As the 83rd Academy Awards approach, heralding rs power leveling the moment when critics will finally stop rehashing the year that was and start paying attention to new movies again, it's time for one last look at films that didn't get the love they deserved when they played in theaters during 2010. The goal of this survey isn't to denigrate the films and performances that received nominations, because pictures from The Social Network to True Grit earned every bit of praise they have received. Instead, the purpose of this article is to draw your attention to movies and performances you might enjoy as much as the ones that are competing for statuettes.
You'll notice, by the way, that I haven't proposed an alternate nominee for Best Picture. I'm ambivalent about the Academy's recent choice to include ten nominees in that category instead of five, so I feel peculiar about suggesting that eleven films deserved spots in the big race. If pressed for an answer on the subject, however, I would say that Fair Game, The Ghost Writer, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, and Solitary Man impressed me more than 127 Hours, Black Swan, The Kids Are All Right, and Winter's Bone, so if I were making the list of nominated movies, it would look a bit different. That said, here are my nominees for this year's Alternate Oscars.
Best Actor: Michael Douglas, for Solitary Man. Looking beyond the nostalgic interest in his reprise of the Gordon Gekko character for Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, Douglas' biggest onscreen accomplishment this year was delivering his most fully realized performance since his great turn in Wonder Boys, way back in sell runescape gold 2000. For the criminally under-seen Solitary Man, Douglas slyly revisited and updated the type of irresponsible lothario character he played so well in the '80s and '90s by portraying Ben Kalmen, a car salesman trying to bounce back from scandal. As arrogant, horny, and swaggering as a man half his age, Ben goes way too far by sleeping with his girlfriend's college-age daughter, only to discover how few true friends he really has after a lifetime of self-indulgence. Douglas hits notes ranging from ambitious to forlorn to pathetic, but by staying true to his characterization, he never makes a cheap play for audience sympathy; instead, he earns a kind of grudging respect as viewers discover why he's clinging to his lost youth so desperately. Mature and sophisticated, Douglas' performance was a triumphant demonstration of the craftsmanship he has developed over the course of four decades spent in front of the camera.
Runner-Up: George Clooney, for The American. Clooney didn't exactly break a sweat in this elegant thriller/character piece about a hit man on the run in Europe, because director Anton Corbijn's style is so minimalistic that Clooney mostly just moves through frames looking impressive and stoic. Yet beneath the film's slick surface, Clooney does some fascinating things, efficiently sketching the tortured soul of a man trying to break free from his steel-hard shell in order to find emotional connection. Performing double-duty on the picture as one of its producers, Clooney deserves praise not only for delivering a fine portrayal, but also for defying expectations by tackling material 180 degrees removed buying runescape gold from what one might reasonably expect of a likeable movie star. Anchored by Clooney's quietly impressive work, The American is like Solitary Man: A simple but beautifully realized film that didn't reach a wide enough audience.
Best Actress: Naomi Watts, for Fair Game. Impeccably personifying real-life CIA agent Valerie Plame, who was "outed" by vindictive operatives of the Bush administration, Watts reiterates that she's one of Hollywood's strongest leading ladies, a glamorous movie star capable of digging into challenging dramatic material in a way that blends artistic credibility and high-wattage charisma. Therefore it's a shame that so few people saw Doug Liman's excellent film, which also boasts a fiery co-starring performance by Sean Penn as Plame's hot-tempered husband, political consultant Joe Wilson. Comfortably occupying Plame's stylish garb of slick Armani suits and gleaming blonde hair, Watts displayed equal amounts of strength and vulnerability in a performance that could easily have slipped into empty grandstanding. Her restraint is as impressive as the sparks she strikes in the movie's many heated confrontations.
Runner-Up: Emma Stone, for Easy A. Borrowing a word from the film's title, it's easy to dismiss a charming lead performance in a light comedy by presuming that all the actor has to do is look pretty and smile. As rising star Stone demonstrated throughout every moment of Easy A, creating the correct light-comedy mood is a delicate balancing act. Playing cheap runescape money a whip-smart high-school student who lets a rumor about her alleged sexual activities grow out of control, Stone had to be ambitious, approachable, funny, intimidating, intelligent, likeable, nonthreatening, sexy, and threatening all at once, without ever teetering so far into melodrama that she killed the inherent comedy of her character's fraught situation. Does that sound easy? No, but Stone ruled the school from the beginning of the picture to the end. It remains to be seen whether the actress will be able to match this level of incandescence in subsequent performances, but she should be thrilled that her star-making turn allowed her to showcase so many different aspects of her talent, since few young actresses get famous without simultaneously getting typecast.
Best Supporting Actor: John C. Reilly, for Cyrus. Although Reilly's character is really the protagonist of this offbeat indie comedy, I'll use the fact that the movie is named after Jonah Hill's character to slide Reilly into the supporting category. A priceless actor with innumerable great performances under his belt, Reilly outdid himself in Cyrus, a heavily improvised character piece about a middle-aged slob (Reilly) who falls in love with a woman (Marisa Tomei) who is way too attached to her adult son, Cyrus (Hill). All three actors did amazing, vanity-free work, but Reilly commanded the movie with his painful portrayal of a self-destructive, self-loathing loser who freaks out when he realizes that his good fortune of landing in a relationship with Tomei's character will be complicated by Cyrus' creepy mother love. Reilly is believably sad and stupid as a man hard-wired to make bad decisions. Once it becomes buy rs gold clear that Cyrus is a maniac, we learn to appreciate and root for Reilly's doofus character because we all know what it's like to be stymied by a formidable opponent. Additionally, it was a relief to see Reilly escaping his rut of silly big-budget comedies, even though appearing in those comedies has probably been quite beneficial to his bank account.
