Category Archives: Rampart

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

BFI LFF 2011: Shame / Rampart

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As mentioned before, buying tickets for the 2011 BFI London Film Festival was a miserable clusterfuck; the pilot light on the single gas-powered server the institute uses must have gone out, resulting in an almost total shutdown. We refreshed the BFI website more often in five hours than Tom Ford refreshes himself in the average decade. That’s a lot of F5-ing. We actually managed to buy tickets to Rampart and A Dangerous Method without even realising it. When we found out that our requests had broken through we felt like we were characters in a William Gibson Cyberpunk novel, sneaking through digital ICE in order to hack into an AI.

And yet, even though we got tickets for 13 films, there was a sense of unavoidable failure, as Shame, the follow-up to Steve McQueen’s remarkable debut Hunger, was sold out even before the members priority booking opened. This was one of two movies both me and Daisyhellcakes were determined to see (the other was A Dangerous Method) that wouldn’t be released in the UK until next year. Yes, even though we had already seen Michael Fassbender in X-Men: First Class and Jane Eyre this year, we selfishly demanded more of him, preferably naked and tortured by the consequences of his own irresistibility. That’s how deeply Fassbender Fandom penetrates our souls.

But worry not, we got the tickets, no thanks to the website which crashed again on the day that extra tickets were released; once more a big thank you to the incredibly helpful staff at the BFI Southbank who dealt with my hyperventilation with great understanding. Even better, Shame was worth the humiliations of my pathetic, petulant sturm-und-drang complaints, and became an early highlight of the festival. Quick synopsis; Brandon (Fassbender, obvs) is a sex addict on a downward spiral which accelerates as he is visited by his sister Sissy (the luminous Carey Mulligan) with whom he shares a dark past. Brandon has sex. A lot of it. He’s mean to his sister. He has more sex. And on and on and on…

It’s hard to convey the visceral impact of McQueen’s formally bold and beautiful depiction of Brandon’s descent into self-negating eroticism, certainly without spoiling what happens, but it is easy to recommend, and for one very good reason; Fassbender is breathtakingly good in what has to be the best performance of the year. On a technical level the man is on peak form, once more reunited with his muse McQueen; we’re talking DeNiro/Scorsese levels of cinematic harmony here. You can feel an electrifying alchemy being created as you watch.

However, the brilliance of Fassbender’s performance goes beyond mere talent. It’s the fearlessness of his work, the ability to allow the audience to peek into a tortured soul as naked as his body. McQueen makes a bold statement very early on by showing Fassbender fully nude for long shots, with the camera defiantly set at groin height. As Fassbender passed back and forth in front of the lens from one room of his spartan New York apartment to another, the audience started to petrify into its seats with horror, made even more uncomfortable by the knowledge that the owner of the penis ticking past our faces like a large metronome was in the building.

It sounds lascivious, but it’s not. It’s startling, but it’s also alienating. We stop seeing this as a sexual organ, something to be leered at. It’s an organ for fucking and pissing; by the end of the opening montage of Brandon’s life, any erotic charge is eliminated. This is a grind of a life as miserable as any other. At this point he looks like a functioning addict, but all it takes is for the sudden introduction of his exasperating and impulsive sister to throw him into a tailspin from which he may or may not recover, which requires Fassbender to bare his soul and his body in ways that are startling and darkly beautiful.

It also allows McQueen to add some of his now trademark long-shots, all as exciting to experience as the setpiece conversation between Fassbender and Liam Cunningham in Hunger. The first is the already notorious scene with Mulligan singing New York, New York in some high-end bar while a testy Fassbender and an excitable James Badge Dale (also very good) watch from their table in front of a gloriously lit Manhattan backdrop. Sean Bobbitt captures a radiance that seems to pour from Mulligan’s delicate face as she sings the most excruciatingly drawn-out version of the song; it’s as if McQueen has captured the tension of the movie’s ever-present promise of eventual collapse in an excruciating microcosm. There’s one significant cut away from Mulligan, which I won’t spoil, other than to say it’s devastating.

