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Outtakes

Oscar Countdown: Snubs Galore

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The Oscar nominations always cause a stir, what with the Academy’s glaring myopia when it comes to certain films. This year, the snubs were fewer and less harsh than in years past (like that year they totally ignored three of the best films of the year in Drive, Take Shelter and Young Adult, and failed to nominate the year’s best lead actress performances). We may never get over 2011.

Still, as always, there are some very curious omissions. Here we run down our 5 biggest gripes.

1. Inside Llewyn Davis

The magnificent Coen brothers’ immersive character study set in the unforgiving winter of the Greenwich Village folk scene garnered no love for its outstanding lead performance or its pristine screenplay or its rich and textured direction or even its music! That’s a lot of snubs for one film. It would certainly have been tough to find room for the wondrous Oscar Isaac in a leading actor field more crowded than most, and though the Coens are perpetual competitors for best director (by Oscar’s standards or anyone else’s), who would we bump this year? Scorsese? That’s a hard choice.

When it comes to original screenplay, we may have dumped Dallas Buyers Club in favor of Llewyn. There’s no question that we would have given it the best picture nod over Philomena.

 

2. Stories We Tell

The Academy had their heads up their asses with this one. In fact, there are a number of documentaries better suited to the award than this lineup suggests, but Sarah Polley’s deceptively complicated, brave and clever film cries out for recognition. Not only among the best documentaries of the year but one of the very best films overall, we would certainly have knocked Dirty Wars from the list in favor of Polley’s film. Truth be told, the only film in the category more deserving is The Act of Killing, so we’d have been fine with kicking any of the others to the curb to make room.

 

3. Her

The most imaginative and lovely film of 2013 went without acknowledgment in acting and directing, which is sinful. Our first order of business would be to get Scarlett Johansson a best actress nomination, even though the studio pushed her for supporting. Let’s be honest, regardless of the fact that she’s never onscreen, she plays one of two lovers in a love story. She’s the lead. And in a brilliant voice-only effort, she easily deserves Sandra Bullock’s spot. (In fact, we’d pick Johansson over Bullock, Streep or even Dench this year.)

Joaquin Phoenix should have edged out Leo (though we loved Leo’s work, it’s just a very tight race this year!). Director is as tight as actor, and while Alexander Payne and Martin Scorsese are 1) geniuses and 2) nominated for outstanding work this year, we’d have given one of their places to Spike Jonze for crafting a beautiful love story set in an unerringly crafted near-future, and doing so without a hint of cynicism or derivation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzV6mXIOVl4

 

4. Blue Is the Warmest Color

Apparently France couldn’t get off its cheese eating ass to get the film released in time for Oscar consideration, which is an absolute tragedy. The film should, by all accounts, boast two nominations, one for Best Foreign Language Film and another for Best Actress. The fact that Adele Exarchopoulos’s career-defining turn in this romantic drama will go unacknowledged is a crime.

 

5. And the Rest

We’d rather see Julie Louis-Dreyfus (Enough Said) for Best Actress than Meryl Streep. We know that sounds like heresy, but her performance in August: Osage County is so hyperbolic that it’s more exaggeration than acting. True, the weak direction of A: OC is most likely to blame, but the end result just doesn’t measure up.

We would also have given either Daniel Bruhl (Rush) or James Gandolfini (Enough Said) the nod over Jonah Hill for Best Supporting Actor.

 

For more on our Oscar picks, listen to George’s stint on the Sunny 95 (WSNY Columbus, OH) morning show.

 

Outtakes

This Week’s Countdown: Time Traveling Out of January

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Her came out this week, and it’s awesome. August: Osage County, also new in theaters, is worth a peek. But that’s probably it for a while. January is the beginning of the long winter movie wasteland, littered with films that were not deemed good competition for holiday movies, not likely award winners – just not that great. The kind of thing you hang on to until it’s bleak and dreary and people have lost the will to live so, why not watch Ride Along?

I, Frankenstein? I vomit.

Seriously, you know it’s bad when you’re holding out for the Hercules movie starring The Rock.

It’s too bad we don’t have a time machine to just jump past the dismal winter movie months. But we don’t. What we do have – which is almost as good – are time machine movies. Here are our 8 favorites. Why eight? January’s a long month and five might not be enough. Use them to fill the void of good flicks at the theater.

8. Twelve Monkeys

Madman Terry Gilliam creates a fascinating shell-world of the future, in which penal colony worker Bruce Willis agrees to travel back to the Nineties to sleuth out the cause of the apocalypse. The SciFi business is intricate and delicate and works surprisingly well, but it’s Gilliam’s particular genius for ruminating on the nature of insanity that keeps this one fascinating. That, along with fun performances from Willis and Oscar nominated (thought, let’s be honest, maybe he didn’t deserve that one) Brad Pitt.

