These performances don’t have to coincide with what you think are going to be Oscar nominations.
Just, what performances did you think were best last year.
Females: Meryl Streep in Prada
Males: I’ll tell ya, Ed Norton gave a hell of a performance in Down in the Valley. I also loved Wahlberg in The Departed.
Most disappointing: Tom Hanks and Tatou in Da Vinci. Keanu would have been a better choice for that role. Let’s take a character like Indiana Jones and strip him of his good looks, his charm, and his humor. Then, we’ll ask the most talented voice and physical actor working today to play him. That’s a winner.
And Tautou? Amelie is one of the cutest, brightest, memorable roles from the last 15 years. Let’s have her stunt driving, and ask her to dart her eyes around to indicate “confusion” for 2.5 hours.
Oh, yeah, let’s make sure that even though we have characters from some of the best romantic roles in recent memory that the movie is entirely stripped of any hint of sexuality. Is it clear that I hate that dog?
Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale in The Prestige. This was a brilliant film and they did it very well. Michael Caine was very good, actually being his character and not ‘Michael Caine as a character but really being Michael Caine’. And David Bowie plays Tesla which is great.
Daniel Craig as James Bond in **Casino Royale/b]. Simply unforgettable and while a lot of people say ‘it’s not a real Bond movie, I refuse to see it, it’s probably crap’, it’s the first true action film I’ve really liked. He and Eva Green are wonderful.
Agree on Daniel Craig as Bond – day-um. But that’s also about how drop-dead sexy he is. I think my nominee would be Eddie Murphy in Dreamgirls. As FPUB said of Michael Caine – he wasn’t just playing himself, or a character who has all kinds of himself oozing out the edges – he played the damn role, and he was outstanding.
For actress: gotta be Helen Mirren in The Queen – I can’t imagine who they’ll even scrape up to be the other four nominees for the Oscar. A phenomenal piece of totally understated work.
I know I’m placing my life in my hands but literally anything with Nicholas Cage in it ,whos one acting move is to delay responding to another characters question /comment for an unnaturally long time while all the time he looks like he’s going to break into tears and anything with Kevin Costner in it ,who is quite simply crap.
I haven’t yet seen The Queen, which I suspect will be my pick for female lead. But it’s indicative of a weak year for women, IMO, that the other best performance this year was Streep in Prada. A decent performance in decent movie, but neither was exceptional.
I just watched The Illusionist and thought Edward Norton, Paul Giamatti and Jessica Biel were all great in it, as was Rufus Sewell. To pick just one, I’d go with Giamatti, who is surely one of the best American character actors around.