SAG predictions, 2026.

Best ensemble: Sinners 

My 10 favourite acting performances of 2018

In terms of my affinity for the films represented here, it's quite a mixed bag, with 60% of the films present being in my top 10 of 2018, but 2 of them being movies I actively disliked (Hereditary and Thoroughbreds). 

But, when watching a film, even if I'm not enjoying the experience, I try to focus on the redeeming qualities in it, which is why two films I didn't like are making appearances: because they contained eye-catching and impressive performances from their talented stars.

10. Jesse Plemons, Game Night

Screen Actor Guild predictions, 2019.

Here are the list of nominations, if you wanted to play prognosticator as well! I'm only predicting the film categories, as, as my Golden Globe predictions showed, I don't know much about TV. Haha.

Best Actor: Rami Malek, Bohemian Rhapsody

Best Actress: Glenn Close, The Wife

^^ With both the leading categories, I feel if Malek and Close win tonight, then they're favourites for the Oscar. Either American Hustle co-star Christian Bale (for Vice) or Bradley Cooper (A Star is Born) could beat Malek, and as for Close, she should be looking out for competition from Lady Gaga and Olivia Colman.

Best Supporting Actor: Mahershala Ali, Green Book

If Mahershala Ali wins tonight, he'll be on track to win Best Supporting Actor at the Oscars twice in three years. The last time we had a double winner in a short space of time was by Christoph Waltz, in 2010 and 2013, for the same category, except he won for acting in two Quentin Tarantino films, playing fairly similar roles [except one was a villain, and the other, a sympathetic character]. Ali has mixed it up with two different directors and two very different roles.

Best Supporting Actress: Amy Adams, Vice

The current frontrunner for Best Supporting Actress, Regina King, wasn't nominated for the SAG (apparently there were screener issues) or the BAFTA (who inexplicably chose to nominate Margot Robbie's shameless Oscar-begging as Elizabeth I instead). So that frees up the category for Amy Adams to win tonight, although I feel Rachel Weisz will probably win the BAFTA, thus making the Supporting Actress race quite exciting!

By the way, Amy Adams is also up against Emma Stone in the 'Best Actress in a TV Movie or Limited Series' category, for Sharp Objects and Maniac respectively, and I'm predicting/hoping Adams triumphs over Bugeyes there as well!

Best Ensemble: Black Panther

The Favourite and Roma, which led the Oscars with the most nominations this week, didn't get nominated in this category. Instead, we have three films that fared well with audiences (Black Panther, Bohemian Rhapsody and Crazy Rich Asians) and BlacKkKlansman and A Star is Born. A Star is Born might be the obvious choice, given I'm not predicting Bradley Cooper or Lady Gaga to win tonight, so it might be a good place to honour them. But I'm gonna predict with my heart and go guess Black Panther - Wakanda forever!

Thoughts on the 2018 Golden Globes.

Here be the list of winners. My thoughts:

- Yay for Sersh! She is an amazing actress, who I’ve been following avidly ever since she amazed as Briony in 2007’s Atonement. It’s amazing to think that at just 23, she’s already being regarded as ‘overdue’, but that’s a testament to how good she is. I really thought Saoirse should have won the Oscar for 2015’s Brooklyn, and, although I’ve not yet seen Lady Bird, judging from the quality of everything else she’s done, I have no doubt she’s incredible in it. 

I’m also so relieved Margot Robbie’s shameless Oscar-begging didn’t prevail. Margot is more of a ‘celebrity’ than Saoirse, and the Golden Globes are renowned for favouring the more glamorous stars. But so, so happy that in this case, Saoirse Ronan’s inimitable talents transcended star-seeking!

- Related to this, well done to Greta Gerwig, who’s directorial debut, the female-ccentric Lady Bird, won Best Film – Musical or Comedy. I can’t wait to watch it!

Golden Globe predictions, 2018.

Last year saw an unprecedented sweep of seven wins for the insufferable Blah Blah Bland, really testifying people's perception of the Golden Globes as being 'starf_ckers'. This year, none of the films in contention are about how great Hollywood is (although The Disaster Artist does portray the film-making process with jovial teasing), so I foresee the wealth being spread out more evenly. 

