Top 10 Performances of the Year

Nearing the end of the year, we have no silly precursors to look at. Whatever films I have left to see don't have as much to do with the performances therein. So here's a fun list. I love every single performance on this list and I love writing about it, and I hope y'all out there who also loves these performances would love to read about them.



10. Joaquin Phoenix, I'm Still Here

Although his antics and film have generally come to be reviled by those buttsore at this film pointing out the depths of our society's shallowness concerning celebrity fascinations in this new media age, what Phoenix accomplished was remarkable. For an entire year he took what Sacha Baron Cohen did with Borat, made himself that much more noticeable and completely put his career on the line out of the passion for this project, and layered with with relevant commentary and satire. Everyone will say, now, that they never believed he was being serious, but I don't think there was anyone who didn't have a lingering thought in their mind that it could have been true...thus proves the film's point about the ease in which public persona is constructed (no matter how absurdly) and how much the public eats it up (I can point out more specific contemporary examples, but I'll be nice).



9. Andrew Garfield, Red Riding Trilogy: Part 1: 1974

An underseen gem from earlier this year (ineligible for Oscars due to some VOD technicality), Andrew Garfield starts off as an overly idealistic youth who, in both ours and his own naïveté, slowly guides us through a world of greed, horror, violence, and corruption. The film progresses at a pace as aggravatingly as his character gets as the film goes on to little avail of his goals, but also proving a highly capable mastery of physical performance with just how often he gets as many bones in him broken as possible in his quest for truth. It's quite a wonder at such a young age how Garfield has already proven himself to be more than capable of holding such an ambitious, mature, dark production entirely on his own shoulders in easily the most compelling installment of the entire trilogy even as he progresses into Travis Bickle-like madness by the end.



8. Kieran Culkin, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

One of the brightest, most refreshing surprises to me of the year came in the form of a joyride of a midnight showing the day that this movie opened in theaters, and one would have no idea from the audience response that it would have flopped so miserably. Culkin outshines every performer he goes up against (though close vis-à-vis Anna Kendrick) in this endearingly quirky production as the "cool gay roommate," emanating a charm that was as seductive as it was enviable. He rejects all the disgusting tropes an actor might usually attribute to a "gay" character and instead embraces the most purely awesome of his character's traits — from his second-to-none gaydar, to his hilariously active sex life, to his personality that can at once be described as flirtatious, sarcastic, friendly or vicious, that made one particularly annoying theatergoing tween girl behind me exclaim that she "wants one" (one, I can only presume, being a gay best friend — to which my straight best friend wanted to vom on her).



7. Mila Kunis, Black Swan

One only needs to look at her supporting counterparts to see where Kunis succeeded — generally one dimensional caricatures of written concepts — to contrast it with just why Mila Kunis' performance was so great. The role as it was written could have been entirely drôle and as thin as the others as it was written from Nina's point of view, but instead Kunis breathed a vibrant life into it that made her pop out the screen with natural fluidity, charisma, and unassuming street smarts. She completely nailed the effortless talent her character was meant to embody, and entranced us as much as she entranced any character she came up against and impressively proving her own against the next entry on this list.



6. Natalie Portman, Black Swan

For the first time in her career, I'd argue, Natalie Portman finally fully realizes her potential as a dramatic actress and transcends from simple performing into pure being by giving her first "great" performance, that will likely come to define her career. Her Nina Sayers goes through a startlingly drastic transition by plunging herself into a dark psychological hell of madness that she drags us as the viewers right in with her. In a completely baity role she takes the smarts she learned at Harvard and decides, against probable instinct, to reject many of the scene-chewing opportunities she was presented with in the film. Instead she internalizes her character's madness, stemming from pure ambition and perfectionism, and by the breathtaking finale we're left with when Nina's transformation into a black swan is finally complete.



5. Jesse Eisenberg, The Social Network

Eisenberg was handed some of the most difficult cards of this year in Aaron Sorkin's screenplay for The Social Network in which he had to tackle one of the most complex, enigmatic and ultimately unlikeable visionary geniuses that was ever going to be put to the screen. Yet Eisenberg actually turned out to be the perfect match for Sorkin's script, delivering his lines with a cadence that Shakesperean actors give to Shakespeare's plays. Delivering his lines with complete justice to Sorkin's voice on the page, but still staying true to how Zuckerberg himself spouts off so many words in what seems like one neverending sentence. What could have easily treaded into caricature territory Eisenberg placed very humane paradoxes to give him heart. These contrasts I'm referring to include his complete ineptitude for social interaction with his fellow students yet ability to so clearly and fluently tap into their social needs with this online device. Someone as clear minded and brilliantly intellectually yet at the same time so easily bitterly resentful and petty. When he looks out the rainy window, you can completely tell Zuckerberg's longing to be back at the offices on facebook and work on his precious brainchild. Eisenberg brilliantly communicated emotion that his very character is incapable of expressing. And, just physically, he gives Zuckerberg this stony exterior like a statue to block off any route to his heart. You can see it in the very blinkless glare of his eyes that convey such icy coldness. Yet when he runs, hilariously, you can see the sudden rush of cowardice to avoid any semblance of confrontation and as little interaction as possible.



3 and 4. Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams, Blue Valentine

Perhaps it is so hard to go on at length at just what made these performances so great, but I think the only thing harder than that is to find any fault with either of them. I couldn't really separate the two in terms of talent, they were both about equal and the strength of both performances get to the heart of why their film is so effective. It's emotionally honest, authentic, devastating, and both actors bring forth an intense commitment to their parts. Reports actually indicate that Michelle Williams would scream from the entire car ride from set to her home every night because of how emotionally grueling it was to shoot. Williams had a particularly difficult task of justifying her leaving her husband, especially considering how great of a father he is to her daughter, but she did the brilliant job of showing that it was her rather than him. Gosling kept a burning spirit inside his character that you can see clearly from one scene to the next, but in different contexts you recognized that it was slowly fading out and slowly killing him. In this, Gosling does justice to every Brando comparison made to him since his breakthrough in Half Nelson — it's impossible to take your eyes off him in any given scene. And his commitment was perhaps clearest in the scene on the bridge where Cindy reveals to Dean her pregnancy, in which director Derek Cianfrance ordered Gosling to get her secret out of Michelle Williams no matter what he had to do and ordered Williams to hold on to that secret no matter what Gosling does. After a full day of shooting, Gosling instinctively starts climbing a fence separating them from the highway below out of aggravation that he hasn't gotten that secret out of her, yet. He even gets a full leg over, and its then that its clear just how far into his character he has disappeared and the risks he was willing to take for it. Considering how most of the film was improvised and most of the shots were kept in single takes, I think Gosling and Williams reached a level of greatness that will be remembered as golden standards of acting for years to come.



2. Andrew Garfield, The Social Network

It's one thing to be given easily the most emotional and sympathetic of the characters in a script. It's another to instill that character, even then, with the amount of humanity in which Garfield did to Eduardo Saverin. His performance played out marvelously to the already-marvelous Eisenberg. Whereas Eisenberg sang Aaron Sorkin's prose in a way that still kept Sorkin's voice present, Garfield completely owned every line of very written and still very Sorkinian dialogue and formed it into something entirely his own, entirely his character's own. His physicality was as intricately constructed as Jesse Eisenberg's, but even more delicately subtle. His accent was not just an American one, but one that quite precisely narrowed in on the idea that his character was a Brazilian immigrant raised in Miami but educated enough to go to Harvard. His mannerisms — the way he'd look at his best friend, the way he's bury his hands deep in his coatpockets, etc. — always wreak of a heartbreaking vulnerability and sensitivity. And he latched on to this deep love that his character had for Mark Zuckerberg, with what I feel is an added layer of subtext that blurs the line between a platonic love and verging on a more romantic sorts, that maximized on Sorkin's screenplay by having that make the final betrayal that much more impacting. His performance really starts to get the gears going when he shows up outside Zuckerberg's house in Palo Alto in the rain, ready to turn back to a cab back to the airport before he points his fatal puppydog brown eyes at the beguiling Sean Parker answer the door. At this point, we hadn't seen his character in a little while, but Garfield makes up for the absence with a highly increased stress and attention that was presumably built up in his life when we weren't following him — from going door to door looking for investors for Facebook or his extremely possessive and psychopathic girlfriend. We see someone otherwise so lovable and innocent as his world is increasingly starting to crash down and he needs the love of his best friend Mark more than ever when it seems like Mark has already shifted his attention to Shaun Parker in all the glory of his cult of personality. He's desperate for Mark's attention, who doesn't live up to what Eduardo hopes he will do and say 99% of the time, but we see that 1% of the time at work when Eduardo returns to his apartment and gets a phone call from him and Mark orders him to come back to California to sign a major contract. We see, all of a sudden, a drastic shift in Garfield. His face lights up, and he grins from ear to ear, and we see his sudden confidence and physical strength to break up with his girlfriend right then and there. It's this unpredictability — this pure rejection of creating a constant yet predictable and boring character arc in the effort to make someone completely human in reactionary unpredictability and emotional development that Andrew Garfield bares his soul here in one of the two greatest performances of the entire year. His quiet moments of concern and love are as powerful as his more self-conscious outbursts of anger and fear ("DON'T FISH EAT OTHER FISH?! THE MARLINS AND THE TROUT!"). But he ices the cake of this otherwise subtly momentous performance with his final betrayal, when he realizes the fault of having signed that contract Mark was referring to over the phone. He takes all of the tension and stress he had been building up both onscreen and off from his character and allowed it to boil over in this entirely pure eruption of emotion. All the love, the loyalty, the faith, the attachment that he had focused into his only real friend (and vice-versa) exploded from being unreturned for so long and finally being completely broken. He goes back and forth between the loudest of shouts to Shaun ("SORRY my prada's at the cleaners...") to the sharpest of whispery rebukes to Mark ("I'm coming back for everything") within seconds of each other that makes for the most compelling, honest, impressive, badass moment of acting in the whole year.