Runner-Up (Tie): Kevin Costner, for The Company Men, and Oliver Platt, for Please Give. In John Wells' smart but schematic downsizing drama The Company Men, Costner gives a winning performance as an unpretentious contractor who hires his brother-in-law (Ben Affleck) when the brother-in-law's cushy corporate job is eliminated. Costner's Boston accent is a bit dodgy, but in every other respect he hits the right notes as the film's exemplar of working-class decency. In Nicole Holofcener's biting social satire Please Give, an exploration of guilt and self-loathing among the upper middle class, Platt is characteristically edgy and funny as an antiques dealer who falls into a disastrous affair with a cosmetologist (Amanda Peet). Always willing to humiliate himself for a role, Platt uses every imaginable color as he paints a portrait of middle-aged denial and desperation.
Best Supporting Actress: Juliette Lewis, for Conviction. Delivering one of those potent mini-performances that raises the level of an entire movie, '90s wild child Lewis did unexpectedly disciplined work in Conviction, the earnest but ordinary true-life story of a blue-collar woman (Hilary Swank) who becomes a lawyer in order to free her wrongfully imprisoned brother (Sam Rockwell). Even with dramatic powerhouses Minnie Driver, Rockwell, and Swank playing larger roles, Lewis stole the movie with her showy role as a skank with key information related to the brother's case. Wearing grotesque makeup on her teeth and spewing hilariously harebrained ad libs, Lewis was funny and real as a white-trash opportunist who seems trivial because she's constantly cheapest runescape gold distracted by television, then reveals surprising savvy by intuiting that she's about to ender a legal trap. That's a lot of narrative ground to cover in a handful of minutes, but Lewis did so with memorable inventiveness and vivacity.
Runner-Up: Catherine Keener, for Please Give. Complementing Platt's terrific performance, Keener soars as his equally befuddled wife and business partner, a well-off New Yorker wracked with guilt that she's not doing enough to help others, and oblivious to the fact that her marriage is in trouble. Working with frequent collaborator Holofcener, Kenner skewers all sorts of upper-middle-class foibles, from the ridiculous extremes of unchecked political correctness to the equally ridiculous extremes of unchecked narcissism. It's tricky to pull off vain and vulnerable at the same time, but Keener does that and so much more.
Best Director: Edgar Wright, for Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Frenetic, inventive, and tuned into the postmodern DNA of the Information Age, Wright's exuberant filmmaking style turned this adaptation of an offbeat romantic comic book into a spectacular celebration of short attention spans. Taking viewers deep inside the mindset of contemporary kids who think in terms of 24/7 digital connectedness, Wright used clever visual devices, sly sound snippets, and whiz-bang editing to tell the story of Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera), a young indie rocker who falls for a sweet stranger (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), only to discover he must face her "evil exes" in over-the-top videogame-style duels. Unlike the year's other big "inventive" Hollywood feature, Christopher Nolan's Inception, Scott Pilgrim is a movie that could only have been conceived and executed in the current historical moment, because its narrative is inextricably linked to the way people act and think right now. Also unlike Inception, Wright's movie presents its story clearly and enjoyably, reveling in accessibility instead of opacity.
Runner-up: Roman Polanski, for The Ghost Writer. Returning to his roots as one of Europe's true masters of suspense, Polanski demonstrated ruthless efficiency in crafting this deft political thriller about a writer (Ewan McGregor) recruited to clean up the memoirs of a former U.K. prime minister (Pierce Brosnan); the buy cheap runescape gold writer discovers the ex-PM's darkest secret and becomes a target of international conspirators. Employing the same chilly cynicism and ingenuity he brought to '70s classics like Chinatown and The Tenant, Polanski puts viewers inside the skin of McGregor's character, who is desperately trying to discover not just who is after him, but what exactly is happening since his situation is cloaked in one layer of mystery after another. Nobody evokes the feeling of bewildered disorientation more effectively than Polanski, and the filmmaker draws fine performances from consistent performers (McGregor, Tom Wilkinson, Olivia Williams) and inconsistent performers (Brosnan, Kim Cattrall, even Jim Belushi) alike.
Best Documentary: The Tillman Story. Now that we're more than two years into the Obama era, it may seem like old news to explore the misbehavior of the George W. Bush administration, but because it seems as if none of the biggest Bushies will face real prosecution for their crimes and misdemeanors, then the court of public opinion may be the forum in which runescape powerleveling those miscreants stand trial. Case in point: Fiction movies like Fair Game and nonfiction pictures like The Tillman Story, a scorching exposéof the manner in which Bush operatives knowingly misrepresented the circumstances surrounding the death of Pat Tillman Jr., the NFL player who quit football to serve in Afghanistan. Methodically detailing the unfortunate SNAFU that resulted in Tillman's death, probably by friendly fire, the picture then explains how the Bushies insidiously spun Tillman's demise into a "heroic" sacrifice that served their desired war narrative, even though doing so spat in the face of Tillman's stalwart character and the truth of his demise. Infuriating and provocative, The Tillman Story is a sobering reminder of how easily the truth is manipulated by those with influence over the world's media—and also a potent celebration of the Tillman family, unconventional patriots whose love of country put them at painful odds with unscrupulous government officials.
Writer/filmmaker Peter Hanson is the author of "Dalton Trumbo, Hollywood Rebel," "The Cinema of Generation X," and powerleveling rs "Tales from the Script: 50 Hollywood Screenwriters Share Their Stories."
Post je objavljen 28.02.2011. u 03:37 sati.