Category Archives: January Jones

Listmania ’11! Miscellaneous Movie Observations: Part Four

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Finishing this in February feels so wrong it’s almost right. By now I’ve actually seen movies released in 2012 and I’m still posting about last year (the movies from this year being The Muppets, which the UK got obscenely late, and Chronicle, which is fantastic stuff and well worth a watch). The Oscar nominations have also been announced, with the deeply-average The Descendants and the deeply-awful War Horse getting a few nods while Fassbender, Swinton and Brooks are snubbed. Disgusting. If ever proof was needed that the Academy doesn’t know what the hell it’s doing.

Anyway, I’m sure I’ll have a whine about that before the award ceremony, so without any further ado, let’s end Listmania! with a bang. The only other posts that have taken me this long were my Lost finale posts, which took three months to write. This only took a month and a half, so I’m getting better at this. If you’re a fan of pointless miscellania, you’ve come to the right place.

Best Movies I Saw In 2010 That Were Released More Generally In 2011: Black Swan, 13 Assassins, Archipelago, Amigo, Meek’s Cutoff, Submarine

Best Scene: Rango walks through the desert during a crisis of confidence (Rango)

Honorable Mentions:

Tom Cruise climbs up the side of the Burj Khalifa (Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol)

Matthew Broderick attempts to teach a class of precocious kids about King Lear and it doesn’t go well (Margaret)

Michael Shannon and his family attend a meal with their fellow townsfolk and it doesn’t go well (Take Shelter)

Jung tries to tell his new buddy Freud about synchronicity and it doesn’t go well (A Dangerous Method)

Kristin Wiig gets drunk on a plane and it doesn’t go well (Bridesmaids)

Best Action Scene: Tintin and Captain Haddock chase a hawk through the streets of Bagghar (The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn)

Honorable Mentions:

The final physics-mangling car chase in Rio De Janeiro, including some serious hardcore badassery from The Rock and Vin Diesel (Fast Five)

The longest and most explosives-packed train in the history of the world crashes for a long time (Super 8)

The Revolutionary Army of Apedom makes a break for freedom through San Francisco (Rise of the Planet of the Apes)

Alex Pettyfer, Teresa Palmer and a big alien dog wreck a high school using telekinesis and big lasers (I Am Number Four)

Guy Ritchie goes crazy with ramping and cameras attached to people running and all sorts of tricks in a forest (Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows)

Best Hero: Caesar – Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Honorable Mentions:

Captain America – Captain America: The First Avenger

Thor – Thor

Moses – Attack The Block

The Driver – Drive

Rango – Rango

Best Villain: Loki – Thor

Honorable Mentions:

Bernie Rose - Drive

Society’s indifferent or vexed reaction to those unfortunate enough to be afflicted with mental illness – Melancholia

The oppressive horror of modern life – Take Shelter

Rattlesnake Jake – Rango

Chris Cleek – The Woman

Best Couple: David Norris and Elise Sellas (Matt Damon and Emily Blunt) – The Adjustment Bureau

Worst Couple: Emma and Adam (Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher) – No Strings Attached

Most Doomed Couple(s) of the Year: Justine and Michael and Claire and John (Kirsten Dunst, Alexander Sarsgaard, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Keifer Sutherland) - Melancholia

“I Hope These Guys Make It” Couple Of The Year: Russell and Glen (Tom Cullen and Chris New) – Weekend

“Please Bite Them And Get It Over With, Evil Colin Farrell” Couple of the Year: Charley Brewster and Amy Peterson (Anton Yelchin and Imogen Poots) – Fright Night

“Okay, I Really Don’t Think He Should Be Attracting These Improbably Hot High School Hotties In These Movies, What With Looking Like A Surly Child Half The Time” Couple of the Year: Porter and Norah (Anton Yelchin and Jennifer Lawrence) – The Beaver

Greatest Disparity In Energy Levels Between Partners of the Year: Hal Jordan and Carol Ferris (Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively) – Green Lantern

Most Improbable Couple of the Year: Ernesto Botta and Laura Aliprandi (Toni Servillo and Sarah Felberbaum) – The Jewel

“Only In The Movies” Adorable and Romantic Couple of the Year: George Valentin and Peppy Miller (Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Bejo) - The Artist

“Only In The Movies” Twee Asshole Couple of the Year: Enoch and Annabel (Henry Hopper and Mia Wasikowska) – Restless

“Rather Raunchy For A PG-13 Movie, Eh What?” Couple of the Year: Ren McCormack and Ariel Moore (Kenny Wormald and Julianne Hough) – Footloose

Most Adorable Fuckbuddies of the Year: Dylan Harper and Jamie Rellis (Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis) – Friends With Benefits

Most Inappropriate Couple of the Year: Robert Ledgard and Vera Cruz (Antonio Banderas and Elena Anaya) – The Skin I Live In

Worst Love Triangle of the Year: Bella Swan, Edward Cullen and Jacob Black (Kristin Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner) – The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part One for the third year running

Best Love Triangle of the Year: Brian O’Conner, Dominic Toretto and Luke Hobbs (Paul Walker, Vin Diesel and Dwayne Johnson) – Fast Five

Most Satisfying Finale: The Artist

Honorable Mentions:

Attack The Block

Melancholia

Real Steel

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol

Arriety

Best Finale in a Bad Movie: You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger

Least Satisfying Finale: Green Lantern

Dishonorable Mentions:

The Adjustment Bureau

I Don’t Know How She Does It

Blitz

In Time

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

Worst Finale in a Good Movie: Source Code

Badass of the Year: Lisbeth Salander – The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

