Beyond the Oscars: The Other Great Performances of 2015

With the announcement of the Oscar nominees last week, we're now in the thick of awards season with many deserving and gifted actors making the rounds of red carpets and talk shows. Still, I can't help feeling that the actors listed here were also worthy of a little awards love this season:

John Cusack for Love and Mercy

Paul Dano has picked up a few award nods for playing the younger incarnation of  Brian Wilson in this touching biopic of the troubled musical genius behind the Beach Boys. But the equally great John Cusack - who plays Wilson in middle age - has been inexplicably shut out. I have a strictly non-scientific theory for this oversight: to the untrained eye, Dano seems more convincing because he bears a strong physical resemblance to Wilson. Cusack, on the other hand, not only bears no resemblance to Wilson whatsoever, but doesn't alter his appearance one iota to convince us otherwise. Still, his delicate portrayal of Wilson as a gentle, confused soul searching for redemption is way out of his usual range and comfort zone, and all the more astonishing for that fact. If Dano deserves the recognition (he does), Cusack deserves it equally.

Kristen Wiig for Welcome to Me

Since Bridesmaids, Wiig has acted in a number of fair-to-mediocre indie dramas where you can tell she's in "serious actress mode" by the way she mumbles her lines in an offhand way, almost as if she were embarrassed to be playing it straight. Thankfully this dark, absurdist comedy lets Wiig merge her talent for creating memorably eccentric characters with some solid direction from Shira Piven, resulting in a film that veers from painfully funny to painfully sad without hitting a false note in the process. Wiig plays a bipolar woman who wins a huge lottery jackpot at the same time she goes off her meds; she uses her winnings to bankroll a one-woman TV show so awful that people can't take their eyes off it. Hilarity ensues, then - as her unmedicated illness escalates - her fortunes turn darker. Wiig plays every point on that spectrum with uncomfortable emotional sincerity, never once winking at the audience or going for an easy laugh at her character's expense.

Tobey Maguire and Liev Schreiber in Pawn Sacrifice

Edward Zwick's  portrait of chess genius Bobby Fischer starts out in conventional, formulaic biopic territory, but it gradually builds into something dark and shattering, largely due to Tobey Maguire's electrifying performance as Fischer. The film presents Fischer as a dangerously unstable young man whose madness is indulged and passed off as eccentricity in the interests of furthering Cold War propaganda around his match with Russian chess champion Boris Spassky. Maguire plays Fischer with a palpable edge of danger, marching to his own impenetrable internal logic. He's brilliantly balanced by the understated gravitas of Liev Schreiber's Spassky, whose seriousness and confidence are conveyed with impressive economy.  (The friend with whom I saw Pawn Sacrifice grew up in Russia during the time of the Fischer/Spassky match; she raved about how perfectly Schreiber captured Spassky.)

Diane Keaton and Morgan Freeman in 5 Flights Up

5 Flights Up is a deceptively slight film about an aging couple's quest to sell the walk-up Brooklyn apartment that's become unmanageable for them. Its unexpected emotional heft is all in the wonderful performances of Keaton and Freeman. These well-seasoned screen veterans slip into the roles of a long-married couple with ease, finding the unforced rhythms of a shared history - bickering, private jokes and all - in a way that feel authentic and is pure pleasure to watch.

Sarah Silverman in I Smile Back

Including Silverman on this list is a bit of a cheat, since she actually did receive a SAG nomination. But she should have had even more, and she likely didn't get them because I Smile Back isn't nearly good enough in its entirety to deserve Silverman's fearless, compassionate performance. The filmmakers are more interested in putting her drug-and-drink addicted housewife through the mill of degradation and humiliation than in showing her some empathy or helping us understand the demons that drive her. Miraculously, Silverman brings an unexpected dimension of soulful sweetness to the character, even as she Really Goes There in more than one debased scene.  That Silverman is a fearlessly foul-mouthed, eager-to-offend comic in real life may have helped her with the more shocking aspects of the role. But the heart-stopping fragility she shows us is a revelation.

Jason Segel in The End of the Tour

I'll be honest - I've never read David Foster Wallace's literary masterwork Infinite Jest, nor did I know much about him going into this film. But I was hugely impressed at how completely Jason Segel disappeared into his portrayal of the deeply gifted, deeply troubled writer. The screenplay was adapted from transcripts of Wallace's five-day interview with Rolling Stone writer David Lipsky (played by Jesse Eisenberg); it plays like an extended college bull session with your smartest friend who is idealistic, vulnerable, sometimes ridiculous and sometimes profoundly wise. Segel's performance is so good that I was honestly disappointed to see the film end. (And I'm determined to read Infinite Jest this year.)

Bel Powley in A Royal Night Out

 

Powley got lots of attention this year for her performance in Diary of a Teenage Girl, but her portrayal of a teen-aged Princess Margaret in this supremely silly little film has the pixilated innocence of a classic screwball comedienne at work. A fictionalized story of England's royal princesses enjoying a incognito night out among the commoners on VE Day,  A Royal Night Out treads a fine line between gentle nostalgia and tastelessness. But thanks to Powley's daffy, doe-eyed charms, even the young princess' brief, unwitting visit to a brothel seems as sweet and inconsequential as the bubbles in a glass of pink champagne.

Why I am a Part-Time Cinephile

This is not my first blog.

From 2007 to early 2015, I wrote a film blog called Doodad Kind of Town.  In the early years, I wrote a lot and picked up a respectable number of followers.  But as time went on, my writing become more and more sporadic, and the sense of purpose behind it faded.  Every so often, I would announce a new focus for the site in the hopes of rejuvenating it (romantic comedy, musicals, films on VOD), but none of them really sparked for me. Life increasingly got in the way of blogging - intense work deadlines, business travel, relationship challenges and my participation in multiple choral singing groups kept me from writing for weeks and even months at a time. And when the posts dried up, so did my readership.

