Director: Todd Phillips
Cast: Bradley Cooper, Heather Graham, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis, Justin Bartha, Jeffrey Tambor, Mike Tyson
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Zach Galifianankis
The Hangover
Comedies often require something special, a secret weapon that is guaranteed to lift even the most mediocre sequence into a moment of wicked wit wonder. Enter stand-up turned comic subterfuge Galifianakis. Already an oddball when he takes the stage for his dada meets dementia act, he takes every single line he’s given in Todd Phillip’s crude, rude Sin City Summer hit and turns it into something offbeat and yet amazing. Even when asking the dopiest of questions (“Is this the REAL Caesar’s Palace?”), he perverts our expectations and finds a way to completely catch us off guard — that is, when we’re not doubled over in unanticipated and uncontrollable laughter. Bill Gibron
Director: Oren Moverman
Cast: Ben Foster, Woody Harrelson, Samantha Morton, Jena Malone, Eamonn Walker
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Ben Foster
The Messenger
The Messenger is filled with rage, subtle grace notes and an aching poignancy that is often completely absent in other high profile films in which themes of war are the centerpiece and at the reactive, sometimes-volatile epicenter of the story is the recently-returned from combat soldier Will, played expertly by Foster. In an iconic, career-transforming performance, we see a character who is wounded, literally and figuratively. This decorated, multi-dimensional Staff Sergeant, who challenges and often breaks the rules, is guided by his own moral compass and Foster relishes each moment of this actor’s showcase and thoughtfully composes a character shaped by the military that is not a slave to it’s ideals, who instead chooses to march to his own drummer as he tries to figure out his place in a harsh, new world that doesn’t always celebrate the war hero. Matt Mazur
Director: Jim Sheridan
Cast: Tobey Maguire, Natalie Portman, Jake Gyllenhaal, Sam Shepard, Mare Winningham, Bailee Madison, Taylor Geare, Patrick Flueger, Clifton Collins Jr.
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Tobey Maguire
Brothers
In a film where every last performance, right down to the young actors playing the children, is of the highest caliber, it could be difficult to single out one as best. But when we’re talking about Tobey Maguire in Brothers, it’s not hard at all to see why he’s made the awards lists this year. Being surrounded by such strong turns from the rest of the cast surely elevated the game, but it’s been years since Maguire has given a performance of this intensity. One of the greatest pleasures of watching a film (even one touching on unpleasant subjects) is being able to put yourself in a characters’ place, and Maguire’s exceptional portrayal not only makes this possible, it makes it unavoidable. He allows us to peer inside the tortured psyche of Marine Sam Cahill, and to actually feel what it’s like to be trapped in there. He’s brilliant. Christel Loar
Directors: Pete Docter, Bob Peterson
Cast: Edward Asner, Christopher Plumber, Jordan Nagai, Bob Peterson, Delroy Lindo
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Ed Asner
Up
The idea of an animated film with a grumpy widower as its main character instead of a know-it-all whippersnapper is refreshing enough, however, it’s even better when said old man is voiced by Ed Asner. Although Asner defined “loveably grizzled” with the role of Lou Grant, he showcases the power of conveying character solely through voice with Up‘s Carl Fredricksen. Although Carl is “just” a cartoon character, Asner’s characterization manages to wring empathy from an audience of all ages. A septuagenarian dealing with the recent death of his wife, Carl remains sharp as a tack and painfully aware of his changing surroundings. Tones of anger, regret, and sadness can be heard in his voice throughout, making this a very real, very un-cartoonish characterization. Asner gifts Carl with a voice that embodies an adventurer’s spirit that allows you to hear the smile in the character’s voice as he discovers life beyond the existence he knew and loved, and finding joy in new people and friends in his later years. Lana Cooper
Director: Lone Scherfig
Cast: Carey Mulligan, Peter Sarsgaard, Alfred Molina, Olivia Williams, Rosamund Pike, Dominic Cooper, Emma Thompson
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Alfred Molina
An Education
As Jack, the well-meaning but (to quote Lynn Barber) “socially untamed” father of An Education, Alfred Molina achieves a difficult balance. Although Jack genuinely wants his daughter, protagonist Jenny (Carey Mulligan) to succeed at her education and prosper in life, his perceptions of success and evolving society are decidedly antiquated. Both the anti-Semitism that creeps into his language and the chauvinistic perspective through which he views Jenny’s options threaten to drain the character of any sympathy. Yet Molina finds a way to make the character’s heart seem to be in the right place, albeit frequently misguided. Of the many “educations” director Lone Scherfig develops within the film, Jack’s is one of the most effective and realistic. In an early scene, his loud defense of his breadwinner role ends with slamming the door and leaving home. Towards the end of the film, he tries his best to soothe his damaged daughter by speaking words of comfort through her bedroom door. Molina’s toughness and tenderness are than of an old-school man with much left to learn, and that recognition is what ultimately endears the character to the audience. Thomas Britt
15 – 11
Director: Greg Mottola
Cast: Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, Ryan Reynolds, Bill Hader, Kristen Wiig, Martin Starr
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Jesse Eisenberg
Adventureland