1. Lesley Manville, Another Year

Mike Leigh always manages to get fantastically real performances out of his actors and actresses thanks to a process that roots their characters in a deep history and backstory, and with Mary in Another Year and and Manville create what seems to be his single most accomplished character in his career. Lesley Manville's performance stands alone as a work of out, and as she tells her very own story within the film with her performance you see a true maestro at work. Manville's Mary is an optimistic character in the vein of Poppy in Happy-Go-Lucky — she's a generally excitable lady who always tries to look on the brightest sides of a situation and always see the glass as half full. It keeps most of the movie light, at the start — completely on its toes. And Manville's comedic talents had the audience at the New York Film Festival in stitches at almost every turn. But that's Mary giving her own performance, in a way, and we see with each line of dialogue Manville delivers another layer to Mary that is unraveled. The layers fall down strip by strip until the last act of the movie when we find Mary at her barest — the shocking, haunting, empty shell of a woman who is desperate for love, desperate to feel loved, desperate to at the very least be admired by other people and probably well past the end of her string. In her optimism she keeps a youthful air to her appearance until she is told she looks about 60 by her best friend's brother-in-law, after which in just a split second her face completely changes and it seems like she ages about 10 years right before our eyes. It all leads up to the very final shot of the movie wherein Mike Leigh very smartly keeps the camera's attention focused on Mary alone, as the other sounds start to drown out and he slowly pans in. She never looks directly at the camera, but the New York Times worded it perfectly when they described her acting in that shot as communicating "a lifetime of pain, loneliness and resignation without uttering a sound." It's this complete mastery of performing the most sophisticated and hilarious of comedy simultaneously with the most heartbreaking of drama, going back and forth effortlessly to create this truly fully formed spectrum of a tragically average person who, in their advanced age, has never been shown the kind of love and attention they truly need and have long yearned for, that makes Lesley Manville's performance one for the ages and truly the most accomplished work of acting this entire year. The critics leaving her out of their awards should truly be ashamed of themselves, and it'd be a snub of all-time proportions if she's ultimately left out of the Academy's final nominees for either lead or supporting actress. Read more!

MOB: Screen Actor's Guild Preview

All I'll say about this morning's controversial Golden Globes announcement is A) what did you expect with this year's thin Musical/Comedy category?, B) I'm very disappointed in the shutout for Another Year and have to start doubting Lesley Manville's chances despite being the performance of the year, and that C) with Gosling, Williams and Garfield all nominated there's no way that this is anywhere near the worst nominations handed out by the HFPA (you should see some of their past history!).

Next we move on to the SAG announcement, which should come in a few hours. Not too much to discuss here other than my predictions, which will probably be mostly wrong. But hey, it doesn't hurt to guess?

Ensemble:
The Fighter
The Kids Are All Right
The King's Speech
The Social Network
The Town

Other possibilities: Another Year (finger's crossed for surprise love?), Inception, True Grit and Black Swan.

Best Actor:
James Franco, 127 Hours
Robert Duvall, Get Low
Colin Firth, The King's Speech
Jesse Eisenberg, The Social Network
Jeff Bridges, True Grit

Other options: Michael Douglas, Ryan Gosling, Mark Wahlberg.

Best Actress:
Natalie Portman, Black Swan
Michelle Williams, Blue Valentine
Annette Bening, The Kids Are All Right
Nicole Kidman, Rabbit Hole
Jennifer Lawrence, Winter's Bone

Other options: Halle Berry, Lesley Manville? :(, Julianne Moore

Best Supporting Actor:
Christian Bale, The Fighter
Mark Ruffalo, The Kids Are All Right
Geoffrey Rush, The King's Speech
Andrew Garfield, The Social Network
Jeremy Renner, The Town

Other options: Matt Damon, John Hawkes, Sam Rockwell

Best Supporting Actress:
Amy Adams, The Fighter
Helena Bonham Carter, The King's Speech
Melissa Leo, The Fighter
Dianne Wiest, Rabbit Hole
Hailee Steinfeld, True Grit

Other options: Barbara Hershey, Mila Kunis, Jacki Weaver Read more!

MOB: Golden Globe Preview

Forgive me, I can't write much here because I have to get cranking on this paper on the merits of what can be called "cinematic." I think it's gonna be an all-nighter, so I should use very minute I can get. I'll probably be up late enough to catch the Golden Globe nomination announcement. NYFCC announced today and, uh, my preview column was a lot less helpful in predicting. The Kids Are All Right kind of came out of nowhere with three wins. I can't imagine legitimate critics who actually got more out of Annette Bening's performance than Lesley Manville's? Anyways, my Golden Globe predictions after the cut.

Best Motion Picture - Drama:
127 Hours
Inception
The King's Speech
The Social Network
The Town

Best Motion Picture - Musical/Comedy:
Alice in Wonderland
Greenberg
The Kids Are All Right
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
Toy Story 3

Note: Question of Toy Story 3's eligibility, though.

Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama:
James Franco, 127 Hours
Ryan Gosling, Blue Valentine
Robert Duvall, Get Low
Colin Firth, The King's Speech
Jesse Eisenberg, The Social Network

Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Musical/Comedy:
Johnny Depp, Alice in Wonderland
Ben Stiller, Greenberg
Jake Gyllenhaal, Love & Other Drugs
John Malkovich, Red
Michael Cera, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama:
Lesley Manville, Another Year
Natalie Portman, Black Swan
Michelle Williams, Blue Valentine
Tilda Swinton, I Am Love
Nicole Kidman, Rabbit Hole

Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Musical/Comedy:
Emma Stone, Easy A
Annette Bening, The Kids Are All Right
Julianne Moore, The Kids Are All Right
Anne Hathaway, Love & Other Drugs
Sally Hawkins, Made in Dagenham

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture:
Christian Bale, The Fighter
Geoffrey Rush, The King's Speech
Andrew Garfield, The Social Network
Justin Timberlake, The Social Network
Jeremy Renner, The Town

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture:
Jacki Weaver, Animal Kingdom
Amy Adams, The Fighter
Marion Cotillard, Inception
Helena Bonham Carter, The King's Speech
Kristin Scott Thomas, Nowhere Boy

Best Director - Motion Picture:
Danny Boyle, 127 Hours
Christopher Nolan, Inception
David Fincher, The Social Network
Ben Affleck, The Town
Ethan Coen and Joel Coen, True Grit

Best Screenplay - Motion Picture:
Inception
The Kids Are All Right
The King's Speech
The Social Network
Toy Story 3

Best Original Song - Motion Picture:
"If I Rise," 127 Hours
"Alice," Alice in Wonderland
"Country Strong," Country Strong
"I See the Light," Tangled
"Shine," Waiting for Superman

Best Original Score - Motion Picture:
127 Hours
The King's Speech
Inception
Never Let Me Go
The Social Network

Best Foreign Language Film:
Biutiful
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
I Am Love
Of Gods and Men
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives

Best Animated Feature Film:
The Illusionist
How to Train Your Dragon
Toy Story 3 Read more!

MOB: Preview of the New York Film Critics Circle

I cannot believe I left Olivier Assayas off of my contenders list for Director for today's LA announcement where he tied with David Fincher, considering I predict him for the same prize with the NSFC. Anyways. Whatever. The winners generally came from the nifty chart I provided, even though my own personal choices generally didn't make it (except The Social Network which is a rather easy call) with the exception, also, of Kim Hye-ja for Mother.

For NY, there aren't too many trends to look at. Except for what the NY Critics themselves liked. Armond White, who served as the President of the jury last year, is infamous for the negative reviews he hands out. But it makes it a lot easier to see, with what he likes, what the consensus might be among NY critics.

The safe one to put your money on, again, is The Social Network. I don't sense too much aggravation with its sweep that would cause the New Yorkers to rebel with a crazier choice. It's been reported that the New York Circle also really loved Sofia Coppolla's Somewhere and the love is palpable for Danny Boyle's 127 Hours.

Another Year, unlike LA where it was sadly shut out, has been screening often in New York and is featured on Armond White's top five list, as well as in the top three of the Sight & Sound poll. Fingers crossed, but I do expect Lesley Manville to come out with a win here. If Natalie Portman beats her, expect Manville's Oscar chances to go way down. But I think the film is generally a formidable dark horse in plenty of categories here.

Absolute ABWAFB favorite Andrew Garfield got high marks for his supporting turn in The Social Network, but Christian Bale might continue his utter domination of the awards with a win, here. The Fighter has some very enthusiastic fans from New York. If Christian Bale wins, one could safely call him our very first Oscar lock for a win entirely. Another potential winner is John Hawkes as a potential place to reward critics' darling Winter's Bone. Of course, we could see a repeat of LA rewarding Neils Arrestrup for his arresting (har har) performance in A Prophet.

Don't forget about Carlos, which I expected NY critics to respond to a lot more enthusiastically than LA did, but LA gave it a win in Director, Foreign, and a runner-up in Actor for the ever sexy Edgar Ramirez.

