Tag Archives: Inglorious Basterds

by | March 7, 2010 · 8:59 pm

TUIW Live Oscar Coverage!

Follow the Oscars live with TUIW! Follow on Twitter for instant news on the winners, but stay tuned here for commentary!

Best Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz (Inglorious Basterds). A deserving choice who gave a great speech. Hopefully we’ll see more of him through the years.

Best Animated Feature Film: Up. Another deserving choice, but it came out of a category that also had The Fantastic Mr. Fox and Coraline, both of which could have won just as easily.

Best Original Song: Ryan Bingham and T-Bone Burnett (“The Weary Kind”, Crazy Heart). Not a shocker, but it’s deserving, and truly the best of the nominated songs.

Best Original Screenplay: Mark Boal (The Hurt Locker). A pretty wide open category, but I’m a little surprised this wasn’t where Inglorious Basterds won. A good choice though definitely.

Best Animated Short: Logorama (dir. Nicholas Shmerkin). Gotta be honest, haven’t seen it, but it looks awesome! Best acceptance speech so far by the way.

Best Documentary Short: Music By Prudence (dir. Roger Ross Williams and Elinor Burkett)

Best Live Action Short: The New Tenants (dir. Joachim Back and Tivi Magnusson)

Best Makeup: Star Trek (Barney Burman, Mindy Hall and Joel Harlow). Sci-fi wins in makeup category? Shocker!

Best Adapted Screenplay: Jeffrey Fletcher (Precious). I’m surprised, but yet not. I thought this would be Up In The Air‘s award, but Precious had a big shot here, and clearly won. (I bet Jason Reitman is pissed!)

Best Supporting Actress: Mo’Nique (Precious). Not a big shock. I don’t know about the line in the acceptance speech about “performance, not the politics.” Does that mean the other actresses weren’t deserving? Mo’Nique deserves it, but those were other great performances too that could have won. (End gripe session)

Best Art Direction: Avatar (Rick Carter and Robert Stromberg (Art Direction); Kim Sinclair (Set Decoration)). That’s one.

Best Costume Design: Sandy Powell (The Young Victoria). A period piece wins best costumes? Shocker!

Best Sound Editing: Paul N.J. Ottosson (The Hurt Locker)

Best Sound Mixing: Paul N.J. Ottosson and Ray Beckett (The Hurt Locker). You rarely see someone win in back to back categories. Weird to see someone holding two Oscars in an acceptance speech.

Best Cinematography: Mauro Fiore (Avatar). That’s two.

Best Original Score: Michael Giacchino (Up). Can we not do interpretive dance that has nothing to do with the movies for this category in the future? Thanks.

Best Visual Effects: Avatar (Joe Letteri, Stephen Rosenbaum, Richard Baneham and Andrew R. Jones). That’s three.

Best Documentary Feature: The Cove (Louie Psihoyos and Fisher Stevens). Yeah Fisher Stevens!

Best Film Editing: Bob Murawski and Chris Innis (The Hurt Locker). And The Hurt Locker retakes the lead!

Best Foreign Language Film: The Secret in Their Eyes (El Secreto de Sus Ojos). A little bit of a surprise, as A Prophet seemed to be favorite to win, but a strong category this year.

Best Actor: Jeff Bridges (Crazy Heart). The Dude finally got his Oscar! So great to see someone so overjoyed win after so long.

Best Actress: Sandra Bullock (The Blind Side). Take note actors: you too can win an Oscar if someone writes a movie for you to do so! And it is possible to win a an Oscar and a Razzie in the same year.

Best Director: Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker). Fitting that the first woman to win Best Director directed the best film of the year. Cameron wouldn’t have surprised me, but I would have been disappointed. She deserved this big time.

Best Picture: The Hurt Locker. Wow! The most deserving of the candidates beat out the monster that was Avatar to take home the big prize! It figured to be close, but this is pretty big that it beat out the highest grossing film of all time to become the lowest grossing winner of best picture of all time.

