Best Lead Actress 2015

05. Charlize Theron in Mad Max: Fury Road - The most bad ass, action packed movie of the year is secretly a big ol' feminist manifesto and Theron's turn as a tough as nails, empowered, kick ass slave is, maybe, the best thing she has ever done.

04. Alicia Vikander in The Danish Girl - This Transgender love story was supposed to be Eddie Redmayne's movie, but then Vikander went and showed him up with her sexy, understated turn as his supportive but confused wife.

03. Cate Blanchett in Carol - Blanchett has long been one of my absolute favorite actresses and she continues to prove why here. As a lesbian in a time when that sort of thing wasn't accepted, she shines as the sexy, frustrated Carol. It's not hard to believe a young shop girl would become enamored with her.

02. Rooney Mara in Carol - Mara's sweet natured shop girl who is so used to making everyone else happy that she doesn't even know how to make herself happy. Her delicate beauty (somehow so ferocious in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) only helps her impressive portrayal of innocence and eagerness and first love and heartbreak.

01. Saoirse Ronan in Brooklyn - Like her male counterpart on my Lead Actor list, so much of her performance is in her eyes and face. Ronan is nothing short of amazing as the young Irish girl who leaves home for a better opportunity. The home sickness, the struggle to belong, the heart ache and loneliness and eventual happiness are perfectly portrayed in every movement and moment.

Mini Reviews: The Rest of 2013

I'm planning on working on finalizing my Top Ten list for Wednesday, so, for now, here are the last of the 2013 movies that I've watched on DVD and in theaters.

Plush
Stars: Emily Browning, Xavier Samuel
Plot: A rock star trying to get over the death of her brother / songwriting partner gets involved with a groupie turned band mate who may or may not be crazy.
Thoughts: Listen, I'm all in on Xavier Samuel, so I will follow him wherever he goes. Unfortunately, this movie is not exactly a good place to go. Forget the fact that it's entirely unbelievable that Browning is a rock star. At least the music is pretty cool. But this mostly plays off as a lame B movie you might find on Showtime at 3 am.
Grade: D+

Adore
Stars: Naomi Watts, Robin Wright, Xavier Samuel, James Frencheville
Plot: Two lifelong best friends begin affairs with the others grown son.
Thoughts: This could have been a very provocative, sexy, boundary pushing film. Instead, mostly because of really crappy dialogue, this movie is sort of lame. It definitely has the cast and the potential to be something sexy, but it mostly fails at that. Still, it's not a terrible movie.
Grade: C

The Kings of Summer
Stars: Nick Robinson, Gabriel Basso, Nick Offerman, Megan Mullally
Plot: A group of teenage friends get sick of their crazy parents and decide to run away and build a house in the middle of the woods, where they live for a summer, until girls get in the way of friendship.
Thoughts: This year has been full of really great, really original, really well done coming of age stories and The Kings of Summer is another one. It's whip smart, funny as hell and really sweet. It loses its footing a bit in the final act, but it's mostly a really worthwhile little film.
Grade: B

The Canyons
Stars: Lindsay Lohan, James Deen
Plot: A social climbing It girl is still in love with her loser / actor ex-boyfriend even though her new boyfriend is super rich, charming, controlling and a possibly a sociopath.
Thoughts: Look, I'm not about to convince anyone that this is a GOOD movie. It's not by any means of the imagination. But sometimes it's one of those movies that is so bad it's good. You know the kind... those movies that are absolutely train wrecks and you know they are terrible and, yet, you can't take your eyes off them. That's almost this movie.
Grade: D+

