DiCaprio takes ferocious turn as the mad wolf

Martin Scorsese makes money when studios pay him to make movies, and when people buy tickets to see those movies. Maybe that's an oversimplification — certainly that model doesn't take into account the points on the back end, the licensing deals, the royalty packages, and all the other finer details — but it's an accurate overview of how one man makes his fortunes. Other money-making ventures are not so clear.

I've seen countless movies about Wall Street moneymakers, from Gordon Gecko and Wall Street to Boiler Room right on down to the documentaries on Enron and that one where Michael Moore asks investment bankers what derivatives are and they all stutter incomprehensibly. I've also read a variety of articles, including Matt Taibbi's great Rolling Stone piece, the one where he calls Goldman Sachs the "great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money." All of this and I still don't understand how a banker, broker or trader makes money. With Scorsese the process it's transparent, but for white-collar types it's beyond fathomable. They begin the day with $20 and end the day $40, but the money materializes in their bank accounts as if by black magic. Money doesn't grow on trees? Tell that to these guys, who seemingly procure money from the ether by divine intervention.

Martin Scorsese's relentlessly ferocious Wolf of Wall Street plays on our stupidity about the financial world — more accurately, it tap dances on our pulpy scalped skulls gleefully laughing at our thin wallets and three- and four-digit bank balances. At one point, Jordan Belfort, Wolf's crass anti-hero, turns to the camera and begins to explain how he makes money, until he gives up because, well, who cares — "money is money." In the land of bulls and bears, this wolf has nothing but prey.

Belfort, the film's merry cocaine-fueled court jester, is a rookie trader at a New York stock firm. His first day he's baptized by fire: he's taken to lunch by his boss who tells him to do coke at work, masturbate twice a day (once at lunch) and bang hookers by the dozen. But then the firm goes under on Black Monday 1987, leaving the ambitious Belfort to his own devices outside of NYC. Belfort is played by Leonardo DiCaprio, who is still channeling Jay Gatsby in this similar, but exponentially wackier, role about opulence and money. Some are screaming that the film glorifies the race for wealth, especially as Belfort tosses little people, lets strippers and hookers parade through his office, ingests copious amounts of drugs on (and inside) these hookers, and as he generally acts like a misogynist douchebag as he cheats, lies and manipulates the financial markets. Nevermind that the movie is clearly a satire of banking excess, or that Belfort is the most miserable person Scorsese has ever turned his camera on — remember, for contrast purposes, Marty once photographed a mobster joyfully crushing a man's skull in a carpenter's vice.

Jordan finds work at a strip-mall firm where dead-end salesmen go to die. They also sell penny stocks to Hustler subscribers and deadbeats. (Spike Jonze has a hilarious cameo as the firm manager.) Penny stocks have a 50 percent commission, which can be lucrative on huge orders. Belfort, in his fancy suit and slicked hair, makes his first sale while the rest of the office is dumbstruck at his elegant pitch. He picked up the phone as a rejected Wall Street has-been, but hung it up as a god. Soon he opens his own firm and begins doubling down on the penny garbage while also mixing it up with some blue-chip stocks. His formula is improbably profitable and somehow illegal, although it is never made clear why. As his firm grows and grows — and as the money flows from a trickle to a steady Niagara-like deluge — Jordan slowly unravels into oblivion as money and success dominate his every move.

That is the setup, but the film is so much more. First of all, it's a Scorsese picture, so it plays with all types of narrative devices: freeze frames, narration, flashbacks, breaking-the-fourth-wall speeches, montages … Marty has no limits to how and where this film will go. At any moment it could go careening off into a tangent, as it does several times, first when Jordan learns his partner is married to his first cousin (a scene that ends with Jordan smoking crack cocaine) and eventually into a mesmerizingly nutty sequence of Jordan, rendered to a "cerebral palsy level of high," crawling down a set of stairs to get into his Lamborghini. DiCaprio handles all the super-duper highs and the occasional lows like a champ in what can only be described as a virtuosic performance. Here is an actor in full command of his talents and abilities.

