You Were Saying...? (Extended Thoughts on Previous Topics)

I pray my occasional 'look at these comments!' posts don't come off as desperate. I'm just a very chatty person, what can I say? Since we are all becoming cyborgs, comments feel closer to conversation all the time. One day we will all forget how to speak. We will grow extra sets of fingers for more typing speed. Evolution will shrink our hands so that we can text with greater ease on our tiny devices.

First, I wanted to thank everyone who offered up music suggestions ♪ ♫  in the Grammy Awards post. I've already started investigating your recommendations since I usually have at least one "music of the year" or "music video of the year" posts in late December.  Keep 'em coming.

Last year about this time the public was going wild for The Blind Side and I included an "Overheard" conversation about it. Broooooke recently discovered the year old post and feels bad that Sandra got such flack for winning because the performance (if not the film) holds up. I would love to include more of those overheard posts but I'm telling you it is SO hard to eavesdrop in NYC. You're oft thwarted by noisy subway trains and traffic and whispering (damn you quite people in noisy cities!). Just last week two older men in suits right next to me on the subway were discussing the Oscar race. I was dying to eavesdrop but alas... major subway noise and then my stop.

A related note on Sandra B: Rebecca finds it odd that people lament the Academy's refusal to give older women the Oscar in the Annette Bening post but also bitch about Sandra's win. Sandra was 45 when she won. But more on this age & oscar topic this week ~ Article in Progress. 

Viggo & Fassy on the set of A Dangerous Method

Patrick F recently declared it a life goal to see all of Viggo Mortenson's movies. I was just thinking about Viggo yesterday and how long it took him to get really famous. It was a by-association thought. I was watching Fish Tank (so good, right?) and dreaming about seeing Viggo and Michael Fassbender as Freud & Jung in A Dangerous Method or The Talking Cure or whatever David Cronenberg is calling that psychiatric bio these days. They seem like such ideally paired co-stars to me.

Cal read the whole Undertow interview -- that's the Peruvian Oscar submission -- and loves that more Latin American movies are getting international attention "Before it was only Argentina and Brazil." Troia recently saw the movie, too, and thinks it one of the most moving of 2010. I bring this up now after the fact because I'm assuming we're going to hear about the foreign film finalists from AMPAS any day now. I love following the foreign film race but I'm not sure about this whittling down process where suddenly 50+ movies are evicted in the last month before the actual nominations. Imagine being on the campaign trail and then >boom< 'Sorry, you're out before nominations are even announced.' My current 9 predicted finalists are here but this category often holds surprises so no one knows anything.

That Helen Mirren "women in hollywood" speech sure has been making the web rounds (though there weren't many comments here on it.) Still, Manuel recalls the first time he saw the delightful Helen Mirren (Prime Suspects) and was hooked ever after. Mirren only gradually entered my consciousness. The first thing I remember seeing her in is White Nights (1985) where she met her future husband, the director Taylor Hackford. I was kind of in love with Mikhail Baryshnikov at the time (she played his wife) and I only remember two things about the movie today.

1. A shot of Misha stretching to warm up where he lays his head against his entirely vertical leg. As if this is something the human body is supposed to be able to do! 
2. This scene where Misha dances for her and she cries from the beauty of his movement. Or at least that's how I remembered the reason for her tears.

Why the Misha love? Blame childhood in the 1970s. It's probably impossible to imagine for anyone born in the 90s when the only people constantly discussed seem to be reality TV show stars but yes... a ballet dancer was once mega-famous to the point where teenager had posters of him on their walls. I wonder if Black Swan will inspire a mini-fad of renewed interest in ballet? If so that'll sure help Benjamin Millipied from Black Swan.

Odes to Emaciation: Christian Bale's Insane Actorly Commitment

I was just about to go into several interesting comments from the latest link roundup but I could do this all day and I have to move on. See.... in about 4 or 5 hours things start getting really crazy with the awards calendar... but maybe Sheila isn't the only one who is less than excited to see the madness begin. She writes

Ahh, these bullshit awards leave me cold. Why do people fawn over them so? Think of all the past great performances that were left out and you get the message. It's all about timing, timing, timing, especially now...

Timing is indeed the magic element. She's not far off with one key example: Christian Bale's "posterboy routine for committed actors" is finally catching up with him in terms of awards heat. 
Are you as chatty this morning? If not, have another cup o' joe.

Ménage à trois "A Dangerous Method"

Eeep!

Viggo Mortensen as Sigmund Freud. Put me on the couch.

Keira Knightley as Sabina and Michael Fassbender as Carl Jung.

