My 10 favourite performances of 2016.

I've done the trash performances list, now for the good eggs!

10. Emily Blunt, The Girl on the Train

Clown music film is clown music, but Emily Blunt really deserves a shout-out on this list, for working her ass off in The Girl on the Train. Her unvain performance as a pathetic alcoholic was spot-on. 

Ranking of 2017 Best Supporting Actor nominees.

I love analysing the Oscar categories and if it were up to me, I would have analysed all of them between the announcement of the nominations and the Oscar ceremony next Sunday. However, this was sadly unfeasible due to the fact that I live in the UK and tricky UK release dates meant I hadn’t seen a bunch of the nominated films.

I’ve only now watched enough films to analyse one category, Supporting Actor, and in terms of discussing the nominees, I’m deferring to Nathaniel’s method on the Supporting Actress Smackdown of a discrete score out 5, as opposed to my more convoluted grading system, where sometimes there wasn’t much in it between two performances, yet I gave one a B+ and the other an A-, which seemed a tad spurious.

So without further ado, my rankings of the nominated performances, from worst to best…

05. Dev Patel as ‘Saroo’ in Lion (**/*****)

Rules (to BBFC guidelines on sex references) Don't Apply.

Warren Beatty's vanity project, Rules Don't Apply was released to lukewarm acclaim. I saw the trailer and immediately sensed the case of 'sticking as many celebrities in a film as possible to paper over the cracks of its low quality' and thought Nah. As far as I'm concerned, I'm content having seen just one film about Howard Hughes, Marty Scorsese's seminal The Aviator.

But even if I have no intention of watching a film, I still read its BBFC extended information, just to have some indication about the content in it (case in point, writing a whole blog post about Passengers' short insight as I have no life). 

Rules Don't Apply's short insight is popular amongst several 12A-rated films: 'moderate sex references, infrequent strong language'.

With regards to these 'moderate sex references', it said this:

Ahem at the bit about 'a small dark stain'. Given that the BBFC have rated the mere mention of ejaculation a 'strong sex reference' (see Fathers and Daughters), I thought this visual sex reference is a bit risqué for 12A!

Perhaps it sounds worse reading it than watching it, and the fact that it got PG-13 in the States and 12A in Ireland, imply that. Maybe it's a really tiny stain. But still. I'm very surprised the BBFC passed it at 12A, a rating which has less allowance for sex references than the American PG-13 (case in point, the likes of Mustang, Dumb and Dumber To and Easy A were PG-13 but (admittedly soft) 15s because their sex references were deemed too crude for 12A). The BBFC has no problem deviating from the Americans on this front, and I think they probably ought to have here.

For example, in Dumb and Dumber To, rated 15 for 'strong sex references', the sex jokes the BBFC thought inappropriate for 12A were when Jim Carey's not-too-bright character gets tricked by an old woman into fingering her. Obviously they don't show it, just his hand rummaging around under some sheets, and later he exclaims 'I just finger-banged an old lady!'. I agree with the BBFC that that is probably a bit dicey to put in a 12A. But personally, the sight of a stain on a dude's crotch, in my opinion, is even  more scabrous. In both cases, if watched with kids, the kid might innocently ask 'what's that stain on his trousers / what does finger-bang mean'?

It's good that the BBFC avoided the second awkward conversation between parents and some 9-year-old, but I'm not sure they'd relish having the first one either!

Then again, I haven't seen the film.

(I hope 'the small dark stain' in question doesn't appear on Alden Ehrenreich's trousers. I like him and don't want to see him make a buffoon of himself!)

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In case you hadn't noticed, I'm rather obsessed with film ratings. Here be the archive of my BBFC posts.

Review of the 133 films I watched in 2016 [with BBFC analysis]

I’m slowly going through my review of 2016 releases, one blog post per week (backlog: un et deux). As I still have quite a lot of the 2016 awards-nominated films to see and thus don't want to complete my 'review of the year' without giving them a chance first, I thought I’d buy some time by looking at all the films I watched in 2016, not just the ones that were released that year.