7. Time Bandits

What? More Terry Gilliam? Yes, this guy has a real jones for time travel and, in this case, dwarfs. In 1981 Gilliam was still working with his Monty Python cohorts, ensuring that this bit of lunacy (for wherever Gilliam creates, lunacy follows) takes on a far more comical air than 12 Monkeys. Imaginative and hilarious, it’s no Brazil, but that film couldn’t have existed without this one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yd4DBq8a2y0

 

6. The Terminator

Computers become self aware. They build super sized, thickly accented, human-ish cyborgs (the role Schwarzenegger was born to play) to infiltrate the few remaining warriors and end the human race. But one scrappy lad sends his dad back to knock up his mom, ensuring the future of the species. Which begs the question: is the survival of the human race reason enough to entertain the idea of your parents doing it?

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHz95RYUbik

 

5. Planet of the Apes

The film’s 45 years old at this point. We hope we’re not giving up any spoilers by including it on the time travel countdown. But it’s a fascinating thought – maybe it’s not the machines that will enslave us. Maybe it’ll be those damn, dirty apes! Oh Charlton Heston, with your granite jaw and loin cloth, how you suffer when you find out!

4. Timecrimes

This one is nutty, and absolutely required viewing for anyone who enjoys time space continuum conundrums. So much can go wrong when you travel just one hour back in time. An always clever experiment in science fiction and irony, Timecrimes is a spare, unique and wild ride.

3. Back to the Future

The most beloved of all time travel films, Back to the Future has charm to spare. Inventive and endearing, and yet Marty McFly almost makes out with his own mom. Ewww. (We love you, George McFly!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVuQWf9M700

2. Primer

Made for $7000, this film is, in itself, an act of science fiction. Writer/director Shane Carruth (who would go on to make the best sic fi film of 2013, Upstream Color,) finds all new ways to consider what havoc a time machine could wreak. It would be the most streamlined, absorbing and ingenious film of its kind if there were other films of its kind.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CC60HJvZRE

1. Looper

An ingenious look at personal destiny wrapped inside a mind bending time travel thriller, the film watches Joe (Joseph Gordon Levitt) try to kill the older version of himself (Bruce Willis) whose been sent back to him from the future for a mob hit. Breathlessly entertaining, wildly clever and incredibly well crafted, it’s among the very best SciFi  film of a generation.

Outtakes

Countdown: Winter Weather Lunchtime Options

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Some people eat sauerkraut to begin the New Year, but if weather predictions hold true, we may be looking at snowbound isolation, even power outages. How long will your provisions hold out?! After enough time homebound and desperate, you might find yourself contemplating roasting a leg of neighbor over an open fire.

Should you find yourself in such a state, here are a few films you can think of as how-to’s.

7. Motel Hell (1980)

Super cheese director Kevin Connor teamed up with low rent 80s staple Nancy Parsons and 50s heartthrob Rory Calhoun – not to mention Elaine Joyce and John Ratzenberger – to create one of the best bad horror films ever made. So gloriously bad! Farmer Vincent (Calhoun) makes the county’s tastiest sausage, and runs the Motel Hello as well. Now if swingers (note: cannibals are always eating swingers) keep disappearing from the motel, and mysterious, bubbly moans are coming from those sacks out back, that does not necessarily mean anything is amiss. Motel Hell is a deeply disturbed, inspired little low budget jewel.

It takes all kinds of critters to make Farmer Vincent’s fritters.

6. Eating Raoul (1982)

This bone-dry black comedy plays like an early John Waters film made with less money and more irony. The sexually repressed Mary and Paul Bland need to generate capital to open a restaurant and get away from the customers, patients, and neighbors constantly trying to have sex with them. They team up with a scam artist and thief named Raoul, played with almost shocking aptitude, considering the film itself, by Robert Beltran. Together the threesome knock off perverts and swingers, rob them, and sell their bodies for dog food. But when Raoul gets a little too ambitious, not to mention lucky with Mary, well, the couple is forced to eat him. And live happily ever after.

It’s amazing what you can do with a cheap piece of meat if you know how to treat it.

5. Soylent Green (1973)

Soylent Green may not be the most famous of Charlton Heston’s sci-fi cult classics, but his granite-jawed overacting is so perfect for this melodramatic examination of human nature, greed and desperation that it is still an amusing genre study.  Heston is a cop in this urban nightmare of an overpopulated future where the elderly are wooed into euthanasia by the same company that produces the only food available. You do the math. You’ll undoubtedly do it faster than Heston does, but that doesn’t undermine the fun.

You’ve got to tell them!  Soylent Green is people!

 

4. Titus (1999)

Director Julie Taymor glories in the spectacle of Shakespeare’s bloodiest play. Considered a pot boiler when it was written, it compares favorably in this century’s ultra-violent landscape. Titus, (Anthony Hopkins, perennial man eater), returns victorious from war, but the violence he wrought revisits him when he becomes entangled with a diabolical widow/war spoil (the ever-luminous Jessica Lange). Cannibalism, incest, rape, mutilation, infanticide, and an enormity of assorted carnage take on a surreal beauty under Taymor’s artistic direction.

