Top 30 Actresses in Moviedom circa around 2016

I was digging through some old files and noticed I ranked the top 30 actors and actresses:

There were four clear contenders for the top spot. The two Cates (Blanchett and Kate Winslet) are the go-to actresses for auteurs and in nearly twenty years of high-profile acting  have displayed a seemingly endless range for Oscar-caliber projects. Blanchett is penalized a little because she’s so chameleon-like and doesn’t have any star persona. Winslet is penalized a little because she wasn’t on any particular hot streak before Steve Jobs (which got her an Oscar nomination but which no one really saw) as evidenced by the disaster that was Jason Reitman’s Labor Day.

Lawrence is on fire, as Alicia Keys wrote a song to attest, with two franchises she’s successfully helmed and more Oscar nominations than any  25-year-old really needs. However, she could be in danger of being ghettoized if she chooses to do all her tentpole films with David O Russell. For non-DOR fans, she is soon to fall off their radar as the lack of success Joy had in finding an audience showed. There’s also some debate about whether she can master an older woman but that’s based on whether you think she pulled Joy of f (she mostly did).

That leaves Charlize Theron, who is acertifiable action star. She’s been recognized as a high-caliber actress for a dozen years now, has the hardware to show for it, and has a certain edge to her screen persona that sells. With sheer talent and appeal, I’m comfortable naming her #1.

1.      Charlize Theron

2.      Cate Blanchett

3.      Jennifer Lawrence

4.      Kate Winslet

5.      Meryl Streep-Universally considered the best actress of her generation, Streep continues to take risks and interesting choices while also doing broad appeal films like Mamma Mia, Lemony Snicket, It’s Complicated, Prime, and some might say Ricki and the Flash (in theory, this film should have broad appeal). She’s aging gracefully and is a threat to get an Oscar nominated nearly every year

6.      Scarlett Johansson-Although she’s never been Oscar-nominated, she’s come close enough a few times that she’s considered high-calliber. She also has several Golden Globe and BAFTA nominees and has been an established actress for a dozen years. She’s a certifiable action star, and on the art side, has made boundary-pushing choices whether Lucy, Her or Don John’s Addiction. It says a lot that a younger director like Joseph Gordon-Leavitt thought she could handle a mature role.

7.      Julianne Moore-She’s obviously hot because she just won an Oscar and consistently brings in great preformances. She’s been in romantic comedies, art house films, and adaptations BUT she’s #7 and not in the top 5 because occasionally her best performances are for obscure films. She won an Oscar for Still Alice but did anyone see Still Alice? Free Held, Maps to the Stars and, in the past, The Prize Winner of Defiance Ohio didn’t even get widescale distribution.

8.      Amy Adams-The female answer to Leonardo DiCaprio. She has the make and temperament of a character actress but she has shown the ability to hold her own as a lead (she outacted Jennifer Lawrence  in American Hustle) and her filmography is so full of good films, she brings John C Rilley or Phillip Seymour Hoffman  to mind.  Man of Steel brings Tentpole Credentials and going back to 2007, so does Enchanted. She also has done comedy like Talladega Nights or The Muppet Movie pretty aptly.

9.      Naomi Watts-How often she appears in film is relative but her talent alone groups her in the top tier. Like Nicole Kidman, she’s chameneon-like in accents and although this is three years ago, The Impossible was very Dicaprio-like in the rigor of the shoot.

10.  Rooney Mara-Although her filmography is relatively short (not as short as Hailee Steinfeld or Soisre Ronan), she has made strong marks in everything she’s in. Even small supporting roles in Social Network or Her garnered her attention. She has about a 50% chance of winning an Oscar for Carol but even if she doesn’t, she’ll likely be back.

11.  Keira Knightley-Authentic English actors and actresses always get a boost in bankability because so many period pieces (even things not explicitly set in England like Troy or Merchant of Venice) that require an English thespian. On top of that, Knightley is hip and cool and has a modern sensibility. She could easily fit into a Diablo Cody or Noah Bombauch work (Begin Again or Seeking a Friend for the End of the World might not have been written explicitly by those two but they were in that mold). Plus, she can swashbuckle AND sing.

12.  Anne Hathaway-An Oscar winner at the right age to play a wide range of parts, her public persona is a bit polarizing. She did do action in Get Smart and sang in Les Miserables. Even though she’s been on SNL, her comic chops are not particularly strong IMO.

13.  Rachel McAdams-Introduced to Hollywood in a villainess role in Mean Girls, she’s tackled a wide range of parts working with Terrence Malick, Woody Allen, Thomas McCarthy and kicked ass in Sherlock Holmes and a Most Wanted Man. Turned a best supporting actress nomination in a competitive field. She’s also a very strong romantic lead.

14.  Sandra Bullock-The female counterpart to Matthew McConaughey in that she was seen mostly as a romcom type of actress with a bubbly personality but her 2009 Oscar gave her a makeover and the follow-up Oscar nod in Gravity gave her a lot more leverage in being taken seriously.

15.  Emma Stone-This might just be me  but I have trouble not seeing her as a teeny-bopper sor tof star even though we’re apparently 5 years removed from her high school roles in Easy A and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. She’s had a respectable turn in the Help, starred in two of Woody Allen’s most invisible films and her big Oscar-nominated turn in Birdman (which I’m pretty sure would not have materialized if she wasn’t acting in the eventual BP winner) was still that of a teenager. I think it might still be a while until she’s taken seriously as an actress who can play 30+.

16.  Judi Dench-If you need a senior citizen, she’ll work in nearly every film, but IIRC, she’s getting to the age where she might have to stop acting soon. I believe I’ve heard her eyesight is going.

17.  Jessica Chastain-Two Oscar noms in the past five years and a very close call last year for a nominaion as well. Not to mention she’s been in four Best Picture nominees-The Martian, Zero Dark Thirty, Help, and Tree of Life- in that time period as well. She’s also won a Golden Globe and two NBR awards. With Interstellar, The Martian, Zero Dark Thirty, and a Most Violent Year, she has a very good track record of interesting film choices

18.  Helen Mirren-Very versatile actress and  not as old as she looks (she’s 70), but she gets relegated to senior citizen parts even though she gives those senior citizen roles a surprising sex appeal. She still gets awards buzz here and there (Woman in Gold and Trumbo in this year alone). Also worth noting, Woman in Gold got $33 million domestically  at the box office. Extremely impressive for a film no one’s ever heard of.

19.  Alicia Vikander-It’s hard to properly rate someone who’s been in the public spotlight for exactly one year. Man from Uncle, Ex Machina, The Danish Girl ere all great performances and she could even win an Oscar and just won a SAG award, but it’s just one year. The longer you’re in the public eye the better chances you have of working up a fan base.

20.  Nicole Kidman-The first time I wrote a list like this in 2009, she was #1 and she’s still just as good but a lot of her films are not wide-release. Her best role in the last half-decade, Paperboy, was mostly enjoyed ironically by people. The Oscar campaign for that role was something along the lines of  “Let’s give an Oscar nom to someone in a bad movie for once!”

21.  Soisre Ronan-I tend to group her, Haile Steinfeld and Carey Mulligan together in the same boat. Women who got Oscar noms at young ages and subsequently got set up with expectations as the next big thing. Of the trio, Ronan has had the biggest cult. Carried Brooklyn to a BP nom this past year.

22.  Kristen Wiig-Some might disagree but she wasn’t as well-known on SNL as Maya Rudolph, Amy Poehler and Tina Fey. Those three were known as Hollywood royalty. Wiig had the most screentime of anyone on SNL in her later years, but there was a good chance if you didn’t watch SNL during those years, you wouldn’t have known she was on. Since leaving, she’s had a game-changing megahit in Bridesmaids, has taken value-added supporting roles in nearly every comedy to come out, and has won critical acclaim in a wide variety of indie films.

23.  Emily Blunt-This is more wishful thinking because somehow I don’t think Blunt is quite A-list yet, but I see no reason why she shouldn’t. I don’t even understand why she wasn’t nominated for Sicario. She can play a brooding, introspective star, she can do dramedy (Sunshine Cleaning, Devil Wears Prada), she did period (Young Victoria), and she has edge.

24.  Reese Witherspoon-Wild was one of the best performances of any actor last year IMO and she deserved an  Oscar, but she’s so ingrained as the ingénue that it’s sometimes hard to see her outside of that typecast. Even Walk the Line had her playing a version of that Southern Ingenue. It’s also been well over a decade since she became a tentpole star with Legally Blonde.

25.  Claire Danes-Bryan Cranston, Steve Carell, James Gandolfini and Kyle Chandler have enjoyed extremely successful movie careers since their star-making TV roles have ended. I predict when Homeland ends, Danes will be an A-lister in the movies.  As far as I can gather, she’s only been in one film in the 2010s (a Sundance entry) but that should change when Homeland ends. Anna Faris and Kerry Washington are two others I believe will explode in film when their TV shows end.

