From The Trenches: Top 10 Favorite Actors - Serkis & Thompson

Top 10 favorite actors, continued...

• Andy Serkis

Long before Avatar, Andy Serkis started the dialogue for considering motion capture performances for major acting awards. And rightly so. While I found most of the Avatar performances to be cheesy and way over-the-top, Serkis did brilliant, subtle work in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, not to mention his underappreciated role in King Kong. Of course, he's also great in real-life roles - he was so much fun in 13 Going On 30, for example, and he held together the sloppy The Cottage. He has some real humdingers coming up: Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll, Burke & Hare, The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn (probably the most anticipated movie of my life) and, if it ever gets made, The Hobbit. I can't wait. 

Favorite role: Gollum in The Lord of the Rings

• Emma Thompson

I'm not sure I can put into words what I love about Emma Thompson. I think it's this: even though she's a brilliant, talented, beautiful, multiple Oscar-winning star, she seems like someone you would know in real life. I'm thinking of Love Actually or her devastating performance in the TV movie Wit. By the time she's listening to her Joni Mitchell CD in the former or having The Runaway Bunny read to her in the latter, I'm a wreck; Thompson plays the scenes perfectly, but it's how relatable and raw she is that pushes them over the edge. She makes her characters real and believable in a way few actors really can. I think there's something particular about the way she delivers her lines - she's very careful and deliberate with her words, which makes it seem like she's actually thinking about what to say. When I heard that she was wearing a fat suit in Love Actually, I was completely amazed. It suddenly became clear to me that the whole thing wasn't real at all - obviously I know that Love Actually was not a documentary, but she sold the character so well that such a thing had never occurred to me. And then, on the other hand, she plays angels, wizards and whatever Nanny McPhee is. That's some range.

Favorite role: Vivian Bearing in Wit (TV)

(Branagh & Grant)
(Hepburn & Hoffman)
(Keaton & Lemmon)
(Posey & Rockwell)
(Serkis & Thompson)

From the Trenches: Top 10 Favorite Actors - Branagh & Grant

I started this post several weeks ago on a slow day at work. I was planning to do a top 5 actors and top 5 actresses, but I ended up with 6 actors and 4 actresses so I thought it was more fair to combine them into a top 10. For some reason, I'm just not as interested in actresses - maybe that's a topic for another day...

 

• Kenneth Branagh

I think most of Kenneth Branagh's roles can be split into two broad categories. The first category is the classical roles - his adaptations of Shakespeare, for example, or Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. He's very good in these kind of roles. The second category is the roles where he is, for lack of a better word, kind of a dick - like in Peter's Friends, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Celebrity (don't get me started on that one again), and so many more. I really love this latter group. For some reason, I enjoy watching villainous characters, and while most of Branagh's roles are not in the hammy vein of super-villain Dr. Arliss Loveless (yes, I'm even willing to defend him in Wild Wild West. Within reason.), he seems to play unlikable characters easily and well. For me, his very best performances are where the two categories overlap, specifically in Othello and Much Ado About Nothing. Here he has the benefit of a rock-solid script and a three-dimensional character, which can only elevate his strong performance. Of all Shakespeare's characters, Iago has the third-most lines, after Hamlet and Richard III. Compared to Othello himself, Iago is always the more intriguing character, and Branagh makes him mesmerizing. (Side note: my favorite Shakespeare play is Richard III - Branagh played that role on stage, but I really hope he makes a movie one day.)

Favorite role: Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing

• Cary Grant 

Unlike most of the actors on this list, I don't remember the first time I saw Cary Grant on screen. Doesn't it feel like you've just always known who he was? What I love about watching him is how effortless he makes everything look. His line readings are so natural, with that unmistakable accent, and I really like how silly he's willing to look for a laugh. Consensus seems to say that George Clooney is Grant's modern-day equivalent; obviously Clooney is also effortlessly handsome, but there's something about him I sometimes find grating. He can seem smug and condescending, like he knows how superior he is, but I never get that feeling from Grant. Not that he doesn't think highly of himself, just there are more important things on his mind. I made it my mission to watch his whole filmography (so far: only 12 of 75), and so far, most of them are gems. Of course, I love when he stars opposite Katharine Hepburn, who also makes this list. Their chemistry is so sharp, they're a joy to watch together. At the beginning of Holiday (1938), when he takes a bite out of the apple in her hand, there's absolutely no doubt that they're meant to end up together. As idiosyncratic as he is as a performer, he makes every role believable; maybe that's because he's just so fun to watch that you cut him more slack, but I think he's a supremely talented actor and I'm sticking to that.