He's joined by a strong cast of co-stars, including Jonah Hill with some kind of denture prosthetic on his teeth. Hill plays his right-hand man, a free-wheelin' frat boy with a key to the executive washroom. P.J. Byrne plays Rugrat, a man with an inconceivably lush hairpiece. There are others, all playing Jordan's Yes Men, all of them coked out of their minds 23 hours of the day. Rob Reiner, the lovable Meathead, plays Jordan's father and the firm's security expert. He's often the voice of reason, albeit an ignored voice. His reaction to a scene about pubic hair trends — "The girls are bald from the eyebrows down" — is priceless. Jordan's wife Naomi, an explosive bombshell, is played with supreme confidence by newcomer Margot Robbie. She's so stunning that one character has this memorable line: "I'd let that girl give me AIDS." As gorgeous as Naomi is, though, she is not what Jordan really wants. He craves the hunt, not the prize; the war, not the spoils.

The movie represents a sexual milestone for the MPAA and it's R rating. I've never seen a movie (of even an NC-17 picture) with so many graphic depictions of sex: bare-breasted women, thrusting, straight sex, gay sex, threesomes, group sex, orgies, sex on airplanes, sex at work, sex in a speeding Ferrari, masturbation in public … the movie doesn't seem to have many limits. In addition to all that, it has what must be a world-record number of exposed vaginas for an R-rated film. We're talking a dozen, maybe more. Now, I'm no prude, but it does make me doubt the veracity of the MPAA and their goofy ratings systems. Also, the drug use: not only is it everywhere, but at one point Belfort looks directly at the audience to pitch cocaine. It's the most explicit endorsement of drugs a movie has ever made, even if the end results are disastrous.

All that being said, though, Wolf of Wall Street is electric filmmaking of the highest order. Yes, at nearly three hours, it's a smidge too long, but it is a kinetic film, always moving, racing even, as it whiplashes from one Jordan sexcapade to another. What really sells me, though, is how it scathingly represents our current era of white-collar crime, with Jordan and his swindling minions as stand-ins for any number of people at Bank of American, JP Morgan Chase or the vampire squid itself, Goldman Sachs. Margin Call, with its hushed boardroom meetings, took a more realistic approach corporate greed, and certainly Oliver Stone's Wall Street shares this movie's manic pace, but mostly Wolf of Wall Street is its own monster, unequal to anything that we've seen, other than Scorsese's Goodfellas or Casino, themselves inside looks into criminal empires. It's provocative and edgy, incriminating and subversive, and it's a cultural indictment of the men and women (but mostly the men) who are squeezing America dry on their derivatives, loan swaps, securities exchanges, sub-prime mortgage bullshit.

It's a messy takedown, but one helluva thrill ride.

Ground control to Major Ben

The parts of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty that most resemble James Thurber's 1939 short story are the parts I recommend skipping. In fact, show up 30 minutes late to miss most of them. My apologies to the late Mr. Thurber.

Of course, these comment have nothing to do with the author or his most famous work because the movie seems to barely acknowledge the story, which was about a man daydreaming fantastic scenarios around the mundane boredom that was his life. The movie, when it moves past the daydreams, is about a man desperately trying to squeeze meaning out of his life — real meaning, not figurative. It's not until the daydreams end that Walter Mitty begins to find his purpose, not within his own head but out in the wild. I find movies based on dreams to be vacant explorations of the imaginations. This one proves my point, until it doesn't. 

