Dracula
CS! Gold
Join Date: Sep 2002
Posts: 26,101 
Likes: 5,731
Location:
Member is Online
|
Post by Dracula on Feb 13, 2017 10:08:51 GMT -5
Villain of the YearCinema history is littered with great villains and this category has long chronicled the best villains of recent years. I have long been pretty strict about what belongs in this category. To be here a character has to actively be the antagonist of a movie so this is not the place for anti-heroes who are actually a film’s star. What’s more to be here a villain needs to be more or less human or at least have human-like sentience so you won’t see me nominating wild animals (unless they’re talking animals in an animated movie or something) and more than likely won’t see me nominating any ghosts or demons or evil goats. You also won’t see me nominating any vague concepts like “intolerance” or any weather phenomenon or anything else like that. Howard - 10 Cloverfield Lane: The poster for 10 Cloverfield Lane proclaims that “monsters come in many forms” and no I don’t think that’s meant to refer to anything in the film’s twist ending. Instead this is clearly talking about Howard, the psychologically damaged man who may or may not be holding our heroine captive in his bunker. He’s an interesting kind of villain in part because he actually spends a lot of the film being more of an ally to our protagonist than an enemy and even very long after the audience has long abandoned any sympathy for him he might still see himself that way. Darcy Banker – Green Room: One of the easier ways to make an audience hate a villain right from the word go is to make them a racist, and that proves to still be effective in Green Room. Darcy is shown to sort of be the brains behind a neo-nazi skinhead organization operating out of a punk rock venue in the film, and there’s something interesting about seeing this man in his 70s ordering these younger skinhead dudes around. The real stroke of brilliance though is casting the great Patrick Stewart against type (if not against haircut) in this role and playing off his usual wise thespian image. Paula - Hunt for the Wilderpeople: Paula is not a conventional villain in that she isn’t really evil per se and she’s not trying to kill anyone necessarily. She is very much a comedic foil as much as a villain but she is very much an antagonist trying to chase Ricky and Hec. She’s not really doing this out of malice but she’s also not really doing it out of some misguided sense of concern either. Rather she’s doing it out of a Javert-like obsession with the letter of the law and the rules of the institution she represents and out of her snap opinions of people and situations. Raiden the Moon King – Kubo and the Two Strings: The Moon King from Kubo and the Two Strings is an interesting villain in that we don’t actually see him in person until very late in the film but you have heard all sorts of stories about his villainy the whole time. When he does show up he seems less like a mean SOB and more like a wolf in sheep’s clothing and tries to give a (rather belated) soft sell to Kubo. Ralph Fiennes’ voice performance gave the character a sinister aristocratic vibe and while the character was defeated in a rather embarrassing way he still leaves an impression. Ray Marcus – Nocturnal Animals: This is an interesting choice in part because I’m not 100% sure that this character is even the villain of Nocturnal Animals so much as he’s a character in a book written by the film’s true villain. That said, looked at without considering the film’s meta elements this guy is still just a really scary dude. The guy isn’t too complex, in fact he seems wildly irrational in his evil as he seems to do awful things for no overt gain. He also doesn’t seem to be doing what he does out of a serial killer’s psychotic urges either so much as he makes crazy and impulsive choices at everyone else’s expense. And the Golden Stake goes to…10 Cloverfield Lane
 The character of Howard was in many ways the perfect showcase for John Goodman’s rather underappreciated skills, in part because he’s that most interesting of villains: the bad guy who doesn’t realize he’s bad. Howard genuinely seems to view himself as some sort of father figure for this girl and genuinely believes that he’s saving her by keeping her under lock and key and the fact that he is inadvertently correct about this only adds an extra lair of depth to all this.
|
|
thebtskink
CS! Silver
Join Date: Jul 2000
It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again.
