BLACK SHEEP REVIEWS presents THE 2014 MOUTON D’OR AWARDS
This marks the 10th anniversary of Black Sheep Reviews’ annual Mouton d’Or Awards, which honour the finest in film from the year that just past. The very first Mouton d’Or Award for Best Picture went to BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN in 2005. In the eight years that followed, that film was joined by UNITED 93, NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, MILK, UP IN THE AIR, THE SOCIAL NETWORK, DRIVE, THE MASTER and GRAVITY, just last year. What film you wonder will join these and become the 10th winner of the Mouton d’Or Award for Best Picture today? Let’s find out!
Going into this year’s Mouton d’Or Awards, BIRDMAN (OR THE UNEXPECTED VIRTUE OF IGNORANCE) led the nominees with nine in total. BOYHOOD and THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL followed closely behind with eight each. All three of these films are winners today but only two of them will take home more than one award each. It was a fiercely competitive year but decisions had to be made and there can only be one winner. Read on to find out just who that winner is!
Ladies and gentlemen, the 2014 Black Sheep Reviews Mouton d’Or Awards!
(Click any film title to read the original Black Sheep review.)
BEST BIG MOVIE
Nominees:
Winner:
This award is meant to be given to the film that brought me the most enjoyment this year. I thoroughly enjoyed all five of the nominees (albeit a different kind of enjoyment in the case of THE FAULT IN OUR STARS) but Wes Anderson’s THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL just makes me beam with joy. It is a delight every time I see it and I feel like I could just watch it over and over again. In many ways, I feel it is Anderson’s most accomplished work to date.
best little movie
Nominees:
Winner:
By now, everyone knows that BOYHOOD is not just a movie but an experience, an experiment that never should have worked theoretically but that ultimately came together perfectly. This 12 year project is abundantly ambitious and director Richard Linklater deserves this for piecing together a dozen short movies and making one that is larger than life itself.
THE WORST MOVIE I SAW ALL YEAR
Nominees:
THE CAPTIVE
HECTOR AND THE SEARCH FOR HAPPINESS
Loser:
Before seeing Atom Egoyan’s THE CAPTIVE, I had already heard horrible things about it. I tried to block all of that out but sadly, everything I had heard was true and really far worse. Egoyan wrote and directed this dark, disturbing kidnapping tale and after being dragged through the convoluted and perverted paths the film took me on, I seriously questioned what was going through his mind when he conceived all of it. I find it hard to believe that Egoyan doesn’t know what an infuriating and grating disaster this film is.
THE BLACK SHEEP READERS CHOICE AWARD
Nominees:
Winner:
What a fantastic response this year! It was our biggest to date and the race was incredibly close most of the way through the voting period. I checked it constantly and sometimes it was BOYHOOD on top, other times it was THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL. Ultimately though, Alejandro González Iñárritu’s BIRDMAN squeaked out the win in this category. Very well fought and very well deserved! Thanks to everyone for voting! As always, you have impeccable taste.
BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
Nominees:
Winner:
I still cannot comprehend how the Academy Awards could not have recognized THE LEGO MOVIE in this category. It was a giant success both critically and financially. It even managed to silence most naysayers who were worried initially that this hyper cross branded, toy selling franchise would devalue the genre. Directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller solidify themselves as two of the funniest directors working in Hollywood today and everything about this movie is just plain awesome.
BEST LOOKING MOVIE
Nominees:
Winner:
As sumptuous as THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL is, and as haunting as Toronto is in ENEMY, the Mouton d’Or Award for the Best Looking film of the year goes to BIRDMAN. Quite simply, Emmanuel Lubezki is a genius. Between THE TREE OF LIFE, GRAVITY and this, is there anything this man can’t lens and make magical? The illusion of the continuous long take throughout the film is extremely technical but he makes it all flow with grace and ease. It is a joy to get lost in and I want to get lost in it frequently.