There follows a tracking shot of Brandon running along a New York street to get away from his apartment, which has now been colonised by the people he has tried to hide away from. It’s a relatively simple shot made more complicated by being filmed in the busiest city on earth, but it’s riveting nonetheless, and represents the absolute opposite of this shot from Mauvais Sang by Leos Carax. After that we see a dinner date between Brandon and co-worker Marianne (Nicole Beharie) that is either his attempt at normality, or an example of his seduction attempts. Prior to this women seem to just throw themselves at Brandon, but Marianne is warier. It’s a riveting scene, partially because of the ambiguity of Brandon’s motives, but also due to the choreography of everyone in the restaurant. It’s Hunger‘s conversation scene, but with a meddling waiter and a lot of sexual tension.

These aren’t McQueen’s finest hour, though. That comes in the final act, turning what might have been some disappointing redemptive notes from writer Abi Morgan into a bravura sequence of degradation and misery, so beautifully shot and disturbing that the viewer is hypnotised, much as I was during the final minutes of Darren Aronofsky’s majestic Black Swan (or, more aptly, Requiem For A Dream). The final graphic sex scene in the movie is a wash of image and sound — thanks to an ominous score by Harry Escott — but it’s terrifyingly unerotic and haunting, as Brandon tries to lose himself in orgasmic oblivion. Instead he looks like a man on the verge of a nervous breakdown; dead eyes, agony, desperation all painted on his face. That Fassbender, you guys. Seriously.

Morgan’s script is, for the most part, ambiguous and pared down, clever and funny and only at the end a little rote. That’s the difficulty with character studies like this. As with any straight version of a genre type, there’s very little room for manoevre, and post-screening my initial feelings were that I was less engaged with it than I had hoped simply because the arc of a character study tends to be a straight line with the possibility of an uptick or downtick at the end. Biopics have the same problem; we’re ostensibly being told the story of a person’s life, either as an overambitious whole or a mere slice that illuminates their whole being. In the wrong hands this can lead to clumsy attempts to dramatise an inner life, usually through awkward exposition (the worst problem with biopics).

And yet even though Shame isn’t a bad character study, my misgivings about the sub-genre spoiled my experience. The momentary clunkiness of a couple of scenes at the end of Shame (not counting the final shot, which I won’t spoil) conspired to sully my opinion. How could I really like Shame, an example of that miserable sub-genre that I’ve never really had time for (confession: I’ve never truly loved Taxi Driver, despite its many good points)? Luckily for McQueen’s movie, a couple of days later we saw Oren Moverman and James Ellroy’s Rampart, a character study that has numerous parallels and similarities with Shame except that while that is a truly superb and exciting piece of cinema, Rampart is a cluttered failure, a waste of your time.

Okay, there is one very good reason to watch Rampart. Woody Harrelson is on fire as Dave Brown, a corrupt cop with the LAPD at the time of the Rampart scandal, who is videotaped beating an African-American. This slip — if you can call it that; the man is obviously on the edge of some kind of breakdown — sends him down a long path to oblivion. Harrelson’s bewildered and paranoid reaction to the slow unraveling of his life is mesmerising, and powers the movie through what would otherwise be crippling longueurs, but it doesn’t change the fact that while Shame avoids being nothing more than a simplistic morality tale through the use of ambiguity and the skill of McQueen and his cast, Rampart is little more than an empty box being carried around desolate LA scenery by a very talented and underrated performer.

Much of the problem with Rampart is that the story has been told before, with enormous detail and complexity, in The Shield. SoC likes The Shield. A lot. If you’re going to play in The Shield‘s back yard, you’re going to have to bring something new to the table, and Rampart has nothing. Dave Brown is a morally compromised jerk, but if you’ve experienced the fluctuating fortunes of Vic Mackey — one of the great characters of the modern age, whose fall from grace is positively Shakespearean in scope and power — then being a dick to the mothers of your children and getting a bit grumpy with Ice Cube pales in comparison.