26.  Carey Muligan-Her casting in the Great Gatsby when it was hyped up in the pre-production phase says a lot about how prized she is among casting directors. She’s the right age to be cast in young women roles.

27.  Marion Cotillard-Being from England is a big plus. Being from nearly every other country is an impediment, but Cotillard has done extremely well for herself acting in such high profile films as Public Enemies, Midnight in Paris, and Inception and shone in MacBeth this year.

28.  Kerry Washington-She had a long career as a character actress (Ray, Mr and Mrs Smith, Last King of Scotland) before being cast in a highly visible TV show which should give her a big boost when Scandal ends. She’s even done great work in the movies while on Scandal (Django Unchained)

29.  Rosario Dawson-She’s been consistently in good roles for the last 13 or 14 years and has done multiple genres.

30.  Ellen Page-Has a hip and cool edge (Whip It, Juno) but could use a better agent.

2017 Golden Globes Reaction and Hopes for the Upcoming Awards Season

Source: http://www.korsgaardscommentary.com

The first in-depth piece I read on the Golden Globes was by Richard Roeper who did an expose in his book about how the Hollywood Foreign Press Association was a near-fraudulent organization of some 80-something journalists who don’t represent anywhere near the cream of the crop in terms of film critics or reporters.

But looking over the lists of nominees, I hardly care: Despite having to go first, these guys generally manage to fall in the same region of adventurous mainstream artistry that the academy favors which is a lot harder to do when you’re up earlier in the season. But more than that, they’ve allowed people like Colin Farrell (In Bruges), Gene Hackman (Royal Tenenbaums), Dennis Quaid (Far From Heaven), Gael Garcia Bernal (Mozart in the Jungle), Rachel Bloom (Crazy Ex-Girlfriend) to thrive that didn’t get recognition at the Academy or Oscars. Mozart in the Jungle is a solid show that will always get overlooked by best of lists considering the plethora of Golden Age TV, but it can always call itself a Golden Globe winner.

This year, Jason Bateman in Ozark, Katherine Langford in 13 Reasons Why, and Freddie Highmore in the Good Doctor (let’s call this collateral for his Bates Motel snubs) are surprisingly astute picks. Eric McCormack (the blandest cast member of an entirely unnecessary reboot) and SMILF are both pretty puzzling but when you have such a small sample size of 80 that’s part of the fun.


Other notes:

-Three of my four favorite films this year are all in the comedy category: Big Sick, Beatriz at Dinner, and Baby Driver so I had plenty of horses in this race and was somewhat disappointed. Selma Hayek gave a tender performance that went for big laughs in a wonderful movie that encapsulated the best of Mike White-style awkwardness. Similarly, the omission of Holly Hunter, Kumail Nanjiani, Zoe Kazan, and the screenplay of Emily Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani are all extremely disappointing. Watching Ansel Elgort get nominated for Baby Driver was a small consolation prize. Overlooked in all the hype of the movie is Baby Driver isn’t just a great technical achievement but Edgar Wright’s most emotionally poignant story with Elgort at the center. However, I think Lily James might also have been deserving.

-For my money, the nicest surprise would have been Tom Cruise in American Made. The actor has been relegated to strictly low-risk action since Oprah-gate and this is the first role in years where Cruise is committed to creating an interesting character while letting loose. Tropic Thunder was a nice cameo, but Barry Seal was a fully realized anti-hero and he was a lot of fun.

-With the horror film Get Out (a film I’m not crazy about), the indie stylings of Sean Baker (The Florida Project), and the fantastical Shape of Water, this is an awards year in which genre ghettoization will be broken open and I predict that will be the story of the 2017 season.

-Though I’m a big fan of Jordan Peele, I worry that Get Out will displace a better film because it’s getting an exaggerated spike from a film criticism community that leans towards the social justice liberal end of the spectrum. At the same time, I’m not attuned or experienced in the horror genre to fully get the nuances of the film. I would recommend that awards bodies go for Mudbound instead (which got snubbed by the Globes). 

-While I think the idea of being unable to separate the man from his art in the case of Kevin Spacey is absurd, I can certainly respect Ridley Scott’s decision to remake the film and it’s a testament to his genius and efficiency that he reshot All the Money in the World in a week and it was wonderful to see him rewarded.

-For the life of me, I can’t understand the fuss with Mary J. Blige. It’s such an understated performance, I can barely remember her at all. Mad props to Blige for taking on a challenging project for her transition to acting, but if these awards bodies want to award the film’s fantastic acting, Jason Clarke or Jason Mitchell deserve the nod in the supporting actor category. 

-Ughh, Judi Dench and Meryl Streep. Of course, these are two very good actresses but the former is always getting slots for Oscar-bait (she's already been nominated twice for playing Monarchs including Victoria herself, Chocolat was lightweight and Iris was a dry biopic that had no appeal outside of the acting challenge of playing an aging author culminating in Alzheimer's) and Streep has just been nominated too many times to feel any joy for her 21st film nomination.

-Lastly, seeing your favorite films get love on awards ceremonies is nice but it also makes one wonder about the “what ifs.” Todd Haynes and Richard Linklater are both directors who rarely go wrong and one has to wonder what they possibly could have done differently with Wonderstruck or Last Flag Flying to get the critics’ attention. Are they deserving films? Both films were on my must list but by the time I got around to stopping by the theater to see them, I discovered that they both were quietly dropped within a week or two.

2015: Year-End Top 30 Actress Power Ranking

This is my Power Rankings series where I rank actors and actresses on a mix of commercial and critical bankability. The measure is on the odds that casting this actress in your film will make it a critical or commercial success. It's based on December 31, 2015 as I originally wrote it then and haven't gotten around to posting it. Check out the last power rankings I did three years ago for reference.

Fair warning: A proper noun or two might be spelled wrong. 



The top four:

1. Charlize Theron
2. Cate Blanchett
3. Jennifer Lawrence
4. Kate Winslet

There were four clear contenders for the top spot. The two K/Cates (Blanchett and Kate Winslet) are the go-to actresses for auteurs and they have both displayed a seemingly endless range for Oscar-caliber acting in the last twenty years. Blanchett is penalized a little because she’s so chameleon-like  that she doesn’t have any star persona. Winslet is penalized a little because she wasn’t on any particular hot streak before Steve Jobs (which got her an Oscar nomination but it was a film which no one really saw) as evidenced by the disaster that was Jason Reitman’s Labor Day.

Lawrence is on fire (as Alicia Keys can attest) with two franchises she’s successfully helmed and more Oscar nominations than any 25-year-old really needs. However, she could be in danger of being ghettoized if she chooses to do all her non-tentpole films with David O Russell. For non-DOR fans, she is in danger of falling off their radar as the lack of success Joy had in finding an audience showed. There’s also some debate about whether she can master an older woman but that’s based on whether you think she pulled Joy (I'm in the camp that she did).

That leaves Charlize Theron who has been recognized as a high-caliber actress for a dozen years now, has the hardware to show for it, and has a certain edge to her screen persona that sells. By sheer talent and appeal, I am comfortable calling her the biggest star in moviedom today.

5.      Meryl Streep-Universally considered the best actress of her generation, Streep continues to take risks and interesting choices while also doing broad appeal films like Mamma Mia, Lemony Snicket, It’s Complicated, Prime, and some might say Ricki and the Flash (in theory, this film should have had broad appeal). She’s aging gracefully and is a threat to get an Oscar nomination pretty much every year.

 6.      Scarlett Johansson-Although she’s never been Oscar-nominated, she’s come close enough a few times that she’s considered high-caliber. She also has several Golden Globe and BAFTA nominees and has been an established actress for a dozen years. She’s a certifiable action star and has made boundary-pushing choices through films such as Lucy, Her or Don John’s Addiction. And yes, the plot of Lucy was pretty ridiculous, but it was an edgy choice on her part.

7.      Julianne Moore-She’s hot because she just won an Oscar, but even so, she consistently brings the goods. She’s been in romantic comedies, art house films, and adaptations BUT she goes down a couple pegs from Top 5 because her best performances are often for obscure films. She won an Oscar for Still Alice but did anyone see Still Alice? Free Held, Maps to the Stars and, in the past, The Prize Winner of Defiance Ohio didn’t even get wide-scale distribution.

8.      Amy Adams-The female answer to Leonardo DiCaprio. She has the make and temperament of a character actress but she has shown the ability to hold her own as a lead (she out-acted Jennifer Lawrence  in American Hustle) and her filmography is so full of good films, she can rival John C Rilley or the late Phillip Seymour Hoffman as contemporaries.  Man of Steel brings tent pole credentials and so did Enchanted (although that was back in 2007). She also has done comedy like Talladega Nights or The Muppet Movie and was pretty game to get her hands dirty .

