My 25 Favourite Performances of 2017

My final post commemorating the cinematic year that was 2017 is my favourite: the acting!

This list is judged from two factors: acting quality, and my heavy, unrepentant sense of favouritism. I like to think that I wouldn’t put a bad performance on the list, but it would also be inaccurate to claim every performance listed was one of the 25 best acting performances of 2017 (for example, I’d have a hard time arguing that Gal Gadot was better in Wonder Woman than Emma Stone in Battle of the Sexes, say).

Warning: the following blog under the cut is gif heavy! (To paraphrase Hamilton, ‘We rendezvous with Rochambeau, consolidate their GIFS!’)

25. Will Poulter as ‘Krauss’ in Detroit

Fun fact: one of my friends works in the same building as Poulter's father (who's a very big dog in his field of science). Thus, whenever I see the BAFTA Rising Star winner in a film, I feel like we're mates (by three degrees of separation, but still. 😂)

BAFTA predictions, 2018.

The BAFTAs are tonight, and even though the film awards body of my home nation embarrassed me horrifically on nomination day, by naming flavour-of-the-month Margot Robbie instead of Isabelle Huppert, and even though the BAFTA ceremony last year was almost unwatchable with the incessant didactic about the political climate (worst offenders were Ken Loach, Kenneth Lonergan, Curzon twat and Emma Stone), I will of course be watching this year. 

I love movie stars, movies, gorgeous outfits, and seeing how good I am at predicting the guessing game (going by last year's BAFTA predictions, not too well!), so it’s worth braving celebrities thinking they have a right to  tell us what to think for!

Below be my guesses and second guesses for each category!

This was my reaction when I saw BAFTA nominated Margot Robbie over Isabelle Huppert. Joke.

Thoughts on the 2018 Oscar Nominations

The Oscar nominations came out yesterday, and, in part because I post on an ‘Oscar Buzz’ Facebook group where the prize for correctly predicting as many categories as possible was a Dunkirk DVD, I actually put some welly into thinking through my predictions this year, rather than some really counter-logical guesses I made last year, purely because I hoped they’d happen (Taraji P. Henson for Best Actress, and Lucas Hedges’ scowling in Manchester by the Sea to not get nominated, etc).

There wasn’t a snub that riled me as much this year as last year when Amy Adams got overlooked for Arrival (yes, I'm still mad). What’s more, of the Best Picture nominees that I’ve seen, none irked me as much as Manchester by the Sea and Blah Blah Bland did, so, whilst there were films I disagreed to getting nominated on principle (like I, Tonya), overall, I really can’t complain! 🎬

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).

Dual roles blogathon: Paul Dano in THERE WILL BE BLOOD (2007)

Slight spoilers for TWBB ahead, so, I would recommend you don’t read this piece if you haven’t seen the movie!

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Paul Thomas Anderson's modern masterpiece, There Will Be Blood, is a fascinating tale of Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis)'s journey as an oil tycoon, and the strategic moves he make during his ascent to the top. His rise to power is both facilitated and impeded by two characters, both played by Paul Dano: twins Paul and Eli Sunday.

The decision to cast Dano as both the Sunday brothers (and ergo, making them twins) wasn't originally in director P.T. Anderson's plans. Kel O'Neill was initially pencilled in to play the mild-mannered brother Paul. But the actor was too intimidated by the director, and pulled out at the last minute, causing some creative problem-solving in the form of casting Dano as both the characters, and making them twins.

Dano's role as Paul Sunday consists of a brief appearance, but is crucial to the plot. At the start of the film, he seeks out Plainview to alert him about a lucrative area to drill for oil in. Dano plays Paul Sunday with a meek, child-like quality. It helps that Paul Dano has one of those ageless faces. He is 32 but could pass for a teenager, a helpful trait to have in the ageist world of Hollywood casting, but one Dano capitalises on only to embark on projects that fulfil him, rather than chase the next money train, which he could easily do.

(Incidentally, for the movie nerds out there, Dano playing a character called Paul in this film means that both Daniel Day-Lewis and Dano play characters with the same Christian names as themselves). #Symmetry

With Paul Sunday's tip, Daniel Plainview makes his way to Little Boston, California to scout out this piece of land. It requires buying acres from the Sunday family, where Eli Sunday, an ambitious preacher, drives a hard bargain for his father's land. He wants whatever Daniel’s offering, and $5,000 for Eli's church. 

Plainview takes an instant dislike to Eli Sunday and his sanctimonious ways, finding the way Eli constantly badgers him about his debt to the church infuriating. Eli's compelling sermons also draw workers away from working on Plainview's ranch and towards his church.