So, here are some contenders!

Picture: 127 Hours, Another Year, Carlos, A Prophet, The Social Network*, Somewhere
Director: Jacques Audiard, Danny Boyle, Sofia Coppola, David Fincher*, Mike Leigh, Olivier Assayas
Actor: Stephen Dorff*, Jesse Eisenberg, Ryan Gosling, James Franco, Tahar Rahim, Edgar Ramirez
Actress: Annette Bening, Kim Hye-ja, Jennifer Lawrence, Lesley Manville*, Natalie Portman, Paprika Steen
Supporting Actor: Niels Arrestrup, Christian Bale, Jim Broadbent, Vincent Cassell, Andrew Garfield*, John Hawkes
Supporting Actress: Dale Dickey, Mila Kunis, Melissa Leo, Ruth Sheen, Jacki Weaver*, Olivia Williams
Screenplay: The Social Network* (let's not kid ourselves, here)
Animated: The Illusionist*, Tangled, Toy Story 3
Cinematography: Black Swan, True Grit*
Foreign: A Prophet, Carlos*, I Am Love, Mother
Non-Fiction: Exit Through the Gift Shop*, Inside Job, Restrepo, The Tillman Story, Waiting for Superman Read more!

MOB: Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards Preview

A couple of critics awards have come down the pike so far — DC, Detroit, Houston announces nominations today — but they're all rather slight. When Oscar prognosticators refer to who wins the "critics awards" or becomes a critics' "darling," there are really only three big ones from which they base their references — Los Angeles, New York, and the National Society.

By the end of this week, we'll have already gone very far into the Oscar season in seeing who the contenders are shaping out to be. Los Angeles announces tomorrow, New York the day after that, the Broadcast Film Critics Awards announce their nominees the same day, the Golden Globes the day after that, the Screen Actors Guild becomes the first guild to announce its nominees on Thursday and by that time I'll have already been done with my finals and ideally home for the holidays.

LA and NY are not the be-all, end-all, but it could make or break a movie in terms of buzz or building momentum. If Christian Bale wins any of the three between LA, NY, or NSFC, I do believe he might be the closest thing to our first acting lock this season for the Oscar win. If figures like Lesley Manville or a movie like Winter's Bone get left out (not likely), there could be trouble.

In terms of most of the critics awards, as has been shown by the smaller groups already, one has to assume The Social Network as the default frontrunner. It's hard for some people to imagine a movie sweeping all three, rare enough as it is, a single year after The Hurt Locker accomplished the same feat. That said, if there's any movie to do it, it's The Social Network, with technically even a higher metacritic score than The Hurt Locker and the first American studio movie to top Sight & Sound magazine's top films of the year list in quite some time. With this frontrunner position, you could assume prizes for both David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin are well assured.

Another movie that could take LAFCA is the other movie claiming itself as the best reviewed of the year — going by other critical aggregate Rotten Tomatoes — is Toy Story 3. As many are quick to point out, L.A. gave WALL·E a well deserved win in their top category 2 years ago and Toy Story 3 is even more loved by critics. Although, it is important to mention that Pixar hasn't quite monopolized the animation category in critics awards the way they have at the Oscars, with a movie like Waltz With Bashir winning the top NSFC prize the same year as WALL·E triumphed with the LA critics and international sensation The Illusionist running against it in the same year.

Another movie that is strongly in the running is Debra Granik's Sundance hit Winter's Bone, already among the most rewarded films of the year so far and fits the perfect bill of a Sundance indie sensation with the critics. Critics seem universally infatuated with the lead performance of young Jennifer Lawrence, and supporting players Dale Dickey and John Hawkes stand a fair shot in weaker categories this year as well.

Providing the most competition for Jennifer Lawrence, and a movie potentially spoiling the Director and Screenplay categories, is none other than ABWAFB favorite Lesley Manville for Another Year. Since her landmark NBR win she hasn't seemed to make much of an impact among the myopic critics bodies handing out awards so far, even tragically losing the British Independent Film Award prize for Supporting Actress to Helena Bonham Carter for her thin supportive-wife role in The King's Speech. Then again, things also seemed bleak for Sally Hawkins in 2008 before she raped and, yes, swept the three major critics groups for her performance in Happy-Go-Lucky. Imelda Staunton, too, swept the critics awards for Vera Drake in the '04-'05 season. Critics clearly love the Leigh ladies, and Another Year made an impressive stand at 3rd place in the Sight & Sound poll of top critics cited above.

Mike Leigh, too, has won prizes in every single critics group before. For Happy-Go-Lucky, NY bestowed him Best Director and LA Best Screenplay while, appropriately, he won both Director and Screenplay from the NSFC. Topsy-Turvy won Best Film at both NY and NSFC, receiving the Director prize from both groups as well. Probably to make up for their oversight of Secrets & Lies, potentially the film most comparable to Another Year and how its awards season will go, which won Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actress for Brenda Blethyn's performance at the LAFCA Awards, but not a single award among the other critics branches. Perhaps Another Year will follow suit.

There are several trends we can look for in their Lead Actor category. I tend to think that the LA critics, in individual reviews, went bonkers enough for The Social Network to extend a sweep to its star Jesse Eisenberg fresh-off an NBR prize. Looking at their past winners, we see Jeff Bridges, Sean Penn, Daniel Day-Lewis, Forest Whitaker (tied with Sacha Baron Cohen?), and Phillip Seymour Hoffman. LA tends to be a pretty good bellweather for the Lead Actor category, and one would assume that Colin Firth is the most natural choice here. If James Franco takes it, then it could potentially change the face of this year's Lead Actor race. At the same time, however, the LA critics have a penchant for rewarding foreign performances, so we could very well also see a win for Javier Bardem for Biutiful or an even further out of left field win for young Tahar Rahim for A Prophet. I'd say all four are contenders.

In the Supporting categories you have some less options. Among Supporting Actor, I've already proposed John Hawkes but Christian Bale has been getting some rather glowing reviews for The Fighter. The highest praise has, in fact, come from the New York critics but I see the LA ones more industry-influenced and more likely to vote for someone of that star power. Unlikely that they'd bury a single film with this many awards, but many of The Social Network's reviews also glowingly singled out other ABWAFB favorite Andrew Garfield.

The default frontrunner for the Supporting Actress category, and possible sweeper this year, is Jacki Weaver for Australian indie Animal Kingdom. Fresh off winning Best Actress at the Australian Film Institute Awards, she faces heavy critical backing for a lesser seen film that critics may be eager to build up momentum for. Another option, as noted above, would be Dale Dickey in Winter's Bone, or Olivia Williams for the nearly forgotten The Ghost Writer — which could really build up a lot of momentum for her in a really flimsy category. The Ghost Writer has plenty of critical backing behind it, as well, and swept the European Film Awards the other day making it only second to The Social Network in solid film awards handed to it so far in the season.

Here's the contenders as I see them, with an asterisk noting my personal choice of a prediction for one of these many crapshoots we call a critics award.

Picture: Another Year, A Prophet, The Social Network*, Toy Story 3, Winter's Bone
Director: Jacques Audiard, David Fincher*, Debra Granik, Mike Leigh, Christopher Nolan
Actor: Javier Bardem, Jesse Eisenberg*, Colin Firth, James Franco, Tahar Rahim
Actress: Jennifer Lawrence, Lesley Manville*, Natalie Portman, Paprika Steen (Applaus)
Supporting Actor: Niels Arestrup, Christian Bale, Jim Broadbent, Andrew Garfield, John Hawkes*
Supporting Actress: Dale Dickey, Melissa Leo, Ruth Sheen, Jacki Weaver, Olivia Williams*
Screenplay: Another Year, The Social Network*, Winter's Bone
Foreign: Carlos, A Prophet*, Of Gods and Men, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
Animated: The Illusionist, Toy Story 3*
Cinematography: 127 Hours*, Inception
Art Direction: Inception* Read more!

Top Ten of 2010

There are many films I have left to see, but the only one I foresee cracking my top ten list is Sylvain Chomet's The Illusionist, which I can't imagine myself having access to before the year ends. So before I fill this blog with futile and wrong predictions of the flurry of critics awards coming down the pike next week, I think this is a prime time to post this.



Honorable mentions: Certified Copy, The Oath, The Kids Are All Right.



10. Red Riding Trilogy
Three talented directors pull the audience into their penetration of a system that unfolds in layers of corruption, greed, and terror. The story unfolds slowly in aggravation but with a dread that you're hard pressed to turn away from, especially with the first installment on the shoulders of the always compelling actor Andrew Garfield.



9. Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work
Ricki Stern and Anne Sundberg use rather typical elements of the documentary genre to tackle a very unconventional subject — the enigma of the public persona that is Joan Rivers — and completely spins our prior impressions of her right on our heads that has you leave the film with a newfound respect and admiration for this trailblazing American institution of comedy.



8. Poetry
Chang-dong Lee takes his time for his central character, at the end of her life, to find the artistic inspiration she needs to write her very first poem. The journey is filled with tragedy, heartbreak, unspeakable horrors and ultimately utter depravity. We're taken on this whirlwind journey by Jeong-hee Yoon in one of the performances of the year until she is finally driven to poetic inspiration by the very end in a beautifully bittersweet sequence of pure cinematic poetry.



7. Black Swan
Darren Aronofsky proves the extent of his directorial vision as he paints a gradual portrait of a horrifying descent into madness, and Natalie Portman's performance drags the viewer right down into it with her.