9.      Naomi Watts-How often she appears in film is relative but her talent alone groups her in the top tier. Like Nicole Kidman, she’s chameleon-like in accents and although this is three years ago, The Impossible was very DiCaprio-like in terms of the rigor of the shoot.

 10.  Rooney Mara-Although her filmography is relatively short (not as short as Hailee Steinfeld or Saiosre Ronan), she has made strong marks in everything she’s in. Even small supporting roles in Social Network or Her garnered attention. She has about a 50% chance of winning an Oscar for Carol but even if she doesn’t, she will likely be back.

11.  Keira Knightley-Authentic English actors and actresses always get a boost in bankability because so many period pieces (even things not explicitly set in England like Troy or Merchant of Venice) require an English thespian. On top of that, Knightley is hip and cool and has a modern sensibility. She could easily fit into a Diablo Cody or Noah Bombauch work (Begin Again or Seeking a Friend for the End of the World might not have been written explicitly by those two but they were in that mold). Plus, she can swashbuckle AND sing. 

12.  Anne Hathaway-An Oscar winner at the right age to play a wide range of parts, her public persona is a bit polarizing. She did action in Get Smart and sang in Les Miserables. Even though she’s been on SNL, her comic chops are not particularly strong in my opinion.

13.  Rachel McAdams-Introduced to Hollywood in a villainess role in Mean Girls, she’s tackled a wide range of parts working with Terrence Malick, Woody Allen, Thomas McCarthy and kicked ass in Sherlock Holmes and a Most Wanted Man. Turned a best supporting actress nomination in a competitive field this past year and is a very strong romantic lead.
  
14.  Sandra Bullock-The female counterpart to Matthew McConaughey in that she was seen mostly as a romcom type of actress with a bubbly personality but her 2009 Oscar gave her a makeover and the follow-up Oscar nod in Gravity gave her a lot more leverage in being taken seriously. 

15.  Emma Stone-This might just be me  but I have trouble not seeing her as a teeny-bopper sor tof star even though we’re apparently 5 years removed from her high school roles in Easy A and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. She’s had a respectable turn in the Help, starred in two of Woody Allen’s most invisible films and her big Oscar-nominated turn in Birdman (which I’m pretty sure would not have materialized if she wasn’t acting in the eventual BP winner) was still that of a teenager. I think it might still be a while until she’s taken seriously as an actress who can play 30+. 

16.  Judi Dench-If you need a senior citizen, she’ll work in nearly every film, but it's worth noting, she’s getting to the age where her acting days are limited due to failing eye sight.

17.  Jessica Chastain-Two Oscar noms in the past five years and a very close call last year for a nominaion as well. Not to mention she’s been in four Best Picture nominees-The Martian, Zero Dark Thirty, Help, and Tree of Life- in that time period as well. She’s also won a Golden Globe and two NBR awards. With Interstellar, The Martian, Zero Dark Thirty, and a Most Violent Year, she has a very good track record of interesting film choices

18.  Helen Mirren-Very versatile actress who not as old as she looks (she’s 70), although she gets relegated to senior citizen parts (though she is considered a cougar of sorts). She still gets awards buzz here and there (Woman in Gold and Trumbo in this year alone). Also worth noting: Woman in Gold got $33 million domestically at the box office. Extremely impressive for a film no one’s ever heard of. 

19.  Alicia Vikander-It’s hard to properly rate someone who’s been in the public spotlight for exactly one year. Man from Uncle, Ex Machina, The Danish Girl ere all great performances and she could even win an Oscar and just won a SAG award, but it’s just one year. The longer you’re in the public eye the better chances you have of working up a fan base.

20.  Nicole Kidman-The first time I wrote a list like this in 2009, she was #1 and she’s still just as good but a lot of her films are not wide-release. Her best role in the last half-decade, Paperboy, was mostly enjoyed ironically by people. The Oscar campaign for that role was something along the lines of  “Let’s give an Oscar nom to someone in a bad movie for once!” 

21.  Saoirse Ronan-I tend to group her, Haile Steinfeld and Carey Mulligan together in the same boat. Women who got Oscar noms at young ages and subsequently got set up with expectations as the next big thing. Of the trio, Ronan has had the biggest cult. She carried Brooklyn to a Best Picture Nomination this past year.

22.  Kristen Wiig-Some might disagree but I would maintain she wasn’t as well-known on SNL as Maya Rudolph, Amy Poehler and Tina Fey. Those three were known as Hollywood royalty. Wiig had the most screentime of anyone on SNL in her later years, but there was a good chance if you didn’t watch SNL during those years, you wouldn’t have known she was on. Since leaving, she’s had a game-changing megahit in Bridesmaids, has taken value-added supporting roles in nearly every comedy to come out. She has also won critical acclaim in a wide variety of indie films.

23.  Emily Blunt-This is more wishful thinking because somehow I don’t think Blunt is quite A-list yet, but I see no reason why she shouldn’t. I don’t even understand why she wasn’t nominated for Sicario. She can play a brooding, introspective star, she can do dramedy (Sunshine Cleaning, Devil Wears Prada), she did period (Young Victoria), and she has edge. 

24.  Reese Witherspoon-Wild was one of the best performances of any actor last year IMO and she deserved an  Oscar, but she’s so ingrained as the ingénue that it’s sometimes hard to see her outside of that typecast. Even Walk the Line had her playing a version of that Southern Ingenue. It’s also been well over a decade since she became a tentpole star with Legally Blonde.

25.  Claire Danes-Bryan Cranston, Steve Carell, James Gandolfini and Kyle Chandler have enjoyed extremely successful movie careers since their star-making TV roles have ended. I predict when Homeland ends, Danes will be an A-lister in the movies.  As far as I can gather, she’s only been in one film in the 2010s (a Sundance entry) but that should change when Homeland ends. Anna Faris and Kerry Washington are two others I believe will explode in film when their TV shows end. 

26.  Carey Mulligan-Her casting in the Great Gatsby when it was hyped up in the pre-production phase says a lot about how prized she is among casting directors. She’s the right age to be cast in young women roles. Garnered some Oscar buzz this past year for Suffragette.

27.  Marion Cotillard-Being from England is a big plus. Being from nearly every other country is an impediment, but Cotillard has done extremely well for herself acting in such high profile films as Public Enemies, Midnight in Paris, and Inception and shone in MacBeth this year. 

28.  Kerry Washington-She had a long career as a character actress (Ray, Mr and Mrs Smith, Last King of Scotland) before being cast in a highly visible TV show which should give her a big boost when Scandal ends. She’s even done great work in the movies while on Scandal (Exhibit A: Django Unchained) 

29.  Rosario Dawson-Dawson amasses a lot of longevity points: She’s been in consistently good roles for the last 13 or 14 years throughout multiple genres. With a supporting role in Daredevil, she's dipped her toe into prestige TV, but she still has plenty of time on her schedule to be in the next big thing on screen.

30.  Ellen Page-Has a hip and cool edge (Whip It, Juno) but could use a better agent. Her latest film, Freeheld, did not get great distribution but she's visible enough that a comeback isn't out of the question.

Top 25 Acting Performances of 2009

I'm sure most readers can't distinguish between a 2009 and a 2010 film, but when you write about movies as often as I do you become kind of geeky about those things. Here's a random list of my 25 favorite performances of 2009 I wrote up in order to fill a slow day.

To review:
Oscar Best Picture nominees I saw: Avatar, Up in the Air, Inglourious Basterds, District 9, Blind Side, Up

Other award-worthy films I saw: Invcitus, Julie and Julia, Star Trek, In the Loop, 500 Days of Summer, Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock Holmes, Public Enemies, Hangover, Informant!, Me and Orson Welles

Award-worthy films I didn't see:
BP Nominees: Precious, Hurt Locker, An Education, Single Man
Also: Single Man, It's Complicated, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Messenger, Brothers, Young Victoria, Bright Star, Taking Woodstock, Nine, Last Station, Lovely Bones, Princess and the Frog, Moon
And the list:


1. Robert Downey Jr, Sherlock Holmes-There's certainly some genre bias in why he didn't go further in the Oscar race but if you take Downey's performance on its own terms, it's an incomparable performance of an iconic character. And, yes, there is a lot of comparison. Along with the Sherlock-influenced characters on TV (House and Monk) to come before, there have been at least three great performances (Benedict Cumberbatch, Jonny Lee Miller, and recently Ian McKellen) since, yet this is the performance I remember. Robert Downey Jr. won a Golden Globe for his performance in the comedy category which is pretty fraudulent but it highlights the fact that performances in action features don't really fit into any box when evaluating a performance.

