2010: The Retrospect: MVPs of the Year (Actors)

Now for the important stuff!

Actors are the most instantly recognizable part of any movie. They are the ones that appear on the poster. They are the ones that are talked about the most when the movie comes out. They are the ones that people focus on most come awards season. A movie can live or die on their performances. The best actors can elevate a product to heavenly heights. The worst can sink a movie like it was the Titanic. 2010 had plenty of bad, even terrible performances, from lame action heroes, to lifeless muses, all capped off with one of the worst performances by a child actor ever. But, I'm not here to talk about that. That's no fun. We need some catharsis in this time of change. I know. It's difficult. Cheer up, damn it! So, with the intention of lifting your spirits, here are the MVP actors of the year. Seriously! Cheer up!

Before we go on, I want to address some people who don't make the short list, but are just as worthy of recognition. Jesse Eisenberg (The Social Network). Armie Hammer (The Social Network). Vincent Cassel (Black Swan). Richard Jenkins (Let Me In). Jeff Bridges (True Grit). Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit). Mark Wahlberg (The Fighter). Allison Pill (Scott Pilgrim vs. the World). Helena Bonham Carter (The King's Speech). Mark Ruffalo (The Kids Are All Right, Shutter Island). Mia Wasikowska (The Kids Are All Right). Emma Watson (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1). Kristin Stewart (The Runaways).

Anyway, here's the main list, after the jump!

Jab, Jab, Uppercut, KO!!

Gotta love the inspirational sports flick, don't ya? I mean, they're just so uplifting, right? An underdog rises to the top with the help of his loved ones, deals with issues along the way, almost loses everything in the final hour, and then returns a new man and defeats the defending champ, who is a total dick. It's nice to know that this tried and true formula hasn't been done to death and that all these elements haven't at all become cliches.
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Ha ha ha ha ha! Had you going there for a second, didn't I? No, for real though, it's actually kinda scary how religiously sports films follow the same formula! ATTENTION FILM MAKERS!!! YOUR FILM IS NOT GOING TO EVER MATCH ROCKY!!! STOP TRYING!!! I will say this though. If a film can take the cliches but do them well and layer them on top of other things like good acting and some cool stylistic choices, then I'll turn a blind eye. The Fighter is such a film. Put simply, The Fighter is one of the best examples of this genre since Rocky introduced it to us. Not only does it handle the tried and true story of an underdogs meteoric rise to the top, but it adds to it with a harrowing depiction of drug addiction and a family on the verge of exploding. That, and some of the coolest boxing scenes to come around in a long while. Oh, and some stupendous acting. You'll like this one, methinks.

INSPIRATION! DOWN YOUR THROAT! EAT IT UP! ENJOY!

Sweet Emotion

I am kicking myself right now! For my final paper for L&T, I had to write about something under the absurdly broad statement, "What makes us human?". I settled on how humans can feel emotion and things of that nature. It was a good topic, one of which there are plenty examples with which I could have used to back up my claim! So, why am I kicking myself? Well, because one of the best examples that I could have used made itself apparent to me after I turned it in. It's a film, set in a world, where emotion is outlawed, thus reducing the population to, more or less, zombies. It would have been perfect, but I couldn't use it! AGHGHGHGH!!! Equilibrium is an ingenious sci-fi actioner that poses good ideas and has awesome fights, but is marred by a shoddy script and some weak acting. It's not great, but it's not terrible either!

We'll still be using katanas in the future! May not be as practical, but it looks sweet!

It Has Gunfights, Bank Robberies, Car Chases, and Johnny Depp. What Else You Need to Know?

Well, that was welcome diversion. Now that the "big" movie has come out this summer, Hollywood has decided, like it does every year, to start releasing the 'cough' good 'cough' movies again. I guess they figure that once they get all the idiots into one theatre to leer at Megan Fox's bouncing bust area, they've done their job, and start catering to the rest of us, somewhat, intelligent folk. First off the assembly line is Public Enemies, courtesy of Michael Mann. It adds a much needed dose of quality into the summer season while simultaneously being very entertaining. 

So, if you know anything about American history, then you've probably heard of this little time in early to mid 1900s called The Great Depression. In case you don't, it boils down like this. The stock market went belly up, and, all of sudden, people found themselves without jobs, homes, or money. A dollar couldn't buy you shit! So, some people tuned to crime, ushering the largest crime wave in recent memory. The most prolific criminal during this time was John Dillinger, who took down bank after bank, earning the title of Public Enemy Number 1 from the FBI, led by world class scumbag J. Edgar Hoover, and respect and love of millions of people around the country, who viewed him as a modern day Robin Hood. In order to bring down Dillinger, Hoover assigns decorated agent Melvin Purvis to the case. What follows is fascinating 2 1/2 hour trip into 193os America, with all the fedoras, accents, cars, and Tommy Guns. 