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by | March 5, 2010 · 7:24 am

TUIW Predicts the Oscars

With the 82nd Academy Awards coming this Sunday night, we here at TUIW chimed in for our predictions for the ceremony this year. Be sure to tune in here after the awards for our recap!

Best Picture
Avatar
The Blind Side
District 9
An Education
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Precious
A Serious Man
Up
Up In The Air

Who Will Win: Avatar. While The Hurt Locker has a ton of momentum, we’re willing to bet the highest grossing film of all time (not adjusted for inflation mind you) that revolutionized the way digital effects and filmmaking come together is going to win best picture.

Who Should Win: The Hurt Locker. The expansion of the field to 10 nominees gave us a lot of worthy choices, but The Hurt Locker stands above the rest of the contenders as a taut, wiry piece of filmmaking that doubles as one of the most memorable moviegoing experiences in recent memory.

Who Was Snubbed: The Fantastic Mr. Fox. But, while there were a number of good left-field choices this year, we are still a little stunned at how The Blind Side could be nominated over the vividly-realized, claymation fun of The Fantastic Mr. Fox.

Best Actor
Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart
George Clooney, Up In The Air
Colin Firth, A Single Man
Morgan Freeman, Invictus
Jeremy Renner, The Hurt Locker

Who Will Win: Jeff Bridges. The Dude won the Golden Globe and has had a big PR blitz behind him, so I think he’ll be tough to beat. The fact that he performed all the songs in Crazy Heart should help as well.

Who Should Win: Jeremy Renner. He makes the Hurt Locker so haunting, and he won the SAG Award and several others. His Oscar PR hasn’t been as good as Bridges though, so I’m guessing he’ll end up on the short side of the stick.

Who Was Snubbed: Sam Rockwell for Moon. One of the best performances of the Oscar year, and it’s been completely overlooked. Moon is a great movie that wouldn’t be if it weren’t for a stellar performance by Rockwell.

Best Actress
Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side
Helen Mirren, The Last Station
Carey Mulligan, An Education
Gabourey Sidibe, Precious
Meryl Streep, Julie & Julia

Who Will Win: Sandra Bullock. Its neck and neck between Meryl Streep (who hasn’t won since Sophie’s Choice) and Bullock, but given The Blind Side‘s Best Picture nomination, it seems like the latter has more support. Now if anyone has a paper bag for me to vomit into…

Who Should Win: Carey Mulligan. I prefer Mulligan’s a-star-is-born breakout to Streep’s amiably fun work as Julia Child, but really you can just consider this ABB (Anybody But Bullock).

Who Was Snubbed: Tilda Swinton in Julia. Forget gender separations, Swinton gave the year’s single best performance as Julia‘s titular alcoholic troublemaker. Swinton deserves a handful of trophies by now (although she did finally win in 2007 for Michael Clayton) so we can just add Julia to the list.

Best Supporting Actor
Matt Damon, Invictus
Woody Harrelson, The Messenger
Christopher Plummer, The Last Station
Stanley Tucci, The Lovely Bones
Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds
Who Will Win: Christoph Waltz. Waltz has swept just about every major award and done so with grace and class. Its impossible not to root for the guy…
Who Should Win: Waltz. …Especially when his performance is this good. Waltz cuts such a frightening, larger-than-life image that he turns Inglorious Basterds into a completely different movie whenever he’s on the screen.
Who Was Snubbed: Peter Capaldi in In the Loop. Speaking of frightening, larger-than-life performances, Peter Capaldi absolutely dominates In the Loop, delivering some of the funniest tirades of the year with a violent energy that makes Jeremy Piven look like a teddy bear. Nowhere does the film’s words=bombs satire become clearer than when its being delivered by Capaldi.

