ACE Noms Ignore Spotlight, Love Joy. What is Happening?
Monday, January 4, 2016 at 9:53AM The ACE Eddie Nominations are out and as usual there are some real head-scratchers. The guild nominations that precede Oscar noms tend to throw something or other for a loop in terms of perceptions of what the industry loves. Or perhaps it's less complicated than we always assume and it's merely that those who vote on awards just don't see that many movies. Guild types are often more busy making movies than watching them after all.
One head scratcher: I'm not sure how we've ended up in a world where Joy, David O. Russell's latest ode to Jennifer Lawrence, is nominated for its editing. I don't mean to pick on the picture as I actually think it's far better than its reviews imply and am happy to have company with Nick and Jose on this; it seems fairly obvious that the nation's film critics are working through their David O. Russell issues now that he's made a woman's picture. But for all of Joy's underdiscussed strengths the editing is not one of them. This is no mark against any of its four editors who've done great work in the past but it's fairly obvious that they're struggling with a film that is so multi-toned and multi-authored and possibly unfinished and trying to make the most of its competing impulses and weird detours. The picture struggles to find its rhythm throughout.
But let's not pick on Joy because people have been way too mean to it. The nominees and more thoughts are after the jump.
Best Edited Feature Film – Dramatic
Mad Max: Fury Road (Margaret Sixel)
The Martian (Pietro Scalia, ACE)
The Revenant (Stephen Mirrione, ACE)
Sicario (Joe Walker, ACE)
Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Maryann Brandon, ACE & Mary Jo Markey, ACE)
They went nearly full blockbuster this year. Which is bad news for the quieter dramas like Room, Carol, and Brooklyn and (gasp) Spotlight. A gasp is called for since Editing seems like one of Spotlight's best chances at an Oscar to go with its presumed Best Picture pull but if it misses out on the Editing nomination come Oscar time it could be in trouble since only two films in the modern era have won Picture without a film editing nomination (Ordinary People and Birdman)
Best Edited Feature Film – Comedic
Ant-Man (Dan Lebental, ACE & Colby Parker, Jr., ACE)
The Big Short (Hank Corwin, ACE)
Joy (Jay Cassidy, ACE, Alan Baumgarten, ACE, Christopher Tellefsen, ACE & Tom Cross, ACE)
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (David Trachtenberg)
Trainwreck (William Kerr, ACE & Paul Zucker)
Ant-Man is a surprise but not a strange or undeserved one. Remember the comic highlight of Michael Peña's narrated flashback? It's worth noting that Ant-Man is only the 3rd superhero film ever nominated by the guild (unless you count Scott Pilgrim). The only previous such honors went to Superman (1978) and The Dark Knight (2008) which both occurred before the guild divvied up their categories and thus had lots more annual nominees.
The Big Short was the most obvious since it definitely qualifies as Most Editing and we should expect to see it Oscar nominated in 10 days. But the rest of this list feels vaguely like a disaster. I laughed a lot during Trainwreck but it is seriously slack in places as we wait for improv moments or straining toward dramatic arcs to play out -- both are typical banes of modern comedy filmmaking.
BUT WHERE IS TANGERINE ? So many of its laughs spring from its hard-stomping rhythms, and economy of storytelling.
Best Edited Animated Film
Anomalisa (Garret Elkins)
Inside Out (Kevin Nolting, ACE)
The Good Dinosaur (Stephen Schaffer, ACE)
Only 3 animation nominations. I'm unclear on the rules here but as you'll see in their television nominations they aren't really consistent about numbers. Some categories have 5 nominees, some 3.