Predictions:

Movies

Best Motion Picture - Drama: "The Shape of Water"

Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy: "Lady Bird"

Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama: Sally Hawkins, "The Shape of Water"

Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama: Gary Oldman, "Darkest Hour"

Best Actress in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy: Saoirse Ronan, "Lady Bird"

Best Director: Christopher Nolan, "Dunkirk"

Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy: James Franco, "The Disaster Artist"

Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture: Allison Janney, "I, Tonya"

Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture: Christopher Plummer, "All the Money in the World"

Best Original Score in a Motion Picture: "Dunkirk"

Best Screenplay in a Motion Picture: "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri"

Best Motion Picture - Foreign Language: "First They Killed My Father"

Best Animated Film: "Coco"
Best song: Mighty River, "Mudbound"

I don't usually predict the TV categories, but this year, me and my brother decided to do a competition to see who could get the most right out of the two combined sections!

TV

Best TV series - Drama: "The Handmaid's Tale"

Best performance by Actress in a TV series - Drama : Elisabeth Moss, "The Handmaid's Tale"

Best performance by an Actor in a TV Series - Drama: Sterling K. Brown, "This is Us"

Best TV series - Musical or Comedy: "Will & Grace"

Best performance by an Actor in a TV series - Musical or Comedy : Aziz Ansari "Master of None"

Best performance by an Actress in a TV series - Musical or Comedy: Rachel Brosnahan, "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel"

Limited Series or Motion Picture Made for Television: "Big Little Lies"

Best Performance by an Actor in a Limited Series or Motion Picture Made for Television: Geoffrey Rush, "Genius"

Best Performance by an Actress in a Limited Series or Motion Picture Made for Television: Jessica Lange, "Feud: Bette and Joan"

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Series, Limited Series or Motion Picture Made for Television : Alexander Skarsgard, "Big Little Lies"

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Series, Limited Series or Motion Picture Made for Television : Laura Dern, "Big Little Lies"

Bonus prediction: Emma Stone, Casey Affleck, Meryl Streep and the whole gaggle of intolerable Hollyweird hypocrites will find any opportunity to self-congrulate for choosing to wear black outfits, like that undoes all their complicity when the moguls who were at the peak of their harassing powers by working with them and singing their praises.  And of course, in a classic case of 'methinks the lady doth protest too much', the stars will drone on to anyone who listens about how they 'had no idea' about it when it was happening when really they did but turned a blind eye because they wanted roles and awards recognition.

Bit of an oversight...

Dunkirk has released its third For Your Consideration advert, and, just like last time, I noticed an omission in who they were campaigning for. Except unlike in Harry Styles' case, this snub is for one of the best, if not the best element of the film, and thus, totally unacceptable:

They've asked for consideration in all categories and outlined the ones that are most relevant to Dunkirk. Yet there's no mention of Hans Zimmer's incredible score!! Given that the music in the film was so tension-amplifying, that the BBFC even mentioned it in their extended information, that really is quite the oversight.

The only possible explanation is that Warner Brothers thought the score was so good, it didn't need highlighting; the quality spoke for itself. Which it does. After all, Zimmer's collaborations with two other single-word-titled Christopher Nolan movies, Inception and Interstellar, were both nominated in the Best Original Score category at the Oscars, and both those films had less Best Picture momentum than Dunkirk has.

But, still, it would have been nice to pinpoint it anyway, just to be on the safe side.

Being beady-eyed when it comes to nerdy film things, I also noticed that whoever made the ad has rejigged the order of two of the actors:

To jog your memory, this was the order of actors in the previous FYC:

The poster creator obviously didn't like this film that much, then!

LFF Film review: ON CHESIL BEACH (Dominic Cooke, 2018)

Summer 1962. In a Dorset hotel, overlooking the seaside, two virgins, Edward and Florence, navigate their wedding night with shared trepidation, although the root of their anxiety are worlds apart. He, a History graduate from a humble but loving home, can’t wait to get his hands on his beautiful bride. She, a talented violinist from a richer family, is filled with revulsion at the thought of sexual contact with anyone.

Film review: MY MAN GODFREY (Gregory La Cava, 1936)

Irene Bullock, a pampered Park Avenue princess falls for her butler Godfrey and is not used to being met with resistance as said butler gives his employers some much-needed schooling in humility in La Cava’s screwball comedy that dextrously traverses themes of love, class and humanity.

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 (**/*****)

BAFTA predictions.

I'm seeing Fences later, and then immediately after the winners of the BAFTAs will be available online. I will have to avoid the internet for 2 hours until 9pm so I can watch them 'live' on the BBC and check how I fared in my predictions, swoon at the fit celebrities and their wardrobe and bask in the general movie love!

Even though I expect La La Land to sweep comfortably tonight, a film I am very 'meh' about, I'm still looking forward to the BAFTAs tonight; following movie awards in the 2006 season and rooting for Brokeback Mountain was the reason I started this blog, after all. 

