Movie Bummys: Best Performances of 2020

Top Twenty

20. Bo Burnham, Promising Young Woman: After Inside, his role as Ryan won’t be remembered as Burnham’s singular achievement of the early 2020s, but it deserves consideration. He has a weird charm and absolutely fits the nice-guy stereotype that director Emerald Fennell is sending up. (Spoiler alert) But when Carey Mulligan’s Cassie exposes Ryan as an accessory to rape, Burnham nails the cowardice and selfishness that comes pouring out.

19. Micheal Ward, Small Axe: Lovers Rock: The climax of director Steve McQueen’s Small Axe anthology film series about Afro-Caribbean neighborhoods in London, Lovers Rock is a jumble of bodies amid a cascade of music, but Ward makes his presence felt as Franklyn, projecting strong masculinity in contrast to some of the other men on screen, who come off as boys playing as men to get girls. Ultimately, the screenwriters McQueen and Courttia Newland maneuver him from his comfort zone to a position of inferiority when we see Franklyn confronted by his white boss at an auto shop. Ward’s shift from alpha to submissive is stark and shows his range.

18. Cristin Milioti, Palm Springs: When we first meet Milioti’s Sarah, she’s a bundle of nerves. And she could have remained a high-strung stereotype, but the reason Palm Springs works is because Milioti presents Sarah as ambitious for a more ideal version of herself. Andy Samberg is the star in Palm Springs, butMilioti steals the movie.

17. Leslie Odom Jr., One Night in Miami…: No one can be Sam Cooke, not even Odom Jr. But his Oscar-nominated performance as Cooke in One Night in Miami… shows a side of him that his music alone cannot: conflicted and complex. Odom Jr. gives us an angry Sam Cooke, frustrated at how Malcolm X calls him out for not using his platform for the good of his people, and it’s the growth Odom Jr. displays from petulance to the virtue of “A Change Is Gonna Come” that make this performance awards-worthy.

16. Sacha Baron Cohen, The Trial of the Chicago 7: Usually comedians get nominated for Oscars for playing against type and doing something serious, à la Robin Williams in Good Will Hunting or Steve Carell in Foxcatcher, but Cohen’s first acting nomination came for his role as one of American political history’s most notorious jokesters, Abbie Hoffman. Along with Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (see below) and Jeremy Strong, Cohen infuses the otherwise stodgy and pedantic Trial with some level of entertainment. But he also finds the right notes in moments of seriousness, particularly in the linked scene of his questioning on the stand and when he demonstrates his concern for the people being sent to die in the Vietnam War.

15. Frances McDormand, Nomadland: After winning her third Oscar for Nomadland, it’s hard not to start considering where she falls in the pantheon of film performers. After her win for her performance in 2017’s Three Billboards and given her public persona, McDormand has a reputation for brashness and eccentricity. Yet her performance as Fern betrays a deep empathy within McDormand, an eye for the lived experience of the kinds of people that movies don’t often turn their camera lenses on.

14. Vanessa Kirby, Pieces of a Woman: The likeability of Kirby’s performance as Martha is bolstered by the fact that everyone else in the movie, from Shia LeBeouf’s Sean to Ellen Burstyn’s Elizabeth, is downright despicable. Kirby, who is passive for much of the movie, didn’t have to do much to stand out as sympathetic in this story of privilege and hypocrisy. But there are levels of pathos to Kirby’s performance, when she’s exploding at her mother (Burstyn) or publicly absolving the midwife present at her child’s birth and death in the most restrained, measured way she can muster.

13. Viola Davis, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom: This is not Davis’s most emotionally affecting performance. She can engender deep levels of love from the audiences of her movies when in the right role, and Ma Rainey ain’t right. But Davis peels back the selfishness so abrasive on the surface of Rainey’s personality to reveal a woman fighting for her own survival.

12. Sierra McCormick, The Vast of Night: McCormick is probably best known for her role as Olive on Disney Channel’s A.N.T. Farm or more recently as Scarlett on American Horror Stories. Given the small footprint of a movie like The Vast of Night, it probably won’t change things in the direction of stardom for the 23-year-old, but it should. McCormick is asked to do a lot as the plucky Fay, and she carries a lot of the movie’s exposition and action shots with timing and aplomb beyond her years.

11. Amarah-Jae St. Aubyn, Small Axe: Lovers Rock: Like Ward’s Franklyn (see above), St. Aubyn’s Martha oozes with confidence while at the house party that takes up the bulk of the movie’s screen time. We see glimpses of her personality crack through that poise at different times: as she sneaks out of her religious household, when she overpowers another man to save a rival from sexual assault, and when Franklyn breaks down her defenses to some amount of vulnerability. The camera in Lovers Rock has to take a lot in, but St. Aubyn’s gravity always sucks the camera back to her.

10. Orion Lee, First Cow: First Cow is a quiet movie all the way through, but its weight is altered when Lee first appears on screen. For a while, we feel the loneliness of the main character, Cookie (John Magaro, see below), and it seems as if he may float on through his life with no ambition or milestones to speak of. When Lee enters the movie, with his matter-of-fact ideas and earnest plans, everything changes; this essential shift in the movie wouldn’t work without Lee’s quiet charisma.

9. Brian Dennehy, Driveways: Dennehy has been a mainstay of the screen for 45 years, best known perhaps as the villainous sheriff in 1982’s First Blood or as the alien leader in 1985’s Cocoon. He passed away last April at the age of 81, but not before giving one of his most indelible performances in the indie family drama Driveways. He captures a lifetime in his final scene, and it may be one of the most poignant portrayals of regret I’ve ever seen.

8. Mads Mikkelsen, Another Round: (Spoilers) It seems like a throwaway detail, when Martin’s (Mikkelsen) friends give him a hard time for studying jazz ballet dancing when he was younger, just one more minor joke in the minor-key comedy of errors that is Another Round, which finds Martin and his teacher friends experimenting with day-drinking to augment their performance in all areas of life. Things predictably go wrong. But the ending of Another Round is far from predictable, as Martin breaks into an epic dance at a graduation party by the water at the harbor, providing a perfect window into this go-for-broke performance from Mikkelsen.

7. Carey Mulligan, Promising Young Woman: There was enough discourse around Mulligan’s performance as Cassie to fill a whole blog post, so I won’t even try to cover it all here, but you can read about it here and here. I will only add that I felt seen by Promising Young Woman‘s uncovering of nice guy behavior (to be clear, not because I have taken home women I thought were drunk to assault them- but the movie implies a deeper examination of the expectations for men that I have certainly benefited from), and Mulligan’s performance is why. While I often respond to vulnerability (if you’re taking a shot for every time I use that word in this piece, drink) in performances, Mulligan’s Cassie is impressive for how stripped of vulnerability she is, how Mulligan begins to layer it back on, and then how she rips it off like duct tape again at the end.

6. Sidney Flanigan, Never Rarely Sometimes Always: Everything is under the surface for Flanigan. This movie doesn’t ask a lot of Flanigan as a performer, aside from generally looking stressed while trying to navigate her way in an unfamiliar city with her cousin, with the exception of three breakthrough moments, one at a karaoke bar and the other while answering questions with a counselor at an abortion clinic. In these moments, Flanigan lets you in on the deep reservoirs of pain her character has endured and is expected to live with.

5. Amanda Seyfried, Mank: Marion Davies is dismissed several times during the runtime of Mank, by those who are using her and by those who should know her well enough to love her (Gary Oldman’s Mank, see below). Seyfried never portrays her as the victim, though; we hardly even get a glimpse at the wounds these moments have left. No, this is another performance for which the mark of quality is not vulnerability, but skilled disguise. Davies is overlooked for her talent, for her intelligence, and for her advantageous marriage to William Randolph Hearst (Charles Dance, see below), but Seyfried plays her as clearly the smartest person in the room. Mank is about Oldman’s Mank, of course, but the hero is almost certainly Seyfried’s Davies.

4. Maria Bakalova, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Some performances get called brave and courageous when they are very clearly not those things; see: any performance involving a straight performer playing a gay role. But Bakalova’s role as Borat’s daughter, Tutar, may actually qualify. It’s not just the famous scene with Rudy Giuliani in which Bakalova may have been in danger, but numerous scenes throughout the film find Bakalova in danger of ridicule, of legal action, and, yes, of bodily harm. One can question whether comedy is worth the risks she takes here. But what’s without question is that, while the film’s ostensible star, Sacha Baron Cohen, is a comedic genius, Bakalova proves herself every bit his equal.

3. Riz Ahmed, Sound of Metal: And now here is a trio of performances where the key word is indeed vulnerability (drink). Ahmed immersed himself in deaf culture for his role as Ruben, a drummer who suddenly goes deaf. The sound design helps Ahmed show how Ruben’s life is upended. But Ahmed’s potent livewire energy and his rawness in the face of redefining who he is is more than enough on its own. The other two performers in this three-person top tier were already established, but let Ahmed’s work in Sound of Metal function as a clarion call to Hollywood to make him a star.