Yes, It's VIGGO (my vote for the most consistently brilliant 50something male actor working), Keira, and the wonderful Michael Fassbender in David Cronenberg's Psychiatrists In Love. er... The Dangerous Method. I once saw a play about these three characters (not the Christopher Hampton play "Talking Cure" that this is based on) and I remember nothing about it other than that it was great subject matter but I was too drowsy to focus.

poll by twiigs.com

Cronenberg is a true original. I feel as if I have no idea what to expect from him here and I like it like that, I do. I shall psycho-analyze these new photos all day. Join me.

Falling in Link Again

cinema
Self Styled Siren terrific piece on memorable movie costumes. The Siren writes beautifully. My favorite write-ups are those for Breathless and Strangers on a Train.
Dennis Cozzalio has an amazing piece about the 35th anniversary of Robert Altman's Nashville, one of the best movies ever made.
Boy Culture on the new Burlesque stills and out writer/director Steve Antin. I'm excited for this movie but also fearful that it'll just be the Christina Aguilera show. That would be epically disappointing given the rest of the cast list: Cher, Tucci, Cumming, Bell.
Cinema Blend Viggo & Fassbender on the set of David Cronenberg's Freud/Jung picture Dangerous Method. Can't wait. So excited to see two of today's best actors in character.
Cinematical Neil Gaiman is sick of vampires.

movie stars
I Need My Fix Jude Law in the Czech Republic. Apparently Sadie Frost is writing a book about their marriage. Uh oh.
Old Hollywood Ernest Hemingway to Marlene Dietrich. Awesome quote.
Diva Asia Apparently Gong Li is now divorced. I'm not that concerned with her marriage. I just want her in some incredible movies again. Like something as good as Ju Dou? That's too much to ask, right? I can dream.

a Buffy moment
Flickr Holy Hellmouth, this "Buffy Alphabet" is awesome thus far.
Low Resolution has a three-part incredibly detailed interview with one of the writers on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. If you love Buffy you'll want to read it.

just for fun
pop licks "Best Headline Ever?" Maybe it is. It is pretty vivid.
Chateau Thombeau "Been There" hee x several.

....and because it's just amazing, the video "Big Bag Big Boom" by Blu.

BIG BAG BIG BOOM - the new wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

Reader Request: THE ROAD

Let's just say this right up front. Watching John Hillcoat's The Road (2009) again in the midst of weeks of news reports about the BP oil spill is an entirely different experience than watching The Road during the mad holiday rush when it premiered or earlier still. It takes on a whole new coat of thick dread and sad relatability. This clings to the film as tenaciously as dirt clings to Viggo's weary face. I would add compassion to its new layers but the film always had a robust heart beating underneath the ash, toxic slush and malnourished skin.


Though Joe Penhall's screenplay adaptation preferences more backstory than the masterful Cormac McCarthy novel, it still sidesteps the imagination-deficiency of Hollywood that usually leads to a distracting amount of exposition. Backstory can be useful in small doses but the complete terror at leaving anything to the audience's imagination has ruined too many modern films. It's a relief to see some corrective.

In the case of The Road, it's important for us to know that the apocalypse happened; The amazing art direction (which I probably should have nominated in my personal awards) and shots of a sickly yellow light outside a window, is enough to convey the end of the world. But it's equally crucial that we don't know why said apocalypse happened. This is more realistic (if the world as we know it is suddenly destroyed, chances are the survivors will be utterly confused) and leaves the movie open to complete immersion for any viewer, transcending all political biases.

I, for instance, imagine that any future apocalypse will occur due to either fanatic religious types who just can't swallow the "live and let live" concept or from our systemic political problems which always value corporate profits over the health of our fellow men and the planet (see also: BP oil spill and "drill baby drill" madness, An Inconvenient Truth, etcetera).

But if you were the opposite type of person, say someone who believes in the sanctity of an unregulated market or someone who is deeply religious, or someone who is Sarah Palin, your imagined apocalypse will probably come from other places. There are certainly people out there who think that the apocalypse will come from God because he's angry with people for loving the "wrong" gender, you know?

But no matter.

If or when the world ends, none of these distinctions will matter. The only thing that will matter to anyone is survival. And even that won't be an attractive option. Charlize Theron playing "woman" for example isn't too keen on it. I don't think I would be either, though it'd surely be awfully hard to drag yourself away from Viggo Mortensen. Especially if he was whimpering and begging for you to stay.

"Spend one more night with me. Why.. why do you have to go?"