I watched 133 films in total last year, in a mixture of mediums, from at the cinema (my Cineworld Unlimited and Odeon Unlimited cards have both recouped their charges), at the cinema with ISENSE, whatever that is, on DVD, on the TV, on Netflix and Amazon Prime, and a few other mediums that I shan’t detail.

The arithmetic mean for the 133 films I gave out of ten was 6.54, which unfortunately shows some erroneous decision-making on my part, given I generally only watch a film if I expect it to be 7/10 in quality.

However, the appearance of a couple of lesser-seen films with my favourite actresses in, Saoirse Ronan and Rooney Mara, on Netflix, including a couple of real stinkers (Lost River, Dream Boy, Dare, Trash), would have no doubt bought this average down. Plus, while catching up with the 2015 Oscar-contention films, there were a handful which I didn’t think were that great, but watched for the sake of completeness (eg The Revenant and The Big Short), so they, too, would have skewed the average.

I recently went on an R course, so here be three graphs that indulge my statistical fascination with films (and the BBFC in particular).

Womancrush Wednesday: Kate McKinnon.

Kate's moving, passionate performance of Hallelujah moved me to tears; the lyrics and choice of song carried extra poignancy given the tragic passing of Leonard Cohen last week.

I was super-impressed at not just how well Kate sung, but how naturally she played the piano. A quick perusal of her Wikipedia page tells me that she also plays the cello and the guitar; what a talented woman! Plus, she read Drama at Columbia university. So not only is she a supremely talented comedienne (her Hillary impression is on point, as is this sensational Carol parody), but lady is musical, and boasts and Ivy League education! Goddess!

Loving on Kate (her show-stealing turn as kooky Dr. Holtzmann in Ghostbusters is currently top of my list of Best Supporting Actress 2016) and the fact that me watching Arrival means I've now seen 50 releases, segues me nicely into listing my current top 10s of 2016.

Film

01. A United Kingdom
02. I, Daniel Blake
03. Zootropolis
04. Café Society
05. Arrival
06. Kubo and the 2 Strings
07. Someone to Talk to
08. Hell or High Water
09. Nerve
10. Captain America: Civil War

Actor, Leading Role
01. David Oyelowo, A United Kingdom 
02. Chris Pine, Hell or High Water 
03. Jesse Eisenberg, Café Society
04. Jonah Hill, War Dogs 
05. Hai Mao, Someone to Talk To 
06. Miles Teller, War Dogs 
07. Jake Gyllenhaal, Nocturnal Animals 
08. Dave Johns, I, Daniel Blake 
09. Michael Fassbender, The Light Between Oceans 
10. Yoo Hae-jin, Luck-Key

Actress, Leading Role
01. Emily Blunt, The Girl on the Train
02. Amy Adams, Arrival
03. Adriana Ugarte, Julieta
04. Mary Elizabeth Winstead, 10 Cloverfield Lane
05. Rosamund Pike, A United Kingdom
06. Emma Suárez, Julieta
07. Kate Beckinsale, Love and Friendship
08. Amy Adams, Nocturnal Animals
09. Blake Lively, The Shallows
10. Alicia Vikander, The Light Between Oceans 

Supporting actor 
01. Alden Ehrenreich, Hail, Caesar! 
02. Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Nocturnal Animals (massive improvement from his wooden performance in Anna Karenina!)
03. Ben Foster, Hell or High Water 
04. John Goodman, 10 Cloverfield Lane 
05. Jeff Bridges, Hell or High Water 
06. Tom Bennett, David Brent: Life on the Road 
07. Michael Shannon, Nocturnal Animals 
08. Tom Bennett, Love and Friendship 
09. Tom Holland, Captain America: Civil War 
10. Tom Felton, A United Kingdom

Supporting actress 
01. Kate McKinnon, Ghostbusters
02. Jena Malone, The Neon Demon
03. Hayley Squires, I, Daniel Blake 
04. Viola Davis, Suicide Squad 
05. Haley Bennett, Magnificent Seven 
06. Rooney Mara, Kubo and the Two Strings 
07. Rachel Weisz, The Light Between Oceans 
08. Terry Pheto, A United Kingdom 
09. Kristen Stewart, Café Society 
10. Kristen Bell, Bad Moms

Actors with multiple entries (for now): Amy Adams, Tom Bennett

Half-birthday Top 5s of 2016 (so far).