Best Supporting Actress
Penélope Cruz, Nine
Vera Farmiga, Up In The Air
Maggie Gyllenhaal, Crazy Heart
Anna Kendrick, Up In The Air
Mo’Nique, Precious

Who Will Win: Mo’Nique. Her performance was singled out from the very beginning and I’d be shocked if she didn’t walk away with a statue.

Who Should Win: Vera Farmiga. I think in a year without Mo’Nique, she’d be a front runner in the category for turning in the best performance in a film that got three acting nods. Up In The Air was her big break, and the Academy usually rewards that, but unfortunately, Mo’Nique had her big break this year too.

Who Was Snubbed: Julianne Moore for A Single Man. There will come a time, years from now, when Julianne Moore is recognized as one of the great actresses of our time, but again, she’ll go largely unrecognized for her fantastic performances.

Best Director
James Cameron, Avatar
Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker
Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds
Lee Daniels, Precious
Jason Reitman, Up In The Air

Who Will Win: James Cameron. Can you really argue? The guy changed the industry en route to the highest grossing film of all time (not adjusted for inflation mind you).

Who Should Win: Kathryn Bigelow. I’ve never been as tense during an action movie as I was during The Hurt Locker, yet not much action happens. Without Bigelow’s direction, there’s no way that film gets nominated for anything.

Who Was Snubbed: Spike Jonez. Love it or hate it, Where The Wild Things Are was a visually stunning film, a fact that was overlooked in most debates about the film. Jonez is Hollywood’s most unique director on the rise, and he should have at least gotten a nod.

Best Adapted Screenplay
District 9, Neil Blomkamp & Terri Tatchell
An Education, Nick Hornby
In The Loop, Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci & Tony Roche
Precious, Geoffrey Fletcher
Up In The Air, Sheldon Turner & Jason Reitman

Who Will Win: Up In The Air. This is going to be the award the film wins, and Jason Reitman deserves a statue after three fantastic films to start his career. This is an award about introducing him to Hollywood royalty as much as it is for a great screenplay.

Who Should Win: In The Loop. Hands down the funniest film of the year. All of the satire is there, yet it doesn’t play too over the top. It’s almost a more subtle version of Dr. Strangelove, with war-mongering coming out of bruised egos and eagerness more than actual fact. If you haven’t seen In The Loop, do so ASAP.

Who Was Snubbed: The Fantastic Mr. Fox. So much attention was placed on the stop motion in Mr. Fox that the great screenplay was overlooked. Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach perfectly transfer the book into a film filled with humor and a ton of humanity, and it’s a joy to watch.

Best Original Screenplay
The Hurt Locker, Mark Boal
Inglourious Basterds, Quentin Tarantino
The Messenger, Alessandro Camon & Oren Moverman
A Serious Man, Joel & Ethan Coen
Up, Bob Peterson, Pete Docter & Thomas McCarthy

Who Will Win: The Hurt Locker. The race between The Hurt Locker and Inglorious Basterds is tight, but I’ll give the edge for Mark Boal, who put his journalistic background to use in the film’s vividly realized portrait of the Iraq War.

Who Should Win: Up. Pixar is long over-due for affirmation outside of the Best Animated Feature category and Up is one of their finest efforts to date. Even in a category as strong as this one, Bob Peterson (who also did the voices for Dug and Alpha), Pete Docter, and Thomas McCarthy (who wrote and directed The Station Agent) deserve the win.

Who Was Snubbed: Humpday. With a freewheeling, loose feel (and lots of room to improvise), Lynn Shelton took an idea that could have been hopelessly dumb and turned it into one of the most honest films of the year.

Best Animated Feature
Coraline (Dir. Henry Selick)
Fantastic Mr. Fox (Dir. Wes Anderson)
The Princess & The Frog (Dir. Ron Clements & John Musker)
The Secret Of Kells (Dir. Tomm Moore & Nora Twomey)
Up (Dir. Bob Peterson & Pete Docter)

Who Will Win: Up. The streak continued with Up, which features intricately detailed animation, hilarious writing, and one of the most emotionally devastating opening sequences ever.