Theron seems to be willing herself to become the female embodiment of misery with her film choices of late -- when do we ever see her smile? -- but she's good at it. Viggo Mortensen, on the other hand, is a straight up miracle worker.

Is there a famous actor alive who is this masculine yet utterly non-posturing about it? As an actor he can access incredibly soft places that lesser men could never approach without hedging or diluting self consciousness. Viggo's always front and center and as a result The Road becomes a unique animal, a tender apocalyptic drama. This genre tends to go for the jugular with manly brutality. That's kind of flattering machismo posturing itself, letting audiences know that only the strong survive and our hero happens to be THE STRONGEST.

"I won't let anything happen to you. I'll take care of you.
I'll kill anyone who touches you. Because that's my job."

Viggo and screen son Kodi Smit-McPhee are paired well and the papa/child emotions run deep enough that the movie ends up feeling far more brutal than most apocalypse-set films. For this time you can see the death of goodness, or softness, or "the light" if you will, in danger of being snuffed out forever. That's more brutal than any physical violence.

The best things about The Road when it first arrived such as the fine acting from all corners (though the film isn't exactly crowded), smart art direction and a judicious filling out of the novel for the big screen are still intact in the film's second life for home viewing. Unfortunately for all of The Road's rather significant strengths, it was doomed from the get go in measuring up to one of the best novels ever written. For instance, how could the film possibly match the book's final paragraph [SPOILER] which contains such a genius literary flourish, abandoning the characters for a poetic and nearly abstract memory of trout in a stream. [/SPOILER].

And oh, how I wish the movie hadn't had a score. Though the compositions by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis are fine on their own terms as musical elements, a score is the wrong choice for the movie, hobbling its otherwise disheartening emptiness. If ever a movie needed to go without music it was this one. The recurring reminder of "Papa"'s relationship to music, those painful shots of the family piano in a couple of scenes, would be a thousand percent more devastating if the piano and memory scenes were the only notes we heard, music dying along with the rest of the world. Think of that potent moment in Cast Away when the music finally returned to the film as Tom Hanks escaped his island prison? That would never have been as rousing and cathartic had we been hearing a score the whole time. That film stumbles more often than The Road does, so I don't mean to compare the latter unfavorably. But it's hard not to imagine that The Road could have been a truly stark miserabilist classic with more commitment to the withholding of traditional movie comforts.

B+ (up a notch from previous grade)
P.S. If you haven't read the novel, do so immediately. It's an all time great.
*

Viggo, Posterized

With the Cormac McCarthy adaptation The Road coming out on DVD on Tuesday (I'm eager to give it another look) I thought we should focus on one of the best actors working: Viggo Mortensen also known as "Aragorn"

<--- Viggo at twenty-two

Aragon's filmography is super odd. Or maybe not. In many professions if you do good work, your career very gradually swells but there's plenty of detours and error along the way as you feel your way up the ladder. I guess it just feels odd in the context of the movies. When we think of leading players in Hollywood don't we tend to think of them in terms of overnight sensations, has beens, or stars that have always been and will always be with us and seem to have arrived fully formed (Streep, Pacino. That type)?

Viggo fits none of those categories but he's very much a leading actor. I remember reading a magazine article about him around 1998 or so -- I think it was in conjunction with the release of A Perfect Murder -- calling him "the hot new 39 year old" as if he were a) new and b) way too old to find stardom. As it turned out he wasn't. He was too young.

Here's the posters... albeit missing a few.
Scroll carefully as there's an intermission this time!

Witness (85) -debut | Prison (88) 1st leading role | Fresh Horses (88)

Leatherface TCM III (90) Young Guns 2 (90) The Indian Runner (91)
Viggo's first solo poster! (Thanks, Sean Penn)

Boiling Point (93) | Deception (93) | Young Americans (93)

Carlito's Way (93) | The Prophecy (95) | Crimson Tide (95)

Portrait of a Lady (96) Albino Alligator (96) Daylight (96)

INTERMISSION: At a casual glance it seems like his career is just one solid upward slope of increasingly large parts in fairly successful films (he's third billed in the Sylvester Stallone action flick) but it's actually messier than that. In the mid 90s he's also doing straight to DVD movies plus he's dipping his toe into Spanish cinema - he speaks fluently - and even taking roles where he plays characters like "homeless guy" despite already having Hollywood's attention to some degree. Did he ever say no? Perhaps he slept just 3 hours a night the whole decade.

