The 1st Annual Macky Awards.
I’d like to welcome you all to the 1st annual Macky Awards. Over the past twelve months, and in particular the last month and a half (I’ve been on tour in Atlantic Canada), I’ve done my best to see as many of the films from 2010 as possible. I couldn’t see them all and wanted to post this before the Oscars on Sunday. Here’s a short list of the films I wish I could’ve watched but didn’t:
Jackass 3-D
Tangled
Howl
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
Kick-Ass
Mother
Inside Job
Waste Land
Leaves of Grass
Biutiful
Another Year
Civilization
Outside the Law
Incendies
And that’s it. I’m pretty sure a portion of those haven’t even be released in Canada yet and, thus, they’ll fall in my films to see for 2011. Not bad considering nearly a thousand movies hit the box office in 2010.
Since I’m just one person, and there’s no reason to narrow down the field, I decided not to limit myself to 5 nominees in each category. Instead I’ve just listed all of the work that I found to be exceptional for the year in film. Now to the nominees:
Best Director
-Christopher Nolan (Inception) – Masterminded four entire worlds. Took them apart, flipped them around, and put them back together again.
-David Fincher (Social Network) – Guy used ‘Push Tilt’ and ‘Time lapse’, staples in the world of cool internet videos, in a major motion picture about the internet. He also made a movie that sounded forced, terrible, and ridiculous in concept, into a moving, intelligent, and funny picture of the world we live in.
-Debra Granik (Winter’s Bone) – Immersed us in the mysterious world of the Appalachians.
-Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan) – Brought art and respectability to the horror genre.
-Gaspar Noe (Enter the Void) – Turned Tokyo into a terrifying amusement park of color and forms.
Winner:
Christopher Nolan. – The fact that he wasn’t even nominated for the Oscars is criminal.
Best Actor
-Mark Wahlberg (The Fighter) – A very realistic, human performance. I felt his frustrations and his triumphs hit hard.
-Jesse Eisenberg (Social Network) – Heard someone on the radio today saying that ‘The Social Network’s’ acting was less about performances and more about service to the script. I think they’re right. But their pejorative discussion of this made me realize how undervalued service to the script often is in the criticism and appreciation of acting. If the script is good, deliver those words as humanly as you can and you’ll have a good performance. If the script is brilliant, the less bells and whistles an actor puts on, the more brilliant the performance will be. Just watch Jesse Eisenberg.
-Jeff Bridges (True Grit) – When is this guy ever even mediocre anymore?
-Colin Firth (The King’s Speech) – I don’t like Colin Firth. But he still made my list. That’s how good he is in ‘The King’s Speech’.
-Geoffrey Rush (The King’s Speech) – Supporting actor nothing. Geoff and Colie tag team this mother.
-Mark Ruffalo (The Kids Are All Right) – I love it when performers totally buck the stereotype that their role asks them to play. Ruffalo could’ve been exactly what you expected but instead he wrote in his own subtle motivations between the lines of the script. He took a role that could’ve been a foil for the family that is ‘The Kids are All Right’s’ subject and made himself hateable, loveable, immature, and growing all at the same time.
-James Franco (127 Hours) – His unabashedness was as impressive to me as the fact that he was basically alone on screen for 2/3’s or more of the movie. He had to learn Phish songs for this.
-Ryan Gosling (Blue Valentine) – Man, Ryan Gosling is a likeable guy. I don’t know any other heartthrob type actors who win males over to their side as often as Gosling. In ‘Blue Valentine’ he almost has to play two separate roles: the young, charming, and passionate ingenue and the older frustrated, hopeless, working stiff. He makes two roles for the same character without losing his through-line or his believability. He’s subtle enough, he’s confident enough, that any given person who sees this film will see him differently; some as a faultless hero, some as a self-destructive time bomb; some as a victim some as a bully, and the genius of his performance is that every one of those viewers is right.
Winner:
Ryan Gosling. I really didn’t know who I was going to pick for this. But as I wrote each individual write up about why I liked the performances, I found myself marvelling even more about Gosling’s turn in ‘Blue Valentine.’
Best Actress
-Jennifer Lawrence (Winter’s Bone) – All subtle touches and toughness.
-Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit) – To be 14 years old and outshine Jeff Bridges in a Coen Brothers film… Well, I don’t know about outshine, but Steinfeld certainly held her own. She’s formal, she’s proper and she’s beyond her years.
-Natalie Portman (Black Swan) – Honestly, gimme a break, did you see this?
-Rebecca Hall (Please Give) - She moves about like she’s got a secret. There’s an unassuming, mysterious kindness about her.
-Julianne Moore (The Kids Are All Right) – She believably plays the somewhat unbelievable counterpart to Annette Benning. Deals in vagueries of a human with much specificity of performance.
