Film Bitch Awards ~The Medals Ceremony
Sunday, March 29, 2015 at 8:00PM Can we take a moment to appreciate that I finished the awards this year?!? A momentous recovery given that this most popular feature has slid in follow-thru without true wrap-ups the past two years. Self sabotage is a wicked trait. It shouldn't come as a surprise that Birdman and Under the Skin led the nominations with 15 and 11 respectively since they were my two favorites of the year. The biggest surprises are surely Gone Girl's 11 nominations and the piddly nomination counts for two of top ten films (Love is Strange and Mommy - how did I do so wrong by them?) but these things don't always work out as expected when you concentrate on individual elements within collective achievements. Some movies are just greater than the sum of any one part and other movies have a hundred excellent parts but not quite a genius whole.
On to the ceremony. Please to imagine the title themes from the corresponding films blaring as their medalists take their places. The tunes you'll hear most often are:
Overall - films with the biggest trophy hauls
Under the Skin (5 gold medals, 2 silver, 2 bronze)
Birdman (4 gold medals, 5 silvers, 1 bronze)
The Grand Budapest Hotel (4 gold medals, 2 silver)
...which is a funny coincidence because they happen to be the exact three medalists from the Original Score category, if not in quite that order!
Gone Girl just misses the final podium with 3 gold medals, 2 silver, and 2 bronze... quite a showing for a film that only made it to #17 in my favorites of the year. I've been wondering ever since I published the top ten list if I should've had that Fincher/Flynn collaboration on it. I put on the DVD in the other day to check on one detail and ended up watching the whole thing. Again. So now it's also the movie I've seen the most times from 2014. Meanwhile Boyhood, my bronze medalist in Best Picture, didn't have a huge trophy haul in the end, just 4 medals: 1 gold, 1 silver, and 2 bronze. Two films that did well in medals despite low nomination counts were Begin Again and The Boxtrolls. See all the medals (indicated by gold, silver, and bronze star icons) on the Film Bitch Awards charts
-Oscar Correlatives
Picture, Director, Screenplays, Animation
All Four Acting Categories
Visuals
Sound and Music (and Oscar Correspondent Stats)
- Extra Fun Categories
Special Acting-Related Categories
Character Awards (Heroes, Divas, etcetera)
Best Individual Scenes (and Overall Stats)
And with that we close out the 2014 Film Year! Finally. Whew. What an exhilarating ride it was. This is when we shout "AGAIN!" like a giddy child and line up to do it all over again albeit with a different set of films.
Reader Comments (21)
Cool choices as always. Great call on that scene in 'Test'. I've re-visited it quite a few times on YouTube.
Congrats! Well done! Super fun to go through these categories and revisit great performances and scenes. I'm still catching up on some of your favorites from last year -- when will The Babadook show up on Netflix? -- so the "year" in film still lives on for me.
I'm surprised you don't consider Patricia Arquette to be a lead in Boyhood. I feel like she is, and I agree with you that J.K. Simmons is a co-lead in Whiplash.
sean -- i'm quite a stickler for these things but i never thought of her as a lead. there are huge chunks without her when he is with friends or his father. The Boy is the lead.
Oh and the Babadook will be streaming on Netflix starting April 14th.
Yay, it's completed! I really enjoy the non-Oscar categories a lot.
Mommy is my big winner. I LOVED, LOVED that movie. It's the most I've been impressed by directing skills since Cuaron's Children of Men.
Well done! So glad you finished. Traditions are important!
Not gonna lie, I re-read most of the nominations while perusing the winners. This is a lot of work for you, and it is appreciated and enjoyed!
I really enjoy the FB awards, it's the best scrapbook of the past year there is.
In gratitude I hereby award you:
1. Amy's special pen with the (feather?) attatched to it.
2. An official "Begin Again" headphone splitter and one of Gretta's casual dresses.
3. The "Full Metal Bitch" metal bat and Rita's yoga outfit.
Thanks again!