Hark, villains, I shall grind your bones to dust, and of your blood I shall make a paste.

3. Delicatessen (1991)

Equal parts Eraserhead, Motel Hell and Amelie, Delicatessen is a weird, wild film. Set in the apartment building around a macabre butcher shop in a surreal, post-apocalyptic France, the film addresses the same cannibalism catalyst explored in many films: a human race that destroys everything required to sustain life and must turn to the only nourishment left. The carnival funhouse approach to cinematography predicts the absurdly funny take this black comedy has on humanity and its future.

Answer me meathead.

 

2. The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)

The action in this granddaddy of all cult films turns on one dinner scene. (Now you yell “Meatloaf again?!”) Creator Richard O’Brien’s raucous, once-controversial film about a sweet transvestite, a slut, an asshole and a couple of domestics who sing, time warp, throw rice, animate monsters, swap partners, and finally put on a show is still as much fun as it ever was. Once a subversive take on the classic musicals and sci-fi films of the 30s and 40s, Rocky Horror is now a high-camp icon of its own.

I’m afraid you’ve touched on a rather tender subject there, Dr. Scott. Another slice, anyone?

1. Silence of The Lambs (1991)

Why miss any opportunity to watch one of the most perfect horror films ever made? The fact that a movie about a man who eats human flesh tracking down a man who wears human flesh could win all five major Academy awards is itself a testament to how impeccably this film is put together. From the muted colors, haunting score, and meticulous cinematography to the shockingly authentic performances from Anthony Hopkins, Jodie Foster and Ted Levine, Silence of the Lambs is a stunning achievement in any film genre.

I do wish we could chat longer but I’m having an old friend for dinner.

Outtakes

And the 2013 COFCA Award Winners Are….

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Gravity pulls in top prize at 12th annual Central Ohio Film Critics Association awards

 

(Columbus, January 2, 2014) Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity has been named Best Film in the Central Ohio Film Critics Association’s 12th annual awards, which recognize excellence in the film industry for 2013.  The film also claimed two other awards.  Cuarón was honored as Best Director.  Director of Photography Emmanuel Lubezki won for Best Cinematography.

 

Columbus-area critics recognized these screen performers: Best Actor Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 Years a Slave); Best Actress and Breakthrough Film Artist Adèle Exarchopolous [Blue is the Warmest Color (La vie d’Adèle)]; Best Supporting Actor James Franco (Spring Breakers); Best Supporting Actress Jennifer Lawrence (American Hustle); and Actor of the Year Matthew McConaughey for his exemplary body of work in Dallas Buyers Club, Mud, and The Wolf of Wall Street.

 

Other winners include: American Hustle for Best Ensemble; The Wolf of Wall Street’s Terence Winter for Best Adapted Screenplay; Her’s Spike Jonze for Best Original Screenplay and Arcade Fire for Best Score; Best Documentary The Act of Killing; Best Foreign Language Film and Best Animated Film The Wind Rises (Kaze tachinu); and Short Term 12 as Best Overlooked Film.

 

Repeat COFCA winners include: Jennifer Lawrence (2012 Best Actress for Silver Linings Playbook); Matthrew McConaughey (2012 Actor of the Year for Bernie, Killer Joe, Magic Mike, and The Paperboy); James Franco (2010 Best Actor for 127 Hours); and Emmanuel Lubezki (2011 Best Cinematography for The Tree of Life).

 

Founded in 2002, the Central Ohio Film Critics Association is comprised of film critics based in Columbus, Ohio and the surrounding areas. Its membership consists of 20 print, radio, television, and internet critics. COFCA’s official website at www.cofca.org contains links to member reviews and past award winners.

 

Winners were announced at a private party on January 2.

 

Complete list of awards:

 

Best Film

1. Gravity

2. Her

3. American Hustle

4. Frances Ha

5. The Wolf of Wall Street

6. 12 Years a Slave

7. Inside Llewyn Davis

8. Before Midnight

9. Upstream Color

10. Nebraska

 

Best Director

-Alfonso Cuarón, Gravity

-Runner-up: Spike Jonze, Her

 

Best Actor

-Chiwetel Ejiofor, 12 Years a Slave

-Runner-up: Matthew McConaughey, Dallas Buyers Club

 

Best Actress

-Adèle Exarchopolous, Blue is the Warmest Color (La vie d’Adèle)

-Runner-up: Brie Larson, Short Term 12

 

Best Supporting Actor

-James Franco, Spring Breakers

-Runner-up: Jared Leto, Dallas Buyers Club

 

Best Supporting Actress

-Jennifer Lawrence, American Hustle

-Runner-up: Lupita Nyong’o, 12 Years a Slave

 

Best Ensemble

-American Hustle

-Runner-up: The Wolf of Wall Street

 

Actor of the Year (for an exemplary body of work)