2. Vera Farmiga, Up in the Air-What I imagine when I think of a supporting role: Someone
interesting enough that you could imagine a whole movie being made about them. To the frequent-flyer protagonist, Farmiga's character is alluring. She speaks his language and could even be considered a perfect match. Underneath the veneer, however, her life is fraught with complications.

3. Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds-In this film, he has an obvious presence and this was just as a universally great performance for good reason. I like that he's not just pure evil but [SPOILER ALERT] takes a deal at the end. His mastery of all the different languages as a weapon obviously helps his cause to be shot towards the top of this list. Since this performance, he has been pigeonholed as a villain of uncharacteristic eloquence but he's a strong enough actor to deliver it with so many variations.

4. Melanie Laurent, Inglourious Basterds-Although Inglourious Basterds claims to be an ensemble

film, it could easily be read as Shoshanna's journey. Laurent has a very quiet presence but a strong survival instinct and so many shades of her presence are visible in her journey: In particular, the fear of concealment is prevalent in her every moment on screen.

5. Rachel Weisz, The Brothers Bloom-Trying my best to distinguish between a bad movie and a good performance, I have to vault Weisz towards the top for a standout role in a film that failed to be memorable. Aside from learning all those skills for the purpose of that montage (ping pong, unicycling, rapping, what more could you want?), her character is so interesting in that she's socially stunted but so capable of socialization if given the right push. In this case, the reclusive character is given an introduction point to society that couldn't be worse (a trio of con artists) which makes her even more interesting.

6. Meryl Streep, Julie and Julia-Not a particularly eventful movie (Plot summary: If I remember correctly, the film's two plots are: a) one girl learns to blog and b) Meryl Streep imitates a historical figure for an easy Oscar nod), but it's Meryl Streep and she rarely does anything less than amazing.

7. Edgar Flores, Sin Nombre-I'm not one to spout on foreign films others haven't heard of as I average less than one foreign film a year, but I did happen to see this one and I can't deny the powerful performances here. Flores takes you on a journey of guilt, pragmatic redemption, and a hesitant survival instinct. He's a man born in Hell who sees the light late in life.



8. Sandra Bullock, Blind Side-I didn't mind the Oscar win here over Streep because this is a transformative role for Bullock that makes or breaks the movie. Bullock is a Southern belle of sorts but never dumbs herself down for the role. Bullock was always a popular box office draw but 2009 marked a year in which she suddenly began to be taken seriously as an actress. The Proposal was another film that showed her maturity in comedic roles this year.

9. Quinton Aaron, Blind Side-Bullock doesn't deserve sole credit. It's a two-part movie. Aaron's Michael Oher possesses a quiet gentleness that gets you on his side fast. There was a challenge here to portray the character as uneducated but not necessarily devoid of intellectual potential and Oher resistd temptation to simplify that dichotomy.

10. Robert Downey Jr., Soloist-Whereas some saw this is a standard feel-good filler on the movie calendar of 2009, this was my third favorite movie of the year so I thought pretty highly of the film already. While it seems logical that Foxx (who played a mentally ill artist) should be rated higher for the more flamboyant part, Downey Jr.'s typical persona- gruff exterior, good with words, internal demons hidden deep down- is used perfectly here and his arc was no less cathartic even if it was quieter than his counterpart. You also got the sense that he did his research into the life of a beat reporter.

11. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, 500 Days of Summer-This was Gordon-Levitt's breakout role as a star

and shows off his grandiose theatricality even in its quieter moments. Gordon-Levitt is so infectious here with his youthful optimism that you forget that his views on love (at least with regard to Summer) are misguided and self-destructive (by JGL's own admission).

12. Zoe Saldana, Star Trek-The entire ensemble of Star Trek deserves a lot of credit for creating wholly original dramatic struggles while retaining the essence of the characters they're modeled after. I could pick any one of the seven leads from the film and put them in my top 25 but I'll limit myself to one and just go with Saldana who took what was originally thankless part (saved from being forgettable solely by the performance of Nichelle Nicholls) and made it a star attraction. Shipping her in a relationship with an emotionless half-alien didn't hurt in raising the degree of difficulty either.

13. Jamie Foxx, Soloist-Foxx is one of the most consistently on actors in my opinion and he always seems to make my Oscar wishlists for even minor performances (Dream Girls and Jarhead). His performance is Oscar-baity here but I give it points for being very close to his real-life counterpart (I've seen documentary footage on Nathaniel Ayres).

14. Ed Asner, Up-I generally don't believe that a voice-over performance is comparable to a live action role and should not be considered for awards buzz. Scarlett Johansson was someone who made me consider that rule of mine with Her. However, I realized when making this list that Johansson isn't my favorite voice performance of all-time but this is. Asner's role in this film was make-or-break and the emotional ride you felt from this movie can only be attributed to him.

15. Daniel Bruhl, Inglourious Basterds-Creepy is generally an overused word, but it's definitely apt for this character here who's underhanded bragging and dogged pursuit of Shoshanna makes him

someone you're hoping will be shot down (in the literal sense) sooner or later.

16. Tom Hollander, In the Loop-Peter Capaldi was the man who generated the most Oscar-buzz from this awesome film but I prefer Hollander because he's the straight man in the middle of this circus of snide insults and brown-nosing. His look of defeat at the end of the film says so much.

17. George Clooney, Up in the Air-I've had a long-standing belief that George Clooney is not only overrated but over-celebrated to the point where I want to pull my hair out whenever I see a softball interview with the man. However, of his four Oscar nominations, I'll maintain that he most definitely deserves two of them. Although he repeats a lot of the same beats (world-weariness, graying charm), he really sold the hell out of them on an emotional level and bought something new here. Jason Reitman did more with Clooney than Alexander Payne did in my opinion.

18. Matt Damon, Informant-For a long time, I adored Matt Damon in this film until I realized it's the genius of the character and not the actor that makes the film great. The film stands out because of its unreliable narrator at the center. His speech inside his head and the world outside his head do not align and that's something. However, I don't know if that takes a great performance of a schizophrenic to pull this off. I'd imagine it's substantially easier to just voice a character of different temperament in the recording booth after acting out your scenes as a different character.

19. Paulina Gaitan, Sin Nombre-Another wonderful performance from a film whose director, Cary Fukunaga, might soon become a bigger name with the buzz for Beasts of No Nation. Gaitan plays a teenager being smuggled across the US/Mexico border who makes a seemingly fatal mistake by drifting away from her family and following an ex-gangster. It's a massive twist in the story and Gaitan pulls it off with a lot of consistency.

20. Tilda Swinton, Julia-I would not call this a watchable film by any means. It's a dreary trip about a troubled woman. But how can you (reluctantly) deny that playing a troubled woman like Julia takes a lot of work.

21. Anna Kendrick, Up in the Air-I love Anna Kendrick and the best I can say about this part is that this film made me a fan of her. However, I don't think her arc was particularly complex.

22. Amy Adams, Night at the Museum 2-Great performances can be found in popcorn films. If Cate Blanchett can win for an imitation of Katherine Hepburn, why can't Amy Adams at least receive a little bit of recognition in channeling her so perfectly for this fun romp?

23. Sharlto Copley, District 9-I might be grading on the curve here but this guy deserves a lot of praise for what is essentially a debut performance with minimal acting background. In this movie, he spends most of his screentime opposite a crudely-costumed giant squid-mouthed insect, and plays those moments with complete seriousness and even leaves an emotional residue. That's not easy to pull off.

24. Melanie Lynskey, Up in the Air-I've always admired Melanie Lynskey in a number of her roles.

As Ryan Bingham's sister, she possesses that kind of quiet reserve that she does best. 

25. Saul Rubineck, Julia-Again, this is not a very entertaining film and I don't recommend people see it, but if you DO see it, you will notice that Rubineck (the guy who played Daphne's boyfriend on Frasier) plays well of Tilda Swinton with a lot off tension and spark.

