Best Performances of 2010: Actor and Actress

Continuing my look at the best performances of 2010 with the lead categories. There are some great ones this year, and I lined up very closely with Oscar this year.

Actor

Almost Made It:

-Aaron Eckhart, Rabbit Hole

-Mark Wahlberg, The Fighter

Javier Bardem, Biutiful

I didn't love the movie, but all the power I felt from it certainly came from Bardem's soul-stirring performance as Uxbal, a single father battling cancer and problems with his black market job. After Before Night Falls, No Country for Old Men, and now Biutiful, I don't think there's a better actor at portraying the inner turmoil of death and decay.

Jesse Eisenberg, The Social Network

I've been a big fan of Eisenberg in all his work, from his debut in Roger Dodger to his teen in The Squid and the Whale. Eisenberg and Mark Zukerberg are a perfect marriage of actor and role. Eisenberg absolutely masters the Aaron Sorkin's fast-paced dialogue and creates a very specific character that audiences will be arguing over long after the movie is over.

Colin Firth, The King's Speech

Firth is moving, sad, and funny in his lived-in performance as King George VI, the monarch who stammers. Firth's commitment and intelligence in the role make sure it never feels one-note. He is especially impressive in the head-to-head scenes with Geoffrey Rush that form the core of the movie.

James Franco, 127 Hours

Franco's acting task is perhaps the most intimidating. Carry a whole movie? Check. Mostly while being stationary? Check. Provide a harrowing story with moments of humor and energy? Check. This seems to be Franco's year to shine, and he is amazing as adventurer Aron Ralston.

Ryan Gosling, Blue Valentine

For my money, the best performance of the year, lead or suporting, actor or actress. As Dean, a charming high school dropout who falls in love with the more ambitious Cindy (Michelle Williams), Gosling digs very deep to show both falling in love and its tortured aftermath. You can see the soul of his character bared in every scene of this great movie. How the Academy failed to recognize it is beyond me.

My favorite: Ryan Gosling

Runner-up: James Franco

Matches with Oscar: 4/5, I swapped out Jeff Bridges for Ryan Gosling. Good work Oscar, although the exclusion of Gosling still stings. I liked Jeff Bridges in True Grit, but it also felt very familiar after his Crazy Heart performance last year.

Best Actress

Almost Made It

This category was a plethora of greatness this year. I'll just include a runner-up 5, any of who would be worthy additions to the line-up.

-Greta Gerwig, Greenberg

-Nicole Kidman, Rabbit Hole

-Julianne Moore, The Kids Are All Right

-Ruth Sheen, Another Year

-Emma Stone, Easy A

Annette Bening, The Kids Are All Right

What I love about Bening's performance is the specificity of every moment in the film, from judgment to love to anger and back. She provided so many of my favorite film moments of the year: the passive-aggressive grilling of Mark Ruffalo at their first meeting, her rant about organic food while drunk at a restaurant, and, of course, her rendition of Joni Mitchell.

Patricia Clarkson, Cairo Time

Clarkson has long been one of my favorite actresses (also turning in a great supporting performance this year in Easy A). In Cairo Time, a beautiful, atmospheric movie set in Egypt, Clarkson is the master of the slow burn. As Juliette, a quiet American becoming enthralled and opened up by travel and her friendship with an Egyptian man, Clarkson gives a beautiful and moving quiet performance.

Jennifer Lawrence, Winter's Bone

Ree Dolly is a true original, a tough, responsible, no-nonsense 17-year-old caring for her mother and siblings in a wasteland of meth production and economic depression. Lawrence never makes the acting choices that leads the audience towards pity or easy sympathy. Her tough exterior is such a constant presence throughout the movie that, when she finally breaks, the moment is immensely powerful. 20-year-old Lawrence is certainly an actor to watch.

Natalie Portman, Black Swan

Portman is in every scene of director Darren Aronofsky's twisted ballet movie, and she has to make a tremendous character arc. Portman is absolutely up to the challenge, carefully threading the needle between innocence, delusion, passion, and madness, not to mention learning a whole lot of ballet. A performance that will live on in film history.

Michelle Williams, Blue Valentine

As the quieter half of the relationship, Williams has perhaps the less immediately sympathetic role to play. I think Williams is one of the best modern actresses at portraying inner pain and sadness, and her character Cindy certainly deals with her share of it in this movie. If you want to see great acting, watch what Williams does in her scene at the doctor's office. Astonishing.

My favorite: Annette Bening

Runner-up: Michelle Williams

Matches with Oscar: 4/5. Fantastic job, Oscar. I swapped out Kidman for Patricia Clarkson, but Kidman was probably my sixth choice. This is the best actress lineup in a long while.

Best Performances of 2010: Supporting Actor and Supporting Actress

Although there is always another movie I wish I could see before doing end of year awards, I think the time has come for Ben's Talking Pictures "Best of 2010." I'll start with the Supporting Actors and Actress, those gifted actors who make the most of every scene they're in.. In one of this year's categories, I even completely agree with Oscars lineup.

Supporting Actor

Almost made it:

-Andrew Garfield, The Social Network

-Miles Teller, Rabbit Hole

Christian Bale, The Fighter

The greatness of this astonishing performance is not that Bale lost major pounds to prepare for his role as washed-up boxer and crack user Dicky Edlund. The strength of his performance comes in his perfect calibration of delusional macho swagger, familial love, and, eventually, brokenness and shame. Whenever he's on screen, you cannot take your eyes off of him. A career best.

John Hawkes, Winter's Bone

Teardrop, the Uncle to Ree Dolly, the heroine of the movie, is a character with nuance to spare. Is he scary? Vengeful? Loyal? Helpful? Yes on all accounts. Hawkes perfectly embodies an underlying current in Winter's Bone, how the characters call on the ties that bind, however corrupt they are, to survive through each day.