I heard on the grapevine that Isabelle Huppert (who wasn't nominated for Elle, which was ineligible due to British release dates, but was eligible but not nominated for Things to Come) will be presenting Best Actress. That is some very cheeky/brazen campaigning from Sony, worthy of the character Michèle Leblanc! If Leonardo DiCaprio or Felicia Vikander had pulled such a move last year, I would have cringed at dat thirst, but as it's La Reine Isabelle, I dig her audacity.

So, without further ado, the predictions!

Screen Actor Guild Award predictions.

Here be the nominations. Below are my guesses for who will win, not necessarily who I think should win!

Actor: Casey Affleck, Manchester by the Sea (alt: Ryan Gosling, La La Land)
Actress: Emma Stone, La La Land (alt: Natalie Portman, Jackie)
Supporting Actor: Mahershala Ali, Moonlight (alt: Dev Patel, Lion)
Supporting Actress: Viola Davis, Fences (alt: Naomie Harris, Moonlight)
Ensemble: Moonlight (alt: Hidden Figures)

2017 Golden Globe Winners!!

:: Best motion picture (drama) - Moonlight
:: Best motion picture - (musical or comedy) - La La Land
:: Best performance by an actor in a motion picture - Casey Affleck - Manchester By The Sea 
:: Best performance by an actress in a motion picture - Isabelle Huppert - Elle
:: Best performance by an actor in a motion picture - (musical or comedy) -Ryan Gosling - La La Land 
: Best performance by an actress in a motion picture - (musical or comedy) -Emma Stone - La La Land 
:: Best performance by an actor in a supporting role in a motion picture - Aaron Taylor-Johnson - Nocturnal Animals 
:: Best performance by an actress in a supporting role in a motion picture - Viola Davis - Fences
:: Best director - Damien Chazelle - La La Land 
:: Best original screenplay - La La Land 
:: Best motion picture - foreign language - Elle - France 
:: Best motion picture - animated - Zootopia
:: Best original song - City Of Stars - La La Land
:: Best original score - La La Land

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Seven out of seven is an unprecedented sweep for La La Land, so they must be buzzing. The majority of the wins were not unexpected, bar, perhaps, in Screenplay, where I would have thought a 'talkier' film such as Manchester by the Sea would have won. A musical winning Best Screenplay at the Golden Globes is pretty unheard of. The fact that La La Land won Screenplay and Director acts as a barometer that this was by far the most loved film by the 90 or so voters in the HPFA.

One of the two biggest surprises in the acting categories was Aaron Taylor-Johnson winning for Nocturnal Animals. He bloody deserved it tho; I was on a knife edge every time he was on screen. It's unusual; most other awards bodies have awarded/nominated his Nocturnal Animals co-star Michael Shannon instead of Taylor-Johnson, for his more internal performance, but in this case, I much preferred the showier turn from ATJ. He probably won't get an Oscar nomination, so I'm ecstatic he got recognised at the Golden Globes.

The other acting shock was Isabelle Huppert winning Best Actress in a Drama for 'rape revenge comedy' Elle. Huppert has been sweeping the Critics awards, but I would have thought with the film's dicey subject matter, as well as the fact that Portman has been in Hollywood since she was a child and the HPFA love honouring celebrities, they would have awarded her. More than happy to be proved wrong!! 

I hope this Golden Globe win gives IsabElle the momentum to get an Oscar nomination and even win the thing; I have confused feelings towards the frontrunner Emma Stone, who, despite being very pretty and charming, did play a half-Asian in Aloha, something I simply can't overlook given how hard it is for my Asian sisters to find acting work. It's funny; that yellow-facing Felicia dedicated her Best Actress in a Comedy win to 'anyone who's ever had the door slammed in their face' regarding failed auditions. What about the Asian actresses who had the doors slammed in their face as a result of you accepting a white-washed role, Emma? #JustWondering

One thing that's hampering Isabelle Huppert's campaign is that, annoyingly, due to Elle being released over here in March, it isn't eligible at the BAFTAs. If she'd got a BAFTA nomination, she probably would have won, because we tend to be more receptive to European fare than the Americans are (we correctly awarded Emmanuelle Riva back in 2013 for her amazing performance in Amour, was one of the catalysts for pushing Riva's Oscar campaign almost all the way), thus raising her profile even more. BAFTA nominations come out tomorrow, and Huppert could still get a nomination for Things to Come, so that's something.

Moonlight got a standing ovation when it won Best Drama, showing that whilst La La Land may be the favourite of the HPFA, the audience had a different favourite. Although I haven't yet seen it, I'm already a fan given its subject matter, and wish for it to do well all Awards season. Also delighted for Viola Davis although I've not yet seen Fences. And yay Zootopia! My third favourite film of the year so far, tremendous fun, film references aplenty and featuring one foxy lead.

