4 Mini Reviews

As I'm working through all of the films I haven't touched on in the past few months, struggling to catch up with my film reviews, I'm going to do something I'm generally loathe to do: do a mini review of the pictures.  I don't like doing this, in part because while this is a generally low-traffic blog for me it's the closest thing I get to a time capsule of my thoughts on a specific picture and what things stuck out to me as soon as I watched it rather than distant memories where so-often you're reliant upon what others called out as important about the film afterwards than what you, yourself liked at the time.  However, these have been distant enough that I won't have that cache, none were nominated for an Oscar so I won't be referencing these films again for the OVP, and due simply to time (I need to get some of these reviews out of my draft folder), we'll be doing four short mini reviews.  If any of these are ones you want to discuss more thoroughly or get my expanded thoughts, I'm happy to discuss in the comments.

(Some Spoilers ahead for Stronger, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, Wonderstruck, and Last Flag Flying-read only the paragraphs where you've seen the films if you have a spoiler allergy)

Stronger (dir. David Gordon Green)

The story of a man whose legs were blown off after the Boston Marathon is shocking in the way that it avoids overly sentimentalizing its main character Jeff Bauman (played by Jake Gyllenhaal in yet another superb performance).  I went into this picture reluctantly, assuming it would be your general true-life story that deserves kudos to the actual person, but which comes across as drivel in the film, but Gyllenhaal plays Bauman as a real person, struggling with the concept of being a hero for basically being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and who must admit feelings he has even if he's someone that doesn't have any sort of comfort admitting feelings.  Hats off to both he and the two women in his life, his girlfriend Tatiana Maslany and his mother Miranda Richardson, who find a strong, independent dynamic for their work.  The film's story is too-cliched and hugs the many sentimental traps that it avoided the first half when we get to the ending, but by-and-large this is one of the better "unlikely real-life hero" stories I've seen in a while. (Ranking: 3/5 stars)

The Killing of a Sacred Deer (dir. Yorgos Lanthimos)

I left Dogtooth disgusted and confused.  I left The Lobster confused but getting where this was headed.  Sacred Deer seems to combine the two pictures.  While it's hard to imagine something as disturbing as Dogtooth, I can't deny this is a really nasty movie.  The film follows Colin Farrell, who has essentially been cursed by a terrifying Barry Koeghan after accidentally killing his father, and as a result Farrell's family (including wife Nicole Kidman) are slowly dying.  As punishment from Koeghan's character, Farrell must choose one of his family members to die, or else they all will.  The film is quite literal, even though at first you're meant not to trust Koeghan's character.  This picture is probably one that works best in comparison to Lanthimos's other flicks, knowing that he'll soon hit his near-perfect stride with The Favourite, and realizing that this is him trying out adventures that sometimes work, sometimes don't (the film struggles with its pacing once you realize the curse is real), but it's still a wild, creepy ride. (Ranking: 3/5 stars)

Wonderstruck (dir. Todd Haynes)

Todd Haynes' films are a hodgepodge for me, where I always respect them, but I don't ever love them (except for Carol).  Wonderstruck, his first film since the Blanchett-Mara duet, is back to "respect but don't love," but there's still a lot to admire here.  The film has a terrific central performance by Millicent Simmonds as a young deaf girl who is trying to find her brother in the Museum of Natural History in New York City (Julianne Moore plays her as an adult).  Told concurrently is a tale about a young man fifty years later who has just lost his mother (Michelle Williams) and is also trying to run away in the Museum of Natural History.  Beautifully shot by Edward Lachman, there are some wonderfully-felt scenes where we explore the Natural History Museum and the Queens Museum (I love museums-this was catnip for me), though the film's ending is a bit of a letdown, and it felt too cold for a movie that is trying to be warm.  Still, worth your time. (Ranking: 3/5 stars)

Last Flag Flying (dir. Richard Linklater)

Our final film for today is Richard Linklater's latest (at least for a few more weeks): Last Flag Flying.  Starring Steve Carell, Bryan Cranston, & Laurence Fishburne as a trio of former war buddies who are on a trek to bury Carell's son where he wanted to be buried (and not in Arlington), this is a road trip by way of Linklater, so you know there's more below-the-surface that he's hoping will come out through his script and plotting.  Linklater's been on a roll lately (Before Midnight, Boyhood, and Everybody Wants Some! all made my Top 5 of the year), but this was a misfire.  Cranston overcompensates as an actor, and Carell under-emotes, and while there's a lot of meat about politics, aging, death, and friendship in Linklater's script, it doesn't gel.  Here's to hoping that Cate Blanchett gets him back into his groove. (Ranking: 2/5 stars)

OVP: Vice (2018)

Film: Vice (2018)
Stars: Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Steve Carell, Sam Rockwell, Alison Pill, Lily Rabe, Tyler Perry, Jesse Plemons, Naomi Watts
Director: Adam McKay
Oscar History: 8 nominations/1 win (Best Picture, Director, Actor-Christian Bale, Supporting Actor-Sam Rockwell, Supporting Actress-Amy Adams, Film Editing, Makeup & Hairstyling*, Original Screenplay)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

I had to double-check, but contrary to popular opinion (and by that I mean, the 3-4 people I actually would discuss such a film with), I didn't hate The Big Short when it came out.  McKay's filmmaking had its bumps, and I didn't love all of his decisions in the film, but the movie progressed nicely and had enough to recommend it that I gave it 3-stars when I first viewed it.  McKay, given the newfound respect of an Oscar & a license to make any film he wanted, could have focused on the sharper aspects of his big "critical" break, cleaning up some of his indulgences and giving us a specific, interesting follow-up.  Instead, he decided that he wanted to ratchet up his spastic storytelling contrivances, give us a heavy-handed, directionless look at a ruthless viper of a human being, and pretend that he can tie a giant bow on the top of it, guilt-free, as a result of being the guy who made the movie.  This results in one of the worst films I've seen all year, and (should it be nominated, as many including myself are predicting), will make it one of the worst films to ever contend for Best Picture.

(We all lived through it-we don't need spoilers, though perhaps they would have been handy at the time) The film follows the long political career of Dick Cheney (Bale), from his beginnings as a drunk driver who avoided the draft to his quick trip to Congress, staying under the tutelage of Don Rumsfeld (Carell), which led him to important roles in the Nixon, Ford, and Bush-41 administrations, as well as a ten year stint in Congress before he became Vice President.  The film mostly focuses on Cheney & his wife Lynne (Adams), giving little credence to any story arcs focusing on those around them, only adding in a few moments about their daughters Liz (Rabe) and Mary (Pill) toward the end to underline how callous and nasty they were in their drive to power.

Vice is going to be hard for any conservative to stomach, even if a lot of the actions of the Bush/Cheney administration line up with historical fact, even if it's not always obvious which actions the real-life Cheney actually perpetrated and which ones are McKay's imagination running-wild.  I'm not going to be here to defend Cheney, as some have, saying the film is a hatchet job.  Cheney is arguably the politician I like the least, and considering his views on torture, the poor, energy reform, and the way that his administration fleeced the American tax coffers for his own profit are inexcusable, and probably should have landed most of the administration in jail at some point.  It's a testament to how truly awful Cheney was that I listed eight things off the top of my head that he did while in office the film didn't have room for that any other biopic would've been the main headline-it takes a lot of time to name check every evil thing that Dick Cheney ever did.