Who Should Win: Coraline. While Pixar had another typically great year, I actually liked Coraline more, thanks to Henry Selick’s exacting eye for detail, put to use in service of adapting Neil Gaiman’s excellent book.

Who Was Snubbed: A Town Called Panic and Ponyo. It was a truly great year for animation, but I was sad to see two of my favorites snubbed. Either the manic Belgian cartoon Town Called Panic or Miyazaki’s latest masterwork Ponyo would have made a better choice than the good, but not great Princess and the Frog or The Secret of Kells.

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by | February 2, 2010 · 10:36 am

82nd Oscars Nominees

It’s a big morning in Hollywood with the announcement of this year’s Oscar nominees.  There’s not a ton of surprises, especially with a bigger list of Best Picture nominees this year, so the nod for District 9 makes a little more sense there. We’ll be sure to give you our analysis as the big day approaches, but for now, be sure to check out our Best of 2009 films and acting lists.

Best Picture
Avatar
 The Blind Side
District 9
An Education
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Precious
A Serious Man
Up
Up In The Air

Best Actor
Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart
George Clooney, Up In The Air
Colin Firth, A Single Man
Morgan Freeman, Invictus
Jeremy Renner, The Hurt Locker

Best Actress
Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side
Helen Mirren, The Last Station
Carey Mulligan, An Education
Gabourey Sidibe, Precious
Meryl Streep, Julie & Julia

Best Supporting Actor
Matt Damon, Invictus
Woody Harrelson, The Messenger
Christopher Plummer, The Last Station
Stanley Tucci, The Lovely Bones
Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds

Best Supporting Actress
Penélope Cruz, Nine
Vera Farmiga, Up In The Air
Maggie Gyllenhaal, Crazy Heart
Anna Kendrick, Up In The Air
Mo’Nique, Precious

Best Director
James Cameron, Avatar
Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker
Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds
Lee Daniels, Precious
Jason Reitman, Up In The Air

Best Adapted Screenplay
District 9, Neil Blomkamp & Terri Tatchell
An Education, Nick Hornby
In The Loop, Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci & Tony Roche
Precious, Geoffrey Fletcher
Up In The Air, Sheldon Turner & Jason Reitman

Best Original Screenplay
The Hurt Locker, Mark Boal
Inglourious Basterds, Quentin Tarantino
The Messenger, Alessandro Camon & Oren Moverman
A Serious Man, Joel & Ethan Coen
Up, Bob Peterson, Pete Docter & Thomas McCarthy

Best Foreign Language Film
Ajami (Israel, Dir. Scandar Copti & Yaron Shani)
The Secret In Their Eyes (Argentina, Dir. Juan José Campanella)
The Milk Of Sorrow (Peru, Dir. Claudia Llosa)
A Prophet (France, Dir. Jacques Audiard)
The White Ribbon (Germany, Dir. Michael Haneke)

Best Animated Feature
Coraline (Dir. Henry Selick)
Fantastic Mr. Fox (Dir. Wes Anderson)
The Princess & The Frog (Dir. Ron Clements & John Musker)
The Secret Of Kells (Dir. Tomm Moore & Nora Twomey)
Up (Dir. Bob Peterson & Pete Docter)

Best Animated Short
French Roast (Dir. Fabrice O. Joubert)
Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty (Dir. Nicky Phelan & Darragh O’Connell)
The Lady & The Reaper (Dir. Javier Recio Garcia)
Logorama (Dir. Nicolas Schmerkin)
A Matter Of Loaf And Death (Dir. Nick Park)

Best Documentary Feature
Burma VJ (Dir. Anders Østergaard & Lise Lense-Møller)
The Cove (Dir. Louie Psihoyos)
Food, Inc. (Dir. Robert Kenner & Elise Pearlstein)
The Most Dangerous Man In America: Daniel Ellsberg And The Pentagon Papers (Dir. Judith Ehrlich & Rick Goldsmith)
Which Way Home (Dir. Rebecca Cammisa)

