Loretta Devine has a real dead love for Tyler Perry now

For Colored Girls is more interesting as an artistic statement than an actual work of art. For better or worse, Tyler Perry is the modern-day Douglas Sirk. He brings a very particular (read: peculiar) world view to every project, even, apparently, his adaptations. He perplexes film critics today, but I have a feeling that in 50 years he’ll have the same cult following that Sirk has posthumously enjoyed.

That said, how do I feel about Colored Girls? Remember that particular world view I was talking about? Even as a white twenty-something male, I can safely assume the black female experience is far removed from Perry’s conception of it. It’s not that anything that happens in his film is beyond belief. Iraq War veterans do abuse their wives and children; and they sometimes kill them, too. Promising young dancers do sometimes go to back-alley abortionists. And some black, male professionals do lead alternate lives “on the down low.”

It’s not that what happens in Perry’s film is so ridiculous. The problem is the way Perry stages his high drama and the pat catharsis he strives for. Everything that happens fits neatly inside his Southern Baptist sensibilities. Yes, all these bad things happen, but if the women can come together, stop being promiscuous, and take their own share of the blame, all will be good again. Finally, Perry’s daytime TV conception of city life and the “ghetto” is about as enlightened as a very special episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air’s.

All those issues aside, the impressive cast strives valiantly to breathe life into Perry’s stilted dialogue. The opportunity to see Loretta Devine, Kimberly Elise, Phylicia Rashad and Kerry Washington — four of the most criminally under-utilized black actresses working today — shine in one film is golden. And, in a limited role as a broken down abortionist, Macy Gray packs a punch, too.

How could Perry produce such utter crap given such a talented cast? Short answer: He’s a true auteur. He couldn’t do it any other way.

Biutiful a frank exploration of death

Biutiful feels like the film director Alejandro González Iñárritu has been trying to make all along.

It's downbeat to the point of sending some film critics running for their medicine cabinets. It features carefully choreographed scenes in which the camera weaves amidst and above the Barcelona crowds. It's conscious of the intricate ways various cultures interact in our globalized economy. And it deals in the currency of intention and inadvertent consequence.

The film is Iñárritu's first without screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga, as well as his first without a rigid, time-warping narrative structure. It's also his first masterpiece.

Uxbal (Javier Bardem) eeks out a living as a middle-man between illegal immigrants and nominally legitimate businessmen, putting Chinese to work on construction sites and overseeing a team Senegalese street vendors. On the side, he moonlights as a psychic for families of the recently deceased. His estranged wife Marambra (Maricel Álvarez) cycles in and out of his life, making promises to their two children, Ana and Mateo, that she lacks the ability or willpower to keep. She makes her problems — untreated bipolar disorder and alcoholism — Uxbal's.

And then Uxbal learns the groin pains he's ignored for months are the final signal flares of prostate cancer. As he worked to raise Ana and Mateo on his own and keep his various schemes running, the disease metastasized to his bones and liver. He has mere months to get his affairs in order.

Because it's Iñárritu, there are myriad subplots weaving their way through the film. Unlike his previous attempts, however, these threads all become relevant parts of the whole. They also ratchet up the tension for Uxbal, who valiantly fights through it. He has to reconcile himself to the same premature death that met his father. But mostly, he's scared for his children.

It would've been easy for Iñárritu to martyr Uxbal. He's done it to other characters in his films. Here, we watch as Uxbal does thoughtless and sometimes despicable things out of desperation and frustration. And Bardem goes at it full steam ahead, his face a perfect conduit for the anguish and fear and a million other emotions of a dying man. He does a fantastic job bringing the cause-and-effect nature of the script to life — Uxbal feels X, therefore he does Y — without it seeming robotic or simplistic. Álvarez, too, never fumbles with her tricky character. Marambra understands why her family's drawn away from her and she doesn't. She holds on for dear life.

Finally, Biutiful is a very human film. In his previous outings, particularly 21 Grams and Babel, Iñárritu's characters felt like rag dolls blown by the winds of cruel fate. The tragedies of Biutiful aren't the point of or reason for the film. They are simple facts of life. They instigate change. They force characters to grapple with their past and their future. The film earns its emotional pay-off the old fashioned way and the audience feels (or should feel) the full weight of what's transpired.