Johnny Depp plays Dillinger, and he is sure to get yet another Oscar nomination this year, which he he might even win. His performance as the most renowned criminal in US history is a bona fide tour de force. He drenches Dillinger with charisma, but also makes sure to stay true to the darker side of the man. It's all in the eyes. Depp's Dillinger wants the attention. He wants to be in the spot light, and when he is, he knows how to handle it. Put simply, he makes the character cool. Like, really cool. Like, John Travolta in Get Shorty cool. Well, maybe not, but it comes close. Christian Bale plays Dillinger's opposite, Melvin Purvis. It's vastly different from the gruff, gravely voiced characters we've seen him play in The Dark Knight or Terminator: Salvation, which is a good thing. Bale excels at playing this G-Man who, while on opposite sides of the law from Dillinger, is not so different from him. He wants to hog the camera as much as his target, but, you get the sense that he has become slightly delusional by the power he has, as he bears witness to the brutality allowed by his boss, Hoover, played by a superbly slimy Billy Crudup. It's not Bale's best performance, but it's up there. The last big role falls to Oscar winner Marion Cotillard as Billie Frechette, a half Indian, half French-Canadian, coat check girl who Dillinger moves on so hard it terrifies her at first. But then, she falls for his lavish ways, and willfully follows him wherever he goes. Cotillard is sensational as Billie. I still get a little steamed about how she beat out Julie Christie at the Oscars a few years ago, but, I'm gonna let that slide, because she is so friggin' good in this movie! She radiates beauty and fire in every scene she is in. No wonder Depp falls so hard for her. There are a lot of other smaller performances, but I still have to talk about all the other good things in this movie, so, I'll leave them be.

Director Michael Mann is no stranger to the urban crime epic. He gave us Heat, Collateral, and Miami Vice. He sometimes gets hamstrung by weird story and stupid characters in these movies, but, it cannot be denied, he can shoot the hell out of them. Public Enemies is easily his best looking movie yet. Mann shot it all in HD, and with a heavy use of handheld cameras. It actually almost feels like a documentary. That's how good it is. You are there with Dillinger in the 1930s, robbing the banks. You are there with Purvis, suiting up for a raid. Mann transports you into this time, and makes every scene authentic. The amount of realism in this movie is ridiculous, from the clothes, accents, and cars, to the surprisingly brutal violence and the incredibly loud gunshot noises. Let me tell you, the gunshots in this movie are LOUD! The action scenes are the best Mann has done since the spectacular street shootout in Heat. The massive fight between the F.B.I. and Dillinger's gang in Wisconsin is one for the record books. The documentary style deal is good. It shows Mann stepped back and let the actors do their thing, and more power to him for it. He has made one of the best, old fashioned,  gangster movies since Goodfellas. 

The movie has it's problems, sure. For one, there is one scene where Depp and Bale stare down each other through prison bars. The way this movie has been publicized, I went in thinking that that scene would be on par with the amazing diner chat between DeNiro and Pacino in Heat. Not so. That was the only disappointing scene in the movie. Also, the score kind of annoyed me. There was this one point at the very end of the movie, after a pretty emotional line was said, where the music blared up full blast. It turned a genuinely heartbreaking scene into an eye roller. 

Public Enemies is not Mann's best movie. This flick is no Heat. What it is, is one of the best movies of the year, and a return to form for director. Bolstered by the spectacular performance by Depp, Public Enemies rises above the drek to come out in recent weeks, and kicks off the Oscar race a little early this year. It's July 4th weekend. Don't go see Transformers again. See this. You'll be better off.  B+

I Machine, Red In Eyes and Itchy For Fight!!

Well, we all knew it would come sometime. It was inevitable that the money guzzling powerhouse known as Hollywood would one day decide that one of the most beloved sci-fi franchises in history still had some steam in it, long after it had been put to sleep for good. So, that powerhouse decided to make Terminator 3. 6 years later they do it again. So now, we have Terminator Salvation, a great looking flick that is devoid of all humanity and subtlety. It is also quite possibly the loudest movie that will come out this summer, other then Transformers 2. 