No, my problem here is the way the film doesn't seem to have a goal, other than to make attempts at being clever and consistently condescending.  McKay's directorial choices are wacky (frequently having Seth MacFarlane-esque cutaways where Adams & Bale quote bad Shakespearean dialogue or a mid-film credits sequence where they make the Cheneys look like the Waltons).  These serve as distractions from the simple fact that McKay doesn't have much of interest to say of Cheney.  He does make an unusually poor idea for a protagonist, since he never changes (he's an oppressive thug for the entirety of the film, and the only thing that he ever alters his mind on is eventually cutting his daughter Mary loose to further his political ambitions).  He clearly wants there to be heroes in the Bush administration, and makes the likes of Bush (played by Sam Rockwell), Condoleezza Rice (LisaGay Hamilton), and Colin Powell (Perry) seem more sympathetic by making them just dumb.  This is lazy history, and tries to exonerate George W. Bush in a way so many critics do by making him seem less intelligent and less aware of what was going on in the administration than he obviously would have been (and even if you're going to say that Bush is dumb, you can't say the same for someone like Condi Rice, who is clearly Cheney's equal intellectually & knew exactly what was happening during this administration).  Thankfully he doesn't do the same for Adams' portrayal of Lynne, by all-accounts the more natural politician of the two, who seems just as power-hungry as he is, albeit thanks to sexism without the same avenues to achieve it.  About the only figure who should garner any sympathy is Pill's Mary, but McKay has given Dick Cheney (too much) credit for backing civil unions and glosses over how the vice president sold his daughter out to give his other daughter a leg-up in her failed bid for the Senate, making what should be a big betrayal of a scene feel too muted.

This would all be bad, all be just a gigantic mess of a movie, if McKay wasn't so damn smug about Cheney in his screenwriting.  Based on the politics of McKay's recent filmography, I think it's safe to assume he did not vote for Bush/Cheney, but neither did tens of millions of other people who protested against, campaigned against, and denounced this administration.  And yet he has the gaul to have Bale's Cheney pull a Frank Underwood and say "you wanted this, you wanted me to do this," as if to stave off the most virulent of conservative critics of the movie (did anyone else feel like he was ripping off that famous Sideshow Bob speech?..."but deep down you secretly long for a cold-hearted Republican").  He also frequently states that voters were too stupid or too obsessed with mindless pop culture to notice that Cheney, Rumseld, and their ilk were committing war crimes without any repercussions, but that's simply not true (millions of Americans stood tall against Bush & Cheney, protesting and voting against their administration, and to say otherwise is an insult to all those whose work eventually led to the Obama administration).  Also, it feels pretty hypocritical for the man who spent the Bush administration making Anchorman and Step Brothers to suddenly be high-and-mighty about idiotic pop culture during a time of great trouble.

As a result, I can't get behind any of this movie, and I think it's an insult it's about to be hailed by organizations like the Golden Globes and (inevitably) the Oscars as a great movie when it's not only a terrible one, but one that maintains no sense of context.  Even the performances are questionably done-are you going to tell me that Dick Cheney, of all people, has no idea why he commited these monstrosities?  That Lynne Cheney has no real idea why she wanted more power? And yet this is the way that Bale & Adams play them, and no amount of convincing makeup and prosthetics can make up for a lack of center in these cinematic creations.  These are the sorts of people who would sell out their own daughter to gain some more respectable poll numbers, and yet I left Vice having no understanding why they even wanted to be in DC in the first place other than pure evil.  McKay's film lacks perspective and is a meandering dumpster fire.  Dick Cheney didn't deserve better than that, but the ticket buyers for this movie sure as hell did.

No Globe? No Sag? No Problem!!!

Lesley Manville didn't get invited by SAG or
HFPA, but she was good enough for Oscar anyway.

There are a lot of things to say about this morning's SAG Awards.  For starters, there is no universe where Bohemian Rhapsody qualifies as a strong ensemble.  I didn't even like Crazy Rich Asians, but I understand the pull to nominate it here, but Bohemian Rhapsody is completely & totally Rami Malek, and the supporting cast is a bunch of one-dimensional, lackluster performances that are entirely in service to Malek.  Nearly as absurd is thinking that Emily Blunt is a supporting performance in A Quiet Place.  I enjoyed Blunt in this film, and am excited she's clearly headed to her first Oscar nomination, but no one would consider this a supporting performance if Mary Poppins Returns wasn't an option this year.  NO ONE.  Nicole Kidman has to be looking at this year right now and wishing that she'd gone supporting for Moulin Rouge! in 2001 because apparently she could have gotten dual nominations that year, no trouble (and yes, it's absurd to think of her as supporting in Moulin Rouge!, but is it any more absurd than Blunt or Chalamet or Ali?).

But that's a gripe for a different day, because today we get to do one of my all-time favorite traditions at TMROJ: our annual "No Globe/No Sag/No Problem!" article.  For those unfamiliar, every year we take a look at one of the more under-reported aspects of the awards season, that despite people pretending like anyone without a Globe or SAG nomination is DOA when it comes to Oscar, almost always there's at least 1-2 actors who randomly get nominated without either of these precursors.  Even in an era of group think with the Academy, we have not had a year where no one is a "new name" since 2006, which was largely due to the bizarre Best Supporting Actor race that season (nine different actors were cited in those categories that year between the Globes & SAG Awards).  For reference, in the past ten years these have been the "No Globes, No SAG" victors with AMPAS:

2017: Lesley Manville
2016: Michael Shannon
2015: Charlotte Rampling, Tom Hardy & Mark Ruffalo
2014: Bradley Cooper, Marion Cotillard, & Laura Dern
2013: Jonah Hill
2012: Quvenzhane Wallis, Emmanuelle Riva, & Jacki Weaver
2011: Gary Oldman & Max von Sydow
2010: Javier Bardem
2009: Maggie Gyllenhaal
2008: Michael Shannon

As you can see from the above, the "No Globe/No SAG" contenders usually fall into one of two camps.  Either they are previous nominees/winners who are making a late play for the Oscar nomination, as they're already established enough with the Academy that they don't need precursors to get their screener into the DVD player, or they are "halo" nominations from films that are doing well in the Best Picture or other acting races that sneak onto enough ballots to get a fourth or fifth place nomination.  It's worth noting that none of these actors usually end up winning (I believe the last time that someone pulled off an Oscar win without either precursor nomination was Marcia Gay Harden in 2000), but it's too soon to count the following ten contenders out of Oscar's big night:

10. Toni Collette (Hereditary)

For Her: She received raves for her work in Hereditary, which is a genre film but has the prestige-horror angle that Oscar sometimes goes for (look at Get Out last year), and she's a previous nominee.  Collette has been working the rooms hard for this citation, and is the sort of actor most everyone has worked with & acknowledges is one of the best, but her nominations count doesn't really speak to that fact.
Against Her: It's a rough year for Best Actress outsiders (there is a lot of consensus forming around the Close/Gaga/McCarthy/Blunt/Colman quintet), so she'd likely have to take out either McCarthy or Blunt for their nominations, a tall order considering the former is one of Hollywood's most bankable movie stars and the latter most agree is overdue for this nomination.  Plus, it's still genre and she might have needed more critical hosannas to land this spot.