2. Delroy Lindo, Da 5 Bloods: As I said above, Lindo is an established performer, but that’s a bit misleading as to the status of his current reputation. He has never been a star or a leading man, but he commanded sizeable roles in 1990s-2000s blockbusters like Get Shorty, Gone in 60 Seconds, and The Core after breaking out big in Spike Lee’s stable of character actors in Malcolm X, Crooklyn, and Clockers. Your everyday movie-watcher may not know him, but film nerds were well aware of his capabilities. He lifted up any movie he was in. If he was on the call sheet for something as film-by-numbers as Gone in 60 Seconds, you knew his screen time would offer something more considered.

Da 5 Bloods affords him the opportunity to do something he never had the chance to before: truly own a movie. And give or take a Chadwick Boseman (whose role as Norman just barely missed out on this list, though here’s my tribute to that performance), the movie is truly his. Lindo stars as Paul, a veteran still suffering from PTSD and one of four soldiers returning to Vietname to recover the remains of their fallen squadron commander along with some gold bars they lost the day Norman died. Lindo’s Paul is clearly carrying more baggage than the others, and the movie is his twisted journey from wounded to redeemed. Lindo’s portrayal of that journey is a titanic achievement, a trail carved through the mountains of hubris and the valleys of weakness, and it deserves to be remembered as one of the best performances of any movie ever…

1. Chadwick Boseman, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom: …and somehow it’s not even the top performance of its own year, thanks to the final live-action performance from Chadwick Boseman, whose death from colon cancer was a shock to the system last August. Here’s what I wrote about him before the Oscars in April:

Boseman’s scenes were the only parts of the movie I felt like I was soaking in, that there was something tangible in the room with me as I watched. His voice is significantly different from his normal speaking voice, higher and looser, like he’s lived all his life with marbles in his mouth. He moves like the camera can’t help but follow him, full of an energy coiled up and releasing in sharp bursts to increasingly tragic effect. Levee is caged; Boseman makes him sing.

Boseman’s role in Da 5 Bloods was the best encapsulation of who he is, but this is the most alive I’ve ever seen him in the movies. It’s his most tragic performance, in both the offscreen and onscreen narrative. But the emptiness at the end of the tragedy in Ma Rainey’s is only effective because of the fullness of Boseman’s performance. And the grief felt at his passing is tempered at least a little by knowing how full he made his life, and that he gave so much of it away.

Another Twenty (alphabetical by performer)

Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, The Trial of the Chicago 7

Ben Affleck, The Way Back

Kingsley Ben-Adir, One Night in Miami…

Hong Chau, Driveways

Charles Dance, Mank

Elizabeth Debicki, Tenet

Tom Hanks, News of the World

Aldis Hodge, One Night in Miami…

Jake Horowitz, The Vast of Night

John Magaro, First Cow

Jonathan Majors, Da 5 Bloods

Elisabeth Moss, The Invisible Man

Gary Oldman, Mank

Shaun Parkes, Small Axe: Mangrove

Robert Pattinson, Tenet

Andy Samberg, Palm Springs

Glynn Turman, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

John David Washington, Tenet

Letitia Wright, Small Axe: Mangrove

Helena Zengel, News of the World

Past Top Tens

2019

Adam Sandler, Uncut Gems
Leonardo DiCaprio, Once upon a Time… in Hollywood
Lupita Nyong’o, Us
Florence Pugh, Little Women
Adèle Haenel, Portrait of a Lady on Fire
Florence Pugh, Midsommar
Adam Driver, Marriage Story
Aisling Franciosi, The Nightingale
Willem Dafoe, The Lighthouse
Tom Hanks, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

2018

Joanna Kulig, Cold War
Sakura Andô, Shoplifters
Ethan Hawke, First Reformed
Olivia Colman, The Favourite
KiKi Layne, If Beale Street Could Talk
Laura Dern, The Tale
Lady Gaga, A Star Is Born
Rachel Weisz, The Favourite
Elsie Fisher, Eighth Grade
Regina King, If Beale Street Could Talk

2017

Sally Hawkins, The Shape of Water
Timothée Chalamet, Call Me by Your Name
Saoirse Ronan, Lady Bird
James McAvoy, Split
Meryl Streep, The Post
Nicole Kidman, The Beguiled
Daniel Kaluuya, Get Out
Zoe Kazan, The Big Sick
Colin Farrell, The Killing of a Sacred Deer
Robert Pattinson, Good Time

2016

Natalie Portman, Jackie
Mahershala Ali, Moonlight
Amy Adams, Arrival
Colin Farrell, The Lobster
Sasha Lane, American Honey
Michelle Williams, Manchester by the Sea
Emma Stone, La La Land
Andrew Garfield, Silence
Anya Taylor-Joy, The Witch
Casey Affleck, Manchester by the Sea

2015

Michael B. Jordan, Creed
Alicia Vikander, Ex Machina
Idris Elba, Beasts of No Nation
Juliette Binoche, Clouds of Sils Maria
Tom Hardy, The Revenant
Nina Hoss, Phoenix
Teyonah Parris, Chi-Raq
Brie Larson, Room
Leonardo DiCaprio, The Revenant
Maika Monroe, It Follows

The 2021 Academy Awards

I’m sticking to the structure this post usually takes. I’ll give you the nominees, who I think will win, who I think the dark horse candidate is, and who I think should have been nominated. Who I think will win is basically who I think has the highest chances to win, so I’m basing that on the odds that are out there (see the site Gold Derby) and on my own reading of what’s been reported about how movies and people have been received throughout this protracted awards season. A spoiler is another candidate that seems likely to upset the frontrunner, while the dark horse is the most likely long shot for a category that looks locked up. For the “should have been nominated” category, I’m only considering candidates that were actually in the game. So even though I’d kill to see Palm Springs nominated for Best Picture, no one was talking about that as a legitimate possibility. So I chose a more plausible movie.

The last designation for each category is my Oscar pool pick. My wife and I have an Oscar party we go to every year, and the host has a prize for whomever can guess the most winners. In the past, I’ve tried to be as accurate as possible. But this year, I want to pick things I want to root for. I’m not going to go crazy; I still won’t pick Sound of Metal to win Best Picture, because the odds aren’t good enough. But Sound of Metal is still in the running for Film Editing, so I’ll happily pick that in my Oscar pool, even though I think someone else will win. I’m basically picking who I want to win that has a chance to win. I’d rather root for Sound of Metal then just pick Chicago 7 because it’s the safest bet. So Chicago 7 gets the “Will win” designation, but “My Oscar pool pick” is Promising Young Woman.

You may notice the order is a little nontraditional as well. I ordered everything by relevance and competition. Obviously Best Picture is the most anticipated award, so it’s at the top, but while Directing might seem appropriate to go next, that category looks like it’s pretty locked up. But Adapted Screenplay and Actress are more up in the air and therefore more interesting to me.

An asterisk indicates a movie I haven’t seen.

Best Picture

The Father*
Judas and the Black Messiah
Mank
Minari*
Nomadland
Promising Young Woman
Sound of Metal
The Trial of the Chicago 7

Will win: Nomadland

Dark horse: The Trial of the Chicago 7

My Oscar pool pick: Nomadland

Should have been nominated: Da 5 Bloods

Anytime an historic step forward takes place, we fool ourselves into thinking we’ve arrived somewhere. Moonlight wins Best Picture for 2016, and we think the industry is ready to embrace new kinds of storytelling as the new standard. Then Green Book wins two years later, and we think the Academy is mired in its old ways of perceiving the world. Then last year, Parasite wins, and the pendulum swings back in a positive direction – until this year, when an old-fashioned movie like The Trial of the Chicago 7 is legitimately in line to win over much better, more interesting movies that have more to say about the world.

Of course, Chicago 7 isn’t favored, so this narrative may not hold. The favored movie, Nomadland, is the epitome of the kind of movie cinephiles long to be represented at the Academy Awards: thoughtful, considered, made by a woman of color with a perspective, centering overlooked people. It’s kind of the Platonic ideal of a Best Picture for people who follow these things. If it wins, it will feel right, if not exciting, since it’s been the predicted winner for what feels like years now, given the extended qualification period and the ceremony being pushed back two months.

But recent history suggests the oddsmakers don’t know as much as they think they do. The last time the favored movie won was Birdman six years ago! Every Best Picture movie since then has been the underdog, so you’ll forgive me if I’m a little worried about the narrative turn things may take if Chicago 7 (a fine movie) wins.

