Tag: Inside Llewyn Davis

Department of Awards: ’12 Years a Slave’ Best Film of 2013

On By chrisbarsantiIn Film - Awards1 Comment
Benedict Cumberbatch and Chiwetel Ejiofor in '12 Years a Slave'
Benedict Cumberbatch and Chiwetel Ejiofor in ’12 Years a Slave’

On a snowy afternoon in Manhattan, New York Film Critics Online—a group that very kindly counts yours truly in its membership—met to determine which films that hit theaters in 2013 were great, terrible, meh, or (more commonly) just not great enough.

The headline is that Steve McQueen’s harrowing real-life epic 12 Years a Slave took awards for best picture, actor, and supporting actress, while the incomparable lost-in-space thriller Gravity and French women-in-love romance Blue is the Warmest Color won in two categories. Otherwise, the awards were spread around in a fairly democratic fashion.

The Hollywood Reporter noted the proceedings, as did Variety.

Clinging on for dear life in 'Gravity'
Clinging on for dear life in ‘Gravity’

Here’s the full list of what we liked from 2013:

  • Best Picture — 12 Years a Slave
  • Best Director — Alfonso Cuaron, Gravity
  • Best Actor — Chiwetel Ejiofor, 12 Years a Slave
  • Best Actress — Cate Blanchett, Blue Jasmine
  • Best Supporting Actor — Jared Leto, Dallas Buyers Club
  • Best Screenplay — Spike Jonze, Her
  • Best Cinematography — Emmanuel Lubezki, Gravity
  • Best Breakthrough Performance — Adele Exarchopoulos, Blue Is the Warmest Color
  • Best Use of Music — T Bone Burnett, Inside Llewyn Davis
  • Best Debut Director — Ryan Coogler, Fruitvale Station
  • Best Ensemble Cast — American Hustle
  • Best Foreign Language Film — Blue Is the Warmest Color
  • Best Documentary — The Act of Killing
  • Best Animated Film — The Wind Rises

Best Films of 2013:

  • 12 Years a Slave
  • Before Midnight
  • Blue is the Warmest Color
  • Dallas Buyers Club
  • Gravity
  • Her
  • Inside Llewyn Davis
  • Nebraska
  • Philomena
  • Prisoners
  • The Wolf of Wall Street

New in Theaters: ‘Inside Llewyn Davis’

On By chrisbarsantiIn Film - New1 Comment
insidellewyndavis
Oscar Isaac and his not-so-faithful cat in ‘Inside Llewyn Davis’

insidellewyndavis-posterA not-so-faithful take on the Greenwich Village folk scene of the early-1960s, the Coens brothers’ Inside Llewyn Davis is part sour Barton Fink satire on creative arrogance and part O Brother, Where Art Thou? roots-music extravaganza. It’s either a haunting odyssey of failure or who-cares? kind of thing, depending on one’s mood. Either way, stupendous music.

Inside Llewyn Davis opens this week. My full review is at PopMatters:

There’s little reason to think that the titular guitar strummer in the Coen brothers’ Inside Llewyn Davis will ever come to much of anything. When first spotted in this chilly film, Davis (Oscar Isaac) is determinedly hunched over a microphone and lavishing bleak care on the traditional number, “Hang Me, Oh Hang Me,” whose chorus notes, “I’ll be dead and gone.” After a polite response from the crowd, he steps into the alley behind the dark coffeehouse and gets socked in the nose by a man who keeps grumbling about “What you did.” Things don’t pick up much after that…

insidellewyndavis2

You can see the trailer here, using the number “Fare Thee Well,” which could be to this film what “Man of Constant Sorrow” was to O Brother.