The film is directed by Ben Stiller, an actor I've admittedly never much cared for in strong doses. He always takes his characters too far one direction and then gets lost in the muck. Remember Tropic Thunder, specifically how funny it was until Ben Stiller hijacked the later portions with his Colonel Kurtz routine and the Simple Jack overkill. Off a leash Stiller loses perspective. The same can be said here as his Walter Mitty, a Time-Life photo archivist, daydreams the boring out of his life by imagining himself in roles his own sense of adventure will never allow: a rugged and handsome mountain climber, an action hero, a ladykiller, kung-fu comic hero and, inexplicably, a reverse-aging Benjamin Button geriatric-baby. The scene, with Stiller hidden behind CGI and makeup, was so bad I hid behind my hands until it was over. The comic kung-fu sequence is nearly just as bad, with Stiller and Adam Scott, wearing what can only be described as a pubic-thick beard, pavement surfing through Manhattan as they karate chop each other's faces. If a single scene could derail a whole movie, then this movie gets derailed twice.

But it finds its footing later and recovers. Time-Life is being chopped up and sold as scrap, but not before one final issue hits news stands. Mitty, the photo archivist, accidentally loses the 35mm negative that is to be the cover. The photo is taken by photographer Sean O'Connell (Sean Penn), an old-school battle-hardened photojournalist. O'Connell is missing somewhere in Iceland, or Greenland, or Egypt, or China … no one really knows, but he's left some photo clues. Mitty decides to plunge into the deep dark mystery of life to find the missing cover shot. His trip takes him to some of those locations I mentioned earlier, including Iceland, where he meets the most interesting helicopter pilot with hands as big as grizzly bear paws. Before the pilot can take off, he must finish what must be about 120 ounces of beer in a giant glass boot. And then off Walter goes into the great beyond. 

The movie has a some surreal, sometimes wacky, moments, including when he's nearly eaten by a shark, or when a volcano nearly swallows him whole. Most of these second-act scenes, though, are thrilling mini-adventures way outside Walter's comfort zone. Some of it is exhilarating, including a sequence with Walter longboarding on a lonely Iceland road. Amidst the world hopping he meets all kinds of people, including the helicopter pilot, a rental car agent who only has two cars to rent, a group of Sherpas, an eHarmony customer service representative and, eventually, Sean O'Connell who delivers that cover photo. And surprise: the photo is totally worth the wait. 

A romance is figured in here, but not heavily. Kristen Wiig plays a Time-Life employee who admires Walter's passive simplicity. She features into one of the only decent daydreaming sequences: her character singing David Bowie's "Space Oddity" in the most strangely wonderful, and borderline metaphysical, scene in the film. It's a perfect song choice in a perfect moment of an otherwise so-so film. The song is about discover and wonder, and that's precisely what Walter Mitty is about to have engraved into his bones.

This is a completely lopsided movie. The beginning is just off, and in so many ways. And then the movie recovers and takes flight. It's a remarkable transformation, which is why I jokingly suggest you show up late. Another thing that should be brought up is the near constant product placement. Time-Life gets a pass, but not Papa Johns or American Airlines or even eHarmony, no matter how appropriate the Patton Oswalt cameo is.

As for Stiller, he didn't impress the hell out of me, but he did intrigue me enough to warrant curiosity for his next feature. I just hope that he continues to move away from the dopiness of his earlier career. Less Simple Jack; more second half of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.

Every day I'm (American) hustlin'

American Hustle is a movie about the garishness of the 1970s, and how the tackiness of the 1980s would come along to dethrone it. Mostly, though it’s about garishness and all it’s pompadoured glory.

Leading the ensemble cast is Christian Bale in a stellar performance that required him to fatten up, don a pathetically epic comb-over, dress in wide-lappelled polysester suits and then, if all that wasn’t humiliating enough, he spends the rest of the movie getting dressed down until all that's left is gut, comb-over and those miserably sad eyes. He’s American Hustle’s in-house punching bag, but he takes it all with great strides.

The David O. Russell picture chronicles the criminals’ side of the ABSCAM case, in which a number of high-profile elected officials were duped into bribes, some of them related to a fictional sheik, possibly played by a Mexican guy from the FBI. The wealthy sheik needed some favors before he could invest in American companies, and there was no shortage of people offering to provide handouts. The movie is told from the perspective of the criminals who arranged the whole thing, not the criminals who had their names on ballots.