Top 25 Actresses

The biggest selling blog piece I ever wrote was an article on the 25 biggest actresses in Hollywood written in early 2009/late 2008. Here's an update.
Also note I wrote this from a phone so likely a lot of spelling and grammatical errors:
1 Meryl Streep-Even though she's a generation above the type of woman that usually would merit the title preeminent actress of Hollywood, how can I possibly ignore Meryl Streep anymore? (I ranked her #3 in 2008) She hits a home run in everything she's in and shows no signs on letting up the Oscar haul.
2 Charlize Theron-Theron is supremely talented and is capable of giving an unquestionably breathtaking performance like the one that stole critical thunder from all the actresses critics were taking seriously in 2003 with Monster. In the nearly ten years since, she's shown Monster was no fluke with North Country and Young Adult and she's also shown she can do action, period pieces, and romance. 
3 Naomi Watts-A supremely talented actress may not win the Oscar with The Impossible but she's been a darkhorse for a long time now missing out on several nominations and the film seems to be carving out a larger piece of the public consciousness than Beasts of the Southern Wild or Amour. Watts has long been Hollywood's best keep secret in my opinion. She turns everything she's in to Gold. With her second Oscar nomination, she might no longer be under the radar.
4 Nicole Kidman-She gives out an Oscar calliber performance nearly every year. Is there a such thing as the offseason in movie acting, I haven't seen it from her in over ten years. Even performances from her that get zero Oscar buzz like The Interpreter in 2005 are brilliant.
5 *Anne Hathaway-Initially, I thought she was too feminine to fit a wide mold of parts but her playfulness with the action lead in Get Smart and her ugliness in the psychological head trip Rachel Getting Married changed my mind. If she wins an Oscar for Les Miserables, it will be well-deserved for a pretty impressive body of work to date.
6 *Jessica Chastain-From the prism of moviegoers like us, Jessica Chastain looks like a mad workahaulic on par with Jude Law, Cate Blanchett, or Michael Caine in the 80s (DoubleCheck). She had 6 movies out in 2011, four in 2012, and is slated for four next year. She's earned Oscar nods both years so far and if she wasn't nominated for "The Help" last year, she deserved to be nominated for "The List."
7 *Jennifer Lawrence-Who would've thought that the third lead from the highly forgettable Bill Evangl show would amount to be the proverbial homecoming queen of Hollywood?
8 Julianne Moore-The best actress of her generation to be without an Oscar, Moore is still hacking away and while she hasn't been as prolific in the last few years, she continues to hold a strong batting average in projects with Crazy Stupid Love, A Single Man, and HBO's Game Change for which she won an Emmy.
9 Kiera Knightley-Although she hasn't been nominated since 2005 for Oscar, she has found herself in the middle of Oscar speculation three times since: Anna Karennia, Atonement, A Dangerous Method. Add The Duchess to those four films and Knightly has cornered the market on period film leading ladies. Moreso, Knightly has been open to stretching herself with action ("Domino"), quirky indie film ("Seeking a Friend for the End of the World") and romcom ("Love Actually")
10 Helen Mirren-Only 67, Mirren can still play a wide array of parts and I don't see any signs that her newfound poularity for winning an Oscar in The Queen has waned at all.
11 Cate Blanchett-Cate Blanchett was #2 (behind Kidman) on my last list because at the time, she was cranking out two or three movies a year and none of them were dinky films everyone forgets about. Just to refresh your memory in the 3 years leading up to late 2008, she was in Notes on a Scandal, Good German, and Babel in 2006; a double nominee in 2007 with I'm Not There and Elizabeth: The Golden Age, and then a year AFTER THAT, she was the villain in Indiana Jones AND the love interest in the Oscar-nominated Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Even if Indy 4 was disappointing, you have to admit its a big deal that she was the villain. And she might have been in more if I bothered to look it up. In contrast, I can't name a single film she's been in since 2009 from memory. Still, I'll bet she probably was in something recently AND that if she wants to, shell be in something soon enough and she'll kill it.
12 Judi Dench-Just look at the Oscar buzz surrounding Dench in 2012 to see how she can infuse thankless parts into performances that get noticed. Her role in Skyfall as M was one of the first instance of an actress in a Bond film (along with Bardem) getting enough critical acclaim to make a dent on the Awards circut. In Exotic Marigold, her storyline comptered with that of Maggie Smith, Bill Nighy, and Tom Wilkinson, yet she somehow pulls it together enough to be considered a lead.
13 Amy Adams- Adams looks more like a character actress than a star and four supporting actress nominations proves that point but, then again, four supporting actress nominations in an eight-year span is quite a feat. She's also proven she can lead a film
with "Enchanted", "Sunshine Cleaning," and "Muppet Movie" and her range of films-from a tentpole like "Night at the Museum" to a Will Ferrell-John C. Rielly romp in "Talladega Nights" to a prestige pic like "Doubt"- is greater than any other actress on this list.
14 *Emma Stone-With her casting as the Garfield's love interest she is officially the Kirsten Dunst of the '90's.Among her filmography this decade are prestigious films that did a respectable job at drawing audiences such as The Help and Crazy Stupid Love. On the other end of the spectrum, her populist crowd pleasers- Easy A and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World- got good critical reviews and transcended the teen genre. The best of both worlds.
15 *Marion Cotillard-Cotillard was 100% a product of the French film industry and 0% embedded in Hollywood when she won the Oscar in 2008 for "La Vie en Rose." Since then, she's transitioned nicely as a viable leading lady in Hollywood with notable performances in Public Enemies, Inception, Dark Knight Rises, and an Oscar-worthy entry with Rust and Bone for which she was likely the unlucky 6th place finisher in Oscar voting.  
16 Cameron Diaz-For someone who was tagged early in her career as a sex symbol, Diaz has proven remarkably resillient with age as her charm, acting chops, and comedic instincts have become larger parts of her main appeal. She went full awards bait in the underrecognized My Sister's Keeper and shows her ease in comedic leading roles like Bad Teacher or Knight and Day (a time capsule of a movie taking us back to the day when Tom Cruise was a charming leading man).
17 Natalie Portman-Portman won the Oscar two years ago and I'm not writing her out of the top 15 because of that distance. If she won in 2011, I still would give her the same rank. While Portman's winning an Oscar wasn't as much of an outliar as Monique (he was essentially a comedian/sitcom personality) in relation to her body of work, I don't see much in Natalie Portman in terms of appeal or versatility outside of that one performance. In No Strings Attached, she was more awkward than dopelganger (who had Friends with Benefits out the same year) Cameron Diaz and has too grave a demeanor to fit in well in romantic comedies. She's also too mousy and feminine for action and she wouldn't be my first choice in her age group for a period piece.
18 *Rooney Mara-In her two introductions to mainstream audiences-Social Network and Girl with the Dragon Tatoo-she made an immediate impression and earned a surprise nomination in the latter.
19 *Carey Mulligan-A relatively young Best Actress nominee at the age of 24, Mulligan has been getting some of the most coveted roles in Hollywood since with Oliver Stone's sequel Wall Street 2, Great Gatsby, and Shame. She also wisely chose a winner by participating in Drive in 2011 as well.
20 *Rachel Weicz-The inconspicous actrss with a gap in her teeth and a wedding peak unleashed a playful and sexy side of her and won an Oscar for it in The Constant Gardener in 2005/2006. She continues to pop up with good performances significantly under the radar as in The Brothers Bloom (did you see her do all those tricks?) and Deep Blue Sea and she's got the hardware which gives casting directors an extra incentive to cast her.
21 Laura Linney-Hollywood's thinking woman has three Oscar nominations and can command lead parts well and an Emmy (John Adams). She brings thoughtful aura to her films.
22 Kate Winslet-Where has Kate been lately? Id put her on the list of people who could come back tomorrow and give the best performance of the year. Winslet was #4 on my last list
23 Reese Whitherspoon-Where has Reese been? She was my #6 in 2008
24 Maggie Smith-Smith got buzz for two performances this past year-Exotic Marigold and Quartet- but I think she looks just a little older than Dench and Mirren. Heck, she was relegated to the wise old woman role in Best Exotic Marigold among a group of retirees. I could look up their ages but that's not as relevant because I'm talking about perception. As is, she's supremely talented but I can't classify her as a hot commodity in Hollywood because I have little confidence that she'll see a starring role like Quartet again. Quartet was a very rare movie.
25 *Kristen Wiig- Wigg was a lightning rod of an SNL cast member during a six and a half year stint in which she inconspicuously rose from the shadows of the Fey-Rudolph-Poehler Era to become the show's premiere talent. Her detractors (quite vocal on the internet, they were) said she was hogging the spotlight and did too many recurring characters, but few of her haters doubted her talent. Her high stature in Hollywood at the moment is based on the success of Bridesmaids, but I rank her highly based on the way she's effortlessly fit into a large number of supporting roles (i.e. Ghost Town, Knocked Up, Walk Hard, Extract) and enhanced so many films.
People who were on my last list that no longer are:
Catherine Zeta-Jones, Kirsten Dunst, Jennifer Connelly, Julia Roberts, Joan Allen, Tilda Swinton, Rene Zellweger (who was all the way up at #5), Scarlett Johannsen (who was #8) , Penelope Cruz, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Halle Berry

Julie and Julia Review

By the way, Oscar review is up here

I was worried that Julie and Julia, written and directed by Nora Ephron, would have nothing in it that appealed to me as a male. In other words, I thought it would be a “chickflick” and watching it was an experience in determining specifically what it was that made this film a chick flick. I’ve actually seen three of Nora Ephron’s previous films- Sleepless in Seattle, You’ve Got Mail, and Bewitched- and liked them all and I enjoy Ephron’s style. If contemporary storytellers are supposed to make sure their stories reflect the times they’re in, Ephron does it very literally: she’s set romantic story around radio call-in shows, and later the cybertexting revolution of AOL and her Hollywood-comeback story about the remaking of Bewitched was a commentary on nostalgia as a driving force in Hollywood (that summer, alone three of the biggest films in the theater were remakes).