At any rate the career heated up once Demi Moore demanded he suck her dick. This unusual career move also worked wonders for Ashton Kutcher. (I kid. I kid. I couldn't resist)

GI Jane (97) | A Perfect Murder (98) | Psycho (98)

A Walk on the Moon (99) | 28 Days (00) | The Fellowship of the Ring (01)

The Two Towers (02) | The Return of the King (03) | Hidalgo (04)

A History of Violence (05) | Alatriste (06) | Eastern Promises (07)
we never got Alatriste in the US. (sigh)

Appaloosa (09) | Good (09) | The Road (09)

Viggo Mortensen quite obviously improves with age. One could say he's like a fine wine but he's more of a whiskey, don't you think? I do worry about all three of his 2009 efforts flopping. Will the lead roles keep on coming? Next up is his third go at being David Cronenberg's muse. Actors are always better off once an auteur suddenly can't live without them.

How many of these 27 movies have you seen? I've only seen half of them. Oops.
What do you first think of when you hear the name Viggo? Tell all in the comments.
*

Link and Response

Neill Cameron the A to Z of Awesomeness. This is so fun
Sunset Gun Kim Morgan recalls her time on the now departed At the Movies
Twitpic Tom Hanks tweets the casting of his new film. He's reuniting with Julia Roberts for Larry's Crowne. Let's hope it's better than Charlie Wilson's War
Empire Bryan Singer will oversee but not direct X-Men: First Class. I haven't seen this much craziness for "young" versions of things since the Muppet Babies craze in the 80s
popbytes Dennis Hopper gets his Walk of Fame star


Celebitchy on Jude Law's hair and the "naughty Adonis" vibe
CHUD announces the best back-to-back filming news I've heard in years and years: Viggo & Cronenberg will follow filming of Talking Cure with Eastern Promises 2. Yay!
The Awl Clash of the Titans "Adventures in Mimicry"

Here's the trailer for The Lovely Laura Linney's Showtime series The Big C which co-stars Gabourey Sidibe and Oliver Platt. They seem to be attempting to jam all the TLLL trademarks into one series...



Acerbic wit, sympathetic mortality drama, half-assed romance and of course... the sister act. It's all there. And nobody does the sister act better you must admit.

he said / he said
Salon on the continued might of French cinema and...
.......The Guardian responds. Do Brits measure up?
Todd Alcott details A Serious Man's true protagonist and...
.......Scanners responds to this reading and more
New York Times sings the praises of Greta Gerwig and...
.......My New Plaid Pants joins in for the chorus

uh, I guess I should see a Greta Gerwig movie right quick. I'm still a Gerwirgin and I hate being late to actress parties. I'm used to starting them!

Modern Maestros: David Cronenberg

Robert here, continuing my series on important contemporary directors. I'm glad Nathaniel posted his list of favorite characters of the 2000's earlier today, and even gladder that Tom Stall, protagonist of A History of Violence made the cut. He's a fantastically layered character. Also it's a nice segway into my director of choice this week. Though before we start, let's get this one bit of sad business out of the way: Yes, we'll never be able to talk about Cronenberg's Crash without having to say "No, not that Crash, the other Crash. Yes there's another movie called Crash." Le sigh.

Maestro: David Cronenberg
Known For: sci-fi, thriller, or generally disturbing takes on violent people.
Influences: plenty of great cerebral or sci-fi writers. Philip Dick, Ray Bradbury, Franz Kafka. Cinematically? According to Cronenberg, he grew up liking westerns.
Masterpieces: I respect a lot of his work. For me Eastern Promises and Dead Ringers are at the top.
Disasters: Oh eXistenZ really does kinda sUcK.
Better than you remember: I can't blame anyone for reacting with abhorrence to Crash. But it's really not that bad.
Box Office: over 40 mil for The Fly
Favorite Actor: When Cronenberg's next film is released (next year) Viggo Mortensen will be the #1 man with three showings. Right now there are a few actors who've starred in two Cronenberg films, including Ian Holm and Jeremy Irons.

Not many directors can work handily for over three decades and still be considered a "modern maestro." David Cronenberg is not only still making movies, but he's at the top of his game. He's reached a point in his career where a new Cronenberg film is greeted by movie lovers as a slightly out of the mainstream event and my guess is this is exactly where he wants to be. Through the past thirty years as we've watched his career go from horror in the late 70's to science fiction in the early 80's to psychological dramas with surreal elements in the 90's to straight thrillers this century (and for the sake of modernness, we'll try to stick to those here), his top interest has always been the same: violence. We've discussed directors who explore violence before. Tarantino loves the excitement of it. For Von Trier it's a social weapon. But for David Cronenberg, violence is simple and intimate. His movies ponder how we come to violence and how it comes to us. He examines how it alters our identity. After all, our bodies are our identities and when parts of those bodies are punctured, cut open, amputated or scarred, it alters who we are and what we are, if even just a little bit.