Bale plays Irving Rosenfeld, a small-time grifter with a lucrative loan scam. Customers come in and ask for a loan, one that requires a $5,000 non-refundable deposit. And wouldn’t you know it, no one ever qualifies. He spreads his loot around to various dry cleaning businesses, to his fiery wife and to his new girlfriend, Sydney (Amy Adams), who might be an even bigger crook than he is. Together, they ramp up their criminal empire until the eventual calamity — they’re busted.

Slapping the cuffs on them is FBI agent Richie DiMaso (Bradley Cooper) who listens to his suspects' stories and hatches a plan of his own: he wants to use them to land bigger fish, and then with them even bigger catches. He's fishing for whales, and he won't stop until he hauls in Moby Dick. Richie's the classic case of a man "with eyes bigger than his stomach." He also has a lovely perm, which he fastens in spongy pink curlers. Wow, is it a look.

The movie has a warm ’70s glow to it, and a classic-rock soundtrack to match it. The hair and makeup are showstoppers, from the first garish thread to the last teased lock. The plot progresses at varying speeds: sometimes at a break-neck frenzy as Irving and Richie con their way up the criminal ladder and, at other times, a little slower, with Sydney and Irving's wife, Rosalyn (Jennifer Lawrence), trading accusations as they fight to woo the dopey men they've decided to associate with. Irving, poor guy, spends much of the movie maneuvering all the pieces around the board: his wife, his girlfriend, bankers, the FBI, elected officials, casino executives and a rather cranky member of the mob, a man who'd likely kill the lot of them if he ever gets wind of what's really transpiring. The cameo here  is not really a surprise, but it's fun. 

Central to the case is Camden Mayor Carmine Polito (Jeremy Renner), who seems to know everyone and proves to be the Kevin Bacon of the ABSCAM's Six Degrees of Separation. He takes a strong liking to Irving, which guilts him to no end because he knows Carmine's going to be the fall guy for his scheme. Family man and all-around nice guy, Mayor Polito even gives Irving a microwave, which Irving calls a "science oven." He pleads with Rosalyn, don't put metal in it. Rosalyn, fidgeting and neurotic with a thick Joy-zee accent, promptly puts metal in it and nearly burns the house down. 

This is not the master filmmaking of The Silver Linings Playbook, Russell's last movie, nor does it reach the Scorsese-hot fever pitch of movies like Goodfellas or Casino, which I think of as crime operas more than anything. This is not that focused — mostly it's too long — but it is very good, thrilling even, especially with this flawless cast. Amy Adams, so good in everything, is a dream here as faux-British manipulator extraordinaire. Her exposed breastplate — revealed in every dress she wears — might be her co-star in the film. Her dresses plunge so far down they reach terminal velocity before they find hips, knees, toes … whatever fleshy landmark they can. It's a sexy adult role, one she hammers out of the park in each scene. Cooper, who is perfect in these kind of ego-maniacal roles, matches her pace at every step. Jennifer Lawrence, so good it's almost cliché, is a joy, as is Renner, another young wonder.

Really, though, it all comes back to Bale: he owns this drama from top to bottom. I especially enjoyed the opening scene, in which Bale's Irving Rosenfeld glues up a piece of fake hair and applies it to his head. This is the base, the foundation for his Trump-like do. Then he swings that big Ernie McKracken hair flap over the fresh turf and glues it down. Some more glue, some hairspray, some tweaking, more hairspray, and voila, Irving Rosenfeld everyone, literally a self-made man. America was made by men like Irving, and that's OK with me. 

Hanks is no Disney, but he is still Hanks

Tom Hanks, lovable to no end, is a terrible Walt Disney. This isn't to say that his performance is atrocious, because it's really quite good. He's just not Walt Disney.