Best Documentary Short
China’s Unnatural Disaster: The Tears Of Sichuan Province (Dir. Jon Alpert & Matthew O’Neill)
The Last Campaign Of Governor Booth Gardner (Dir. Daniel Junge & Henry Ansbacher)
The Last Truck: Closing Of A GM Plant (Dir. Steven Bognar & Julia Reichert)
Music By Prudence (Dir. Roger Ross Williams & Elinor Burkett)
Rabbit A La Berlin (Dir. Bartek Konopka & Anna Wydra)

Best Live-Action Short
The Door (Dir. Juanita Wilson & James Flynn)
Instead Of Abracadabra (Dir. Patrik Eklund & Mathias Fjellström)
Kavi (Dir. Gregg Helvey)
Miracle Fish (Dir. Luke Doolan & Drew Bailey)
The New Tenants (Dir. Joachim Back & Tivi Magnusson)

Best Cinematography
Avatar, Mauro Fiore
Harry Potter & The Half-Blood Prince, Bruno Delbonnel
The Hurt Locker, Barry Ackroyd
Inglourious Basterds, Robert Richardson
The White Ribbon, Christian Berger

Best Film Editing
Avatar
District 9
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Precious

Best Art Direction
Avatar
The Imaginarium Of Dr. Parnassus
Nine
Sherlock Holmes
The Young Victoria

Best Costume Design
Bright Star
Coco Before Chanel
The Imaginarium Of Dr. Parnassus
Nine
The Young Victoria

Best Makeup
Il Divo
Star Trek
The Young Victoria

Best Sound Editing
Avatar
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Star Trek
Up

Best Sound Mixing
Avatar
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Star Trek
Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen

Best Visual Effects
Avatar
District 9
Star Trek

Best Song
“Almost There” by Randy Newman, The Princess & The Frog
“Down In New Orleans” by Randy Newman, The Princess & The Frog
“Loin De Paname” by Reinhardt Wagner & Frank Thomas, Paris 36
“Take It All” by Maury Yeston, Nine
“Weary Kind” by Ryan Bingham & T. Bone Burnett, Crazy Heart

Best Original Score
Avatar, James Horner
Fantastic Mr. Fox, Alexandre Desplat
The Hurt Locker, Marco Beltrami & Beck Sanders
Sherlock Holmes, Hans Zimmer
Up, Michael Giacchino

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by | January 17, 2010 · 11:35 pm

Golden Globes Recap

As the Golden Globes come to an end, here are a few notes regarding the ceremony.

Ricky Gervais: Little used, but very, very funny. Loved the pot shots at everyone, as well as the promotion of both The Office and The Invention of Lying. Hosts of these award shows are really overblown, they really only get a monologue to do their thing, but Ricky definitely spread some great jabs throughout the night.

Losers of the Night: Neil Patrick Harris got burned again. Fortunately, this time wasn’t to John Cryer, but by John Lithgow for Dexter. NPH will get a statue someday, but this really seemed like it was going to be the year. While Up was a fantastic film, it’s a little sad that The Fantastic Mr. Fox didn’t win. Like with NPH, it lost to a worthy opponent, but still. Modern Family also got the shaft in favor of the far inferior Glee. Sure Glee has a good message about being true to yourself, but Modern Family clearly blew the other shows in the category out of the water.

Winners of the Night: Michael C. Hall got a great win coming right on the heels of his announcement that he had cancer. It was also great to see Big Love get a win with Chole Sevigny taking a statue for her role as Nikki, the uptight Mormon sister-wife. There weren’t really any big winners that captured strings of awards, with Dexter winning two awards for acting (John Lithgow, Michael C. Hall), Crazy Heart winning for Best Song (T-Bone Burnett) and Actor (Jeff Bridges), and Avatar coming away with one for Best Director (James Cameron) and Best Picture, Drama. It will take home several more statues come Oscar time, as there are more statues to win.