But Nomadland won at the Directors Guild (DGA), the Producers Guild (PGA), the British Academy Film Awards (BAFTAs), the Critics’ Choice Awards, and the flailing Golden Globes. The only predictive awards it didn’t win were the ones it wasn’t qualified for, the Writers Guild (writer-director Chloé Zhao was not in the WGA when she wrote the script) and the Screen Actors Guild (too many of the performers in Nomadland are non-professional). All signs point to a Nomadland win, which I will be happy about and simultaneously concerned about. Few movies benefit in the near term from winning Best Picture; it inevitably overhypes them, and Nomadland is a truly unique movie that deserves to be seen without hype.

A movie I wish had gotten a little bit more hype is Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods, which was shut out of every category but one. I’ll do my best to rectify that in this post; it’ll come up a lot below. For now, I’ll say it was one of the most dynamic movie experiences I had in 2020, and deserved a place among these nominees, which is more than you can say for at least one of the movies that made it.

Actress in a Leading Role

Viola Davis, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
Andra Day, The United States vs. Billie Holiday
Vanessa Kirby, Pieces of a Woman
Frances McDormand, Nomadland
Carey Mulligan, Promising Young Woman

Will win: Carey Mulligan, Promising Young Woman

Spoiler: Viola Davis, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

My Oscar pool pick: Carey Mulligan, Promising Young Woman

This is the most wide open race of the year with four legitimate candidates. It’s honestly a little strange that Mulligan is the frontrunner here, given the other three (Kirby is the only one without a real chance to win, though her performance in that movie is pretty great) have already won big precursors. Davis won the SAG, McDormand won the BAFTA, and Day won the Globe.

I’m worried people are basing Mulligan’s frontrunner status on anecdotal evidence, because that’s all they have to go on here. I believe in that performance though; it requires a huge range from her, and the movie is basically held together by Krazy Glue and her ability to make you root for her even while she does awful things. And by the end of the movie, you realize she’s been walking a tighter rope than you even realized.

I wouldn’t be upset if Davis won either. She’d be only the second Black actress ever to win, which is one of those historical statistics that is a slap in the face. And her performance is pretty transformative, with Davis occupying a different liminal space than she usually does. Rather than the desperation and resignation she’s put on display in previous career bests Fences and The Help, her turn as Ma Rainey exudes confidence and blunt assertiveness. But Davis already has a Supporting Actress Oscar, so I think it’s an uphill climb for her.

McDormand similarly has already won two Oscars, so giving her a third for a more understated peformance may be a bridge too far in the minds of the voters. And Day, a newcomer, is in a movie that received no other nominations and has been widely panned. I think the support for Promising Young Woman overall, given its inclusion in the Best Picture category, will tip Mulligan over the line for the win.

Writing (Adapted Screenplay)

Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, Sacha Baron Cohen, Peter Baynham, Jena Friedman, Anthony Hines, Lee Kern, Dan Mazer, Nina Pedrad, Erica Rivinoja & Dan Swimer
The Father, Christopher Hampton & Florian Zeller*
Nomadland, Chloé Zhao
One Night in Miami…, Kemp Powers
The White Tiger, Ramin Bahrani

Will win: Nomadland, Chloé Zhao

Dark horse: The Father, Christopher Hampton & Florian Zeller*

My Oscar pool pick: Nomadland, Chloé Zhao

Should have been nominated: First Cow, Jonathan Raymond & Kelly Reichardt

This is a tight race between Nomadland and The Father. The Father is a British movie that is seeing a lot of late support, which makes sense given its late February release. Academy voters may want it to win something and see this as a more viable path to give it an award, especially more so than in the Lead Actor category, which is a little thornier for reasons I’ll get into below. In any case, Nomadland has real competition here.

Overall this is a really interesting category given the inclusion of Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, a screenplay that has a more improvisatory inception than the others here, and The White Tiger, an under-the-radar Netflix movie that broke into this category late as a surprise. But I would have taken out the just-fine screenplay for One Night in Miami… and replaced it with revelatory story of First Cow. It’s a simple story, but the way it slowly opens itself up to you is fascinating and daring.

Writing (Original Screenplay)

Judas and the Black Messiah, Will Berson, Shaka King, Keith Lucas & Kenny Lucas
Minari, Lee Isaac Chung*
Promising Young Woman, Emerald Fennell
Sound of Metal, Derek Cianfrance, Abraham Marder & Darius Marder
The Trial of the Chicago 7, Aaron Sorkin

Will win: Promising Young Woman, Emerald Fennell

Dark horse: The Trial of the Chicago 7, Aaron Sorkin

My Oscar pool pick: Promising Young Woman, Emerald Fennell

Should have been nominated: Mank, Jack Fincher

Promising Young Woman should not have worked. It should not have been possible to make a darkly comic movie about sexual assault that plays with our expectations for romantic comedies and our expectations for cinematic morality. It’s a testament to the writing skill of writer-director Fennell that it does work so well, even as the movie’s ending has been thinkpieced and podcasted to death. I think it’s a pretty brilliant act of defiant acrobatics, and I’m hopeful it will be awarded here.

Sorkin is so beloved in the industry though, that he could sneak by the up-and-coming Fennell. I certainly came out of Chicago 7 with the sense that the screenplay wasn’t the source of the movie’s problems, but I also would prefer it not be awarded over more deserving fare. If old-fashioned stories are what the Academy wants, why didn’t they include Mank, a much more nuanced look at social issues that still ticks a lot of old Hollywood boxes? That would have made for a more interesting and complete group of nominees.

Actor in a Leading Role

Riz Ahmed, Sound of Metal
Chadwick Boseman, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
Anthony Hopkins, The Father*
Gary Oldman, Mank
Steven Yeun, Minari*

Will win: Chadwick Boseman, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

Dark horse: Anthony Hopkins, The Father*

My Oscar pool pick: Chadwick Boseman, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

Should have been nominated: Delroy Lindo, Da 5 Bloods

I’ve already written extensively on Boseman’s performance in Ma Rainey’s, but suffice it to say that this award should go to him. There’s been rumblings that a fair amount of Academy voters are pushing for Hopkins, because it feels like career best work. I can’t compare the two performances, because I haven’t seen The Father, but Hopkins already has an Oscar (for 1991’s Silence of the Lambs), and it genuinely seems like people want to reward Boseman for his life’s work. Even the perceived peer pressure to give him a posthumous Oscar should be enough to send this award to Boseman. I don’t even want to think about what the general social feeling will be if they don’t give it to him.

As sure as I am that Boseman should win this award, I’m even more sure that Lindo should have been nominated for it. When Da 5 Bloods dropped on Netflix last summer, nearly everyone who saw it came away convinced that Lindo’s performance was the one unimpeachable thing in the film. His portrayal of a PTSD-inflicted Vietnam war veteran who is angry at everything in his life, including himself, is the emotional core of the movie, and Lindo’s gravitas and presence are undeniable.

Directing

Lee Isaac Chung, Minari*
Emerald Fennell, Promising Young Woman
David Fincher, Mank
Thomas Vinterberg, Another Round
Chloé Zhao, Nomadland

Will win: Chloé Zhao, Nomadland

Dark horse: Lee Isaac Chung, Minari

My Oscar pool pick: Chloé Zhao, Nomadland

Should have been nominated: Spike Lee, Da 5 Bloods

This is the biggest lock of the biggest awards. Zhao has won every precursor to the Academy Awards and should end the evening as the second woman to ever win the Directing Oscar. That’s awesome.

Minari was getting buzz after the nominations as a legitimate dark horse candidate in Best Picture, but that conversation has cooled as Nomadland has cleaned up everywhere else. This award is more likely for Minari than Picture, but don’t hold your breath.

Don’t hold your breath for Spike Lee to ever be properly acknowledge by the Academy either. The man has had one of the most indelible directing careers in Hollywood, and all he has is one Directing nomination to show for it, for 2018’s BlacKkKlansman. We’re watching in real time the Academy drop the ball with a director the way they did with Hitchcock and Kubrick.

Cinematography

Judas and the Black Messiah, Sean Bobbitt
Mank, Erik Messerschmidt
News of the World, Dariusz Wolski*
Nomadland, Joshua James Richards
The Trial of the Chicago 7, Phedon Papamichael

Will win: Nomadland, Joshua James Richards

Dark horse: Mank, Erik Messerschmidt

My Oscar pool pick: Nomadland, Joshua James Richards

Should have been nominated: Tenet, Hoyte van Hoytema

This next block of awards (the Secondary Six, as no one but me calls them) are almost all chalk. Richards should have this one on lockdown for Nomadland‘s beautifully photographed American vistas, though if anyone can pull the upset it’s Messerschmidt for Mank‘s black-and-white homages to Hollywood’s “Golden Age.” I will again hate on Chicago 7 by saying it should have been replaced in this category by van Hoytema’s unforgettable industrial work on Tenet.