There are no BIG scenes in Biutiful, just a lot of little ones that metastasize in your brain through the film's 148 minutes. It left me devastated in a way no other film in recent memory has. Granted, I have a very personal connection to the the material, but it's possibly the most realistically affecting treatment of death committed to celluloid.

We're not lost, just finding our way

Fresh on the heels of one of the best movie posters to come along in a long while, Apple has an HD trailer for Kelly Reichardt's Oregon Trail drama Meek's Cutoff. Given Reichardt's track record (Wendy and Lucy, also with Michelle Williams), this one's probably thin on plot and high on atmosphere, but that's o.k. The trailer strikes some ominous notes, with Bruce Greenwood's Meek leading the wagon train into the desert and a pit of uncertainty. It looks handsomely shot and seems to have more on its mind than your typical latter-day western (i.e. it's more Assassination of Jesse James, less Appaloosa). Count me in.

Red Bandits

It's always difficult to judge a comedy based on its trailer since they tend to pack in the best punchlines (particularly the red band ones). Bad Teacher, however, looks pretty great. Phyllis Smith gets all the best laugh lines in this one. She's awesomely deadpan. I managed to compose myself pretty well, until this one:

Diaz: If I got a new pair of tits, he'd be all over me. But they're really expensive, you know, per tit.

Phyllis: Yeah, and you've got to get two of them.

Not ground-breaking humor, but it had me cracking up.

Oh, and the trailer for Paul, with Seth Rogen as a big-testacled fugitive alien, is also out. Meh. The editor clearly didn't strain him or herself cramming the laugh lines in. A bad trailer doesn't necessarily mean a bad movie, but this one didn't do anything for me.

The Movies Are Dead; Long Live the Movies!

Just in time to fill the annual movie "sky is falling" quota, GQ (ever the bastion for high culture) has published an article assaying the death of the movies. It's impressive for the author's ability to extract quotes from various industry luminaries, but on the whole it's just a warmed over helping of panic. At various points, Mark Harris points the finger at filmgoers, studio executives and, oddly, the burgeoning film industries in Italy and Japan, for the sorry state of summer tentpoles and the recent, alleged dearth of quality adult-oriented dramas.

But really, there is nothing new about any of the theories he presents (except for the Japanese kamikaze thing; never heard of that before).

I happen to agree that a lot of what passes for blockbuster is utter crap these days. A couple weeks ago, I tried to watch Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and gave up halfway through. I almost never do that. Even bad movies usually have some redeeming qualities, or bring a certain goofy gallows humor to the table. Not the Prince.

I'm not sure who gave Harris the idea that thriving overseas film industries are a bad thing, but if you're looking for the kinds of films Hollywood used to make, that's where you should be looking. Last year, seven of my top ten were foreign films and most of them share striking similarities to the American classics Harris seems to mourn. Animal Kingdom has been compared (somewhat daftly) to Goodfellas by critics. A Prophet pulls more than a few pages from the gangster flicks of the 1930's. Tokyo Sonata has a script that Frank Capra would be proud of. And Mother is, by my estimation, the only film that actually earns the "Hitchcockian" label that was foisted upon it by its marketing.

There's also the simple fact that American cinema doesn't actually need the defibillation that Harris feels compelled to give it (how noble of him). It's true: the studios dump a lot of crap on the market. But, then again, they always have. Even in this era of cinema-via-focus-group, it was largely the studios that produced the watershed year that was 2007. That year, American films dominated my personal top five (including Warner Bros.' The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Miramax/Paramount's No Country for Old Men, Pixar's Ratatouille, Paramount Vantage's There Will Be Blood and Paramount's Zodiac). And as the article begrudgingly points out, there've been some quality tentpoles (2008's Iron Man and The Dark Knight and last summer's Inception), too.

Honestly, I think any movie fan who can't find anything satisfactory out there is just lazy or stubborn, or both. It's a wide world out there — it's time to leave the familiar behind and go explore.

Best Picture Reimagined

As part of their annual awards shindig, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) commissioned artwork for its Best Film category (via In Contention). The results are all interesting representations of the films they commemorate. I'm fond of the Inception poster myself. Check out the whole lineup on their website.

