Best Supporting Actor 2014

05. Ethan Hawke in Boyhood - For making us all remember that he IS a good actor, if it only takes Linklater movies to remind us. For perfectly portraying a wayward kid turned family man. For the father / son camping scene.

04. James Gandolfini in The Drop - For playing a tough guy the way only he could, with subtle layers and complexities. For knocking it out of the park with a final fitting performance. For accepting his fate in the car at the end.

03. Mark Ruffalo in Foxcatcher - For being the heart and soul of the film. For being kind and likeable,  sweet and endearing in a subtle lived in portrayal. For the scenes of brotherly love.

02. J.K. Simmons in Whiplash - For making me forget all about the sweet dad from Juno. For giving a tense, powerhouse performance as an enigmatic and menacing music instructor. For throwing cymbals at people's heads. For the "dragging or rushing" scene.

01. Edward Norton for Birdman - For sending up his own image as a difficult method actor by playing... a difficult method actor. For the brilliant complexities in his scene stealing work. For being fierce, funny,  complicated, charming and electric. For being sorely missed when he disappears three quarters of the way through. For the fist fight in his underwear.

Boyhood

Let's get the bad part of the review out of the way first. I didn't love Boyhood. I sure did like it a lot at times, but I'm not jumping up and down about the way everyone else is. I'm not ready to proclaim it the best movie of all time, or even of this year. All of the things I worried about going into it proved true. It's a bit on the pretentious side. At nearly 3 hours long, it gets to be a tad boring at points. In an especially boring part, I'll admit, I just wanted to leave already and be over with the movie. Without any real plot (other than, you know, growing up), the movie meanders at time and gets lost inside itself. The performance by the titular boy is a little hit or miss for me. I realize that this is a movie about life, but I just have to say it, you guys. Absolutely nothing happens in this movie. (And, yet, everything happens.... do you see my dilemma??). This isn't a dramatic film. It's the opposite of drama - a very slow moving, document of a boy growing up. It's not artistic enough to be an art house film, and it's not broad enough to be a crowd-pleasing film. So, it's stuck somewhere in between. The sort of critical darling that people think they have to love. It will probably win all kinds of awards and maybe it will get better with age.

Okay, now that the unpopular part of my opinion is over with, allow me to praise the film a bit. Boyhood is definitely an experimental film, and like all experimental films, it's flawed at best. But, somehow, despite having no plot and no direction, Boyhood manages to have charm in spades. You have probably heard that this movie was made over a 12 year span, filming for a week or so every year, allowing it's actors to age and grow. It's a radical approach to film making from a director (Richard Linklater) who knows a thing or two about unique approaches (he is the man who brought us the nearly perfect trilogy of Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, and Before Midnight, three movies spaced years apart that follow the same characters and their relationship). Could you imagine what the meetings must have been like to get financing for this film? "Well, I want to make the ultimate coming of age movie, but I'm not going to have a finished product for 12 years. Give me your money!" You have got to applaud a man like this, who thinks outside the box and who is willing to dedicate part of his life to a project like this. In a world where there are now 4 Transformers movies and a movie about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, you have got to celebrate something this unique and ground-breaking and innovative. Just because I didn't love Boyhood, doesn't mean I didn't like it. It's got so much charm. It feels like real life - the first loves, the first heartbreaks, the parade of your mom's idiot boyfriends, the father who means well but is never around, the bullies, the lazy summer days and nights with friends. There were certain moments in this movie, where I couldn't help but smile - playing hide and seek/tag around a monument in the park, a family sing-a-long, talking about girls with your dad while camping. When this movie is good, it's really damn good. It's moving and raw and compelling. You want to see the evolution of a character? This is the evolution of a character like you've never seen before. We literally get to see a child grow up before our eyes, every fifteen minutes or so, the movie jumps forward a year without telling us and we notice small changes like a different hair cut. One of the things I loved most about the movie was how it managed to stay away from all the cliched moments. Instead, we get the small moments, the moments that really matter (like the few I listed above). We don't actually see him turn 16, but there he is driving. We never see a graduation ceremony, but he's heading off to college. It's this focus on the life and not the moments that makes Boyhood feel like something special.

The performances are mostly fantastic. I mean, Patricia Arquette, am I right? She kills it as Mason's mom, the put-upon single mother, putting herself through college, making poor life decisions, saying things like, "I'm a poor whore with a big house!" I love Arquette in this movie, and I hope she's remembered come awards season. Ethan Hawke as the well-meaning father is pretty great too, and his moments with Mason seem the most true and have the most charm. They have a great chemistry together and their interactions are among my favorite. Then there is Ellar Coltrane as our star Mason, the boy we watch grow from age 6 to 18. Casting this role must have been a huge challenge and gamble. You can easily pick a child who is comfortable in front of the camera as a 6 year old, adorable and charming, and he could grow up to be awkward and off-putting. But Linklater lucked out. Coltrane is mostly a success here. There were a few years in the middle, where it seems like, maybe, he forgot how to act, but for the most part he is compelling to watch. I'd say he gives a good performance for about 9 of the 12 years, and that's pretty great. Like the movie, he is more interesting to watch as a child. The movie loses some of its charm as Mason grows older, and I definitely liked the first half of the movie most.

The greatest thing about Boyhood is that we learn to really love these characters and cheer for them. I wonder what happens to Mason next? I like to think he graduates college and in a fit of artistic rebellion, changes his name to Jesse. Then he heads to Europe where the jumps on a train and meets a fascinating, dynamic, scary intelligent French girl named Celine and they share a night that will change their lives forever.