Posts: 19,462
Likes: 4,984
Location:
Last Online Nov 22, 2024 13:57:17 GMT -5
|
Post by thebtskink on Feb 13, 2017 10:21:11 GMT -5
Great choice. He was stellar in that role.
|
|
Neverending
CS! Platinum
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 65,770
Likes: 8,646
Location:
Last Online Nov 22, 2024 7:47:06 GMT -5
|
Post by Neverending on Feb 13, 2017 14:54:33 GMT -5
The fact John Goodman got zero awards love is criminal.
|
|
Dracula
CS! Gold
Join Date: Sep 2002
Posts: 26,101
Likes: 5,731
Location:
Member is Online
|
Post by Dracula on Feb 13, 2017 17:55:53 GMT -5
Cameo of the Year
When I created this category in the first Golden Stakes I never really set a clear definition for what constituted a cameo versus just a smallish role in a movie, and as of now that remains the case. Basically I just judge them on a case-by-case basis and my arbitrary decisions are probably inconsistent and unfair, but whatever. Some of these are simple walk on celebrity appearances, others are a bit more substantial. Please not that I’ve disqualified cameos that are strictly voice performances. John Hurt – Jackie: Though it’s not a huge part of the movie, but one of the story threads in it is an encounter that Jackie has with a priest where they have a rather deep discussion about her grief and about age old questions of why a caring God would allow bad things to happen. The priest in question, Father Richard McSorley, was a real guy and some of the details of his counselling sessions with Jackie were made known after his diary was accidently made public. However, he was a younger guy than Hurt, but I like the way they make him this sort of representative of traditional wisdom in the movie for Jackie to bounce off of. Anna Faris – Keanu: The old “celebrity plays a version of themselves where they’re narcissistic assholes/drug addled deviants” thing has been going on for a while now, but there’s still room for it as evidenced by this scene in which Anna Faris plays herself in Key and Peele’s Keanu. In it she’s in the middle of a drug deal gone wrong in which she tries to play a deranged game of truth or dare which ends in her attacking someone with a samurai sword and getting shot dead (sort of). It channeled her usual wild party girl persona in yet another interesting way in a movie that sort of squanders it. Seal- Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping: Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping is a movie with a truly absurd number of cameos in it, but the one I found most memorable was this one with the singer Seal. Long story short: the main character’s idiocy results in Seal getting mauled by wolves and this causes the public to become outraged at him. What’s amusing about this is the selection of Seal. There are a lot of celebrities out there who would probably have the wolf mauling coming, but Seal? What kind of bastard would do that to Seal? Isla Fisher- Nocturnal Animals: Calling this a cameo was pretty borderline but if you think about it she’s really just in one sequence and her casting is kind of interesting. Playing the wife of Jake Gyllenhaal’s character in the book within a film, the character is pretty obviously meant to be some kind of stand in for the Amy Adams character in the mind of the author. Out of some perverse meanness Tom Ford seems to be correctly asserting that Isla Fisher is a budget Amy Adams and I’m not sure if she’s in on the joke. Her acting is good in the scene though. Jimmy Smits - Star Wars: Rogue One: This is nominated less out of any particular interest in Mr. Smits performance and more out of the statement it seems to be making. Smits played the character of Bail Organa previously in Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith and is reprising the role here. That alone was enough to impress me because it’s throwing a bone at the people who still had some positive feelings towards the original prequels which is a relief given that everything else about the recent Star Wars movies seems to be screaming “those movies didn’t exist. Also, the character is kind of a deep cut in general and the fact that they thought to include him at all speaks well of the movie’s geek cred. And the Golden Stake goes to…
Jackie
 For the record, I did have this selection down in my notes before news broke of John Hurt’s unfortunate death. That having been said there is a certain eerie curiosity to the fact that his last role in a movie released during his lifetime would have him ruminating on matters of death a grief. It’s a neat performance in general and seeing him go toe to toe with Jackie Kennedy on these philosophical matters is exciting to watch.
|
|
PG Cooper
CS! Silver
Join Date: Feb 2009
And those who tasted the bite of his sword named him...The DOOM Slayer
Posts: 16,647
Likes: 4,060
Location:
Member is Online
|
Post by PG Cooper on Feb 13, 2017 18:02:09 GMT -5
I only saw Jackie after Hurt's death and it did indeed add a lot to his scenes in the film.
