days, not weeks. The whole thing was shot while he struggled to edit The Avengers as a way to recharge his batteries. This group of actors took on The Bard like breathing air. I have never seen a production of Much Ado About Nothing where the comedy is this outrageous and the tragedy this devastating. These actors went above and beyond the call of duty with only a few day's notice to learn their parts and come crash at the Whedon estate over Christmas.
Mud
Mud, like The East, is another film where I had to pare out all of the acting nominees. Matthew McConaughey (supporting), Reese Witherspoon (supporting), and Tye Sheridan (leading) do fantastic work in this film. McConaughey and Witherspoon, in particular, do some of their best work in their brief time onscreen. The ensemble of children and teenagers do most of the heavy lifting in the film and it works. Mud is very quiet and understated, like a lazy day during summer vacation, and the acting from the entire cast is effortless without losing that tiny fuse of tension leading to the grand explosion where everything goes wrong.
Short Term 12
Another wonderful cast of child and teen actors can be found in Short Term 12. I've already made my opinion of Brie Larson's performance clear (best of the year), but didn't have the opportunity to discuss these younger actors. Katelyn Dever has the trickiest role in the film, playing the voluntary loner who Larson's Grace believes is actually being abused by her father who gets weekend custody. Keith Stanfield almost steals the whole film as the foster child lashing out right before he ages out of the system. The rest of the children and adult caretakers in the film build a rich ensemble that never lets you forget that Dever and Stanfield are only two of the many children with a past and a dream of a family to care for them.
Click through for the best film music of 2013.
Outstanding Music of 2013
The Bling Ring
Much like the sun rising in the east, Sofia Coppola's brilliant music choices always elevate and comment on her films. Always. The Bling Ring features a whole lot of uncomfortable moments where the privileged mostly white robbers sing along to really inappropriate rap songs. They really are oblivious to how terrible their behavior is and the constant lip sync performances with a whole lot of n word lyrics drive it home like nothing else. These are foolish teenagers so obsessed with partying and fame that they never once stop and think that no should apply to them.
Frozen
Frozen features Disney's best original score in years. Yes, Tangled and The Princess Frog had some cute pop songs, but they weren't real theatrical scores. Soon to be Academy Award winners Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez took their years of musical scoring and collaborated on a film that will inevitably be on Broadway. "Let it Go" is the standout track, a brilliant anthem about the power of self worth and being true to your own identity. "Do You Wanna Build a Snowman" is a great song, as well, cleverly pulled through many scenes as the theme of the sisters separated by uncontrollable magic. Each song works just right to tell this story. The original instrumental score from Christophe Beck didn't hurt, either. Really beautiful work all around.
Inside Llewyn Davis
That intentionally stupid JFK song aside, Inside Llewyn Davis did not feature a single song I didn't enjoy. The music is the highlight of the entire film. It's traditional American folk performed by excellent singing actors. It would be even better if the moments of the song commenting on the action of the story were not a rarity in the film. It's no coincidence that the film's strongest scene is when Llewyn sings his most personal song to a music producer. Still, the quality of music is excellent even if it could have been a bit more personalized to the characters in the story. And, to be clear, the embedded song is not the song I was talking about. I can't find that one online.
Only God Forgives
Someone call 911 because Cliff Martinez got robbed. Not only was he not nominated for the best film score of 2013, the producers of the film didn't even submit the score to be considered for the category. Martinez's haunting score would have been a guaranteed marketing tool for Only God Forgives. How many mediocre films that scored one nomination slap "Academy Award nominee" on the DVD cover to move product? Most. The TL:DR of Only God Forgives is this. Nicholas Winding Refn cast a lot of non-English speaking performers in key roles. The dialogue he wrote could barely even be pronounced phonetically because of the differences between English and Thai. He told Cliff Martinez to tell the story in music (which he did) and deleted the actual dialogue from most of the film. Most of the dialogue goes to Ryan Gosling and Kristin Scott Thomas (the actors fluent in English); the rest is an original unending musical without lyrics. It's an action ballet with a melodic quality and instrumentation you won't find anywhere else.
Stoker
Clint Mansell's score for Stoker is solid. It's a film where sound is exaggerated to bring the audience into the mindset of the narrator and his original music is a perfect counterpoint; that's not why Stoker is nominated here. The piano duet between India and Uncle Charles is one of the most beautiful and disturbing scenes I've ever encountered in a horror film.
Click through for the best screenplays of 2013.
Outstanding Screenplay of 2013
American Mary
A beautifully nuanced examination on Frankenstein through the world of body modification.
Frances Ha
The most realistic look I've ever seen into the life of an artist who does everything right but fails to make it in the business.
Room 237
The overlapping critical theories cut into the video footage from Kubrick's catalogue create a brilliant meta-text on obsession leading to insanity, just like Jack's mental collapse at the hands of the Overlook Hotel.
Short Term 12
One determined mentor's fight against a system that is failing to do it's one job: protect children from people who harm them.
Stoker
A terrifying modern spin on Edgar Allan Poe's unreliable narrator that you have no choice to believe.
Post updated January 30 to fix formatting and update graphics.
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