Best Edited Documentary – Feature
Amy (Chris King)
Cobain: Montage of Heck (Joe Beshenkovsky & Brett Morgen)
Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief (Andy Grieve)
He Named Me Malala (Greg Finton, ACE, Brian Johnson & Brad Fuller)
The Wrecking Crew (Claire Scanlon)
TELEVISION
Best Edited Half-Hour Series for Television
“Inside Amy Schumer” – “12 Angry Men” (Nick Paley)
“Silicon Valley” – “Two Days of the Condor” (Brian Merken, ACE)
“Veep” – “Election Night” (Gary Dollner)
Best Edited One-Hour Series for Commercial Television
“Better Call Saul” – “Five-O” (Kelley Dixon, ACE)
“Better Call Saul” – “Uno” (Skip Macdonald, ACE)
“Fargo” – Did You Do This? No, You Did It!” (Skip Macdonald, ACE & Curtis Thurber)
“The Good Wife” – “Restrain” (Scott Vickrey, ACE)
“Mad Men” – “Person to Person” (Tom Wilson)
Best Edited One-Hour Series for Non-Commercial Television
“Game of Thrones” – “The Dance of Dragons” (Katie Weiland)
“Game of Thrones” – “Hardhome” (Tim Porter)
“Homeland” – “The Tradition of Hospitality” (Harvey Rosenstock, ACE)
“House of Cards” – “Chapter 39” (Lisa Bromwell, ACE)
“The Knick” – “Wonderful Surprises” (Mary Ann Bernard)
Best Edited Longform (Miniseries or Motion Picture) for Television
“Bessie” (Brian A. Kates, ACE)
“Dolly Parton’s Coat of Many Colors” (Maysie Hoy, ACE)
“Orange is the New Black” – “Trust No Bitch” (90 minute episode) (William Turro)
Best Edited Non-Scripted Series
“Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown” – “Bay Area” (Hunter Gross, ACE)
“Deadliest Catch” – “Zero Hour” (Josh Earl, ACE & Ben Bulatao)
“Whale Wars” – “The Darkest Hour” (Eric Driscoll, Nik Jamgocyan, Chris Kirkpatrick, David Michael Maurer, ACE, Greg McDonald, Marcus Miller & Alexandria Scott )
Best Edited Documentary – Television
“Keith Richards: Under the Influence” (Joshua L. Pearson
“The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst – Chapter 1” (Richard Hankin, ACE, Zac Stuart-Pontier, Caitlyn Greene, Shelby Siegel)
“The Seventies: The United State vs. Nixon” (Chris A. Peterson, ACE)
What do you make of the nominations? Trouble for Spotlight or just a fluke?
Reader Comments (22)
The thing is this was a very big year for "action" films. I think it's not much of a surprise that Spotlight missed out. However, I don't think that will happen on Oscar morning. Sicario, for example, will probably show in Editing or Cinematography, I don't think it will make both categories. As for Star Wars, the editing is great but with The Martian and Mad Max, they will probably feel its too many scifi films in one category (and in this one that doesn't happen often).
Not an official "problem" for Spotlight. Not yet at least. Let's see what BAFTA and other precursors have to say.
Felt like the ACE members were bored with indies this year.
Probably just a fluke but I do think Mad Max is the frontrunner at this point. But maybe we shouldn't say anything so we don't jinx it.
I don't pretend that I can judge editing (I feel that very few people can), but I found Spotlight very boring and at least 20 minutes too long.
Joy and The Big Short are two of the worst edited films of 2015.
The documentary Amy surprises me. It made me appreciate Ms Winehouse and feel for her more than I did before seeing the film. But the one thing about the movie that bothered me was it was too long and needed to be edited down a bit. Also so much of the footage was paparazzi video that shook and with the constant flashing lights it induced a migraine. Better editing would have helped.
Speaking of picking on a film that many have been far too mean to, how is the nomination for Me and Earl and the Dying Girl a disaster? Seems to me you are holding a sharp editing job responsible for a screenplay you found distasteful. Strictly from an editing standpoint it is the most deserving nominee in the category. Me and Earl's cutting was certainly more inventive and fleet-footed than Ant-Man, which is pretty standard issue, even sloppy, outside a few contained bursts of wit.