But all this about what violence does to us is just half of the equation (usually presented for our own musing in graphic detail). Once we understand the extent of what violence can do to a body, we can ask the other half. What kind of man can do such violence? For this, Cronenberg has any number of answers. It could be someone mentally scarred, someone in the pursuit of good, or even someone a lot more like you and I than you'd expect. It is the psyche of this individual that is at the very heart of what a Cronenberg movie is. But why stop there? Cronenberg movies always seem simple when they're fantastically layered. Where there's violence, sex isn't far behind. In an industry where most sex scenes are used as either shallow titillation or trailer teasing, Cronenberg's have always been immediate and necessary. When was the last time sex scenes were used to demonstrate the evolution of a relationship as successfully as those in A History of Violence?

Life is good. What could go wrong?

Even though Cronenberg started off as a horror director (saying that sounds so reductive doesn't it? I really don't mean it pejoratively) his style has always defied the easy tricks of that genre. Cronenberg's horrors aren't about the startle, they're about the slow build. While watching one of his films, you're never worried that something will jump out at you around the next corner. In fact you're certain that nothing will. But you know that what's around the next corner will be worse than what was around the last corner. And what's around the corner after that will be worse still. And you can't escape it. Although Cronenberg has departed the genre of supernatural horror (for good?), he's kept this method of building slow terror and it continues to serve him well.

After saying all of that I feel I haven't even come close to doing David Cronenberg justice, though if I wrote ten more paragraphs I still may not get close. One probably needs to take a psychology class and a philosophy class (and possibly be stabbed a few times, and have kinky sex, maybe simultaneously) to really get all the way through the depth of Cronenberg's canon. Excitement is already building for his next film, which will deal with a theme that while not violence (not directly at least) has been prevalent in all his work. Psychoanalysis, and the relationship between Freud and Jung (starring Viggo again and Michael Fassbender, what a cast!) Talk about things being worse around the next corner.

Psycho-Linkasis (Starring Viggo Mortensen)

id
My New Plaid Pants Michael Fassbender and Viggo Mortensen onscreen together. For David Cronenberg? And they're playing psychoanalyst giants/friends/rivals Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung? Please let this be as masterfully sick as Dead Ringers! This is the best movie news since The Hurt Locker's Best Picture win. It's even better news than that if the movie is great.


The Playlist Two new Wizard of Oz movie projects and neither of them are Wicked? Okay worst movie news of week.
Coming Soon Lone Scherfig (An Education) is moving on from Carey Mulligan and on to Anne Hathaway (!) The movie is a romance called One Day (co-starring Jim Sturgess).
MTV Amanda Seyfried will be The Girl With The Red Riding Hood for teen-girl angst obsessed Catherine Hardwicke (thirteen, Twilight).

ego
Flaunt Magazine has a feature interview with Vincent Cassell, he of the Monica Bellucci loving, good French movie-making and Eastern Promises closeted Viggo-lust. Regarding the latter: Isn't everyone gay for Viggo... or shouldn't they be?


I bring this up primarily because I always look at Flaunt Magazine in the book stores (pretty pictures!) and I never buy. So I felt a sudden pang of guilt when I got the press release on this new issue. And no, I have no idea why there's an albino peacock on the cover instead of Vincent Cassel. But I like this bit on French cinema

“Things are very different in France,” muses Cassel. “In Hollywood there’s politics; young actors have to do big, stupid movies to eventually be a box office figure and have access to great directors, stuff like that. But in France the market is a little different. In a minute, you know everybody, so you stick to what you like because, otherwise, you won’t be able to come back to it.”

You can see American actors struggling with this all the time. See Julianne Moore and Nicole Kidman's frequent trips into films they aren't suited for in order to maintain their fame levels and enormously salaries within the drama-hating reality of the American box-office.

Antagony & Ecstasy "in the spirit of whiny, unconstructive criticism" names the 10 worst best picture winners
The Awl Apple's subconcious / conscious take-over of the movies and especially Sex & The City

super-ego
LA Times Variety lets its best known critics go. Such a different world than it used to be. Pretty soon PR departments will be the only paid opinion-makers... which is something I'm sure The Corporate Machine always wanted.
Film Essent defends Jason Reitman post-Up in the Air Oscar loss
/Film Clint Eastwood is now the director for that Dustin Lance Black scripted J Edgar Hoover biopic. What a strange combo?!?!