Best Double Act: Tucker and Dale (Alan Tudyk and Tyler Labine) - Tucker and Dale vs. Evil

Worst Hero: D’Artagnan – The Three Musketeers

Dishonorable Mentions:

Hal Jordan - Green Lantern

Mater – Cars 2

Theseus – Immortals

Joey the Super-Special Horsey – War Horse

Dagny Taggart – Atlas Shrugged: Part I

Worst Villain: Karl Hendricks – Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol

Dishonorable Mentions:

The concept of generosity – Atlas Shrugged Part I

Hector Hammond – Green Lantern

The Red Skull – Captain America: The First Avenger

That sinful sexuality in any form it’s SO SINFUL – The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part One

Blackbeard – Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

Most Likeable Cast: Thor

Least Likeable Cast: Blubberella

Most Annoying Character of the Year: Sid – The Descendants

Dishonorable Mentions:

Moberg - The Rum Diary

Kate Reddy – I Don’t Know How She Does It

Dexter – One Day

Sean Cassidy (aka Banshee) – X-Men: First Class

Homer Yannos – Tomorrow, When The War Began

Best Live Action Animal: Uggie The Dog – The Artist

Best Animated Animal: Snowy – The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn

Best Trailer: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

Honorable Mention: Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol

Best Poster: The Tree of Life

Worst Poster: Hall Pass

Limited Edition Poster I Wish Had Been Used: This superb retro Captain America: The First Avenger poster by Paolo Rivera

Most Profound Poster: Shame

No photo of it will do it justice, but the poster for Shame that we saw outside the London Film Festival screening had a reflective surface, but with the word “Shame” printed at the bottom. Because the movie speaks for all of us who have shame, do you see? Something to think about.

Most Misleading and Tonally Inaccurate Poster: We Need To Talk About Kevin

Nicest Photography In A Headshot Poster: Martha Marcy May Marlene

Most Defiantly Wrongly-Angled-By-90° Poster of the Year: Super 8

Most Fucked-Up / Desperately Controversial Poster of All Time: The Human Centipede 2 (Full Sequence)

Most Out-Of-Control Trend In Posters: Character variants (::deep breath:: The Adjustment Bureau; Arthur Christmas; Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked; Bridesmaids; Cars 2; Conan the Barbarian; Contagion; Cowboys and Aliens; Crazy, Stupid, Love; Drive; Footloose; Friends With Benefits, Fright Night, Gnomeo and Juliet; The Green Hornet; Green Lantern; Hall Pass, The Hangover Part Two; Happy Feet Two; Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part Two: Hop; Horrible Bosses; Hugo; Immortals; In Time; Johnny English Reborn; Killer Elite; Kill The Irishman; Mars Needs Moms; Margin Call; Martha Marcy May Marlene; Melancholia [!!!!!]; Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol; The Muppets; Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides; Priest; Puss in Boots; Real Steel; Red State; Rio; Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows; The Smurfs; Snow Flower and the Secret Fan; Spy Kids 4: All The Time In The World; Straw Dogs; Sucker Punch; Super; 30 Minutes or Less; Thor; The Three Musketeers; Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy; Tower Heist; Transformers: Dark of the Moon; A Very Harold and Kumar Christmas; Warrior; Water For Elephants; Winnie The Pooh; X-Men: First Class; Your Highness; The Zookeeper)

How many of these posters ever make it into cinemas? How many of them convince people to go and see these movies? Do casual cinemagoers see any of these and think, “Well, I wasn’t going to see Green Lantern but now that I know Tomar-Re is in it I’m IN”? Will people really be excited at the array of not-really-that-well-known actresses in the cast of Bridesmaids before they see how funny they all are (scroll down for the full selection)? Do we really need 31 posters for The Three Musketeers? Do we need more than one poster for Melancholia? It’s not harming anyone, obviously, but it still seems like a waste of resources. If anyone can explain why we need so many variants, please let me know.

Best Publicity Campaign: Paranormal Activity 3

Usually SoC likes to praise a publicity campaign that successfully promotes a tough sell, but this year I have to give huge props to the makers of Paranormal Activity 3 for doing something that should’ve been done a long time ago. However, to do that I have to spoil, so please consider all of the text between these two scary-as-fuck trailers a huge spoiler for PA3‘s best trick.

I won’t lie. That first trailer for this franchise scared the absolute shit out of me when I first saw it, and it deserves some credit for making even this cynic forget about the overwhelming familiarity of the Paranormal Activity template and vow to see the third one as soon as it came out. In that sense, job done. However, what’s really great is that that scene doesn’t happen in the movie, and neither do almost all of the biggest shock moments in the trailer below.

Seeing that at home and getting annoyed at all of the spoilers is one thing; I switched it off halfway through as I was horrified at the amount of spoilage. But if you’re in a cinema and can’t escape, you’re going to absorb all of that information, and more than likely you’re still going to see it (because these movies make money hand-over-fist without even breaking a sweat). And yet all of that stuff you’re expecting won’t happen. Instead you’ll get a bunch of other scary stuff. And even better? You still got scared by those trailers, as if you’re watching a very very short horror movie for free. I’ve waited for a long time to see this done so well. The movie was okay too. That’s a bingo, I reckon.

Worst Publicity Campaign: X-Men: First Class / Green Lantern

Nerds are hard to please; I know because I am one. Thor and Captain America did a mostly good job of introducing two less well-known characters, with the non-mainstream Thor making $450m worldwide and the super-patriotic Cap overcoming some of the anti-American prejudice that could’ve prevented it making any money at all ($370m’s okay. Green Lantern wishes it made that much). If they’re an example of how to do it right, the other two big superhero releases of the year show how to do it wrong, thus squandering all of the nerd energy they needed to stay alive.