9. Nicole Kidman (Boy Erased)

For Her: Kidman is consistently one of the best actors in cinema, and this is exactly the sort of role that gets you nominated (long-suffering, long-supporting mother).  Lucas Hedges did get a nomination for Best Actor at the Globes, and as a result this is probably more in the conversation with AMPAS than most critics have been giving it credit for, and Kidman's exactly the sort of matinee idol that gets nominated for work such as this.  If people ignore her on their Best Actress ballots for Destroyer, perhaps they'll want to include her here?
Against Her: She's looking at likely vote-splitting for her work in Destroyer, even if it's in a different category, and she's got The Favourite women taking up two of the nominations already.  Will Oscar have room for an actual supporting performance if they already have 40-60% of the category filled up with leads?

8. Steve Carell (Vice)

For Him: Carell seems to be pulling a play from Michael Shannon's book this year, where you just appear in as many films as possible and see what sticks.  He likely doesn't have to worry about vote-splitting with Beautiful Boy and Welcome to Marwen, but a trio of films could make the Academy give one of its occasional "they were in everything, so let's nominate them" citations.  Carell's got a showy role in a movie that feels like a Best Picture contender, which always helps-could this be a "halo" nomination of sorts?
Against Him: Best Supporting Actor seems to be solidifying (again, lead performers Timothee Chalamet & Mahershala Ali both make it harder for a turn like this to make the cut), and if anyone from Vice makes it, won't it be recent-winner Sam Rockwell, who got the Globe nomination?  It's hard to envision the Academy loving this movie so much that both of them get into the lineup.

7. Linda Cardellini (Green Book)

For Her: I can't decide if this should be #1 or if I'm crazy for including it on this list at all.  Cardellini's role in Green Book is a trifle, nothing really impressive about it and lacking even a really juicy scene that might get her into the conversation in a different year.  But she's also playing the supportive wife (one of Oscar's favorite roles) in a probable Best Picture contender, and romancing a surefire Best Actor nominee in her film.  Is this a Jacki Weaver-type nomination?
Against Her: She's not as famous as most of the people on this list (though she's worked in Hollywood a while), which makes standing out more of a challenge, and it's a pittance of a part.  With category fraud so rampant this year, how will there be room for a genuine supporting part to sneak in like Cardellini's?

6. Ryan Gosling (First Man)

For Him: I get the feeling that First Man is going to do much better with Oscar than it had any hopes to do with some of the precursor awards, considering it has very showy tech attributes that go a lot further with AMPAS.  That should help Gosling, a two-time nominee who has never won, who gives an introverted performance here that has gained a lot of critical praise.  If AMPAS wants subtle, he's a pretty strong option.
Against Him: If John David Washington is genuinely getting his nomination, that leaves very little room for a Best Actor nominee to sneak in, as Gosling would have to take out Viggo, Bale, Malek, or Cooper, none of which feel movable at this point.  Oscar only occasionally goes for subtle-this might be too subdued for them, and the SAG miss for Claire Foy makes me wonder if no one is feeling this work this year.

5. Yalitza Aparicio (Roma)

For Her: The work in this film is showy and impressive, and you can't help but connect with her Cleo.  For actor-fans of Cuaron's film (there will be a lot of them-expect this to be a Best Picture nominee), they've got no other place to show their enthusiasm other than Aparicio, and Globe/SAG are more into stars than Oscar is (because you become a star with that Oscar nomination).
Against Her: It's a director's film, and while the cast is an undersung hero of why it works, the combination of it being a visual rather than actorly showcase and that it's in a foreign language (already a hiccup with Oscar), means that Aparicio is going to need Oscar to love it a lot in order to get her into the race.

4. Julia Roberts (Ben is Back)

For Her: She's one of the country's most recognizable movie stars, and as a result can make a late play in a way that few others would be able to pull off (if Clint Eastwood's work in The Mule is good enough, he should be on this list as he's in the same boat, but the lack of a critic's screening makes me think that is entirely a commercial play).  Ben is Back is getting great notices for Roberts, and it hasn't opened yet so it could be a strong commercial play (plus she'll be on red carpets already thanks to Homecoming).  While there are a lot of Globe/SAG-nominated performers who could break up the quintet I've listed above, my gut says that if one of those names isn't on the list, it'll be Roberts that comes out of nowhere & scores for her work here.
Against Her: She needs strong box office & she needs to oust someone who is already a big part of the conversation.  She can do that, but Roberts has never pulled off an Oscar citation without serious Globes support heading into the night.

3. Michael B. Jordan (Black Panther)

For Him: He's a superstar actor (he must be getting a nomination at some point, right?), who has the most obvious, nominatable performance in a film that is a serious threat to win Best Picture.  It's relatively rare for a Best Picture winner not to have at least one nominated performance, and villains do well in Best Supporting Actor.
Against Him: The Return of the King was a much surer Best Picture victor, and it missed completely for nominations.  It's entirely possible that the Academy will skip this considering they don't go for comic book performances (Heath Ledger being the obvious exception), and he's been skipped over before for more obvious work.  Maybe they just aren't fans?

2. Ethan Hawke (First Reformed)

For Him: Hawke's work here is remarkable, a tour-de-force triumph that will be catnip to anyone who sees it.  Oscar loves very physical performances, and ones with lots of great monologues.  It's easy to see him making it on #1 ballots if enough people catch the film...
Against Him: ...but will they?  Schrader is probably looking at a Best Screenplay nomination here if Hawke can also pull it off, but this is a rough movie that people are going to have to start catching around the holidays, and it was released months ago, so the buzz is going to be tough to maintain as Vice and Bohemian Rhapsody continue to be a big presence in theaters.  Might it just be one of those performances the Oscars wish they'd nominated after-the-fact?

1. Michelle Yeoh (Crazy Rich Asians)

For Her: Everything.  She's a well-known actor (check) who is appearing in a showcase supporting role (check) in a populist film that everyone saw (check) that is increasingly likely to win a Best Picture nomination (check).  Plus, in an Academy increasingly focused on diversity with their acting nominations, Yeoh's an easy way to honor one of the most important Asian women in cinema.  I had toyed with putting Hawke or Jordan at #1, but the SAG nomination for Best Ensemble combined with the dual nominations at the Globes makes me think this is probably going to happen.  Also, Supporting Actress is the only race where the fifth slot doesn't have a clear favorite so she has room (Adams, King, Stone, & Weisz make it, but Foy is slipping, Robbie is out-of-nowhere, and Blunt will get in for Mary Poppins instead).
Against Her: It's a relatively slight role, and it's entirely possible that the Academy (allergic to comedies) won't love CRA the way the general public did.  But I think this is happening-it's the only one on this list that I'd have listed on my official Top 5 predictions at this point.