Jeremy Renner, The Town

Renner follows-up his great performance in The Hurt Locker with Jem, another character always on the edge of life and death. A Boston thief who doesn't take shit from anyone, Renner shows a fiery menace and loyalty that makes you wonder where his character came from.

Mark Ruffalo, The Kids Are All Right

It's a great supporting performance that adds layers to the script. As written, donor dad Paul could easily come across as a parody of a certain type of overgrown hippie. Instead, Ruffalo's natural charm changes him into a credible foil to the lesbian parents of the movie, so much so that I even felt the ending was a little too tough on his character.

Geoffrey Rush, The King's Speech

As Australian speech therapist Lionel Logue, Rush is great. His natural charm is the perfect counterpoint to the awkwardness of Colin Firth's King George. I think it's Rush's best performance, even surpassing his 1996 Oscar-winning role in Shine.

My pick: Christian Bale

Runner-up: Mark Ruffalo

Matches with Oscar?: 100%! Nice work Academy. I can't think of another case where I've agreed completely with Oscar's choices.


Best Supporting Actress

Almost made it:

-Dale Dickey, Winter's Bone

-Mila Kunis, Black Swan

Amy Adams, The Fighter

Her role as bartender Charlene is a million miles removed from her wide-eyed sweethearts from Junebug, Enchanted, and Doubt. She brings humor, depth, and real humanity to a fairly traditional "girlfriend" role. While Melissa Leo as been winning all the supporting awards for The Fighter, I found Adams' performance to be much more convincing and engaging.

Rebecca Hall, Please Give

Hall might be my pick for most promising young actress, turning in great performances this year in both this and The Town. As Rebecca (go figure), a radiology technician and dutiful granddaughter, Hall gives a great portrayal of natural goodness in director Nicole Holofcener's delightful social comedy.

Lesley Manville, Another Year

I think the studio made a huge mistake campaigning Manville in the lead category. I think this is a supporting performance, I think she would have managed a nomination in this category, and I think she's phenomenal. Manville commands the screen as Mary, a pathetic alcoholic cared for my her happy and giving middle-aged friends. Her performance starts as comedy, but by the last quarter of the movie, Manville has turned Mary into a true tragic figure who is so utterly specific, yet embodies universal concerns.

Mia Wasikowska, The Kids Are All Right

As Joni, the one who sets the plot in motion, Mia Wasikowska is more than just all right, she's great. I loved her wounded teen character on the first season of HBO's In Treatment, and she's just as convincing here as a more well-adjusted teenager. Wasikowska perfectly captures the conflicted emotions faced by her character, who in the course of a movie deals with gaining a dad, seeing marital pressures in her moms, deals with a possible budding romance, and heads to college.

Jacki Weaver, Animal Kingdom

This is the performance most likely to raise a "Who's That?" on nomination morning. Animal Kingdom is a taut crime drama from Australia, and Jacki Weaver is fascinating as a mother bear watching over her seriously screwed-up cubs, somewhat similar to Melissa Leo's character in The Fighter.

My favorite: Lesley Manville

Runner-up: Amy Adams

Matches with Oscar?: Only 2 for 2. We both loved Adams and Weaver. I found Melissa Leo (The Fighter) interesting but a little too capital-A acting. I liked Haille Steinfeld (True Grit) quite a bit, but there's no argument for placing a character who is in every scene in the supporting category. Helena Bonham Carter (The King's Speech) was charming, but her role was fairly limited.

Supporting Actress Blogathon & Review of Damage

I'm thrilled at the chance to participate in an upcoming blogathon at StinkyLulu's site (http://www.stinkylulu.com/2009/05/supporting-actress-sundays-for-may09.html#links). I'm a long-time fan of his supporting actress blogathons, where he and guests look back at nominated Supporting Actress performances and critique them. I am even more excited to participate in 1992's blogathon, the year when Marisa Tomei beat 4 British thespians and spawned an urban legend that the wrong name was read (http://www.snopes.com/movies/actors/tomei.asp).

So, in the next few weeks look for reviews of the following films that contain 1992 nominated supporting actress performances:

-Damage (Miranda Richardson)
-Enchanted April (Joan Plowright)
-Howards End (Vanessa Redgrave)
-Husbands and Wives (Judy Davis)
-My Cousin Vinny (Marisa Tomei)

and my first screening was......

Damage (1992)

I found Damage, Louis Malle's very serious and dramatic depiction of an erotic affair between a young woman and her fiance's father, fairly ridiculous in many ways. Little is given in the way of character development and, when it is given, it often feels patently false. The first hour consists of repeated scenes of Jeremy Irons and Juliette Binoche sneaking around and having trysts in various locales. The sex scenes are ludicrous and the characters' motivations and actions rarely believable. Jeremy Irons, who can be a great actor, also seems wooden and emotionless throughout the movie.

In my opinion the best part of the movie was Juliette Binoche, a great French actress (I love her later work in Blue, The English Patient, and Cache). While her character is drawn with broad sketches, she hints at layers underneath. I think the movie would have been much more interesting if it had been told from her perspective rather than Irons', but as in most films, male desire and psychology is given greater precedence.

Miranda Richardson was nominated for a role in which she was supremely miscast, the wife of Jeremy Irons. She plays the mother of 29-year-old actor Rupert Graves when she was (wait for it....) all of 34 years old. I could never buy that she was actually his mother. Nevertheless, she does her best with the role and has probably the movie's most emotional moment in a later scene.

I must admit that the movie was somewhat entertaining in a laughable way, but I don't recommend spending two hours of your time watching it.

Grade: C-