The race for the five Best Actor nominations might be the Academy Awards’ toughest race. It seems like Bradley Cooper (A Star Is Born) is a lock. There has been some major buzz for a couple of movies that have run in limited release only (Ethan Hawke – First Reformed) and Willem Dafoe (At Eternity’s Gate). Ryan Gosling had a huge push heading into First Man, but that movie was completely underwhelmed with critics and audiences, and his fine performance could be a casualty in this tight year. A new crop of contenders could swoop in for a spot or two (Rami Malek –Bohemian Rhapsody), John David Washington (BlacKkKlansman), Lucas Hedges (Boy Erased). And then there are a couple of oldtimers who turned in a couple of possible final career performances (Clint Eastwood – The Mule) and Robert Redford (The Old Man & the Gun). But I will state, for the record, that one of the men listed above, not named Bradley Cooper, will be knocked out for the career-defining role of Viggo Mortensen (Appaloosa, A History of Violence) in Green Book. We can talk about Mahershala Ali (Moonlight, Hidden Figures) all that we want (and we will). But Green Book is a Mortensen-driven vehicle and a movie that is an absolute must-see. I am a huge Mortensen fan. The Road is one of my all-time favorite movies, and his performance in 2007’s Eastern Promises was absolutely deserving of an Oscar nomination. But I was not a huge fan of 2016’s Captain Fantastic (a film I enjoyed to an extent but had no desire to review). I absolutely thought that the Oscar nomination should have gone to Jake Gyllenhaal (Nocturnal Animals). If, based on the preview, you are worried about Green Book basically being Driving Miss Daisy 2, rest assured that it is not. That, honestly, was my biggest trepidation. And don’t let the PG-13 rating fool you either into thinking that this will be something light-hearted and fun. It pushed the envelope with its language and tone at times. I’m not going to say that this is as dark as the Tom Cruise/ Jamie Foxx 2004 movie Collateral, but it is not designed that way either. While that movie, too, was driven by the performances of its two leads, I don’t think it had nearly as much to say as Green Book did. And I’m also not going to suggest that this movie doesn’t play out exactly as you might expect it to because it absolutely does.
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Category Archives: Linda Cardellini
The Founder (2016)
As John Lee Hancock’s (Saving Mr. Banks, The Blind Side) progressed, I couldn’t help compare his lead character Ray Kroc (played by Michael Keaton – Spotlight, Birdman) to, perhaps, the most iconic television figure in the last 25 years. But, of course, I’m talking about Walter White from the AMC series Breaking Bad. Now the founder of The McDonald’s Corporation certainly didn’t go to the extremes that Walter White did when he transferred himself from a quiet high school chemistry teacher to a ruthless, cutthroat drug Kingpin, intent on destroying everything in his path by any means necessary to get what he wants. Nevertheless, Hancock’s version of Kroc felt similar in the sense that when we meet him, he is a man of integrity, doing whatever he can within the confines of the law to make a living. But, by the end of the film, he is an entirely different man, caught up in his greed, power, and wealth. But, like White, he reaches a point where he feels that he is virtually invincible to those around him as well as to the laws of the land. And just like Breaking Bad, The Founder becomes a must-watch.
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Daddy’s Home (2015)
With apologies to the extremely funny The Campaign, first-time co-director John Morris and Sean Anders’s (Horrible Bosses 2, Sex Drive) Daddy’s Home is, ironically, Will Ferrell’s (Old School, Step Brothers) best-starring comedy role since 2010’s The Other Guys. It’s not a movie I thought I would particularly like and one that I had serious doubts about as much as 20 minutes in (I hadn’t laughed but maybe one time), but as the movie progressed, it got funnier and funnier. By its conclusion, it became a somewhat memorable movie that I wouldn’t put on the “A-shelf” comedy list but might find itself just a notch below. What made the movie work was the dynamics between Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg (Lone Survivor, The Fighter), who didn’t have the same chemistry they had when they teamed partners in the buddy cop The Other Guys but were still pretty close. While Daddy’s Home was 100% completely predictable, it didn’t make it any less fun, and while Ferrell and Wahlberg weren’t exceptionally awesome in the scenes where they weren’t together, it more than made up for during the scenes where they shared screen time.
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Welcome to Me (2015)
Kristin Wiig (Bridesmaids, The Skeleton Twins) got off to a bit of a late start in her movie career. Still, the hilarious Saturday Night Live alum is making up for lost time and immersing herself in as many unique roles as possible. In my opinion, the funniest female cast member in the history of SNL isn’t allowing herself to be typecast like so many of her predecessors (both male and female) by basically starring in full-length versions of the skits they performed on television. In recent years, many alumni (especially the females like Amy Poehler and Tina Fey) are establishing themselves as legit, in it for the long run actors, writers, directors, and producers. Many of the three names mentioned in this paragraph will rank the talents as 1) Fey, 2) Poehler, and 3) Wiig. I may be in the minority when I say Wiig is my favorite of the three, followed shortly by Fey. For me, while super-talented, Poehler is a distant third.
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