She was ROBBED I tell ya.

This made me literally LOL when I saw it on the Critic's Choice Awards website late last year. If you can see the mistake they made, surely you'll see it's an easy one to make. Both Michelle Williams' (Willii?) are amazing.

Speaking of the one above, why wasn't she allowed to be in the video for Beyonce's Party?It could have been a Destiny's Child reunion of sorts... And while I'm on the topic of that video, where is Andre Benjamin? J. Cole's verse is terrible, it's like he's sleepwalking through three quarters of it! Terrible. Way to ruin my favourite song off of 4....

Anyway I digress... My own ballot for the leading ladies of last year would look like so -

 

 Annette Bening trumps her co-lead Julianne Moore for her nuanced portrayal of the more unlikeable character, Nic, and for nailing the delivery of the word 'interloper' during a pivotal scene. When this mother bear figure asserts herself it makes for an electrifying conflict of fear and vulnerability laced with self-assertion and authority. 

Kim Hye-Ja also excels as 'Mother' in a role that would probably inspire overacting and overreaching for audience sympathies by a lesser actress. Instead, she negotiates the many arcs and contradictions of the character with dexterity and fierce determination which cannot be anything but entirely sympathetic and pathetic in equal measure. As her character reaches further into pits of desperation and uncertainty, Hye-Ja never lets you forget that mother is entirely in charge, at any necessary cost, which is as thrilling and terrifying as it is pitiable. But what makes this performance remarkable is that you never once doubt for a second that what the character is doing is not motivated by love (and guilt and fearful protectiveness - so many layers) for her child. Plus bonus points for dancing. 

Catherine Keener uses her remarkably weathered face and body language to create a portrait of mother and antiques dealer Kate, swimming in a sea of defeat which is incredibly endearing, but without sacrificing a complexity to the character that suggests she is more than capable of seeking out salvation from her current anomie. Catherine Keener is a familiar presence and a welcome one, and in this movie more than any other I just wanted to hug her and buy her a coffee, her despair is so intangible and palpable at the same time. 

Gabourey Sidibe is blistering in her debut performance, miles away in demeanor from her ebullient personality she has displayed in interviews. Her Precious is no doubt defined by the misery of her surroundings, but Sidibe's performance, way more than the scripting, suggests a redemptive arc to the character. The performance is entirely convincing, and given depth by nuances that come from an empathetic performer. 

Tilda Swinton as Emma Recchi conveys the most remarkable of transformations with the most expert grace and precision; watch her controlled matriarch thaw before your very eyes and convince you that the food and sex she's experiencing are enough to sacrifice everything you've ever known for, and feel the excitement of guilt and transgression simultaneously. All in Russian accented Italian, nonetheless. 

Finally, Michelle Williams' Cindy has the difficult task of convincing you that she has fallen both in and out of love with Ryan Gosling. Please. The fact she pulls it off, ranging from luminous and radiant to bitter and distant, is a near miracle, even if she convinces considerably more in the former zone rather than the latter. What she is able to improvise with her on-screen partner, creating a twee yet sincere portrait of a pixie-ish dreamboat, through charisma and awkwardness alone that is entirely in character, is thoroughly endearing.

I love actresses.

FYC: Best Actress in a Leading Role 2010

Did you know there is a strange little rule in the Academy Awards regarding the eligibility of Foreign Films getting nominations? Every year countries from around the world choose to submit a single title each for consideration in the Best Foreign Film category at the Academy Awards. Generally a film has to open for a one week qualifying run in Los Angeles in order to be up for Academy Awards consideration in other categories, like Director, Actor, Screenplay, etc.

Unless it is submitted for foreign film consideration, then it doesn't need to have the one-week run in order to get Oscar nominations. However if a foreign-language film submitted by their respective country fails to get a nomination in the Foreign Film category it can still be eligible for nominations in categories in the year of it's eventual release in Los Angeles wherein it meets qualifying criteria. If it does get a nomination for foreign film then it can't be eligible for nominations in other categories the following year.

In the past this hasn't been an issue for a film like Woman of the Dunes (Hiroshi Teshigahara, 1964) nominated for Best Foreign Film by the Academy in 1965, and then for Best Director in 1966 once it had opened to the general public. The bizarre rule I described is only a recent complication added to the arcane regulations of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; meaning that quality foreign films generally get shafted in categories apart from the one they're condemned to. The actual rules concerning which films can be selected by which country are also unnecessarily complicated too, but let's not go there.

This digression into the politics governing the Foreign Film branch of the Oscars is of relevance to news regarding my pick for the best film of 2010, Mother, director Joon-ho Bong's exhilarating subversion of thrillers, noir and procedural police-investigative genres. The film was South Korea's submission for the foreign film branch of the Academy last year, following it's critically acclaimed unveiling at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2009. The film failed to get nominated, and was eventually released in the United States March 2010.