Favorite role: C.K. Dexter Haven in The Philadelphia Story

(Branagh & Grant)

(Hepburn & Hoffman)

(Keaton & Lemmon)

(Posey & Rockwell)

(Serkis & Thompson)

From The Trenches: On Woody Allen

After seeing Celebrity not too long ago, I started to wonder why I even bother with Woody Allen movies. To put it simply, I just don't like them. I've tried, really I have. I've seen Celebrity and Anything Else, which I hated. Match Point got glowing reviews, so I watched that and hated it. Scoop looked fun. Hated it. Vicky Cristina Barcelona? Hated it. (For the record, I have also seen Annie Hall, and I loved it. But at that point, I was beginning to feel like I might have been wrong about that, too.) 

I grew up during the worst period of his career, when his movies weren't the critical darlings they used to be and his reputation was in tatters, so maybe it was inevitable that I would be hypercritical. I think one reason I dislike his movies - and obviously this only applies to the more recent films as those are the ones I've seen - is how he portrays himself. 

If I can make this comparison without outing myself as a YA connoisseur, it reminds me a little of Twilight and other fan fiction. It seems obvious to me that Twilight's Bella Swan is a Mary Sue character - she's clumsy and shy and she considers herself to be average-looking, yet every boy (and werewolf and vampire) in town falls in love with her instantly. I feel like Allen writes his own characters the same way: the average-looking, neurotic mess who always, inexplicably, gets the (often much younger) girl. I guess it's understandable; if you're going to create your own fantasy world, why not make yourself the king?

Another reason I don't care for his recent movies is Scarlett Johansson. I understand that she is a talented and popular actress, but for some reason, I just can't warm to her as a performer. And though this probably goes without saying, she is no Diane Keaton.

For about a week after I saw Celebrity, it really bugged me that I just wasn't getting whatever made him popular, so I asked my friends and family to suggest their favorite Woody Allen movies. If I had to, I would watch every single one of them until I could find one I enjoyed or write them all off as "not my kind of thing."

I got a lot of good suggestions, so I started out with Love and Death and Manhattan Murder Mystery. And wouldn't you know it, I liked them both. Even though both of them had Allen playing basically the same character as always, it didn't bug me. Particularly in Love and Death, it seemed like he just wasn't taking himself as seriously. And it was funny, really funny. There was a silly energy and wordplay that reminded me of the Marx Brothers, which would explain why my Dad, who loves the Marx Brothers, suggested it to me. Manhattan Murder Mystery wasn't as blatantly silly, but it had the light, fun tone that Allen seemed to be trying for in Scoop. And obviously, both of the movies benefitted from the presence of Diane Keaton, whom I could rave about all day. 

So far, so good; since I wrote this, I've also seen my mother's suggestion, Zelig, which I also liked. I'm 3-for-3, which is a much better track record than I expected. Up next are Manhattan (recommended by everyone) and Bullets Over Broadway, which Allen himself considers one of his best (although that list of six has raised some eyebrows - I can't really judge yet as I've only seen nine, which means my top six would need to include at least one film I didn't like).

From The Trenches: Father Knows Best

Note: Believe it or not, this post was actually written for Father's Day. A little late, but that's OK.

When I was a little girl, I considered it a special treat to go up to my parents' room and choose a book from my Dad's shelf. He was, and still is, a huge comedy fan, so the shelf was full of books about the Carry On films, Laurel & Hardy, Tony Hancock, the Comedy Store or the Marx Brothers.

My favorite was the big, colorful Carry On book. I would sit flipping through the pages and reading intently about Sid James, Kenneth Williams, Barbara Windsor, and my favorite, Jim Dale. This was still a year or two before 1992's flop Carry On Columbus, which was one of my first experiences of film criticism. I was so excited to discuss it with my Dad and show him what I had learned from his books - if I recall, he didn't think it was very good, and I agreed, even though I secretly liked it. I still hadn't seen many movies, but I loved being able to throw out movie titles and specific references; that's something I still take pride in today because I think it makes me sound smarter and more cultured than I am.

Around that time, I also started reading kid-oriented entertainment magazines. I remember the articles about the release of Curly Sue (1991) particularly vividly, and I was just obsessed with Home Alone 2 (1992). Over dinner, I would ask my parents if they had heard about a certain movie (which they inevitably hadn't) and then regale them with information I had picked up. It's been almost 20 years and I still haven't seen Curly Sue, but if you had asked me about it when I was 6, I would have talked your ear off.

I think what I've learned from my Dad is a very intellectual approach to movie-watching and a love of trivia and making connections - in fact, one board game we play asks you to connect two stars or two movies with as few points in between as possible; I've never lost. I think that's what led me into my future line of work and to this blog; I want to be able to quantify what I've seen and create something tangible out of my movie-watching experiences.