Fatal Friendship in Born to Kill

This is a contribution to the For Love of Film (Noir) blogathon hosted by Ferdy on Film and Self-Styled Siren. Now in its second year, the blogathon aims to raise money for the Film Noir Foundation, which preserves the original nitrate prints of these classic films. Please consider donating to them if you can, as they do vital work.

A lot of ink has been spilled already about Claire Trevor's conniving psuedo-femme fatale, her masochistic obsession with psychopathic killer Lawrence Tierney and the class warfare that pervades Robert Wise's fantastic "Born to Kill." But more than the two scorching leads, I've always been struck by two noir regulars, Elisha Cook Jr. (Harry Jones in "The Big Sleep") and Esther Howard ("Detour," "Murder, My Sweet") in character roles.

Several classic noirs have touched upon the lengths people will go for friendship (Thelma Ritter's fantastic scene in Simon Fuller's "Pickup on South Street" springs to mind), but few have done it so effectively as "Born to Kill." Neither Cook nor Howard stray from their usual types, the mousy guy out of his depth and the brassy lush. But the script gives them excellent material to work with and their presence adds a depth that the plot may not have had otherwise.

As Mrs. Kraft, Howard is a hoot. She lives vicariously through her young, promiscuous landlord Laury Palmer. It's not clear how the two became such fast friends, but they're cut from the same cloth. You can imagine that Laury would eventually become Mrs. Kraft had she not met the business end of Tierney's knife.

But their relationship is about more than two kindred spirits coming together at different points on the same sad continuum of alcoholism. Even before Laury's murder, Kraft seems to have maternal instincts toward the younger woman, suggesting she "get some meat on her bones." Afterward, she hires an attorney and jaunts out to San Francisco to track down Laury's killer.

In one of my favorite scenes in the film, in which Kraft first meets Cook's Marty 'Mart' Waterman, Howard lays all her cards on the table. After sizing Waterman up for the loser he is ("I'm a bad boy," Cook intones. To this, Howard lets out a knowing cackle.), she tells all there is to know about where Kraft is coming from.

"I've reached the tail end of my life and all I had was Laury—Laury and the bottle. Well, there's nothing I can do for the bottle, but I'm sure not going to let Laury down."

On the page, it reads like lazy screenwriting, but it works wonderfully on screen. Interestingly enough, the most outwardly repulsive character is the only one with pure motives in the entire film. She has the self-awareness that comes with age. At the same time, she lacks the will to change herself, so she's looking for redemption by finding Laury's killer.

Cook's Mart is a thoroughly ambiguous character. The only thing the film reveals about his connection to Tierney's Sam Wild is that they'd lived together for five years and were roommates in Reno. Based on the amount of tail that Wild gets, wants to get, or induces into marriage, it's clear that the two weren't together in the Biblical sense. So, were they in prison? Were they running a con together? And what keeps them together now that Wild has married into wealth?

The film doesn't tell much of anything about their past, but the balance of power in the relationship was always with Wild. There's a strange dynamic here, in which Wild goes wild and Mart tries to talk him down and clean up the wreckage. He tries his damnedest to throw Kraft off the trail, and then unsuccessfully co-opts Wild's cold methods. Mart's willing to do just about anything for his friend.

Just like Mrs. Kraft, that dedication places Mart in harm's way. Despite being Wild's only true friend, Mart ends up in the psychopath's crosshairs. "You're crazy, Sam," Mart says, but it's no revelation. Mart knew it all along and still stood by his friend.

Instant Awesome: Still Bill

As a documentary, Still Bill is problematic at best, but as a catching-up with one of the best soul singers of the early '70s, the film (newly available on Netflix Instant) is golden. After a series of classic songs that crossed over into the mainstream ("Ain't No Sunshine," "Lean on Me," "Use Me") and prior to some latter-day cult hits ("Grandma's Hands" via Blackstreet's "No Diggity" and "Who Is He and What Is He to You" via Jackie Brown), Bill Withers bowed out of the music industry in 1985. He's held onto the mystique of the homegrown hit-maker ever since, never once capitalizing on the nostalgia he's left behind.