-Matthew McConaughey, Dallas Buyers Club, Mud, and The Wolf of Wall Street

-Runner-up: Jennifer Lawrence, American Hustle and The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

 

Breakthrough Film Artist

-Adèle Exarchopolous, Blue is the Warmest Color (La vie d’Adèle) (for acting)

-Runner-up: Brie Larson, Don Jon, Short Term 12, and The Spectacular Now (for acting)

 

Best Cinematography

-Emmanuel Lubezki, Gravity

-Runner-up: Hoyte Van Hoytema, Her

 

Best Adapted Screenplay

-Terence Winter, The Wolf of Wall Street

-Runner-up: John Ridley, 12 Years a Slave

 

Best Original Screenplay

-Spike Jonze, Her

-Runner-up: Destin Daniel Cretton, Short Term 12

 

Best Score

-Arcade Fire, Her

-Runner-up: Steven Price, Gravity

 

Best Documentary

-The Act of Killing

-Runner-up: Stories We Tell

 

Best Foreign Language Film

-The Wind Rises (Kaze tachinu)

-Runner-up: Blue is the Warmest Color (La vie d’Adèle)

 

Best Animated Film

-The Wind Rises (Kaze tachinu)

-Runner-up: Frozen

 

Best Overlooked Film

-Short Term 12

-Runner-up: Mud

 

COFCA offers its congratulations to the winners.

 

Previous Best Film winners:

 

2002:  Punch-Drunk Love

2003:    Lost in Translation

2004:    Million Dollar Baby

2005:    A History of Violence

2006:    Children of Men

2007:  No Country for Old Men

2008:  WALL·E

2009:  Up in the Air

2010:  Inception

2011:  Drive

2012:  Moonrise Kingdom

 

For more information about the Central Ohio Film Critics Association, please visit www.cofca.org or e-mail info@cofca.org.

 

The complete list of members and their affiliations:

 

Richard Ades (Columbus Free Press); Kevin Carr (www.7mpictures.com, FilmSchoolRejects.com); Bill Clark (www.fromthebalcony.com); John DeSando (90.5 WCBE); Frank Gabrenya (The Columbus Dispatch); James Hansen (Out 1 Film Journal); Nicholas Herum (Columbus Underground; Movies Hate You Too); Brad Keefe (Columbus Alive); Kristin Dreyer Kramer (NightsAndWeekends.com, 90.5 WCBE); Joyce Long (Freelance); Rico Long (Freelance); Hope Madden (Columbus Underground and MaddWolf.com); Paul Markoff (WOCC-TV3; Otterbein TV); David Medsker (Bullz-Eye.com); Lori Pearson (Kids-in-Mind.com, critics.com); Mark Pfeiffer (Reel Times: Reflections on Cinema; WOCC-TV3; Otterbein TV); Melissa Starker (Columbus Alive, The Columbus Dispatch); George Wolf (Columbus Radio Group and MaddWolf.com); Jason Zingale (Bullz-Eye.com); Nathan Zoebl (PictureShowPundits.com).

Outtakes, Slider

Countdown: Best Films of 2013

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10. Blue is the Warmest Color

The engrossing and immersive romantic drama may be best known for its NC-17 rating, but the beauty and heartbreak in this loose narrative make it one of the best films of 2013. Adele Exarchopoulos provides among the strongest performances onscreen this year in a love story that is as emotionally explicit as it is sexually frank.

9. Stories We Tell

Sarah Polley proves her mettle as a documentarian with a private story that becomes universal, entertaining and genuinely moving. Through a profoundly personal investigation, Polley looks at the validity of those comfortable truths that live in every family, and it’s all clever, fascinating, funny stuff. Polley has quickly become a filmmaker you cannot ignore, and it is a testament to her own storytelling skill that even as she turns her focus inward, you can’t help but look at your own world in a different way.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytq4VZ2Nyxg

 

8. The Wolf of Wall Street

Director Martin Scorcese’s three hour showcase of unchecked hedonism is a terrifically frenzied, wickedly funny ride. Leonardo DiCaprio is electric as Jordan Belfort, the real life Wall Street wizard who made millions before the Feds brought him down for rampant securities fraud. This is no hand-wringing reflection on the wages of sin, just a swaggering, appropriately superficial and completely entertaining lesson in the American dream.

7. Nebraska

The great Alexander Payne exceeds admittedly high expectations with this gracefully restrained father/son journey. The Oscar favorite will no doubt pull in a nomination for its lead, an unforgettable Bruce Dern, but the entire ensemble – June Squibb as Dern’s spitfire of a wife, in particular – beautifully convey the spite, regret, hilarity and insanity of family. Wistful and rambunctious, the film packs a dramatic punch but still leaves you smiling.

6. Gravity

Alfonso Cuaron redefines SciFi with a jaw-dropping interstellar adventure – undoubtedly this year’s most surprisingly tense action flick. He untethers a novice astronaut in outer space, and his audience with her, in the most intimate and epic journey of the year. His stunning directorial achievement reminds us of why people started making movies in the first place.