6. The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceauşescu
In a year of mundanely crafted preachy documentaries hogging all the attention, director Andrei Ujica puts together a political documentary among the most innovative, informative, penetrating and challenging films of the year. Three hours of unnarrated footage puts you, squarely, into the world of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu as he saw it through his own eyes. This immersion into the mind of one of the 20th century's most enigmatic dictators — in all of his delusional glory — exposes the world of global politics in all its pomp, circumstance, and insincerity and something to be taken as seriously as a three-ring circus.



5. Toy Story 3
The final installment of a trilogy I grew up with that is aimed at many others in my generation, almost ruthlessly taking command of our nostalgia and transporting us back to a place of such playful bliss before the final message that we should probably move on. Don't forget about the wonderful moments of childhood, even relish in it once in a while, but now its time to move forward and allow the Toy Story films to stand alone for a new generation of children.



4. Another Year
Mike Leigh chronicles a tragically average year in the lives of a couple named Tom and Gerri and the friends from their past and present that come visit them. Little vignettes featured from each season allow the audience to put together a puzzle that tells a story of life and how those in advanced age deal with it every other year. Lesley Manville plays their most centrally featured friend, Mary, whose own character gives a spirited performance at the start of the film but unravels piece by piece throughout the story until you're left with an utterly shocking shell of a woman near the end of her string by the Wintertime.



3. The Social Network
David Fincher's airtight direction of Aaron Sorkin's multifaceted and epic parable for our times goes by as fast and as efficiently as the technology we depend on in this digital age, and the result is what looks like an American masterpiece on all fronts. Jesse Eisenberg's verbose performance incapsulates one of the most complicated and flawed visionary geniuses ever put to the screen, while Andrew Garfield's performance holds down the film's humane and emotional center with the gravitas of an actor like Al Pacino before him wreaking with a heartbreaking vulnerability, insecurity, and longing to be loved by his only friend — who comes to betray him.



2. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul uses every cinematic tool in his artillery to create a dreamy, free floating world of fleeting beauty filled with mystique and wonderment. A quiet meditation of a land past, present and future. Alive with the sounds of insects, of night, of rustling leaves. The beautiful cinematography can capture the richness of the luscious Thai forests, the pristine water flowing from a falls, or the monotony of manmade walls at any given moment. It's a stunning achievement.



1. Blue Valentine
Derek Cianfrance delicately films Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams in the performance of their respective lifetimes, packing a punch of full authentic emotion at both ends of the spectrum. It's a searingly real film full of contrasts, going back and forth to when they first met to where their marriage is ending. The flashback counterpart to the film is a film full of passion, tenderness, and a pure love. The present day shows a shattering of lives and family, an intensity of disappointment and sadness. Cianfrance fills the final sequence with the emotional climax of both stories jumping back and forth between a perfect past and the present falling apart that leaves you floored in the emotional event of 2010. Read more!

Review: Black Swan

Vincent Cassell informs his group of New York City ballet dancers that he's going to stage the old staple of ballet, Swan Lake. But it's going to be different. It's gonna be stripped down — visceral, real.

He chooses Natalie Portman's character Nina Sayers — a shy, self-conscious and quaint figure. An ambitious dreamer. The first half of Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan kind of plays out like her character. It misses some steps trying to get the story along, a lot of it is really very obvious. No real depth. Barbara Hershey's role as Nina's mother is perfectly chilling in its own right, but she's not allowed much depth to delve into. Vincent Cassell's Tomas' sleaze is really rather one-dimensional. His humanity hardly present.

Portman, however, is already the best we've ever seen her at this point. Her physicality in her dancing is impressive enough as it is, but emotionally we see a frail young woman at the end of her string. A string of delicacy that Portman dances over like a man on wire's balancing act. A poetic portrait surrounded by light strokes, as meticulous as the perfection Sayers strives for.

Tomas needs Nina to break out of her shell. Her innocence is perfect for the White Swan in the production, but he needs her to break loose into her Black Swan. In her ambition she falls into herself into a state of insanity. Slowly she devolves until she completely lets go. Much like the film does, as well.

Much as the first half mirrors Nina Sayers' state of mind, the second half of the film perfectly reflects her descent into dark delirium and operatic madness. We see the full force of a true maestro's ferocious ambition with Aronofky's direction — we see a true vision find its wings and take flight on the screen as Sayers goes out on stage for her first performance. Every element, every shot is so necessary but flows much more freely than the first half did. Nina Sayers' transformation is truly a sight to behold.

And much of that credit is owed to one Natalie Portman, who took up the challenge and for the first time in her career seemed to transcend the bounds of performance into being. Truly immersive, if Aronofsky paints the world of madness she drags you down right in with her. You're transfixed onto her until the very last shot where you're left dumbfounded.

Countering Portman's white swan is Mila Kunis' black swan of Lily. Effortless, real, unconscious. Next to Portman, wound up like the music box with a spinning ballerina she keeps by her bedside, you really see what Tomas is referring to with Lily's free energy. She plays off of Portman incredibly effectively, and gives perhaps the best major supporting performance in the film.

Aside from Kunis the other worthwhile mention is of Winona Ryder's cameo. Aggravated with being older and washed up, we see her Beth already through Natalie Portman's hell and back many a time. She makes the most of her limited screentime by emanating a paradoxically fiery chill to her character. One who's on edge, fierce, but at the same time you could see a haunting in her. Her career has taken everything out of her, and now she's just the empty shell of a woman without it.

Aronofksy has created a truly bold piece of cinema, using every element from Libathique's kinetic camerawork to Clint Mansell's crowning achievement in the music to push the limit on what is cinematically possible. He takes a familiar story of one descending into madness through art, seen and perfected in a movie like The Red Shoes before it — but strips it down; making it intimate, real. And with it finding a mainstream audience witnessing the psychological horror before them, it looks like we could have a real game changer on our hands. Read more!

MOB: National Board of Review reaction

Perhaps a predictable choice, but the rest of my predictions (sans Bale) for the NBR results were totally shat on. And good thing, too. These are some of the more inspired NBR choices I've seen in a long time. Though The Social Network is not my personal favorite movie of the year, it still keeps me thinking about the things it achieved to this day and keeps my interest as piqued now as it did when it debuted — even after having seen it twice. It's endlessly watchable, and I think it's release date brought it to the point where there's no longer much question over its status as an American classic — which may well keep it steamrolling through the season to a deserved Best Picture Oscar.

You could say it's pretty inconsequential to win the NBR, considering none of the winners they chose last year ended up on the Kodak stage the March after. But this is a true sweep, even giving Best Director to Fincher (again) — which is a category they usually try to keep separate from Best Picture. Rewarding the young Jesse Eisenberg in the Lead Actor category ahead of bigshots like Colin Firth or James Franco proves he's one of the big boys in this race, and a force to be reckoned with. And truly, it's an inspired performance to reward. Eisenberg somehow managed the task of playing a character of contradictions. He has virtually no hands-on people skills, yet he still manages to understand the wants and needs of his entire generation. He is a genius and a visionary, but doesn't quite understand how to work people out emotionally. And I think the biggest testament to his brilliance is in the way we understand Zuckerberg's motivations and his side of the story — when he looks out the window, we understand that he'd clearly rather be working on facebook than sit in these legal proceedings — he communicates the emotions of his character that his character himself is incapable of expressing.

And where many expected Annette Bening to triumph in Lead Actress, indeed they went with one of the clear best performances of the year in Lesley Manville's Mary in Another Year. Manville's performance when placed against someone like Bening's shows far greater aptness for hilarity in the film's comedic moments and much more heartbreak in the film's sadder moments. A leading Leigh woman has never won in this category with the NBR before, and with a group so in tune with mainstream tastes it may be a precursor to her success in the category even beyond the critics awards she's expected to cleanly sweep next week. Despite questions of her placement, the category is getting more clearly defined to these five: Bening, Kidman, Lawrence, Manville, and Portman, and if Black Swan and The Kids Are All Right manage to fall flat with the Academy — then Manville's right next in line.

The other actress to get a boost from these awards is Jennifer Lawrence, who won the Breakthrough Performance category with ease. I just wonder why they decided not to separate the Male and Female categories for Breakthrough again this year as they usually do, where my beloved Andrew Garfield could have seen his fair share of the Social Network love NBR laid thickly today.

In Supporting Actor, Bale fits the bill of a proper supporting narrative — an overdue actor with much respect, especially in the mainstream, who has yet to even be nominated. So why not throw him a win for playing a drug addicted Bostonian boxing trainer? It seemed like a foregone conclusion for the NBR folk. The real surprise here is Jacki Weaver's win for Animal Kingdom. In a very weak year, NBR decided to again go outside the borders of the US to find a brilliant performance. Weaver plays the matriarch of an Australian crime family — stoic, statuesque and firm throughout the entire movie until one sequence where she completely unzips her heart and lets her character's richly maternal soul flow with no apologies. She gets right back to her former form, but now you think of her and remember her throughout the entire movie much differently, and much more fully.

Buried gets an oddball mention for its screenplay, and probably won't go much further than that. Glaring omissions from their top 10 include The Kids Are All Right, Black Swan and 127 Hours — by Danny Boyle, who they rewarded two years ago for Slumdog Millionaire. Last year they only had 5 of the top 10 correct, but it seems troubling for these films that seemed so safe for the Academy's 10.

The films don't even crack their top Independent list — which includes middling films like Youth in Revolt over modern masterpieces like Blue Valentine. But that's as far as my grievances with the rewarding body this year, goes. Otherwise the wins of Eisenberg, Manville and Weaver leave me as giddy as a schoolgirl. Read more!