That familiarity is made more noticeable due to the connections with Ellroy’s other work. Police corruption has been a constant theme in his books, and approaching it from this angle — as a real example of wrongdoing that was exposed to the light — is perfectly valid. However, confusingly, Dave Brown’s personality is very similar to that of Ellroy’s Lloyd Hopkins, immortalised by James Woods in the nifty James B. Harris thriller Cop. Both are men who bend or break the law, profess to venerate women, have messy home-lives, and have been notoriously involved in the suspicious deaths of rapist-murderers. That one point made me think that Rampart was intended to be some kind of follow-up to the Lloyd Hopkins trilogy, that we were seeing the ignominious end of his career.

That’s apparently not the case. To be honest, Rampart is so ramshackle and loosely plotted that it often doesn’t feel as if Ellroy had much input, though this could well be the assumption that makes an ass out of me and mption. The flabby plotting isn’t helped by the seemingly improvisational dialogue in many scenes. Without Ellroy’s precision, we’re left with rambling actorliness, especially between Harrelson and Ben Foster, here playing a wheelchair-bound lowlife. They only appear in two scenes together but it feels like you’re getting approximately 50 hours of intense staring, babbled words, tics, gestures and conversational dead-ends, all filmed by a camera crew positioned across the road for extra verite.

Moverman should have been more ruthless in the editing room, or more focused when preparing to shoot. As an actor’s showcase Rampart does the job, but it’s indulgent to think this passes muster as a movie. It was doomed, being screened so soon after Shame, which is a gleaming, precision-tooled Faberge egg compared to Rampart‘s clumsily assembled clay ashtray. Every directorial decision made by Steve McQueen either makes sense in the moment or comes to take on greater meaning afterward. Some might argue that such care makes for a bloodless movie, but rather that than the rambling incoherence and ugly hand-held look of Rampart.

This popular aesthetic of our age, the gritty faux-documentary mode of filming (that, oddly enough, seemed to be a new and edgy thing back when The Shield began) has really begun to seem played out. When Philip Pullman wrote this article criticising the overuse of present-tense narrative voices and hand-held cameras, I thought he was being a bit of a whiner, but now I’m beginning to think he had a point. The worst recent offender is Gavin O’Connor’s Warrior, starring Tom Hardy and Joel Edgerton. At least I think it was Tom Hardy; the camera never focused on him long enough for me to tell. As for Edgerton, I still don’t know what he looks like. For all I know he genuinely looks like Metal Beak the Nazi Owl.

Rampart is not nearly as bad as Warrior, which situates the camera either one hundred feet from the actors, with numerous obstructive objects between them, or places the camera so close that you can’t understand what anyone is doing. This modish grittiness only serves to render the movie unwatchable; I long for the day when it becomes unfashionable. Sadly Rampart‘s power is diminished by this approach, not to mention memories of both Bad Lieutenants, which were directed in such a way as to allow for improvisation or unpredictability while still exerting control over the tone and the narrative. Moverman’s film is a poor cousin to those fine movies; a shame, as Harrelson here operates almost on a par with Harvey Keitel and Nicolas Cage. Of all the actors, he seems to have the best bead on what the movie needs from him.

I’m not crazy. On-set experiments with dialogue and camerawork can deliver moments of great power and emotion, I’ll happily admit that. Just picking the best example off the top of my head, Friday Night Lights was built on this format, and for the most part it was truly magical. Nevertheless, except for the odd moment of frisson, Rampart doesn’t hold together, and certainly doesn’t hold the attention. And yet I’m almost grateful to it for crystallising something that has been brewing in my mind for a while now. Shame belongs in the same category of movie experiences that includes Black Swan, Inception, 13 Assassins, Inglorious Basterds, and to a lesser extent 2011′s Drive, We Need To Talk About Kevin and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy; movies that are finely wrought and made with proper care and fastidious design.