THE COTILLARD! I'm thrilled that she is a gold medalist now!
Marion got the gold. Well done. I can go rest now.
Is there no bronze medalist for Best Make-up and Hair? Great and interesting take on the awards; thanks for completing it!
Fergenaprido -- thanks for the catch! fixed.
I must be the only one who completely disliked Under the Skin. What most here saw as mysterious and challengingly inaccessible, I just found pretentious and self-indulgent.
@Benji
I didn't like it either.
Benji, ITA. Watching that film was an agonizing ordeal. Sigh.
Yaaaaaaaaaaaay! So glad you finished them! This is great work. I love going through them over and over again. Thanks for doing this.
everyone who seems happy they're finished and readable -- the cockles of my heart are warmed by your appreciation of this triumph
cal & peggy -- it was never in doubt
sad man -- i didn't have a screener of that one and i wonder if i had had one if it would have done better. I LOVED it but I don't have a great memory of details about movies which is why i love screeners /streaming or what not - you can pop them in and double check things.
Everyone not loving Under the Skin: Definitely not for everyone and though I wound up on the side of love, I also see the discussion points and think I preferred Pride and Selma. Ballots in the top 6 categories. Initial note: I'm an internationalist in terms of personal eligibility, so Ida (released in Poland September 11, 2013), Snowpiercer (released in South Korea August 1, 2013) and Only Lovers Left Alive (Released in Germany December 25, 2013) are films of the previous year under that metric.
Picture:
Birdman
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Pride
Selma
Under the Skin
Director:
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Birdman
Richard Linklater, Boyhood
James Gunn, Guardians of the Galaxy
Ava DuVernay, Selma
Jonathan Glazer, Under the Skin
Actor:
Chris Evans, Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Chris Pratt, Guardians of the Galaxy
John Lithgow, Love is Strange
Jake G., Nightcrawler
David Oyelowo, Selma
Actress:
Eva Green, 300: Rise of an Empire
Rosamund Pike, Gone Girl
Julianne Moore, Still Alice
ScarJo, Under the Skin
Reese Witherspoon, Wild
Original Screenplay:
Birdman
Boyhood
Lucy
Nightcrawler
Pride
Adapted Screenplay:
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Godzilla
Gone Girl
Guardians of the Galaxy
Wild
(Two notes: 1. I personally view The Lego Movie's script as ineligible for both separated categories. It definitely would have knocked out Godzilla if I deemed it eligible for adapted or Lucy's if I deemed it eligible for original. As is, I consider it best to say that the only way to justify inclusion of that script is an undivided screenplay category with no concerns for "original" or "adapted." 2. I didn't think Under the Skin had enough of a clear cut "script" to justify a screenplay nomination on top of the far easier to justify director nomination.)
Hey, we're completists. What the best actor medals of the previous year?
Thank you so much for taking the immense amount of time and putting in the immense amount of energy to do the Film Bitch Awards! I always enjoy seeing them so much and truly appreciate the incredible effort they require. And you always do them with such care and focus. Thank you!
As a small thank you, here are the choices you made that I most heartily support!
Ed Norton - Gold for Supporting Actor
Mark Ruffalo - Silver for Supporting Actor
Keira Knightley in your top three for Supporting Actress
DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES - Silver for Production Design
Uma Thurman - Gold for Actress in Limited Role
Timier Magomedgadzhie - Silver for Actor in Limited Role (I thought his scene with Ms. Cotillard was mesmerizing.
Gugu Mbatha-Raw as the Breakthrough Actress of the Year!!!
PRIDE for Best Casting
Martin Luther King Jr. & People on the Bridge for Hero
WILD TALES for Action Scene!!
Of course, I have different opinions about a number of your choices but who cares. The only one I will mention is...I think Agony should be Gold for Best Musical Scene in a Musical Film. :-)
Thanks again!!
Nat: I think Birdman got the most in terms of raw numbers (10 to Under the Skin's 9), but I guess going by Mario Party rules, treating gold medals like the star, works too.