Las Vegas Film Critics Society 2012 Sierra Awards
Best Picture
“Life of Pi”
Best Actor
Daniel Day Lewis, “Lincoln”
Best Actress
Jennifer Lawrence, “Silver Linings Playbook”
Best Supporting Actor
Tommy Lee Jones, “Lincoln”
Best Supporting Actress
Anne Hathaway, “Les Miserables”
Best Director
Ang Lee, “Life of Pi”
Best Screenplay
Rian Johnson, “Looper”
Best Cinematography
Claudio Miranda, “Life of Pi”
Best Film Editing
William Goldenberg and Dylan Tichenor, “Zero Dark Thirty”
Best Costume Design
Jacqueline Durran, “Anna Karenina”
Best Art Direction
Alex Cameron, “Prometheus”
Best Visual Effects
“Life of Pi”
Best Score
Mychael Danna, “Life of Pi”
Best Song
“Skyfall”
Best Documentary
“Bully”
Best Animated Film
“Paranorman”
Best Foreign Film
“Amour” (Germany)
Youth in Film
Suraj Sharma, “Life of Pi”
Breakout Filmmaker of the Year
Benh Zeitlin, “Beasts of the Southern Wild”
Best DVD (Packaging, Design and Content)
“Hitchcock Collection – Masterpiece Collection” (Blu-Ray)
William Holden Lifetime Achievement Award
Alan Arkin
LVFCS Top 10 Films of 2012
1. Life of Pi
2. Zero Dark Thirty
3. Argo
4. Silver Lining Playbook
5. Lincoln
6. Moonrise Kingdom
7. The Impossible
8. Les Miserables
9. Beasts of the Southern Wild
10. The Master
GREAT TO SEE LOVE FOR THE IMPOSSIBLE. ONE OF THE BEST FILMS OF THE YEAR.
A WONDERFUL PERFORMACE OF NAOMI WATTS.
Hopefully “WRECK-IT RALPH” wrecks it at the Oscars 🙂
Yvette,
I’m concerned too! I hope you’re wrong Anne Hathaway will stream roll Sally Field’s perfect record. You’re right Field won all the biggies so far but we’ll see how she does at BFCA, SAG and GG.
But right now there’s no doubt that those two are the ones to beat.
Also, if Lincoln is well loved by the Academy by giving them the most nominations I’m sure Sally Field will win.
If Les Miserables can’t get much love from the Academy then they’ll go for Field.
But here’s the thing going against Sally Field, Hathaway has some really great juicy scenes in Les Miserables.
I mean I was so moved by her performances. It was intense.
So let’s just see how these these three awards will go BFCA, SAG and GG.
I’m still voting for Sally Field to win in the end.
I’m happy for Prometheus and bully and life of pi!
Ohhh nooo…Apparently Las Vegas critics were also threatened by powerful women so they didnt give Best Picture or Best Director to ZDT or Bigelow….That could be the only reason. Sexism…nothing else.
But when Bigelow won Best Director Oscar it had nothing to do with her being a woman. i am sure it had nothing to do with some people voting for her just to make history. It was all about achievement then. But now whenever she doesnt win something, it must be about threatened by powerful women. Or if a small movie that not many people even heard of doesnt win anything it must be both sexism and racism…Typical of this site during this time of the awards season. Lots of hysteria if someone/a movie favored does not win, there must be some conspiracy..
In Europe it’s not only about money, very little actually. As European filmmaking in general, also Amour’s 7M+ euro budget largely consisted of different funds. Film studios put quite a small percentage of their own because no company wants to lose money. First and foremost, film is considered art in Europe, not business.
To define a film’s country of origin, you go by points. Screenplay and Director are the most meaningful in any film (that has a story, naturally), so they gather the most valuable points. Since in Amour’s case both are by Michael Haneke, an Austrian, the outcome was a no-brainer. Most of the money did come from France, yes, but money doesn’t give you enough points. I think, spoken language/acting talent is more important and that gave France a run this time. It was still not enough. If I had to guess, Amour was probably deemed 45% Austrian, 35% French, 20% German. This should be public info for anybody to google.
Thanks Voland. Yes, France. I will not talk about France submission, and I like The Intouchables, I really do for what it is, and could go all the way. I’ve been angry about the quality of French films for years, but this year is acceptable on the whole.
From my beloved state. When I saw Life of Pi 3D, there were just ten of us in the theater. I kept wondering whether there were more or less people in the adjacent 2D theater.
Correction, got it wrong as well. Actually, Austria submitted Amour. But all three countries – France, Germany and Austria – could have claimed the movie, though that didn’t happen.
@Mattoc: No, France submitted “Amour”. Germany submitted “Barbara”.
Amour is Germany’s submission for FLM, I think Tero…
That is what I recall, but don’t quote me.
ADELE!
I was wondering if everyone forgot about this movie. It’s still on life support though.
I agree with Prometheus for Art Direction and Life of Pi for Visual Effects. That said, I can name 64 films I would put ahead of Life of Pi for my own Best Picture award, and quite a few films with better scripts than Looper.
@Nic V
Also, I agree with your comment about having one or two 100’s on Metacritic at this point. Surprisingly, Django reviews are coming in and it has three 100’s so far.
@Nic V
Yep, I saw that review too. Also, David Edelstein’s review is a 60/100 on Metacritic. Wasn’t it his review that Sasha talked about on here on being both positive and negative and hard to judge whether he liked it or not? Looks like he didn’t like it much with that score.
@Josh
It probably will snag a best picture nomination but to be fair there was only five nominees that year.
Well, as for top 10 lists, Crash was 30something according to EW, and 50something according to Premiere. Of course Brokeback was #1 according to both, deservedly so. No need to say more, the Oscars are an irrelevant political farce.