5. Her

Though it won’t hit many theaters until January, this film is too magnificent to be relegated to the category of afterthought. Spike Jonze has written and directed this year’s most poignant love story, cast it impeccably and set it just far enough into the future to let breathe. The eternally underappreciated Joaquin Phoenix breaks your heart as the lonesome lover in a world that encourages isolation, while Scarlett Johannson – in her second excellent turn this year, following Don Jon – delivers an award worthy performance with just her voice. It’s a beautiful, imaginative, relevant image of love in the modern world.

4. Inside Llewyn Davis

The Brothers Coen offer just another nearly flawless film, this time immersing us in the tribulations of a struggling musician in the 1961 Greenwich Village folk scene. Boasting a beautifully nuanced lead performance from Oscar Isaac and populated with hilarious and touching supporting turns, the film is the brothers’ most impeccably crafted character study. It’s also another great exploration of the artistic connections possible between cinema and music, reminding us again of that Coen genius.

3. The Act of Killing

Those responsible for exterminating more than a million Indonesians during the 1965 government overthrow re-enact their savagery for Joshua Oppenheimer’s camera in the most surreal and riveting documentary of this year, or perhaps any other. You simply cannot believe what you are seeing. The film is absolutely not what you expect it to be, regardless of what those expectations may be. It is essential viewing.

2. American Hustle

With a dream ensemble, wickedly sharp writing and an explosive pace, director David O. Russell gives us a con movie that explodes with heart and humor. Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper erupt while Christian Bale, Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner anchor a very human, impossibly captivating comedy/drama.

1. 12 Years a Slave

Intimate storytelling and flawless acting come together to eliminate the distance of time and create a powerful, visceral, unforgettable cinematic and human experience. Director Steve McQueen has created a film that makes all others set during the shameful American history of slavery seem almost precious. His film is a profound and brutal experience, and an awe-inspiring feat of moviemaking. There is no close second in a list of the best films of 2013.

Outtakes

2013 Central Ohio Film Critics Assoc. Awards Nominees

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The Central Ohio Film Critics Association (COFCA) is pleased to announce the nominees for its 12th annual awards.  Winners will be announced on the evening of January 2nd, 2014.

Founded in 2002, the Central Ohio Film Critics Association is comprised of film critics based in Columbus, Ohio and the surrounding areas. Its membership consists of 20 print, radio, television, and internet critics. COFCA’s official website at www.cofca.org contains links to member reviews and past award winners.

Note on the nominees: ties in the nomination round produced six nominees in the Best Director, Best Cinematography, and Best Documentary categories.

The 2013 Central Ohio Film Critics Association awards nominees are:

 

Best Film

-12 Years a Slave

-American Hustle

-Before Midnight

-Frances Ha

-Gravity

-Her

-Inside Llewyn Davis

-Nebraska

-Upstream Color

-The Wolf of Wall Street

 

Best Director

-Alfonso Cuarón, Gravity

-Spike Jonze, Her

-Steve McQueen, 12 Years a Slave

-Alexander Payne, Nebraska

-David O. Russell, American Hustle

-Martin Scorsese, The Wolf of Wall Street

 

Best Actor

-Chiwetel Ejiofor, 12 Years a Slave

-Tom Hanks, Captain Phillips

-Michael B. Jordan, Fruitvale Station

-Matthew McConaughey, Dallas Buyers Club

-Joaquin Phoenix, Her

Best Actress

-Amy Adams, American Hustle

-Cate Blanchett, Blue Jasmine

-Adèle Exarchopoulos, Blue is the Warmest Color (La vie d’Adèle)

-Greta Gerwig, Frances Ha

-Brie Larson, Short Term 12

 

Best Supporting Actor

-Barkhad Abdi, Captain Phillips

-Michael Fassbender, 12 Years a Slave

-James Franco, Spring Breakers

-Jonah Hill, The Wolf of Wall Street

-Jared Leto, Dallas Buyers Club

 

Best Supporting Actress

-Scarlett Johansson, Her

-Jennifer Lawrence, American Hustle

-Lupita Nyong’o, 12 Years a Slave

-Julia Roberts, August: Osage County

-June Squibb, Nebraska

 

Best Ensemble

-12 Years a Slave

-American Hustle

-Nebraska

-Short Term 12

-The Wolf of Wall Street

 

Actor of the Year (for an exemplary body of work)

-Amy Adams (American Hustle, Her, and Man of Steel)

-Benedict Cumberbatch (12 Years a Slave, August: Osage County, The Fifth

Estate, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, and Star Trek Into Darkness)

-Leonardo DiCaprio (The Great Gatsby and The Wolf of Wall Street)

-Jennifer Lawrence (American Hustle and The Hunger Games: Catching Fire)

-Matthew McConaughey (Dallas Buyers Club, Mud, and The Wolf of Wall

Street)

 

