The 2012 RopeofSilicon Movie Awards

Best Director

Wes Anderson (Moonrise Kingdom)

  • Jacques Audiard (Rust and Bone)
  • Kathryn Bigelow (Zero Dark Thirty)
  • Andrew Dominik (Killing Them Softly)
  • Steven Soderbergh (Magic Mike)
NOTES:
Earlier this year, after seeing and loving Moonrise Kingdom at Cannes, I wrote up a list ranking Wes Anderson‘s films and Moonrise came out on top. The sentiments I felt while making that list are why I’ve named him the Best Director of the year. For me, Moonrise Kingdom is the embodiment of everything I love about Anderson’s films. It’s a perfect storm of everything great his films have to offer and I say this as a bit of a different kind of Anderson fan.

While most praise his work on films such as Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums, it’s films like Bottle Rocket, Fantastic Mr. Fox and even The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou and The Darjeeling Limited I’m drawn to. Moonrise took what was best of all of those — Fox and Aquatic especially — and put it into one film. The film’s off-beat, French New Wave feel captured my attention. It’s whimsical while, at the same time saying something. He never gets too showy, at least not with the camera and allows his actors to explore the space they’re given. He plays to his actors’ strengths and as a result there’s rarely a misstep, at least not when he’s moving along full steam ahead as he was here.

Best Score

Beasts of the Southern Wild

RUNNERS UP: (in alphabetical order by movie)

  • Alexandre Desplat (Moonrise Kingdom)
  • Alexandre Desplat (Zero Dark Thirty)
  • Reinhold Heil, Johnny Klimek and Tom Tykwer (Cloud Atlas)
NOTES:
I don’t like ties so in the spirit of making sure only one score is named the “best” I would have to go with Dan Romer and Benh Zeitlin‘s score for Beasts of the Southern Wild, but I wanted to be sure and highlight scores for both Beasts and Cloud Atlas, which is why I’ve included samples from each up above.

As far as runners up are concerned, I cam close to loading this up with Alexandre Desplat scores as his scores for both Argo and Rust and Bone are both quite good, but I didn’t feel adding one more just to ensure there were five total listed was necessary. I did consider, however, John Williams‘ score for Lincoln had I felt the need to go with one more.

MISCELLANEOUS AWARDS

Best Ensemble: Moonrise Kingdom

Runner-Up: Silver Linings Playbook

Second Runner-Up: Lincoln

Best Cinematography: Moonrise Kingdom

Best Documentary: Chasing Ice (You can find my top five here)

Best Animated Film: The Rabbi’s Cat

Runner-Up: Le Tableau

Biggest (and Most Welcome) Surprise: Magic Mike

Biggest Disappointments of 2012:

  • Seven Psychopaths
  • Anna Karenina
  • The Impossible
  • Brave
  • Ted

Find my full top ten here.

Best and Worst of 2012 Lists

Movie News
Marvel and DC
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