Analysis: Best Film Editing/Visual Effects, Sound Editing/Mixing 2015

Best Film Editing

Oscar nominees:

1. Mad Max: Fury Road: Each action scene is pieced together perfectly and that's all I really need to say about it. Nothing ever feels out of place which is a grand achievement for a film of this scope, and it never lets go of that breathtaking breakneck pace.

2. Star Wars: The Force Awakens: Crisply done, near-flawless jumping round of sequence to sequence worthy of its place in the Star Wars canon. Even when the content or scriptwriting was a bit lacklustre, the smooth transitions in pace and tone were all so impeccably done that none of the flaws really mattered as the editing engaged me so already.

3. Spotlight: Solid stuff, and I hate to put it third. I hate to keep making comparisons to All the President's Men though but I think that film does show a much, much better pacing in terms f the progress of the whole investigation, whereas with Spotlight there are certain segments which lag a bit as well as at times, scenes which seem to jar slightly with the tone the film is driving towards like Mark Ruffalo's outbreak scene, some of the movements between the victim's stories, but these are all fickle complaints. Overall, a solid piece of editing overall.

4. The Revenant: The pace does lag a bit in certain parts but there's some great editing in some scenes, particularly the bear scene (yes my thoughts have changed towards that scene) and the attack sequences, it's flawed work but still incredibly strong, and I must note the gap between this film and my fifth place is HUGE.

5. The Big Short: Just a mess of an editing job as not only tonally, but in terms of just how the whole film is pieced together on an aesthetic and atmospheric level, is just so off-putting.

My nominees:

1. The Martian: This video is more about the content/production of the film itself but just take it as an example of how wonderfully edited this film is. Some might call it workmanlike, I thought it was brilliant, as I felt like I was reading a book, a very engaging page-turner, with just how seamlessly each scene tied into the other and despite the topic matter not being my cup of tea really, each montage and each sequence was just so thoroughly interesting to watch.

2. Mad Max: Fury Road

3. Carol: Kind of like The Martian it all just felt like one beautiful storybook and I don't just mean the images, I thought each sequence was again pieced together perfectly, I always felt involved in the story, it all felt very compacy and yet also overflowing with emotion, I'm being very abstract here but anyway, my top 4 could be ranked in any way really.

4. Star Wars: The Force Awakens

5. The Hateful Eight: That a plus-170 minutes film never feels meandering is testament to the editing's excellence in itself. Beyond that the story never loses focus, I never felt any sort of evident tonal imbalance in the scenes despite there being many tones being thrown in at once by Tarantion, I have to say I loved the job done in this respect.

6. Creed (amazing work especially in the fight scenes and I left it off kind of because I've nominated Creed for a great deal already and I think it is more of the direction which enthrals me in these scenes)
7. Spotlight
8. Sicario
9. Bridge of Spies
10. Joy

Best Visual Effects

Oscar nominees:

1. Mad Max: Fury Road

2. The Revenant (yes I've changed my opinion on the bear, it is excellently done CGI)

3. Star Wars: The Force Awakens

4. Ex Machina

5. The Martian (sucks I have to place this fifth)

My nominees:

1. Mad Max: Fury Road

2. The Revenant

3. Jurassic World

4. Star Wars: The Force Awakens

5. Ex Machina

6. The Martian
7. Avengers: Age of Ultron
8. The Walk
9. Chappie
10. Ant-Man

 

Best Sound Editing (for these cateogries I'll just put in scenes with great sound)

Oscar nominees:

1. Mad Max: Fury Road

2. Sicario

3. The Revenant

4. The Martian

5. Star Wars: The Force Awakens: The sound effects were great as always, but I do think it's the mixing of the sounds together which is, as always, an indiciation of any Star Wars film, that really makes it work.

My nominees:

1. Mad Max: Fury Road

2. Sicario

3. The Revenant

4. The Martian

5. Creed

6. The Hateful Eight
7. Spectre
8. Star Wars: The Force Awakens
9. Jurassic World
10. Bridge of Spies

Best Sound Mixing

Oscar nominees:

1. Star Wars: The Force Awakens

2. Mad Max: Fury Road

3. The Martian

4. The Revenant

5. Bridge of Spies

My nominees:

1. Star Wars: The Force Awakens

2. Mad Max: Fury Road

3. The Hateful Eight

4. Creed

5. The Martian


6. Sicario
7. Spectre
8. The Revenant
9. Bridge of Spies
10. Jurassic World