Not once during the course of Still Bill does Withers question his decision to leave the spotlight and focus on his family. He comes across as a down-to-earth guy, the kind of person that most people aspire to be. He's comfortable in his own skin, remaining cool in what must've been an incredibly awkward interview with Cornel West and Tavis Smiley. The two self-important jackasses ask him about "selling out." "We're all entrepreneurs," Withers responds, not taking their all-too-obvious bait.

Despite the documentary's heavy-handed attempts at easy emotion, you get a sense for the life Withers has lived and the events that shaped his outlook. He grew up in a West Virginia coal town and struggled with a stutter until he was in his 20's. It wasn't until he was 32 that he broke through as a musician. Without any professional training, he was an unlikely star and his fame brought some ridiculous propositions — one producer suggested he cover Elvis Presley's hokey "In the Ghetto."

Withers transcends the pat generalizations that his documentarians foist upon him at every turn. After the "selling out" crap, Withers side-steps more bunk about racism and still more B.S. about career regrets. Amid all the preconceived notions directors Damani Baker and Alex Vlack seem to have, Withers comes out with some gems of wisdom. "Do you know how unhappy you'd be if you thought you weren't (living) the right way?" He says early in the film. "I started out that way; I'm not going to end that way." Later, he says he told his children that on their way to wonderful, they'll pass through all right. "Stop and take a look around," he says. "Because that's where you may be staying." There's also some genuine emotion, such as moments where he joins his daughter in song and talks with young stutterers about his own childhood.

It's a shame Withers never continued churning out solid gold soul, and that he was saddled with a couple nincompoops for this latter-day documentary, but he isn't fazed. This film is worth a watch to see how cool cool really can be.

The Black Keys are Howlin' for You

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives

From all indications, Thai director Apichatpong Joe's latest "Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives," which took home last year's Palm d'Or at Cannes, defies easy explanation. But, from the trailer that popped up on iTunes, it looks like a beautiful, fascinating trip.

The Dark End of the Street

Aside from a few songs ("A Long December," "Mr. Jones") that formed the soundtrack of my middle school experience, I don't count myself as a Counting Crows fan. Mostly, I haven't paid them any attention. Even at the peak of their popularity, when I was about 12, I mistook their ubiquitous songs for the latest from the Gin Blossoms or Collective Soul.

All that said (methinks I protest too much), I thought it was worth passing along some acoustic recordings by Crows frontman Adam Duritz (via I Am Fuel). What grabbed my attention was his cover of "The Dark End of the Street," one of my favorite songs by the indomitable James Carr.

Duritz:
The Dark End Of The Street by CaptFantastic

Carr:

Widescreen Awards: The Winners

And here they are: my favorite performances and technical achievements of the year. Click on the images for the full-write ups. The nominees are presented in list format at the bottom of this post with a slightly amended (including one addition and one upgrade) Top 20 from the one I started out with.

The Top Twenty Films of 2010

20. "Cairo Time" (Canada, dir. Ruba Nadda)

19. "Black Swan" (USA, dir. Darren Aronofsky)

18. "Toy Story 3" (USA, dir. Lee Unkrich)

17. "Salt" (USA, dir. Phillip Noyce)

16. “The Fighter” (USA, dir. David O. Russell)

15. "Inception" (USA, dir. Christopher Nolan)

14. "The Chaser" (South Korea, dir. Na Hong-jin)

13. "Night Catches Us" (USA, dir. Tanya Hamilton)

12. "True Grit" (USA, dir. Joel and Ethan Coen)

11. "Splice" (Canada, dir. Vincenzo Natali)

10. "I Am Love" (Italy, dir. Luca Guadagnino)

9. "Restrepo" (USA, dir. Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger)

8. "Animal Kingdom" (Australia, dir. David Michôd)

7. "A Prophet" (France, dir. Jacques Audiard)

6. "That Evening Sun" (USA, dir. Scott Teems)

5. "Secret Sunshine" (South Korea, dir. Lee Chang-dong)

4. "Enter the Void" (France/Germany/Italy, dir. Gaspar Noé)

3. "Tokyo Sonata" (Japan, dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa)

2. "Mother" (South Korea, dir. Bong Joon-ho)