But the thing about Eli that Daniel Plainview loathes the most is that he can read Eli like a magazine, and he sees himself in him. Both men are con artists, who will do and say whatever the audience wants to hear to get what they want. They just go about it in different ways. Plainview sees Eli as a low-rent version of himself, and Eli knows that. Eli isn’t buying what Plainview is selling, and vice versa.

There Will Be Blood undoubtedly belongs to Daniel Day-Lewis, who won a well-deserved Best Actor Oscar for his mesmeric, unforgettable performance. It truly is a spectacular, charismatic piece of acting, and what impressed me most about it is that DDL, like other actors who I admire (Saoirse Ronan, Rooney Mara), does 95% of his emoting with his pupils.

But it his scenes with Dano which linger the memory the most, the way the men interact and play off each other, being spurred on by their mutual dislike, makes the power struggle between them in There Will Be Blood so gripping. The fact that the Dano was pretty much ignored come Awards Season 2008, with only BAFTA acknowledging his excellence in TWBB with a nomination, makes me sad.

The baptism scene, where Eli makes a spectacle of exorcising the past from Daniel, humiliating him, shouting at and even slapping at Plainview to exorcise the bad spirits from him. It's a hypnotic and darkly comic scene, and I definitely noticed a rise in Dano's character's spirits, like he was mirroring the mannerisms of the man he was preaching at. The way he goads Plainview about his Achilles Heel - his son - illustrated that, in that scene at least, Eli had the control over him, and he was going to make the most of it.

Because Dano plays both the Sunday brothers, some film-goers have wondered if they were supposed to be the same character pretending to be two people, particularly as you never see both of them on screen at the same time. But I read Paul and Eli Sunday as unambiguously, two different people. Eli's rant at his father about his 'stupid son Paul', as well as the final scene, where Daniel lauds over Eli how he paid Paul off and how is brother is a winner, and he, a loser, pretty much put that to bed.

Nonetheless, having the same actor play two different roles does have an inherent element of confusion and trickery. The kind of odd cinematic game you wouldn’t put past Paul Thomas Anderson, who’s offbeat Punch-Drunk Love teased out a fine serious turn from Adam Sandler, of all people. If anyone can turn the tables and pull the rug from underneath you, it’s P.T. Anderson.

I've got a lot of time for Paul Dano, who constantly surprises me with his off-kilter acting choices. I squeed with delight when I spotted him playing the fictional embodiment of the Tolstoy in the BBC’s War and Peace this year (my brother was watching).

The fact that he's not a conventional Hollywood heartthrob yet has still done very well for himself in a predominantly superficial industry is a testament to his talent (incidentally, this is precisely the reason why I idolise Jonah Hill, even if the two men’s acting styles are quite different), and I like how Dano pursues film roles for the art, rather than the money. I also dig that he doesn’t thirst for awards like some (tho, seriously. Just because he doesn't strive for recognition doesn't excuse him being passed over by the Award bodies for his work in this movie).

There Will Be Blood ranks as one of his finest performances, and certainly the best film he's appeared in. Of Dano’s upcoming projects, I'm most psyched for his writing & directorial debut, where he will direct his Prisoners co-star Jake Gyllenhaal in a tale of a relationship falling apart. I will be first in the queue to see it at the cinemas.

Godspeed, Mr. Dano. Cinema needs more auteurs like you.

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This post is my entry in Christina Wehner's blogathon about Dual Roles in movies. Head on over to read other fabulous articles from bloggers on actors who have played more than one role in a film!

"Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”

It’s a clear case of quantity over quality this week; I watched a fair few movies, but most of them were unbearably, unforgivably, pants.

The Grudge III (Toby Wilkins, 2009)

Poorly acted and scripted, and about as terrifying as doing my laundry without any fabric softener. Then again, the only reason I watched it was because it has Beau Mirchoff (he plays Wisteria Lane hottie Danny Bolen in Desperate Housewives) and he was criminally underused.

Julie and Julia (Nora Ephron, 2009)

A sweet enough idea but the film sadly turns out to be a little drab. I found all the hoo-ha over Streep’s performance nonsensical as she did nothing but sport a crappy accent (she did much better work in It’s Complicated). Amy Adams was at her charming best and I found her half of the film semi-engaging, particularly when she gets her blog up and running.

Laura (Otto Preminger, 1944)

The only film I saw this week that I would deem excellent. Gene Tierney plays the eponymous female who, at the beginning of the film, is being presumed dead. As the film develops, a very tangled web of jealousy, love and possession are uncovered. The cast are collectively brilliant, in particular Tierney and Dana Andrews.

Furthermore, the scene in which Laura returns to her house is one of the most finely orchestrated I’ve scene; the camera seems to widen to allow the full shot of the detective sleeping there, and the sound, which features a brief second of nothing but a clock ticking, captures the suspense perfectly. Great movie.