More importantly though, I've inherited a serious, deep-held love for comedy. Ninety-nine times out of 100, I will choose to watch a comedy film over a drama. Usually, this will be one of the same few titles: Ghostbusters (or Ghostbusters 2), Hot Fuzz, The Philadelphia Story, This Is Spinal Tap, etc. Eventually, the jokes stop actually being funny, but I'm still mesmerized by the timing and the rhythms. Even though our tastes these days are diverging (my Dad is going back to vaudeville and Old Hollywood comedy, while I'm forging ahead with the likes of The Mighty Boosh), I think we both secretly harbor a desire to be performers. Maybe that's the biggest thing I take from my Dad: we study the intricacies of film and comedy to feel that, however marginally, we're a part of it.

From The Trenches: Live Together, Die Alone

Can I take a segue into TV for a while? Well, it's my blog and as far as I can tell, no one's reading it, so yes, I can. We're days away from the series finale of LOST and the end of a TV era for me - let's call it the J.J. Abrams decade. My all-time favorite show is Alias, which began in 2001; just as that show was petering out, J.J. (I feel like we're on first-name terms) directed the LOST pilot in 2004. That episode ranks high in my list of best episodes ever - maybe just behind the Twin Peaks pilot at the top.

I've heard people describe the LOST pilot as "cinematic," which is true, if a little trite. For one thing, it cost $13 million - that could pay for a pretty solid movie, although it probably wouldn't have the big cast or special effects the pilot had. But I think it's more about the scope and vision of the episode. When Jack walks onto the beach and we see the crash site for the first time, it's kind of mind-blowing; there's so much going on and so many people. I had never seen anything on that scale on TV before, and I think the show has provided many more trailblazing moments through its run, thematically and visually. As for being "cinematic," I can name lots of episodes that played like mini-movies: this season's "Ab Aeterno"; "The Constant," an epic, time-traveling romance; even the lame "Expose," a twisty action/crime episode with a neat ending. But really, don't get me started on the nitpicky details of LOST. I might never stop.

Oh, Richard, I'll miss you most of all.

What I was really intending to write about was the actors, but I seem to have got a little off-track. For most of the cast, this show put them on the map 6 years ago, and the question is where to go next? There are some brilliant actors on LOST and I would be happy to watch them in anything, but it seems like the next logical step for many of them is movies. Of course, some of the later additions to the cast (Daniel, Lapidus) are established movie actors, but I can't wait to see what some of the original cast will do. It would be sad if my favorites (too many to name, but particularly Sawyer, Desmond, Richard, Locke and Ben) kind of faded into obscurity, but I'm confident that I'll be writing about them again in the near future. And yes, I will still be using their character names. I think that's something they're going to have to live with for a while.

From The Trenches: Lessons from My Mother

When I think about my movie heritage, I mostly think about my Dad. It's from him that I've inherited most of my tastes and influences, and it's with him I share my opinions and information. My Mum and I share a lot of other interests, but she was never obsessive about music, movies and TV - she has very little recall of movie titles or plots or actors' and actresses' names. That's not to say she doesn't like movies, she does, but sometimes you don't need to know the production backstory or the last time the two lead actors played opposite each other or the box office revenue. Sometimes you just want to watch a movie.

The movies my Mum likes to watch fall pretty solidly in the weepie category. That, we don't share. I've made a list of movies I will never see, mostly because I know they'll be too sad and harrowing (these tend to be Holocaust movies or films about child abuse). Since I was a kid, though, I've scoured my movie magazines for something Mum would like. She has the 8-year-old me to thank for recommending the Michael Keaton sobfest My Life, for example, and we both lost it while watching Ponette, one of the most gut-wrenchingly sad movies I've ever seen.

I've never understood the draw of a movie that's guaranteed to make you cry - it's not fun and it's not pretty, so why bother? At the risk of sounding sappy, I think it's because of my Mum's good-heartedness and empathy. She likes to watch these movies because they remind her both of her own good fortune and the chance she has to help those less fortunate. My parents are foster parents, and I have one adopted sister and an almost-adopted brother. I think the weepie movies remind my Mum that there are always people in the world worse off than she is, and she'll do all she can to fix that.

But she also loves to laugh. One of the best times we all had together was when her parents came to visit, and we went to see Rush Hour. None of us expected much, but the movie was amazing. I think it had a lot to do with my Mum and grandparents. All three of them had big, loud, infectious laughs, and laughing with them made everything a hundred times funnier. I'm not sure that I've inherited that laugh, but Mum has passed down one thing: a love of watching people fall down. Kind of at odds with that fabled empathy, I know, but she always insists it's only funny if no one gets hurt. As a much-repeated family story goes, when I was very young, she, my sister and I got on a crowded bus. As she was getting seated with my sister, I waited in the aisle (I was maybe 3 at this point, I guess). Suddenly, the bus started moving, and I fell. My mother was laughing so hard, she couldn't even muster the energy to pick me up. Hilarious.