I got 9 out of 14 correct in my predictions which is pretty good for me!

I didn't watch the ceremony but have seen a couple of clips and Tom Hiddleston accepting his win for The Night Manager is the most White Saviour thing I've seen for a while. Naomie Harris side-eyeing him during the speech encapsulates my thoughts to his narcissistic speech perfectly. 

Finally, the tradition at the Golden Globes is that winner of Best Actress Drama last year has to present the award to recipient of Best Actor Drama this year. This meant that Brie Larson, an advocate for Victims of Sexual Assult, had to present the award to Casey Affleck, as she'll probably have to do at the Oscars as well. Apparently she could barely veil her disgust (Affleck is riddled with accusations of groping a woman whilst she was asleep), refusing to so much as pat him when he came up to accept his award. Attagirl.

The 10 Worst Performances of 2016.

I thought I'd post this list now, as I generally don't watch a film unless I think it's going to be 7/10 or more in terms of my enjoyment of it, thus, can't foresee me watching any other bad films (which usually contain the stinker performances) from this year.

10. Jared Leto, Suicide Squad 

An annoying and laughable bastardisation of the Joker character (which in Heath Ledger's far more capable hands, was terrifying) where he plagiarised liberally from James Franco in Spring Breakers as well as the 'Mexican gangster' cliche. But the worst thing about Leto's interpretation of the Joker  were his obnoxious off-screen antics during filming, all in the name of being 'Method'. Viola Davis giving him the sideye at this press junket perfectly encapsulates my feelings towards his insufferable behaviour. The fact that Leto has an Oscar and Davis doesn't says a lot about how little that golden man is actually about meritocracy.

2017 Screen Actor Guild nominations!!

I’d just come out of a meeting to check the nominations and when I saw my girl Emily Blunt got a surprise nomination, I almost started hyperventilating!!!!! I was not expecting that one at all, as the film was terrible, and usually when people nominate a performance in a film, they tend to take the quality of the film into consideration. But so happy to be proved wrong! Here be some of my quick thoughts on the film nominations (don’t know enough about TV to comment)

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role
CASEY AFFLECK  – “MANCHESTER BY THE SEA”
ANDREW GARFIELD– “HACKSAW RIDGE”
RYAN GOSLING–“LA LA LAND”
VIGGO MORTENSEN– “CAPTAIN FANTASTIC”
DENZEL WASHINGTON– “FENCES” 

Would love to see Denzel win, but unfortunately, we all know this award is going to the Groper of Women when they Sleep, Casey Affleck.

Andrew Garfield’s SAG nomination means we get (sort of) his-and-hers nominations for him and his ex-girlfriend Emma Stone; although they’ve broken up, they parted ‘very amicably’ and by all intents and purposes seem to adore each other. Awww.

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role
AMY ADAMS– “ARRIVAL”
EMILY BLUNT– “THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN”
NATALIE PORTMAN– “JACKIE”
EMMA STONE– “LA LA LAND”
MERYL STREEP– “FLORENCE FOSTER JENKINS” 

Elated for Amy and Emily!!!!

Amy I was pretty sure was getting in, as she’s in a strong film and is popular with awards bodies, and she bloody deserves it. Adams is so talented she can even act well in Batman v Superman.

But I really did not see that Blunt nomination coming. The Girl on the Train was an absolute chore, tediously written and directed, but Blunt was far away the best thing about it. And she was absolutely phenomenal, one of the best drunk performances ever, even more impressive given she didn’t touch a sip of alcohol during the shoot. 

I just love how the top two performances from my Best Actress list so far this year have gotten recognised!

Now BAFTA better f_cking nominate Emily too and build some momentum for her to get that Oscar nomination! I'm not sure they will, tho, they didn't even nominate Charlotte Rampling for 45 Years last year...

The main loser from this list, sadly, is Isabelle Huppert, who had been gaining quite a lot of awards traction by scooping the majority of critics awards. Not being nominated here calls her chances of an Oscar nomination into doubt.

Her omission is good news for Natalie Portman and Emma Stone, who will probably go head-to-head for that Oscar.

Natalie has already won one (for being histrionic and taking the credit for her body double's excellent ballet dancing in Black Swan), so the odds probably favour the "half-Asian", Emma Stone.