BEST SOUNDTRACK / SCORE
Nominees:
Winner
So, I may have a soft spot for Hans Zimmer. His thunderous strings regularly take me to outer space but his latest collaboration with Christopher Nolan took him there as well. This is traditional Zimmer but injected with a newness that has brought his sound to life in a whole new way, reaching unexpected heights of greatness along the way. And the way it is used in the film is, well frankly, easily the best thing about INTERSTELLAR. Bring it, haters.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Nominees:
Josh Brolin, INHERENT VICE
Steve Carrell, FOXCATCHER
Ethan Hawke, BOYHOOD
Edward Norton, BIRDMAN
Mark Ruffalo, FOXCATCHER
J.K. Simmons, WHIPLASH
Winner:
In the case of all the individual acting categories this year, I knew the moment I saw the performances that they would most likely take these wins come the time. In WHIPLASH, JK Simmons is electric and scary as hell. The way he oscillates back and forth between gentle and reassuring and down right predatory is frightening. His intentions are good, yet so convoluted, but he is always absolute in his conviction. On the surface, this performance can be misconstrued as one note, but there is much colour there when you take a closer look.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Nominees:
Patricia Arquette, BOYHOOD
Jessica Chastain, A MOST VIOLENT YEAR
Laura Dern, THE FAULT IN OUR STARS and WILD
Julianne Moore, MAPS TO THE STARS
Rene Russo, NIGHTCRAWLER
Emma Stone, BIRDMAN
Winner:
I have never cared much for Patricia Arquette, to be honest. There is something so warm and compassionate, so naturally maternal if you will, about her performance in BOYHOOD though that I now feel like I love her. As a mother, she is protective but commanding, sympathetic yet stern. No matter how hard her own personal life gets though, she makes choices she hopes are the best for her family. And somewhere along the course of 12 years, she finds herself but then wonders if it isn’t maybe already too late. It is heartbreaking and Arquette is the main reason for just how emotional that journey comes across.
BEST ACTOR
Nominees:
Benedict Cumberbatch, THE IMITATION GAME
Jake Gyllenhaal, ENEMY and NIGHTCRAWLER
Michael Keaton, BIRDMAN
David Oyelowo, SELMA
Eddie Redmayne, THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING
Channing Tatum, FOXCATCHER
Winner:
I toyed long and hard with giving this Michael Keaton in BIRDMAN. Keaton has certainly never been this good and it is the role of lifetime, but Eddie Redmayne just completely blew me away playing Dr. Stephen Hawking in THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING. The argument that the role is awards bait is such a generic one. Sure, he has to portray Hawking’s physical disabilities on screen but he does so incredibly well, with progression and nuance. You try that and tell me how easy it is. It’s hard work, period. Redmayne’s performance doesn’t end there either. He also has to convey thought and emotion once those physical limitations make it impossible for him to do so from anywhere other than that chair. To do all of that with subtlety too? That’s acting, my friends.
BEST ACTRESS
Nominees:
Jennifer Aniston, CAKE
Marion Cotillard, THE IMMIGRANT and TWO DAYS, ONE NIGHT
Felicity Jones, THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING
Julianne Moore, STILL ALICE
Rosamund Pike, GONE GIRL
Reese Witherspoon, WILD
Winner:
Hooray for Julianne Moore! All too often, awards season is all about timing. Yes, it is about campaigning too. And yes, sometimes it even has to do with the performance itself. Moore has so many times found herself churning out fantastic performances in years when it was just someone else’s turn to shine. There is no stopping her this year though and the beauty of it is that it really has nothing to do with timing or campaigning. Her performance in STILL ALICE is just so good that, as great as all the other ladies nominated here are, there is just no true competition for Moore’s work. The other wonderful thing about this is that she isn’t just winning for a mediocre performance to make up for years of neglect. She truly deserves to be recognized for this film.
BEST ENSEMBLE
Nominees:
Winner:
To pull off the continuous one-take look of BIRDMAN, everyone has to be on their game at all times. And while this obviously applies to all of the people behind the camera, a great deal of pressure also falls on the cast itself to be on their marks at precise moments and to find the best performance inside of them every time they open their mouths. In many ways, the exercise makes their performances the closest thing to live theatre acting as is possible on film. So congratulations to the incredibly talented cast of BIRDMAN for making all of that hard work look so easy!
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Nominees:
BIRDMAN, written by Alejandro González Iñárritu, Nicolás Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris Jr., Armando Bo
BOYHOOD, written by Richard Linklater
THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL, written by Wes Anderson
NIGHTCRAWLER, written by Dan Gilroy
SELMA, written by Paul Webb
Winner:
More love for BIRDMAN! As written by Alejandro González Iñárritu, Nicolás Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris Jr. and Armando Bo, BIRDMAN is sheer brilliance from start to completely ambiguous finish. When was the last time you saw something so open ended that was still so satisfying? And no matter where you land on the film’s meaning, it is still a conclusion that is inspired and exciting. The wit, the breadth, the sharpness of every thought, every comment, every criticism is not only consistently apt but also often borderline genius.