This film here is one of the only movies I know to center around the art of blogging and just as film professors have told me that Shakespeare in Love is a supposedly important film about how and where art exists, the same must be true here. The story takes these themes about art and imbues them into a story that’s about the struggle to find your calling. These were elements I could get behind.

At the same time, it’s a chick flick. It’s not a love story: the two protagonists are already married and one marital spat doesn’t make this a film about finding Mr. Right. Nevertheless, the struggle to find your calling in life is told from a feminine perspective. It’s about the struggle for finding your calling in life but it’s from a very feminine perspective. These characters’ motivations are based on biological clocks and reactions to what their friends are doing at baby showers’t'heal the mend caused by this problem. mathat are things productive is a long road. You need to continue to get psychological and the resistance to being a “domesticated housewife” and it becomes obvious to the male viewer that these aren’t our struggles (of course, they are struggles we empathize with).

So overall, a good movie, one that caters less to the male viewer than Nora Ephron’s previous films. Oh, and also, Meryl Streep is once again phenomenal (as if that needs to be said). Watching Meryl Streep is like watching Kobe Bryant or the world champion at anything manhandle his competition.

Are stars obsolete?

I saw this article on time.com about how the movie star era is ending because reliable stars like Robert Redford, Meryl Streep, and Tom Cruise didn't gross a lot of money for Lions for Lambs and neither did Julia Roberts and Tom Hanks.
http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1720049_1720050_1721687,00.html

The article claims that since Charlie Wilson's War and Lions for Lambs did not do well that we are no longer in an age of stars and people gravitate towards story lines now. I disagree with Corliss' notion that anything has changed much at all. Take his examples: Lions for Lambs starred Meryl Streep, Robert Redford, and Tom Cruise which I don't consider a good combination of star power to begin with for the time the picture was released.
-Cruise, although I don't say this with any sense of joy, was already going downhill in terms of reputation.
-Streep is in 3-4 films a year which dilutes her star power significantly. It's hard for the public to tell which of the many, many films she's in are worth going to whether it's Evening, Redacted, or Lions for Lambs. In 2004, Manchurian Candidate didn't do particularly well but Lemony Snicket did because Lemony Snicket was a better use of her star power.
-Redford hasn't really been a big star since the 1970's and early '80's. Today's teens and 20-year-olds are going to have to practically be film historians to remember the heyday of Robert Redford and get all worked up about it.

As for Charlie Wilson's War, that film didn't do particularly poorly. It grossed a respectable $66 million dollars and is enjoying a surprisingly long run at the theater. My local 8-theater complex is still playing Charlie Wilson's War all the way into March, and that's what's really important: For your film to still be accessible to the public months after release. Charlie Wilson's War debuted in an incredibly crowded weekend where Tom Hanks' star power competed head-to-head with Johnny Depp in "Sweeny Todd" and Nicholas Cage in "National Treasure 2 "anyway, so it's not like it was a battle of the best stories. As for the failure of Julia Roberts to secure box office clout, she's semi-retired and like Redford hasn't appeared in many films in the last few years to keep her name hot.

There's no doubt that star power still is the controlling factor in Hollywood. It's what makes Will Smith, the trio of Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightly and Johnny Depp; and Nicholas Cage dominate the box office with mediocre material. More importantly, stars still capture the public attention. That's why in most Oscar pools, people are 10 times much more excited about the acting races than they are best screenwriting or best directing races. Whenever, I suggest a movie to my parents, the first question they ask is, "Who's in it?"

The only difference between today and yesteryear? The public just has short-term memory. The Oscar races and the special edition end-of-the-year reviews that appear in most newspapers and magazines covering pop culture are eager to crown the stars of today and leave the stars of yesterday behind. How hot are the names Joaquin Pheonix, David Strathain, Reese Whitherspoon, Felicity Huffman, and Phillip Seymour Hoffman right now? How excited do you get about a film when you hear that one of those names is in it? Those were the leading contenders in the best actor and actress races at the 2006 Oscars, just two years ago. Two years ago, the public might have been far more excited about them which just goes to show how fast the trends move.

Not to worry, success can be achieved by catering to this trend. Case in point: Judd Apatow, Seth Rogen, and Jonah Hill not only had the good fortune of being involved in the summer's surprise hit "Knocked Up," but since their next film came out before the summer even ended, they benefited even more from being fresh in the minds of moviegoers. The result: Not only was Superbad a surprise hit as well, but Seth Rogen and Jonah Hill have become stars big enough to attract invites to host Saturday Night Live, and Judd Apatow was named the smartest man in Hollywood by Entertainment Weekly. Shia LeBouf, arguably the year's breakout star has benefited from a double-dose of audience exposure as well, slowly building his familiarity with the movie going public with Disturbia before officially breaking out in Transformers and this strategy has been going on for years. Would "Ray" have enjoyed the same level of hype if Jamie Foxx didn't start getting attention for "Collateral" earlier that summer? Of course being too prolific like Jude Law (the butt of an infamous Chris Rock joke during the Oscars), Will Ferrell, and Ben Stiller can tend to backfire.

So the trends have changed but the same formulas are still there. As long as people ask "Who's in it?" before they ask "What's the storyline?," stars will be the tools that drive the star system.

The most star-packed rosters of 2004-2007

As determined by combined number of Oscar nominations when the films were released. The lists are highly skewed by Meryl Streep, but it's an interesting list. Also do you notice that there's virtually no correlation between number of stars you have in an animated film and the amount it grosses? I also notice that the numbers will inevitably get smaller the further back you go, and that's because oscars are handed out at a faster rate than Oscar-winning actors are dying (or in rare cases, retiring from acting, but noone ever truly retires, just ask Hugh Grant, Julia Roberts, Dan Akroyd, Jamie Lee Curtis, etc.):

2007:
1. Evening 26: Meryl Streep 14, Toni Collete 1, Vanessa Redgrave 6, Glenn Close 5
2. Stardust 19- Robert De Niro 6, Peter O’Toole 8, Michelle Pfieffer 3, Ian McKellan 2
Rendition 19: Meryl Streep 14, Alan Arkin 3, Jake Gyllenhall 1, Reeee Whitherspoon 1
4. Lions for Lambs 18: Meryl Streep 14, Tom Cruise 3, Robert Redford 1
5. Bucket List- 16: Jack Nicholson 12, Morgan Freeman 4
5. Harry Potter & the Order of Pheonix 16-Emma Thompson 4, Ralph Feinnes 2, Imadela Staunton 1 Maggie Smith 6, Helena Bohman Carter 1, Julie Walters 2
5. Ocean’s 13-16: Al Pacino 8, Matt Damon 1, Brad Pitt 1 George Clooney 1, Don Cheadle 1, Elliot Gould 1, David Paymer 1, Andy Garcia 1, Oprah Winfrey 1
8. National Treasure 2 14: Ed Harris 4, Jon Voight 4, Helen Mirren 3, Nicholas Cage 2, Harvey Keitel 1
9. Charlie Wilson’s War 10: Tom Hanks 5, Amy Adams 1, Julia Roberts 3, Philip Seymour Hoffman 1
9. Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead 10-Albert Finney 5, Ethan Hawke 1, Marissa Thomei 2, Philip Seymour Hoffman 1, Rosemary Harris 1
9. Bourne Ultimatum 10-Matt Damon 1, Joan Allen 3, Albert Finney 5, David Strathain 1
Elizabeth and the Golden Age 9: Cate Blanchett 3, Samantha Morton 2, Geoffery Rush 3, Clive


