My Favourite Performances of 2010.

Standard, a yearly tradition of mine! I must re-iterate that these are my *fave* performances of last year, by no means am I trying to claim they're the *best* ones. For example, I recognise that Colin Firth was pretty good in The King's Speech, but it didn't do anything for me. Hence, performances that I bladdy loved.


I recognised Sheen's face throughout the film, but couldn't quite put a name to it, before realising that it was "her off Fanny Hill", wherein she played a prim hotel owner. In Another Year, she and Jim Broadbent make for the stable, comfortable married couple who are the centrepiece for some more dysfunctional characters through the course of the year. Sheen plays a likeable woman with a touch of smugness to perfection and it is the painfully accurate performances in Another Year that made it the touching film it is.


Maaaan, when I was trawling the net for images of Bonham-Carter as Bellatrix in the seventh Harry Potter film, the image I wanted the most was of her - in my opinion - best scene in this film - when she was torturing Emma Watson. Her acting in that scene was perfection, it capture Bellatrix's sadistic evilness to a T. I've developed quite a penchant for rating performances in the HP movies (Tom Felton made the list last year), and it's no coincidence that so far the two performances I've rated have been portrayals of Slytherin characters. Nasty pieces of work they may be, but playing the bitch is so much more fun than playing the angel. HBC in Harry Potter >>>>>>>>> HBC in The King's Speech.


Mila Kunis is a flawless queen, and I am one of the few who actually believed her to be stronger than Natalie Portman in this film, who, despite being very good, I feel didn't quite merit her Oscar win over performances like Michelle Williams'. Anyway, Mila was the epitome of smouldering sexuality in Black Swan, a performance so sexy that I felt the need to devote an entire blog entry to it. Get it, goddess. (note, Mila's second time in being on this list in three years).



From a woman to performed cunnilingus to a man who performed cunnilingus, it's somewhat of a disgrace that Gosling was completely overlooked at the Oscars. His performance was so gut-wrenching, so moving, so raw, that I wanted it to work with Cindy. But, in films as sometimes in life, we can't always get our happy endings, but such is the emotional gravita of Gosling's turn that, when it didn't, I genuinely felt gutted for his character. :(


Right, quiet you! :p Chloe Moretz was hollering c-bombs in 2010, Justin Bieber had girls in a frenzy and Smith's lil sis Willow Smith was whipping her hair back and forth, but it's Jaden Smith's straightforward, gutsy performance as the boy who learns karate to fight off bullies was as engaging a child performance as you'll see all year. Much of his performance owed to the rapport he had with Jackie Chan, who actually gave a very moving performance indeed; his scene in the car during the anniversary of his wife & daughter's death moved me to tears. Much more than just karate, trust me.


As swaggerous, strong, and gritful a girl with plaits as I've ever seen in cinema.

Oh, Andy.


I am so, so, so glad Christian Bale won the Oscar this year for his amaze performance as Dicky Eklund, a fighter who has flaws from top to bottom, but remains a magnetic watch. His gentle chemistry with on-screen brothers Mark Wahlberg and mother Melissa Leo are completely riveting and convincing, his drug-related mistakes are as hilarious to watch as they are painful, and the scene wherein he sees his son on the TV screen from prison is absolutely heartbreaking.  The Fighter was a somewhat predictable - but still winning - film, but Christian Bale's energy as Eklund meant that I was captivated throughout.

Interesting tidbit that only interests me: he was born in Haverfordwest, where one of my best mates at Uni is from! \o/


Leonardo DiCaprio never fails to be fine, but after he starred in my second least favourite film of 2010, Inception, I found his shaggability slightly on the wane. Nonetheless, if I remember that he was in a much superior movie that was released earlier in 2010,  Shutter island, I can just about still love him. A big motif of Shutter Island is what is reality and what is imagination, and it is a testament to DiCaprio's performance that even at the end, we were never really sure.


I watched Another Year yetserday, and it's a shame I didn't do so before I'd compiled my favourite films of 2010 list, because it would have easily gotten fourth place (a phrase that I hope I can say of my team Chelsea football club, heh heh heh), thus knocking off Streetdance 3D and hence shielding the list from some of the snarking I got from my bezzo Luke. :p But yeah, delightful, honest, sweet movie, and Lesley Manville, to me, was even more of a centrepiece than Ruth  Sheen & Jim Broadbent's married couple. I thought that Imelda Staunton's devastatingly real cameo at the start of the film would hold the title for best performance in the film, but from the moment I came to watch Lesley Manville as a jittery, insecure, aging woman ala Blanche DuBois who just wants to love and be loved, I knew I was wrong. A bit of Sally Hawkins in Happy-Go-Lucky, a bit of Vivien Leigh, this is an acting tour-de-force. I pitied her, I found her irksome, I cringed with her, but, above all, I felt for her. There's your amazing performance.

I Need a Gun, 'Cos all I Do is Dance.