Earlier today the Los Angeles Film Critics Association (LAFCA) voted upon its end-of-year awards, and the results included the relatively surprising decision to award Hye-ja Kim Best Actress for her sympathetic and captivating work in Mother. The 69 year-old Korean Actress is a virtual unknown outside of her home country, where she is regarded for her television and stage work (she even played the title role of Sister Aloysius Beauvier in a Korean production of Doubt, the same role taken by Meryl Streep in John Patrick Shanley's 2008 film adaptation), but is certainly an inspired selection by the voters; a no-brainer really if you regard the exquisite detail and complexity she energises the film with. Congratulations also to the film being considered Runner-up for the Best Foreign Film category, too. Congratulations all around!

This is causing me to be indescribably optimistic that perhaps as an esteemed pre-cursor to film industry awards, this win will propel Hye-ja Kim into the race for a Best Actress nomination at next year's Academy Awards. It would mean great things for the film, and hopefully secure it a larger audience outside of film festivals, arthouse cinemas and Korea, basically. The film is so good it deserves this. However, I will choose to ignore the relative obscurity of some of the LAFCA's winners in previous years (including Yolande Moreau for Best Actress in 2009 for Sértaphine (Martin Provost, 2008)) as signs of their esotericism and intellectual snobbery towards American Studio productions more likely to attract awards momentum, in order to make this point.

Basically, even thought this post will have no eventual effect on any outcome which may occur, I hereby submit Hye-ja Kim's performance For Your Consideration as Best Actress in a Leading Role 2010, to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. She's eligible! The film, which has no apparent awards campaign mounted, is available on DVD and Netflix! Also Asian performers are so routinely ignored by big-name awards bodies, that this nomination would definitely constitute as some form of affirmative action!

Foreign language film nominations create the illusion that your organisation is sophisticated; that you voters care about the medium as an art form and is not enshrined in the agit-prop politics of the corporate studio system! I would be more than happy for you to use this film to demonstrate this cause.
Plus, I want to see her on the Los Angeles Red Carpet in a pretty dress being interviewed by flummoxed American reporters who have no idea who she is. Maybe it would even lead to stunt casting in future Hollywood projects as an elderly, wizened neighbour, or better yet, a villain! This would make me so incredibly happy. So very, very giddy with joy and wonder. You have precedence, fools!

It would be like Ida Kaminska's nomination for The Shop on Main Street (Elmar Klos, 1965), back when your organisation appeared to have taste and acknowledged films with subtitles. Think of the possibile repercussions a simple number one on your ballot may have.

Nathan, out.

Top Ten Films 2010 (So Far)

Nathan here.

To celebrate new beginnings and the creation of this blog, let's jump straight into proceedings. Seeing as the end of the year is rapidly approaching it seems appropriate to offer a list of my personal favourite films of the year so far.

Admittedly, I have just completed a year of studying an Honours Degree, so my movie going experience has been fairly limited, especially in these last few months. There are a number of films I have yet to catch up on, but will endeavour to do so before the end of the year in order to provide a 'Best Of' list which truly reflects the cinema experience up for offer in 2010.

So here goes, my tentative list of the best films from the first year of a new decade. Detailed opinions regarding each film will hopefully follow in subsequent posts.

1. Mother (Joon-ho Bong, 2009)

2. Un Prophéte (Jacques Audiard, 2009)

3. Fantastic Mr. Fox (Wes Anderson, 2009)

4. I Am Love (Luca Guadagnino, 2009)

5. Inception (Christopher Nolan, 2010)

6. White Material (Claire Denis, 2009)

7. Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans (Werner Herzog, 2009)

8. Father of My Children (Mia Hansen-Løve, 2009)

9. The White Ribbon (Michael Haneke, 2009)

10.Wild Grass (Alain Resnais, 2009)

Now this list is gleaned not only from cinema releases, but also straight-to-video new releases and various festival screenings throughout the year in Western Australia. Which explains why there are so many French titles so far, because hot damn! The Alliance French Film Festival really brought their A-game this year.

With the spate of films releasing before year ends it will be interesting to see how this list chops and changes. I will say I did have a hard time compiling a list of ten outstanding films for a truly personal list, so I'm hoping this situation changes in the next few weeks. It hasn't necessarily been a lackluster year, it's just that I haven't quite seen enough films it seems.

Before signing off, I would like to give a special honorable mention to Kanye West's directorial effort Runaway, an inspired piece of surrealist pop which straddles the line between being an accomplished entry into the history of long-form music videos and an extravagant short film in its own right. I would certainly rank the effort in my personal top ten if I were to include content I viewed online, but for the sake of limits I decided to exclude internet content from my proceedings. More on this peculiar entity at a later date.

To the start of a long and healthy blog!