2006:
Prairie Home Companion 20: Meryl Streep 13, Kevin Kline 1, Woody Harrelson 1, Virginia Madsen 1, Lily Tomlin 1, John C Riley 1, Tommy Lee Jones 2
Ant Bully 20: Meryl Streep 13, Julia Roberts 3, Nicholas Cage 2, Paul Giamatti 1, Lilly Tomlin 1
Departed 16: Leo DiCaprio 2, Jack Nicholson 12, Matt Damon 1, Alec Baldwin 1
Good Shephard 16: Robert De Niro 6, William Hurt 4, Joe Pesci 2, Alec Baldwin 1, Matt Damon 1, Angelina Jolie 1, Timothy Hutton 1
All the King’s Men 15: Anthony Hopkins 4, Kate Winslet 4, Jude Law 2, Sean Penn 4, Patricia Clarkson 1
Devil Wears Prada 13: Meryl Streep 13
Venus 13: Peter O’Toole 7, Vanessa Redgrave 6
Inside Man 12: Jodie Foster 4, Denzel Washington 5, Clive Owen 1, Willem Dafoe 2
Stranger than Fiction 13: Dustin Hoffman 7, Queen Latifah 1, Emma Thompson 4, Tom Hulce 1
Children of Men 11: Clive Owen 1, Michael Caine 6, Julianne Moore 4

2005 is the weakest year on record:
1. Prime 14-Streep 13, Uma Thurman 1
Baman Begins 13-Wattanabe 1, Freeman 4, Caine 6, Wilkinson 1, Niesson 1
Bewitched 13-Kidman 2, Caine 6, MacLaine 5
4. Robots 11-J Broadbent 1, H Berry 1, J Earl Jones 1, G Kinnear 1, D Weist 3, R Williams 6
5 Corpse Bride 10-Emily Watson 2, Helena Bohman Carter 1, Jonny Depp 2, Albert Finney 5
5 Racing Sripes 10-Dustin Hoffman 7, Michael Clarke Duncan 1, Whoopi Goldberg 2
5. Harry Potter 10-Miranda Richardson 2, Maggie Smith 6, Ralph Feinnes 2
8 Two for the Money 8-A Pacino 8
8 Weatherman 8-Cage 2, Caine 6
8 Hide and Seek 8-Robert De Niro 6, Elizabeth Shue 1, Amy Irving 1

2004:
1. Lemony Snicket 22-Hoffman 7, Streep 13, Jude Law 2
1. Manchurian Candidate 22-John Voight 4, Denzel Washington 5, Meryl Streep 13
3. Meet the Fockers 15-Dustin Hoffman 7, Robert De Niro 6, Barbara Streissand 2
3. Finding Neverland 15-Jonny Depp 1, Kate Winslet 3, Julie Christie 3, Dustin Hoffman 7
3. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azhkaban 15-Maggie Smith 6, Julie Christie 3, Emma Thompson 4, Julie Walters 2
6. I Heart Huckabees 13-Lily Tomlin 1, Dustin Hoffman 7, Jude Law 2, Someone whose name I can't remember 2, Naiomi Watts 1
6. Ocean's 12 13-Catherine Zeta Jones 1, Albert Finney 5, Julia Roberts 3, Andy Garcia 1, Matt Damon 1, Brad Pitt 1, Elliot Gould 1
6. Shark Tale 13-Will Smith 1, Rene Zellweger 3, Robert De Niro 6, Angelina Jolie 1, Peter Falk 2
8. Troy 11-Peter O'Toole 7, Brad Pitt 1, Julie Christie 2
8. Stepford Wives 11-Glenn Close 5, Christopher Walken 2, Nicole Kidman 2,
10. Merchant of Venice 9-Jeremy Irons 1, Al Pacino 8
10. Aflie 9-Jude Law 2, Susan Sorandon 5, Marissa Thomei 2
10. Aviator 9-Leo DiCaprio 1, Cate Blanchett 1, Alec Baldwin 1, John C Riley 1, Ian Holm 1, Jude Law 2, Wilhem Defoe 2

Lions for Lambs review (2007)

Lions for Lambs is a cinematically sparse film, with so little effort toward presenting a polished cinematic package, that the viewer might find it a little jarring. Three parrallel stories occur over a period of one hour.

A journalist (Meryl Streep) conducts a one-on-one interview with Senator Jasper Irving (Tom Cruise) over his new initiative in Iraq. Irving, played with all the cockiness that some of us liken to the Tom Cruise persona (and mistakenly Tom Cruise himself) is forceful in trying to get Streep to see a certain point of view and borderline bullies her into accepting his line of thinking that this new strategy is going to work and is worth the human cost. If you replaced Matt Lauer with Meryl Streep, it would practically be a dramatic reenactment of Cruise's famous tirade on The Today Show arguing against prescription medicine. My point here is Cruise is perfectly cast, and I think Redford was very aware of Cruise's recently damaged likeability rating at this point in time.

The second piece of the puzzle is two bright students who volunteered for the army to prove that they were pro-active citizens, against the urging of their professor. These characters are more likeable in the flashback scenes because in the present day military conflict their foolishness (in the name of chivalry) stretches plot credibility a little thin.

The third story arc and the one which I found most compelling was between a college professor (the same college professor who discouraged his two former students in plotline #2 from enetring the war) and his most promising student during a one-hour advising session. The student (Andrew Garfield) was once a catalyst for some of the class's most most interesting discussions and showed great intelligence, but lately he is becoming more interested in fraternity life and girls and doesn't believe politics are worth it because "they're all crooked." The student is the apothyoses of disengaged undergraduates today and credit goes not just to the actor (it would be easy for a young person to portray a stereotypical member of today's college youth) but to the 40 year old Matthew Carnahan for capturing his language reasonably well. Redford has the most presence on screen out of anyone of the film as the professor.

This is a good and bad thing because I can understand people seeing Redfordt's a blatantly transparent method of getting his political message across that Redford casts himself as the professor and provides the most intelligent source of discourse. This is likely to draw hostility from audiences and be seen as arrogant. I remember they responded that way when M. Night Shamylan cast himself as the writer who would later be the savior to humanity in Lady in the Water. One criticism I might agree with is that rather than making this film, Redford could just as easily go around the country making personal appearances and speaking about these issues (although the answer would be: that would be far more time consuming), but for a filmmaker who has something to say, I can't think of many films (except a Michael Moore documentary) that are so that are so effective at saying it. Redford's film speaks so directly to our generation and the current situation.

Cinematically, Lions for Lambs is not the best film out there. It feels less like a serious and concerted effort on Redford's part to make a good narrative film than it should. But at the same
time, I think it says things that haven't been said before, and whether you agree or disagree with his finer points, it's surely an eye-opening experience. It' the larger theme about how this generation deals with the alienation from pointless wars and crooked politics that resonates.

Actors and how many best picture nominees they've been in

This was a lot harder than the previous list with best picture nominees, but it was a rather enjoyable way to spend free time. That gives me an indication over what kind of job I should go for if i can do this and it's not considered work.
I had help from two other people on this, so thanks to them, whatever their names are. This isn't a complete list of course, because we can only do one actor at a time. I also really hope there isn't a computer genius out there who figured out how to do this in an easier way. I'd like to hope I'm the only person out there with these statistics and that i've done something revolutionary here.

Some observations:
-What does this list show? I think it shows more than the previous list of actors in 2 or more best picture nominees because the tastes of people who award the best picture vary so much from year to year and dynasties don't regularly play out in terms of best picture winners. Good movies usually do get in the best picture category and the club of nominees ranges from things as diverse as coming-of-age stories in American Graffiti and Breaking Away to action films like Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark, to musicals (lots and lots of musicals, to .
-Appearing in a lot of good movies and having a lot of great accolades doesn't neccessarily coincide as is the case with Meryl Streep, Humphrey Bogart, or Katherine Hepburn. Good actors and actresses will stand out in extreme cases. Actors can get oscar-nominations for artsy films that wouldn't get the best picture prize but take Lawrence Olivier vs Dustin Hoffman. Dustin Hoffman is an iconic figure in film history because whenever we think of Rain Man, All the President's Men, Tootsie, Midnight Cowboy, or The Graduate, we think of him. His characters have had some of the most memorable scenes and lines in movie history. Lawrence Olivier was possibly the best actor ever, but exactly what do we remember of him? Wuthering Heights? Hamlet? Henry V? No doubt, great films, but the number of high profile films, I think makes a difference, that's all I'm saying.
-Being friends with Frank Capra and John Ford would get you high on the list. Every major work of theirs earned a best picture nomination. To a lesser extent, Eliza Kazan, William Wyler, Fred Zinneman, and Billy Wilder had that same success.
However, an eye for good projects makes a star bankable and you're more likely to have a legacy and be remembered if you're in great pictures. Harrison Ford never earned acting acclaim but until the last couple years where he slowed down in project selection he was one of the most visible and most popular stars in Hollywood, and this list indicates that.
-Way to go Ward Bond! I did this through clicking random names and came across this guy and slowly started working my way up the list and going "this guy might beat Jack Nicholson!" and i counted one after another after another. He was an uncredited actor (his biography said he was friends with John Ford who kept giving him bit parts) but by the time we got into the 40s, he was starting to have speaking roles and he even played Morgan Earp (Wyatt's brother) in My Darling Clementine. So Ward Bond, I salute you, and if your descendants are reading this be sure to contact me to claim your complimentary prize for winning the contest.
-Incredibly useless stat: Shirley MacLaine and Morgan Freeman rank highest on conversion of nominees to best picture winners by going 3 for 4
-Slightly more intersting stat: John Cazale has only appeared in 5 movies and 5 of them are best picture nominees
-Kevin Bacon does pretty well among his contemporaries with this criteria with 4 films. I wonder how much of the Six degrees of Kevin Bacon game can be played on those 4 films alone since they're all ensemble pieces
-John C. Riley with Chicago, The Hours and Gangs of New York in 2002 and Thomas Mitchell with Mr Smith Goes to Washington
-Robert Duvall has 8 films on this list, 7 of which are on AFI's top 100 list (all except Tender Mercies). He holds the distinction of being in the most movies on that list, although To Kill a Mockingbird is more like a cameo than a part.

