The 1st Annual Sim W Awards

Well folks here we are, the 1st annual Sim W Awards where I look back on the films of 2015 and cast my vote (mine my own) as to who will win the Sim W Awards (an Award that means absolutely zippo but matters to me anyway.)

But why are you doing this, what drove you to do this well dear readers I am sick to death of the fucking awards season and time and time again and it all just feeling more and more like an election campaign where studios pile a lot of their more adult oriented films into a 3 to 4 month period, they bombard the voting members in the various awards shows be they the Oscars or the Guild Awards and they put out heaps of ads advertising that film "for their consideration."

Well I'm not a part of that for a start and also I see the films I tell people what I think, I review them I talk about them on air every 3 to 4 weeks.

Now the rules are fairly simple there are 7 categories a film can win for and they are:

- Best Film
- Best Director
- Best Lead Performance
- Best Supporting Performance
- Best Screenplay
- Best Sound
- Best Technical Achievement

And in each of the categories bar best film can have up to 3 winners while Best Film can have up to 5 winners in it, it's my way of sharing the love a little I like to think.

With that out of the way let's get it done:

Best Technical Achievement:

Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation

When it comes to technical prowess this year in films I have to give to Chris McQuarrie's Mission Impossible Rogue Nation the fifth in the series, the technical work here was just amazing as unlike a lot of action pictures there seemed to be very little digital effects work used here, it all felt real and life threatening then again when your lead actor straps himself to a plane as its taking off well your going to follow his example.

Best Sound:

Straight Outta Compton
Mad Max Fury Road

And my Best Sound for 2015 was Mad Max Fury Road and Straight Outta Compton, both had really good and immersive sound work in particular the Hip Hop performances in SOC and the sound of the vehicle engines in Fury Road were great just to listen to outside of the films themselves.

Best Screenplay:

Drew Goddard (The Martian)
The Coen Brothers and Matt Charman (Bride of Spies)

Of all the categories this was the trickiest to pull off but I have 2 great scripts here that outside of the filmmaking qualities would be great novels you would want to own and read hell one of them is based off of a book and Drew Goddard did a stellar job writing the Martian which leapt off the screen and had me wishing Ridley had assigned him to do Alien Covenant but alas that didn't happen.

The Coens meanwhile wrote a superb screenplay for Bridge of Spies and while I wasn't a huge fan of the film I did love their scripting and it really felt like a nice blend of their serious work like Blood Simple and their more light hearted fare like Raising Arizona.

Best Supporting Performance:

Benicio Del Toro (Sicario)
Sylvester Stallone (Creed)
Rebecca Hall (The Gift)

When it comes to supporting performances to me those are the side characters that make a very strong impression and there were 3 here Benicio Del Toro for Sicario, Sly for Creed and Rebecca Hall for the Gift.

All 3 were terrific in their roles but I want to single out Hall in particular who gets very little love for the great work she does and in the Gift she really shown.

Best Lead Performance:

Matt Damon (The Martian)
Ice Cube Jr, Corey Mitchell and Jason Hawkins (Straight Outta Compton)
Jennifer Lawrence (Joy)

This was the easiest category to deal with and for me Joy and the Martian are NOTHING without those 2 central performances at the centre of them and both actors delivered very top notch work especially Lawrence who proved along with Mockingjay Part 2 what a good actress she really is.

Also doing great work was the trio of Ice Cube Jr, Jason Mitchell and Corey Hawkins from Straight Outta Compton which was very hard for me to leave off despite being a trio but their work was so good I just couldn't bear to leave them out.

Best Director:

Denis Vilenuve (Sicario)
Matthew Vaughn (Kingsman the Secret Service)
Dr George Miller (Mad Max Fury Road)

And now we come to the home straight and that is best director and all 3 of these people did a brilliant job with those films particularly Dr Miller and again I wasn't the world's biggest fan of Fury Road but there is no denying what he crafted in that chair and sadly I fear that he will be foiled at the Academy Awards for Inniartu and that would be a very sad occurance.

Best Film:

Inside Out
Kingsman the Secret Service
A Most Violent Year

And so we come to Best Film and for me there were 3 clear winners in this field and they were Kingsman, Inside Out and a Most Violent Year, all 3 as films when all were said and done were brilliantly put together and rarely put a foot wrong.

And so that was the first Sim W Awards and yes some will miss not having more women getting nods or people of colour but these awards are young and there will be plenty of chances for both to make their mark and earn some wins in the years ahead.

One thing that will definitely be changing after this first awards show is the number of winners, from here on it will be restricted to either 1 or 2 winners as having up to 3 whilst a nice intention simply proved unwieldy and this came about as a result of doing the 1st awards for the Radio show, I know I hadn't originally intended on this happening but that's what became clear to me when doing it there as it felt to me that it was becoming too unwieldy to have up to 3 victors but that's the process with these things, you go with your plans and if they don't work you change them as I intend to do with next year's awards.