Each campaign commits a different crime that has the same result; underwhelming box office. X-Men: First Class‘ promotional crime was to destroy a lot of good will towards a franchise that desperately needed it, even more than the previous X-Men movie did. Wolverine should have killed X-Men dead but Fox wasn’t going to let the franchise go to waste when it could release yet another movie and maybe resurrect it for another few sequels. A lot of good decisions were made regarding casting and crew choices, but all of that was hobbled by some terrible promotional errors.

One was to have the only convention appearance take place at the inaugural London Comic-Con, with an appearance by co-writers Ashley Miller and Zack Stentz. Other than that, the production and release schedule meant they unfortunately missed out on those opportunities, and had to rely on trailers and posters. While all of the trailers are good enough, if a little calm, the first leaked picture of the cast was a disaster. Even worse were the posters: the ones above were two separate teasers, with little heads gestating inside shadowmen; the one below is an advert for X-Men-themed bobbleheads. I can’t understand why someone would sign off on it.

Only one of the posters was any good, but if you look at the bottom of the page you’ll see even more awful examples, including some shocking Japanese ones. XM:FC was considered enough of a success to warrant a sequel (it made less than Cap and cost a bit more, but it’s not a dramatic difference), but that success was only because of the (bafflingly) good reviews and the fact that it had the weekend to itself. Though it’s not a representative sample, there were a number of X-Men fans of my acquaintance who were burned out on the franchise after Wolverine and even the raves for this couldn’t persuade them. Who knows what that opening weekend would have looked like if Fox had done a better job of getting my nerd brethren off their sofas?

Warner Bros., on the other hand, couldn’t do anything to get anyone into the cinema to see Green Lantern. I only went because I try to see as many films as possible, and we’re talking about my favourite superhero of all time here. To be fair to the folks responsible for promoting GL, they were dealing with a (relatively) obscure character with a mythology that’s hard to explain in posters and short trailers, plus it was saddled with a cast and team of writers that didn’t excite the fans either, so they were trying to ice-skate uphill from the start. The posters were okay, I guess. They were nice and colourful enough, though that fucking stupid mask really doesn’t help.

The mainstream audience doesn’t love Ryan Reynolds or Blake Lively enough to take a risk on a movie that looks like the adventures of a rubber-bodied space man versus a creature made of sentient dreadlocks, but readers of the comic weren’t likely to show up either. Most of the initial reports on the movie made it seem like the filmmakers were trying to be loyal to the comics while getting the tone entirely wrong. There was also barely any sight of Oa or the Corps early on (most likely because the FX weren’t finished), so the fans felt even more nonplussed. When footage was released at Wondercon the fans justifiably went nuts. Sadly, that was almost all of Oa / Corps footage that appeared in the finished movie. WB shot their wad in desperation. The movie opened to at best, indifference; at worst, derision. Was that the fault of the promotional campaign? Well, it certainly didn’t help.

Best Hair: The assorted period-appropriate ‘dos in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Worst Hair: Daniel Craig – The latter half of Dream House

Most Appropriate Hair For A Cancer Patient: Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s unnerving shaved head – 50/50

Least Appropriate Hair For A Cancer Patient: Mia Wazikowska’s tasteful pixie-cut – Restless

Best Facial Hair: Dominic Purcell - Killer Elite

Worst Facial Hair: Clive Owen - Killer Elite

Scariest Hair/Make-Up Combo: Tom Hanks - Larry Crowne

Best Wig (Actor): Nicolas Cage – Season of the Witch (possibly borrowed from the set of last year’s winner The Sorceror’s Apprentice)

Best Wig (Actress): Emily Browning – Sucker Punch

Worst Wig (Actor): Logan Lerman - The Three Musketeers (actually they were glued-in extensions but you get my point)

Worst Wig (Actress): Cate Blanchett – Hanna

Wig I’m On The Fence About: Justin Theroux – Your Highness

Best Hats: The Adjustment Bureau

Honorable Mention: Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

Best Dressed Chap in Sweden: Daniel Craig – The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

Worst Casting: Sensible Reese Witherspoon as a PG-13-raunchy and unpredictable acrobat in Water For Elephants

Most Scatological Movie of the Year: Spy Kids 4D: All The Time In The World

I’m kinda glad I didn’t see this at the cinema with the Smell-O-Vision scratch card; if the middle section of this movie is anything to go by, I’d just be sniffing a piece of cardboard soaked in Essence of Fart. But I’ll be honest; the cavalcade of poop, barf and fart jokes made me laugh more often than most adult comedies released this year. Shame about that incoherent final act, though.

Most Weather: Wuthering Heights

Best Recasting: The mostly awake and reasonably charming Rosie Huntington-Whiteley replacing orange-hued erotic rabbitbot Megan Fox on Transformers: Dark of the Moon

Messiest Eater: Mickey Rourke - Immortals

Most Expressive Fist: Ryan Gosling - Drive

Biggest Build-Up For Least Payoff: The appearance of Kominsky – New Year’s Eve

Midway through Garry Marshall’s fractured compendium of schmaltz, Hilary Swank decides she needs to hire the legendary Kominsky to fix the broken new year ball in Times Square, and this causes a ripple of excitement to run through the extras clumsily assembled around the set. Kominsky, they whisper with amazement, she’s getting Kominsky. There is much fuss, palaver and hullabuloo about the imminent arrival of Kominsky. It’s infectious. This is, after all, a movie that features a dazzling array of cinema legends like Lea Michele and Josh Duhamel, while filling the smaller roles with yer DeNiros and Pfeiffers. So what legend will they get to play Kominsky? Pacino? Cruise? Hanks? No, silly! It’s Hector Elizondo! For fans of Garry Marshall I’m sure this was a big deal. For the rest of us? Even those of us who have nothing against Hector Elizondo? Not so much.