Grade: B

Mini DVD Reviews

I've been catching up on some of the movies I missed in theaters now that they are available to rent. Here are some mini reviews on the (mostly good!) movies I've watched recently:

The East
Stars: Brit Marling, Alexander Skarsgaard, Ellen Page, Shiloh Fernandez
Plot: A woman goes undercover to infiltrate an anarchist group who attacks corrupt businesses in interesting ways. She finds herself questioning where she stands on their practices after a while.
Thoughts: I think Marling is an incredible talent. If she wanted to be, she could be a huge Hollywood rom-com star much like Julia Roberts. She is so strikingly beautiful. But, she wants to write her own work, and much like her previous self-penned films Another Earth and Sound of My Voice, The East is flawed but intense, smart, thought-provoking and enjoyable.
Grade: B

The Purge
Stars: Ethan Hawke
Plot: It's the future in America and there is no crime and no unemployment and everyone is happy. Why? Once a year, the government picks one night where you can do whatever the hell you want - murder, included.
Thoughts: I was interested in seeing this movie because I think the premise is pretty spectacular. It's such a great idea, but the execution is not particularly good. The script has so many plot holes that it is laughable and the characters act in ways that only characters in horror movies act, bad decision after bad decision.
Grade: D+

Before Midnight
Stars: Julie Delpy, Ethan Hawke
Plot: It's nearly a decade after Jesse and Celeste reunited in Paris and now they are a couple with twins and on vacation where they do a whole lot of talking and fighting.
Thoughts: I love this trilogy of movies. I think it's such a beautifully written ode to love and lust, and while the first one was the best, Before Midnight is excellent as well. Of course, if you don't like movies that are super talky, then this probably isn't for you. But the epic fight Jesse and Celeste have in the hotel room just about rivals any fight in any Marvel movie released this year.
Grade: B

Lovelace
Stars: Amanda Seyfried, Peter Sarsgaard
Plot: The true story of Linda Lovelace, a young girl who falls for the wrong man and becomes the biggest porn star in the world.
Thoughts: Well, Peter Sarsgaard absolutely kills it. He is so damn good that it almost makes this mess of a movie worth it. The problem? Well, for one, as a movie about porn, it's not sexy in the least. And secondly, I have recently decided that Amanda Seyfried is just not that great of an actress. I'm not sure whey she keeps getting so many high-profiled gigs (okay, I do, she's gorgeous), but the talent just isn't there. Unless she is terribly miscast in every movie. I guess that's possible.
Grade: C

Disconnect
Stars: Jason Bateman, Paula Patton, Alexander Skarsgaard
Plot: Interwoven stories tell the tales of how we no longer make any personal connections in this world, everything filtered through social media, and how we are all so desperately lonely, just trying to find someone to connect to.
Thoughts: I'm not sure why no one has been talking about this movie. I saw one preview months ago and thought it looked good, but have heard virtually no word of mouth on it. I'm not sure why, because it's sort of, almost brilliant. It's the best movie from this year that you've never heard of and I highly suggest everyone rent it immediately.
Grade: B+

Only God Forgives
Stars: Ryan Gosling, Kristen Scott Thomas
Plot: A man seeks revenge on the people who murdered his brother.
Thoughts: This movie was infuriating and frustrating on every level. It was directed by the same person who made Drive a few years back, a movie that was super stylish and so, so good. Only God Forgives, however, is all style over substance. It looks amazing, and is possibly the most beautifully shot film of the year, but it's pretty much just an hour and a half of people being moody and looking cool and barely saying anything at all.
Grade: D

Stuck In Love
Stars: Greg Kinnear, Jennifer Connelly, Logan Lerman
Plot: A family of writers deal with love and loss and heartache.
Thoughts: This movie isn't spectacular in any way, but it's a very nice, good movie. It's not something I can pick apart at all - maybe it's a little too cliche. It's just such a nice, feel good, harmless, funny, cute movie that I couldn't help but fall under it's spell. Also, Lerman is adorable.
Grade: B

Frances Ha
Stars: Greta Gerwig
Plot: A twenty-something woman in New York City tries to make her life a little bit less of a mess.
Thoughts: I've been wanting to see this movie for months and I'll say - it was worth the wait! Frances Ha is officially my favorite movie of the year. It's a love story about two best friends and I think it's so refreshing that men are basically an after thought. It's a great little black and white movie about friends growing apart but struggling to stay together and growing up and getting your shit together. I can't say enough about it, other than - go watch it now! So great!
Grade: A

Horror Movie Month: Sinister

The Stars: Ethan Hawke, James Ransone

The Plot: A true crime writer moves into a house where a family was brutally murdered in order to write a new novel about it. In the attic, he finds a creepy box of super 8 home movies which depict multiple seemingly connected crimes spreading across countries and decades. Creepy things ensue and also, the family apparently don't have electricity.

The Scares: The movie is not scary at all. In fact, it's sort of stupid. I had read a few reviews of the movie and all of them said it was genuinely scary. That's false. The plot is stupid and the more supernatural it gets, the dumber the movie becomes. Everything Ethan Hawke's Ellison does is a bad decision. The movie is basically a mash up for every classic horror movie that has come before it, but not nearly as good as any of the predecessors. The footage from the super 8 videos is genuinely creepy and that alone deserves a much better movie. Plus, I genuinely liked the ending although I think it took a big stretch to get to that point. The writer took a big leap of faith with the ending, hoping the audience would believe all of these far fetched things in order for it to work. I, for one, didn't believe much of it so it didn't completely work for me, although I did like the idea of the ending. Overall, Sinister is pretty lame. Even my love for James Ransone and the creepy super 8 footage couldn't save it. Also, moral of the story? Don't have kids... right???

The Body Count: 3 in real time. If you include the super 8 footage, then I think it's 21 or something like that.

The Grade: D-