The build is off. The mustache just isn't right. His voice doesn't have the thunder of Disney's. Altogether, it's best to see Saving Mr. Banks — in which Hanks plays the famous Disneyland creator — without looking at or listening to the real Walt Disney before or after your screening. That being said, the movie gets huge validation elsewhere in the plot: in the closing credits. More on that later. 

Saving Mr. Banks, directed by Disney sub-contractor John Lee Hancock, tells the story of the making of Mary Poppins. Now, movies are typically fraught with pre-production peril (please see Baadasssss! Mario Van Peebles' own movie-on-movie tirade at Hollywood's production cycle), so it comes as no surprise that Disney struggled to get the 1964 Julie Andrews musical off the ground. It is surprising, however, to see where Disney was snagged up: Mary Poppins' creator, author P.L. Travers. 

Travers (here played by Emma Thompson), begrudgingly agrees to fly to Anaheim to meet with Disney about signing over the rights to her famous book. She's a lovely lady, full of charm and whimsy, just like her characters, warm and tender like a summer's morning glow. Actually, no that's a lie. She's bitter and petty, and her creations seemed to have sprung from a part of her personality that died long ago. On the plane ride over the pond, she says silently to herself, "I hope it crashes" — she's talking about the plane, not the upcoming meeting. When she gets to her hotel, she has to imprison the Disney plush toys in the closet before she can even unpack. 

Travers’s first trip to the studio is quite simply disastrous. The storyboards are wrong, the concept art is wrong, the dialogue is wrong, the industry-standard abbreviations on the script are wrong … nothing is as she wants it. She pushes around Disney’s pre-production team — Bradley Whitford, B.J. Novak and Jason Schwartzman, all playing prominent Disney behind-the-scenes men — like a little dictator with petulant streak of entitlement. No one, including the all-powerful Disney himself, can argue with her because, after all, she still owns the rights to her umbrella-riding nanny, and she won’t relinquish the film rights until the movie is to her liking. One of her early decrees is especially broad: remove the color red from the entire film.

Travers' God-like arrangement means Disney must cave on some points, like chimney sweep Bert’s romantic interest in Mary Poppins. Other things, like his insistence on songs and several animated sequences, those he won’t cave on. Walt is a singular force and even fights back. Saving Mr. Banks, itself a Disney movie, certainly glorifies Walt’s character, but there was much to like with the visionary so it’s not a total stretch. The movie hints at his vices, including his smoking: Travers walks in on him puffing away, “Don’t want to promote my bad habits,” he says as he stamps out his Lucky Strike. The film was under contract to not show him inhaling. His other vices, including his reported anti-semitism, are not addressed. The picture has all kinds of other interesting tidbits, including Disney making late-night song requests from his writers; he apparently never tired from some of his films' music. Another nice touch: Travers' stubborn kindness to her endearing chauffeur (played by Paul Giamatti). 

Before I continue, let me share this: I love movies about movies. They’re just fascinating, mostly because we have the final movie as a footnote to everything we’re watching. This one is exceptionally fun, from Disney’s stubborn reign to Travers’ eventual acceptance of the songs when she sings and dances to “Let’s Go Fly a Kite.” But I’m not telling you everything. The movie jumps back and forth in time: from Disney Studios in the 1960s to Australia in the early 20th century, when a little girl named Helen Goff had a very troubling time with her alcoholic father. The father (played by Colin Farrell) is mesmerized by the world, but can't seem to grasp its broader intricacies. He will later inspire the Mr. Banks character in Mary Poppins.

These scene are important in establishing the ultimate motivation behind many of Mary Poppins more integral figures, but Saving Mr. Banks routinely comes to a screeching halt when the flashbacks hijack the charm. One scene with the father drunkenly speaking at a fair is supremely cringeworthy. Much of this frustration can be traced to the Disney scenes, which are so interesting that any flashback would suffer by comparison. That being said, I think audiences will relate equally to both time periods; at least, more than me. I preferred the movie-making sequences.