-Greta Gerwig (Greenberg) – Helps everyone in the cast with her realistically likeable, self-awarely-low-self-esteemed character who doesn’t want to let the world push her around, but will, because of a deep rooted and charming optimism.
Winner:
Natalie Portman. You know it already. I don’t care how far into her teens she took ballet, Portman LEARNED how to be a prima ballerina for ‘Black Swan.’ That’s even harder than learning to be a professional wrestler. But not by much.
Best Supporting Actor
-Tom Hardy (Inception) – I’ve talked before on my blog about how I often echo lines from movies in my head. I like to try and think about how I would say them, what I would do differently, how the line would roll off my lips. Tom Hardy in ‘Inception’ had one of those rare performances where how he said almost every line surprised me. He was funny, understated, and very specific. His character, Eames, could’ve easily slipped through the cracks like Yusuf or Nash but Hardy made something special out of something small. Plus his real name is Edward Hardy. Ya know: Ed Hardy?
-Christian Bale (The Fighter) – It seems like Christian Bale’s frequently trying pretty hard to win Oscars, so I was surprised to find that this is the first time he’s been nominated. Ya know when Robert Downey, Jr, talks about going “full retard” in ‘Tropic Thunder’? Bale could’ve easily spoiled this role by going “full crackhead.” Instead he painted a fully formed, lovable rascal who, while being totally enamoured with, you also wanted to see eliminated forever from the life of his brother.
-John Hawkes (Winter’s Bone) – Did you see ‘Me and You and Everyone We Know’? I thought he was DJ Qualls. Imagine DJ Qualls playing a rugged bad ass. You can’t. So when John Hawkes believably intimidates everything and everyone, even the ones he’s on the same side as, it’s a serious accomplishment.
-Matt Damon (True Grit) – Matt Damon is transitioning into a pretty great character actor. He was just really funny and really good.
-Lambert Wilson (Of God’s and Men) – It’s hard to tell a good performance in a foreign film because you can’t really rely on the way the actors say their lines. As you can see from my list so far, I’m pretty into performances that have the ability to surprise. Wilson plays the leader of a group of monks living in a violent part of Algeria. He looks like an intellectual. When I first saw him, I didn’t think he was going to be able to exude the authority or wisdom that the role seemed to call for. Boy, was I wrong.
-Jorma Tomila (Rare Exports) – ‘Rare Exports’ could be a kids movie if not for the brief glimpses of old man dicks. A children’s adventure story the likes of which we don’t see as much anymore. Remember how dark the Goonies was? This lives in that same vein. Jorma Tomila, as the father, manages to to mix rugged, untouchable toughness with tender, hopeless vulnerability better than anyone else this year. He observes the old adage that courage isn’t about not being afraid, it’s about standing up in the face of that fear. And when that fear is Santa Claus, you’d better be a damn good actor to get the audience to believe your emotions.
Winner:
Tom Hardy. Get this guy into a non-action-oriented role and watch the academy swoon in a few years.
Best Supporting Actress
-Amy Adams (The Fighter) – Don’t lose Adams’ spunky performance in the hype over Melissa Leo.
-Melissa Leo (The Fighter) – I didn’t get to watch footage of the real woman she portrays, apparently the similarities are remarkable, but the very fact that you don’t 100 percent hate her character speaks to Melissa Leo doing something right.
-Aggeliki Papoulia (Dogtooth) – There is no precedent for Aggeliki Papoulia to follow in ‘Dogtooth’. I don’t think anyone else has ever played a part like this before, or at least not with this much commitment. Papoulia’s perfomance is one of those where you’d believe the film you’re seeing is a documentary without much coercion.
-Helena Bonham Carter (The King’s Speech) – A simple and effective performance that trims all excess fat.
-Jennifer Jason Leigh (Greenberg) – She’s hardly even in the movie, playing Ben Stiller’s Ex girlfriend, but she reminded me so much of a friend I have that is an utterly unbelievable character, that I had to include her.
-Sarah Steele (Please Give) – I mean, she is a teenager, so maybe there wasn’t THAT much hard work or talent going into this role, but Steele plays a teenaged daughter so awkward, tender, and vulnerable that it would be unbelievable if teenagers weren’t such psychopaths. Scratch that, Steele is 22. That makes her even better!
Winner:
Aggeliki Papoulia. Just watch ‘Dogtooth’. You’ll see why.
Best Screenplay
The Social Network-
Gage: Mr. Zuckerberg, do I have your full attention?
Mark Zuckerberg: [stares out the window] No.
Gage: Do you think I deserve it?
Mark Zuckerberg: [looks at Gage] What?
Gage: Do you think I deserve your full attention?
Mark Zuckerberg: I had to swear an oath before we began this deposition, and I don’t want to perjure myself, so I have a legal obligation to say no.
Gage: Okay - no. You don’t think I deserve your attention.