I know, I know, I've been a bit of a no-show with this blog for the past month or so, and it's really, really not on. Unfortunately, that isn't going to change any time soon, as I'm jetting off to Italy with my family this Friday for a few days. But, for now, have four mini-reviews of the films I've watched recently.



Step Up (Anne Fletcher, 2006)
Channing Tatum plays Tyler, your token disillusioned youth from the wrong side of the tracks who wastes his days being a juvenile delinquent with his two friends, brothers Mac and Skinny. One evening, they are caught vandalising a hall in the Maryland School of Arts. Mac and Skinny escape, but Tyler is punished with community service as a janitor at said school. In doing his duties, he crosses paths with pretty and talented but uppity teenager Nora (Jenna Dewan), who's dream it has always been to be a dancer. When her dance partner for the upcoming danceshow injures himself, it (predictably) sets Tyler up for a chance to show that he's more than just a troublemaker. Despite the background differences between the two, when they dance, sparks fly, and the two protagonists find themselves drawn towards each other as more than just dance partners.

As you'd expext, a film like this is fairly low on plot and dialogue, and puts all of the weight on the dance scenes, which are indeed sublime. The finale in particular, is spectacular, as a group of 20+ dancers, led by Tatum and Dewan, fuse streetdance, hip-hop and ballet to the intrumental track of Yung Joc's "Bout it". It's forgettable fodder for the most part, but the dance scenes really are worth a re-watch.

Toy Story 3 (Lee Unkrich, 2010)

Needless to say, Woody and Buzz's owner, Andy, can't be eight forever, and there must be a time when he goes to college. The time has arrived in Toy Story 3, and each of his toys - even his favourite, Woody, knows that they are living on borrowed time. However, they under-estimate their worth to Andy, for, whilst he only wishes to bring Woody with him to college, he still plans to keep the rest of his toys in the attic. But due to a stream of misunderstandings, the remaining toys get tossed out and end up in a day care centre. Whilst this new surrounding initially seems promising - plenty of eager children wanting to play with the toys in ways that Andy no longer does - the debutante toys soon realise that it is only children in the butterfly room who actually know how to play with toys. The kids in the caterpillar room - the room they've been shoved in - is occupied by toddlers, toddlers who don't treat the toys well. At all.

I had a bit of a love/hate relationship with Toy Story 2. I disliked it for aaaages, until one day, I had sudden craving to give it a re-appraisal, and I immediately fell back in love with it. My relationship with the first film is more straightforward: it was the first film I saw in the cinema in England, and loved it. It is a similar case with this film, which was choc-a-bloc full with joy, humour and banter between the toys. I'm not ashamed to admit I tore up twice, and was moved throughout by the loyalty and fraternity between the toys. The ending was one of the most bittersweet in film, but I adored it. And the cameo of a Totoro doll pretty much epitomized the film's awesomeness.

The Karate Kid (Harold Zwart, 2010)

Will Smith's kid plays Dre, a 12-year-old boy who's single mother has relocated them to China. He hates it there, he neither speaks the language, nor gets on with anybody around (except a pretty Chinese girl of his age who is similarly drawn to him). His interest in said girl is what gets him off on a bad foot with the resident bully. Dre, a feisty boy, is never one to take abuse lying down, yet, in their first fight, Dre easily comes off worse, sporting a brutal black eye which he proceeds to try to - and fail - to hide from his mother (played by Taraji P. Henson with the touch of maternal warmth she exhibited in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button). After one particularly bruising encounter with the group of bullies, the grouchy janitor (played by Jackie Chan) steps in, quietly opens a can of whoopass, and becomes Dre's mentor for the upcoming karate tournament.

I forwent Inception to see this film, as it was on my dad's birthday and he loves Jackie Chan, and to be honest, I'm totally sure that I would have preferred the other film. Though, that said, I still had a relatively good time with The Karate Kid. Jaden Smith, who was cute and cuddly in The Pursuit of Happyness but didn't convince me he was capable of much past that, more than carries the film here, both in his natural acting as well as his dedication to the fight scenes. Jackie Chan, who's fight moves I adore but I'd never rated very highly as an actor, also surprises here, particularly in the scene with the car, a scene which actually moved me to tears. Like Step Up, it's a fairly predictable, forgettable set-up, but thanks to a fun soundtrack and brilliant chemistry between the two leads, good fun whilst it lasts.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid (Thor Freudenthal, 2010)
Zachary Gordon stars as Greg Heffley, a boy entering middle school. He's determined to make a name for himself and be as popular as possible, and if this involves re-inventing his loyal but unfashionable best mate Rowley Jefferson (played with affable charm by Robert Capron). The film follows him as his attempts to show how popular and cool he is fall flat each time, with each attempt just landing him further and further away from his aim. It's a simple enough movie with a simple enough message: don't become so preoccupied with the superficial that you forgo the things that really matter, and a cool turn from the ever-lovely Chloe Moretz (MUST watch Kick-Ass!)