Beautiful Boy (2018)

Film: Beautiful Boy (2018)
Stars: Steve Carell, Timothee Chalamet, Maura Tierney, Amy Ryan
Director: Felix van Groeningen
Oscar History: Chalamet made it with SAG and the Globes, but was the odd man out for the Oscars.
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

I remember the first time I saw Leonardo DiCaprio in a movie after Titanic, and for the briefest of moments, I was suddenly transported to a different world, for one second suddenly thinking that I was in the same cloud of Jack Dawson & that truly stupendous movie, arguably the most profound cinematic moment of my young adult life.  It took me years to accept another movie that I loved Leo in even close as much, and eventually had to sort of remind myself that movies like Titanic only come across once in an actor's career (if at all).  He's still one of my favorite onscreen performers, though, and I couldn't stop thinking about Leo when I caught Beautiful Boy recently, as it was a bit of deja vu for me as I watched Timothee Chalamet on the big-screen for the first time since Call Me By Your Name.

(Spoilers Ahead) For you see, Chalamet, in many ways, is the rare onscreen performance that has captured me as completely as Leo did so many years ago.  I've loved few other performances since then (there are some, of course, but they are sparse on the big screen), but Chalamet's Elio and that film in general took my breath away in a manner I wasn't sure was still possible (it's rare that I go into a film confident I'd love it, and still vastly underestimated how much I'd still end up adoring the picture).  But Chalamet, a talented performer who was also terrific in Lady Bird (a film that would have won Best Picture for me last year if CMBYN hadn't shown up), now has the impossible task with many moviegoers, but narcissisticly I'm focused on myself, to prove that not only he can play other roles, but that he can exist in a plane that isn't just Elio, but in fact (like DiCaprio before him) he's worth the price of admission for another movie.

Chalamet is incredible in Beautiful Boy, a wonderful high-wire act of nerves, body language, and destructive behavior, but this is decidedly not Call Me By Your Name, and after a few minutes of trying to mentally realize that, I settled into a pretty mundane story about addiction.  Chalamet is the only reason to see this movie, and it's not one that you go to hoping for relief; this is a slog, a boring one that touches on addiction plot points you know by heart.  It's callous to say about a true story (it's based on twin memoirs by David Sheff and his son Nic, played in the films by Steve Carell & Chalamet, respectively), but there's nothing new here, and only Chalamet's strong work in the lead makes it anything other than an asterisk for awards season.  Carell, for example, has been playing this role for years now.  Once noted for his work in comedy, he's made a mark for himself as a serious, dramatic leading man, but honestly (unpopular opinion time), he's never shown in his filmic career the same sort of introspective spark he exhibited as Michael Scott in The Office.  He's serviceable here, but there's so much to David that we leave the film not knowing, and Carell offers us nothing extra.  What, for example, is his relationship like with his other children, those with Maura Tierney (who is also very good, I want to say, even if the screenplay wants nothing to do with the fascinating layers she's bringing to this role)?  Why doesn't the film explore the competitive, frequently "bad parenting" relationship he has with ex-wife Amy Ryan?  David could be really interesting, but neither the writers nor Carell care about him when he isn't attached to Nic's descent.

Perhaps most damning of all, the film doesn't seem to realize that Carell's David a lousy dad, and has been most of his life, treating his son like a buddy after the divorce more than anything else.  There is a belabored string of scenes toward the end of the movie where David has to cut off ties with Nic, and the film acts like this is some form of heroism, but it never admits that David's relationship with Nic totally enabled his drug abuse in the first place.  That may sound callous, but this is a disjointed affair, one that (were it not a true story) would have surely ended with the Nic character dying (it makes more sense in terms of a narrative).  I frequently state that real life is a terrible place to find movie ideas, and Beautiful Boy is a perfect example of a film that needs to cater to its actual counterparts' egos and sense of importance, and in the process we lose the picture.  Chalamet will have other chances to help me realize him as something other than Elio, but it'd be a lot easier to move on if he chose a movie where he wasn't the only reason to buy the ticket.

Battle of the Sexes (2017)

Film: Battle of the Sexes (2017)
Stars: Emma Stone, Steve Carell, Andrea Riseborough, Sarah Silverman, Bill Pullman, Alan Cumming, Elisabeth Shue, Austin Stowell
Director: Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

I try really hard not to be a genre snob, as I honestly think that every single type of film has the potential for greatness.  People who rule out westerns or war films or romantic-comedies or superhero pictures-they're just limiting what they might experience at the movies, and I think that's a terrible way to treat a love of the cinema.  That being said, few types of movies give me allergies more than sports pictures.  Generally, there is only one type of sports movie (uplifting, come-from-behind, eventually either win or get a moral win), and the formula is so oft-repeated that I get bored really easily.  Pretty much all sports films fall into the shadow of Rocky at this point, which isn't the worst thing in the world (the original Rocky being a good movie), but it doesn't leave them room to breathe. When people ask me my favorite sports pictures, I almost always say Raging Bull or (more recently, depending on my mood) Everybody Wants Some!!! or if I'm feeling particularly cheeky, On the Waterfront.  None of these movies actually have sports as the central theme to their greatness, which is why it feels like a cheat as an answer.  Raging Bull is more about man's own struggle against himself, the fights he loses with himself (On the Waterfront is even more so about this, and is really just about an athlete in a situation that has little to do with athletics), and Everybody Wants Some!!! the baseball is almost completely incidental (they never even play an actual game against another team in the movie), as it's about growing up.  So color me surprised yesterday when I caught Battle of the Sexes, and those preconceptions I have about sports films got shattered; here is the rare come-from-behind movie that genuinely feels fresh and new, and not just a retread of what came before it.  That it's a true story and achieves that is a truly grand achievement.

(Real Life Doesn't Have Spoiler Alerts...though with Trump in charge, I kind of wish it did) The movie focuses on the peak of Billie Jean King's career (Stone), when she was fresh off of four consecutive wins at Wimbledon, was armed with the Grand Slam, and was world number one, and yet was still not being given her due in professional sports.  The film opens with King demanding that Jack Kramer (Pullman) pay the women the same for an upcoming tournament as what the male players are making (a debate that's sadly still talked about in the sport).  Kramer turns her down, and so King, along with eight other major players at the time (though admittedly none as important to the sport as King), start their own tour, playing in the "Virginia Slims Series" organized by King's friend Gladys (Silverman).  All the while, King is struggling with her own sexuality, balancing her deep platonic love for her husband Larry (Stowell) and her burgeoning sexual desire for a hairdresser she meets named Marilyn (Riseborough).  The movie lobs (pun intended) between King's story and that of former tennis great Bobby Riggs (Carell), who is struggling in his marriage and with his gambling addiction, and consistently is upset about women taking over a sport he used to dominate, and perhaps more so just mad the world has forgotten about him.  He decides to challenge King to a match, and when she refuses he plays Margaret Court (Jessica McNamee), the World #1 who bests a distracted Billie Jean King, beats her, forcing Billie Jean King to go out and beat Riggs to essentially save women's tennis from becoming a laughingstock.