Saving Mr. Banks is not perfect, but it certainly is enjoyable and, at times, moving. Hanks and Thompson are delightful, even if Hanks is a mediocre Disney stand-in. The best part, though, are those end credits. As they begin to roll, a tape player fills the screen and we get to hear the actual audio of Travers' first day running through the Mary Poppins script. The movie does not invent her snottiness. If anything it downplays it.

Her: Spike Jonze's delicate masterpiece

I'm going to say something kinda nutty and audacious, so brace yourself: Her features the most heartbreaking movie romance since Casablanca.

Yes, Her's intricate power play of heartache, loss and existential exile from love is comparable to Ilsa and Rick's devastating acceptance of love's victory in Casablanca, a movie that has, over countless decades, come to symbolize the momentous weight of the heart's needs and desires.

Her is directed with beautiful resonance by Spike Jonze, a soft spoken and gentle director, whose careful personality and soft presence must be inviting to actors. How else would someone get this kind of performance from Joaquin Phoenix? He's so delicate and vulnerable that he spends the whole movie in a suspended state of shattering.

Phoenix plays Theodore, a nebbish wimp who sits in a cathedral-like office and writes poetic love letters for other people. Technically, though, he doesn't even write them; he speaks the letters out loud and his computer transcribes his words into a handwritten font. In the movie's quasi-sci-fi universe, even love is outsourced to others. After a modern Apple-like reveal, a new cell phone operating system hits the market. Theodore downloads it, answers three simple questions and in chimes Samantha, his personalized operating system voice. She's no Siri: her voice is smooth and measured, and her responses show personality and grace. The voice is played by Scarlett Johansson, though we never once see her. It might be one of the single greatest voice casting performances in the history of the cinema. Hyperbole much? See the movie and disagree with me; I dare you. 

Samantha begins by making Theodore's life more organized. She spell checks his emails, responds to his divorce attorney and streamlines his appointments. But she's more than a digital assistant — she's attentive to his needs, she can hear fluctuations in his voice that might indicate concern or worry, and she has a personality. One of the great mysteries of the film is trying to decide if she was programmed this way, or if she naturally learned to show her user so much compassion.

The movie takes place in the not-so-distant future, but it is only barely science fiction. One can make all kinds of pointed accusations about the film's intentions, but I don't think it's an indictment on our reliance of technology. It certainly makes the case that we depend on our phones and the Internet too much, but I think the soul of the movie resides in its central pairing — the human Theodore and the discombobulated voice of Samantha.

Of course Theodore falls in love with Samantha. More surprisingly is how Samantha falls for him. They share long discussions in bed, in his living room, on the beach and out in the city, where other people are also cooing intimate whispers with the earpieces socketed into their heads. The world is accepting of their courtship, at least as accepting as Japanese culture is with people marrying video game characters or body pillows — odd, but harmless. (Speaking of Japan, this will remind you heavily of Lost in Translation, another movie about love and longing with Johansson.) At one point Theodore and Samantha go on a date with another human couple, and it works simpler than you'd think: Theodore's cell phone is propped up so Samantha can "see" and she becomes an active participant in conversations. It's essentially a conference call. And when Theodore walks around he puts a safety pin in his shirt pocket, like a booster seat for Samantha's digital eye. It's kinda cute.

Sex is handled in an interesting way — it's basically phone sex. Later in the film, Samantha wants to provide Theodore with a deeper, more physical encounter so she hires a sex surrogate who serves as her body. Theodore is flattered, but it feels like cheating, so he backs out. The real woman, impressed with their commitment, can only sob with envy. It's a strange world they all occupy. 