MOB: NBR predictions

The NATIONAL BOARD OF REVIEW announces tomorrow, everyone! Exciting, isn't it? Well, alright. Today's news was rather uneventful. The Satellites proved as useless as ever today by filling up their categories well over the brim with about an average of 8 per category. I think I was off by my earlier pronouncement that the Annies would announce their nominees today by about five days. Whoops!

Anyways, I include the picture of Eastwood and Damon up at the top to feature what I think will be some surprise rewards handed out to the relatively unsuccessful Hereafter from earlier this year. Eastwood's movies going back to Mystic River have not gone unrecognized once by the National Board Review, and considering he has something pretty much every year he proves to be a noticeable presence each year. Unlike with something like Invictus last year, though, Hereafter has already opened unenthusiastically. We shall see.

Best Film: The Social Network
Back-up: The King's Speech
Best Director: Christopher Nolan, Inception
Back-up: David Fincher, The Social Network
Best Actor: Matt Damon, Hereafter
Back-up: Colin Firth, The King's Speech
Best Actress: Natalie Portman, Black Swan
Back-up: Annette Bening, The Kids Are All Rigt
Best Supporting Actor: Christian Bale, The Fighter
Back-up: Geoffrey Rush, The King's Speech
Best Supporting Actress: Helena Bonham Carter, The King's Speech
Back-up: Cecil de France, Hereafter
Best Original Screenplay: Hereafter
Back-up: The Kids Are All Right
Best Adapted Screenplay: The Social Network
Back-up: Rabbit Hole
Best Ensemble Cast: The Kids Are All Right
Back-up: The King's Speech
Best Foreign Film: Biutiful
Back-up: Of Gods and Men
Breakthrough Male: Andrew Garfield, Never Let Me Go/The Social Network
Back-up: Jesse Eisenberg, The Social Network
Breakthrough Female: Jennifer Lawrence, Winter's Bone
Back-up: Let's not kid ourselves, here... Read more!

MOB: Where we stand

Winter's Bone predictably dominated the Independent Spirit Award nominations with 7, including nominations in 3 out of the 4 acting categories (Jennifer Lawrence in lead, with John Hawkes and Dale Dickey supporting). The Kids Are All Right just behind with 5, with a shocking omission of Julianne Moore in Lead Actress despite six nominations in that very category — beat out by the likes of co-star Bening, Natalie Portman, Jennifer Lawrence, surprises Greta Gerwig for Greenberg (who I had predicted in Supporting...what do I know?) and Michelle Williams who turned out to be the only nomination for Blue Valentine (I had predicted co-star Gosling would make it, but not her).

Tomorrow we have the more industry friendly awards of the Satellites announcing their nominations; again, generally an inconsequential group. The Annies also announce their nominees tomorrow rewarding fields of animation this past year where Toy Story 3, How to Train Your Dragon and Tangled have been critical and commercial hits, with Sylvain Chomet's (of Triplets of Belleville fame) The Illusionist paced to be a critical darling as well. Day after, the National Board of Review announces its winners, and it's all downhill from there. Read more!

MOB: Independent Spirit Awards Predictions

How exciting! Oscar season has kicked off unofficially today with the surprise news that Anne Hathaway and James Franco have agreed to co-host next year's Academy Awards ceremony. Earlier tonight, we saw the Gotham Awards hand out the first awards of the season, where Winter's Bone came out on top with wins in the top prize as well as for its accomplished ensemble cast. Gotham's prizes in the past have gone for the likes of The Departed and, most recently, The Hurt Locker. They're less successful more often than not, though. Special shout out to recognizing the brilliance of The Oath this year in its Documentary category, which got left off the Academy's shortlist. Shame, though, since it really went about the topic of terrorism in an unconventional way that communicates and enlightens in volumes.

Before I go on to my predictions of what will be announced tomorrow as the nominees of the Independent Spirit Awards, a quick run-through of the immediate calendar of awards being handed out soon: we got the ISA nominations tomorrow, nominations from the Annies and the Satellite Awards the day after that, and then the more "official" kickoff to the precursor season with the announcement of the National Board of Review's awards on Friday. DC kicks off the first of the local critics awards the following Monday.

Note: One really ought not to trust my opinion on the following choices. I wrote these up quite a while ago out of boredom, but most of them are fillers for lack of coming up with anything else and I'm not even exactly sure what constitutes an "independent" film these days.

Best Feature:
Black Swan
Cyrus
The Kids Are All Right
Rabbit Hole
Winter's Bone

Best Male Lead:
Jim Carrey - I Love You, Phillip Morris
Robert Duvall - Get Low
Phillip Seymour Hoffman - Jack Goes Boating
James Franco - Howl
Ryan Gosling - Blue Valentine

Best Female Lead:
Annette Bening - The Kids Are All Right
Nicole Kidman - Rabbit Hole
Jennifer Lawrence - Winter's Bone
Julianne Moore - The Kids Are All Right
Natalie Portman - Black Swan

Best Supporting Male:
John Hawkes - Winter's Bone
Richard Jenkins - Let Me In
Bill Murray - Get Low
John Ortiz - Jack Goes Boating
Mark Ruffalo - The Kids Are All Right

Best Supporting Female:
Greta Gerwig - Greenberg
Ann Guilbert - Please Give
Sissy Spacek - Get Low
Marisa Tomei - Cyrus
Dianne Wiest - Rabbit Hole

Best Director:
Darren Aronofksy - Black Swan
John Cameron Mitchell - Rabbit Hole
Lisa Cholodenko - The Kids Are All Right
Debra Granik - Winter's Bone
Matt Reeves - Let Me In

Best Screenplay:
Cyrus
The Kids Are All Right
I Love You, Phillip Morris
It's Kind of a Funny Story
Life During Wartime

Best First Screenplay:
Blue Valentine
Happythankyoumoreplease
Howl
Night Catches Us
Tiny Furniture

Best First Feature:
Blue Valentine
Get Low
Howl
I Love You, Phillip Morris
Jack Goes Boating

Best Foreign Film:
Animal Kingdom
I Am Love
I Killed My Mother
Micmacs
Wild Grass

Best Documentary:
Babies
Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work
The Oath
Restrepo
The Tillman Story

Best Cinematography:
Black Swan
Blue Valentine
Howl
Let Me In
Winter's Bone Read more!

Reviews: Blue Valentine

It took ten years for director Derek Cianfrance's vision of Blue Valentine to come to the screen. After every grueling day of filming, it is reported that Michelle Williams would scream throughout the entire car ride home from set. Though its sex scenes were relatively tame, they were still viscerally affecting enough to earn it an NC-17 rating from the MPAA — usually reserved for the most extreme of content. Though filmed in a vérité style, the film is as cinematic as it is blisteringly real. It's a film that grabs you by your throat, and refuses to let go.

Some average moviegoers will take a look at the trailer and wonder what it's about. Well, the story line is really rather simple. It's an examination of a couple, played by Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams, jumping back and forth between past, at the start of their relationship, and present, as it crumbles apart. It's a character study, and the character is the marriage between Gosling's Dean and Williams' Cindy. It would do you an injustice for me to give away too much of the details of how the film unfolds, because a lot of the film's greatness lies in its little pieces. The details. Small and large puzzle pieces alike of this mosaic of a contemporary married couple, and you as an audience are trusted to place the pieces together as you see it and come to your own conclusions of the characters' situation.

Many of these pieces are offered by the two central performances by Gosling and Williams. Both play their parts with the honest and often unsettling realism of the rest of the film. Between the two of them, it's almost four performances you're really looking at — one for each of them in their youth as well as them slightly older. Ryan Gosling's first performance is that of a young man from a broken past who manages to remain as idealistic and joyful in his youth as he is a thick-skinned and hard worker. At his core, though, he's a man who aims to please — whether in the loving care that he took to decorate the nursing home room of the old war veteran he helped move in or the exuberance in which he romantically serenaded Cindy with his songs, and it's that natural tendency in him for love that we see remain most strongly when we shift to the present. We see how torn apart he is over the loss of the family dog, we see just how fantastic of a father he is to their daughter Frankie, and we see how devoted he is to keeping this marriage alive. On the outside, though, he carries the air of a broken man. We see the physicality in which Gosling got balder and fatter, but his ambitions have greatly lowered and he hardly sees himself getting much further in life than he is at this point. Gosling is said to have based his performance upon imitating writer/director Cianfrance, thereby offering perhaps what could be the more relatable side in the movie to more people by playing his role in the same eyes as the film is directed in.

But I would assert that just his equal is Michelle Williams as Cindy. Williams had some added difficulties in being the much less mature half in the portrayal of her character's high school years — not to mention the trauma inflicted upon her then — to being the more mature half in the present. She constantly berates Dean when simply being playful with Frankie, as she doesn't "want to have to clean up after two kids." She is faced with mounting pressures from her demanding nursing job, not to mention her home life with Dean where their marriage is very clearly on the rocks. Williams does a brilliant job filling in the gaps of what may seem like questionable judgment on the page of the script. How can she possibly let go of such a great father to her child? Why such a change of heart? How did she get so mature? How did she end up going through with keeping her baby?