|
|
Jibbs
Administrator 
Join Date: May 2000
Posts: 75,725
Likes: 1,657
Location:
Last Online Feb 20, 2024 18:06:23 GMT -5
|
Post by Jibbs on Feb 13, 2017 18:37:32 GMT -5
I saw Jackie about a day after he died. It was weird.
|
|
Dracula
CS! Gold
Join Date: Sep 2002
Posts: 26,101
Likes: 5,731
Location:
Member is Online
|
Post by Dracula on Feb 14, 2017 6:49:11 GMT -5
Supporting Actress
This, like most main acting categories, generally doesn’t need a whole lot of introduction as most people are pretty familiar with how these categories work. I will say that I’m pretty strict about what constitutes a true supporting role and don’t always let some of the questionable choices of other awards bodies pass. This year, for instance, I bumped Viola Davis up to the lead actress category. Greta Gerwig – 20th Century Women: Greta Gerwig is an actress who has always seemed talented, but she hasn’t always selected the showiest of roles and that has maybe gotten her close to a strange sort of typecasting. She has been expanding a little recently and while she’s still playing the 1979 equivalent of a hipster here she isn’t the same kind of perky character we’re used to seeing from Gerwig. The character she plays has been going through some kind of sad stuff that she’s tying to process and Gerwig does a good job of making her character interesting and lovable even if she isn’t always smiling. Rachel House - Hunt for the Wilderpeople: The best comedic performance by a female (possibly by anyone) this year was likely given by Rachel House as a slightly obsessive Child Welfare Services worker on the tail of our heroes in Hunt for the Wilderpeople. Paula is not, however, a sad sack in the movie and House is able to be just as if not more comedic than all the people around her. The character just gets wackier as the movie goes on, but never goes over the top and remains firmly within the tone of the film. Michelle Williams – Manchester by the Sea: Michelle Williams doesn’t have a whole lot of screen time in Manchester by the Sea but when she is there she makes an impression. There is of course that one scene, and anyone who’s seen the film knows exactly the scene I’m talking about, but there are some other impressive aspects of the performance as well. Namely there’s just how different she is during the flashbacks than she is during the rest of the movie. Naomie Harris – Moonlight: Talk about degree of difficulty. In Moonlight Naomie Harris, a classically trained British actress, is asked to inhabit the life of an impoverished crack addicted Miami mother who engages in some less than sympathetic behavior all while retaining a clear humanity the whole time. On top of that, she needs to depict this character at three different ages and paint this whole portrait with what is ultimately not a ton of screen time. I don’t think that’s easy. Kate Dickie- The Witch: Kate Dickie is a Scottish actress with a somewhat unfortunate name who recently raised her profile by playing Lady Lysa Arryn on “Game of Thrones” and then found herself involved in an excellent showcase of skill playing the mother in The Witch. Her character finds herself in a fairly deep depression early in the film which is then exasperated by the strange goings on the family encounters. This eventually builds to a breakdown of sorts where she reveals her true feelings to her husband and it’s pretty powerful. And the Golden Stake goes to…
Moonlight
 In the last couple of weeks I’ve come to notice something of a backlash against this performance and I haven’t the faintest idea why. Harris’ character is something of a through line over the course of Moonlight as she’s the one actor or actress who’s in all three of the movie’s segments and she makes a clear transformation between the three. I didn’t recognize the actress while watching the movie and when I found out that this was the most recent Moneypenny after the fact I knew this performance was something special.