Breakthrough Film Artist

-Lake Bell, In a World… – (for acting, directing, and screenwriting)

-Ryan Coogler, Fruitvale Station – (for directing and screenwriting)

-Destin Daniel Cretton, Short Term 12 – (for directing and screenwriting)

-Adèle Exarchopoulos, Blue is the Warmest Color (La vie d’Adèle) – (for acting)

-Brie Larson, Don Jon, Short Term 12, and The Spectacular Now – (for acting)

 

Best Cinematography

-Sean Bobbitt, 12 Years a Slave

-Emmanuel Lubezki, Gravity

-Hoyte Van Hoytema, Her

-Bruno Delbonnel, Inside Llewyn Davis

-Benoît Debie, Spring Breakers

-Shane Carruth, Upstream Color

 

Best Adapted Screenplay

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

-Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, The Spectacular Now

-Billy Ray, Captain Phillips

-John Ridley, 12 Years a Slave

-Terence Winter, The Wolf of Wall Street

 

Best Original Screenplay

-Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, Inside Llewyn Davis

-Destin Daniel Cretton, Short Term 12

-Spike Jonze, Her

-Bob Nelson, Nebraska

-David O. Russell and Eric Singer, American Hustle

 

Best Score

-Arcade Fire, Her

-Thomas Newman, Saving Mr. Banks

-Mark Orton, Nebraska

-Steven Price, Gravity

-Hans Zimmer, 12 Years a Slave

 

Best Documentary

-20 Feet from Stardom

-The Act of Killing

-Blackfish

-Leviathan

-Room 237

-Stories We Tell

 

Best Foreign Language Film

-Beyond the Hills (Dupa dealuri)

-Blue is the Warmest Color (La vie d’Adèle)

-The Grandmaster (Yi dai zong shi)

-The Hunt (Jagten)

-The Wind Rises (Kaze tachinu)

 

Best Animated Film

-The Croods

-Despicable Me 2

-Frozen

-Monsters University

-The Wind Rises (Kaze tachinu)

 

Best Overlooked Film

-Mud

-Short Term 12

-The Spectacular Now

-Stoker

COFCA offers its congratulations to the nominees.

Previous Best Film winners:

 

2002:  Punch-Drunk Love

2003:  Lost in Translation

2004:  Million Dollar Baby

2005:  A History of Violence

2006:  Children of Men

2007:  No Country for Old Men

2008:  WALL·E

2009:  Up in the Air

2010:  Inception

2011:  Drive

2012:  Moonrise Kingdom

 

For more information about the Central Ohio Film Critics Association, please visit www.cofca.org or e-mailinfo@cofca.org.

 

The complete list of members and their affiliations:

 

Richard Ades (Columbus Free Press); Kevin Carr (www.7mpictures.com, FilmSchoolRejects.com); Bill Clark (www.fromthebalcony.com); John DeSando (90.5 WCBE); Frank Gabrenya (The Columbus Dispatch); James Hansen (Out 1 Film Journal); Nicholas Herum (Columbus Underground; Movies Hate You Too); Brad Keefe (Columbus Alive); Kristin Dreyer Kramer (NightsAndWeekends.com, 90.5 WCBE); Joyce Long (Freelance); Rico Long (Freelance); Hope Madden (Columbus Underground and MaddWolf.com); Paul Markoff (WOCC-TV3; Otterbein.TV); David Medsker (Bullz-Eye.com); Lori Pearson (Kids-in-Mind.com, critics.com); Mark Pfeiffer (Reel Times: Reflections on Cinema; WOCC-TV3; Otterbein.TV); Melissa Starker (Columbus Alive, The Columbus Dispatch); George Wolf (Columbus Radio Group and MaddWolf.com); Jason Zingale (Bullz-Eye.com); Nathan Zoebl (PictureShowPundits.com).

 

Outtakes

Countdown: Best in Horror, 2013

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At one point, it looked like 2013 was going to be a bloody banner year for horror. Remember that time? We’d already seen the magnificence of the Evil Dead remake as well as the spooktacular glory of the original The Conjuring, and we still had You’re Next, The Purge, Insidious: Chapter 2 and Carrie to go? Too bad those last few couldn’t live up to expectations.

The year did produce a handful of really excellent horror flicks, though. Here is our Top 5.

5. Byzantium

Director Neil Jordan returned to the modern day/period drama vampire yarn this year. Thanks to two strong leads, he pulls it off. Saoirse Ronan is the perfectly prim and ethereal counterbalance to Gemma Arterton’s street-savvy survivor, and we follow their journey as they avoid The Brotherhood who would destroy them for making ends meet and making meat of throats. Jordan’s new vampire drama attempts a bit of feminism but works better as a tortured love story.

4. Simon Killer

The effortlessly creepy Brady Corbet plays the title role in Simon Killer, a college kid alone in Paris after a messy break up. He’s loathsome and  cowardly and impossible to ignore as he hatches a plan with his new prostitute girlfriend – a wonderfully tender Constance Rousseau – to make some quick cash. The film draws you in like a thriller before morphing into a sinister character study that will leave you shaken.