Really hope Isabelle Huppert scuppers the both of them come Oscar time :P

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role
MAHERSHALA ALI– “MOONLIGHT”
JEFF BRIDGES– “HELL OR HIGH WATER”
HUGH GRANT– “FLORENCE FOSTER JENKINS”
LUCAS HEDGES– “MANCHESTER BY THE SEA”
DEV PATEL– “LION” 

I haven’t seen Florence Foster Jenkins, but the fact that Hugh Grant got nominated for Lead Actor at the Golden Globes suggests some category fraud here. Happy for him, nonetheless. 

Speaking of category fraud, this is the second time the SAGs have shamelessly enabled category fraud on the part of Dev Patel; he was nominated for Supporting Actor in 2009 for Slumdog Millionare. Supporting. When the whole film’s about his character! (but I’m very pleased for him;  he was great in Skins and seems a thoroughly sweet chap!)

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role
VIOLA DAVIS– “FENCES”
NAOMIE HARRIS– “MOONLIGHT”
NICOLE KIDMAN – “LION”
OCTAVIA SPENCER– “HIDDEN FIGURES”
MICHELLE WILLIAMS – “MANCHESTER BY THE SEA” 

With her Golden Globe and now SAG nominations, Octavia Spencer’s shots at an Oscar nomination for Hidden Figures have sky-rocketed. Her The Help co-star Viola Davis must be favourite for the win here, although her closest competitor is probably Michelle Williams.

I would have loved to have seen some recognition for Lily Gladstone's beautifully realised turn in Certain Women, but that film was probably too small-budget for major movie awards. Hopefully she'll win at the Independent Spirit Awards, tho.

I so, so wish Viola had campaigned for Lead; maybe then, someone could have put the brakes on Natalie’s second Oscar or the "half-Asian" winning. :'(

Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
CAPTAIN FANTASTIC
FENCES
HIDDEN FIGURES
MANCHESTER BY THE SEA
MOONLIGHT 

This is the SAG category that is most correlative to ‘Best Picture’ at the Oscars, so it may seem strange not to see Best Picture frontrunner La La Land on here. But as many who’ve seen the film have commented, La La Land is essentially a duet between Stone and Gosling, and there’s not much in the way of memorable support. So fair play to SAG for actually nominating films for the category that it says, rather than bending to populism.

Manchester by the Sea and Moonlight were always going to get nominated in Ensemble, but the other three: Fences, Captain Fantastic and Hidden Figures not necessarily so, so their chances with Oscar have just been boosted. I think Moonlight will win this category, making it La La Land's main competitor for Best Pic.

The race just got exciting!

BAFTA better nominate Emily Blunt for Best Actress!!! She’s one of your own, BAFTA!

So many explanation marks in this post. I’m just so giddy on Emily Blunt’s behalf. What a week. Between Jonah’s surprise Golden Globe nomination on Monday and Emmy’s surprise nom today, I am just loving these noms!

Film review: LUCK-KEY [럭키] (Lee Gye-beok, 2016)

Jae-sung, a struggling actor (Lee Joon) who is about to take his life, seizes an opportunity when he spots Hyong-Wook (Yoo Hae-jin), flash hitman who has slipped on a bar of soap and made momentarily unconscious, by switching locker keys with him and assuming his identity. The 32-year-old out-of-luck actor enjoys Wook's wealth whilst the older man, with a lost memory and only the insurance card of the man whole stole his identity, tries to figure out who he is.

The set-up means there are visual gags and situational comedy aplenty as Hyong-Wook realises he has supreme martial arts skills, but, rather than using them to kill, carves a range of creative foods at the restaurant he acquires a job at. There are hints of Trading Places in the stark contrast in the way Hyong-Wook and Jae-Sung live; one having rolls of cash stored in biscuit tins and the other living in squalor, with the equivalent of two bucks to his name. However, the film doesn't delve too deep into  examining its social conscience, deciding instead to enjoy the farce instead.

As the plot develops, both men acquire love interests. Jae-Sung develops feelings for Eun Ju, the woman Hyong-Wook was tracking, presumably his next hit, whereas Lina (Jo Yoon-hee), who took care of Wook after his accident, is the one who gets him the restaurant gig, and supports him when he decides to pursue an acting career (in a classic case of dramatic irony, Wook meets Jae-sung's father, believing that he's his dad, and Jae-sung's father speaks dismissively of his actual son's unimpressive acting career, giving Wook the necessary resolve to become famous).

Although Eun Ju's character is relegated to the damsel in distress trope, Lina is winning as Wook's love interest, and the two share a great, tentative chemistry. The parallels with OldBoy, in that a supportive female helps the protagonist try to work out their mazy past in a Korean film, was not lost on me, although Luck-Key was a substantially fluffier watch than OldBoy. By giving the two characters romantic subplots, it grounds them and gives them motivation for their actions, motivation that Jae-sung, a deadbeat who was contemplating suicide at the start of the film, could do with. 