Actress in a Supporting Role

Maria Bakalova, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm
Glenn Close, Hillbilly Elegy
Olivia Colman, The Father*
Amanda Seyfried, Mank
Yuh-Jung Youn, Minari*

Will win: Yuh-Jung Youn, Minari*

Dark horse: Maria Bakalova, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm

My Oscar pool pick: Maria Bakalova, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm

Should have been nominated: Elizabeth Debicki, Tenet

How cool is it that Yuh-Jung Youn is likely to become the first ever Korean Acting Oscar winner a year after the Parasite win? She’s a long-respected actress in her home country, and while I haven’t seen her movie just yet, I love the idea of her winning. But I have to root for the only other contender in this category, Borat‘s Bakalova, who stole her debut movie from Sacha Baron Cohen in a big way.

Documentary Feature

Collective
Crip Camp
The Mole Agent*
My Octopus Teacher*
Time

Will win: My Octopus Teacher*

Dark horse: Time

My Oscar pool pick: Time

I cannot fathom why Netflix’s My Octopus Teacher, a movie about a man becoming…friends (?) with an octopus, is favored to win this award. I’m told that it makes people feel good, which is fine. But so do Crip Camp and Time, so that can’t be the only reason? I don’t know, y’all. Time is one of the more incredible movies I’ve ever seen, for its very specific perspective on a family dealing with the prison industrial complex and for the unconventional way the movie is structured that makes the ending so worth it. Everyone see Time. I’m rooting for an upset.

Animated Feature

Onward*
Over the Moon*
A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon
Soul
Wolfwalkers

Will win: Soul

Dark horse: Wolfwalkers

My Oscar pool pick: Wolfwalkers

I love Soul, probably more than a lot of people I know. It spoke to my desires to be exceptional in a personal way most movies don’t know how. And it will probably win. But it came out in the same year as Wolfwalkers, which is a more conventional story and yet spoke to me in the same way that Soul did, but on a deeper level. So I have to root for Wolfwalkers here, even though it has almost no shot. But when it comes to the Oscars I’m starting to embrace happiness more than being right.

International Feature Film

Another Round, Denmark
Better Days, Hong Kong*
Collective, Romania
The Man Who Sold His Skin, Tunisia*
Quo Vadis, Aida?, Bosnia and Herzegovina*

Will win: Another Round, Denmark

Dark horse: Quo Vadis, Aida?, Bosnia and Herzegovina*

My Oscar pool pick: Another Round, Denmark

Another Round is one of my favorite movies from this Oscar year, a dark but fun look at four men who try to augment their lives with alcohol. It goes exactly the way you expect, but there are still twists and turns to the narrative that are by turns devastating and delightful. Its biggest competition is a drama about the Bosnian War that is getting rave reviews late in the cycle. Maybe if it had been released earlier, more people would have seen it and placed it above Another Round. As it is, Another Round has got this in the bag.

Actor in a Supporting Role

Sacha Baron Cohen, The Trial of the Chicago 7
Daniel Kaluuya, Judas and the Black Messiah
Leslie Odom, Jr., One Night in Miami…
Paul Raci, Sound of Metal
LaKeith Stanfield, Judas and the Black Messiah

Will win: Daniel Kaluuya, Judas and the Black Messiah

Dark horse: Sacha Baron Cohen, The Trial of the Chicago 7

My Oscar pool pick: Daniel Kaluuya, Judas and the Black Messiah

Should have been nominated: Chadwick Boseman, Da 5 Bloods

I am so pumped for Kaluuya to win this award. It was hard with a movie like Get Out, where Kaluuya is stupendous but in more of a passive role, to know how much of a breakout his performance would be. Judas and the Black Messiah shows us his full range in a complete performance that I couldn’t stop thinking about after the movie was over.

Film Editing

The Father, Yorgos Lamprimos*
Nomadland, Chloé Zhao
Promising Young Woman, Frédéric Thoraval
Sound of Metal, Mikkel E.G. Nielsen
The Trial of the Chicago 7, Alan Baumgarten

Will win: The Trial of the Chicago 7, Alan Baumgarten

Spoiler: Sound of Metal, Mikkel E.G. Nielsen

My Oscar pool pick: Sound of Metal, Mikkel E.G. Nielsen

Should have been nominated: Tenet, Jennifer Lame

This award is going to be just like when Bohemian Rhapsody won it in 2019: Film Twitter will immediately have a field day with how bad the editing is in The Trial of the Chicago 7. Now, Film Twitter is about as important to the discourse around the movie industry as I am, but the thing is that they’re right – Chicago 7 is a pretty horribly edited movie. Its disparate parts do not feel like a cohesive movie, and the movie doesn’t crescendo into its ending enough to earn it.

I promise this is the last time I’ll trash Chicago 7.

Original Song

“Fight for You” by H.E.R., D’Mile & Tiara Thomas from Judas and the Black Messiah
“Hear My Voice” by Celeste & Daniel Pemberton from The Trial of the Chicago 7
“Husavik” by Rickard Göransson, Fat Max Gsus & Savan Kotecha from Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga*
“Io sì (Seen)” by Laura Pausini & Diane Warren from The Life Ahead
“Speak Now” by Leslie Odom Jr. & Sam Ashworth from One Night in Miami…

Will win: “Speak Now” by Leslie Odom Jr. & Sam Ashworth from One Night in Miami…

Dark horse: “Io sì (Seen)” by Laura Pausini & Diane Warren from The Life Ahead

My Oscar pool pick: “Speak Now” by Leslie Odom Jr. & Sam Ashworth from One Night in Miami…

Should have been nominated: “Wuhan Flu” by Sacha Baron Cohen, Anthony Hines & Erran Baron Cohen from Borat Subsequent Moviefilm

This category is silly. “Speak Now” is fine. “Io sì (Seen)” may jump ahead of it due to a desire to see Diane Warren finally win an Oscar after 11 previous nominations. That would be kind of cool. It would also be cool for Leslie Odom Jr. to have an Oscar. I’m good either way.

Visual Effects

Love and Monsters, Matt Sloan, Genevieve Camilleri, Matt Everitt & Brian Cox*
The Midnight Sky, Matthew Kasmir, Christopher Lawrence, Max Solomon & David Watkins*
Mulan, Sean Faden, Anders Langlands, Seth Maury & Steve Ingram
The One and Only Ivan, Nick Davis, Greg Fisher, Ben Jones & Santiago Colomo Martinez*
Tenet, Andrew Jackson, David Lee, Andrew Lockley & Scott Fisher

Will win: Tenet, Andrew Jackson, David Lee, Andrew Lockley & Scott Fisher

Dark horse: The Midnight Sky, Matthew Kasmir, Christopher Lawrence, Max Solomon & David Watkins

My Oscar pool pick: Tenet, Andrew Jackson, David Lee, Andrew Lockley & Scott Fisher

Tenet disappointed on nomination day by only getting two of its four expected nominations. It’s widely thought that its poor showing is due to Warner Bros. not campaigning for the movie as a result of its rift with director Christopher Nolan after the HBO Max announcement of day-and-date streaming releases for its movies. But it’s also possible people just didn’t like it. If Midnight Sky wins, that’s probably why.

Costume Design

Emma., Alexandra Byrne*
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Ann Roth
Mank, Trish Summerville
Mulan, Bina Daigeler
Pinocchio, Massimo Cantini Parrini*

Will win: Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Ann Roth

Dark horse: Emma., Alexandra Byrne*

My Oscar pool pick: Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Ann Roth

Should have been nominated: Promising Young Woman, Nancy Steiner

Ma Rainey’s looks to have this one and the next locked up. A little strange that Promising Young Woman didn’t get in here, given that its costuming is so central to the plot and the unique aesthetic director Emerald Fennell cultivated.

Makeup and Hairstyling

Emma., Marese Langan, Laura Allen & Claudia Stolze*
Hillbilly Elegy, Eryn Krueger Mekash, Patricia Dehaney & Matthew Mungle
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Sergio Lopez-Rivera, Mia Neal & Jamika Wilson
Mank, Gigi Williams, Kimberley Spiteri & Colleen LaBaff
Pinocchio, Dalia Colli, Mark Coulier & Francesco Pegoretti*

Will win: Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Sergio Lopez-Rivera, Mia Neal, & Jamika Wilson

Dark horse: Hillbilly Elegy, Eryn Krueger Mekash, Patricia Dehaney, & Matthew Mungle

My Oscar pool pick: Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Sergio Lopez-Rivera, Mia Neal, & Jamika Wilson

If Hillbilly Elegy wins this or any other Oscar tonight, I swear I’ll boycott the Oscars for the next 10 months. I mean it!

Production Design

The Father, Peter Francis & Cathy Featherstone
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Mark Ricker, Karen O’Hara & Diana Stoughton
Mank, Donald Graham Burt & Jan Pascale
News of the World, David Crank & Elizabeth Keenan*
Tenet, Nathan Crowley & Kathy Lucas

Will win: Mank, Donald Graham Burt & Jan Pascale

Dark horse: Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Mark Ricker, Karen O’Hara & Diana Stoughton

My Oscar pool pick: Mank, Donald Graham Burt & Jan Pascale

This will likely be Mank‘s one win out of ten nominations. Better than Netflix’s big Oscar movie from last year did – The Irishman won zero out of ten.