|
|
Dracula
CS! Gold
Join Date: Sep 2002
Posts: 26,101
Likes: 5,731
Location:
Member is Online
|
Post by Dracula on Feb 14, 2017 22:44:39 GMT -5
Supporting Actor
This was kind of a weak year for supporting actor, not really sure why. There were certainly a lot of supporting actors this year, just not a whole lot of great ones. Like with Supporting Actress keep in mind that my idea of what constitutes a supporting versus a lead performance can differ from other award bodies. Ben Foster – Hell or High Water: Foster’s placement here is a little borderline. My ultimate ruling is that Chris Pine and Jeff Bridges are essentially the leads of the two halves of the movie and that Ben Foster and Gil Birmingham are the supporting players in the two competing storylines, but that could be debated. What’s not so debatable is that the character that Ben Foster creates, a violence prone ex-con roped into a bank robbery scheme, is pretty hard to forget. Lucas Hedges – Manchester By the Sea: Lucas Hedges is a young actor and when you’re dealing with actors like that it can sometimes be a little hard to tell how far out of his usual range a part like this is. Still I feel like this part in Manchester by the Sea would likely be difficult for any actor. Lucas Hedges plays a teenager who is in many ways kind of a little shit, but he manages to humanize him and make him likeable and making him someone you can kind of laugh along with. Mahershala Ali – Moonlight: This was a performance that didn’t immediately jump out for me in Moonlight, in fact I was a little surprised when I found out it was the performance that everyone was rallying around… and yet it’s stayed with me. Ali does a pretty good job of taking what could be a sort of questionable role (the crack dealer with a heart of gold?) and turned it into something better. He’s only in one third of the movie but his presence stays with you. Aaron Taylor-Johnson – Nocturnal Animals: I can’t say I really get the hype around Michael Shannon’s now Oscar nominated turn in Nocturnal Animals. Firstly, I’m a bit sick of Texas lawmen doing one last job (see also: Jeff Bridges in Hell or High Water), and secondly I think that performance is basically just a retread of Shannon’s usual crazy guy schtick. Now Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s performance on the other hand, that really made me reconsider what that actor was capable of. He does a real good job of creating a character that someone would drop everything to kill on a revenge vendetta. Daniel Radcliffe- Swiss Army Man: If nothing else Daniel Radcliffe can say that for Swiss Army Man he was given a challenge that few other actors can say they’ve had: to play a semi-reanimated corpse who relearns societal norms while occasionally having his body used as a tool for survival. Radcliffe nails all the basic physical mannerisms that the movie forces him into but beyond that he does a good job of turning this corpse into a full character rather than a mere proxy for the protagonist. And the Golden Stake goes to…Hell or High Water
 This was a tough choice, not so much because all of these guys are that great and more because none of them quite seemed to hit that next level that would make them shoe-ins. Ben Foster isn’t really the choice I expected to go with when I started writing this but he sort of emerged as the one with the fewest drawbacks. Granted he probably has more screen time than… well, come to think about it he probably doesn’t have that much more screentime than Radcliffe or Hedges, so maybe there’s something to be said for the fact that he feels like a lead even though he maybe isn’t.
|
|
PG Cooper
CS! Silver
Join Date: Feb 2009
And those who tasted the bite of his sword named him...The DOOM Slayer
Posts: 16,647
Likes: 4,060
Location:
Member is Online
|
Post by PG Cooper on Feb 14, 2017 23:16:39 GMT -5
Hedges for me.
|
|
thebtskink
CS! Silver
Join Date: Jul 2000
It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again.
Posts: 19,462
Likes: 4,984
Location:
Last Online Nov 22, 2024 13:57:17 GMT -5
|
Post by thebtskink on Feb 14, 2017 23:38:51 GMT -5
Ben Foster's character in Hell or High Water isnt much different from 3:10 to Yuma.
He's always the nuts guy.
|
|
Neverending
CS! Platinum
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 65,770
Likes: 8,646
Location:
Last Online Nov 22, 2024 7:47:06 GMT -5
|
Post by Neverending on Feb 15, 2017 0:14:09 GMT -5
Let me fix this for you, Dracula.