Top 50 Performances of the Decade (Male)

They aren't ranked. Deal with it. I must thank these 47 actors again (three performers have two entries) one last time for delivering such indelible characterizations these past ten years. Bid them adieu before moving on to a fresh decade, the Teens. You may notice that this list includes no 2009 performances. It's too early! I don't wanna give away my upcoming nominees and I still need time to let the year settle. My dozen favorites are selected rather impulsively in red. And with "best/favorites" it's always subject to change with the passing of time... or moods.

• Adrien Brody, The Pianist (2002)
• Andy Serkis, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) *
  
• Ben Kingsley, Sexy Beast (2001)
• Bill Murray, Lost in Translation (2003)

"make it Suntory times"


• Billy Bob Thornton, The Man Who Wasn't There (2001) *
  
• Campbell Scott, Rodger Dodger (2002) *
  
• Chris Cooper, Adaptation (2002)
• Christian Bale, American Psycho (2000) *
  
• Clive Owen, Closer (2004)
• Daniel Craig, Casino Royale (2006) *
  
• David Strathairn, Good Night, and Good Luck. (2005)
• Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood (2007)
• Dennis Quaid, Far From Heaven (2002) *
  
• Denzel Washington, Training Day (2001)
• Ed Harris, Pollock (2000)
• Ewan McGregor, Moulin Rouge! (2001) *
  
• Forrest Whitaker, The Last King of Scotland (2006)
• Gael Garcia Bernal, Bad Education (2004) *
  



• Haley Joel Osment, A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001) *
  
• Heath Ledger, Brokeback Mountain (2005)
• Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight (2008)
• Hugh Jackman, The Fountain (2006) *
  
• Ian McKellen, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
• Jack Nicholson, About Schmidt (2002)
• Jake Gyllenhaal, Brokeback Mountain (2005)
• Javier Bardem, Before Night Falls (2000)
  
• Javier Bardem, No Country For Old Men (2007)
• Jeff Bridges, The Door in the Floor (2004) *
  

"my penis is funny"


• Jeff Daniels, The Squid and the Whale (2005) *
  
• Jim Broadbent, Moulin Rouge! (2001) *
  
• Jim Carrey, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) *
  
• John Cameron Mitchell, Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001) *
  
• Johnny Depp, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)
• Jude Law, I ♥ Huckabees (2004) *
  
• Mark Ruffalo, You Can Count On Me (2000) *
  
• Mark Wahlberg, I ♥ Huckabees (2004) *
  
• Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler (2008)
• Paul Bettany, Dogville (2004) *
  
• Paul Giamatti, Sideways (2004) *
  
• Peter Sarsgaard, Shattered Glass (2003) *
  


"he handed us fiction after fiction..."


• Robert Downey Jr, Tropic Thunder (2008)
• Ryan Gosling, Half Nelson (2006)
• Sean Penn, Milk (2008)
• Terrence Howard, Hustle & Flow (2005)
• Thomas Hayden Church, Sideways (2004)
• Tom Wilkinson, In the Bedroom (2001)
• Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, In the Mood For Love (2001) *
  
• Viggo Mortensen, Eastern Promises (2007)
• Viggo Mortensen, A History of Violence (2005) *
  
• Willem Dafoe, Shadow of the Vampire (2000)
  

Narrowing it down further woulda killed me, I tell you. The things I do for lists...

Update Summer 2010: These 2009 performances, now that they've settled in as "cinema of the past," would have to be included in the list above. Who to drop to make room for them?

• Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds (2009)
• Colin Firth, A Single Man (2009)

See also: 50 Female Performances and Top 100 Films

an * indicates a performance that was not recognized by Oscar. 46% of the list as it turns out (I did not look at Oscar nomination charts while composing this but at my own past years of "best" lists).
*

Foolish Golden Globe Predictions

Best Picture Drama

• The Hurt Locker
  
• Inglourious Basterds
• The Last Station
  
• Precious
• Up in the Air
  

The Globes sometimes throw in really interesting critical darlings that don't have much of a shot at Oscar (like Mulholland Drive or Eastern Promises) and sometimes they latch on to brand new movies that nobody cares about the next day (The Great Debaters) so, really, who the hell knows?!? Which is why I'm just tossing up my hands and predicting The Last Station. But honestly it feels like there's about 12 pictures that might be nominated. You could even see The Road surprising (they have a documented thing for Viggo) The reason I'm ignoring Avatar is that it just barely started screening. I don't know when the HFPA starting voting but the BFCA ballots, for example, were due on Saturday, roughly 36 hours after the first Avatar screenings... at least here in NYC. And based on when the online reports starting pouring in I suspect LA wasn't able to see Avatar much earlier. I know for certain from speaking to critics from various voting bodies that some of them had to turn in ballots before Avatar had ever screened.