3. We Are What We Are

Not enough people saw this gem, and even fewer saw the brilliant Mexican original, but both are essential horror viewing. The reboot takes a very urban, very Mexican tale and spins it as American gothic, with wildly successful results. From the same writing/directing team that brought forth Stake Land (if you haven’t seen it, you really should), this is one of the few Americanized versions of foreign horror to satisfy – although you may not be hungry again for a while.

2. Evil Dead

Naming #1 was a tough call because of this one, among the all time best reboots in horror history. Fede Alvarez (with some help from the Oscar winning pen of Diablo Cody) respects the source material while still carving out his own vision. Goretastic, scary, and unexpectedly surprising given how closely it aligns itself to its predecessors, the movie has it all – including more gallons of blood than any film in history. Seriously.

1. The Conjuring

James Wan mixes the percussive scares of modern horror with the escalating dread of old fashioned genre pieces, conjuring a giddy-fun spookhouse ride guaranteed to make you jump. And he did it all without FX. A game cast helped, but credit Wan for the meandering camera, capturing just what we needed to see at the exact second that it would do the most damage.

Outtakes

Countdown: Best Underseen Films of 2013

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Today we pay tribute to the most fabulous movies that no one saw in 2013. If you, too, missed them, don’t be too hard on yourself. Some were hard to find, some had such short runs that if you blinked, you missed them in theaters. But here’s your chance to make amends. Seek these out as part of your new year’s resolution to watch something awesome. They are sometimes bloody, sometimes poignant, sometimes funny, always intriguing, fresh and memorable. We give you the most tragically underseen films of 2013.

5. Only God Forgives

Nicolas Winding Refn’s follow up to Drive offers a nightmarish, polarizing vision of the revenge thriller. The near-silent Ryan Gosling leads a cast of misfits and miscreants (and worse) through a bloody piece of nastiness in Bangkok. It’s a visual, aural feat of wonder creating a dreamlike hellscape. The one-dimensional characters and lurid story guarantee you will either love it or hate it, but you will not forget it easily.

4. Much Ado about Nothing

Joss Whedon proves he can do basically anything as he spins the Bard’s classic comedy. Giving Shakespeare a modern-day treatment trips up many great filmmakers, but Whedon takes it in stride, employing a game cast to create a playful, satisfying romp.

3. Mud

The forever underseen filmmaker of extraordinary talent Jeff Nichols follows up his bewilderingly wonderful Take Shelter with this Huck Finn style tale. Matthew McConaughey excels as the man-child fugitive befriending a couple river rats interested in adventure. The result is a lovely journey of lost innocence and a vanishing American lifestyle.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pv30J05U2nI

2. Fruitvale Station

Ryan Coogler’s impressive feature debut offers a powerful and superbly acted account of the tragic death of 22-year-old Oscar Grant. Michael B. Jordan’s revelatory lead performance deserves to be in the Oscar conversation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMrAH_rO_fM

1. Ain’t Them Bodies Saints

No one saw this movie, which is a tragedy given all the film has to offer. The aching romantic drama boasts exceptional performances from Casey Affleck, Rooney Mara and Ben Foster as well as understated writing and exquisite photography. It’s an overlooked gem of rare beauty – one worth finding.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjR3DLatrFg

Outtakes

When the Going Gets Weird, These Guys Get Going…

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Sure, you probably caught Woody Harrelson and his shaggy blond wig in Catching Fire, the number one film in the country today (and for the foreseeable future). But this weekend,Woody sneaks back into theaters as the Appalachian meth dealer/bare knuckle boxing organizer Harlan DeGroat in Out of the Furnace. Though you might not notice it at first blush, the two characters have something in common. They’re weirdos. Is that intentional, or is it difficult for Harrelson to do anything else? He’s a tremendous character actor, a welcome sight in any film, but let’s be honest. The dude’s always and forever playing weirdos.

Well, we love that about him, and today we wish to celebrate all those reliable oddballs, freaks and weird dudes. A tip of the hat to Harrelson and his effortlessly peculiar brethren: cinema’s ten best weirdos.

10. Udo Kier

Who’s Udo Kier, you may be asking? We’re sorry for your loss, because you have apparently missed out on the smorgasbord of oddballs that have made up this man’s nearly 50 year career. Between his overly large eyes, wet lips and impenetrable accent, he brings a pervy air to every role, which he’s used to great effect in hundreds of performances.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hvpz88YYego

9. Michael Shannon

Shannon’s size, his quietly observant style, his delayed nasal speaking, his judging eyes all give him a creepy quality perfect for weirdo roles. Luckily for everyone, he’s deeply talented, imbuing each of his unique characters with the fragile humanity that spawned the freaky behavior in the first place.