Of course, I do give a lot of the credit to Ms. Williams for taking on these challenges and giving in a performance as thoughtfully well rounded and emotionally affecting as Gosling. And, by the end of the film, I did feel like I could perfectly understand both sides to their stories. In fact, possibly the greatest strength and testament to the effectiveness of their performances is how well they worked in harmony with one another (or appropriate lack thereof). Their chemistry was real, almost undeniable, and their interactions with each other carry the weight of their past experiences with one another and how central the other has been in their lives. But a lot of the credit, for all of these accomplishments, also deserves to go to the enormously accomplished screenplay. The film is really quite revolutionary, as far as I've seen, in the way it depicts real life topics like abortion and human sexuality with a frank and refreshing honesty. Whether it's Dean moaning that he deserves a little more affection or how in-your-face and truly horrifying the actual procedure of an abortion is displayed (as opposed to the "pro-life" argument framing it as an "easy way out" of sorts). The depiction of a high school pregnancy was also one shown with a refreshing honesty that neither glamorized it nor demonized it. It simply was what it was, just as everything else seen in the film, which is its strongest attribute.

And the whole thing made for cinema as compelling as it can be. And that's the thing — it is truly cinematic. The performances pulled from the actors themselves seem like enough evidence for Cianfrance's directorial breakthrough without even mentioning the performance from child actress Faith Wladyka, the best since Justin Henry in Kramer vs. Kramer. But whether it be from the crisp cinematography that could at one moment elate you as it breaks you the next, or the jump cut editing between the present and past, it is a film that truly captures the delicate balance possible between a blistering realism and truly visual cinema. There were points during the film where I had suddenly realized how literally breathless I was, and for how long. For the two hour running time of the film, I had forgotten that I had to go to the bathroom beforehand. When the two hour running time had finished, much sooner than I had expected it to, there was a palpable sense of devastation in the audience I saw it with. You could feel it. It was a knockout. Read more!

Meet the Contenders: Andrew Garfield in "The Social Network"

When we first meet Andrew Garfield's character Eduardo Saverin, he asks his best (and virtually only) friend Mark how he's doing. He had read his blog post that he had broken up with his girlfriend that night, and he assures Mark that he's there for him. This sets up the character of Eduardo, whom Aaron Sorkin introduces in the script as "a sweet looking Brazilian sophomore who almost always wears a three-piece suit." It is safe to conclude that Sorkin draws him as easily the most sympathetic character in his behemoth achievement of screenwriting, regardless of whether or not you believe his side is right or wrong. The case could very easily be made that his side is wrong, or perhaps simply undeserving of the hefty cash settlement his character likely received. Frankly, he was naïve; he tackled a revolutionary and visionary concept with old-fashioned and traditional business methods he had picked up in his Harvard education. He couldn't comprehend the capacity of facebook's potential nor it's viral nature. Thus, as Mark had warned, he got left behind.

Andrew Garfield's performance leaves room for such judgments to be made. He allows himself to be imperfect — extraordinary in his own right, but human enough to have flaws like any other. His Eduardo is brimming with humanity, bursting at the seams with love, affection, self-conscious insecurity, desire, envy, possessiveness, puerility, motivation, and some social ineptitude. Any actor could have coasted to a great performance with the character offered by Sorkin's script, but it's Andrew Garfield who takes charge to make Eduardo as fleshed out living, breathing, and humane character on every level possible. He ultimately takes the character of Eduardo from written to wholly emotional, and he does so with a searing realism. He disappears under this character with ease. Some have even said that where Jesse Eisenberg is William H. Macy delivering the distinctly wordy dialogue of David Mamet with a Shakespearean cadence where it concerns Sorkin's screenplay, that Andrew Garfield is Al Pacino in Glengarry Glen Ross — reading off the trademark dialogue in a way that still sounds wholly his own and that you'd attribute strictly to the character more than its inceptor.

That is to both of their credit. Andrew Garfield's performance wouldn't work without Jesse Eisenberg's to play against. We need to see Saverin's offer of love and support in the beginning of the movie to be met with Mark's cold dismissiveness. We need to see Eduardo time and time again reach out emotionally to Mark with little in return. One could theoretically assert that Eduardo is actually in love with Mark, who does not share his affection. At least, that's to the extent to which we see Eduardo lend his whole love and his whole self to Mark with a devotion and trust that make his end betrayal particularly heartbreaking. This is evidenced the petty bitterness and jealousy that he venomously directs at Justin Timberlake's Shaun Parker when he manages to capture Mark's heart and full attention. Attention that Eduardo craves. The warmth Garfield instills in Eduardo is crucially contrasted by the cruel coldness in Eisenberg's Mark, which also makes the latter much more in tune and connected to the idea of facebook than the former ever understands (he as a co-founder doesn't even know how to change items of his profile like his relationship status).

This unrequited love Eduardo feels for Mark gets down to a central insecurity and vulnerability that Garfield portrays with a delicate bravura that required to put all of himself out there, his portrayal of a friend wanting so much more emotional satisfaction out of his relationship that probably confronts some unsettling truths among many halves of such friendships. And he does so with such a devoted strength that you could pick up on cues in his subtle physicality throughout the film. He's drawn into Mark's ultimate betrayal to begin with because of a phone conversation that has Mark ending up being so friendly and open to Eduardo (to a suspicious extent) that has Garfield smiling from ear to ear, even after the scolding he had received from Mark for immaturely freezing his business account. It's an attitude and they are words that he's been longing to hear from his best friend directed at him.  He then confidently shows up in California and signs the contracts without the slightest inkling that his friend had just betrayed him and ultimately kicked him out of the company at the likely urging of Shaun Parker's corrupting influence.

Garfield puts forth much of his physical self throughout the film, in fact, and in a way that informs to emotions that pent up inside his character throughout the film's duration. Garfield is very much informed by the past of Eduardo, who is a Brazilian immigrant raised in Miami and became educated enough to be in Harvard. You can hear it distinctly in the impressive dialect Garfield dons for his accent, and in the general rhythm of how he carries himself. It's hard to describe, but having several Brazilian American friends, I can attest to this general aura that Garfield mysteriously nails in a way that's authentic and believable. He additionally forms his character in other ways; in the way he moves, when he awkwardly inches towards Mark in a dance wearing a Caribbean islander hat, when he shoves his hands as deep into his pockets as possible, when we shift to the present day court proceedings where Eduardo's broken heart can't even stand to take one look at Mark. Sign of a true master of his craft, he manipulates his body in a way that both subtly paints a nuanced portrait of his characters but also elicits an emotional response from the audience necessary in their experience of the film.

For instance, when Eduardo first shows up in California. Shaun barely notices the door knocks but opens it to find Eduardo drenched in the rain, ready to turn back to his taxi. He looks at Shaun with the puppy dog eyes that Garfield employs for the first time that communicate his sea of pain and hurt. Expecting to see his best and only friend, he sees the man who may have very well taken that away from him. The salt is added to the wounds the audience feels when it's revealed that Mark was meant to pick Eduardo up at the airport an hour prior, but he essentially forgot about him and left him alone in the pouring rain. Slowly he unravels his levels of stress in New York City trying to find investors, aggravated that Mark hadn't remembered when he told him he dropped his planned internship months prior (or perhaps hadn't listened). He says he's scared of his girlfriend, and he's coming to see how much Mark hadn't told him about their progress with facebook. Even then Mark is hardly listening, and this starts to snowball into what will become an avalanche of suppressed emotional pain for Eduardo into the film's climax.

The Social Network as a film has, as a central credit, a consistent pace that keeps you on your feet and keeps your ears on the ready. But, easily, the most exhilarating and compelling scene is, understandably, the climax, where Eduardo Saverin unleashes his fury upon Mark and Shaun and plans for his wrath, which just happens to be in the form of one of the two court cases at the center of the film. It's the clearest marriage of Sorkin's writing, Fincher's direction and the ensemble's acting, starting from when our jaws drop to the floor when it is revealed to us how much Eduardo's shares had dwindled down to by facebook's one millionth member. Arguably, though, it's Andrew Garfield who takes center stage. He goes to that unspeakable place for an actor that separates the greats from the greatests when, in a rage, his character delves into what I would dub 'emotional chaos.' We sense this earthquake coming as Eduardo glides towards Mark, yelling his name, and slams his laptop into this explosive supernova of pure and unadulterated anger — informed by the new contract. Informed by stress of his life in New York City and in his relationship. Informed by the jealousy that Shaun Parker had hijacked the company he worked with Mark to get off the ground. Informed by the purity of love that he time and time again blanketed upon Mark, his truest and best and virtually only friend, who turned out to betray all of that on such a monumental scale. Your eyes are glued to the scene. His delivery of the scene's closing line easily makes for the most invigorating and most bad-ass line delivery of the year: "You better lawyer up, asshole, because I'm not coming back for the 30%. I'm coming back for everything." Empire Magazine's on-set report chronicled this climactic moment, including a tidbit that Garfield, per instruction from David Fincher, had leaned in to Eisenberg's ear before shooting that scene and sharply hissed, "you're a fucking dick and you betrayed your best fucking friend. Live with that." The article goes on to describe the atmosphere the day that scene was shot, giving sense of the grueling method where Fincher demands as many takes as possible of the same scene, which the actors find liberating at times but is challenging of a scene requiring this much energetic emotion. "Under strip-lighting, amid desks and cool Cali-kid extras, Garfield has spent 90 minutes in an emotional maelstrom. Snatching and smashing. Snatching and smashing. Snatching and smashing. At 12.45 a.m. on a Friday in December 2009 - day 34 of the 70-day shoot, take 10 of this set-up - Fincher shouts across, ‘Andrew, disintergrate it! The computer: disintergrate it!’ It is a bastard hard scene: bringing rage and hurt again and again and again. Garfield, in dapper dark suit and perfect US accent, is excellent, but drained. After stumbling over the same word one too many times, he bellows an expletive. Eventually, 25 Apples will be obliterated. At 5.05 a.m., the various set-ups are exhausted, as is Garfield, when Fincher offers blessed words - ‘Cut it! Movin’ on’ - and shakes his hand. Garfield calls out to the crew, ‘Sorry if I was an asshole!’ He wasn’t. He was human. That’s what Fincher employed him for." And that's ultimately the greatest testament to that scene, in which Garfield provided for one of the most impressively explosive displays of acting perhaps ever caught on film by an actor of only his age.