The grand list:
Ward Bond-12 films-Mister Roberts, It’s a Wonderful Life, The Maltese Falcon, Seargent York, Grapes of Wrath, Gone with the Wind, You Can’t Take it With You, The Informer, Lady for a Day, It Happened One Night, Arrowsmith, The Quiet Man
Jack Nicholson-10 films-As Good as It Gets, The Departed, Reds, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Terms of Endearment, Five Easy Pieces, Chinatown, Broadcast News, A Few Good Men, Prizzi’s Honor
Elizabeth Taylor-9 films-Father of the Bride, A Place in the Sun, Quo Vadis (uncredited),
Ivanhoe, Giant, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Cleopatra (1963), Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Anne of the Thousand Days (uncredited)
Gregory Peck-8 films-Guns of Navaronne, To Kill a Mockingbird, How the West was Won, Roman Holiday, Twelve O'Clock High, Gentlemen's Agreement, Yearling, Spellbound
Dustin Hoffman-8 films-Tootsie, The Graduate, Midnight Cowboy, Finding Neverland, Rain Man, Kramer vs Kramer, All the President’s Men, Lenny
William Holden-At least 8 films-Bridge on the River Kwai, Network, Our Town, Sunset Boulevard, Born Yesterday, Towering Inferno, Love is a Many Splendored Thing, Country Girl
Gary Cooper-8 films-Wings, High Noon, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Pride of the Yankees, Mr Deeds Goes to Town, Seargent York, Friendly Persuasion, Farewell to Arms
Robert Duvall-8 films-Tender Mercies, Apocolypse Now, Godfather II, Godfather, The Conversation, Network, To Kill a Mockingbird, MASH
Harrison Ford-8 films-American Graffiti, Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Witness, Working Girl, The Fugitive, Conversation, Apocolypse Now
Marlon Brando-7 films-A Streetcar Named Desire, Julius Caesar (1953), On The Waterfront (Winner), Sayonara, Mutiny on the Bounty (1962), The Godfather (Winner), Apocalypse Now
Thomas Mitchell-7 films-High Noon, It’s a Wondeful Life, Our Town, Mr Smith Goes to Washington, Gone with the Wind, Stagecoach, Lost Horizon
Robert De Niro-7 films (Godfather II, Deer Hunter, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Brazil, Goodfellas, Awakening)
Henry Fonda-7 films-On Golden Pond, The Ox-Bow Incident, Grapes of Wrath, How the West Was Won, Jezbezel, 12 Angry Men, Mister Roberts
Katherine Hepburn-6 films-Stage Door, Little Women, Philadelphia Story, On Golden Pond, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, Lion in the Winter
Daniel Day-Lewis-6 films-Ghandi, Room with a View, My Left Foot, In the Name of the Father, Gangs of New York, There Will be Blood
Jean Arthur-6 films-Mr Deeds Goes to Town, You Can’t Take it With You, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Talk of the Town, The More the Merrier, Shane
Al Pacino-6 films-Scent of a Woman, The Insider, Godfather, Godfather II, Dog Day Afternoon , Godfather III
Tom Wilkinson-6 films-In the Name of the Father, Sense and Sensibility, Full Monty, Shakespeare in Love, In the Bedroom, Michael Clayton
Anthony Hopkins-5 films-Lion in the Winter, Elephant Man, Silence of the Lambs, Howard's End, In the Name of the Father
John Cazale-5 films-The Godfather (Winner), The Conversation, The Godfather: Part II (Winner), Dog Day Afternoon, The Deer Hunter (Winner)
Ingrid Bergman-5 films (?)-Bells of St. Mary's, Gaslight, Spellbound, Casablanca, For Whom the Bell Tolls
Willhem Defoe-5 films-Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July, Mississippi Burning, English Patient, Aviator
Russell Crowe-5 films (in the last 9 years which is pretty damn impressive)-
LA Confidential, Insider, Gladiator, Beautiful Mind, Master and Commander
John C Riley-5 films-Thin Red Line, Aviator, The Hours, Gangs of New York, Chicago
Gene Hackman-5 films-Bonnie and Clyde, French Connection, The Conversation, Reds, Unforgiven
Cate Blanchett-5 films-LOTR I-III, The Aviator, Elizabeth
Tommy Lee Jones-5 Films-Love Story, Coal Miner’s Daughter, JFK, The Fugitive, No Country for Old Men
Tom Cruise-4 films-Born on the 4th of July, Rain Man, Jerry MaGuire, and A Few Good Men
Shirley MacLaine-4 films-Around the World in Eighty Days (Winner), The Apartment (Winner), The Turning Point, Terms of Endearment (Winner)
Richard Dreyffus-4 films-The Graduate, American Graffiti, Jaws, Goodbye Girl,
Faye Dunaway-4 films-Bonnie and Clyde, Chinatown, Network, Towering Inferno
Tom Hanks-4 films-Forrest Gump, Apollo 13, Saving Private Ryan, Green Mile
Humphrey Bogart-4 Films-Treausre of the Sierra Madre, Caine Mutiny, Casablanca, Maltese Falcon
James Cromwell-4 films-Babe, LA Confidential, Green Mile, The Queen
Morgan Freeman-4 films-Driving Miss Daisy, Unforgiven, Million Dollar Baby, Shawshneck Redemption
Walter Huston-4 films-Treausre of Sierra Madre, Dodsworth, Yankee Doodle Dandy, Maltese Falcon
Ian Holm-4 films-Aviator, Chariots of Fire, 2 LOTRs
Vanessa Redgrave-4 films-Man for All Seasons, Julia, Howard's End, Atonement
Leo DiCaprio-4 films-Aviator, Gangs of New York, Departed, Titanic
Ed Harris-4 films-The Right Stuff, Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind, The Hours
Geoffery Rush-4 films-Shine, Shakespeare in Love, Elizabeth, Munich
Kelly McDonald-4 films-Elizabeth, Godsford Park, Finding Neverland, No Country for Old Men
Claude Rains-4 films-Lawrence of Arabia, Casablanca, Mr Smith Goes to Down, Kings Row
Kevin Bacon-4 films-JFK, A Few Good Men, Apollo 13, Mystic River
Allison Janey-3 films-American Beauty, The Hours, Juno
Chris Cooper-3 films-American Beauty, Seabiscuit, Capote
Sean Penn-3 films-Dead Man Walking, Mystic River, Thin Red Line
Judi Dench-3 films-A Room with a View, Shakespeare in Love, Chocolat
Maureen O’Hara-3 films-How Green was My Valley, Miracle on 34th Street, Quiet Man
Alec Baldwin-3 films-Working Girl, Aviator, The Departed
George Clooney-3 films-Thin Red Line, Good Night and Good Luck, Michael Clayton
Beth Grant-3 films-Rain Man (as the woman from the farmhouse who let Ray watch Jeapordy), Little Miss Sunshine (as the bitchy beauty paegent organizer), No Country for Old Men (as Kelly McDonald's mom)
John Voight-3 films-Midnight Cowboy, Deliverance, Coming Home
Robin Williams-3 films-Dead Poets Society, Awakenings, Good Will Hunting
Natalie Wood-2 films-Miracle on 34th Street, West Side Story
Daniel Craig-2 films-Elizabeth, Munich
Woody Harrelson-2 films-Thin Red Line, No Country for Old Men
Barry Del Sherman-2 films-American Beauty, There Will be Blood
Sidney Pollack-2 films-Tootsie, Michael Clayton
Brenda Blethyn-2 films-Secrets and Lies, Atonement
JK Simmons-2 films-Cider House Rules, Juno
David Warchofsky-2 films-Born on the Fourth of July, There Will be Blood
Paul Dano-2-Little Miss Sunshine, There Will be Blood
Stephen Root-2-Ghost, No Country for Old Men
If anyone wants to assist in this list, go right ahead