8. Sam Rockwell

Rockwell’s a huge talent, and with his trademark quirky charm he’s basically invented the niche of oddball leading man. There’s a childlike quality to his performances, and a laid back but somewhat scornful humor that reminds us at times of Woody Harrelson and Bill Murray. He brings a magnetic but quirky humanity to every role – drama or comedy, lead or supporting.

7. Tom Waits

That gravely, smoker’s voice, the Eraserhead-esque hairstyle, a face and body that appear to be all angles – Waits cuts an unusual onscreen image. He’s put that to fine use over the years in roles that call for something a little unusual.

6. Mickey Rourke

Back in the day, Rourke brought a uniquely smoldering charisma to roles. He was never a cookie cutter leading man, always a bit off. His current hulking appearance and years of bad decisions have thrust him into the niche of the lumbering nutjob, but you know what? He handles it with aplomb.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FokjNH7Gw8

5. Dennis Hopper

Dude! It may have been Hopper’s own bad wiring that helped him bring a little mania (sometimes a lot) to scores of roles: the wacked out hippie in Easy Riders, the wacked out zealot in Apocalypse Now, the obsessive investigator in Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, the Southern madman in Paris Trout, the drunken father in Hoosiers. But he owns it in among the all time great freakshow performances, Frank Booth in Blue Velvet.

4. Willem Dafoe

Dafoe brings a malevolent comic ability to roles – including his supporting turn opposite Harrelson in Out of the Furnace. His performances tend toward fearless, and he contorts his own physical presence to bring out the demonic or the strangely comical – or both – in each role.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvE-_utxEzc

3. Christopher Walken

The great. Whether he’s requesting cowbell on SNL, adding a peculiar charm to a comedy, or staring down a man about to die in a drama, Walken’s staccato delivery, blank stare and musical timing ensure that every line he delivers feels  profoundly, often unsettlingly weird.

2. Crispin Glover

The thing about Crispin Glover (McFly!) is that you get the feeling this is just how he is. He’s drawn to the characters that most closely resemble his own unique personality. I’m not saying he eats cockroaches, but a romantic lead is probably not in his future, on camera or otherwise.

 

1. Nic Cage

Cage wins this contest because he appears to have trouble not being a weirdo. Channeling his inner normal guy seems to sometimes be too great a task for the actor. Those ridiculous wigs only hamper any effort to mask his natural freakishness, but we say don’t hide it, Nic! Let that freak flag fly.

Outtakes

Countdown: Proof Positive Matthew McConaughey Has Talent

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Aside from the very rare exception, Matthew McConaughey spent the first twenty years of his career proving to us that he looked nice without a shirt. Talent shmalent. Then suddenly, the king of the romantic comedy finally gave up his throne and began acting, and here’s the nutty thing:  he’s damn good. Need proof? Read on, as we list the evidence.

10. Frailty (2001)

Spooky, languid, eerily observant, McConaughey’s performance in this underseen horror gem sets a great tone for the surprises in store.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8oZFkatI_8

9. The Paperboy (2012)

In a film this over-the-top, McConaughey anchors the insanity with an understated turn as a conflicted, good man.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZ_LBiQq8JI

8. Bernie (2011)

Jack Black is the reason to see this incredible film, but McConaughey’s turn as the baffled lawman and the film’s voice of reason is a winner as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJuhWKcY_6U

7. Lone Star (1996)

Not yet Hollywood’s go-to for rom-com, McConaughey impressed everyone as Buddy Deeds, the legendary lawman-in-flashback in John Sayles’s Texan mystery.

6. Tropic Thunder (2008)

Here was our first reminder in more than a decade that McConaughey could act, not to mention poke fun at himself. With that insane hair and a little lip gloss, his Hollywood agent was the stuff of dreams. “Tivo!”

5. Dazed and Confused (1993)

No matter how much you hated Matthew McConaughey by, say, 2005, you had to admit that you loved him in his early-career turnin Dazed and Confused. That performance as Wooderson, the sleazy older dude still hitting on high school girls, was just about perfect.

4. Mud (2012)

By the time Mud came out, we’d grown used to the new and improved McConaughey, a flexible talent who still managed to put his own stamp on every new and fascinating role. Here he blends childlike wildness with wily survival instincts for a piece of beautiful storytelling.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFBC8ohhVUs

3. Magic Mike (2012)

Yes, this movie blows, but it is so worth watching because of McConaughey’s positively unhinged and magnificent performance as the aging stripper-turned-entrepreneur.

2. Killer Joe (2011)

Holy shit. This movie – a kick-ass comeback for director William Friedkin – is so nuts, so dark, so Texan, that no one could possible shoulder the title role but McConaughey. Huge props to the entire balance of the cast, but just try to take your eyes off McConaughey.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7M12DPZgW_E

1. Dallas Buyers Club (2013)

McConaughey may finally get the Oscar nomination he deserved at least twice in the last two years for his turn as the hard living Texan who finds himself victim of HIV and the medical industrial complex. A searingly human portrait, the performance is the best of what is becoming – at long last – a monster career.