Surprising Winners of the Night: As much as it disappoints me to say it, Sandra Bullock came out on top in a category full of several highly touted contenders. I guess sometimes movies made with the purpose of winning someone awards do what they’re supposed to. The Hangover also came away a surprise winner, beating out the more highly critically acclaimed Julie & Julia and It’s Complicated. Robert Downey Jr. wasn’t a huge shock, but he still beat out several big names.

Most Disappointed Loser: Based on camera shots, it’s a three way tie between Quintin Tarantino, Sandra Bullock (for Supporting Actress, she won later), and, surprisingly, Jason Reitman, who looked pretty pissed when he lost for Best Director and Best Picture.

Best Acceptance Speech: Robert Downey Jr., hands down. For a guy that’s been to hell and back, it’s great to see him in good humor. Martin Scorsese also had a great acceptance speech for his lifetime achievement award, deflecting a lot of the praise to the people he worked with and those that inspired him. And, damn, I want to see Shutter Island.

Biggest Trend: As we discussed when the nominations came out, there was a leaning towards the popular over the critically acclaimed. Juliana Marguilies, Glee, The Hangover, and Sandra Bullock took home awards over other nominees with a stronger critical pedigree. This isn’t to say that these weren’t completely undeserving; there’s a good reason why a lot of people enjoy them. It’s still surprising when a movie like The Hangover beats out two Meryl Streep movies.

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by | December 18, 2009 · 2:43 pm

The Best of 2009: The Best Films of 2009

Another fertile year for filmmaking, 2009 closed out the decade strongly with a plethora of wonderful films. Narrowing it down to 10 was tough, but somehow, we accomplished it. Let us know your picks in the comments below.

10. The Box

The victim of a poor marketing push, Hollywood’s unfathomable belief that Cameron Diaz is still a box office draw, and Richard Kelly’s general zaniness, The Box has already faded away from the public memory. Which is a pity because Kelly’s third film is a fascinating, terrifying, engrossing look at greed, conformity, and selling-out. Its also a stylistic achievement that shows Kelly as a fantastic craftsman while paying homage to science fiction, b-cinema classics. Boasting the year’s finest score (sorry Up) and a creeptastic performance from Frank Langella, The Box deserves to find the same afterlife Donnie Darko did.

9. Where the Wild Things Are

There were a lot of detractors of Spike Jonez’ film adaptation of the classic children’s novel, but Where the Wild Things Are is a truly magnificent film. The film, much like the book, is about imagination and how it’s as much a way to understand things as it is to escape them. The film isn’t about escaping into a dream world, it’s about the inherent loneliness and confusion that, though often attributed to teenagers, is often overlooked in kids, and the Wild Things personify the major emotions felt by Max. A film that will probably remain controversial, Where the Wild Things Are is a joy to watch, whether you’re a kid or an adult.
8. Humpday

What stays with you about Humpday isn’t the Apatow-esque premise but how real it feels. Director Lynn Shelton’s handheld, DIY style and freewheeling, improvisational set-up gives the film a genuine realism that is missing from most movies. Anchored by great performances from Joshua Leonard and Mark Duplass, Humpday crafts a tender, realistic portrayal of male anxiety and friendship, with plenty of awkward laughs and great moments.

7. The Brothers Bloom

Heist films and films about con men all tend to run along the same narrative: one guy or a team gets together for one last, big score that will set them up for life. The Brothers Bloom starts that way, but the further it goes, the more it separates itself from the rest as being the most fun heist/con man movie since Oceans 11. The cast is absolutely perfect, not missing a single beat in the whole film as Rian Johnson continues to establish himself as an up and coming auteur. The Brothers Bloom is the kind of movie you can watch over and over again and still find something new to love.
6. Up

Pixar took the moving opening to Wall-E and raised the ante in the first ten minutes of Up, creating a sequence so honest and wrenching that it’s a miracle anyone still had the energy to watch the movie that followed. Up is a thrilling, old-fashioned action-adventure film, a hilarious buddy comedy, and an unbelievably moving tearjerker that earns all of its emotional beats without naked manipulation. And all of that is without even mentioning one of the year’s funniest characters (that would be Dug), Michael Giacchino’s thrilling score, Pete Docter’s fascinating visual palatte, and the film’s brilliant repeated use of simple geometric shapes.