Most Admirable Commitment To Onscreen Skeeviness: Ben Foster (duplicitous assassin in The Mechanic, wheelchair-bound substance-abusing snitch in Rampart, convicted sex offender and possible murderer in 360)

Most Convincing Lust Object of the Year: Michael Fassbender – Shame (And also X-Men: First Class, A Dangerous Method and Jane Eyre)

Honorable Mention: Hayley Atwell – Captain America: The First Avenger

Least Convincing Lust Object of the Year: January Jones – X-Men: First Class

Dishonorable Mention: Ryan Reynolds - The Change-Up

Most Obscenely, Depressingly Beautiful Cast: Immortals

Ugliest Contact Lenses: The Rum Diary

Honorary Manuela Velasco Award for Services to Scream-Queen Culture: Florencia Colucci - The Silent House

Most Depressing Mise-en-Scène: Tyrannosaur

Honorable Mention: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Best Use Of Split Screen: The Green Hornet

Worst Use Of Split Screen: 360

Most Depressing Depiction of a Sexually Aggressive Woman: Jennifer Aniston – Horrible Bosses

Dishonorable Mention: Marisa Tomei – Crazy, Stupid, Love

Cheapest But Most Effective Device In A Horror Film: The swiveling camera in Paranormal Activity 3

It’s just a camera on the bottom half of an oscillating fan, but that simple trick, with the camera panning back and forth very slowly, amps up the tension more than any expensive CGI trick. Kudos to Henry Joost, Ariel Shulman and Christopher Landon for coming up with it.

Worst Product Placement: New Year’s Eve, because nothing says New Year’s celebrations like those joy-embodying products from Toshiba, Phillips and Nivea.

Worst Manners: Jason Statham – Blitz

Weirdest Impersonation of What Sounds A Bit Like Ray Winstone: Mel Gibson – The Beaver

Weirdest Impersonation Of What Sounds Like Jennifer Jason Leigh In The Hudsucker Proxy: Andrea Riseborough – W.E.

Most Logistically Impressive Movie: Transformers: Dark of the Moon

Honorable Mention: Battle: Los Angeles

Most Unusual Fighting Implement Wielded by Zoe Saldana In An Otherwise Forgettable Luc Besson/Robert Mark Kamen C-Movie Actioner: A toothbrush (Columbiana)

Best Location Shooting: The Descendants (Hawaii)

Honorable Mentions:

Blitz (London)

Transformers: Dark of the Moon (Chicago and many other parts of America)

A Dangerous Method (Germany, Austria)

Wuthering Heights (Yorkshire)

Thor (Asgard)

Worst Cinematic Trend of 2011: Underwhelming third acts – Insidious, Captain America: The First Avenger, Thor, The Ides of March, Hugo, The Silent House, The Eagle, Dendera, Tucker and Dale Vs. Evil, Warrior, Paul, Cowboys and Aliens, The Adjustment Bureau, The Skin I Live In, Source Code, The Descendants, War Horse, Super 8, Drive, In Time, Trespass

Anne Billson wrote this great article on the problem of the bungled third act, and though I enjoyed a couple of her examples, there are a few there that cannot be argued with. Too many movies this year fell apart in the last 20-30 minutes, sometimes so badly that the rest of the movie was irreparably damaged. I’m not sure what the reason for this is, other than that too often films aren’t rewritten often enough before reaching the set, but whatever it is, three-quarters of each of the films above were reasonably-good-to-great, and that’s a very frustrating fraction.

Most Publicity Pictures of a Director: Paddy Considine – Tyrannosaur

Last year (scroll down to the bottom) I noticed the IMDb page for Biutiful‘s images featured a lot of shots of Iñárritu (aka The Director Formerly Known As Alejandro Gonzales Iñárritu), most of them featuring him pointing and looking very thoughtful on set. It struck me that he was going for the title of Most Pictures Of A Director Pointing And Looking Very Thoughtful on IMDb, a title currently held by Michael Bay. And yet this year there’s a new potential winner in the shape of Paddy Considine, with four pictures on IMDb, more than co-star Eddie Marsan (he gets one), and as many as Olivia Colman. Bear in mind, Considine’s not even in the movie.

Even more shocking, Bay only has three on-set photos from Transformers: Dark of the Moon on IMDb this year, the other 600 pictures being 67% shots of Rosie Huntington-Whiteley getting out of cars, and 33% images of smoking rubble. Considine even manages two more shots of himself than Bay got on his debut movie Bad Boys, though none of the shots of Considine are as moving as this ferociously erotic pic of Bay’s torso. So this race to the bottom of the ego continues, but with a new contender around, THIS SHIT OFFICIALLY JUST GOT REALER.

And with that, I’m finally done. Thanks to all who have contacted me about this epic series of posts, and to everyone who has made their way through this mass of opinion and bad jokes, I doff my cap, and say, until next time. ::theme tune plays me out:: ::collapses::

Listmania ’11: Performances Of The Year

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Yet again my blogging schedule is thrown into disarray by what can only be described as a waking coma. A combination of night work, lack of sleep due to warring cats, and god know what else — probably some hex cast on me by some anti-blogging warlock — meant that last week I felt like I was trapped under a fog of confusion as thick as the thickest Greek yogurt. I’m not fully out of it yet, so this prologue might become a little off-kilter. Please bear with the blog until normal services are restored.