It's my 26.5th birthday today, so I thought I'd list my top 5 of the dominant 'Oscar' categories as of now (having seen 42 titles). 

For the acting categories I'll try my best to be objective and list in order of 'best' rather than 'favourite'. For example, my favourite performance of the year so far is Jesse Eisenberg in Café Society because I identify with his character the most. He'll almost certainly make my 10 favourite performances of 2016 list, but I concede that it's not necessarily the best male lead acting performance of the year.

To further illustrate this point, in my favourite performances of 2015, I listed Domhnall Gleeson in The Revenant because he looked damn gorgeous with a ginger beard. But objectively, he was probably only the fourth best performance in that dull film after Leo, Tom Hardy and Will Poulter.

I'm doing these lists now so I can show my love to some actors who didn't necessarily appear in prestige pictures, as they might get bumped out of the top 5s when Oscar bait like La La Land and Fences drops. For example, Jena Malone in The Neon Demon, an excellent, arresting turn, wouldn't get near the Oscars, but it was so good it needs to be highlighted. And not just due to the shock of Johanna Mason from The Hunger Games romancing the dead, haha.

And obviously, top films are not so objective because those are just favourites, haha.

Film

01. A United Kingdom 
02. Zootropolis
03. Café Society 
04. Kubo and the Two Strings 
05. Hell or High Water 

Direction
01. Amma Asante, A United Kingdom
02. Travis Knight, Kubo and the Two Strings
03. Pedro Almodóvar, Julieta
04. Dan Trachtenberg, 10 Cloverfield Lane
05. Nicolas Pesce, The Eyes of My Mother

Actor, Leading Role
01. David Oyewolo, A United Kingdom
02. Chris Pine, Hell or High Water
03. Jesse Eisenberg, Café Society 
04. Jonah Hill, War Dogs
05. Miles Teller, War Dogs

Actress, Leading Role
01. Emily Blunt, The Girl on the Train
02. Adriana Ugarte, Julieta
03. Mary Elizabeth Winstead, 10 Cloverfield Lane
04. Rosamund Pike, A United Kingdom
05. Emma Suárez, Julieta

Actor, Supporting Role
01. Alden Ehrenreich, Hail, Caesar!
02. Ben Foster, Hell or High Water
03. John Goodman, 10 Cloverfield Lane
04. Jeff Bridges, Hell or High Water
05. Tom Bennett, David Brent: Life on the Road

Actress, Supporting Role
01. Kate McKinnon, Ghostbusters
02. Jena Malone, The Neon Demon
03. Viola Davis, Suicide Squad
04. Haley Bennett, Magnificent Seven
05. Kristen Stewart, Café Society 

Screenplay (adapted and original) because I CBA to google which were original and adapted and hence do separate categories for both, haha
01. Café Society 
02. War Dogs
03. Zootopia
04. Julieta
05. The Hunt for the Wilderpeople

I haven't watched enough big hitters to do the aural/visual categories, as the best scores and camerawork are usually in the films which aim high and have budgets to match. But yeah, that was that!

--

Because I'm a shady cow...

Worst Film

01. High-Rise my only 2/10 score of the year. What a load of bloated wank. Also, it should have been rated 18 because it was so unpleasant to watch.

02. The Boss

03. Mission Milano

04. So Young 2: Never Gone

05. Absolutely Unfunny Fabulous

Worst Performances

01. Cara Delevingne, Suicide Squad this probably won't change at the end of the year
02. Kris Wu, So Young 2: Never Gone 
03. Ricky Gervais, David Brent: Life on the Road
04. Sienna Miller, High-Rise
05. Chris Pratt, Magnificent Seven

When Film Posters Lie: Crimes Against Billing Orders.

