The Golden Stans 2009

2009 is over, so it’s time to award The Golden Stans. In ’09 I saw 68 movies, 61 of which qualify to compete for these, er, ‘prestigious’ awards. Some categories were easily judged and awarded, others were considerably tougher.

Original Score is the first award. In fact it’s a double award as it recognises not only the score, but also the sound effects as well: using both to tremendously scary effect, summoning forth hell itself, was Christopher Young and the sound team on Sam Raimi’s Drag Me To Hell.

Next up is the Cinematography Award – and it’s fought out by: Claudio Moranda for his work on Benjamin Button; Hoyte van Hoytema for Let The Right One In; Barry Ackroyd for The Hurt Locker; and Giora Bejach for Lebanon. Each has fair claim to the award, but in the end I’m handing it to Ackroyd for The Hurt Locker.

The Adapted Screenplay is a simple win for John Ajvide Lindqvist and his adaptation of his own novel, brilliantly condensing the story while retaining the strong sense of time and place, and the characterisation that made Let The Right One In such a great experience.

The Original Screenplay Award is also an easy victory for Up, Bob Peterson and Pete Docter collecting the gong.

Now, on to the big six awards, starting with Best Supporting Actress. The nominees easily secured their places on the shortlist, partly thanks to their excellence and partly reflecting the lack of strong supporting roles for women. The list looks like this:
Cate Blanchett/The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button
Vera Farmiga/Up In The Air
Anna Kendrick/Up In The Air
Juno Temple/Cracks
Debra Winger/Rachel Getting Married
Rosemarie de Witt/Rachel Getting Married
This is a tough one, each actress with a rightful claim to the award: la Blanchett suffers stoically in Button; Farmiga and Kendrick play opposite sides of the same coin in Up In The Air to startlingly realistic effect; while the naked spite, bitterness and love evident in the performances of Temple, Winger and de Witt are hard to ignore. However, there has to be a winner and that, by a nose from her co-star, is… Vera Farmiga in Up In The Air.

The Best Supporting Actor shortlist pretty much wrote itself too:
Jackie Earl Haley/Watchmen
Michael Fassbender/Fish Tank
Alfred Molina/An Education
Peter Sarsgaard/An Education
JK Simmons/Up In The Air
Liev Schreiber/Taking Woodstock
It may say something about the movies of 2009 that this shortlist leans heavily towards the tragi-comic and the plain comic performances – the only truly ‘dramatic’ role is Fassbender’s turn in Fish Tank. Haley nails Watchmen’s anti-hero Rorschach, Molina enjoys one of his best roles in An Education, while Sarsgaard makes for a first class cad, Simmons damn near steals Up In The Air while on screen for just five minutes, and Schreiber is a funny but human cross-dresser at Woodstock.
For all his perfect comic timing and humanity, Molina is nevertheless deprived victory by the tour de force from… Michael Fassbender in Fish Tank.

Ten women made the longlist for Best Actress, but only six can make the shortlist, and they are:
Bae Doo-Na/Air Doll
Anne Hathaway/Rachel Getting Married
Katie Jarvis/Fish Tank
Carey Mulligan/An Education
Ksenia Rappaport/The Double Hour
Kate Winslet/The Reader
Winslet’s Oscar-winning turn seems so long ago (I saw The Reader on 4 January – a year ago as I write), but it retains its power. Jarvis and Mulligan both carry their movies with seeming ease, holding their own against seasoned professionals with aplomb, and completely convince the audience. Rappaport delivers one of the great surprise femme fatale performances yet committed to celluloid, and Hathaway casts aside any doubts about her skills. And Doo-Na is just plain innocent and other-wordly at the same time.
There must be some doubts about the ‘revelatory’ perfs of Jarvis, Mulligan and Rappaport, while I’m not so easily swayed as the Academy when a beautiful woman (Winslet) makes herself plain. Thus, it’s a fight between Hathaway and Doo-Na, and for succeeding when cast so viciously against type, the winner is… Anne Hathaway in Rachel Getting Married.

11 men made the longlist for Best Actor, but the 6 that made the shortlist are:
George Clooney/The Men Who Stare At Goats, and Up In The Air
Clint Eastwood/Gran Torino
Sean Penn/Milk
Brad Pitt/The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Sam Rockwell/Moon
Filippo Timi/The Double Hour, and Vincere
So, let’s pick them off, one by one: Rockwell delivers a career-best performance ad continues to reinforce his position as the greatest character actor of his generation; Eastwood, ever serving his preferred role of director, both mimics and satirises his most famous screen persona; Pitt has never been better than in Button, but upon reflection there’s still a little of the cypher about his character that scores him down; Penn was excellent as Harvey Milk, but the film’s deeply episodic nature plays against him; Clooney deployed his effortless screen charm to devastating effect in Up In The Air, and reinforced his position as one of cinema’s great facial muggers in Goats; and finally Timi is brilliant as two very different characters - the resourceful patsy in Double Hour and the mania of Mussolini in Vincere.
Ultimately, the fight is between Clooney and Timi, and the winner is… Filippo Timi in The Double Hour and Vincere.

The Best Director shortlist is longer than any other category simply there is so much great work to acknowledge:
Tomas Alfredson/Let The Right One In
Kathryn Bigelow/The Hurt Locker
J Blakeson/The Disappearance of Alice Creed
Giuseppe Capotondi/The Double Hour
Pete Docter and Bob Peterson/Up
David Fincher/The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Sam Raimi/Drag Me To Hell
Jason Reitman/Up In the Air
All eight nominees show complete mastery of their art, especially the more genre-focused directors – Alfredson, Blakeson, Capotondi and Raimi. Fincher produced his most mature work to date, Bigelow was as muscular as we have come to expect but with real passion and meaning this time, and Reitman handled the many moods of Up In The Air so very well.
But there is only one winner, well two actually, and they are… Pete Docter and Bob Peterson for the thrilling combination of sorrow, hope and joy that is Up.

Finally, we reach the big one: Best Film. There follows an alphabetical list of 15 films I truly enjoyed in 2009:
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Damned United
The Disappearance of Alice Creed
The Double Hour
Drag Me To Hell
An Education
Gran Torino
The Hurt Locker
Lebanon
Let The Right One In
Looking For Eric
Micmacs
Moon
Star Trek
Up In The Air
It’s pleasing to note five ‘small’ British films on the list (Damned, Alice Creed, An Education, Eric and Moon) and future genre classics like Let The Right One In, Drag Me To Hell, The Double Hour and the almost sickeningly intense Lebanon. Star Trek was probably the second-biggest crowd pleaser of the year, just a hair ahead of Micmacs. Gran Torino really should have made the Oscar list a year ago, while Oscar’s big loser (Button) will stand the test of time far better than its then-competitor Slumdog. 2010’s Oscar contenders, Hurt Locker and Up In The Air, are great cinema.
But, in the end, nothing got close to the pure emotional punch of Up. That opening 10 minutes is stunning, and simply to recall it brings a lump to the throat – but that is not the sum of the film: the sustained character development, the brilliant comic timing and editing, and perfect voice-casting all add up to a modern screen classic. And thus Up is the winner of the Golden Stan for Best Film 2009.
Roll on 2010!