1. "The Social Network" (USA, dir. David Fincher)

Best Director

Bong Joon-ho (Mother)

David Fincher (The Social Network)

Luca Guadagnino (I Am Love)

Kiyoshi Kurosawa (Tokyo Sonata)

Gaspar Noé (Enter the Void)

Best Actor

Jesse Eisenberg (The Social Network)

Hal Holbrook (That Evening Sun)

Teruyuki Kagawa (Tokyo Sonata)

Tahar Rahim (A Prophet)

Édgar Ramírez (Carlos)

Best Actress

Jeon Do-yeon (Secret Sunshine)

Kim Hye-ja (Mother)

Jennifer Lawrence (Winter's Bone)

Natalie Portman (Black Swan)

Tilda Swinton (I Am Love)

Best Supporting Actor

Neils Arestrup (A Prophet)

Christian Bale (The Fighter)

Michael Fassbender (Fish Tank)

John Hawkes (Winter's Bone)

Ray McKinnon (That Evening Sun)

Best Supporting Actress

Melissa Leo (The Fighter)

Carrie Preston (That Evening Sun)

Charlotte Rampling (Life During Wartime)

Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit)

Jacki Weaver (Animal Kingdom)

Best Ensemble Performance

Shirley Henderson, Allison Janney, Ally Sheedy, Ciarán Hinds, Dylan Riley Snyder, Michael Lerner, Charlotte Rampling, Michael K. Williams, Paul Reubens, Rich Pecci (Life During Wartime)

Hal Holbrook, Raymond McKinnon, Carrie Preston, Mia Wasikowska, Walton Goggins, Barry Corbin, Dixie Carter (That Evening Sun)

Katie Jarvis, Kierston Wareing, Michael Fassbender and Rebecca Griffiths (Fish Tank)

Teruyuki Kagawa, Kyôko Koizumi, Yû Koyanagi, Kai Inowaki, Haruka Igawa and Kanji Tsuda (Tokyo Sonata)

Anthony Mackie, Kerry Washington, Jamara Griffin, Wendell Pierce, Jamie Hector and Amari Cheatom (Night Catches Us)

Best Original Screenplay

Bong Joon-ho and Park Eun-kyo (Mother)

Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Max Mannix and Sachiko Tanaka (Tokyo Sonata)

David Michôd (Animal Kingdom)

Vincenzo Natali, Antoinette Terry Bryant and Doug Taylor (Splice)

Todd Solondz (Life During Wartime)

Best Adapted Screenplay

Joel and Ethan Coen (True Grit)

Peter Craig, Ben Affleck and Aaron Stockard (The Town)

John Curran (The Killer Inside Me)

Aaron Sorkin (The Social Network)

Scott Teems (That Evening Sun)

Best Cinematography

Jeff Cronenweth (The Social Network)

Benoît Debie (Enter the Void)

Hong Kyeong-pyo (Mother)

Yorick Le Saux (I Am Love)

Martin Ruhe (The American)

Best Editing

Stuart Baird and John Gilroy (Salt)

Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall (The Social Network)

Marc Boucrot and Gaspar Noé (Enter the Void)

Lee Smith (Inception)

Juliette Welfling (A Prophet)

Best Art Direction

Roshelle Berliner and Matteo De Cosmo (Life During Wartime)

Thérèse DePrez, David Stein and Tora Peterson (Black Swan)

Guy Dyas, Frank Walsh and Larry Dias (Agora)

Jess Gonchor, Christina Ann Wilson and Nancy Haigh (True Grit)

Albrecht Konrad, David Scheunemann and Bernhard Henrich (The Ghost Writer)

Best Musical Score

John Adams (I Am Love)

Lee Byung-woo (Mother)

Clint Mansell (Black Swan)

Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross (The Social Network)

Hans Zimmer (Inception)

Best Sound Design

~ Enter the Void

~ Inception

~ The Social Network

Best Visual Effects

~ Enter the Void
~ Inception
~ The Social Network

Widescreen Awards: Director

For the second time in his relatively short career, Bong Joon-ho has taken a familiar genre and crafted a masterpiece (the other being 2005's serial killer drama "Memories of Murder"). Everything that he could possibly get right with Mother, he gets right. He even makes watching spilled water creep across the floor suspenseful. Bong is successful at balancing all the ingredients of his Hitchcockian stew — including truly funny character detail and a heartbreaking mother-son relationship — together for one of the most satisfying and unsettling films of 2010.