Original Score

Da 5 Bloods, Terence Blanchard
Mank, Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross
Minari, Emile Mosseri*
News of the World, James Newton Howard*
Soul, Jon Batiste, Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross

Will win: Soul, Jon Batiste, Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross

Dark horse: Mank, Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross

My Oscar pool pick: Soul, Jon Batiste, Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross

Should have been nominated: Tenet, Ludwig Göransson

The Soul score is truly great, a well-balanced mix between Reznor’s and Ross’s electronic whimsy and Batiste’s jazz wonderscapes. Tenet, however, is an all-time great score from a composer that is building up quite the filmography, from the fantastical worlds of Black Panther and The Mandalorian to Tenet‘s industrial thrill ride.

Sound

Greyhound, Warren Shaw, Michael Minkler, Beau Borders & David Wyman*
Mank, Ren Klyce, Jeremy Molod, David Parker, Nathan Nance & Drew Kunin
News of the World, Oliver Tarney, Mike Prestwood Smith, William Miller & John Pritchett*
Soul, Ren Klyce, Coya Elliott & David Parker
Sound of Metal, Nicholas Becker, Jaime Baksht, Michelle Coutollenc, Carlos Cortes & Philip Bladh

Will win: Sound of Metal, Nicholas Becker, Jaime Baksht, Michelle Coutollenc, Carlos Cortes & Philip Bladh

Dark horse: Soul, Ren Klyce, Coya Elliott & David Parker

My Oscar pool pick: Sound of Metal, Nicholas Becker, Jaime Baksht, Michelle Coutollenc, Carlos Cortes & Philip Bladh

Should have been nominated: Da 5 Bloods, Philip Stockton et al.

The lockiest of locked locks. Lock it up.

The Frontrunner for Best Actor: Chadwick Boseman in MA RAINEY’S BLACK BOTTOM

Chadwick Boseman’s death was one of the worst things in the awful year that was 2020. Calling 2020 a terrible year is almost a meme at this point, but Boseman’s passing inspired very real grief from all kinds of people. He was too young, he was too talented, and he was too good. A person like that, who occupies a larger than life space in the culture while by all accounts cultivating his integrity, leaves a palpable feeling of emptiness upon his departure.

I’m under no illusion that the Oscars can hold a candle to the immense weight of Boseman’s legacy. Had he never been nominated, Chadwick Boseman would still go down as one of the greatest movie stars and performers of his generation, if not all time given the significance of each of the roles and films in his limited filmography. But one of the reasons the Academy Awards persist in relevance even as people continue to doubt their relevance is that when they get it right, it feels like history is being marked and like justice is being served. That’s what it will feel like if Boseman wins on April 25th.

He is currently the odds-on frontrunner, but not a lock, though I think it would shock every awards pundit out there if someone else took it. If Boseman does win, it will be tempting for purists to see it more as a lifetime achievement award rather than recognition for the best performance of the year. I don’t have a problem with awards being given out for narrative reasons, unless that means something truly deserving is being neglected. But there’s a case that Boseman’s performance is not only the best of the year but the best of his life.

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom suffers from the same ailment that many movies like it suffer from: its words, from master playwright August Wilson, were clearly written for the stage and not for the screen. This was the same problem I had with the other Wilson adaptation from producer Denzel Washington, 2016’s Fences. The scripts of plays are designed to be lived with and breathed in, where everyone is in the same room, and it changes the power of the story when you place those words on a screen.

That might sound woo-woo, but I’m not sure how else to explain the strange remove I felt from the events in this story. I can only assume that a theater experience would have had a more powerful effect. Or it could be the Netflix of it all- perhaps watching this movie in a movie theater with an audience would have had the same effect as seeing it as a play. At any rate, I was very conscious the whole time that I was watching a movie, dragging me along to its inevitable ending. I’d rather not be dragged.

There are revelatory things within Ma Rainey’s even if the movie itself falls short of revelatory. The performances across the board are worth the price of admission. The headliners, Boseman as Levee and Viola Davis as Rainey, are being recognized across multiple awards bodies for a reason, but the supporting cast deserves mention as well, particularly Colman Domingo as the band leader, Cutler, and Glyn Turman as the group’s ornery pianist.

But the reason beyond all others to watch Ma Rainey’s is Boseman’s livewire protagonist. Boseman never did anything like this onscreen before. His cinematic presence was defined by larger than life figures that commanded respect across generations, whether biographical or fictional: Jackie Robinson, Thurgood Marshall, King T’Challa. The only one that came close  was James Brown, a performance that was full of a sexual energy Boseman denied his other characters. The difference in Levee is one of stature. James Brown was still a titan; the only thing titanic about Levee is his ultimate downfall.

Boseman’s scenes were the only parts of the movie I felt like I was soaking in, that there was something tangible in the room with me as I watched. His voice is significantly different from his normal speaking voice, higher and looser, like he’s lived all his life with marbles in his mouth. He moves like the camera can’t help but follow him, full of an energy coiled up and releasing in sharp bursts to increasingly tragic effect. Levee is caged; Boseman makes him sing.

Boseman’s role in Da 5 Bloods was the best encapsulation of who he is, but this is the most alive I’ve ever seen him in the movies. It’s his most tragic performance, in both the offscreen and onscreen narrative. But the emptiness at the end of the tragedy in Ma Rainey’s is only effective because of the fullness of Boseman’s performance. And the grief felt at his passing is tempered at least a little by knowing how full he made his life, and that he gave so much of it away.

WIDOWS Is a Success in Every Way but the Box Office

A heist movie doesn’t have to be interesting beyond the heist. The great heist movies usually double down on their entertainment value. Ocean’s Eleven, probably the most recognizable of the genre, goes all in on the wit and charm of its cast and its screenplay. Heat, maybe the most technically proficient heist film, reveals its hand from the very beginning, relying on the gravitas of its star power (Al Pacino and Robert De Niro face off! Fireworks ensue!). And other movies, like A Fish Called Wanda, fold, giving the heist plot over to the cast’s high jinks.

Widows, on the other hand, is impeccably written and takes itself very seriously. Director Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave) makes the case that a thrilling heist film can double as social commentary and deliver an actual emotional payoff for its characters. The movie lacks the lightness common to other movies in this genre, but McQueen makes up for it with a deftness of touches throughout the movie. There’s dark subject matter here, but he uses several cinematic flourishes to keep you on the edge of your seat rather than off it walking out of the theater.

Viola Davis stars as Veronica, the widow of the leader of a gang of thieves (Liam Neeson), who wants the wives of the rest of the gang (also killed in the same police incident that killed Veronica’s husband, Harry) to carry out the next heist Harry had planned to pay off the last person Harry stole from. Michelle Rodriguez and Elizabeth Debicki are two of the other widows, each of them wanting the money from the heist so they can make their own way in the world after their husband’s deaths. Brian Tyree Henry also stars as Jamal Manning, an ambitious Chicago politician who lost $2 million in Harry’s botched last heist. He and his brother (a chilling Daniel Kaluuya) threaten Veronica if she is unable to get them the money paid back.

Colin Farrell also plays a role as Jamal’s sleazy opponent in an upcoming alderman election, Jack Mulligan, standing for the privileged white sector of Chicago politics that wants to keep power while actually representing a ward populated by black neighborhoods. There’s a much-celebrated long take in which Mulligan gets in a car after leading a poorly attended event in a black neighborhood and the camera follows the car from a poor area of town to Jack’s obviously wealthy neighborhood, clearly portraying the thin divide between the two versions of Chicago. The movie has more on its mind than just a heist, also dealing directly with the effects of police brutality and the brutal lengths to which women have to go to succeed in a man’s world.

Widows works on nearly every level. I was taken out of the movie a bit by Farrell’s shaky Chicago accent, but everything else landed for me, including a twist in the middle of the movie that changes the entire tenor of Veronica’s quest for some semblance of justice. It also worked for critics; Widows has a high score of 84 on Metacritic (a better aggregation of critic opinions than Rotten Tomatoes), and most of the critics I’ve read felt about the same as I did. Awards pundits were predicting Viola Davis would compete for Best Actress this awards season and that maybe the movie itself might land some big nominations as well, if it was even a little bit commercially successful.

Well, it wasn’t. Audiences aren’t going to see Widows, and the audiences that are going to see Widows aren’t raving about it. You can usually look to marketing as the culprit in a case like this; audiences aren’t enticed by the trailer or the movie they see isn’t the one that was advertised to them. But that’s not the case for Widows. The trailer is a pretty good indication of the kind of movie you’re going to get: not quite an action movie and not quite a straight drama. I’m not sure what angle would have gotten more eyeballs on the screen; maybe the trailers could have played up the political subplot in an election year?