You may have known an awkward Romeo like Adventureland‘s James when you were in college. If you were lucky, he made you a mix tape of his favorite bummer songs: “real pit of despair stuff [he thought] you’ll love.” Or maybe you whiled away the hours of a lame summer job with a guy like him — brilliant when it came to books, naive regarding matters of the heart, and often undone by his tendency to blather. As the recent college grad, Jesse Eisenberg captures James in all his bright, bumbling glory. Two pitch-perfect moments stand out. When James finally makes a move with the girl of his dreams, boldly pulling her in for a kiss, he pauses as their lips part to ask, “Was it okay that I did just that?” Just as revealing is the moment when he quietly bests his romantic rival with a knowing but sympathetic glance. Yes, James wants to be a man, but more important, he yearns to be a good man. In this lovely performance, Eisenberg makes us believe that his flawed character will one day get there. Marisa Carroll
Director: Scott Cooper
Cast: Jeff Bridges, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Colin Farrell, Robert Duvall
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Jeff Bridges
Crazy Heart
The wily Bridges as Bad Blake in Crazy Heart immediately recalls Tender Mercies-era Robert Duvall’s Oscar-winning character Mac Sledge (Duvall, for symmetry, co-stars with Bridges and Maggie Gyllenhaal here). The actor’s country-singing train wreck with a heart of gold showcases one of the unsung great actors in cinema (see also: The Big Lebowski, Fearless, The Door in the Floor, etc.). Bridges explains his process of getting into character: “In a general sense, making a movie’s sort of like a magic trick. There are all kinds of sleight of hand things going on and then there is real alchemy going on (Bridges grins wickedly). You’re kind of summoning up the muse or whatever. My approach is that I try to make it real and interesting. What holds your attention doesn’t necessarily have to be that the character’s a good guy but that he just makes you wonder ‘what’s next’ and makes you care about that. You don’t have to like some guy who is walking down the street but you can find him fascinating. The same thing works in movies, too. You’ve got to find that thing that’s interesting that doesn’t pop or rip the fabric. In other words, there are so many things that are different in movies that are like that – from wardrobe to makeup. You don’t want to think ‘wow! That’s wonderful makeup,’ you want it to be invisible, you don’t want to see that. You go for those things.” — Jeff Bridges to Matt Mazur in New York, December 2009 Matt Mazur
Director: J.J. Abrams
Cast: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Eric Bana, Bruce Greenwood, Karl Urban, John Cho, Winona Ryder, Ben Cross, Simon Pegg
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Karl Urban
Star Trek
“Space is disease and danger wrapped in darkness and silence,” growls Karl Urban’s Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy in his first scene, making a strong initial impression as a sharp-tongued pessimist. J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek gleefully smashes almost every sacred franchise icon in sight, but Urban’s McCoy wields a silver hammer. As much as his performance is a delightful and sometimes uncanny tribute to DeForest Kelley’s beloved crusty medical officer, Urban also slides a quality of formidability into it. He injects medicine viciously, as other men would throw a punch. McCoy was always the on-screen proxy for sci-fi sceptics, his no-nonsense asides letting the air out Trek’s balloon before it inflated to self-righteous proportions. Urban’s McCoy vocalizes our doubts as sarcastically as Kelley’s did, but he does so with a menace and muscle that is all his own. Ross Langager
Director: Tom Ford
Cast: Colin Firth, Julianne Moore, Matthew Goode, Ginnifer Goodwin, Nicholas Hoult
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Colin Firth
A Single Man
Baffling as it may be, I had never once before seen a Colin Firth film prior to this performance. Yet now that I have, I have the desire to immerse myself in a Firthian marathon. The way in which he manages to capture every subtle physical nuance of this deteriorating soul is a breathtaking artform and one of the most exquisite portraits of a gay man ever captured on film. When voters fill out their Oscar ballots this month, it would be criminal not to include Colin Firth as one of their top nominees. James De Roxtra
Director: Werner Herzog
Cast: Nicolas Cage, Eva Mendes, Val Kilmer, Fairuza Balk, Jennifer Coolidge, Vondie Curtis Hall, Shawn Hatosy, Xzibit, Brad Dourif
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Nicolas Cage
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans
Occasionally, students sneer and laugh at my defense of Nicholas Cage. This is likely due to the fact that much of the actor’s best work took place 15 to 20 years ago. For many younger viewers, high points as varied as Raising Arizona, Wild at Heart, and Leaving Las Vegas are distant, or completely undiscovered, reference points within Cage’s filmography — a perception supported by the actor’s admittedly questionable choice of scripts in the past decade and a half. Werner Herzog’s Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call – New Orleans is, therefore, a kind of godsend, as it both validates those still holding out hope for Cage and rewards said support with a performance for the ages. Completely transcending inevitable comparisons to Harvey Keitel (because of the film’s title) and Klaus Kinski (because of the director and tenor of the role), Cage hits what seems like — even on repeat viewings — an impossible range of notes within a single film. His Lt. Terence McDonaugh is a man who risks losing honor and forsaking long term goals in order to fulfill immediate needs, especially the demands of his various addictions. Cage’s commitment to this quicksilver quality leads to nonstop surprises that must be seen to be believed. From tender moments with his prostitute girlfriend to hallucinogenic communication with iguanas to questioning elderly ladies at gunpoint, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call – New Orleans offers the full, unrestrained range of Cage. Awards do not yet exist for this. Thomas Britt