More than any film this year, The Social Network feels like it was conceived as one perfect whole. That's due in no small part to David Fincher. Many of his films have been flawlessly executed. Here, you can sense Fincher's fingerprints over every inch of film stock (or megapixel); and that's a good thing. It's one thing to have ratatattat dialogue (courtesy Aaron Sorkin); it's another to translate that into good cinema. All the while, Fincher holds onto the human element inside his story. It's not just about the birth of a new social network, but the new generation of people supporting that network.

Before I Am Love, Luca Guadagnino was a virtual unknown. As best I can tell, none of his previous films and documentaries have received U.S. distribution. Therefore, it's impossible to tell what he brought to the table previously, but "I Am Love" feels like the opening scene in a long and fruitful career. It's so full of life and vitality, and Guadagnino manages to extract natural performances from his actors while surrounding them in a preternaturally beautiful world.

Known foremost for his horror films ("Cure," "Pulse" and 2006's chilling "Retribution"), Kiyoshi Kurosawa has created one of the warmest, most rewarding films of the year with Tokyo Sonata. He's out-Capra'd Capra, but his happy ending is modulated by all the confusion and suffering that came before it. It's the kind of morality tale that only a horror director could conjure. And it works mostly because of how real the family at its center feels. The performances are so uniformly good that, by the time the melodrama kicks into high gear, the audience is too invested to question the strangeness of the film's final act. Finally, Kurosawa gets extra points for the piano recital, which sums up the point of the story with no words.

Eight years after his reprehensible (but awe-inspiring) "Irreversible," Gaspar Noé has returned to do the same thing all over again. This time, however, he (thankfully) upped the humanity quotient. Noé is a cinematic wizard. With Enter the Void, he stretches the bounds of what's possible in film while telling a captivating story. The audience is thrown into the worlds of both the living and the dead; and, like its main character, the viewer has no road map.

Honorable mention to Lee Chang-dong for the subtle beauty and compassion of Secret Sunshine; David Michôd for assembling an unexpectedly complex crime family in Animal Kingdom; and Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger for putting their camera and their audience in the middle of the fight for Korengal Valley in Restrepo.

Tomorrow look for the Widescreen Awards wrap-up, with the winners announcement and links to some of the great films available on Netflix Instant.

Widescreen Award: Actor

Jesse Eisenberg had a lot of things to factor into his performance as Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network, the least of which was Mark Zuckerberg. Regardless of how closely hewn the fictional character is from its real-life counterpart, Eisenberg has crafted something for the ages. He's the self-made man who realizes too late (if you can call 26 "too late") all that he's lost. But it cuts deeper than the Jay Gatsby archetype. Eisenberg manages to convey obliviousness and self-awareness in equal measure; something that's characteristic of most twenty-somethings today. We bathe ourselves in ironies and yet very often miss what's signified.

Now in his 80s, Hal Holbrook is turning in some of the best performances of his six-decade-long career. First in 2007's "Into the Wild," last year in That Evening Sun and very likely (if the adaptation takes its cues from the novel's treatment of his character) in this year's "Water for Elephants." As Abner Meecham, Holbrook tackles a lot of weighty issues, from grief to obsolescence to the onset of senility, with grace. He paints a full picture of a man full of rage, regret and remorse. It would be easy to feel one way or the other about Abner, but Holbrook always keeps it in the grey.

Teruyuki Kagawa's performance in Tokyo Sonata feels so unlike a performance, that it's easy to miss how well he communicates the weariness of laid off office drone Ryūhei. So much of his character is wrapped up in body language. How the man carries himself reveals a great deal about his mental state, indeed, far more than the platitudes and lies that leave his lips. He also has an amazing sense of timing. Kurosawa uses physical humor — watch how Ryūhei picks himself up out of the gutter — to lighten what could've been an overwhelmingly melancholy story. Kagawa is more than up for the challenge.