Hyong Wook's adventures as an actor are comedy gold, and the film manages to traverse all manner of humour around the shooting process, some refreshing, some more clichéd. Hyong-Wook's adeptness in a fistfight catches the eye of the director, much to the chagrin of the divaish star of the show, a story arc that has been covered many times before, but given a Korean spin, still has legs. I also giggled as one of Hyong-Wook's competing actors, at the start of the process sensing he's fresh meat, tries to trip him up, but then, as Wook's star factor rises, he tries to coattail off his glory.

The other three leads are perfectly functional in their roles but Yoo Hae-jin is the shining star of the film, and it's not for nothing that Luck-Key revolves around him. A veteran of South Korean cinema, his character goes on a voyage that has him modulating between suave bad-ass, inept extra in historical movies, and bemused leading man, and Yoo Hae-jin excels at not only bringing plausibility to every wacky plot turn, but also imbuing Wook with an honest everyman quality that the audience will find endearing.

Overall, Luck-Key is a polished, charming film, with a neat subversive twist at the end that I didn't anticipate and more than enough chuckle-raising moments to keep the audience's attention until then. The fight scenes are well-choreographed and the big set-piece at the end was surprisingly gripping. Furthermore, for all the film's mockery of actors, it definitely has a soft spot for films, as hinted at by the affectionate closing credits.

Several have tried to balance comedy, drama, romance and action, and precious few of pulled it off. Luck-Key can count itself one of the lucky ones.

8/10

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If you enjoyed my review, check out the others here!

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!

Film review: SORRY, WRONG NUMBER (Anatole Litvak, 1948)

This post is as part of Midnite Drive-In’s Film-noir blogathon. Movie bloggers all over the internet are coming together to discuss a wide range of film noirs, both well-known and less established, so do head on over to that fabulous blogathon and enrich your film knowledge!

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Leona Stevenson is the rich only daughter of a pharmaceutical magnate. She is also invalid, and in NYC from Chicago to consult with a doctor about her health issues. At the start of the fil m, it is apparent that her husband is avoiding her, screening her calls. His absence is even more gaping by the empty chair he leaves, which Leona addresses plaintively. In a stroke of (mis)fortune, she overhears two men’s plots to murder a woman at 11:15pm, with the time meticulously chosen so that the sound of the crime will be masked by a passing train. 

She reports it to the police and then her father, but both efforts fall on deaf ears. As she becomes increasingly agitated alone in the Manhattan apartment, she tries to locate her errant husband, only to inadvertently piece together the context of the phone call she overheard, which she involves her more than she’d care for.

One of Barbara Stanwyck’s four Oscar nominations for Best Actress, Sorry Wrong Number came out four years after her iconic turn as conniving seductress in Double Indemnity. Both are film noirs with a heavy sense of foreboding, but playing a bedridden character, her physical repertoire is limited here. Whilst she slinked around (who can forget that anklet and the way she shimmies down the stairs to show it off?) in Double Indemnity, she spends the majority of Sorry, Wrong Number fretting in bed. It’s a difficult role that only someone with the screen presence and acting guile Stanwyck is blessed with could pull off.

Graciously for her, she does get to stand up at some point in the film: a good proportion of the 

story is told via flashback. We discover how she and her husband (Burt Lancaster) met: he was actually at a dance with a girl called Sally Hunt, who plays an integral part in helping Leona piece together the clues. Leona, never having been deprived anything she wanted in her life, boldly makes a play for Henry. He’s initially put off by her entitled attitude, but, nonetheless, his head is turned by her wealth. Stanwyck conveys her character’s bratty attitude wonderfully: in one scene, she regards her husband with a contemptuous glance in that signature way Barbara Stanwyck looks people up and down. You mirror Lancaster's character's feeling of belittlement when it occurs.

Lucille Fletcher penned the script for Sorry, Wrong Number, which was originally a radio play by her. The translation is effective: few sets are required in Sorry, Wrong Number, and the art decoration of Leona’s grand but stuffy bedroom is conveyed excellently: she has expensive trinkets and bottles, but her loneliness is clear. The moral that money can’t buy happiness is an age-old one in cinema, but this message is conflated with another: money being the root of all evil, which motivates some shady actions by certain characters. Thus, the script, ahead of its time in this sense, touches on an almost Kafkian problem: the more Leona feels her husband pulling away, the more she tries to throw money in the problem, which in turn, makes him increasingly more detached towards her.

