One Category at a Time: Best Film Editing

Since the art of picture editing is so tricky to assess on face value, it can be equally tricky to predict how a large voting body like the Academy will assess it. The Oscar for Best Film Editing usually goes either to the Best Picture winner or probable runner-up, or occasionally something far from winning Best Picture but which obviously features the "most" editing. Over the last fifteen years, three precursor groups in particular have been informative: The BAFTA, the BFCA, and the ACE guild.

My Award Nominations: Editing

All five of these movies that I've chalked up as having the Best Editing of the year all have one thing in common: Excellent pacing. And yet I'm fascinated at how incredibly diverse their tempos are, some finding rhythm in languid relaxation, others in frenetic montage. Check them out below.

ACE Eddie Winners, and PGA/SAG Preview

To the surprise of precisely no one, La La Land won the ACE Eddie Award last night for Best Edited Feature Film (Comedy). Tom Cross is likely en route to his second Oscar in three years.

The Dramatic Feature category was a bit more competitive, but prevailing pundit logic of Joe Walker's editorial of Arrival winning out proved to be correct. Can't argue with either of these winners. For me, they're easily the top two editing achievements of the year, with everything else eating their dust.

Review - La La Land

We all know the how the showbiz story goes: Boy and girl meet, boy and girl fall in love, boy and girl's careers diverge. It's a sturdy formula that the movies have retooled and retold a million times, from the silent escapades of Show People to the melodramatic tumult of A Star is Born (all three of them, and counting) to the worldly post-modernism of Annie Hall to the silent escapades of The Artist – Funny how things come full circle.

Point being, if you want to play that old song again, you need to riff; Improvise; Make it special. Fortunately for hopeless romantics everywhere, 32 year old writer/director Damien Chazelle is indeed a special talent, who has now performed a spectacular riff on the 'Hollywood love story' in La La Land;
A dazzling musical ode to a city, to a genre, and to anyone who ever dared to dream large and love larger.

It was Chazelle's sizzling sophomore feature Whiplash that put him on the map two years ago, snagging a trio of Oscars and topping this critic's 'Best of 2014' list. So when it was announced that his next dream was to make an original movie musical – that rarest of beasts – I was on board. All pretense of objectivity aside, I probably loved this film before the ink was dry on the first draft of the screenplay.

One Category at a Time: Film Editing

Well... I got nothin'.

I've been very hit-and-miss in this category as of late, failing to guess the retrospectively obvious win for Gravity last year and the forever unobvious win for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo two years before that. But I ain't never seen a Best Film Editing race as confusing as this year's, in which the Best Picture favourite isn't even in the running, and almost every nominee feels like a possible – heck, even a likely – winner.

My Award Nominations: Best Film Editing

Today I've got a couple of post-production elements to add to my growing awards ballot. Starting things off is Best Film Editing. The temptation was great, but I resisted the urge to merely load this category with Best Picture nominees (this ain't the Oscars!), and tried to branch out where I could. The following five films are not only extremely well edited, but they also display a very wide cross-section of editing styles. Variety is the spice of film awards!

Check 'em out after the jump.

Review - Whiplash

“There are no two words in the English language as harmful as 'good job',” a teacher tells his student. 'Good job' means being content with mediocrity. 'Good job' means just doing what's required instead of doing all you could. 'Good job' does not describe greatness.

And so those are two words you won't find me using to describe Whiplash, which is an exciting, involving, invigorating, absolute lightning bolt of a film; As keenly observed as the most refined of dramas, and yet as pulse-raising as the most intense of action movies; An electrifying combustion of artistic crisis, coming-of-age and jazz music, announcing the arrival of an extraordinary new talent in writer-director Damien Chazelle. 'Good job' doesn't come close to describing this film. It is great.