The evolution of Malik from a vulnerable Arab convict to a mob don is at first inexplicable. It's only after the film is over that it dawns on you how far he's come. Tahar Rahim handles that transition — which is integral to A Prophet — beautifully, instilling a quiet intelligence in his character. Malik, and Rahim, know not to let one hand know what the other is doing. At the same time, Rahim lets the audience in enough that the character remains sympathetic amidst his brutality and cunning.

Édgar Ramírez's Carlos the Jackal is a consummate professional. Olivier Assayas' epic take on the terrorist/freedom fighter doesn't definitively answer the question of his loyalties, but one thing is clear from Ramírez's tightly-controlled performance. Carlos' first priority is himself. It's the through line in the performance, from a young, quick-witted charmer to an cruel, old has-been. Ramírez has to balance a lot of changes over the course of the film, but his focus is never lost.

Credit is also due Kim Yoon-seok who brings honesty and humor to his role as a pimp chasing down the serial killer who's been targeting his hookers in The Chaser. Alexander Siddig turns in a sensitive performance as Patricia Clarkson's escort-turned-love interest in Cairo Time. Once again, Song Kang-ho manages to be both charming and creepy as Jeon Do-yeon's unlikely lighthouse through the storm of Secret Sunshine.

An elephant by the Sea is waiting patiently

I will not, as a general rule, link to my own articles very often on this blog. But it's an interesting story about a 65-foot-tall elephant, and my first A1 package for The Press, so I thought it was worth sharing.

Photo credit: Anthony Smedile/The Press of Atlantic City.

Widescreen Award: Actress

Shin-ae's pain never feels like an actor's approximation. Even as the character spins off into concentric circles of grief -- first at the death of her husband and, later, her son -- Jeon Do-yeon never treats her performance in Secret Sunshine like a master's class. Even when Shin-ae truly becomes unmoored in her search for solace, Jeon never devolves into histrionics. Despite the strange places the film takes Shin-ae, it's still a very real depiction of the confusion that comes with such loss.



I've read that Bong Joon-ho picked Kim Hye-ja for the titular Mother because of her television persona as something of a June Cleaver. Not having that cultural context, the irony was lost on me. What wasn't lost in translation are the dark bonds between mother and son. Kim's face is so expressive; it tells you all that's to be said. Watch her face in the train station in the final minutes of the film. The walls all come crashing down and, yet, she's too strong to let them sit in ruin for long.



In Winter's Bone, Jennifer Lawrence disposes of precocious affectation right off the bat. Ree Dolly is deadly serious about finding her no-good father because she knows how daunting she and her young siblings' situation is. She's a force to be reckoned with, but Lawrence also tempers that determination with genuine fear. She is, after all, a kid. It's a delicate balance and the young actress pulls it off.



Even before the psychological torment overtakes Nina, Natalie Portman is a bundle of nerves in Black Swan. You can sense the gears grinding away in her head through cold stares and puffy eyes. The ambition, fear, jealousy, repression and weariness are all there long before the mirrors start summoning her inner demons out into the open. All she needed was that extra push -- a high-pressure role of a lifetime -- to send the whole roiling caldron bubbling to the surface.



Out of all the performances last year, Tilda Swinton's Emma in I Am Love has perhaps the most interesting arc. She starts the film as cold steel, too lost in the goings on of her home to register as a human being with emotions. And then the floodgates open. It'd be very easy to lose the performance among all the beauty of Luca Guadgnino's film. But Swinton is too good an actress to play window dressing. When her character feels pleasure, as in the prawn sampling, her whole body joins in the rapture. At the same time, there's a great continuity between Emma at the beginning and at the end. She's the same person, now set free.

And finally, a shout-out to some of the wonderful performances that couldn't possibly fit into five slots in such a rich year for lead actresses. Annette Bening and Julianne Moore have a natural chemistry in The Kids Are All Right that transcends sexual orientation. Geena Davis' potty-mouthed divorcee was one of the saving graces of the uneven Accidents Happen. Kyōko Koizumi brings tremendous warmth to Tokyo Sonata, standing strong for her sons as the world disintegrates around her. Sarah Polley, known for her subtle touch, is all ablaze with the spirit of discovery in Splice. As stupidly provocative as the film tries to be, Noomi Rapace is fearless and fascinating in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

Widescreen Awards: Supporting Actor

As prison-bound mob boss Cesar Luciani, Niels Arestrup starts off as an untouchable. He ends A Prophet, in true gangster flick form, as an empty shell of a man, deprived of all his power. Arestrup fills the space in between with a richness that's rarely found in this type of character. He's cold and remorseless, yet capable of trust. He's an unapologetic bigot, yet his protege and only true confidant is a "dirty Arab." It's a complex performance that never once feels forced.