5. Inglorious Basterds

Quintin Tarantino loves to take old cinema conventions and turn them into his own, twisted creations, and with Inglorious Basterds, he regains his stride. Taking the World War II/Nazi Germany film and throwing it in a blender, Tarantino’s film is more fun than anything since Kill Bill Vol. 1. Not for the weak at heart, Inglorious Basterds is a film that lived up to all its hype.

4. In the Loop

The obvious touchstone for starting any conversation about In the Loop is Dr. Strangelove. But whereas Stanley Kubrick’s film took the terrifying reality of nuclear war and blew it up to hysterical proportions, In the Loop succeeds because of how frighteningly plausible it is. Words become bombs and, in the hands of people like Peter Capaldi’s inspired Malcolm Tucker, are contorted and twisted until they lose all their meaning. Like the best satire, In the Loop isn’t just hilarious but it reflects the way that, deep down, we all worry the government actually runs.

3. Coraline

An absolutely stunning film, Coraline is a be careful what you wish for tale that dazzles from start to finish. Coraline takes animation to new heights and defies the expectations of a children’s movie. For every moment of wonder and imagination, Coraline has one of equal creepiness and dread. Henry Selick outdoes his prior masterpiece, The Nightmare Before Christmas, in creating a instant classic that’s unlike anything else you’ve ever seen.

2. The Fantastic Mr. Fox

Wes Anderson’s films have always filtered complex, adult emotions through a childlike lens, so its kind of appropriate that his best film in eight years is a children’s movie. The dream pairing of Anderson and author Roald Dahl led to a film of charming wonder, one that’s feels so hand-crafted and personal that you can almost see the fingermarks on the clay characters. Brought to life with the detail and whimsy of a fourth-grade literary diorama, but with Anderson’s trademark melancholy and sophistication, no film left you feeling quite as happy as Fantastic Mr. Fox did this year.
1. The Hurt Locker
In most war movies, the horror of war is depicted through extreme violence, alienation from those at home, and even a lack of both of those. In The Hurt Lockera story about however, it comes out as suspense, the terrible feeling in the pit of your stomach that something awful is just a second away from happening, and obsession. In the end, The Hurt Locker is ultimately not a film that wants you to understand the Iraq War or even war in general, but rather give it’s viewer the nerve racking sense of dread of war that few war movies can convey.

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by | December 17, 2009 · 3:22 pm

The Best of 2009: The Best Film Performances of 2009

2009 provided yet another year of great film performances. Trying to rank them was just too hard, so we just picked our top 10 (cop out, we know). Let us know what you think in the comments!

Jeremy Renner – The Hurt Locker
There are countless movies that show what “war does to a man,” but Jeremy Renner’s performance in The Hurt Locker stands out. With Renner’s portrayal as a bomb squad technician, you get the sense that it’s not the war that has made him crazy, but instead made him sane and feel actual emotions. In the end, it’s hard to what impression is to be made of him, as he borders between sympathetic, misguided, and obsessed.(M)

Christoph Waltz – Inglorious Basterds
Quentin Tarantino has created a lot of memorable characters over the years, but he claims Christoph Waltz’s extra evil Nazi Hans Landa as the best he’s ever written. Part of that has to be attributed to Waltz, who adds the necessary charisma to the character that makes him even more sinister. Nazis are so frequently played one way, but Waltz adds a unique twist to him that gave us teh best villain of the year. (M)

