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The Hurt Locker
Kathryn Bigelow
Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, Guy Pearce, Brian Geraghty
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Jeremy Renner
The Hurt Locker
Staff Sergeant William James is the kind of character that the Captain in a cop movie would call “a loose cannon”. It’s an intense, showy role in a very intense movie. While the other soldiers in The Hurt Locker approach potential bombs with utmost caution, James shows up with utter confidence and saves the day, again and again. Jeremy Renner is responsible, then, for making James human instead of a superhero. Renner lets us know that James has that confidence because he’s very, very good at his job, but also because he’s an adrenaline junkie who just might not mind getting blown up. Renner shows us the cracks behind James’ steely-eyed stare when James picks a fight with a fellow team member, or rushes off blindly after unseen enemies. Those cracks are especially apparent after James comes home to his wife and child, when we see more wordless despair in his face during a simple trip to the grocery store than in anything the man has faced in Iraq. Staff Sergeant William James is the kind of role that would guarantee a more famous actor an Oscar nomination. If there’s any justice in the Academy, it’s a role that will earn Jeremy Renner one, too. 
Chris Conaton
Watchmen
Zack Snyder
Cast: Patrick Wilson, Jackie Earle Haley, Malin Akerman, Billy Crudup, Matthew Goode, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Stephen McHattie, Matt Frewer, Carla Gugino
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Jackie Earle Haley
Watchmen
Rorschach is Watchmen‘s doomsaying, antisocial vigilante, and for large stretches of his performance in Zack Snyder’s film adaptation, Jackie Earle Haley plays the character from behind an iconic inkblot mask. The actor’s voiceover performance helps to create the film’s hardhearted landscape (“all the whores and politicians will look up and shout ‘Save us!’ And I’ll look down, and whisper ‘No.’ “), but Haley truly impresses when the mask comes off. In an incarceration/interrogation sequence, Rorschach describes the moment he lost his former identity as Walter Kovacs. Although Snyder vividly illustrates the flashback, it is Haley that owns the scene. With dead eyes and a face that seems to be actively suppressing horrors indelibly etched in his memory, the actor reveals layers that even his acclaimed Little Children comeback left unmined. Later emotional/physical eruptions in the jail and especially at the film’s climax, form a powerful contrast with Haley’s command of quiet intensity elsewhere. This is a superbly modulated performance that recalls Robert DeNiro’s Travis Bickle, another character fully committed to his own fatally stubborn sense of justice. Thomas Britt
A Serious Man
Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
Michael Stuhlbarg, Richard Kind, Adam Arkin, Sari Lennick, Fyvush Finkel, Aaron Wolff, Jessica McManus
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Michael Stuhlbarg
A Serious Man
While some have called his performance the epitome of the “self-hating Jew”, its creators, the Coen Brothers, might argue differently. Indeed, when viewed through the perspective of the entire film’s vantage point, when seen as one man struggling mightily against the ridiculous religious mandates that require a confusing concession to “turn the other cheek”, we end up with a portrait of post-modern man manufactured out of silly ‘60s stereotypes. Through the anger and the Antisemitism, the why-me’s and the why-not’s, we get one of the most poignant looks at losing one’s connection to life every conceived, all thanks to Stuhlbarg’s sheepdog squareness. And then the ending arrives… Bill Gibron
District 9
Neill Blomkamp
Sharlto Copley, Jason Cope, Eugene Khumbanyiwa, Nathalie Boltt, Sylvaine Strike
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Sharlto Copley
District 9
While many of Hollywood’s elite performers should and probably will receive dozens of accolades and awards for their work this year, none of their time-tested skills could really have prepared American audiences for the raw authenticity of Sharlto Copley’s performance as bureaucrat Wikus in Neil Blomkamp’s cautionary sci-fi film District 9. Aside from a small part in the short upon with Blomkamp’s feature is based, this is Copley’s introduction to the world of acting in cinema, and his heel-face turn is as real and convincing as James Dean’s breakout work in Rebel Without a Cause and as heart-breaking and tear-worthy as Meryl Streep’s acclaimed appearance in Sophie’s Choice. In the tradition of Italian neo-realism, Blomkamp’s choice of a non-professional actor like Copley for the lead role paid off in spades, helping transform what could have been a didactic pseudo-documentary into a powerful, emotional masterwork with, ironically, a very human face. Kevin Brettauer
Inglourious Basterds
Quentin Tarantino
Daniel Bruhl, Michael Fassbender, Diane Kruger, Mélanie Laurent, Brad Pitt, Eli Roth, Til Scheweiger, Christoph Waltz
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Christoph Waltz
Inglourious Basterds
As SS Colonel Hans Landa, aka the ‘Jew Hunter,’ Christoph Waltz grabs attention from the moment he is on screen, and ends up quite literally stealing the picture away from Brad Pitt and his ‘Basterds’. He is utterly surprising in Inglourious Basterds, able to shoot from menacing to very funny in seconds, with a manic smile and steely, cruel face utilized in many a close-up. Fluent in four languages, Waltz is an extraordinary find by Tarantino, unearthed from several Austrian TV movies into one of the year’s standout performances. Tarantino’s banter has never sounded better than coming out of Waltz’s mouth. He leans in, he baits teasingly; his persnickety enunciation, use of anecdotes, and boyish excitement seem totally removed from a Nazi colonel. He has the film’s funniest moments, and his delivery gives the film its best lines: “That’s a bingo!,” “I love rumours!,” “Ah – wait for the cream…” He inhabits his role as larger than life, yet plays Landa himself as quite unknowable—always one step ahead of us, able to turn the film on a dime. It’s a thoroughly brilliant, transcendent performance. Andrew Blackie