If you follow this blog very closely, you'll know that I don't love a lot of athletics, but do have an undying love for tennis, so there's a part of me watching this movie that is waiting on the edge of my seat to see which superstars from the era will show up, who will play them, feeling the thrill others do when they hear names of superstars mentioned on the screen.  I've always been surprised that tennis hasn't given us more stories on the big-screen, since like boxing (film's favorite athletic competition), it's a strength-of-will, about one person versus one other person, and dominated by unlikely stories of people who rise to the top of their field (and unlike boxing, it doesn't glorify a sport that causes permanent brain damage).  Yet for some reason it's never really resonated at the movies in the same way, so part of me was just thrilled to see my heroes on the big-screen here, particularly one of my favorite athletes of all time, Billie Jean King.

But bias isn't what makes this movie great-it's anchored by a wonderful performance by Emma Stone at its center, which keeps the movie shifting forward even when it can't quite pick its mood (alternating between serious sports drama and occasionally languid 70's music-laden montages that feel out-of-place and a cheap ploy on the audience).  Stone is an actor I've struggled with my admiration for in the past.  After her grand breakthrough in Easy A, she has impressed me fully as a celebrity and clearly shown movie star potential, but even in her Oscar-nominated performances I haven't been wowed, but here she delivers.  By far her best work since Easy A, she grounds a difficult character to play onscreen with charisma and introversion.  Billie Jean King is not a tragic figure of sports, she's in fact someone who succeeded over-and-over again and is not someone who was plagued by drugs or alcohol or a ruinous marriage (she's famously good friends with her now ex-husband Larry).  Stone doesn't rely upon easy sports cliches to portray King, and even when she's struggling, it's in a way that feels unique to the character, and not just cribbed from every other athletic movie.  Look at the way that she can shift into performance mode, and the way she handles both her lesbianism and the fact that so much of the success of the sport she loves, at a critical time for women, rests on her ability to succeed.  It's a grand combination of solid acting and movie star magic, and Stone achieves it as an actress who has matured into her natural gifts.  Combined with supporting players who were very solid (Stowell and Silverman being the standouts), the movie is elevated by her work.

It's also a movie that's easy to root for, and Faris/Dayton don't shy away from the obvious correlations between the 2016 election and this battle.  After all, a strong, competent, at-the-top-of-her-game woman is constantly challenged by men she would dominate, particularly a blustering old fool who treats women like garbage and is intent on putting the best players in the world in their place.  There's a scene where Riggs, gleeful after besting Margaret Court in a rout, talks about wanting to take on Chris Evert next-if you look beyond Carell's colorful crowing, you can see the nastiness in this man wanting to take down these women, arguably the three best players in the world at the time, and show that "a man, any man, is better."  That doesn't, based on some conversations that King and others who knew Riggs, seem that genuine-Riggs was more of a ham, and someone simply craving money & publicity, but it does go to how men like Jack Kramer, and men like, say Donald Trump, clearly feel about women.  Stone's Billie Jean points this out late in the film when she refuses to let Jack Kramer announce the game-Riggs' sexism is for show, an act, she says, while Kramer's is for real (the latter being true, I'd argue, for Donald Trump and numerous other male commentators like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity who constantly feel the need to put women in their place).  The filmmakers have done a really strong job on the press tour pointing out that they anticipated that they'd be releasing this in a very different environment, anticipating a political sequel of sorts in 2016 rather than a Court/Riggs style matchup instead, but it perhaps makes the movie itself that much more urgent-this still happens today, we still marginalize women who try to invade a "man's world" in the same way.  It just got a little bit harder for the men when Billie Jean King kicked Bobby Riggs' ass.

There's so much more I could talk about here, as my inner tennis nerd surely got a workout with this picture (I especially was fascinated by the way they treated Margaret Court, a true legend of tennis but one who has been overshadowed by her deeply controversial statements in recent years about LGBT people, showing her as a side villain that nonetheless King was still rooting to best Riggs for the good of women everywhere), but I'll turn it over to the comments.  What were your thoughts on Battle of the Sexes?  Do you think Emma Stone can grab a third Oscar nomination for her work here? Share your thoughts in the comments!

When I TV Character Dies, Do You Stick Around?

(SPOILER ALERT: I'm discussing spoilers for Game of Thrones, Jane the Virgin, Desperate Housewives, Law & Order: SVU, Lost, The Office, Ally McBeal, The West Wing, The OC, Glee, and Brothers and Sisters, so proceed at your own risk)

Television is a personal affair.  It's one where, particularly for long-running series, your love for them are based more on characters than on quality writing or even acting after a while.  I will continue to watch The Simpsons until the end of time not because I haven't noticed a decline over the years (I have), but because I love these people like they're members of my own family.  Lisa, Maggie, Bart, Homer, and Marge have been with me since I was literally a child, and have seen me through thick-and-thin.  Abandoning them seems something I'd be incapable of doing even if I don't turn in with the same gusto I used to exhibit.

But I will say that, after the death of a major character on a TV series, I'm not actually all talk and no show when I go to social media along with all of my friends and proclaim "I'm not watching anymore!"  I know that every person does this literally after every episode (hell, for series like Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead, I can't count how many times certain people on my Facebook feed have stated they'll never be back, only to end up joining in two weeks later, complaining away).  I went through some of my favorite and most devoted series through the years (I wasn't a casual fan-I actually tuned in every single week) and found that about 50% of the time I abandon the show when a major character is killed off or leaves, and about 50% of the time I decide against it.  This will all lead-up to one of my favorite shows that had a major character die off this past week, and whether I can cope with losing one of my favorites.

5 Shows I Kept Watching:

Game of Thrones

Who Died: While charting "who died" on Game of Thrones is a laughably complicated endeavor, the big death where I genuinely declared that I might quit was not the first season loss of main character Ned Stark, but instead the third season blind-side of the "Red Wedding" where Catlyn Stark and her son Robb were murdered by House Frey.  Literally the first and only time my father has ever heard me say "fuck" was over the phone, as he had read the books and knew this was coming (and found my outrage HI-larious).
Why Didn't I Quit: I genuinely thought about it.  Perhaps the smartest decision Game of Thrones ever made was by having this be the penultimate, rather than the final, episode of the season, as it forced people to come back to see what happened the next week, rather than a year later where they might not tune in at all.  As it took time to give us some hope the following week, I stuck around with the mantra "I'm only quitting if Sansa or Arya die" on my mind...which I've thankfully been able to stick toward.
Was This the Right Decision: It was.  Here's the dirty secret about killing off a character-frequently it helps the show regain some of its drama.  Never again would we assume any character was safe, and in hindsight the Robb/Catlyn story was too obvious-someone like Jon Snow emerging from deep within his father's shadow rather than his natural heir was a more consequential bit of storytelling.  Game of Thrones fourth season would arguably be its finest.