Joseph Gordon-Levitt – (500) Days of Summer
For all the bad parts about (500 Days of Summer), there’s a good thing, and in most cases, that good thing is Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s performance. When the film slips into indie rom-com cliche, Gordon-Levitt brings it out thanks to his energy and general likability. With (500) Days of Summer, Gordon-Levitt suggested that he was maybe the heir to Tom Hanks, a likable guy that can flawlessly balance the lighthearted, rom-coms with darker, more dramatic material (Brick). (M)

Rachel Weisz – The Brothers Bloom
When preparing for her role in The Brother’s Bloom, Rachel Weisz had to learn how to skateboard, play guitar, rap, juggle, and do card tricks. For any other actress, this might have been a daunting task, but not for Weisz, who gives the movie a shine throughout. She is the perfect antithesis to Adrien Brody’s dour con man, and without her, the film would have been half as fun. Weisz doesn’t take many lighter roles like this, but The Brothers Bloom showed she’s just as good with those as she is the dramatic roles she made her name with. (M)

Max Records – Where the Wild Things Are
Child actors are a dime a dozen in Hollywood, but what stands out about Max Record’s performance is Where the Wild Things Are is a naturalism that’s rare for someone his age. Record’s probably benefited from being in a film set in a fantasy world, but he plays emotions so well that you forget the kids isn’t even in middle school yet. Being a kid can be just as strange and scary as being on an island with feuding beasts, and Record’s does an excellent job of conveying it. (M)

Michael Stuhlbarg – A Serious Man

For the Coen’s most personal movie to date, they shied away from the superstars they had been working with recently, instead casting an unknown stage actor as Larry Gopnik, a Minnesota professor put through a series of moral tests with no easy answers. Stuhlbarg perfectly balances the comedy and tragedy of his character, building a picture of a Job-like man questioning his faith and looking for sense in a senseless world. (J)

Peter Capaldi – In the Loop

Amid the ensemble of doofuses and intellectual lightweights that populate In the Loop, Peter Capaldi’s Malcolm Tucker stands out, not just as they year’s most brilliant comic invention, but the hurricane force that continually pushes it forward. His spiteful, profane, midlevel bureaucrat seems specifically designed to navigate the sea of dunderheads, as he pushes towards war, adding a subtle violence to the film that works perfectly with the military satire. (J)

Charlotte Gainsbourg – Antichrist

I’m no fan of Antichrist, but what little about it worked did so thanks to Charlotte Gainsbourg. Playing the cryptic, rapidly unraveling center of the film, Gainsbourg veers from frightened to crazy to frightening in a convincing way, never stopping and giving herself fully to the utter insanity of the role she was asked to play. It takes a bold actor to agree to be in a Von Trier to begin with, triply so with this one, but Gainsbourg pulled it off with heartwrenching panache, grounding the film long after Von Trier was interested in doing so. (J)

Nicolas Cage – Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans

Sure playing against type is a major accomplishment, but sometimes we underrate how great an actor can be when he or she is in his or her comfort zone. Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans seemed like nothing more than a hilarious joke, but the film, improbably, worked, thanks primarily to a performance that represents the perfect marriage of actor and material. Nicolas Cage is at his unhinged, wild peak, putting all of his wacky idiosyncracies to use in a role where they actually feel like a natural, sensible development. His joy in unleashing the inner wild man gives the film an energy that keeps it from being a bland cop procedural or heavy trip into addiction. (J)

Matt Damon – The Informant!

Matt Damon’s character in The Informant! makes less and less sense to the audience as the film goes along. Yet Matt Damon digs underneath the surface and becomes Mark Whitacre, lending a verisimilitude to the incredibly unlikely story that Steven Soderbergh tells. Damon plays off of his costars extremely well (especially Scott Bakula and Joel McHale’s frazzled federal agents), but its his stream-of-consciousness narration, at times mindblowingly out of sync with the desperation of Whitacre’s situation, that makes Damon’s performance so special. (J)

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