So, after a title sequence that pays obvious homage to original, we meet Marcus Wright, a death row inmate who is given the chance to help a good cause by donating his organs when the big men upstairs decide to shuffle him loose the mortal coil, which he accepts, because he's one of those remorseful types, you know? Fast forward 15 years, and the world looks a little different. Machines, led by the computer program Skynet, have rained an ungodly amount of nukes on humanity, and the survivors of the fiery holocaust are fighting back. At the heart of this resistance stands John Connor, who has not yet risen to his destiny as the man who will one day lead humanity to victory against the metal menace. Lately he's been receiving a lot of jaw from his commanders, which is seriously ticking him off. Most of his efforts are on locating and protecting Kyle Reese, his father, who is actually younger then him, but goes back in time to fight off a Terminator sent to kill John's mother, and impregnates her there. It's a little weird. Watch the first one. Amid all the chaos, a new player emerges. It's, guess who, Marcus, who, we are meant to believe, has been comatose for the last decade and a half. As Connor and Marcus' paths cross, more carnage and explosions occur, all culminating in a massive confrontation at the Skynet HQ with a ridiculous cameo from a certain someone. In terms of story and characters, Salvation fails miserably. Like the last entry in the series, it relies more on action and bigger and bigger explosions to tell the story, rather then actually telling the story with, you know, talking. 

Christian Bale plays Connor. To be honest, I was actually really bored with his rendition of this human messiah. It's not that it's something we've seen in the character before, it's just that it's the exact same thing Bale has done in all of his recent movies. I want to see Bale play a smooth talking, slightly disturbed, extremely vain business man again like in American Psycho. Here, he plays Connor so gruff and agitated, you'd think he forgot to take off the bat ears. Sam Worthington, as Marcus, on the other hand, is very good. Worthington, an Australian brick layer, was largely unknown until, well, Friday, but now, with this and James Cameron's Avatar this winter, he is fast becoming a star. And Thank God, because he has the chops. Most of his dialogue is ridiculous and cheesy, but he handles it surprisingly well. In reality, this is Worthington's movie. Sure, Bale is listed as the main star, but Worthington's character gets the most screen time and goes through the biggest character arc, which is a good thing, because Marcus struggling to cope with an unfamiliar world is so much more interesting then Connor shouting a lot. There are really no other performances worth mentioning, except for Anton Yelchin as Kyle Reese. He's fine, but I couldn't looking at him without think "What the hell is Chekov from Star Trek doing in this movie?" As with story, Salvation is weak in terms of acting. It is only saved by Worthington.

Now, apart from acting and story, Terminator Salvation is not the pile of garbage that we all thought it was going to be, and all that is thanks to action and special effects, which are top notch. Unlike most action directors, MCG (Now that's a name) is smart and relentless with his violence. Like Zach Snyder, he crafts meticulous, well shot, exciting, and very satisfying scenarios rather then shaking the camera or going the documentary approach on the whole thing. A lot of the action scenes are quite well done, especially the one from the trailer that has Kyle and Marcus in a truck running from machines that look like motorcycles. The opening sequence actually reminded me a little of Apocalypse Now, with helicopters dropping off soldiers and planes dropping napalm. As a plus, the explosions in this movie are awesome to behold, and there are a lot of them. In just the first 20 minutes you will see an air strike, a guided missile, various grenades, and nuclear warhead, all go up in flames. Let me reiterate, that's only the first 20 minutes. The rest of the special effects are quite good as well, especially the iconic terminators. In past movies, they've moved around like a 70 year old with arthritis, and, despite looking scary as hell, never seemed to pose much of a threat. Not the case here. Thanks to special effects wizardry, the T-800 in this movie is agile, swift, and dangerous. Actually, come to think of it, all the machines in this movie look ten times more dangerous and scary then in the others. The familiar ones, like the Hunter Killer and the regular terminator look so much better, and the new ones, like the Hydrobot or the hulking Harvester are welcome additions to the series. Not all the special effects are fantastic though. Yes, I'm going to give it away, but Arnold does make an appearance via CGI as a muscle clad terminator. He looked like a ken doll. It was a little off putting. 

Now, despite all the action in this movie being so damn exciting, a lot of it does nothing to further the plot. It is all just chaos. In the last three movies, there was a clear villain, something that needed to be killed. Here, it's a little harder to determine what the main villain is. Sure, the computer controlling the machines is the obvious target, but we never see it. And since there is not a single one terminator that is constantly harassing our heroes, a lot of the action goes nowhere. Thousands of men are dying all around you, but you never got a chance to know them, so all the attachment that was felt in T1 and T2 is completely lost. MCG directs his action very well, but, when it comes to crafting characters we care about, a story that is compelling, and getting acting that is up to the caliber of the stars, he is hopeless. 

Terminator Salvation is not the abomination that we all thought it would be. Indeed, it is actually surprisingly decent as an action movie, and will provide surefire entertainment for a solid two hours. However, if you are looking for a movie on par with T2, look elsewhere. The next installment in the Salvation series may come closer to being up to snuff with James Cameron's masterpiece, but, as it stands, it will have a long way to go. B-