Not really much to say about this post other than that I’m watching a recording of the Golden Globes and seriously, this blog is more composed than this goddamn mess. It’s an uncomfortable experience made even more hard to bear by the fact that we’re watching it on the UK’s E! channel which has bleeped out every vaguely risque comment or mention of a product, thus rendering it unintelligible. Also in our favour; SoC hasn’t spent all year talking about last year’s Listmania as if it was easily the most shocking and daring blogpost of the year, and how we don’t care about the controversy it caused, and holy shit wait until you see what shocking jokes we’ve got in store for you this year; a build-up somewhat ruined by being followed with a couple of Kim Kardashian jokes.

No. We’ll be honest. This is merely a blogpost, one of millions. And yet we have our integrity, and our annual awards for Sam Rockwell and Michael Sheen, no appearances by Sofia Vergara’s Voice, and no awards for The Iron Lady. That, somehow, is enough. Please enjoy, and imagine them being read out in the voice of a slightly tipsy Ricky Gervais, punctuated by some cozy jokes about Johnny Depp and that faux-sneering thing he does to make out that he doesn’t really worship the people he is mocking (with, I’ll admit it, a bit of skill). The atheism is also implied.

Best Performance by an Actress: Tilda Swinton – We Need To Talk About Kevin

Honorable Mentions:

Anna Paquin – Margaret

Olivia Colman – Tyrannosaur

Jessica Chastain – Take Shelter

Carey Mulligan – Shame

Kirsten Dunst – Melancholia

Best Performance by an Actor: Michael Fassbender – Shame

Honorable Mentions:

Michael Shannon – Take Shelter

Gary Oldman – Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

Jean Dujardin - The Artist

Brendan Gleeson – The Guard

Woody Harrelson – Rampart

Best Supporting Performance by an Actress: Charlotte Gainsbourg – Melancholia

Honorable Mentions:

Jennifer Lawrence – X-Men: First Class

Anna Kendrick – 50/50

Ellen Page – Super

Déborah François – The Monk

Emily Mortimer – Our Idiot Brother

Best Supporting Performance by an Actor: Christopher Plummer – Beginners

Honorable Mentions:

Benedict Cumberbatch – Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

Sir Ben Kingsley – Hugo

John C. Reilly – Terri

Albert Brooks – Drive

Don Cheadle - The Guard

Best Individual Voice Work: Johnny Depp – Rango

Best Voice Cast/Direction: Rango

Breakthrough Performance by an Actress: Elizabeth Olsen - Martha Marcy May Marlene

Breakthrough Performance by an Actor: John Boyega - Attack The Block

Best Career Moves of the Year (Actress): Jessica Chastain - The Tree of Life / Take Shelter / The Help / The Debt / Texas Killing Fields / Coriolanus

Honorable Mention: Carey Mulligan - Drive / Shame

Best Career Moves of the Year (Actor): Michael Fassbender - Shame / Jane Eyre / X-Men: First Class / A Dangerous Method

Honorable Mention: Ryan Gosling - Drive / The Ides of March / Crazy, Stupid, Love

“See? I Told You He Could Act” Performances of the Year: Matthew McConaughey - The Lincoln Lawyer / Bernie

“Wow, He Actually Can Act?” Performance of the Year: Jake Gyllenhaal - Source Code

“My God, I’m Even Angrier About The Uselessness Of Gilmore Girls Now Because You Deserve So Much Better Than The Bog-Standard ‘Pathetic Best Friend Of The Protagonist Who Is Only There To Make Her Look Better’ Stereotype And Look What Happens When You Get A Chance To Let Your Freak Flag Fly” Performance of the Year: Melissa McCarthy - Bridesmaids

“Dude, Where Have You Been? This Is The Best Thing You’ve Done In Ages. Oh Man, I Really Missed You, You Know. Jesus, X: Men Origins: Wolverine Sucked, But I’ve Got No Hard Feelings And This Kind of Commitment To Your Craft — Enhanced By Your Effortless Charm — Is Why We’ll Always Have A Place For You In Our Hearts” Performance of the Year: Hugh Jackman - Real Steel

Scenestealing Actress of the Year: Kat Dennings - Thor

Scenestealing Actor of the Year: Stanley Tucci - Captain America: The First Avenger

Most Wasted Actress: Robin Wright - Rampart / Moneyball / The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

Most Wasted Actor: Walton Goggins - Straw Dogs / Cowboys and Aliens

Most Fearless Performance of the Year: Keira Knightley – A Dangerous Method

“Look, Can We Just Stop Acting Like He’s Some Anonymous Beefcake And Accept He’s Got Smarts And Range On Top Of His Looks And Is Actually A Very Charming, Committed and Talented Actor, FFS” Performances of the Year: Chris Evans - Captain America: The First Avenger / Puncture / What’s Your Number?

Best Cameo: James Franco - The Green Hornet

“Holy Shit, You’re Seriously Scaring The Bejesus Out Of Me” Performance of the Year: Pollyanna McIntosh - The Woman

“Please Let Him Become A Huge Star And Use His Clout To Bring Friday Night Lights To The Big Screen” Performance of the Year: Kyle Chandler - Super 8

“I Bet All Those Critics Who Used To Think You Were Nothing But A Pretty Boy Feel Real Stupid Now” Performances of the Year: Brad Pitt – The Tree of Life / Moneyball

“Now Can You Please Do Me The Favour Of Shutting The Fuck Up, Assorted Whiners Hiding At The Bottom Of The Internet Like The Tiresome Trolls You Are?” Performances of the Year: Kristen Wiig – Paul / Bridesmaids

Worst Performance by an Actress: Cate Blanchett – Hanna

Dishonorable Mentions:

Natalie Portman – No Strings Attached

Milla Jovovich – The Three Musketeers

Taylor Schilling - Atlas Shrugged: Part I

Julia Roberts – Larry Crowne

Blake Lively – Green Lantern

Worst Performance by an Actor: Jim Sturgess – One Day

Dishonorable Mentions:

Colin O’Donoghue - The Rite

Paul Rudd – How Do You Know

Ashton Kutcher – No Strings Attached

Henry Hopper – Restless

Grant Bowler – Atlas Shrugged: Part I

Worst Supporting Performance by an Actress: January Jones – Unknown

Dishonorable Mentions:

January Jones – X-Men: First Class

Lucy Punch – You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger

Lucy Punch – Bad Teacher

Juno Temple – The Three Musketeers

Lake Bell – No Strings Attached

Worst Supporting Performance by an Actor: James Corden – The Three Musketeers

Dishonorable Mentions:

Richard Coyle – W.E.

James D’Arcy – W.E.

Rami Malek – Larry Crowne

Rafe Spall - One Day

Ken Stott - One Day

Worst Individual Voice Work: James McAvoy - Gnomeo and Juliet

Worst Voice Cast /Direction: Gnomeo and Juliet

Actress in Most Dire Need of a New Agent: Naomi Watts - Dream House / You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger / Fair Game

Dishonorable Mention: Olivia Wilde - Cowboys and Aliens / The Change-Up / In Time

Actor in Most Dire Need of a New Agent: Jason Bateman - The Change-Up / Paul / Horrible Bosses

Dishonorable Mention: Ryan Reynolds - Green Lantern / The Change-Up

Actor/Actress Duo With The Worst Luck in 2011: Abbie Cornish and Oscar Isaac – Sucker Punch and W.E.

Performance Most Likely To Make Fans Think Some Consciousness-Altering Substances Were Involved Though I’m Sure That’s Not The Case And I’m Certainly Not Suggesting He Was As High As Voyager 1 When He Slurred His Way Through This Piece Of Shit: James Franco - Your Highness

“Hmmm, Okay, You Were Actually Okay This Year, And Thus Deserve Recognition And A Temporary Reprieve From My Usual Derision” Performances of the Year: Cameron Diaz – The Green Hornet / Bad Teacher

Most Entertaining Performance by an Actress in a Bad Movie: Andrea Riseborough - W.E.

Honorable Mention: Mindy Kaling - No Strings Attached

Most Entertaining Performance by an Actor in a Bad Movie: Anthony Hopkins – The Rite

Honorable Mention: Anthony Hopkins – 360

Most Bafflingly Busy Actress of the Year: Frieda Pinto - You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger / Rise of the Planet of the Apes / Immortals

Most Bafflingly Busy Actor of the Year: Billy Burke - The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 / Drive Angry / Red Riding Hood

Worst Cameo: Convicted rapist Mike Tyson, again – The Hangover Part II

“Where Have You Been?” Actor of the Year: Fred Ward - 30 Minutes Or Less

Best Accent: Chloe Grace Moretz – Hugo

Worst Accent: Anne Hathaway – One Day

Most Entertaining Acccent: Gary Oldman – Red Riding Hood

Most Disconcerting Accent: Jeffrey Wright – Source Code

Best Performance By Hott Sam Rockwell: Cowboys and Aliens

Best Argument For The Use Of Performance-Capture Technology And The Freedom It Gives To Actors Performance of the Year: Andy Serkis - Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Best Argument To Destroy All Performance-Capture Technology To Prevent Such A Crime Ever Being Committed Again Performance of the Year: Seth Green – Mars Needs Moms

“More Of This And Less Of This, Please” Actress of the Year: Rose Byrne (More comedies like Bridesmaids as she has a real gift for comedy, less dramatic roles like X-Men: First Class and Insidious.)

“More Of This And Less Of This, Please” Actor of the Year: Bradley Cooper (More dramatic roles in unexpectedly entertaining movies like Limitless, less fratboy bullshit in odious crap like The Hangover Part II.)

Hammiest Performance By Michael Sheen: The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part One

Hammiest Performance By Chow Yun Fat: Let The Bullets Fly

Next up: crew contributions of the year. Best screenplay is a lock but I’m going back and forth on best director. Who will it be? #HitchcockianSuspense

Austin Superpowers In: The Mutant Who Shagged Me

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Regular readers will probably already know about my passionate hatred for X-Men Origins: Wolverine in: The Origin of The Man They Call Wolverine: The Pre-X-Men Years, which I thought was the worst major studio big-budget release OF ALL TIME, until the unforgivable Alice in Wonderland arrived and surpassed even that milestone with dispiriting ease. Many comic and superhero fans will argue that Brett Ratner’s X-Men: the Last Stand represents the franchise’s low-point, but that is at least coherent, despite its flaws, and has a sense of the operatic about it; essential if you’re adapting the legendary Dark Phoenix saga. Ratner and screenwriters Simon Kinberg and Zak Penn may have fumbled that mighty arc, but they didn’t forget the basic rules of filmmaking, which is what everyone who worked on Wolverine seemed to do.

So rejoice that Matthew Vaughn’s X-Men: First Class is better than both of those movies. It has some of the strongest acting in the franchise, some stand-out moments of undeniable superpower coolness to rival X2: X-Men United, is made with an awareness of what makes these some of these characters tick, and has some beautifully observed emotional scenes that capture the loneliness and self-loathing felt by the mutant heroes and anti-heroes – here once more standing in for all of society’s outcasts. Hell, just for casting Shades of Caruso favourite Michael “Sickeningly Hot And Talented” Fassbender as Magneto – my favourite comics supervillain, and possibly my favourite movie supervillain too – means this stands apart from the last two feeble movies.