Today, I watched The Place Beyond the Pines, Derek Cianfrance's ambitious morality tale of how an encounter between bank robber (Ryan Gosling) and rookie cop (Bradley Cooper) affects their lives long after the meeting. I wasn't exactly sold on it; the three acts in the movie deteriorated monotonically, with the most gripping set pieces all being at the start of the film. The final act of the film focuses on the interaction between the two characters' sons, and the scenes between Emory Cohen and Dane DeHaan felt like a blasted mumbling contest.

Overall, I was mightily disappointed with The Place Beyond the Pines; there were some good elements: Bradley Cooper was as nuanced and as convincing as I've seen him (I usually can't take him seriously because he's appeared in some godawful Jennifer Lawrence collaborations and both of them bring out the worst in each other, especially when David O. Russell is involved), and the scenes between Ben Mendelsohn and Gosling were nicely done. Based on their chemistry together, I can see why Ryan Gosling chose to cast the Australian in his own movie, Lost River, 2 years later. You even get a tiny glimpse of Mendelsohn's terribad dancing, one of the few redeeming features of Lost River, in this movie.

But another gripe that I had with The Place Beyond the Pines that was no real fault of the filmmakers themselves was the sheer inaccuracy of the billing of Ray Liotta in the film poster. The way Liotta is credited here gives the (misleading) impression that he's the fourth main character in the film. He ain't. Gosling and Cooper are the co-leads, then Eva Mendes, then Dane DeHaan and then Emory Cohen. Ben Mendelsohn features in the first and third acts, so he would take sixth precedence. Being generous (and it would be being very generous), Ray Liotta is the seventh main character in the film. At best.

I mean, don't get me wrong, I can see why they did it. Although DeHaan and Emory Cohen are now gaining status and their acting technique has definitely improved (Cohen put his mumbling Brando impression to far better use as an adorable suitor of Saoirse Ronan in 2015's Brooklyn and you know he was good because I don't even begrudge him stealing Domhnall Gleeson's thunder), they weren't that well known in 2013, when the film was released. Whereas Ray Liotta is properly famous, not least for his iconic performance as Henry Hill in Goodfellas. So they were riding on the fame of his name. Fair enough, given the calibre the star they had on their castlist (Liotta's combination of charisma, screen presence and intense-eyed gaze renders him one of my favourite actors).

An even more brazen case of erroneous billing of an actor immortalised by a Martin Scorsese picture would be the combination of the name order and the appearance of a photo of Jonah Hill in the Hail, Caesar! poster. The fact that he's one of the five pictured could let you think he's one of the five main characters. He ain't. His role in Hail, Caesar! is genuinely that of a cameo, lasting less than a minute. As a huge Jonah Hill fan who's two main draws to this picture were the Coen brothers and him, I felt mightily short-changed.

As with Emory Cohen and Dane DeHaan getting trampled over in the Place Beyond the Pines poster, the biggest loser here is Alden Ehrenreich, who stole the show in Hail, Caesar! and if there were any justice in the world, would be in the running for a Best Supporting Actor nomination for what was a warm performance as a rodeo-come-actor who struggles with his lines of on point comic timing. Ehrenreich's role was the size that I had thought Jonah would be getting. Boy was I wrong about that, but it seems bizarre that the best thing about the film doesn't even get his picture on the poster.

Obviously, worse things have happened, and the world will keep spinning. And I can't begrudge Hollywood studios for trotting out their big names ahead of the lesser-known chaps, even if they had more prominence in the film. Money does talk, after all. And in both Ray Liotta and Jonah Hill's case, they succeeded at tricking me. By misrepresenting the magnitude of the actors' screen time in their respective movies on the film posters, the films' distributors lured me into watching the film under false pretences. I'm just too much of a Marty Scorsese fangirl for my own good, goddamnit!

But I'm not in the mood to be fooled for a third time this year by film posters. All I'm saying is, if Jonah Hill isn't actually the lead when I see War Dogs, I won't be best pleased.