Inside Llewyn Davis
Stars: Oscar Issac, Carey Mulligan
Plot: A self-destructive musician wanders aimlessly around New York City, upsetting friends, crashing on people's couches, befriending cats and playing folk music.
Thoughts: Besides an ill-advised road trip sequence featuring a terribly annoying John Goodman (I never thought I'd use those words to describe Goodman, one of my absolute favorite people in the world), Llewyn Davis is pretty flawless. Llewyn is a pretty despicable guy, but because of Issac's crazy great performance, you can't help for the guy to change his asshole ways. Spoiler alert: He never does. Having just been snubbed by the Oscars, Inside Llewyn Davis is bound to reach cult status, which is exactly how it should be. Also, Adam Driver totally kills it during a singing performance with Issac and Justin Timberlake. It's worth seeing for that segment alone.
Grade: B+

Her
Stars: Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams, Rooney Mara, Scarlett Johansson
Plot: In the very near future, when the new item in men's fashion is awful high waist pants, a lonely writer falls in love with his new computer operating system.
Thoughts: I know Her sounds absolutely ridiculous on paper, but it's damn near flawless on screen. My only problem with it is that it's just a tad too long. Other than that, it's absolutely everything a movie should be: smart, quirky, original, funny, sweet, intimate, and sad. Her is a wonderful film, and not to be missed.
Grade: A

Ain't Them Bodies Saints
Stars: Rooney Mara, Ben Foster, Casey Affleck
Plot: A young woman struggles to take care of her daughter after her boyfriend goes to jail for a crime she committed. Upon his release, he realizes she has befriended a cop from their past.
Thoughts: First off - the score to this movie is wonderful. Otherwise, it's a beautifully shot, wonderfully acted film, although it does have major pacing problems. But, honestly, I think Rooney Mara is the most beautiful girl in the entire world, so looking at her for 100 minutes isn't all that bad. Plus, I have a crush on Casey Affleck's voice.
Grade: B-

Wednesday = my Top Ten List of 2013!

Side Effects

Word on the internet is that Side Effects will mark Steven Soderbergh's final time behind the camera. And if this is true, it's a shame. Not because he's choosing to retire. Soderbergh has created a well rounded, acclaimed body of work and if he wants to retire to focus on other interests or roll around in his piles of money, then good for him. It's a shame because Side Effects is just so underwhelming. I'm not saying it's a bad movie by any stretch of the imagination, but I truly wanted Soderbergh to go out on top and this just didn't do it for me. It's being sold as a taut thriller with twists and turns. Well, for anyone who has ever seen a movie or a really good TV show, for that matter, the twists and turns are evitable and predictable. Plus, any sort of thrilling feeling this movie delivers is all but ruined by a convaluted mess of an ending.

Side Effects is the story of Emily (Rooney Mara). She is just a young bartender in New York City when she meets a charming young man (Channing Tatum) who, I guess, works on Wall Street. Soon, she has everything she has ever wanted - the house in Connecticut, the fancy cars, the beautiful clothes, the money, a yacht. Her life is like a dream... until her perfect husband gets arrested for insider training and sentenced to four years in prison. Upon his release, Emily is thrown into a world of deep depression, cries for help, and suicide attempts. After she rams her car into a concrete wall, she begins to see a shrink (Jude Law) who helps her with a combination of therapy and pills. But, these pills have ever increasing side effects and, well, that's all I can say about the plot without giving anything away. And while I thought the end sort of ruined the movie, I won't give it away.

Side Effects wants to be a Hitchcock movie but Hitchcock was a master story teller and a master at creating thrills and expense, and while Soderbergh is a solid story teller, he's maybe just a novice with the whole suspense thing. The only character I ever truly felt invested in was Law's shrink and based soley on the fact that I find Law creepy and untrustworthy, I kept waiting for him to be found guilty of something awful, like child pornography or beating cats or something (that being said, Law is the best thing about Side Effects). Side Effects also wants to have a really great OMG moment like The Usual Suspects or Primal Fear but it lacks the cleverness of one and the intellect of the other (I'll let you decide which is which).