Best Supporting Actor:
Russell Crowe, The Nice Guys
Jonah Hill, War Dogs
Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Nocturnal Animals
The winner: Aaron Taylor-Johnson
|
|
Dracula
CS! Gold
Join Date: Sep 2002
Posts: 26,101
Likes: 5,731
Location:
Member is Online
|
Post by Dracula on Feb 15, 2017 7:46:36 GMT -5
Best Actress
The best actress category this year was an absolute bloodbath. I must have had at least twenty plausible candidates to sort through, maybe more, and had to make a whole bunch of cuts to get to this final five. Not an easy task but I think I pulled it off. Annette Benning – 20th Century Women: 20th Century Women ends with a voice-over of the grown version of the teenage boy in the film saying something along the lines of “I always tried to tell my son what his grandmother was like, but I never could” implying that this character is a true one of a kind and that puts a lot of pressure on the actress to live up to that. This is not a one-note “extraordinary strong woman” either, she’s a complicated figure with certain contradictions and idiosyncrasies that Benning picks up on excellently. Sônia Braga – Aquarius: Sônia Braga has had some limited success in Hollywood but in her native Brazil she’s a legend and her role in Kleber Mendonça Filho’s Aquarius gave her a great platform to remind everyone why she’s one of her country’s preeminent actresses. Playing a woman determined to keep her apartment despite many attempts by a contractor to get her to leave, Braga embeds a strong sense to history into this character and gives you a good understanding of why she’d be so stubborn on this point. Viola Davis – Fences: I decided to movie Viola Davis into the lead actress category, and I do think that’s the right choice but I also do think that the choice other award bodies made to have her compete in supporting is at least defensible. If there was an award for “best five minutes of screentime within a larger performance” she’d probably win easily but for a lot of the rest of the movie she’s on a lower key and kind of blends into the background, which is appropriate for the character but maybe not the easiest way to stand out in a competition. Natalie Portman – Jackie: Natalie Portman’s work in Jackie would be another one of those “degree of difficulty” triumphs. Not only does she need to take on Jackie Kenney’s looks and her peculiar manner of speaking but she also needs to play both the immense grief that the character is going through over the course of the film as well as the savvy calculation that she goes through in trying to preserve her husband’s legacy and keep herself together when she’s in public. Needless to say, Portman totally nails it. Isabelle Huppert – Things to Come: Isabelle Huppert actually had two big movies this year, and I do hope that this isn’t just some kind of contrarian instinct kicking in but I think I preferred her work in the lesser known of the two films. In Things to Come she’s playing a more down to earth character in a more mundane situation and is able to tap into more realistic emotions in a number of ways. I certainly found myself more interested in what becomes of this character than I did of her character in Elle. And the Golden Stake goes to…Jackie
Not exactly the most original choice… or maybe it is. Natalie Portman really hasn’t been winning all the awards everyone expected her to win and neither has her movie. Maybe the awards bodies have finally grown sick of these “imitation” performances, but if that’s the case they’ve chosen the exact wrong time to make their stand because this performance is incredible, right up there with Phillip Seymour Hoffman in Capote (who had to deal with a similarly odd accent) or Helen Mirran in The Queen.
|
|
Neverending
CS! Platinum
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 65,770
Likes: 8,646
Location:
Last Online Nov 22, 2024 7:47:06 GMT -5
|
Post by Neverending on Feb 15, 2017 11:17:58 GMT -5
You nominated none of the Ghostbusters? Sexist.
|
|
PG Cooper
CS! Silver
Join Date: Feb 2009
And those who tasted the bite of his sword named him...The DOOM Slayer
Posts: 16,647
Likes: 4,060
Location:
Member is Online
|
Post by PG Cooper on Feb 15, 2017 11:54:50 GMT -5
Portman for sure. Great performance, possibly her best yet.