Desperate Housewives

Who Died: Perhaps it's a good clue to me sticking around if death is always somewhat around the corner.  By the time Season 5 had happened we'd seen half a dozen side characters get killed off on DH, and so the series' biggest death (that of Edie Britt) couldn't quite hit us the way it probably was meant to (plus, it'd leaked to the press at that point so it was hardly a surprise).
Why Didn't I Quit: I had already given this show five seasons of my lives and had spent so much time defending it to friends and colleagues that it was still good that I wasn't about to back down then.  Still, watching Edie die was a tough one, as even though her role had waned through the years she was always good for comic relief.
Was This the Right Decision: It was not.  The show slugged through the sixth season, arguably the least of the series, and while it regained some energy in Season 7 (the "Paul Young returns" story being a particularly compelling one), Vanessa Williams always felt like a cheaper copy of Edie more than anything else.  The show also went a step WAY too far late in Season 8 killing off Mike, but at that point the end was so close in sight that there was no way I was quitting (but in hindsight that was just stupid-what possible point did it serve?).

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit

Who Died: No one, but we never saw a character again (to date).  Elliot Stabler, the quintessential cop with the bad attitude randomly left the series when Christopher Meloni's contract expired, and despite MYRIAD fan pleas, has yet to return to the series even though he left quite abruptly.
Why Didn't I Quit: It's worth noting that I did quit, eventually, but stuck around for a couple of years perhaps most out of routine-SVU was a big part of my college routine and I couldn't give up even without Stabler there.  Eventually they changed the premise of the show too much (we had a bit more of a Columbo than "solve the crime along side them" situation) and I tapped out.
Was This the Right Decision: Perhaps the only time in the history of this franchise where a character was too large of a plot point to not recover.  While the show would have its moments (and we wouldn't be deprived of eye candy as they hired Danny Pino), it was never the same after Stabler left.  Even when I am seeing reruns on cable now, I always double-check it's SVU classic before giving over an hour.

Lost

Who Died: Speaking of shows that had a lot of deaths, we're back in Game of Thrones territory.  Lost is my all-time favorite show so giving it up, period, was never in my vocabulary, but if there was an episode where I thought I might it would have been the death of Charlie at the end of Season 3.  Seeing our longtime rock god cast away die so close to rescue was hard to handle.
Why Didn't I Quit: Lost had already taken away Boone, Shannon, Libby, Ana Lucia, and Eko at that point-if you didn't think any character was safe, you weren't paying attention.  Plus, Lost was always really good about bringing in other characters it was easy to care about (save for Nikki and Paulo) when certain ones left.
Was This the Right Decision: Yes, it was.  Charlie was one too many comic reliefs for the final seasons of the show, which became far more about the mythology of the island than anything else, and we already had Hurley to help occasionally lighten up Jack, Kate, and Sayid.  Plus, taking away a major character sort of finalized the chapters between these two halves of the series in a way few other deaths could have.

The Office

Who Died: Like SVU, this wasn't a death but a major character leaving the show and the series continuing without him.  We all know that Steve Carell left the series with two seasons remaining, and we had to see what Dunder Mifflin was like without Michael Scott.
Why Didn't I Quit: I kind of wanted to see where they went with the series.  Plus, if I recall correctly they never actually told us who the new boss was at the end of Season 7, so I needed to know if it was Andy, Dwight, or Jim.
Was This the Right Decision: Absolutely not.  The whole James Spader period of the show was a huge bust in terms of comedy (I think they sort of forgot that this show had heart, as opposed to the Ricky Gervais version), and it was downright awful to the point where I would have quit had Spader not left the series.  Creatively it caught some of the juices again in Season 9 (the whole fourth wall aspect providing us with some really shocking turns-of-event), but no-this was never as good as it was with Carell.  It was an ensemble show, but one where plucking out a key player just didn't work.

Shows I Stopped Watching:

Ally McBeal

Who Died: Billy, Ally's longtime love, dies in a courtroom battle.  With him he took Georgia and in small parts Renee, who both became less essential to the series in Season 4.
Why I Quit: The show had been so much about Ally and Billy at that point, and they had made Billy so detestable (remember "the new Billy?") that I didn't want my love of this show tarnished further (and this was my favorite show ever at the time, so it was a big deal to abandon it).  Plus, no Georgia-how could it work?
Was This the Right Decision: It absolutely worked, oddly enough.  Few shows have enjoyed a mid-season bump quite like Ally, when Robert Downey Jr's Larry Paul came to town and totally took the series by storm.  Still (in my opinion) Downey's finest performance, we got a truly superb fourth season of the show.  They likely should have quit at the end of the fourth season (Downey was supposed to return, but had one of his many "incidents" and couldn't), as the show bombed ferociously in the fifth season, but quitting after Billy's death would have been a mistake.

The West Wing

Who Died: No one-this was a case where an actor left the series and I couldn't deal with it, that being Rob Lowe as Sam Seaborn.  Up until that point I was religiously devoted to this show, still a huge favorite when I randomly watch it on Netflix.
Why I Quit: The show was going through some behind-the-scenes troubles with Aaron Sorkin being axed from the series, and I just didn't feel the change at all.  Lowe wasn't my favorite character (not even close), but him leaving threw off the chemistry too much and I didn't like it.
Was This the Right Decision: While the show has some devoted fans in later seasons, and a cast this good was never going to completely flail, I made the right decision.  The show was never as strong without Sorkin and Lowe, and always felt a bit false.

The OC

Who Died: I am not, actually, going to focus on the most famous death on the series where Marissa is sent packing.  Instead, it's a season earlier when Caleb Nichol fell prey to a heart attack.
Why I Quit: At this point, I was completely at my wit's end with this series, and they were killing off one of the very few characters on the show that I genuinely liked still.  Otherwise, the drama had gotten too much on and off screen, and without someone like Caleb's grounded presence, I couldn't handle it any longer.
Was This the Right Decision: Yes, considering the mess things got into later with Marissa and that the show pretty quickly petered off afterwards in terms of the ratings.

Glee

Who Died: Okay, this is a little mean (since he actually died), but Cory Monteith's Finn's disappearance broke the camel's back for me.
Why I Quit: I actually stuck around for a little bit afterwards, but got to a point where I was just fast-forwarding through entire chunks of the show just to see what was happening in the whole Sam/Blaine crush sequence, as that was the best part about this season.  Otherwise, the series badly botched his death, never really bringing it into the actual plotline, and couldn't handle abandoning Sue, Will, and McKinley High (which they should have done) in favor of just following the kids off to college.
Was This the Right Decision: Yes, quitting was the right decision-the series became an absolute trainwreck after Season 4.

Brothers & Sisters

Who Died: Once again we have Rob Lowe quitting a series, this time as Robert, where he dies in a car accident at the end of Season 4.  Combine that with Rebecca and Tommy officially leaving the series, and it was a pretty impactful way to head into Season 5.
Why I Quit: This was strangely a case where the deaths of these characters didn't bother me as much as Saul getting HIV despite having been in the closet for thirty years.  It felt like a way to keep around a character who had long worn out his welcome (alongside Holly) in terms of the plot, and I just couldn't deal-it felt too "convenient plot point" and not natural to the story.
Was This the Right Decision: I've tried to go back to the series a couple of times to finish things up, and have never been able to make it through-it had too much change and too much "this is the person I'm actually meant for" discarding previous seasons for me to care.