The performances are very hit or miss. I always found Catherine Zeta-Jones to be a little hit or miss for my taste. I find her general ability to always over act to only be suited for certain roles - say, Chicago - but, it's definitely not right for this. She's too campy and femme fatale. This is not a 60s noir movie and her performance, while small, is distracting. Channing Tatum is fine if disposable. Rooney Mara, in her first big role since The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, proves why she is such a great talent. She is perfect for this sad, broken girl, although I would like to see her do a movie where she gets to smile once in a while. But it's Jude Law who is the stand out here. Even when seeming untrustworthy, he manages to put so much heart and soul into this character, you are completely invested in his future and decisions. It's the first solidly good performance of the year and it will likely spend a few months topping my Best Actor list.

So, basically Side Effects is what it is - a decent slow burn movie with an interesting concept and some good performances. It's not some great classic thriller and it is not going to live forever in your movie memories. It should not be a great director's swan song.

Grade: C+

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

I don't know what I was expecting, to be honest. I read the book, by Steig Larson, and loved it. I saw the original Swedish version starring the incendiary Noomi Rapace, and loved it. Now, here comes the American version, directed by my very favorite director (David Fincher), starring a total badass as Lisbeth (Rooney Mara), and what? I was slightly disappointed but I can't exactly put my finger on why. The movie was absolutely great. The directing was great, the adaptation was great, the performances were great, the music was great. The movie will most likely make my Top Ten List of the year (it's currently in there, but there are still a few more movies to see). Again, I don't know what I was expecting, but somehow I was expecting more.
In case you have been living under a rock, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is about Mikael Bloomqvist (Daniel Craig), a disgraced Swedish journalist who gets hired by an aging billionaire (Christopher Plummer) to officially write his memoirs but unofficially investigate the mysterious disappearance of his favorite niece, Harriet, forty years earlier. You see, the entire deranged, crazy, awful, detestable Vanger family was together on their island for a yearly meeting. The only bridge onto the island was shut down due to an accident. Then Harriet disappeared and the only explanation was that someone on the island must have killed her and buried her body. So, Mikael must try to find something new within the forty year mystery that will help him finally catch the killer. Eventually he asks for a research assistant and they give him the bad ass, punk rock, leather wearing computer hacker who, unbeknownst to him, did his background check - Lisbeth Salander (Mara), who is arguably the greatest character in modern day literature (definitely the greatest female character, but character in general is debatable, I guess... though, not for me). The disgraced journalist and the anti-social ward of the state team up and delve into a mystery so much more complex than originally thought by anyone. And so you have one of the best murder mystery, female empowerment films of the last ten years or so.
So, then, why was I disappointed?
I still can't put my finger on it. Maybe my expectations were just way too high. Fincher is a film god and I guess I was expecting him to make some radical changes that I, as a Girl with the Dragon Tattoo purist, would still love. He did keep the ending from the book (which the Swedish version did not), which I loved. He did change a major plot point in the third act which I think made more sense anyway. Other than that, it was just another version of something that was already amazing. Fincher's film was much darker, maybe. The music was eerie and creepy and wonderful. The performances were top notch. Daniel Craig, who I was on the fence about, was a great complicated leading man. Christopher Plummer was perfect as the sweet old Henrik. Robin Wright, who seriously has never looked hotter, was great in a small role. Stellan Skarsgaard was fantastic - elegant and creepy - as Martin Vanger. But, Mara, of course, steals the show as Lisbeth. With her tattoos, piercings, bleached eye brows, and sometime Mohawk, she doesn't even have to say a word. She invokes so much with a mere look. She is perfect, almost as good as Rapace was. The movie suffers from the same things that the book and the Swedish version suffers from which is to say, that it's part of a trilogy so after the mystery wraps up, there is still a good twenty minutes to go and so it sort of feels anti-climactic in a way.
So, I guess I was expecting too much. I guess I built it up too much in my mind. I have been anticipating this movie for over a year. Still, it was great in just about every way. Maybe, with time, I will appreciate it a little bit more.
Grade: B+

Top Ten List: Best Supporting Actress 2010

10. Blake Lively in The Town - Going about as far away from Gossip Girl's Serena Van der Kamp as she can possibly get, Lively proves she's an actress to watch out for in the superb The Town. Lively's character is a tough Boston single mom, who wants ex-boyfriend Ben Affleck back in her bed. A big theme of the film is loyalty but can Lively's drunken, tough talking character be loyal if she's secretly bitter about Ben's new lady love?