Mark Zuckerberg: I think if your clients want to sit on my shoulders and call themselves tall, they have the right to give it a try - but there’s no requirement that I enjoy sitting here listening to people lie. You have part of my attention - you have the minimum amount. The rest of my attention is back at the offices of Facebook, where my colleagues and I are doing things that no one in this room, including and especially your clients, are intellectually or creatively capable of doing.
[pauses]
Mark Zuckerberg: Did I adequately answer your condescending question?
Inception –
Some movies’ scripts are good because of the dialogue and others are good because of the story they tell. The dialogue in ‘Inception’ does no justice to the intricate story that takes place within its winding structures. ‘Inception’ is visual storytelling at its best and without a solid script to work from, it would be the mess that some people, mistakenly, think it is.
The Fighter –
‘The Fighter’ excellently blends the two worlds of dialogue and storytelling. What really makes this script great is the overlapping style that the dialogue exercises. The screenplay has to walk a fine line of knowing when it’s ok for us to miss some of the things the characters say. It does it well.
True Grit -
Rooster Cogburn: [after singing for a long time] That was “Johnny in the Low Ground.” There are very few fiddle tunes I have not heard. Once heard they are locked in my mind forever. It is a sadness to me that I have sausage fingers that cannot crowd onto a fretboard… Little fat girls at a cotillion. “Soldier’s Joy”!
[sings more]
Laboeuf: [to Mattie] I don’t believe he slept.
Dogtooth –
Sometimes a good script is as much about what you leave out as what you put in.
Please Give –
Mary: Kate, she’s so beautiful and she’s so skinny, how does she stay so skinny?
Alex: She worries a lot.
Mary: I worry a lot.
Alex: And you’re skinny.
The King’s Speech -
Lionel Logue: You still stammered on the ‘W’.
King George VI: Well I had to throw in a few so they knew it was me.
The Kids are All Right –
Paul: It’s hard enough to open your heart in this world. Don’t make it harder.
Greenberg -
Greenberg, after snorting cocaine at a house party with some twenty year olds: “The thing about you kids is that you’re all kind of insensitive. I’m glad I grew up when I did cos your parents were too perfect at parenting- all that baby Mozart and Dan Zanes songs; you’re just so sincere and interested in things! There’s a confidence in you guys that’s horrifying. You’re all ADD and carpal tunnel. You wouldn’t know Agoraphobia if it bit you in the ass… and it makes you mean. You say things to someone like me who’s older and smarter with this light air… I’m freaked out by you kids. I hope I die before I end up meeting one of you in a job interview.”
Winner
The Social Network - The dialogue here is some of the best ever written.
Best Documentary
Catfish - A humdinger of a mystery documentary. A lot of docs this year seem to be getting an odd rub and called fake or staged. This one is so unbelievable that it leads the field in accusations.
Restrepo - An inside view of a military platoon in Afghanistan. When you see real bombs drop in a documentary, it makes you awful grateful for those that serve the country… if only so that it doesn’t have to be you.
Gasland - A man is offered a heap of money to sign his Pennsylvania property over for the mining of natural gas. He decides to take a look at what the repercussions might be.
Teenage Paparazzo - “I thought if we could see ourselves reflected, we might be able to gain some perspective.” Adrian Grenier, of TV’s Entourage, organizes a role reversal between the paparazzi and himself. His in: a 14 year-old paparazzo whose fame escalates as Grenier’s camera follows him. The well organized film becomes a role reversal as Grenier attempts to better understand the world he lives in. If films like ‘Catfish,’ ‘Exit Through the Gift Shop’ and ‘I’m Still Here,’ complete with the press that comes along with accusations of being hoaxes, are any indication of where the medium of the documentary is going, then ‘Teenage Paparazzo’ is the anti-modern documentary. It is an honest attempt of a filmmaker exploring a topic as best he can without knowing exactly what he’s going to find.
Exit Through the Gift Shop - For all its hype, it really is an interesting look into the ephemeral world of street art, complex within its own ideologies of replication, pop culture, and ownership.
Waiting for Superman - Of all the films I saw this year, ‘Waiting for Superman’ might have the single most humbling sequence. Watch this movie through, learn about the school board and it’s issues along the way, but stay for the lottery.
Winner
Catfish - Instead of leading the field in accusations, it should lead the field in applause. A film that shines a light on internet trust issues as well as human nature. Whether it’s real or not, ‘Catfish’ is a tale of sadness and compassion, loneliness and the ability of the meek individual to conquer the most awkward of circumstances.
Orchestra hums, the camera pans out, the baritone chords of Billy Dee Williams begin in voiceover. Thanks for joining us for part one of the Macky Awards. Later tonight or tomorrow, in part two, we’ll see the rundown of Mack’s choices for the top 25 films of the year. Featuring performances by Usher, Cheap Trick, and the velvet chested man himself… me, Billy Dee Williams.
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