|
|
Dracula
CS! Gold
Join Date: Sep 2002
Posts: 26,101
Likes: 5,731
Location:
Member is Online
|
Post by Dracula on Feb 15, 2017 13:13:16 GMT -5
You nominated none of the Ghostbusters? Sexist. Didn't even see it. |
|
Neverending
CS! Platinum
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 65,770
Likes: 8,646
Location:
Last Online Nov 22, 2024 7:47:06 GMT -5
|
Post by Neverending on Feb 15, 2017 14:58:17 GMT -5
You nominated none of the Ghostbusters? Sexist. Didn't even see it. I figured that out when you didn't nominate this gem during your musical categories: |
|
Dracula
CS! Gold
Join Date: Sep 2002
Posts: 26,101
Likes: 5,731
Location:
Member is Online
|
Post by Dracula on Feb 15, 2017 18:55:40 GMT -5
Best Actor
It frequently seesaws as to whether the Best Actor or Best Actress field is the stronger in a given year, and this year Best Actress is definitely stronger. In fact, while my Best Actress lineup required painful cuts, I kind of had to struggle to fine five male lead performances that felt particularly strong and award-worthy this year. Still, there was definitely some competition at the top this year. Denzel Washington – Fences: The role of Troy Maxson was originated on Broadway by none other than James Earl Jones, but Denzel Washington created his own version of it for a recent revival and has now brought that performance to the screen with Fences. In his performance Washington emphasizes Maxson’s arrogance and swagger, you can really see the younger more roguish version of his character that’s hidden below the surface at times, but this just disarms you for when things start to “get real” later in the film. Ha Jung-woo – The Handmaiden: It kind of pained me to leave the two great lead performances from The Handmaiden by ladies out of the Best Actress race this year. The fact that the film’s male lead made it while they didn’t says more about the amount of competition in the Actress category and the lack of completion in the Actor category than it does about their relative talents. In the film Ha Jung-Woo plays a suave conman who needs to give an aristocratic front while being a common lowlife underneath. Casey Affleck – Manchester by the Sea: Casey Affleck has not always been a favorite actor of mine and I don’t know that he’s really the rangiest of actors. Like his brother Ben, he needs to be cast in just the right role in order to succeed (and that type of role is kind of the opposite of what his brother would excel at), but when he does find that perfect role as he did in Manchester by the Sea he can really do amazing work. In the film his work is subtle but goes to some really deep places and really conveys the character’s sorrow. Luis Gnecco – Neruda: Though Neruda is largely being advertised as a Gael García Bernal film, he does not play the title character (whether or not he plays the lead is… complicated). That distinction goes to Luis Gnecco, who plays Pablo Neruda during the height of prowess. Gnecco certainly seems to look like Neruda and he also manages to convey a sort of intellectual mischievousness that’s very fun to watch. I don’t know how accurate this is, but it certainly made me interested to learn. Ralph Ineson- The Witch: Ralph Ineson is probably best known for playing tiny parts in “Game of Thrones” and in the Harry Potter series, but in Robert Eggars film The Witch he is finally given the showcase role that he deserves. Playing a man riddled with religious conflict who begins the film arrogantly but proves to be much weaker than he wants to be, Ineson conveys his personal struggles well and his gravely voice gives the film an interesting aural flavor. And the Golden stake goes to…Manchester by the Sea
 Denzel Washington has been Casey Affleck’s main competition in award season, which is odd given that these are two immensely different performances. Washington’s role is very theatrical and has the character talking with immense power for much of the movie until he’s brought low at a certain point while Affleck’s character is depressed for much of his film but gets really intense at certain points. At the end of the day though, this is a film award and ultimately it is the more filmic role that I think should have the advantage over the more stage based performance that Washington gives.
|
|
PG Cooper
CS! Silver
Join Date: Feb 2009
And those who tasted the bite of his sword named him...The DOOM Slayer
Posts: 16,647
Likes: 4,060
Location:
Member is Online
|
Post by PG Cooper on Feb 15, 2017 20:01:52 GMT -5
Affleck's performance is indeed excellent and he deserves every lick of praise he's received and he should win the Oscar. I'm also really happy you acknowledged Ralph Ineson's great work in The Witch. That's a character who could have easily come off as a simplistic villain but Ineson's performance reveals a lot of layers. I like the fact that he remains somewhat sympathetic, or at least understandable, even when doing horrible things.
