The 2012 Juan And Only Award Nominations
Best Foreign Film
- A Royal Affair (Denmark)
- Ace Attorney (Japan)
- Amour (Austria)
- Holy Motors (France)
- The Raid: Redemption (Indonesia)
- Rust & Bone (France)
Best Animated Film
- Brave
- Frankenweenie
- It’s Such A Beautiful Day
- Paranorman
- Wreck-It Ralph
Best Cinematography
- Frank Griebe & John Toll (Cloud Atlas)
- Claudio Miranda (Life of Pi)
- Mihai Malaimare Jr (The Master)
- Robert D. Yeoman (Moonrise Kingdom)
- Ron Fricke (Samsara)
- Roger Deakins (Skyfall)
Best Directorial Debut Feature
- Benh Zeitlin (Beasts of the Southern Wild)
- Drew Goddard (The Cabin in the Woods)
- Jason Moore (Pitch Perfect)
- Jake Schreier (Robot & Frank)
- Zal Batmanglij (Sound of My Voice)
- Wreck-It Ralph (Rich Moore)
Best Soundtrack
- Django Unchained
- Girl Walk // All Day
- Moonrise Kingdom
- The Perks of Being A Wallflower
- Pitch Perfect
- Wreck-It Ralph
Best Original Song
- Big Machine – Ryan Miller & Mark Duplass (Safety Not Guaranteed)
- The Sambola! International Dance Craze – Lou Christie, Michael A. Levine & Mark Suozzo (Damsels in Distress)
- Pi’s Lullaby – Mychael Danna & Bombay Jayashri (Life of Pi)
- Skyfall – Adele & Paul Epworth (Skyfall)
- Song of the Lonely Mountain – Neil Finn (The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey)
- Strange Love – Karen O (Frankenweenie)
Best Original Score
- Dario Marianelli (Anna Karenina)
- Howard Shore (The Hobbit & Cosmopolis)
- Jon Brion (Paranorman)
- Jonny Greenwood (The Master)
- Mychael Danna (Life of Pi)
- Tom Tykwer, Jonny Klimek & Reinhold Heil (Cloud Atlas)
Best Action Sequences
- The Avengers
- The Dark Knight Rises
- Haywire
- The Man With the Iron Fists
- The Raid: Redemption
- Skyfall
Best Documentary
- How to Survive a Plague
- The Invisible War
- Jiro Dreams of Sushi
- The Queen of Versailles
- Shut Up and Play the Hits
- West of Memphis
And last, but not least, a category dedicated to all those films I loved that weren’t nominated in any other category…
Best Film Not Nominated
- Friends With Kids
- Hope Springs
- Jeff, Who Lives At Home
- Magic Mike
- Killing Them Softly
- Wuthering Heights
In case you’re all wondering, the films with the most nominations, nine each, are The Master and Moonrise Kingdom.
Now that the nominees have been announced, the voting begins! Let me know down in the comments what you think about the nominations. Any you love? Anyone snubbed? All comments are accepted! Go crazy! And stay tuned for the Juan and Only Award Show – coming soon to a blog near you.
Glad to see Avengers in the Ensemble award! It really looked like a fun time on screen.
Good that The Raid is in action sequences!!!
I think you’ve watched more gialli than me, Juan, so I wonder what you’ll think of Berberian Sound Studio whenever you see it. I liked it, even though I don’t think it was 100% successful. Then again I sometimes go easier than others on ambitious experimental dramas.
I can’t wait until Ace Attorney shows up at my library so I can blast it on the bigger TV screen.
@Diandra Rodriguez, I couldn’t resist adding The Avengers to ensemble and I took the cue for Raid in action from a few trust-worthy friends. I had to make the category just because I genuinely wanted to reward a few of those action films throughout the year.
Also, a few people have told me the exact same thing as you about Berberian Sound Studio and I’m pretty excited to check it out sometime soon actually!
No Best Actor nod for DDL in Lincoln? Ouch. Also curious why you seemed to like Cosmopolis a whole lot more than everyone else.
@Rago, IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII have a lot of feelings on Lincoln. I think DDL was good as Lincoln, really good in fact. Do I think it’s one of the best performances of the year? Nope. It’s not even what the bulk of the film is about. It’s all about the Fourteenth Amendment, and when you have a character who has a surprisingly minor role comparatively speaking as the titular character, it doesn’t seem like something worth nominating to me. The scenes with his family seem shoehorned in (no matter how much I enjoyed Sassy Sally as I’ve now decided to call her) and absolutely pointless to the subject matter at hand: the fourteenth amendment. I cannot in good conscience nominate DDL for an award that says Lead Actor, when the only real Lead of Lincoln was the moving lips of every white male in the movie.
I think I respect Cosmopolis more than I genuinely love it. It interests me, just like Don DeLillo’s novel interests me, but it’s not something I can say I enjoyed every single minute of. I think in its crafting it’s genius – it’s claustrophobic, it draws straight from the source material providing humor and serious tension, it boasts excellent performances all around (especially Pattinson & Giamatti), and the slow progression of Pattinson’s character in the little details is just fascinating to me.
Don’t get me wrong, I can TOTALLY see why people would hate it or dislike it – heck, my boyfriend fell asleep – but it’s something I feel deserves to be rewarded for existing. It’s a challenging movie, and we don’t get enough of that nowadays.
I am kind of divided with your nominated films xD I hated Cosmopolis, didn’t care for Django Unchained and I’m unsure which film has been more dividing between Cosmopolis or Holy Motors xD hahaha Also, I’m surprised to see Skyfall.
And I’m surprised you added Amour for Best Foreign when you seemed to not have loved it much, while you could have maybe add Wolf Children (I didn’t know you were able to watch it) to that list. Or did you love that half and half as well?
@amy, I already gave my long speech about Cosmopolis and I feel sort of the same way about Holy Motors in that respect. Interest over genuine love. Hey, I loved Skyfall! I also love Sam Mendes. I just dig that movie on a whole level.
The Amour nomination was one of those ~fairness~ things and also one of those ~not having seen so many foreign movies~ things, which is something I genuinely want to fix this year. Wolf Children, I took my friend Derek’s word for, because I’m immensely excited to check it out and I thought it deserved it.
@Juan Barquin, Wolf Children has Miyazaki Aoi doing main voices, so I’m hopeful it will be good. She always manages to get some kind of god material. While you’re waiting for it, you should check out Colorful. *cough* there are no official releases with subtitles so *cough* you know what you can do. xD