That's also where his entire performance succeeds the most — in its humanity. A performance that can only be thought of as a gift to audiences, like the one I watched the film with who stayed through the credits just to catch his name. The one they called "that kid" before the start of the movie now had a name, and it was his performance that unanimously dominated the conversation as the moviegoers emptied out. Plenty of actors can make lemons into lemonade, and the lemonade in this character was very well already offered by Sorkin's screenplay and Fincher's efficient directing. But Garfield managed to make Mount Olympus out of it. It's the pièce-du-résistance so far of an already glowing and well decorated career from this actor, and it's a staggering achievement. It may very well be the performance of the year. Read more!

Biutiful

Alejandro González Iñárritu's latest Biutiful tackles difficult themes of mortality and finding peace with one's self before moving on to an afterlife. The film opens and closes with some fascinating sequences. It's just everything in between, however, that is problematic.

The film is anchored by a very humane performance given by Javier Bardem, in spite of the challenge of his character's supernatural sensibilities. His Uxbal is a family man, a business man, and an ex-husband nearing the end of his life. Bardem nails each aspect of the role with a general concern for people he feels responsible for. The audience's spirit deteriorates with his as the film labors on and we watch him inch closer to the end, where he'll be reunited with the dead he'd always been able to communicate with during his life.

If the film had managed to stay more focused on his storyline, the film could potentially have turned out a very emotionally affecting piece. But in true Iñárritu fashion, he can't help but try to dilute this storyline with other interweaving character narratives that have worked so well for his films in the past. Uxbal's brother, Tito (Eduard Fernàndez), getting ready to buy their father, has sexual flings on the side with Uxbal's bipolar ex-wife Marambra (Maricel Àlvarez) who is desperate to see more of her children. Apart from Uxbal's personal troubles, his professional affairs are in a delicate state between the Chinese manufacturers he goes to for supplies of counterfeit purses, the Senegalese immigrants who sell those purses on the streets and the police force Uxbal often bribes growing impatient of these street vendors working on illegal streets.

The subplots of the Senegalese street vendors' struggling family lives and the Chinese factory owners with a labor force of illegal immigrants don't only distract from the power of the central themes, but are indicative of a larger tone of self-seriousness the film suffers from. Several shots like that of a dead owl in the snow, a pigeon walking over a lifeless homeless man, or birds en masse flying in formation over a sunset-lit sky seem perfectly poetic on their own accord, but in context often seem out of place and trying much too hard. The revelation of the two Chinese factory owners being gay is so overt and unintentionally hilarious that it trivializes their sexuality, and the screenplay's attempt of emotional manipulation falls flat on the audience. The film often deals with the question of exploitation, whether between the factory owners and their laborers or Uxbal trying to profit from their work. The film asks, "who's exploiting who?" It would seem to me that, most of all, it's the film itself.

The film has been described as "unconventional," which will be used to explain much of the negative reaction that will come from it. Fact of the matter is that that's not what's wrong with it. I found promise in the unconventional premise, and was hoping to find an unappreciated gem in this film. And there are good points to it. The larger ensemble work is strong, sudden cuts show the spirits of the dead hanging off ceilings in a deliciously creepy fashion, the camerawork is well lit and shot. All in all, though, the film is greatly uneven. The editing, usually strong in Iñárritu's work, attracts attention to how awful it is at some points including split seconds of random shots unnecessary in setting the scene. The score comes blaring in oafishly at the most bizarre moments where you’d least expect it. Many emotional tensions set up at certain points are relieved unsatisfactorily and awkwardly, and it drags on for far too long. The film is simply a mess, and a disappointingly missed opportunity.

Grade: C Read more!

MOB: How bout dem leads?

The lead categories are quickly crowding themselves, and many great performance will probably be left to the wayside. Who can make the cut, and who has the best chance of winning?

We'll start with lead actor, which I suspect will be lined up with Best Picture contenders.

1. Colin Firth - The King's Speech
2. James Franco - 127 Hours
3. Jesse Eisenberg - The Social Network
4. Jeff Bridges - True Grit
5. Ryan Gosling - Blue Valentine
6. Robert Duvall - Get Low
7. Javier Bardem - Biutiful
8. Michael Douglas - Solitary Man

The difference here is whether their films will get seen or not, and that's why the first four slots are filled by performances in probable Picture contenders that will be seen, with the last slot being the remaining film with the most chances to be seen. Colin Firth has the appearance of an easy frontrunner, being in a film jockeying for the whole win and coming fresh off of a snub of a brilliant performance last year in A Single Man to an overdue performance — ironic in two ways. 1) Somehow their mistake in not giving him the win then makes him overdue now and 2) He's likely to face the man he lost to last year again.
That's what separates him from James Franco, who won a critics poll of the best actor in show at the Toronto Film Festival. He might face similar success in his one man act with the critics awards this season, and if his film really takes off would be serious competition to Mr. Firth.
Jesse Eisenberg's another young ingenue in the mix this year, like Franco, going for his first nomination this year. As the face, soul, and carrier of this generational "event" of a film, I do think he will be hard to forget and will carry a formidable number of critics awards on his own a la Jeremy Renner last year for The Hurt Locker. Winning, though, would be difficult.
Then we have Jeff Bridges, blah blah blah, leftover admiration from last year in a major Picture contender. Then, call me crazy, I just made the decision to keep Gosling in a predicted five. Why? Well, many people saw Blue Valentine's chances as deflating with many other films stealing its spotlight and taking attention away from it, until it came roaring back in the conversation recently with a harsh NC-17. Derek Cianfrance refuses to make cuts to it. Now it's chances must be dead for sure, right? Wrong. This is exactly what it needs. Everyone knows the rating on it is bullshit, but it peaks a curiosity factor nonetheless. Particularly among the actors, who will need to see just how realistic Gosling and Williams made their sex scenes that pushed this film over the MPAA's edge. And that's exactly who needs to see it for the actors and the film itself to see any success. As we speak, Harvey is working to appeal the rating to the MPAA — wise, and safe, decision. Best case scenario is that the rating gets overturned and is allowed to be released in more markets with an R rating in conjunction with the talk it generated with an initial NC-17. But, if not, Harvey can milk the hell out of that NC-17 rating and turn this into an opportunity to bring back the NC-17 rating to artistic credibility.
That will get it more seen than Biutiful, anyways. The film is divisive but generated talk among Academy-liked Bardem after his Cannes win this past year, and is said to be in the conversation for this year's Foreign Language Film category (though it might be a bit stranger for the average Foreign-voting member). Get Low has already been seen, and that perhaps may lie its problem. Though it's not out of the question that AMPAS is bombarded with screeners bearing the star's name — ROBERT DUVALL. And then, of course, we have the potential sympathy vote with Michael Douglas with a performance in Solitary Man that I've already seen testimonials of by Academy members who loved it.

Note: All 5-8 have a reasonable chance at that last slot.



As for lead actress, things are especially competitive this year.

1. Natalie Portman - Black Swan
2. Annette Bening - The Kids Are All Right
3. Lesley Manville - Another Year
4. Nicole Kidman - Rabbit Hole
5. Michelle Williams - Blue Valentine
6. Julianne Moore - The Kids Are All Right
7. Jennifer Lawrence - Winter's Bone
8. Sally Hawkins - Made in Dagenham

It's looking, though, as if people will want to shape this fascinating year into a Portman vs. Bening showdown. Both should easily be able to claim respective Golden Globes (Portman for Drama and Bening for Comedy/Musical) making this super old school. There are those, however, that suggest that Black Swan simply will not get the necessary love to put Portman in contention for the win (notably the podcast earlier today from InContention). I think not, though. The narrative seems perfect: Natalie Portman is completely respected in Hollywood, at a perfectly ripe age that they love to reward in this category in a role considered baity and brilliantly executed. It will have passionate and enthusiastic fans that I think will push it into other categories, leaving this the only probable one with a remote chance of rewarding the film itself with. But, admittedly, that last reason is shakier considering just how out of the ordinary this film might seem to the Academy.
Which would leave the next battle option between Annette Bening and Lesley Manville, which the InContention folks seemed to consider a much more viable option. Both similar in hearing cries from Oscar watchers who think that they should instead be campaigned in a much weaker Supporting category where they'd be much more likely to be nominated and perhaps even win. However, they do seem pretty safe and much of a reason why this lead category is so crowded, and possibly two of the frontrunners for the win itself. Bening benefits from seeming overdue (thought of as a runner-up for both American Beauty and Being Julia, both of which she lost out to Hilary Swank) and being in a more "seen" film. However, people genuinely love Manville's performance. Arguably it's been received more kindly by the critics, and in many ways would be the opportunity to reward the 60-something year old Mike Leigh. Even if it's not specifically giving him an Oscar in the form of director or screenplay, which would be difficult for him this year but not out of the question, the Academy could decide for the first time that they want to recognize the achievements of one of his actors in recognition of his very actor-centric process of extreme improvisation in approaching his films.