The cinematography dextrously plays with light and shade, true to the genre, to create ambiance and dread throughout the film. Also, in the vein of film noirs, there are few truly "good" characters (I would argue only Sally, Leona's former classmate who's love she stole in such a cavalier manner, is), and plenty of murky ones. Even our protagonist, who finds herself in increasing danger, is somewhat hard to take and completely root for, her arriviste persona accentuated by her plush wardrobe, multitude of expensive rings, and Stanwyck's virtuoso performance as a woman who refuses to see what's going on right under her nose, causing the audience to fear the moment the House of Cards will crumble.

The employment of flashbacks and the film being played in real time give Sorry, Wrong Number a real sense of urgency, and the protagonist being confined to their room gives them a powerless sense that makes this film a worthy predecessor to the more polished Rear Window. The beating heart of the film is Barbara Stanwyck; I can’t believe she never won a proper Oscar during her lifetime especially when frauds like Jennifer Lawrence and Natalie Portman have them! As mentioned, Leona is not likeable at all, treating other characters in the film as below her and talking down to everyone. Yet Stanwyck is able to inject sympathy into even an upstart like this! By the end of the picture, she has you rooting for Leona, warts and all.

The Academy gave her an honorary award in 1982, whilst she was still alive, though, for “For superlative creativity and unique contribution to the art of screen acting”, and that is exactly what she has, in spades, here. Without her, Sorry, Wrong Number would have been a fairly exciting film. With her, it’s a complete and utter thriller.

Preach.

From Kate Muir's review of Suicide Squad: -

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.

TV Review: ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK season 4

Ever since its inception, Orange is the New Black has been one of Netflix's USPs. Very loosely based around Piper Kerman's memoirs of her experience in jail, with Taylor Schilling playing the televised version of her character, 'Piper Chapman', the show has never failed to entertain, shock, amuse and trouble viewers. Season 3 was considered by some critics to be a slight misstep, but even so, the stakes were high for season 4, which, thanks to the way in which Netflix drop a whole season in one go, I devoured over the weekend it hit.

With Litchfield Penitentiary becoming privatised, the MCC are keen to squeeze as many bodies into the jail-space as humanly feasible. By viewing prisoners as currency, however, they do not consider the factions that could occur by the simple mathematical probability from there being more people. This manifests itself in the form of strained race relations that arise when there is a surge in the Dominican inmates, and a group of white supremacists who resent the way they've asserted their authority. Piper Chapman, who, in a late, rare moment of self-reflection, admits she wanted to 'win prison', unwillingly stokes the tensions between the two groups, only to see herself branded (in more than one way) as a racist herself for her unthinking egotism.

In order to keep these brawling inmates in line is the introduction of Captain Piscatella (Brad William Henke), a giant of a man who takes no prisoners and regards the women of Litchfield as absolute scum. Piper's manufactured, wide-eyed charm that may have twisted the arm of a warden or two in the past simply doesn't work on Piscatella, who has seen it all before and bought the T-shirt. His unconventional methods for showing the inmates who's in charge are met with opposition by Warden Joe Caputo, which makes for a power struggle between the two of Shakespearean magnitude. Caputo tries to do what is best in the majority of situations, and the unenviable juggling act of of running a prison with  insubordinate prisoners, sly, thuggish officers and a big corporate sector who wishes to monetise the jail to an inch of its life are really highlighted in season 4 of OITNB. Nick Sandow is extremely effective at humanising Caputo and at times one couldn't call who has it worse -the mistreated inmates of Litchfield (not having enough sanitary towels to go around so that menstruaters had to stick tissue inside themselves was a new low), or the hapless Warden overseeing them all.

Other plot strands of season 4 include sadistic officers who like to toy with the prisoners for their own entertainment, Lolly and Alex struggling to deal with the albatross of their defence-killing of one of Kubra's cronies, and Maria Ruiz emerging as initially unwilling leader of the Dominican girls. This reluctance is illuminated in her flashback episode, 'Power Suit', where we learn that her father was a low-level kingpin for people from the Dominican Republic, and, such was her distaste for his antics that she turned her back on him to live with a Mexican guy. Another interesting flashback is Maritza Ramos, by far the most striking girl in Litchfield, who used her beauty to trick car dealerships into leasing her fancy cars for a test drive, under the misapprehension that she's some rich old man's trophy wife. Watching flashback!Maritza untangle herself from a quagmire this gets her into is one of the funniest parts of season 4. Had I been a betting woman (which I'm obviously not. Ahem), I would not have wagered Maritza was incarcerated for Grand Theft Auto, showing, once again, that the employment of flashbacks in this show can completely toss your preconceptions of characters out of the window.