Best Picture Comedy/Musical

• (500) Days of Summer
• It's Complicated
• Julie & Julia
• Nine
• A Serious Man
  

There are several ways this could go. I'm not sure why I'm ignoring The Proposal, The Hangover or In the Loop. Must my predictions make sense? Back off! I wanted to throw caution to the wind and stick Sherlock Holmes in there but I couldn't decide what to spurn. It is brand new and they're sometimes totally in-the-moment. I'm really rooting for (500) Days to win attention outside of indie type prizes and if it's going to it starts here. I'm still surprised it didn't blossom into a bigger hit with the public.

Best Director

• Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker
• Clint Eastwood, Invictus
• Rob Marshall, Nine
• Jason Reitman, Up in the Air
• Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds

They like "name" directors so I'm throwing Eastwood in even though I'm (foolishly) not predicting Invictus for a spot on their BP list.

Best Actress, Drama

• Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side
• Helen Mirren, The Last Station
• Carey Mulligan, An Education
• Gabourey Sidibe, Precious
• Hilary Swank, Amelia
  

I'm throwing Swank in instead of Abbie Cornish (Bright Star) because I'm a masochist and sometimes the Globes truly punish me for loving them as I do. It's like they're continually daring me to break up with them. Think of all those years they stayed devoted to my other nemesis the Zeéeeee!

there's probably only room for one of these guys... which?

Best Actor, Drama

• Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart
• George Clooney, Up in the Air
• Colin Firth, A Single Man
• Morgan Freeman, Invictus
• Tobey Maguire, Brothers
  

I suspect there'll be one big surprise here. So I went with Maguire in Brothers since I did see a gazillion HFPA voters fawning all over him at a Brothers event. I'm rooting for rising dependable thespians like Jeremy Renner in The Hurt Locker or Sam Rockwell in Moon to surprise here but I suspect the Globes obvious preference for household names means that we'll hear one of these three names called: Tobey, Viggo (The Road) or Johnny (Public Enemies) when the nominations are announced tomorrow. Am I crazy?

Best Actress, Comedy

• Marion Cotillard, Nine
• Zooey Deschanel, (500) Days of Summer
  
• Michelle Pfeiffer, Chéri
  
• Meryl Streep, It's Complicated
• Meryl Streep, Julie & Julia
  

Common wisdom has it that the Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy Globe has been narrowed down to a double dose of La Streep, "Luisa Contini", and a certain resurgent romcom queen leaving very little room -- 1 spot actually -- for anyone else. So the Globes are going to have to choose between big stars of the moment like Amy Adams or indie darlings like Zooey or fall back on old favorites like a Sarah Jessica Parker or a Michelle Pfeiffer. At this point nobody is really talking about Chéri but it might (very tentative might) not be wise to count Pfeiffer out, even without the schmoozing factor that can help you secure a Globe nod. "Why?" You ask wisely in an already crowded field "One reason" I respond. "Globe history."


There was a time where she could do no wrong with them: she was nominated six consecutive times for Best Actress (1989-1994) a feat that, as far as I recall, has never been matched. Not even by Meryl Streep (who has far more nominations in total --23!-- but not consecutively for best actress in a motion picture). On the other hand: They passed Michelle over when she really needed them for White Oleander (2002) in favor of a totally throwaway performance (Cameron Diaz in Gangs of New York) so 1994 may well be ancient history for which they have no nostalgia whatsoever. To make a long story short: I'm being silly and guessing that they ignore Bullock (who they can nominate elsewhere in drama) and go for a former flame. Hooray, wishful thinking!

Best Actor Comedy

• Bradley Cooper, The Hangover
• Matt Damon, The Informant!
• Daniel Day-Lewis, Nine
• Robert Downey Jr., Sherlock Holmes
  
• Joseph Gordon-Levitt, (500) Days of Summer
  

I'm sure I'm forgetting someone. Why else would this one seem so easy?

Best Supporting Actress

• Mariah Carey, Precious
• Penélope Cruz, Nine
• Anna Kendrick, Up in the Air
• Julianne Moore, A Single Man
• Mo'Nique, Precious
  

I know, I know... but it would be rather like the Globes to embrace a huge pop star that Oscar won't go for so I'm saying the surprise is Carey in Precious. Look, unlike many prognosticators I don't care too much about my success ratio. I'm way more interested in teasing out the 'what if' possibilities. And they've previously nominated Beyoncé, Courtney Love and Madonna so why not risk it?