Like Ilsa and Rick, this relationship has limits that neither can sustain, or want to. One has to leave, to where they do not know, but it's uncharted territory. Her's conclusion, neither set in stone nor ambiguous, is gratifying because … well, of course this is how it had to end. In a movie about connections — how we connect and to whom — this script finds all the right balances when it comes to organic versus electrical, real versus artificial, spoken versus unspoken. I was not entirely stunned when I saw that Jonze had written it as well as directed it. It looks exactly like the kind of movie a director who had already made Adaptation, Being john Malkovich and Where the Wild Things Are would make — one of profound presence. (Let me also suggest Jonze fans check out his sci-fi short, I'm Here, which shares some of Her's central themes.)

And let me reiterate how phenomenal Phoenix and Johansson are: they are simply breathtaking. I razz Johansson a lot for taking so many stupid movies, but here she is simply perfect. For the performance to work, we have to fall for her voice. For me, that happened almost instantly. It has just the right timbre; a little scratchy, but curious, sexy and devastatingly precise in mood, tone and speed. Phoenix has more at stake — a voice and a face — and he keeps up. To think, this guy almost retired, or "retired."

Now, I said this movie is comparable to Casablanca. While the two movies vary greatly, they contain one central driving mechanism: love is as much letting go as it is holding on. Both can be painful. Both can be exhilarating. Rarely are they both.

Phoenix Film Critics Society 2013 Awards

By all estimates, 2013 was a brilliant year for movies. I mostly agree, assuming we can all ignore the lamentable summer, with its festering pustules of action nonsense, including the forgettable Superman movie and the truly awful Pain & Gain. At some point after the summer's wounds had healed, though, the year in cinema really sparkled with some remarkable pictures, including 12 years of Slave, which took home top honors at the annual Phoenix Film Critics Society awards.

I've been a member of the PFCS since 2001, and I'm always impressed at our annual awards choices. Sometimes we lean toward the regretable (A Beautiful Mind won lots of awards) and the predictable (Slumdog Millionaire, The Artist, The King's Speech), but mostly we vote some unique choices, including that year we picked Sam Rockwell for Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. This year I was trying to really go nuts by voting for Scarlett Johansson for best actress for Her, in which she only voices a lovely operating system. I was also campaigning hard for The Spectacular Now, which I'm going to (spoiler alert) name my top movie later this month. 

Here are the complete list of winners:

Phoenix Film Critics Society 2013 Awards

Best Picture

12 Years a Slave

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Top 10 Films (in alphabetical order)

12 Years a Slave

American Hustle

Captain Phillips

Dallas Buyers Club

Gravity

Mud

Nebraska

Philomena

Saving Mr. Banks

Short Term 12

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Best Director

Alfonso Cuarón, Gravity

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Best Actor

Matthew McConaughey, Dallas Buyers Club

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Best Actress

Cate Blanchett, Blue Jasmine

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Best Supporting Actor

Jared Leto, Dallas Buyer's Club

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Best Supporting Actress

Lupita Nyong'o, 12 Years a Slave

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Best Ensemble Acting

American Hustle

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Best Original Screenplay

Nebraska

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Best Adapted Screenplay

12 Years a Slave

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Best Live-Action Family Film

Oz, The Great and Powerful

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Overlooked Film of the Year

The Kings of Summer (tie)

The Spectacular Now (tie)

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Best Animated Film

Frozen

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Best Foreign Language Film

Blue is the Warmest Color

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Best Documentary

20 Feet From Stardom

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Best Original Song

"Let It Go," Frozen

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Best Original Score

Frozen

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Best Cinematography

Gravity

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Best Film Editing

Gravity

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Best Production Design

Gravity

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Best Costume Design

The Great Gatsby

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Best Visual Effects

Gravity

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Best Stunts

Fast & Furious 6

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Breakthrough Performance on Camera

Oscar Isaac, Inside Llewyn Davis

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Breakthrough Performance Behind the Camera

Lake Bell, In a World …

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Best Youth Performance (Male)

Tye Sheridan, Mud

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Best Youth Performance (Female)

Sophie Nelisse, The Book Thief