But really, it is hilarious, as long as it happens to someone else. One night a long time ago we were watching It'll Be Alright on the Night (a TV bloopers special) - one video showed a dancer doing a high kick and pulling a muscle, then trying to hobble through the rest of his routine. Mum laughed so long and so hard she had to leave the room, and she stood in the kitchen for about 15 minutes before she could compose herself. Well, last night I found that video (behold the power of YouTube) and I emailed it to her as a Mother's Day treat. She remembered it as clearly as I did and it was just as funny, if not more so, after 16 years. We spent the next half-hour on the phone watching video after video of people falling down and laughing until we cried. That's a pretty good Mother's Day memory.

From the Trenches: Woody Allen's Celebrity

I saw a picture somewhere online of Kenneth Branagh, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Sam Rockwell walking through a casino. I checked the caption, which said it was a still from Celebrity (1998), and I went directly to Netflix, added it to my queue, and bumped it right to the top. I've never been a Woody Allen fan, but I couldn't pass up a movie starring my #2 (Rockwell) and #3 (Branagh) favorite actors.

Well, I should have passed it up because I did not enjoy Celebrity at all. (Let's forget the fact that Rockwell had about 5 seconds of screen time and no lines - I really should have seen that coming.) Branagh took the Allen-substitute role, and it did him no favors. It actually was a pretty good impersonation - he had the timing, mannerisms and phrasing down - but the fact remains that the selfish neurotic is not a likable character. I don't know if the effort he put into the voice and movements took too much of his focus, but Branagh seemed to play up the negative aspects more than Allen himself used to, particularly the selfishness. Lee was unbearably self-centered, and for no good reason; he's not a great writer, he's not particularly good looking (at least among the models and matinee idols who populate the film) and he has no dazzling wit or charm in social situations. 

I'll be honest, though: I love unlikeable characters. Characters you love to hate are just more fun. To be an effective villain, to amass the kind of followers needed to take control, you need a huge amount of charisma, and that's what makes a performance fun. Branagh has played a wide range of egomaniacs - I'm thinking of Peter's Friends and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets off the top of my head - but I've always felt his underlying charm elevated the performance (and yes, for the record I do think he is very good looking). He just seemed joyless and directionless in this role. I felt like I wanted to shake some life into him.

I think the character here suffered from a lack of explanation - why did he bounce from woman to woman? Because he could? I don't buy it, but the movie was too stuffed to the gills with cameos and characters to really delve too deeply. The frenetic pace and frequent scene changes made it really hard to keep up; there were several times I wasn't sure if we had gone backward or forward in time and if so, how far, or even where it was set (New York is a good guess, right?). However, one great scene near the end showed Famke Janssen on a departing boat, throwing pages of Branagh's manuscript into the air; it switches to the reverse shot of him on the pier with pages floating around, then back to her getting farther and farther away. It was so simple and beautiful that it made me pause for a second and remember, "Oh right, Woody Allen is a director." And a good one, too. That quiet, poetic image was striking compared to the rest of the overly busy movie. 

I will say, for all the movie's many, many faults, I loved two performances in particular: Joe Mantegna and DiCaprio. Mantegna played a thankless straight-man role opposite Judy Davis, but he was ever the charmer and gave a stabilizing performance that the movie really needed. DiCaprio, on the other hand, made the most of his explosive short scene with a blistering fight opposite Gretchen Mol. Portraying the excesses of young Hollywood, he reminded me why we were all so excited about him 12 years ago. He was totally mesmerizing, and I wish the whole movie had been about him.

From the Trenches: Introduction

Operation Kino has been in effect for a month, and so far? Not so good. I have two months left at my full-time job, so until then, the longer, more carefully planned essays will have to wait. Instead, I'll write shorter pieces on whatever I happen to be thinking about, just to get the creative juices flowing.

Obviously I'm not supposed to be doing this at work, but I think I can be discreet. My job is a little unusual - writing in a Word document would draw unwanted attention, but we write a lot of emails so I'm going to write these shorts in email form to avoid arousing suspicion. This sneaking around actually does make me feel like a spy, which is kind of cool. Since we only have access to three websites at work, I will admit that the factual accuracy will only be as good as Wikipedia, i.e. not very accurate at all. But that's OK - content is content, however half-baked and patchy.

To begin this series (called From the Trenches - which is more clever than I meant it to be), I'll introduce myself a little more by writing about my five favorite movies, 5 favorite actors and actresses, and 5 of the most recent movies I have seen.