|
|
Neverending
CS! Platinum
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 65,770
Likes: 8,646
Location:
Last Online Nov 22, 2024 7:47:06 GMT -5
|
Post by Neverending on Feb 15, 2017 21:55:27 GMT -5
John Goodman was the best actor this year. In 6 months people won't even remember that Manchester by the Sea was a thing. Likewise, Ryan Gosling was amazing in the Nice Guys. Ever since La La Land got mainstream attention, loads of people have been mocking his performance, saying the guy can't even sing. Yet, not a single bad review for Nice Guys. Let's stop hating on genre films. They're the Black people of movies. Gotta work 10x as hard to get the same recognition as a mediocre prestige drama. For every Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow there's 50 Colin Firth's in The King's Speech. Think I'm talking shit? Who won Best Supporting Actor in 1998? James Coburn for some movie people don't even remember. Who gave the most praised and iconic performance of the year? John Goodman in The Big Lebowski.
|
|
Dracula
CS! Gold
Join Date: Sep 2002
Posts: 26,101
Likes: 5,731
Location:
Member is Online
|
Post by Dracula on Feb 15, 2017 22:07:33 GMT -5
John Goodman was the best actor this year. In 6 months people won't even remember that Manchester by the Sea was a thing. Likewise, Ryan Gosling was amazing in the Nice Guys. Ever since La La Land got mainstream attention, loads of people have been mocking his performance, saying the guy can't even sing. Yet, not a single bad review for Nice Guys. Let's stop hating on genre films. They're the Black people of movies. Gotta work 10x as hard to get the same recognition as a mediocre prestige drama. For every Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow there's 50 Colin Firth's in The King's Speech. Think I'm talking shit? Who won Best Supporting Actor in 1998? James Coburn for some movie people don't even remember. Who gave the most praised and iconic performance of the year? John Goodman in The Big Lebowski. Affliction is a great movie and James Coburn is great in it. If people "don't remember" it that's their problem. |
|
Neverending
CS! Platinum
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 65,770
Likes: 8,646
Location:
Last Online Nov 22, 2024 7:47:06 GMT -5
|
Post by Neverending on Feb 15, 2017 22:23:02 GMT -5
John Goodman was the best actor this year. In 6 months people won't even remember that Manchester by the Sea was a thing. Likewise, Ryan Gosling was amazing in the Nice Guys. Ever since La La Land got mainstream attention, loads of people have been mocking his performance, saying the guy can't even sing. Yet, not a single bad review for Nice Guys. Let's stop hating on genre films. They're the Black people of movies. Gotta work 10x as hard to get the same recognition as a mediocre prestige drama. For every Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow there's 50 Colin Firth's in The King's Speech. Think I'm talking shit? Who won Best Supporting Actor in 1998? James Coburn for some movie people don't even remember. Who gave the most praised and iconic performance of the year? John Goodman in The Big Lebowski. Affliction is a great movie and James Coburn is great in it. If people "don't remember" it that's their problem. But is it better than Lebowski? Is Coburn better than Goodman? Its been 20 years. Lebowski clearly won. Even if you disagree and feel that Coburn deserved his award, isn't it fucked up that Goodman wasn't even nominated? This is the elitism that bothers people and you're not too far off from the tree. You struggled to nominate five actors while John Goodman and Ryan Gosling were staring you in the face. Their performances are worthy of recognition even if their movies are not. |
|
Dracula
CS! Gold
Join Date: Sep 2002
Posts: 26,101
Likes: 5,731
Location:
Member is Online
|
Post by Dracula on Feb 15, 2017 22:32:16 GMT -5
Affliction is a great movie and James Coburn is great in it. If people "don't remember" it that's their problem. But is it better than Lebowski? Is Coburn better than Goodman? Its been 20 years. Lebowski clearly won. Even if you disagree and feel that Coburn deserved his award, isn't it fucked up that Goodman wasn't even nominated? This is the elitism that bothers people and you're not too far off from the tree. You struggled to nominate five actors while John Goodman and Ryan Gosling were staring you in the face. Their performances are worthy of recognition even if their movies are not. Lebowski is a bit of a strange example given that even many of that movie's biggest fans say it took them multiple viewings to really get into it and it wasn't all that popular when it came out with either critics or audiences. As far as the performance... eh, I'm not saying Goodman isn't really good in it but a lot of what makes that character work is in the way he's written, I don't think it was a huge stretch for Goodman. I kind of feel the same about 10 Cloverfield Lane and having already given that character Best Villain I felt like that was enough. |