09. Emily Mortimer in Shutter Island - In a movie with a huge ensemble of great actors giving great performances, Mortimer shines as Rachel Solando, an escaped mental patient who murdered her children. She only has one really juicy scene but damn if she doesn't steal it straight from Leonardo DiCaprio. One moment she's sweet and loving, and then, in the blink of an eye, she's ready to cut your throat.

08. Chloe Moretz in Kick Ass - Can you think of anything more fun than a 10 year old who curses like a sailor and likes to play with knives and guns?? Me either! Moretz knocks it out of the park as Hit Girl, a total bad ass who will kick your ass while listening to Joan Jett's "Bad Reputation."

07. Patricia Clarkson in Easy A - Okay, listen, I love my mom. I love her more than anything. But I will admit that there was a moment of weakness while watching Easy A when I said, "Man, I wish Patricia Clarkson was my mom." She's just so damn... cool. Whether she is giving out relationship advice or admitting to her daughter that she was a teenage slut, Clarkson totally nails the hippie/awesome/mom thing.

06. Barbara Hershey in Black Swan - We go from a perfect mom to a not-so-perfect mom. Hershey is the epitome of a stage mom in Black Swan. She doesn't do anything evil, per se, but she does baby her daughter and push her to perfection so severly that her sweet little daughter ultimately loses her damn mind. Hershey is amazing.

05. Melissa Leo in The Fighter - And here's another mom that I just wouldn't want. Leo proves boxing isn't just a man's world as the mom / manager of two Massachusetts boxing legends in The Fighter. She may love her kids a little too much. She's intense, tough as can be, and also a little crazy, especially when she sends her seven crazy daughters after her son's new girlfriend!

04. Rooney Mara in The Social Network - I haven't always been a fan of Mara's work. I thought she single-handedly ruined the remake of The Nightmare of Elm Street (which had potential but her lifeless performance sucked it dry). However, I take it all back. With just one substantial scene, Mara breaks hearts and steals scenes. She's thoughtful, frustrated, and hilarious as she shows you how to REALLY break up with someone.

03. Mila Kunis in Black Swan - This role is about as far away from Jackie on That 70s Show as you can possibly get. The starting point for so much of the intensity in Black Swan is the demented friendship / rivalry between Natalie Portman's sweet, tightly wound Nina and Kunis' wild and unrestrained Lilly. She's utterly seductive and plays the different facets of her character with ease.

02. Marion Cotillard in Inception - There is a reason her characters name is Mal, meaning she just might be evil. Cotillard is perfection as the crazy dead wife of Leonardo DiCaprio's Dom. She is pure passion - being so very needy one moment, erupting with anger the next, then weeping uncontrollably in the next second. There is a reason that Dom can't get her out of his head. Anyone who has seen the movie can't either!

01. Amy Adams in The Fighter - Amy Adams always plays such sweet, lovable characters. First there was Junebug. Then there was Enchanted. Even when she's playing a nun (Doubt), she's giving bunnies and the little girl who plays Lily on Modern Family a run for their money in the "cutest things ever" department. But, in The Fighter, Amy Adams shows a completely different side to herself. She's tough as nails as the former wild child party girl who knows tends bar and falls for a boxer. She stands up to his impossibly intimidating mom, she teaches her man how to grow a little backbone and become a better man, all while being completely and totally sexy. She can seduce and then beat the crap out of seven crazy sisters. In a career that is already stellar, this is Adams' best role yet!

Coming tomorrow... Best Supporting Actor!