P.S. Beasts of the Southern Wild was easily the best film I saw this year, and that 6 year old deserves to tie for Best Actress with the great Emmanuelle Riva (Amour). Nobody else was close, Rachel Weisz a distant 3rd.
Richard Corliss of Time also reviewed Les Mis and his review wasn’t much better than the EW Review. He actually calls it a “bad movie”. He really goes after Tom Hooper in his review. I said that I didn’t think this film was going to do much better than the upper 70’s and I’m gonna stand by that. Metacritic only has 12 reviews right now but with a film like Les Mis there should have been at least one or two 100 scores and the highest at Metacritic right now is an 80.
@Matt
I kind of agree with you with the Dreamgirls comparison in regards to the buzz. But I think it definitely will get a Best Pic nom unlike Dreamgirls.
Archie,
I’m concerned that Hathaway will steamroll over Sally’s perfect record. It can’t happen right?
Everybody loves Sally and she kicked ass in Lincoln…
Right? Right ?
Tell me she can’t lose!
Remember, Sally won two biggies – New York and Boston…Anne has only won the smaller ones right?
It would be awesome if DDL and Sally got their third with Jones taking his own.
Thank you for awarding Prometheus in its most deserving category.
I really don’t think Metacritic is that relevant. I can probably count on one finger how many Academy voters consult Metacritic before marking their ballots and end up with one extra finger.
Josh, do you know how the Academy counts its votes? I doubt you do. Without getting into a long explanation, it really only counts votes for a certain film, and it ignores votes against it. If 51% of the Academy loves a film, the other 49% can despise it to high heaven and they can’t do anything about it.
So what is relevant? What out there works as a good measure of support any film has while ignoring the negative. The best I can come up with is counting the total number of placements in top 10 lists. A top 10 list is great, it only gets mentioned if the person has positive views of a film. Luckily there is a website that counts such lists.
http://criticstop10.com/
Now, of course, that’s a critics list and not the Academy and we know the Academy has different tastes. But if you look through the last decade, every best film winner has at least finished in the top 10. Notice this is not true for 2000 and 2001, and I wonder if rise of the internet over this time has affected eventual winners. But since 2002, every film has been in the top 8.
So my benchmark for a film to win Best Pic is to be in the top 10. (I expand it two slots simply because we are working with a small sample)
Now Les Miz is sitting at #10. It will probably finish somewhere between #8 and #13 when all of the lists are counted. This is very borderline for my expectations. But recall Gladiator was #13 and I think Beautiful Mind was at #18.
Even though the data is incomplete, these numbers suggest that Les Miz, while borderline, probably has enough support to be a viable Best Pic contender rather than an also ran. (I haven’t done any serious examination at the total number of #1 votes it gets simply because I am not a statistician and wouldn’t probably gain much if I did.)
Les Miz is looking more and more like Dreamgirls: huge buzz that drops like a lead balloon once released, while probably snagging a Best Supporting Actress oscar.
It’s pretty clear Daniel Day Lewis will win his third Oscar. But I’m wondering about Sally Field winning her third. Her main competition is Anne Hathaway, obviously. I hope Sally Field wins the Oscar so she can keep her perfect record of three for three! If she gets nominated, in which she will be, and Hathaway beats her, she ruins her perfect record. I hate for that to happen. NOOOOOOO! 🙁
@Josh
true. And I know the Guilds are/will go crazy for it. I just feel like the critics have had chances to award films/performances they have championed or given stellar reviews throughout the year. Where are the top ten lists with This Is Not A Film, Holy Motors, Looper (needs to be in more), Skyfall, The Kid With A Bike, Deep Blue Sea etc.?
At least the NSFC will surprise us somehow.
I hate when there’s a single screenplay category. Doesn’t make sense.
Sorry if posted, but EW came out with their review of Les Miz today and it got a ‘C’ grade.
http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20620444,00.html
How about a pic with a Metascore in the 50s? I’ll even give you up to 70 for an average. Crash is the last that won Best Pic at 69.
All I am saying is that you can’t tell me it’s not reason for a bit of concern for that movie when it isn’t out of the gate hot like everyone predicted in terms of reviews and wins for the biggies of director and pic. You’re lying if you think a high score of 80 out of 12 reviews on Metacritic, seven of which are 60 or below, makes a strong case for winning best pic. Lots of noms? Sure. Winning? Don’t think so.
Many a non-Masterpiece has gone on to win Best Pic.
@Adam
Yes, they have it in their top ten…which is fine. I’m sure it’s very good. But what I am noticing is that it is NOT taking the top prize in pretty much anything. Seems like it’s ZDT with Lincoln not far behind and then everyone just hoping or assuming Les Miz is right in there with the pack. We’ve seen a lot of reviews of Les Miz and top ten lists and it’s not the juggernaut people thought it would be. If it was, it would be WINNING some of these awards. As it stands now, it’s at a 56 on Metacritic with zero perfect scores. Four positive reviews, seven average, one poor. Sure, there is a lot of others to be counted but it’s noteworthy the highest current score is 80 for a supposed masterpiece.
Nice! Prometheus finally getting some recognition for its brilliant art direction
Well, let’s hope this stays in Vegas.
Do all these critics and bloggers really have Les Miserables in their top ten? No, I haven’t seen it, but it’s funny how “buzz” and “because everyone else says so” makes people forget about all the other great movies released this year.
Amour is not German. It’s Austrian (mainly).
Good. Life of Pi is a masterpiece.
A LOT of Pi love, fantastic!
Vegas! Who would have thought they’d go for Life of Pi? There must be many around the tables that rely with the concept of Richard Parker for survival. We’ll take it.
I would love it if Looper continues to get some serious screenplay consideration.
Anne Hathaway BLAH
Queen Hathaway winning another award!
ParaNorman!