Are you really that surprised by the Joy and Trainwreck nominations, though? Awards bodies that have separate categories for comedies almost never know what to actually do with them so they simply nominate the most high-profile movies. See also: the art directors and costume designers guilds who have those "contemporary film" categories, which they've used to nominate e.g. The Descendants, for some Hawaiian shirts and flipflops.
I adore Trainwreck unapologetically, but that editing nomination is...
"trainwreck" for editing? that movie dragged on.
Maybe ACE members read A.O. Scott and Manohla Dargis' piece in the NYTimes about the mainstream blockbusters being better than the indies this year, and decided to do something about it.
I don't think Joy is unstoppable with this surprise nomination. I think The Revenant is. though. And I'm cursing right now. Subtetly is not the Guilds forte, we know that. But, hey, not only Tangerines, but where's Carol's (seemingly impossible) fluidity? And for God's sake, where's Creed? Creed?!! No love at all for the greatest of spin-offs/remakes of an old movie (this side of Fury Road) I think I'd ever seen. And the editing is pivotal in that one, specially the last fight! And the horseshit Revenant will have multiple nomination at this point. Everyone can forsee that. Hope, at least, The Screenwriters won't follow. That would be the ultimate aberration.
Dear cash: Creed IS a blockbuster. And no, The Revenant is not better than either Spotlight, or Carol, OR Brooklyn. Ist' gross Malick by way of empty Herzog. And neither Malick nor Herzog are gross or empty. Never were. A bore, self indulgent at times, maybe. But that you can also say about Iñárritu.
I'll add both Fury Road and Creed are really spin-offs/remakes/sequels all at once. So is The Force Awakens. Pretty good year for that!!
Trainwreck was badly paced. It does not deserve an editing nomination.
I've long believed that 'Joy' would do much better with the industry than the critics. There's no way Hollywood will allow its biggest actress's first star vehicle to be perceived as a disappointment. Their devotion to her and recent love affair with DOR could make 'Joy' a nomination leader later this month.
Speaking of films that derive laughs from savvy cutting: "Mistress America." Baumbach has been on a real roll lately with his brilliant editor Jennifer Lame, and while "America" might not be quite as sharp as "Frances Ha," it is still brisk, tart, and wonderfully economical. Bonus points for "While We're Young."
Re: Joy, stitching together a David O. Russell film must be extraordinarily hard, with a LOT of footage to sort out and a lot of tricky tonal and stylistic shifts to navigate - comedy, naturalistic melodrama, soap opera melodrama, poetic impressionism (think the Malick-esque opening and closing passages), etc. That his movies come together at all is a tribute to the skill and dedication of his editing teams. I suspect editors look at Russell movies and think, "There but for the grace of God go I."
Roark -- very perceptive. i can totally see that.
Jonathan -- good call. I didn't like Mistress America but i can see that
Jan -- i'm rarely as "surprised" by bad decisions as i seem. but i don't want to sound jaded. It is a pity though that guilds dont take their comedy categories as seriously as their drama categories because great comedy is HARD to pull off. everyone who tries to make comedy says so.
what about shaun the sheep movie's slapstick rhythms and rapid fire visual punchlines?
robbed
I saw Joy and I think it's a very good movie...I can't understand some critics,
Concerning Joy's editing nomination, ACE might be going out of its way to appreciate the hacky approach to revealing Joy's out-of-Balance state of mind, such that unlike typical characters who keep this kind of ADHD-looking mentality inside their heads Joy's incingruent attention to her world openly shows without a thought. This would reflect her selflessly servile inner mentality. I imagine being the way she was, any person's attention to things would be cut into millions of different, mismatching, momentary pieces trying to all come out at once.
One possible reason why the film would not actually win the award is that the audience was not exactly alerted to the fact that this hacky state of mind might be the way a genius such as Joy who works through her hands thinks about everything. We live in a world that is not used to thinking that way, unlike countries like Italy, so we do not easily notice it when it occurs. I hope that more movies come out showing us alternative ways to thinking on the way to becoming a millionaire.