Those were some of the most rewarding and pleasurable movies I’ve experienced in recent years. These are the things that excite me. Rampart‘s failing, and Shame‘s considerable success, has made this clear. Going forward with this knowledge may make me harder to please, but the happiness I’ll feel when I witness something as beautifully made as McQueen’s memorable portrait of psychic confusion and loneliness will be all the greater.

BFI LFF 2011: Two Weeks Enduring Central London’s Many Charms

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It says something about a man’s life that attending a film festival just a few dozen miles from his front door is so far and away the highlight of the year that once one has finished, he starts looking forward to the next one. Just like the miserable dads you see in bad comedies who make their loved ones’ lives hell prior to the big family holiday in the middle of the year, I spent the time between the 2010 London Film Festival and the 2011 London Film Festival talking about how much I was looking forward to the London Film Festival, or talking about the previous London Film Festival.

Colleagues at work began taking sick leave just to avoid me talking about shaking John Sayles’ hand last year. My cats have heard me complaining about the BFI’s website so often that they now understand about 50 words of human English. The tattoo I got of departing festival director Sandra Hebron might have been a step too far, but what else was I going to do with the large amount of unoccupied real estate on the top of my head? It was getting out of hand, so much so that on the day that tickets went on sale and the BFI servers promptly crashed yet again, I melodramatically declared that my year was definitively ruined. I’m fortunate that Daisyhellcakes is a strong and generous enough person that she didn’t divorce me on the spot.

But it all turned out reasonably okay. We got a shitload of tickets; so many that we ended up with too many, which is a bit of a problem as there is a no refund policy on LFF tickets. Apologies to anyone who queued outside the West End Vue one afternoon in a futile effort to get tickets for Roman Polanski’s Carnage; there were two tickets you could have had but sadly the baffling no refund rule meant you missed out. Word of warning to anyone who goes to the festival next year and buys too many tickets, which is all too likely considering how badly the website crashed this year; if you get too many tickets, start hawking them on Twitter well ahead of the screening. No one else will help you.

I can imagine queuing outside the West End Vue was a particularly miserable experience. Last year I whined about the renovation work being done on the building next to that cinema, which made exiting the building doubly difficult and miserable, but that was nothing compared to this year. Thanks to the forthcoming Olympics, London is pouring literally quadzillions of pounds into sprucing itself up for all of the guests we’ll get next year, which is tough shit for anyone trying to visit this year. Leicester Square is currently being torn apart by machines to such a drastic extent that post-Decepticon-invasion Chicago in Transformers: Dark of the Moon looks easier to navigate.

It’s not just the embarrassment one feels when thinking of great filmmakers and artists (and Jude Law with his excellent hat) coming to London to help celebrate the completion of their work and being presented with a plaza that’s almost entirely filled with mesh fences and corrugated iron, though that does make a lover of London wince; it’s as if the city turned up to a premiere dressed in sweatpants and a faded Scooby-Doo t-shirt. It’s mostly because getting around the area was nigh-impossible for two weeks. Just moving from the West End Vue to the West End Odeon, or Piccadilly Circus, was pretty much like this (actual iPhone footage that I took).

So that was a bit crap (the experience, not Jude Law’s beard). The festival, on the other hand, was terrific; we both saw a number of superb movies, some not-so-great ones, and an outright bad movie classic that will end up being embraced by anyone who has ever watched Showgirls or Dreamcatcher or Glitter and screeched with astonished laughter. Over the next week or so I’ll do my usual LFF thing, comparing some of the movies in order to figure out why some worked and others didn’t, most obviously with the rather similar Shame and Rampart, though I’ll also be tackling some of the more significant movies on their own. I’ll also make a shameful admission about the realisation that I am a know-nothing when it comes to Eastern culture, try to come to terms with the terrible child of the austerity era (the new Cinema of Misery), and reveal my ignorance of psychoanalysis when I discuss David Cronenberg’s A Dangerous Method, which will happen tomorrow.