It’s really a shame, because Widows is one of the smartest studio movies of the year. Given that its studio, Twentieth Century Fox, guided The Hate U Give (a similarly thrilling, socially aware film) to a successful run, you’d think they could have done better by Widows. But some movies are destined to go under the radar and then rise to the top over time. That’s what Widows feels like to me: it’s got the makings of a slow-burn, cult favorite. Eventually, it’s going to be on listicles of the best heist movies next to Ocean’s Eleven and Heat. It deserves that company.

Retro Bummys: Best Performances of 2008

It’s not hard to look back ten years and realize the legacy that 2008’s performances left. It begins and ends with Heath Ledger, of course. Beyond him, though, I found myself preferring a lot of supporting performances to lead performances. The supporting roles provided far more opportunities for interesting work, and those performances have resonated more ten years later.

The Oscars and I generally agreed this year. Twelve performances that were nominated and/or won are represented here. However, one performance you will not see is Kate Winslet’s Best Actress-winning role from The Reader. The Oscar love that movie received is a direct result of Harvey Weinstein, and it was the last time he exerted an outsized influence on the Academy’s proceedings.

2008 was the first year of my life that I became serious about watching a lot of the movies released that year, so it was the first year that I could really have an informed opinion about at the time. As a result, a lot of these movies have existed in my mind as long as they’ve existed, and their legacy is a little more ingrained in my head than movies from previous years. Looking back at these movies was like remembering why I fell in love with movies in the first place.

The links are to clips from the performance. There’s probably some profanity in there.

Top Ten

10. Anne Hathaway, Rachel Getting Married: It’s a trope in the film industry for a performer we met as a teenager to take on a more adult role so that we will take them more seriously. Hathaway had a supporting role in Brokeback Mountain, but the most serious part she had played as the star was The Devil Wears Prada, which isn’t exactly a “serious adult role.” Rachel Getting Married gave Hathaway this, but it’s not just a play at respectability. This was the first time we saw Hathaway portraying a real human being. I’m glad she won her Oscar for Les Miserables, but this is her best performance yet.

9. Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler: Poor Rourke; after years in the woods, he comes out with the best performance of his lifetime only to lose the Oscar to fellow Brat Pack-adjacent ’80s star Sean Penn, whom Rourke apparently hates. Anyway, Rourke’s work in The Wrestler takes place in rarefied air. It’s the kind of performance that only Rourke could give and that he could never give again. It’s a role perfectly suited to him, a weathered, down-on-his-luck outcast who figures out what his purpose is, even if it doesn’t really set him free. Roles like that are once in a lifetime, and he makes it count.

8. Kate Winslet, Revolutionary Road: It’s truly a shame that Winslet won her Oscar for The Reader, which is boring and features her fine performance of a boring role. Revolutionary Road is overwrought from the beginning, but it’s one of Winslet’s best performances. Her April is far stronger than DiCaprio’s Frank, but bound to the same societal norms that drive them both insane. As a portrait of a marriage, Revolutionary Road is limited. As a portrait of a woman, Winslet’s performance is everything.

7. Robert Downey Jr., Tropic Thunder: There’s understandably a lot of controversy surrounding this role, given it’s basically blackface. The whole concept of this blackface is that it’s sending up the lengths Hollywood actors go to win awards recognition, but I understand if it smells too much of white privilege for some people. Regardless, Downey Jr. is completely committed to this performance, and he’s wonderful. This was the same year he returned to prominence in Iron Man, which should have been enough. But in Tropic Thunder, he reaches the bombastic heights that only he is charismatic enough for.

6. Michelle Williams, Wendy and Lucy: The Oscars are known for rewarding heartfelt performances more along the lines of Kate Winslet’s in Revolutionary Road, in which the words are doing a lot of the heavy lifting and the actor’s emoting is just this side of necessary. They’re less likely to recognize a performance like Williams’s in Wendy and Lucy in which the emotions involved are less obvious and require a quieter approach. Williams has had her share of Oscar love (four nominations and counting, the most recent for 2016’s Manchester by the Sea), but the Academy completely overlooked this performance. It’s cruelly poetic, really: Wendy exists on the fringe of society, the kind of life it’s only too easy to overlook. If the Academy had looked a little closer, they would have seen a whole movie in Michelle Williams’s eyes alone.

5. Benicio Del Toro, Che: Part One and Che: Part Two: Both parts of Che are fascinating movies, if a little too obtuse to be great. Regardless, it’s clear from the beginning that Che Guevara is the part that Del Toro was born to play (it’s either that or The Collector, I’m not sure). Del Toro doesn’t actually look much like Guevara, but he captures his ability to code switch between the elites of the world and the people of Cuba. Playing a chameleon is nearly impossible. Del Toro makes it look revolutionary.

4. Brad Pitt, Burn After Reading: It was so hard to choose a scene from Pitt’s performance in this movie for the link. There are so many little things he does from start to finish that his character, Chad, as ridiculous as he is, feels nothing like the Brad Pitt we know. I like Serious Brad Pitt just fine, but Serious Brad Pitt is rarely given the screenplay to show off the full range of his nuance. If I was Brad Pitt’s agent, I’d kidnap the Coen brothers and have them write movies just for him. In fact, that sounds like a good premise for a Coen Brothers film- starring Brad Pitt.

3. Viola Davis, Doubt: Holding your own against Meryl Streep is no small thing. Doing it for eight straight minutes and stealing the scene is another thing altogether. Before this movie, Davis was a supporting character in movies and TV shows. After this movie, even though she’s only onscreen for the one 8-minute scene, Davis became a star, an Emmy-winner, an Oscar-winner, a history-maker. That should tell you all you need to know about how good that scene is, and Davis deserves her place near the top of this list.

2. Sean Penn, Milk: When you look at the two Oscars that Penn won in the 2000s, the disparity between the two roles’ dispositions is stark. In Mystic River, Penn is the embodiment of stereotypical hypermasculinity, grieving for his daughter, burning for revenge. In Milk, Penn is a proud queen, a gay man who inspires, a generally jovial gentleman. Anytime I see Penn give an interview, I’m floored that he is the same man whose smile changes hearts in Milk. Harvey Milk’s story resonates because of its specificity to its time and place, and Penn nails the specifics of both.

1. Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight: You can’t separate this performance from Heath Ledger’s death. This isn’t because the performance caused the death, contrary to the rampant, irresponsible speculation that occurred in the media and the business in the months between Ledger’s passing and the movie’s release. By all accounts, Ledger was a joy to be around on the sets of The Dark Knight and The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, the movie he was making when he died. He reported struggling with anxiety and insomnia, but never cited the Joker’s “darkness” or anything like that as their origin.

No, you can’t separate his performance from his death, because we knew he had died when we saw the movie. We haven’t ever seen this movie in a world in which Ledger had not passed. I had forgotten how much mourning his death was a part of the movie’s promotion- not in an icky way, as if his death were a marketing tool, but because, like all deaths, it was an inescapable fact. The cast and filmmakers had to talk about it in interviews, and that’s the light in which we have always seen the movie.

What all the talk about the darkness of the Joker seems to neglect is that Ledger’s performance is so fun. There are so many little things that he does, even beyond the storied lip-licking: the range of his voice from a deep bellow to high-pitched giddiness, little glances mid-sentence that show he’s thinking about other things while reciting his anarchic speeches, the genuine confusion on his face when his social experiment doesn’t go as planned.

There was talk around the movie’s release around the idea that The Dark Knight‘s Joker had to go a complete different direction than Jack Nicholson’s Joker from Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman. But Jack Nicholson’s Joker is just Jack Nicholson being Jack Nicholson. It’s iconic because it fits him so perfectly, like a glove, filled with acid. Ledger becomes an entirely different person. He would be unrecognizable even if he weren’t wearing the makeup. We had never seen Ledger do anything like this before.

I don’t buy the idea that a superhero movie is defined by its villain. We don’t call them supervillain movies, after all. The Dark Knight has plenty of worthy non-Joker aspects: the breathtaking action scenes, the love triangle, some great Gary Oldman work. But truth be told, Ledger elevates this movie past a well-made superhero movie and into greatness. So not all superhero movies are defined by their villains, but this one is.

Another Fifteen (alphabetically)

François Bégaudeau, The Class: The naturalism of the amateur performances from the teenagers in this French Oscar-winner is built on the foundation of Bégadeau’s inner conflict.

 

Cate Blanchett, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: Brad Pitt is the star of this underrated David Fincher Best Picture nominee, but Blanchett’s radiance holds the central romance together.

 

Penélope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona: Cruz won an Oscar for this performance, which she probably deserved for better movies, but her fiery Cristina throws everyone’s balance off whack.