Best Supporting Actor

• Alec Baldwin, It's Complicated
• Matt Damon, Invictus
• Alfred Molina, An Education
• Christopher Plummer, The Last Station
  
• Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds
  

If there's a surprise omission here I think we might see, or rather, not see Alfred Molina. We've been taking his candidacy for granted. The Globes might say we've overestimated his Oscar chances. I also wonder if they might shove Baldwin into the lead actor comedy category.

Still more...

Screenplay: An Education, Inglourious Basterds, The Last Station, Precious, Up in the Air
Animated Feature: Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Coraline, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Ponyo, Up
Song: "Weary Kind" Crazy Heart, "I See in Color" Precious, "Cinema Italiano" Nine, "Take it All" Nine, "All is Love" Where the Wild Things Are
Score: Avatar, Coco Avant Chanel, The Informant!, The Princess and the Frog, Up

Those final ones are all kind of tossed off. Predicting is exhausting and tomorrow it's obsolete anyway. Stay tuned.

More would be Globe prophets...
And the Winner Is... predicts a shutout for The Hangover
Oscars Latin predicts... Ryan Reynolds for The Proposal (!)
Abzee predicts... Michelle Pfeiffer for Chéri
Crumb by Crumb sees snubs for both Precious and An Education in Best Picture

"How come he's so good at killing people?"

Links

Old Hollywood I had no idea that blooper reels existed of old black and white films. It's so weird to see Jimmy Stewart, Bette Davis and Bogie flubbing their lines. It ain't right!

Victim of the Time "a half-child of Disney"
I Need My Fix alerts us to another Worth1000 contest. Check out 'Viggo by Carravaggio' among many others

Fin de Cinema France's young actor Yasmine Belmadi (Criminal Lovers, Who Killed Bambi?) dies.

Topless Robot a 12 year old girl made feature length zombie film? My god I'm so unaccomplished (sniffle)

MTV I was sick to death of hearing about Comic-Con before it even began last night but I am a sucker for James Cameron and I won't be able to resist the Avatar news. This is a 14' tall powersuit from the film.

Broadway World I'm assuming you've heard that Johnny Depp dropped the desire to portray the legendary Carol Channing into an interview recently. Channing responds

It is not a new concept to me. Not at all. Men have been imitating me for as long as I can remember. In fact, most of the impersonations I have seen have had a five o'clock shadow. I imagine, when or if Johnny should portray me, he will succeed.

While you've been reading this post, I've been sitting in a screening room watching Meryl Streep do Julia Child. More soon...

Off Cinema

Loyal K*N*G this is fun. "Fast Food Mafia" artwork

FourFour sums up Lindsay Lohan TV movie Labor Pains for you.

Padded Link

<--- Last week Rope of Silicon shared the creepy teaser poster for Shutter Island (previously discussed here) and now JA is all hyped up. Has Scorsese made a picture as brutal and scary as Cape Fear since? I'm not thinking "Whatever Happened to Patient 67?" So much as "Is Emily Mortimer Patient 67? And if so, will people finally realize how versatile and quite awesome she is?" I know that's not quite how the marketing folks wanted me to react but I'm a special case. I think only of actresses whenever possible. I guess I really need to read Dennis Lehane's novel before this picture opens.

links
Tapeworthy shares the news that Friday Night Lights has been renewed for two more seasons. Grand news for any fans of quality television.
The Big Picture wonders about the idealogical inconsistencies of snubbing movies because of an actor's politics.
Empire on the girlpower casting of Zach Snyder's Sucker Punch. I was going to say Snyder doing a movie with female leads? ... but then I remembered the wonderful Sarah Polley and she sure as hell anchored and powered Dawn of the Dead. May one of his new actresses can do the same for this film.


Boy Culture points us to an inspiring new site inspired by Harvey Milk's activism.
MightyGodKing finds the difference between Pixar and Dreamworks Animation
My New Plaid Pants wishes Ewan McGregor a sweet birthday. I miss Ewan. Please make lots of good movies very soon.
Extra Criticum offers some excellent DVD rental ideas on that "10 Characters" meme I struggled through earlier today.
Cinemavistaramascope enthuses about the trailer to Taking Woodstock. He worked on the film.
The Exploding Kinetoscope RIP Andy Hallett, Angel's colorful demon host "Lorne".
MTV News Eastern Promises sequel? I am totally willing to go back for seconds although I can't imagine what plot point could get Viggo Mortensen completely starkers again. Bummer.