|
Deexan
CS! Silver
Join Date: Aug 2003
Posts: 18,196
Likes: 2,995
Location:
Last Online Nov 13, 2021 19:23:59 GMT -5
|
Post by Deexan on Feb 16, 2017 6:56:14 GMT -5
Ralph Ineson is, and will always be, Chris Finch from the Office:
|
|
Dracula
CS! Gold
Join Date: Sep 2002
Posts: 26,101
Likes: 5,731
Location:
Member is Online
|
Post by Dracula on Feb 16, 2017 20:10:41 GMT -5
Acting Ensemble
I was really torn on what to do with this category. Part of me really wanted to give this category a laser focus on movies you wouldn’t normally see in the individual categories either because the duties were so evenly divided among the cast that no one really stood out or perhaps movies that focused on special challenges like casting non-actors or casting children. That was an appealing idea but at the end of the day these awards are supposed to be about finding the best of the best regardless of handicaps. The roster of nominees might have looked different if I’d gone 100% in one direction or the other but instead I went with a bit of a mix. I dropped Manchester by the Sea simply because it three core cast members were already recognized in the individual categories but casts which still had a lot of depth beyond the leads were allowed to stay. 20th Century Women: I’ve already given strong kudos to Annette Benning and Greta Gerwig for their work here but the cast does run deeper than that. It also features Elle Fanning doing a bit of a Margot Tenenbaum thing and Billy Crudup looking a lot different than he usually does (I’m increasingly recognizing how much of an effortless chameleon that guy is) and it also introduces Lucas Jade Zumann as the person who’s more or less at the center of it all and he does great work as well. Everybody Wants Some!!: In 1993 Richard Linklater assembled a cast of complete unknowns to make his classic Dazed and Confused and in doing so discovered some of the biggest stars of the 90s and 2000s. I don’t know whether the cast of Everybody Wants Some!! will do the same, but he’s certainly assembled a collection of relative unknowns here who form a great group dynamic and certainly seem like genuine college bros. Moonlight: Moonlight is another great example of ensemble acting but unlike some of the other examples here it isn’t so much about a big cast intereacting with one another so much as almost a procession of mini-casts. The various actors who play Chiron in each cast all do blend together fairly well and the actors playing other people who enter into his life like Janelle Monáe and André Holland also do great work. Our Little Sister: I can’t say that I’ve ever heard of any of the actors present in Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Our Little Sister and I’m not sure what any of them would be like in a super heavy drama, but the chemistry they’re able to create in this movie was really infectious to me. A true ensemble, the film looks in more or less equal measure on four sisters and the people around them and the whole cast makes the characters feel very real and very warm. The Witch: When you think of The Witch you generally don’t immediately think of it as an acting showcase but it actually kind of is. Part of what makes its ensemble so impressive is that only two of the actors (Ralph Ineson and Kate Dickie) are veteran performers while the rest are newcomers that the casting director needed to “discover” like Anya Taylor-Joy, Harvey Scrimshaw, and the kids playing the twins. And the Golden Stake goes to…
The Witch
 Horror is a genre that so often populated by second rate actors who are just cast to look good while being murdered so it feels special when such care is put into the casting of a film like The Witch. It doesn’t have the biggest of casts but more than any other film this year it lacks a weak link. Each of these actors perfectly conveys the religious angst and paranoia of these characters as the strange happenings begin and they also effortlessly work through the period dialog without having it get in the way of their performances.
|
|
PG Cooper
CS! Silver
Join Date: Feb 2009
And those who tasted the bite of his sword named him...The DOOM Slayer
Posts: 16,647
Likes: 4,060
Location:
Member is Online
|
Post by PG Cooper on Feb 16, 2017 20:54:41 GMT -5
I'm still shocked the child actors were able to handle the period dialogue so well. That said, I might have given it to Moonlight myself. The way the three different Chiron's built a singular character while still giving distinct performances really stood out to me.
|
|