But that doesn’t mean it’s actually good. Those praiseworthy elements are but jewels peeking out from a garbage dump composed of woeful dialogue, tonal misjudgements and surprisingly poor production values. Those few praiseworthy performances, and the emotional truth they convey, are sadly betrayed by bad editing and photography that make the whole enterprise look like it was only finished a couple of weeks ago in a mad sprint to beat the release deadline. Yet again Fox shortchanges the creatives; by now the Fox execs know the fans will watch these movies even when they’re bad (and even when they’re leaked onto the internet a couple of weeks before release). All they needed to do to make us forget the last two failures was raise expectations a little higher, and the mystifying critical praise XM:FC has received in recent weeks has ensured that.

And yet it all starts so well, mostly by focusing on Erik Lensherr’s tragic childhood and vengeful youth. Opening at exactly the same point as the first X-Men is a lovely touch, and the subsequent scene with Kevin Bacon’s evil Nazi scientist triggering Magneto’s powers with an act of horrific cruelty is brilliantly effective, evoking memories of Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds and Christoph Waltz’s magnificently horrible Hans Landa. The next few scenes, intercutting between Magneto’s quest to find the Nazi scientist – now going by the name of Sebastian Shaw – and young Charles Xavier’s first encounter and subsequent friendship with Raven Darkholme, are very promising.

This is pretty good stuff, especially Magneto’s Nazi-killing rampage, and hints that the long-considered X-Men Origins: Magneto could have been a far more interesting proposition than first thought (Sheldon Turner and Bryan Singer, who wrote the un-shot scripts for that movie, are given a story credit here, though don’t bring that up to Vaughn or he’ll cut a bitch). Giving Raven, aka Mystique, a bigger part to play in the X-Men movie mythos is a superb choice; what was previously a side-lined character in the first trilogy has now become a tragic figure along the same lines as Anna Paquin’s Rogue. Her desperate need to be loved creates an ache at the centre of this movie that generates many of its best moments.

The wheels start to come off as soon as the Hellfire Club arrive, with Kevin Bacon now dressed like Austin Powers in his groovy nightclub shagpad, and January Jones occupying a lady-shaped space on-screen in her smalls. Much has been made of the film’s retro aesthetic and vaguely Bondian plot involving the Cold War, but Vaughn pitches the tone too far towards the wacky end of the spectrum. The moment the Hellfire Club escapes from an attack in a submarine with all white interiors and an office complete with paintings evokes the Adam West Batman movie with the Joker, Penguin, and Riddler teaming up with Catwoman to dehydrate the members of the United Nations. From that moment on, the movie is, quite aptly, sunk.

The Austin Powers references in this review are entirely deliberate. As Daisyhellcakes said when we stumbled, disappointed, from the sweltering heat of Portobello Road’s Electric Cinema, “At times it felt as if it was trying to be like a comedy, but nothing in it was funny.” Vaughn seems to think he can play up to the inherent absurdity of the X-Men by making the tone silly, but his hectic, discombobulating editing from one plot thread to another makes this tonal decision utterly incomprehensible, at least early on.

For example, McAvoy plays Xavier as a lecherous and oblivious dope getting pissed in Oxford, Kevin Bacon plays Sebastian Shaw as a mustache-twirling pantomime villain complete with silly-looking henchmen, and Rose Byrne’s CIA agent Moira MacTaggart (yes, she’s not a scientist anymore) spends an excruciating scene walking around in her underwear to what is either comic effect, or… I just don’t know what. Meanwhile, Magneto is an grim, badass avenging angel of death hunting down and murdering Nazis. With no apparent narrative framework in place to connect these two differing tone, we flip back and forth between what feel like different movies, never really staying in place long enough to get comfortable or to get a sense of what the final shape of the narrative will be.

This tonal mish-mash is made worse whenever Vaughn evokes memories of Bryan Singer’s two superior franchise entries. It feels as if Singer’s achievement – balancing the unavoidable absurdity of the superhero genre with a seriousness of purpose and respect that triggered a surge in its popularity – has been forgotten or underestimated in the ten years since the first X-Men. He understood the characters, recognised their pain and made sure that even when he was puncturing the pomposity of the genre, there was a solemness to the characters that never really went away. That’s not to say he piled on the modish pain; those movies were still fun, but they were weighty.

Vaughn’s movie is the opposite of weighty for much of its length, with only the Magneto and Mystique arcs – and one final, brilliant showdown – providing respite from the shockingly daft proceedings. While this might mean the franchise now finds a new audience, it also means that what was so welcome in Singer’s movies has now been utterly eradicated. Even Ratner’s movie honoured that atmosphere of sadness more than Wolverine and First Class (by which I mean Wolverine cried again). And yes, I expect spluttering indignation at that statement, but if it makes you feel better I really did hate it.

I get that there is a vocal section of fandom (and non-fandom) that will welcome the excision of the grim dramatics, but this comes at the expense of drama; there is almost no sense within First Class that there is anything at stake until midway through the big finale, pretty much as soon as the awful wire-work chase between Angel and Banshee is finally, mercifully over. Even the mid-movie action scene with the Hellfire Club attacking the CIA compound housing the proto-X-Men is curiously unsuspenseful, feeling more like a staccato compilation of action beats than a coherent set-piece.