Until the real Dicky Eklund shows up over the end credits, you're apt to think Christian Bale's performance is all bluster and bombast. Fortunately (or unfortunately), the genuine article is just as nutty as the carbon copy. Even so, Bale is the heart and soul of The Fighter. He's the main source of conflict in the film, but he's also the only source of redemption. Beyond the impressive external performance (the gaunt appearance and involuntary tics of a junkie), Bale fills his Eklund with a rich internal life, as well.



Make no mistake: Michael Fassbender's Connor, in Fish Tank, has been and always will be a monster. Fassbender seduces the audience along with his 15-year-old Lolita, and he does so while pretending to be a good, well-meaning guy. Even after his secret life -- behind a picket fence, no less -- is revealed, you can't help but think of him only as a pitiful misguided fool. It's a performance within a performance within a performance, and a stunning one at that.



In Winter's Bone, John Hawkes successfully keeps the audience guessing about Teardrop. Even after he pulls through for Ree, there's a sense that he may not be so admirable a second time. In addition to that tightrope walk, Hawkes' characterization seems so specific to the time and place, you couldn't imagine him existing in any other movie.



Lonzo Choate confuses providing for his family materially with being a good man. He always seems to have the best intentions, but his alcoholism and its root insecurities confront him at every turn. In That Evening Sun, Ray McKinnon manages to make Lonzo sympathetic even as he lashes out over and over again. He brings a lived-in quality to the character, even as he does the heavy lifting of reconciling the man's flaws and aspirations.

Gone baby, gone baby, don't be long

Not sure if it's the official video, but a hypnotic Erykah Badu song gets a hypnotic video (via ChromeMusic).

Widescreen Awards: Supporting Actress

Although her performance skirts a little too close to the precipice that is the cliched monster mom, Melissa Leo strikes the right balance for The Fighter. It helps that you can see where Christian Bale's Dicky Eklund gets his dysfunction from. And, by the end of the movie, you're left convinced of Alice Ward's (often misplaced) love for her sons. She'd do anything for them, true, but it's seldom the right thing.



Perhaps best known as Clive Owen's Appletini-loving mark in "Duplicity," Carrie Preston turns in a quiet but captivating performance in That Evening Sun. Pushed aside in her alcoholic husband's escalating dispute with an elderly man, Ludie Choate's pain and uncertainty shines through in momentary glances. But there's still enough chemistry between her and the drunken lout Lonzo to understand why she stays.



In just two scenes, Charlotte Rampling paints a nuanced picture of an aging barfly. The smell of thick perfume seems to waft off screen in Life During Wartime, in addition to the foul odor of desperation and self-pity. She's aggressive in the pursuit of her conquests, but at Jacqueline's core is a deeply insecure woman. "I'm a monster," she says, with no expectation to hear differently. It's as brutally honest and heartbreakingly funny as any film last year got.



It's true that Hailee Steinfeld's Mattie Ross is closer to a lead than a supporting player in True Grit, but as Scott Rudin, the film's producer, pointed out, she doesn't exactly have an arc. Nor does she need one. Steinfeld nails this single-minded character, never seeming too precocious even while sparring with impetuous adults. It's a testament to Steinfeld that, even once we meet the woman (played by Elizabeth Marvel) she becomes, she's instantly recognizable. Aside from a lost limb, she hasn't changed a bit.



When we finally catch a glimpse of the facade that is Jacki Weaver's crime family matriarch Smurf Cody in Animal Kingdom, it's a revelatory moment. She's easily one of the best villains of the year, with her maternal hugs and broad smiles. At the same time she's scheming against her grandson, she's doing her damndest to protect her own troubled brood against the corrupt police. Can you blame her? (Well, yes, but still...)