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Nominees:
ENEMY, written by Javier Gullón
THE FAULT IN OUR STARS, written by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber
GONE GIRL, written by Gillian Flynn
THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING, written by Anthony McCarten
WILD, written by Nick Hornby
Winner:
I guess I’m having a reasonably ambiguous year if I’ve opted for BIRDMAN in the original screenplay category and now the enigmatic ENEMY in the adapted. Similarly, ENEMY isn’t interested in drawing any conclusions for the viewer. It isn’t withholding anything but it also isn’t making anything explicit either. It is playful to say the least but not pretentious and not condescending when you feel like it could so easily be if it wanted to. Instead, the viewer is drawn in by the film’s sense of wonder. You want to know more; you want to make your own guesses about what is going on. At the same time though, you don’t really want to know for sure because knowing would take all of the fun out of it.
BEST FIRST FEATURE
Nominees:
DEAR WHITE PEOPLE, directed by Justin Simien
THE DISAPPEARANCE OF ELEANOR RIGBY: HIM and HER, directed by Ned Benson
NIGHTCRAWLER, directed by Dan Gilroy
OBVIOUS CHILD, directed by Gillian Robespierre
ST. VINCENT, directed by Theodore Melfi
Winner:
This year, we saw many a fine debut. There is none more accomplished than NIGHTCRAWLER though. It is such a good film that I still cannot comprehend how Dan Gilroy pulled it off as his first feature. There isn’t a moment wasted in this film. It is stylish at all times but still gritty and dirty and genuinely frank and upfront with the viewer. Jake Gyllenhaal’s performance brings the piece together perfectly and everything swirling around him is on point because Gilroy seems to be aware of everything that is happening at all times. His execution is so precise but not in a way that makes you feel safe as a viewer. In fact, I was deeply disturbed by NIGHTCRAWLER. Gilroy’s genius though is not in how he messes with you; it is in how he makes you want him to mess with you more.
BEST DIRECTOR
Nominees:
Wes Anderson, THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL
Ava DuVarney, SELMA
Alejandro González Iñárritu, BIRDMAN
Richard Linklater, BOYHOOD
Jean-Marc Vallée, WILD
Winner:
Earlier today, I had this category in a tie between Richard Linklater and Alejandro González Iñárritu. My brother essentially pointed out to me that my “choice” to go with a tie was not actually a choice at all. In justifying my choice to him by explaining that it was impossible to choose between the two, given that they each produced monumental achievements that were too drastically different to compare fairly, I realized he was right. I don’t like when this happens. That said, he felt my argument for BIRDMAN was stronger and that I should choose Iñárritu. While he did inspire me to choose between the two, I decided to go with Linklater and for reasons that my brother can’t argue with. I will take Peter Jackson’s recognition for THE RETURN OF THE KING as my defence here. As unbelievable and as technical as Iñárritu’s work is, Linklater’s beautiful project spans 12 years. To go into that at all takes a very brave man, a man with a lot of faith, to say the least. To carry out the kind of emotional continuity that runs throughout BOYHOOD with seamless consistency is staggering. To have gone through with a crazy project like this, to get through to the other side and to actually put together something so beautiful and so unique, this is a revelation, one that is unlikely to ever be repeated.
BEST PICTURE
Nominees:
BIRDMAN OR (THE UNEXPECTED VIRTUE OF IGNORANCE)
Winner:
I just said all these great things about BOYHOOD, because, well it is great, and up until this weekend, I thought I would award it Best Picture. Watching BIRDMAN again this weekend though reminded me of one simple difference between these two pictures. I just like watching BIRDMAN more. Iñárritu deliberately took on an ambitious project that would require incredible talent, skill and precision to pull off. He even did so in a genre that is outside his comfort zone. BIRDMAN is a true film experience. It exhilarates the viewer and, while the people making the movie had to push themselves as hard as they could to pull off what was being asked of them, we too are pushed to engage on a level that we are so rarely asked to. Iñárritu has created a genuine sense of immediacy on film. It is intoxicating and will be both studied and celebrated for years. It is a great privilege to call BIRDMAN (OR THE UNEXPECTED VIRTUE OF IGNORANCE) the Best Picture of 2014.
BIRDMAN takes five; BOYHOOD takes three. Thank you as always for reading and for your support. We wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you.
Bon cinema 2015!
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After going through your perspectives and results Joe I would have to say you would make a perfect choice for being on the academy to choose the future winners…well done!