But after almost a year away from blogging, I find I miss it too much to leave it completely behind. For better or worse, I have a inborn need to discover new movies and tell other people about them, a lifelong compulsion to gush enthusiastically about the films I love - and to sternly warn other people away from those film I loathe.

Even better, since closing down my first blog, I've discovered I had a small but loyal following of which I'd only been dimly aware: the former classmates and current co-workers, friends and relatives who followed me on Facebook and read my posts with genuine interest.  And I really like their feedback. It's gratifying when someone tells me they've watched a film that I recommended and liked it, like the high school friend who left me a comment today to say he'd rented Ex Machina on  my recommendation and found it to be "excellent!"

So here I am again, starting up another blog on an eventful day in the film world.  The Oscar nominations are out, and a film in which Leonardo DiCaprio gets eaten by a bear has garnered the most nominations. (Ok, not eaten - just a little chewed up and mauled... ) We're struggling to process the news of Alan Rickman's passing while just barely getting used to the fact that David Bowie has left us, too. And here I am, preparing to write about all this kind of stuff again.

The difference is that, this time, I know who I am and what my focus is, and I'm going to declare it right up front.  Here's why I'm a "Part-Time Cinephile."

1. First of all, I am a cinephile.

Cinephile is just a fancy word for movie lover, something I've been for as long as I can remember. I've been writing about films - mostly for my own enjoyment, but professionally on occasion - since I was about 13.  The Internet gave me a shot at an audience. And like every writer, I love an audience.

2. Having said that, I am only intermittently obsessive about movies,

Sometimes I take a break from obsessively watching movies to obsessively plan and take a vacation. Or obsessively renovate a room in my house. Or binge watch a TV show. Or read a new book. Or follow a breaking news story.  I warn you, I'll probably write about some of that,too - but, knowing me like I do, I'll probably find a way to tie every one of those experiences back to a movie.

3. As a part-timer, I feel no obligation to see anything  I don't really want to see - even it's the hot new, critically acclaimed box-office blockbuster.

Just a 'heads up' here, as we say at the office: If you want to hear about the latest film in the Marvel Comics or Star Wars franchise or The Hateful Eight, you might want to follow someone else's blog. I don't do action/adventure/superhero flicks; they overstimulate my nervous system and make me anxious.  I can't tolerate excessively violent films at all. I literally checked out into a kind of dissociative state during The Passion of the Christ and can't remember a single thing that happened after Jesus showed his mom that dining table he was building.

I'm not saying that violent or loud, special-effects-laden blockbusters are inferior in any way; on the contrary, I wish I could enjoy them more.  But I'm not built for that kind of entertainment,and I've decided I'm not going to subject myself to it anymore. Doesn't matter to me if it makes me less relevant. I saw Mad Max Fury Road to stay relevant, and I dearly wish had that 2 hours and 15 minutes of my life back to watch Clouds of Sils Maria a fourth time.

If, however, you like to hear about films that make you think, laugh, feel empathy, consider new viewpoints or maybe even want to be a better person... then bookmark this page and come back often! You're my kind of reader.,

4. I've increasingly become one of those people who "wait for the DVD" (or, more accurately these days, for home streaming availability).

For most of my life, I was a person who ran to the theater to see every new movie I could.  Nowadays I find I can easily wait for many new releases to become not-so-new and available on my home screen.

Why? Because I've become cheap and lazy and now believe that people who talk out loud during a movie should be sentenced to a few months of hard labor in a North Korean prison camp.

Ha Ha!! JUST KIDDING!  I'm really not cheap or lazy.

But with so many entertainment options competing for my hard-earned dollars, I do take a look at whether the expense of seeing a brand-new movie justifies the cash outlay.  In the Chicago suburbs where I live, a full price movie with popcorn and a Coke Zero is going to set me back well over $20. If, for example, I'm seeing The Force Awakens or Jurassic World  (it could happen), I'm willing to pony up that cash for the big screen experience. But if it's a sensitive little indie drama (like most of the films I prefer), it's going to be just as enjoyable in my living room with a bag of comparatively very low-priced Orville Redenbacher's.

Translation: I don't see as many brand-new films as I used to. Prepare for lots of advice about what to stream on Amazon or Netflix.

Oh, and about that hard labor sentence for movie talkers. Yes, I'm exaggerating for shock value and black comic purposes.  But I truly believe the theater-going experience has been forever tainted by people who confuse a multiplex auditorium with their own living room. I don't pay twenty-some dollars to hear Mildred and Gertrude argue with each other about how Matt Damon is going to get home from Mars; I paid to hear Matt Damon explain that to me himself in the voice-over.

4. I don't see movies for a living... or for a life.

As an overconfident 16-year-old, I was sure I'd grow up to take over Pauline Kael's job at the New Yorker (or maybe Gene Siskel's post at the Chicago Tribune).  Somewhere between youth and middle age, I took a detour into an IT career. This means I spend all day working on a computer, and I often do not feel like spending the evening hunched over another computer - no matter how much I want to write about that great movie I saw over the weekend.

Translation: I may go a week - or many weeks - without posting anything, especially when I'm up against an urgent deadline at work. This last statement is what we IT project managers call a "level set." I've now set the level of your expectations for the frequency of my blog posts.  And with that, I'm relieving myself of all guilt about sporadic posting.

More importantly,while movies are a significant, highly enjoyable part of my life, they are by no means my whole life. And frankly that's how it should be. My faith, my family, my friends - those come first, and those relationships inform the way I look at movies and what I take from them.

But that's much more than enough about me.  It's time to talk about movies. And I'll be back soon to do just that.

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