The woeful editing again undercuts this tension by hurrying past big moments, rarely showing the consequences of actions or emotional beats. Than again, there are also numerous narrative shortcuts taken throughout that smack of budgetary restraint or release-date haste, many of which involve shaky effects (one shot of Beast running fast made me want to walk out of the cinema and never look back) or tricks as unintentionally hilarious as rotating the frame to depict a spinning plane. I understand that Fox are not in the business of spending money on their superhero films, prefering instead to cynically rely on marketing muscle to get audiences into cinemas, but some of these choices are farcical, robbing the movie of any authority.

However we should all also be grateful to Michael Fassbender and Jennifer Lawrence, who give their all yet again, selling their tragic roles brilliantly; it’s arguable that their commitment is worth the extortionate ticket price all on their own. This is Fassbender’s highest-profile role yet, and allows him to supply young Magneto with new superpowers; insane hotness, charisma and the ability to be the only person on the planet to look good in rollneck sweaters. The man will be a star by the end of the weekend, hopefully. Lawrence proves that she’s no flash-in-the-pan with another nuanced performance. Though I was initially sceptical, the decision to cast her as Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games really seems shrewd now.

James McAvoy is okay, though the choice to make his arc a transition from tiresomely enthusiastic dope to noble martyr in a wheelchair is nowhere near as well-drawn as Erik’s transition into ruthless human-hating Magneto (and even that isn’t done as well as you would hope, with some leaps of faith required of the viewer by the final act). It doesn’t help that I could understand only about half of his dialogue. His chemistry with Fassbender is good, though; the decision to make them play chess in unusual locales, less so. That’s not as bad as his repeated gesture of pressing his fingers to his temple whenever using his powers. In keeping with this movie’s unfortunate resemblance to the Austin Powers movie, McAvoy’s gesture is now the equivalent of Dr. Evil’s pinky move (thanks to Daisyhellcakes for spotting that).

It’s the rest of the cast that let the side down badly. Poor January Jones, in her white undies, cannot even convey “I’m thinking at you with my supertelepathy” with any sense of conviction, and when required to speak everything falls apart. Less a snarky ice-maiden than a mildly bored housewife who doesn’t really like her lot in life (what a surprise!), she lets the fans down. Part of me had hoped that a combination of directorial effort and superior writing would entice a better performance from her, but one moment, where she gets some ice for her sexist boss Shaw and sighs dramatically to convey her sadness, is a contender for laziest acting choice in thespian history.

At least she gets some stuff to do. Some of the kids playing the proto-X-Men end up coming off as deeply unlikeable (Caleb Landry Jones’ Banshee is particularly irksome), but then they’re so underwritten they can’t really be blamed for that (re: Landry Jones, he was good in The Last Exorcist, so I will point blame elsewhere). Rose Byrne uses her patented Worried Face, and brandishes a gun at one point. Perhaps this is intentional; MacTaggart only really seems to be in the movie to be mocked by the other characters. Another actor, playing Matt Craven’s second-in-command, gives one of the most bizarre hammy performances I’ve ever seen in a major motion picture. I couldn’t take my eyes off him; not a compliment, I should stress. I won’t name him, as I feel bad enough about this complaining already.

The poorly-judged and frankly amateurish problems don’t stop there. The compositions are always slightly off, undercutting the tension almost as much as the imprecise editing. Jokes are attempted but fail. Scenes are cut too short to generate emotions, and those scenes that are longer often trundle along with no point – a stilted introduction scene with the proto-X-Men bonding in a cafeteria is particularly painful to watch, though that’s nothing compared to a risible late-movie training montage that lacks the dramatic gravity of the “Montage!” scene in Team America. And seriously, if you can watch the final conversation between Xavier and Moira without cringing, then you’re a sturdier person than I.

It doesn’t help that Vaughn takes on way too much for one movie. That dreadful rush to fill in the blanks that made the last half an hour of Revenge of the Sith feel so hysterically cramped lasts throughout First Class‘ entire two hour run. Two movies would have given plenty of time for Vaughn to tell every story he wants to tell here, and then some. Instead its a mad gambol from Poland to Westchester to Switzerland to Oxford to Argentina to Las Vegas back to Oxford and then to Washington and eventually Russia for about five minutes and then etc. etc. etc. Locales flash by, character moments are introduced then dropped, momentous events happen and are then left behind with no room for reflection or pause because another momentous event is right on its tail. The effect is that nothing sticks; a problem that affected Ratner’s X-Men movie. Except for odd flashes, the movie left me feeling utterly cold.

That was how Vaughn’s first two movies – Layer Cake and Stardust – made me feel. They were all surface, with enough evidence that Vaughn was obviously trying very hard to make those movies memorable but only as noble failures. Kick-Ass qualified as a pure triumph, however (at least IMO), and made this movie such an appealing prospect. Who knows what went wrong – or what addition to the equation made Kick-Ass go so right – but that doesn’t change the fact that this is not the movie we fans had hoped for. Oh sure, as a nerd it occasionally made me very happy. There are a couple of delightful cameos that prove this was made with a certain amount of love, and for that I’m grateful.

So, it’s better than X-Men: The Last Stand and Wolverine, but really only by default. Vaughn and Goldman and the Fringe writing duo of Ashley Stentz and Zack Miller (who also wrote the far superior Thor) obviously care about the characters and the franchise, but for one reason or another it just feels more like a badly-made parody than a drama. Many have claimed that this movie shows the franchise still has legs, but it really needs a far more drastic shake-up than just revisiting the old material from a different angle. It needs a Nolanising, if you will. By that I don’t mean a serious, realistic take; more that a good filmmaker needs to come along and, with the backing of his studio, commits as fully to making the X-Universe work as Nolan or Singer did – as might have happened if Darren Aronofsky did make The Wolverine. Because right now, these regrettably laughable rush-jobs just aren’t cutting it anymore.