Not to mention, the film will play very well to older members of the Academy. I think it will also see much British love, considering its a weepier Mike Leigh film than something like Happy-Go-Lucky passed over two years ago. This could often be the deciding factor in close races, as with Marion Cotillard's BAFTA-supported performances three years ago or Tilda Swinton's that same year. Her character is a tragic one, one whose found herself in desperately lonely circumstances that leaves her with little other option other than to seem pathetic. She sculpts a character from the ground up from the start of the film, appearing to the audience in just her character's facade in her drunken comfort. Slowly she unravels, though, revealing personal traumas of her past and a clingy dependence on her friend Gerri (played marvelously by Ruth Sheen). By the very last frame of the very last shot of the very last scene, however, our hearts are simply torn apart as it seems that the only way Mary can feel any semblance of love from this family that she needs in her life she needs to butt out of the actual family dynamic of Gerri's, and continue to repress her actual personality and self, which probably leaves her feelings of unloved loneliness inevitably strong.

Well, perhaps you know who I'm championing.

I also see a slot for Nicole Kidman's comeback role in Rabbit Hole, though this already Oscar winner isn't in conversation for the win. I keep Michelle Williams in my top five for Blue Valentine the same way and largely for the same reasons that Ryan Gosling remains in my lineup.

I do hope Julianne Moore, my personal preference between her in Bening in their film, is able to be given at least a chance. She is arguably more overdue for more roles and going tete-a-tete in scenes with Bening, she wins. Her delivery of lines like "just listen to me" seem to blunt any impact Bening has against her, despite her being very strong in her individual scenes. I'm not even that big of a fan of hers, compared to those who think she deserved wins in Short Cuts, Boogie Nights, The Big Lebowski, Magnolia, The End of the Affair, The Hours and Far From Heaven. But I think she deserves at least as much attention as her co-star.

Jennifer Lawrence seems to be a quaint name in such a big year, but with the aid of critics help (Winter's Bone remaining one of the best reviewed of the year), DVD screeners being shoveled to Academy voters' doors and at least a SAG nomination (to make her this year's Melissa Leo), she could sneak in a slot of her own.

And then I include Sally Hawkins for Made in Dagenham, a film that many see playing well to Academy members and seeing Hawkins, also wonderfully warm in Never Let Me Go, as a sure-thing standout. With attention to co-star Miranda Richardson's chances in Supporting, Hawkins' film has a chance to be seen and perhaps loved enough to see her get a nomination to make up for her monstrosity of a snub for Happy-Go-Lucky. Read more!

MOB: Let's talk Supporting

Usually around this time, the Supporting races don't look none too crowded. This year's especially exciting (or quiet, however you want to look at it) considering that this is the first year in a while without a heavy frontrunner (Waltz/Mo'Nique, Ledger/Cruz, Bardem, etc.).

Let's start with actress, just to do things a little differently.



Get ready to see a lot more of that eyebrow raise. Sony Picture Classics have ensured that Animal Kingdom is the first major FYC screener to be sent out to the doorsteps of Academy members so that they will have ample time to see it. I suspect that Jacki Weaver, pictured above, will perform one of the only critics sweeps (NY/LA/NSFC) of this season with this performance in the 96% rated flick and pushing her way to an easy nomination like Amy Adams in the past for the critically-aided Junebug. The film is small, however, and is not all that seen (no matter how much SPC wishes to change that). I see her getting in, but a win would be difficult.

1. Miranda Richardson - Made in Dagenham
2. Jacki Weaver - Animal Kingdom
3. Helena Bonham Carter - The King's Speech
4. Dianne Wiest - Rabbit Hole
5. Hailee Steinfeld - True Grit
6. Barbara Hershey - Black Swan
7. Kimberly Elise and/or Thandie Newton - For Colored Girls
8. Melissa Leo - The Fighter

I think Richardson, a two-time nominee, is someone that most Academy members will be old enough to remember and perhaps want to finally recognize for her strong film career. In a weak-ass year and an Academy-friendly film in the politically uplifting Made in Dagenham, this might just be a good opportunity to do so.
There is, of course, also Helena Bonham Carter, in probable frontrunner The King's Speech. She should ride a wave of love from the film and recognition from her name to a nomination, but reviews have never been all that strong for her compared to her co-stars and she's not likely to be in contention for the whole shebang.
Dianne Wiest is a respected character actress in a juicy role from a Tony/Pulitzer prize winning play. She's gotten good reviews and already has two Oscars to show for the industry's admiration of her (although, unlike those other two, this is not a Woody Allen movie). Hailee Steinfeld will need a bit of obvious category fraud to get into this category, but little girls can generally get away with it especially if the film is advertised as a Bridges vehicle, since there's no chance for her in a lead category. But she looks impressive enough in a very impressive trailer, and I think with [i]The King's Speech[/i] this film could be another three-nominee film (with Bridges and Damon).
Here's where we move into the 6-8 tier that I have a harder time seeing make it. Black Swan is very well reviewed and I believe it will have ecstatic supporters on its side. It has supporting actresses to offer in a weak race. However, the reviews for the supporting ladies, specifically, have not been as strong as say the film itself or Portman's performance. Between the two I think comeback veteran Barbara Hershey would have the best chance at a nomination for her "evil mother" performance a la Mo'Nique. But for someone with as little buzz as either her or Kunis (despite her prize at Venice), I think the film would need more support for either of them to make it in the way Helena Bonham Carter will be aided by her film's general enthusiasm. There are two other films that potentially have Supporting duos to offer in nominations that are big question marks right now. For Colored Girls and The Fighter both appear to be Oscar bait, both by filmmakers who are almost rather reviled in Hollywood. Tyler Perry tries his hand at the Oscar game after seeing the kind of urban fare the Academy could go for with last year's success of Precious, he adapts a very challenging play into a film with an all-star black cast. David O. Russell takes on the often-nominated boxing drama — filled with strippers, drug addicts, and bitchy moms (Melissa Leo's part being the one I find more likely than Amy Adams' stripper) in every attempt to almost punch its Oscar radar. The most we have at this point from either of them are trailers, in my opinion with For Colored Girls looking far stronger (though perhaps melodramatic) compared to the schmaltz and desperation The Fighter's trailer reeks of.



As for Supporting Actor, we have a field that looks more crowded but is still just as unsure how it's going to play out.

Here's how I'd rank the field of 8 likely contenders:
1. Geoffrey Rush - The King's Speech
2. Andrew Garfield - The Social Network
3. Mark Ruffalo - The Kids Are All Right
4. Christian Bale - The Fighter
5. Matt Damon - True Grit
6. Sam Rockwell - Conviction
7. Ed Harris - The Way Back
8. Justin Timberlake - The Social Network

Not much to say, here. Geoffrey Rush is considered just as good if not better than Colin Firth in their Best Picture hopeful, but we'll see if the Academy is eager to throw another Oscar at his feet (to me he seems esteemed enough to end his career boasting more Oscars than the one he already has). I'm championing Andrew Garfield but I'm not alone; the kid's turned into something of a superstar after The Social Network and he seems to be a big part of why people are beginning to anticipate the new Spider-Man movie he'll headline. But he's just starting to become recognizable to people, and many might see it as a bit too soon. Mark Ruffalo is a respected actor, yet to be nominated, in a film that won't win Best Picture but is likely to be nominated for one. Recap: so far we have one Oscar winner who probably doesn't need another win, an unnominated actor who doesn't need a win yet and then an unnominated actor that people just want to see damn nominated. We'll see how it goes but so far I'd say that all three are in fair contention to win it all.
Then we get to murkier territory. As I said, we're very unsure about The Fighter unlike the men of the first three films I've ranked, but even if it falls in flames I do think people are eager to give Christian Bale his first Oscar nomination seeing as though this is his first chance since people started caring about him to get an Oscar nomination. He plays a drug addict and looks really over the top in the trailer (I'm just not a big fan of his, sorry), and though he has a reputation in Hollywood I do think he's just populist enough to have enough #1 votes for a nomination. Win? Right now I wouldn't say so, but there are enough precursor opportunities that I can see him taking (starting with the NBR) that would put him in conversation for it.
Matt Damon has the benefit of having two films that will have some fans, though I think True Grit will be far less divisive than Hereafter is proving to be (despite having some vocal fans). Plus, his futile lead campaign for the latter would help him in a general sense of obligation to throw him one this year (like last year when his Invictus mention seemed also helped by his lead performance in The Informant!
Sam Rockwell has a feeling of being due similar to Bale and Ruffalo, but he's not yet as well known as they are, and his films' reviews are rather flat (though his generally sing praises). He's definitely in conversation for it, though, especially if the Academy buys its sap more than critics have been.
The last two options are very different on the surface level but face similar problems. Ed Harris is a well respected veteran character actor who has four unsuccessful Oscar nominations. He's in a film that may or may not get Academy love but he faces internal competition from other actors in his film, some (Colin Farrell) even receiving stronger notices in the few reviews there are for the film. Justin Timberlake is not a professional actor whatsoever, though a superstar in his own right (more than Harris, anyways). Some feel like he steals the show in his likelier Best Picture contender, The Social Network, but he faces heavy internal competition from a more sympathetic Andrew Garfield and a fascinating performance by Armie Hammer (also being campaigned in this race). Read more!