 

Rosemarie DeWitt, Rachel Getting Married: Playing the straight-laced sister could have been a thankless role, but DeWitt shines with a bride’s love and a hint of darkness.

 

Leonardo DiCaprio, Revolutionary Road: DiCaprio is always great, but he’s the perfect partner for a spiral into despair with Winslet.

 

Colin Farrell, In Bruges: We didn’t know Farrell could be funny before this offbeat comedy, and he’s never been this funny since.

 

Brendan Gleeson, In Bruges: Ditto for Gleeson, who should always be allowed to be this interesting on screen.

 

 

 

Isamar Gonzales, Chop Shop: There were a lot of great indie performances in 2008, but Gonzales’s is among the best amateur performances I’ve ever seen, and by a child actor no less.

 

Sally Hawkins, Happy-Go-Lucky: Nine years before The Shape of Water, Hawkins broke out as a shining beacon of grace who is much more than just a cock-eyed optimist.

 

Philip Seymour Hoffman, Doubt: The movie doesn’t work without Hoffman’s tightrope-walk between sinner and saint.

 

 

Richard Jenkins, The Visitor: Like Hawkins, 2008 was Jenkins’s breakout year, garnering him a much-deserved Oscar nomination for this underseen indie gem.

 

Lina Leandersson, Let the Right One In: Children’s performances are difficult to judge, but Leandersson finds the right mix of child and monster that makes me wish the Swedish film industry had made better use of her since.

 

Eddie Marsan, Happy-Go-Lucky: The polar opposite of Hawkins’s character, Marsan is great when his fuse reaches its limit, but even better in the underlying tension before.

 

Michael Shannon, Revolutionary Road: Another breakout performance from a Shape of Water cast member, Shannon introduced his one-of-a-kind brilliance to audiences as a troubled man who sees things for what they are.

 

Meryl Streep, Doubt: One of her more severe performances, Streep is a nun who is terribly committed to a justice based on her own intuition rather than any sort of truth.

 

Future Top Fives

2010

Lesley Manville, Another Year
Jesse Eisenberg, The Social Network
Colin Firth, The King’s Speech
Julianne Moore, The Kids Are All Right
Jennifer Lawrence, Winter’s Bone

2011

Viola Davis, The Help
Michael Shannon, Take Shelter
Brad Pitt, The Tree of Life
Tom Hardy, Warrior
Jessica Chastain, The Tree of Life

2012

Leonardo DiCaprio, Django Unchained
Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook
Javier Bardem, Skyfall
Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln
Emma Watson, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

2013

Julie Delpy, Before Midnight
Lupita Nyong’o, 12 Years a Slave
Michael Fassbender, 12 Years a Slave
Chiwetel Ejiofor, 12 Years a Slave
Leonardo DiCaprio, The Great Gatsby

2014

Michael Keaton, Birdman
Edward Norton, Birdman
Patricia Arquette, Boyhood
Scarlett Johansson, Under the Skin
Agata Trzebuchowska, Ida

The 2017 Academy Awards

I say to my wife almost every year (she probably doesn’t even notice I say it anymore) that the Oscars are my Super Bowl. I’m well aware that the actual show is usually kind of boring. But I’m nonetheless fascinated by what upsets will take place, what winners will say onstage, and who the last tribute will be in the In Memoriam montage. I find a lot of joy in the movies, and I appreciate the Oscars as a celebration of that.

This year, they feel like the Super Bowl in more ways than one. For one, they feel unnecessarily politicized. During the Super Bowl, I fell into the trap of rooting against the Patriots because of Tom Brady’s and Bill Belichick’s ties to President Trump- as if there aren’t myriad other reasons to root against New England. That almost ruined my enjoyment of what ended up being the Pats’ historic comeback.

The Oscar layperson won’t think about this, but anyone following the pre-ceremony hype will have seen thinkpieces aplenty about the supposed La La Land vs. Moonlight rivalry. The two movies are being pitted together much like New England and Atlanta- white vs. black, Trump’s America vs. the Resistance, evil vs. good.

That’s stupid, and frustrating. Both are great movies. Both have zero to do with the politics of our time, at least directly. It would be a stretch to make an argument that either is attempting to participate in current polemics one way or the other.

Moonlight‘s very existence and the attention it is receiving is a political statement within the industry, but that’s about it. Moonlight‘s director, Barry Jenkins, has spoken about the La La Land backlash and clearly respects the art that Damien Chazelle and his team created. The movies exist apart from any faction or political ideology. They are both moving, complex, life-affirming works of art that deserve more than easy narratives.

Narratives aren’t necessarily bad, but in this case they are unnecessary. They make cultural events like the Oscars and the Super Bowl more accessible, and they often add stakes to the proceedings. But tomorrow, forget the political narrative, and just appreciate that whatever wins Best Picture this year will likely be worthy of the distinction.

Best Picture

Arrival*
Fences*
Hacksaw Ridge*
Hell or High Water
Hidden Figures
La La Land
Lion*
Manchester by the Sea*
Moonlight

Will win: La La Land. Moonlight or Hidden Figures could upset, but movies don’t get 14 Oscar nominations without winning. First time for everything though…

Should have been nominated: Zootopia. Animated movies never get enough respect, but Zootopia deserved a place in the sun.

Best Directing

Arrival, Denis Villeneuve*
Hacksaw Ridge, Mel Gibson*
La La Land, Damien Chazelle
Manchester by the Sea, Kenneth Lonergan*
Moonlight, Barry Jenkins

Will win: La La Land, Damien Chazelle. If the La La Land backlash has retained its full force, Jenkins could upset.

Should have been nominated: Kubo and the Two Strings, Travis Knight. Again, animated movies don’t get their due. The degree of difficulty on a stop-motion movie like Kubo is so high, how is the industry not better about rewarding directors of such movies?

Best Actor in a Leading Role

Casey Affleck, Manchester by the Sea*
Andrew Garfield, Hacksaw Ridge*
Ryan Gosling, La La Land
Viggo Mortensen, Captain Fantastic*
Denzel Washington, Fences*

Will win: Denzel Washington, Fences. Affleck’s sexual assault will linger in too many minds, and Denzel is too much of a force of nature. He’s given voters enough of an alternative to Affleck to ease their consciences.

Should have been nominated: Colin Farrell, The Lobster. It’s an awkwardly earnest and selfish character that anchors one of the year’s most overlooked movies.

Best Actress in a Leading Role

Isabelle Huppert, Elle*
Ruth Negga, Loving*
Natalie Portman, Jackie*
Emma Stone, La La Land
Meryl Streep, Florence Foster Jenkins*

Will win: Isabelle Huppert, Elle. Where there’s an easy way not to vote for La La Land, I think people who believe in the backlash will take it. Huppert is a legend, and many will think it is her last chance to win.

Should have been nominated: Anya Taylor-Joy, The Witch. Horror movie acting is probably supposed to be easy, but existential dread isn’t. She did both beautifully in 2016’s breakout horror film.

Best Actor in a Supporting Role

Mahershala Ali, Moonlight
Jeff Bridges, Hell or High Water
Lucas Hedges, Manchester by the Sea*
Dev Patel, Lion*
Michael Shannon, Nocturnal Animals*

Will win: Mahershala Ali, Moonlight.

Should have been nominated: Anton Yelchin, Green Room. This isn’t just a reaction to his tragic death. His performance in Green Room is visceral and a career best.

Best Actress in a Supporting Role

Viola Davis, Fences*
Naomie Harris, Moonlight
Nicole Kidman, Lion*
Octavia Spencer, Hidden Figures
Michelle Williams, Manchester by the Sea*

Will win: Viola Davis, Fences.

Should have been nominated: Janelle Monáe, Hidden Figures or Moonlight, take your pick.

Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay)

Arrival*
Fences*
Hidden Figures
Lion*
Moonlight

Will win: Moonlight.

Should have been nominated: I dunno…Sully, I guess?

Best Writing (Original Screenplay)

Hell or High Water
La La Land
The Lobster
Manchester by the Sea*
20th Century Women*

Will win: Manchester by the Sea.

Should have been nominated: Hail, Caesar!

Best Cinematography

Arrival*
La La Land
Lion*
Moonlight
Silence*

Will win: La La Land.

Should have been nominated: The Witch.

Best Animated Feature

Kubo and the Two Strings
Moana*
My Life as a Zucchini*
The Red Turtle*
Zootopia

Will win: Zootopia.

Should have been nominated: Eh, nothing I saw.

Best Documentary (Feature)

13th
Fire at Sea*
I Am Not Your Negro*
Life, Animated*
O.J.: Made in America*

Will win: O.J.: Made in America.

Should have been nominated: Under the Sun.

Best Foreign Language Film

Land of Mine (Denmark)*
A Man Called Ove (Sweden)*
The Salesman (Iran)*
Tanna (Australia)*
Toni Erdmann (Germany)*

Will win: The Salesman.

