As ever I got carried away. This post was going to cover my picks for cast and crew in 2009, but I ended up going on about performers at such length that I figured it’s best to save the rest for later.
Best Actress: Charlotte Gainsbourg (Antichrist)
Honorable Mentions:
Rachel Weisz (The Brothers Bloom)
Isabelle Huppert (White Material)
Zoe Saldana (Avatar, Star Trek)
Melanie Laurent (Inglourious Basterds)
Alison Lohman (Drag Me To Hell)
Best Actor: Hott Sam Rockwell (Moon, G-Force)
Honorable Mentions:
Nicolas Cage (Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, G-Force)
Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker)
Peter Capaldi (In The Loop)
Willem Dafoe (Antichrist, Fantastic Mr. Fox)
Joseph Gordon-Levitt ((500) Days of Summer)
Best Supporting Actress: Anna Kendrick (Up In The Air)
Honorable Mentions:
Diane Kruger (Inglourious Basterds)
Gina McKee (In The Loop)
Mimi Kennedy (In The Loop)
Lauren Ambrose (Where The Wild Things Are)
CCH Pounder (Avatar)
Best Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds)
Honorable Mentions:
Michael Fassbender (Inglourious Basterds)
Billy Crudup (Watchmen)
Tom Hollander (In The Loop)
Zach Galafianakis (The Hangover, G-Force)
Ben Affleck (Extract)
Breakthrough Actress: Katie Jarvis (Fish Tank)
Breakthrough Actor: Tahar Rahim (A Prophet)
Best Voice Cast For An Animated Movie: Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs
Anna Faris, Bill Hader, James Caan, Neil Patrick Harris, Andy Samberg, Mr. T, Bruce Campbell, Bobb’e J. Thompson, Benjamin Bratt, Lauren Graham and Will Forte, all perfectly cast and all funny. Even Al Roker is good in it. It’s a kind of miracle.
Most Surprising Dramatic Performance From An Actress Better Known For Her Comedic Work: Maya Rudolph (Away We Go)
Most Surprising Dramatic Performance From An Actor Better Known For His Comedic Work: Ricky Gervais (The Invention of Lying) (It’s not a drama, but he sells the dramatic beats better than I could ever have imagined.)
Best Performance From An Actress In A Really-Not-That-Great Movie: Meryl Streep (Julie and Julia)
Best Performance From An Actor In A Really-Not-That-Great Movie: Vincent Cassel (Mesrine)
“Surely This Will Be The Year This Actor Becomes A Superstar” Performance Of The Year: Chiwetel Ejiofor (2012)
Most Committed Performance That Transformed A Diverting Movie Into An Totally Absorbing Experience: Ben Foster (Pandorum)
Best Performance From An Actor I Was Never Keen On Before But Now Think Is Capable Of Miracles: Karl Urban (Star Trek)
Funniest Performance From An Actor Who Has Been Sorely Underused For Years: Eric Bana (Funny People)
Worst Actress: Cameron Diaz (The Box, My Sister’s Keeper)
Dishonorable Mentions:
Sandra Bullock (The Blind Side, All About Steve, The Proposal)
Katherine Heigl (The Ugly Truth)
Beyonce Knowles (Obsessed)
Kristin Kreuk (Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li)
Rose Byrne (Knowing)
Worst Actor: Chris Klein (Street Fighter: Legend of Chun-Li)
Dishonorable Mentions:
James Corden (Lesbian Vampire Killers)
John Travolta (The Taking of Pelham 123)
Tim McGraw (The Blind Side)
Peter Sarsgaard (Orphan)
John Krasinski (Away We Go)
Worst Supporting Actress: Betty White (The Proposal)
Dishonorable Mentions:
Melanie Lynskey (The Informant!, Up In The Air)
Fionulla Flanagan (The Invention of Lying)
Ali Larter (Obsessed)
Malin Akerman (Watchmen, The Proposal)
Rosamund Pike (Surrogates)
Worst Supporting Actor: Eli Roth (Inglourious Basterds)
Dishonorable Mentions:
Tom Sturridge (The Boat The Rocked)
Sam Riley (Franklyn)
Neal McDonough (Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li)
Bobby Canavale (Paul Blart: Mall Cop)
Geoffrey Arend ((500) Days of Summer)
Most Thankless Role: Jayma Mays as Paul Blart’s love interest in Paul Blart: Mall Cop.
All she is allowed to do is frown or open her eyes wide. She barely gets any dialogue, and certainly no jokes. It’s deeply frustrating as she can do so much when given the chance.
Runner-Up: Amy Smart as Chev Chelios’ girlfriend Eve Lydon in Crank: High Voltage. Last time she was forced into having sex with Chelios in public against her will. This time forced to wear stripper’s clothes for the entire movie, as well as be licked and molested by a crazed prostitute and then athletically shagged on a racecourse in front of a large crowd of baying men. Is she a glutton for punishment? She really needs to fire her agent.
Scenestealing Actor Of The Year: Woody Harrelson (Zombieland)
Scenestealing Actress Of The Year: Carrie Preston (Duplicity) (Couldn’t find a picture of her in Tony Gilroy’s delightful con-trick movie. Here she is at an awards ceremony with her husband, World’s Greatest Actor Michael Emerson.)
Scenestealing Duo Of The Year: Bill Hader and Kristin Wiig (Adventureland)
Most Glorious Ham: Michael Sheen (Twilight: New Moon)
Most Wasted Actress: Naomi Watts (The International)
Honorary Manuela Velasco Award for Services to Scream-Queen Culture: Katie Featherston (Paranormal Activity)
Best Cameo: You know who (Zombieland)
Runner-Up: Ralph Fiennes (The Hurt Locker)
Worst Cameo: Every celebrity that showed up in Funny People and bogged down the first thirteen hours of the movie
Runner-Up: Mike Tyson (The Hangover) / Lou Ferrigno (I Love You, Man)
Weirdest Cameo: Geri Halliwell as Chev Chelios’ mother in Crank: High Voltage
Where The Hell Have You Been? Actor of the Year: Rod Taylor as Winston Churchill (Inglourious Basterds)
Biggest Disparity In Quality of Performance By An Actress From One Film To The Next: Kristin Stewart – charming in Adventureland, deeply irritating and boring in Twilight: New Moon.
Biggest Disparity In Quality of Performance By An Actor From One Film To The Next: Ryan Reynolds – extremely charming in Adventureland, obnoxious in The Proposal.
And he shouldn’t have been cast as Hal Jordan. I say this as a fan of Ryan Reynolds: he really was fantastic in Adventureland, and was very funny at the start of X-Men Origins: Wolverine before his character got dumped over by the mindless buffoons who wrote it. But he’s not Hal Jordan! [/GL fanboy] Okay, I’m rambling now. More to come, amazingly enough. Got to give props to the crew on this year’s films.