10 – 6
Director: Michael Hoffman
Cast: Christopher Plummer, Helen Mirren, James McAvoy, Paul Giamatti, Kerry Condon
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Christopher Plummer
The Last Station
Like many stage and screen greats who have been around long enough, Christopher Plummer has been in enough dross over the years (Dracula 2000, The Lake House) that it can be easy to forget exactly how formidable they are. But in Michael Hoffman’s good-not-great The Last Station, Plummer delivers one of the year’s most resonant performances. Playing Leo Tolstoy in his final years, Plummer presents the aging literary lion as not so much Russian artistic treasure but impish mystic who exhibits more lusty earthiness than his newfound followers would prefer. Part visionary, part misled fool, Plummer’s Tolstoy is potently, frustratingly human, the flawed giant who barely understands the passions his words and deeds arouse, and feels powerless to stop them. Chris Barsanti
Director: Armando Iannucci
Cast: Peter Capaldi, Tom Hollander, James Gandolfini, Chris Addison, Anna Chlumsky, Gina McKee
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Peter Capaldi
In the Loop
Richard Pryor was an artist. His preferred medium: four letter words. One assumes, however, that even the late great stand-up god would bow with some begrudging deference to the sensational slang anger of this British actor’s amazing use of the curse. Beyond all the Type-A personality gripes and backdoor political intrigue, Capaldi’s character stands out because of the clever combination of blue language laughs he concocts. Just watch his face as it works itself into another terrific tirade, as rants and railings spew forth like never-ending waterfalls of nastiness. And the best part? Though he’s totally intolerable as a player, we can’t wait for him to comeback and criticize everyone over and over again. Bill Gibron
Director: Jason Reitman
Cast: George Clooney, Vera Farmiga, Anna Kendrick, Jason Bateman
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George Clooney
Up in the Air
George Clooney’s character in Up in the Air is, on the surface, quite similar to the character he usually plays. Ryan Bingham is charming, suave, and supremely self-confident. He’s so comfortable with his life on the road that he gives motivational speeches encouraging people to divest themselves of not just their possessions, but their friends and family as well. It’s a testament to Clooney’s skill as an actor that he gradually, carefully shows us the cracks in Bingham’s facade. When Bingham has to spend time at “home”, he looks desperately unhappy in his barely-furnished one-bedroom apartment. When he has to go to a small town in Wisconsin to attend his sister’s wedding, we can see that Bingham doesn’t really know how to deal with people on a personal level. He knows how to fire employees and “set them on a new life path”, sure. But when he starts to fall for Alex (Vera Farmiga), his casual acquaintance from the road, he loses all sense of perspective. Bingham may be a showy role for Clooney, but his acting performance here is subtle and nuanced, and one of his best. Chris Conaton
Director: Duncan Jones
Cast: Sam Rockwell, Kaya Scodelario, Dominique McElligott, Kevin Spacey
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Sam Rockwell
Moon
This year’s Moon benefits doubly from its astute casting of Sam Rockwell. First, Rockwell gives an emotional center to the film’s ruminations on loneliness and identity as Sam Bell, a lunar employee monitoring the extraction of the moon’s materials. Second, the fact that he is practically the only human in the film allows him to stretch out, explore his range, and turn in a career-best performance. Rockwell proves himself to be an actor of astounding depth, capturing the withdrawn, desperate for company, eccentric temperament of a man left alone in a confined environment for too long. He even accomplishes the difficult task of convincingly playing different versions of himself, matching the demands of Duncan Jones’ script with nuance and commitment to make each of the film’s ‘Sam Bells’ distinct. Rockwell needs more challenging roles like this Andrew Blackie
Director: Spike Jonze
Cast: Max Records, James Gandolfini, Lauren Ambrose, Chris Cooper, Forest Whitaker, Catherine O’Hara, Paul Dano, Catherine Keener
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James Gandolfini
Where the Wild Things Are
The first time we see Carol, one of the creatures in Spike Jonze’s melancholy wonder, Where the Wild Things Are he is thrashing about the forest in a rage, razing everything in sight. He’s a fearsome Wild Thing indeed, but through James Gandolfini’s extraordinarily canny performance, Carol becomes the embodiment of our most challenging emotions — jealousy, fear, fury, and longing — the ones we often fail to understand, much less articulate. Like he did with ruthless mobster Tony Soprano on six seasons of The Sopranos, here Gandolfini shows us the wounded humanity lurking beneath the surface of a seeming monster. His Carol is a tortured artist and a loyal friend, and it’s because he dares to dream of a better world that his anger and anguish run so deep. His unforgettable howl of sorrow at the film’s conclusion could smash your heart to pieces. Marisa Carroll
5 – 1
Director: Kathryn Bigelow
Cast: 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
Director: Zack Snyder
Cast: 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
Director: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
Cast: 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
Director: Neill Blomkamp
Cast: 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
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Cast: 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
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