And finally, the unknown...

Jane the Virgin

Who Died: Just a few short months after he survived a gunshot wound, Michael ended up succumbing to his injuries with a heart attack.
Why I Might Quit: My biggest problem with the series has long been that they wanted Rafael and Michael to be on equal footing for Jane, but I never saw it that way.  Michael was loving, caring, supportive, and always there for Jane, even if he's a bit cling-y.  Rafael is too much drama, too selfish, and too reliant on Jane to be his "manic pixie dream girl" for my taste, and so when they went with Michael I thought "this is a weird case of the show making the right decision even if fans don't all love it."  With him gone, I'm worried we're back in a Jafael spot, and that's where it's going to end, trying to have its cake and eat it too, when really they just copped out of the love triangle.
Why I Might Not Quit: No show illustrated as much up-top that a series can find a renaissance from a character's death quite like Game of Thrones.  Perhaps this could usher in a new wave of drama and intrigue in a series that was starting to drag its feet a bit on certain plot lines.  If they don't automatically jump toward Jane/Rafael/Petra being a love triangle again, I'd be intrigued.
Was This the Right Decision: I'll find out soon-I'm sticking around at least until next week to figure out the ramifications of the time jump.

And there you have it-any other shows where you genuinely quit after a character's death?  Share below!

Café Society (2016)

Film: Cafe Society (2016)
Stars: Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, Steve Carell, Blake Lively, Jeannie Berlin, Parker Posey, Corey Stoll
Director: Woody Allen
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Years ago, I decided there were ten directors that I was going to see every film they ever made as a bit of a directors project.  Admittedly, I'm still working on all ten (does anyone else have a problem where they sign up for more projects than one human being can actually accomplish?), but one of them was Woody Allen, one of only four directors on the list who actually is still living and therefore continually adding to the list, so seeing Cafe Society was kind of a given for me.  I honestly don't even watch the trailers to Woody's films any more (which is strange because Allen is one of the only film directors around who still finds a way to be mysterious and not give away his secrets in the trailers) since I know I'm buying a ticket, and since I start cold, let's start cold for you too without any spoilers.

(Spoilers Ahead) Like most of Allen's pictures (perhaps all of them-I can't think of one that doesn't), we get our resident Woody Allen character, though in this case it's a proxy in the form of Jesse Eisenberg as Bobby Dorfman, a young Jewish man who is trying to find his way to fame and fortune in Hollywood, and has an in with his uncle Phil (Carell), a high-powered talent agent in the 1930's (yes, we're time-traveling, keep up).  While working there, he falls madly in love with Vonnie (Stewart), a beautiful secretary who once had dreams of becoming a starlet but now has settled for the quieter life, finding more solace in a quiet Mexican restaurant than the glamorous homes in Beverly Hills where Bobby has hopes of taking her.  The film progresses as we find out Vonnie has been having a love affair with Phil, and is also smitten with Bobby, and is forced to choose between the two.  Because this is an Allen picture, she ends up with Phil (Woody loves the bitter with the sweet), and both she and Bobby transform as a result.  Bobby ends up married to a glamorous model (Lively) and becomes a high-powered club owner in New York, while Vonnie gives in to the vapidness of California culture and becomes part of the moneyed class she once disparaged.

While the film ends with the two of them apart, both with partners who adore them but longing for perhaps something more, the movie itself is content to just end and not really commentate too harshly on the choices we make and how you either need to accept your decisions or spend life with a mountain of "what ifs."  The film itself has a strange and plodding subplot with Bobby's family involving the mob, and not even Corey Stoll (arguably the best part of the picture, but he's the best part of every picture) can make you care about it in comparison to the love story, and the subplot gets unnecessarily dark with Corey's character getting the electric chair off-screen for killing his sister's annoying neighbor.

Overall, the film is okay.  The love triangle somewhat works, and Stewart is now confident enough as an actress (she actually had to audition for the film, purportedly her first audition since Twilight) that she sells the glamour and sex appeal of her character without a lot of stoicism.  Her Oscar-nominated costars aren't nearly as good, however.  I honestly felt like Eisenberg vastly overplayed his character's obtuse intellectualism, drawing too much on a parody of Woody than on something organic for the screen.  Carell, who was so marvelous in The Office and Little Miss Sunshine but largely hasn't impressed me in recent work, fails to deliver.  His dialogue is fun (I loved the constant name-dropping, particularly since it's 1930's Hollywood so it's more Gloria Swanson and Joel McCrea and less Marilyn and John Wayne, so it isn't as done), but his character is obnoxious and it's never clear other than power what Vonnie sees in him, and he doesn't give us that.  Is she so lost that she just projects onto everyone, or does Carell undersell his character's appeal even when she's onscreen?  I tend to think the latter, and so I would say he's the biggest weak link in the picture.

Those are my thoughts on this short, but overall less-than-impressive entry in Woody's canon.  No one will confuse this with Annie Hall, or even Match Point or Blue Jasmine, but if you have seen it please let me know some opinions-what are your thoughts about the latest entry?  Who was your best-in-show (I'm torn between Stewart, Stoll, and the great one-liners of Jeannie Berlin)?  And do you think that Woody should have put up with the ego of Bruce Willis and kept him in the picture (I tend to vote yes-this feels like the sort of part that Willis, an underrated actor, could have brought something special toward)?  Share in the comments!

OVP: Actor (2014)

OVP: Best Actor (2014)

The Nominees Were...

Steve Carell, Foxcatcher
Bradley Cooper, American Sniper
Benedict Cumberbatch, The Imitation Game
Michael Keaton, Birdman (or the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Eddie Redmayne, The Theory of Everything

My Thoughts: I told you we'd be tackling these at a clip (it seems people are enjoying the OVP write-ups, for which I am most grateful and happy).  We now move into the Best Actor category, the one where generally you're tackling titans of acting, and where the nominations are relatively clubby, but in a weird twist only one of these men, the one who arguably had the toughest time actually getting his nomination, is a previous nominee.  Otherwise we have two relative British newcomers, a former movie star best known for donning a leather suit, and a comedian most famed for his work on a British import.  All-in-all, this is, even if most of these nominations were predicted, on paper one of the stranger slates of nominees I've encountered in the usually very traditional Best Actor field.