The Social Network

Or: Okay, Rooney Mara, I will allow you to play Lisbeth Salander in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.
All the best picture of the year talk surrounding The Social Network is no joke. It just may be. It's fresh, relevant, fast-paced, witty, clever, funny and a damn good movie. When I first heard they were making a movie about facebook, I thought it was a stupid idea. Then that first trailer came out, you know, the ominous one with the acapella version of "Creep" playing? That got me interested. Then, of course, the buzz started. But The Social Network isn't just about facebook. It is, of course, a movie that defines a generation but it is also about a lot of topics that are much more simple: power, backstabbing, manipulation, betrayal.
The Social Network stars Jesse Eisenberg as Mark Zuckerberg, a brilliantly intellectual Harvard under grad who has absolutely no social skills whatsoever. It's a little ironic that someone who has no idea how to interact with people in real life created the most interactive social site of all time. In the beginning of the film, Mark gets dumped by his Boston University girlfriend Erica (Rooney Mara). And he gets dumped in a sort of spectacular fashion. After a back and forth that lasts nearly 10 minutes, Erica ends things by saying, "You're going to go through life thinking that girls don't like you because you're a geek. And I want you to know, from the bottom of my heart, that that won't be true. It'll be because you're an asshole." And so the relationship is over. Mark isn't so happy and he goes back to his dorm room and writes a lot of mean things about Erica and her bra size on livejournal. Then, while all the rest of Harvard is partying the night away, Mark and his geek friends create the precursor to facebook - facemash - in which they put pictures of two Harvard girls side by side and make guys pick who is hotter.
Mark and his friends crash the Harvard server and gain a lot of notoriety. A pair of super rich, rowing twins named Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss (both played by Armie Hammer) hire Mark to program a website for them. The idea the Winklevi, if you will, have is to create an elite Harvard dating site called Harvard connection. Mark takes the idea back to his one and only friend Eduardo (played to utter perfection by future Spiderman Andrew Garfield) and they use it as a basis for facebook.
So that's the basic story. But the filmmaking is so damn good that it turns a simple story of a nerd who created a website into a thrilling masterpiece of cinema. The story flips around from those days in 2003 and 2004 when facebook was created to two seperate lawsuits Mark is involved in, one involving Eduardo who was hardcore screwed and one involving the Winklevi, who are clearly not happy with Mark. The filmmaking is so damn perfect that it elevates an already incredible script into something you might want to call "perfection." Director David Fincher and writer Aaron Sorkin are at the top of their games and together, they are amazing.
The cast is nothing short of amazing either. Rooney Mara manages to break hearts and steal scenes with her limited screentime and it's refreshing to me. I've been underwhelmed by her previous work, but here, she proves to me that she is able to handle a bigger role (Lisbeth!). I am now truly excited to see what she brings to that role. Justin Timberlake shows up about halfway through the movie as Sean Parker, the founder of Napster, who all but seduces Zuckerberg into a world of beautiful women, hot night clubs and lots and lots of money. He's a sweet talking charmer who is also a paranoid liar, but Timberlake nails it. Armie Hammer plays the Winklevoss twins so perfectly. I know a lot of it is screen magic but he's better than he needs to be. I don't know how Fincher made him play twins but then again, this is a man who put Brad Pitt's face on a baby so I trust that he knows what he's doing. Jesse Eisenberg finally, finally, FINALLY got a role worthy of his talents. He's always been a wisecracking, indie fixture who was enjoyable to watch but here he becomes something so much more. He is perfection as the complicated Zuckerberg who seems like a total douche one minute and a misunderstood genius the next. But, I think, best in show has got to go to Andrew Garfield. I haven't been so impressed by a performance all year long. He's got the perfect amount of everything needed to pull off the role of the likeable best friend who gets royally screwed. Plus, he gets to deliver the movie's best line. "Lawyer up, asshole, cause I'm not coming for my 30 percent. I'm coming for everything."
All in all, The Social Network is the kind of highly entertaining, highly enjoyable masterpiece of a movie that only comes along once in a blue moon.
Grade: A