Should have been nominated: Microbe & Gasoline (France).

Movie Bummys 2012: Best Performances of 2011

So now that we’re 9 months into the year 2012, now is a good time to look back at the best of 2011.  Why look back at 2011 when there’s only 3 months left in 2012, you ask?  Well, let me tell you, faithful reader (of which I’m positive there is only one- maybe two).  For one, we’re far enough removed from 2011 to get past all the hype over everything that came out last year; we can look back with clear eyes.  Also, we’re coming up on awards season for movies and music, so it’ll be nice to get this out of the way before all that nonsense begins.  And, most importantly, I’m not a paid critic, so there were gobs and gobs of movies and music I hadn’t consumed when Grammy and Oscar time came around at the beginning of 2012- at that point, I didn’t think I could give a qualified answer for what the best movies and music were last year.

But now I’ve listened to the majority of the albums (both big and small) that got notice last year and I’ve seen the majority of the notable movies (both indie and mainstream) from 2011, and I can now (somewhat) conclusively say that I’ve got a good handle on what I consider the best of both music and movies from last year.

The real question is, why am I going to all this trouble?  Any post on this blog I consider practice for when I truly write creatively, such as when I begin to write short stories or a book at some point in the future (a pipe dream, sure, but the blog does get my creative juices flowing, so it may be more realistic than you might think).  And, perhaps more importantly, I love movies and music, so I consider them worth writing about.  I believe one way God wants us to reflect His image in this world is to create, and I believe God uses movies and music to teach us and to stir our spirits and, yes, to entertain us.  Writing helps me process that better.

So this is how the Bummys* will work- I’ve never done this before, so bear with me.  Today, I’m going to list out the best acting performances of 2011.  I’ll also throw in the 5 performances from 2012 that I’ve loved so far, and the 5 performances I’m most looking forward to from the upcoming awards season.  The next few days will see the top songs of 2011, the top albums of 2011, and the top movies of 2011.

Now, you can read these lists and then forget about them.  I’m aware that a million of these lists come out every year, and you already read them all 9 months ago.  I understand it would be overwhelming to try and watch every movie featuring all of these performances.  But do yourself a favor: choose five that sound the most appealing to you, and check them out.  My hope is that you discover you love a few movies you wouldn’t have tried otherwise.

And, with that, we’re off:

Top Performances of 2011

Supporting Actress

Berenice Bejo, The Artist
Elle Fanning, Super 8
Octavia Spencer, The Help
Shailene Woodley, The Descendants
Winner:  Jessica Chastain, The Tree of Life

Like Brad Pitt, Jessica Chastain is an grounding rod for this out-of-this-world movie.  You have to believe that if Brad Pitt’s character was the source of his son Jack’s pain, then Jessica Chastain’s character must have been his source of mercy.  Chastain plays a mother who tries desperately hard to obey her husband and love her kids at the same time.  They live in a hard house, and director Terrence Malick makes it clear that the mother is trying to shine some light in her kids’ lives.  It’s the brightness with which Chastain shines that makes you remember her performance, but it’s the veil that covers that brightness around her husband that makes it great.

Supporting Actor

Albert Brooks, Drive
George Clooney, The Ides of March
Tom Hardy, Warrior
Jonah Hill, Moneyball
Winner:  Brad Pitt, The Tree of Life

The Tree of Life probably doesn’t seem like the typical actors’ movie, but Brad Pitt makes an indelible impression in his precious few moments in Terrence Malick’s masterpiece.  When you parse through all the extra footage about dinosaurs and the Big Bang and the afterlife, The Tree of Life is about mercy, and a man struggling to extend that mercy to his father.  Sean Penn plays Jack, grown son of Brad Pitt’s patriarch, and we learn that Jack’s father’s effect on him is lifelong and inescapable.  Pitt makes that effect clear by giving us a clear, honest, and real portrayal of an American dad.  He’s hard on his kids, and maybe doesn’t know how to love them as well as he would like.  It’s a testament to Pitt’s challenging performance that in a movie as dense as this one, he stands out.  Indeed, I can’t forget how he’s made me consider my relationship with my own father; eventually you see your father not as a hero but as a man, and Brad Pitt captures that perfectly.

Actress

Jessica Chastain, Take Shelter
Rooney Mara, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady
Michelle Williams, My Week with Marilyn
Winner:  Viola Davis, The Help

I was so frustrated when Meryl Streep won the Oscar this year for Best Actress.  Don’t get me wrong- I wouldn’t have put her on this list if I didn’t think she was a great actress.  But Viola Davis gave one of the best performances I’ve ever seen, actor or actress.  Say what you will about the subject matter of The Help, if you think it’s just another movie about white people helping black people or whatever, it had a great cast, and Davis was its lifeblood, the fulcrum upon which the whole movie rested.  It’s not a flashy performance; you can find that in Rooney Mara’s or Michelle Williams’s strong showings.  Even Jessica Chastain in Take Shelter does more than Viola Davis does.  But it’s in the way Davis carries herself, the weariness on her face that turns to strength in the clip up above.  That strength is borne on a back that has faced just too much from a woman who might as well be evil, but who is really just spiteful and petty.  That spite has meant a life of sorrow for a good woman, and Davis carries the weight of that life perfectly.

Actor

Demián Bichir, A Better Life
George Clooney, The Descendants
Jean Dujardin, The Artist
Brad Pitt, Moneyball
Winner:  Michael Shannon, Take Shelter

The year’s best performances were actors playing ordinary men (though Jean Dujardin’s character doesn’t start out ordinary).  Clooney and Pitt made this transformation extraordinary, because they are both far from ordinary men.  Demian Bichir inhabited his character as the most ordinary of men, a man simply trying to get by.  But Michael Shannon outdid them all.  Shannon’s Curtis has nothing special about him; he’s perfectly nice, and he loves his wife and daughter.  But we watch him slowly descend into a spiral of paranoia and dread, plagued by visions of the word ending.  He acts on these dreams, making every effort to protect his family from what’s coming, mirroring our own increasingly futile efforts to avoid tragedy in this real world.  Michael Shannon could have easily played him as insane, but he instead comes off as tormented, striving to reconcile these visions with the real world around him.  In the end, what we come away with is his deep love for his family, and how that drives everything he does.  The clip above is of Curtis finally breaking down, and while his outburst is an impressive tightrope walk on the edge of overacting, it’s his collapse onto his wife’s shoulder that provides the biggest impact.

Top Performances of 2012

Dane DeHaan, Chronicle: This movie wasn’t seen by enough of people, but DeHaan’s performance as a troubled teen with new superpowers gives this film a darkness that other superhero movies lack.

Michael Fassbender, Prometheus: Fassbender joins the time-honored tradition of portraying an android in an Alien movie, and he’s mesmerizing.  His David provides insight into some of the key themes of the movie.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt, The Dark Knight Rises: Christopher Nolan has always had good actors in his movies, but since his movies are more cerebral than most, we don’t often see the best of their talents.  Gordon-Levitt gives a heartfelt performance; his character is the moral compass of the film.

Anne Hathaway, The Dark Knight Rises: If Gordon-Levitt’s character is the movie’s moral compass, Hathaway’s is the sinful pleasure.  Hathaway gives a sly, knowing performance, that seems out of character for her, but only on paper- seeing her on screen, it’s obvious she was perfect for the part.

Jennifer Lawrence, The Hunger Games: I can’t tell you enough how great Jennifer Lawrence is; she lifts an above-average movie into a great one, because we can follow her thoughts and feelings just by looking at her.  If you liked her The Hunger Games, go check out Winter’s Bone– she’s even better.

Most Anticipated Performances of 2012

Javier Bardem, Skyfall: His chilling performance in No Country for Old Men was a villain for the ages.  But he had to go subtle in that movie; I’d love to see him let loose, and a Bond movie seems like just the time.

Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln: He’s already won 2 Oscars, and he’s undisputedly one of the best actors ever.  He’s about to portray the greatest president ever.  Now tell me I shouldn’t be excited.

Leonardo DiCaprio, Django Unchained: Please, just look at this face.

Hugh Jackman, Les Miserables: My favorite musical of all time.  One of my favorite actors; the best performance I’ve seen of his was in a musical.  Plus, he’s playing one of the most emotional characters ever written for the stage.  If they film this right, his will be a heart-wrenching performance.

Denzel Washington, Flight: Honestly I’m just excited to have Denzel back in anything.  Here’s hoping that this goes beyond the stoic, uncomplicated man streak that he’s on (The Book on Eli, Unstoppable, Safe House).  Denzel is best when he’s playing a complex character- Training Day, Hurricane, Malcolm X, Glory.  Flight looks like it’ll provide the right amount of nuance for a great performance.

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*Bummys- like the Grammys, except with Bum!  Funny, right?  Right?