We'll start with the youngster of the bunch, Eddie Redmayne, who was only the eighth youngest man ever to pick up an Academy Award in this category (ahead of him are such luminaries as Daniel Day-Lewis, Marlon Brando, and Jimmy Stewart, so there's a lot to live up to in order to not be, say, Adrien Brody, who has the all-time record).  Redmayne's work here is pretty much the stuff that Oscar bait dreams are made of, as he's playing a real-life figure with an inspiring story who also has a severe disability that he overcomes.  He technically also has an accent, though as it's the same one that Redmayne has in real life I don't know that we should count that in terms of AMPAS points.  Redmayne is quite good early on in the film, as his natural charm (he was born to play a Jane Austen love interest-why has no one done that yet?) flits through, but as the film progresses putting him into the realm of mostly physical acting he loses a lot of that ability.  Honestly, I've never been as wowed by something that is mostly technical and checking boxes, as this looks difficult to do, but we don't give out Oscars for athletic achievement (otherwise Bruce Willis and Sylvester Stallone would have more of them).  Redmayne's beginning is a delight, and he manages to have sparkling chemistry in his romantic run-ups with Jones, but overall the second half loses a lot of that spark and the script isn't giving enough to let Redmayne really shine.

Redmayne's chief rival for the Oscar was one of those guys that frequently finds himself an Oscar nominee late in his career, but never seems to be able to pull off the win.  Michael Keaton joined Peter Fonda and Mickey Rooney as a former matinee idol with a bit of a reputation who shows that he still has the goods to be able to deliver a knockout performance.  His Riggan is about as brave as a movie star can get onscreen, eschewing vanity (though for a man in his sixties Keaton is in pretty good shape to be running through Time Square in his underwear), and lambasting his own persona, both in that his core fame is from wearing a mask to his famously difficult offscreen persona during the Batman 3 years.  Keaton makes Riggan insane enough to clearly be deranged, but a good enough actor to maintain believability that people wouldn't notice he's completely off-his-rocker (or don't want to because he's a star that can't be challenged).  It's a wonderful performance, really something that I never would have expected from Keaton, and lands a difficult, complicated, but ultimately terrific picture.

Steve Carell is also an actor that defied expectations in 2014, getting his first Academy Award nomination for a very hard-nosed drama after a career that has focused almost exclusively on comedy.  Carell was never one of those comedic actors, however, who I didn't think would excel at drama-quite frankly it felt like it would be his forte.  Michael Scott on The Office was a humorous creation, but frequently (in the first couple of seasons) a vindictive one and (in later seasons) a tragic one, so Carell's abilities were never in doubt.  What was, and is an unfortunate side effect of Foxcatcher is his inability to take his comedian's pizzazz and timing and infuse it into this piece of work.  Instead, what we get here is a serious case of tic-acting, with Carell relying too heavily on his prosthetic nose and not actually giving us anything within this character.  Even when he's alone, when we should be able to see something, Carell is just performing, never really inhabiting the character, which is a shame as this feels like the sort of creation that could have been an all-time great persona for the actor.

This is exactly the same trap that Benedict Cumberbatch falls into with The Imitation Game.  Cumberbatch, unlike Carell, has never turned in a performance that has wowed me, but I do get the appeal.  He's intensely charming off-screen, and he tends to be a lovely human being who winks hard at his rabid fanbase, but his acting choices (and his agent's choices for his career) are so boring.  The script is not helping him in any capacity, of course, but it's worth noting that his choices to fill in the holes in the script aren't great.  He frequently reacts to every scene as yet another one to moan or have a prissy rejoinder (underlining the HOMOSEXUAL aspect of the script without, you know, actually having any moments where he believably is attracted to a man, just to a computer).  Cumberbatch's big scenes, the ones where he's crying or trying to take on Joan he fails miserably-the overacting doesn't quite match the film he's in, which is trying to be a straight, serious biopic, and he's too busy feasting on the scenery.

The final nomination is a quandary for me, as it's from one of the least of these films, and yet the performance, the central performance (no side ones) has grown considerably in my estimation in the years since, to the point where I think it might be Bradley Cooper's finest work so far.  Cooper is an actor I think we all underestimated initially since he was starring in buddy comedies and looks like a male model you put on your vision board.  But his acting prowess and trio of Oscar nominations were relatively well-earned, and I love the way that he projects in American Sniper.  So much of his performance is informed by a man who wants to be at war, who sees the world in black-and-white and who is also haunted by demons he doesn't understand and frequently doesn't wish to acknowledge.  Clint Eastwood doesn't give us enough interesting things to do with Cooper, which hurts the performance slightly, but I am mesmerized by the things that Cooper is able to bring to a relatively stock character that, say, Mark Wahlberg didn't a year earlier in the (better film) Lone Survivor.  His Chris Kyle is someone very human, but believably from Middle America and with a conservative viewpoint, and not just a liberal in red clothes as so frequently happens in films depicting conservative viewpoints.

Other Precursor Contenders: We start with the Globes, which distinguish between Drama and "Comedy" (a term that gets looser and looser every year), so in the dramatic lineup, which usually is the one that gets us our nominations, we have Redmayne, Carell, and Cumberbatch alongside David Oyelowo (Selma) and Jake Gyllenhaal (Nightcrawler), with Redmayne winning, while Michael Keaton in Comedy triumphed over Ralph Fiennes (The Grand Budapest Hotel), Bill Murray (St. Vincent), Christoph Waltz (Big Eyes), and Joaquin Phoenix (Inherent Vice).  The SAG Awards doubled-down on Oscars' winner, but excused Bradley Cooper in favor of Jake Gyllenhaal, while the BAFTA Awards also went with Redmayne as their victor but cut both Cooper and Carell (who was nominated in supporting) for Gyllenhaal and Fiennes.  For all of the comments afterwards about David Oyelowo not getting nominated, it's fairly clear that it was Jake Gyllenhaal who was most upset and the likely sixth place when Bradley Cooper came to town.

Actors I Would Have Nominated: For starters, Jake Gyllenhaal, who is giving what I'd call the performance of a lifetime in Nightcrawler, but honestly Gyllenhaal is so consistent (and even better in Brokeback Mountain) that his wait for a second nomination has gotten laughable at this point and performance of a lifetime isn't quite accurate.  I'd also throw in Fiennes, doing his best comedic bit since In Bruges, along with Oscar Isaac's introverted mobster in A Most Violent Year and the best actor in Foxcatcher who for some reason (perhaps his beauty, which scares off people in this category) never got cited by a major awards body: Channing Tatum.  Tatum's work in that film is still staggering, breathing life into a lumbering brute of a character.

Oscar’s Choice: While at times it felt like Michael Keaton would take this trophy, in the end the Academy couldn't deny newcomer Eddie Redmayne over the comeback kid.

My Choice: An easy choice for Keaton, hands-down the best of this five.  I'd honestly follow him with Cooper, Redmayne and then...ugh, maybe Cumberbatch and finally Carell.  Those last two are really digging the bottom of the barrel.

Those are my thoughts-what are yours?  Do you side with the awards consensus of Eddie Redmayne, or do you think that the Birdman should have flown here?  Why do you think Jake Gyllenhaal couldn't seal the deal here?  And what am I missing in the Cumberbatch love-is there a performance I have to catch to get the devotion?  Share in the comments!

Also in 2014: Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Original Screenplay, Adapted Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Costume, Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Documentary Short, Live Action Short, Animated Short, Previously in 2014

Past Best Actor Contests: 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013