Elsewhere, romance blossomons between annoying hippie Brooke Soso and Poussey Washington, the likeable class clown of Litchfield. The two are beyond adorable together, and Kimiko Glenn and Samira Wiley deserve kudos for crafting a romance that is organic, believable, and so full of love and hope. Judy King - a famous TV chef - gets sent to Litchfield for tax fraud, to which Poussey, a big fan, becomes turns into a starstruck fangirl whenever she's around. Brooke, in the way only Brooke can, tries to relieve her of her awe around Judy, only to cast some offensive aspersions of her own. This illustrates Brooke's narcissism and inclination for the farfetched, which is illustrated in her flashback. But in seeing how much her casual assumptions have hurt her girlfriend, Brooke gains the self-awareness that she never had when she was doing the same thing in the free world. It is a pleasure to learn each individual character's histories and see how much bad life choices and circumstance plays in them winding up where they are.

Orange is the New Black also very sensitively continues with the fallout of the Pennsatucky's rape in season 3 by officer Coates. Her friend, the confrontational man-hating Big Boo, is, understandably furious. Pennsatucky also feels some anger, but mainly sadness, and the show graciously gives her some closure (after season 3's 'A Tittin' and a Hairin'' episode, watching her character being raped twice in the same episode really was too much). It's amazing how much Pennsatucky has grown since her intolerant, evangelical Bible-bashing days of season 1, and there's something rewarding about watching her help Nicky through going cold turkey; the Doggett of old would never have done that. Taryn Manning excels at her portrayal of a multidimensional character who could have so easily descended into farce.

In fact, Orange is the New Black is one of the few shows where I am yet to see a dud performance. Uzo Aduba usually reaps the awards come Screen Actor Guild and Emmy time, and she is indeed brilliant as the unhinged Suzanne Warren. But I think Aduba's best acting, and baitiest scenes, were in season 2, when the manipulative Vee took her under her wing. The acting love needs to be spread more evenly in the next round of Emmy's, and there's a plethora of choice.

Samira Wiley deserves a lot of love for making Poussey so awesome and lovably goofy, and injecting real passion into her and Brooke's tender romance that makes the audience root for them in a way we don't to the blah Piper/Alex romance. Hearing the two discuss their plans for getting their life on track after leaving prison was almost tear-inducingly optimistic. As Taystee, Wiley's fellow Juilliard alumnus  (hot dang, does Juilliard produce some talented dames!) Danielle Brooks, gets appointed Caputo's P.A. this season. In doing so, Brooks shows incredible diversity in her acting range, first in her hilarious keenness for the secretarial role, complete jazzing up her prison attire and demanding a watch, but later, when tragedy hits, her character's raw reaction to the event in question is really upsetting to watch, and nails the pathos of Orange is the New Black. Taylor Schilling, Natasha Lyonne, Kate Mulgrew and Yael Stone are a few other standouts from the supremely talented ensemble cast.

In season 4, Orange is the New Black might have hit its peak. The frank, earthy dialogue is absolutely hilarious, but it would be nothing without the cast to deliver it so well. Case in point: Cindy's sass when her new roommate dares her, "'You really want to go there with me?" and, she retorts "Oh, went there, bought a house, moved in, bitch. And now I'm remodelling the kitchen." Furthermore as with Brooklyn Nine-Nine, another New York-set show of a somewhat different flavour, the pop culture references come thick and fast in the everyday conversations of the inmates, but in a natural, unforced way that both illuminates the gaps in characters' knowledge ('The Hungry Games' will never get old) and occasionally flirts with the meta (all those Walking Dead and Game of Thrones references hint at some foreboding).

OITNB has always modulated between comedic and dramatic scenes with a kind of irreverence that made my eyes water (who can forget the employment of 'Cellophane' as the credit song as a character was being pummelled to death by rocks wrapped in a cellophane bag?) But in season 4, the catalogue of the prison being overfilled and understaffed and inmates' hatred of each other was never going to end well. When the collateral damage occurs, it's undoubtedly one of TV's most heart-breaking moments; almost George R.R. Martin-esque in it's 'SCREW YOU, WRITERS!!!!!!!!' brutalness. The sheer injustice of it all had me weeping. But I could recognise the significance of it to the show. That's prison. And that's also life. Sometimes, the good die young.

It's the mark of such a fantastic show that OITNB offers wit, morality and the hint of redemption (or further deterioration?) at the climax. June 2017 can't get here fast enough.

Grade: A