Welcome to 5 Favorites. Each week, I will put together a list of my 5 favorites (films, performances, whatever strikes my fancy) along with commentary on a given topic each week, usually in relation to a specific film releasing that week.
There are three films this week from which I’m selecting five individuals to cover this week. Four actors and one director. For Magic Mike’s Last Dance, I’ve reluctantly chosen lead Channing Tatum whose cinematic output is largely forgettable, but my only other option was someone I’d covered before, so here we are. I found a couple of animated films I could highlight, but ultimately landed on a film that had merit, but didn’t entirely work. His director on Magic Mike 3 is Steven Soderbergh, who is my second indvidiual selected this week.
From the second wide release, Consecration, I picked Jena Malone. She tends towards supporting performances and while I would have liked to have picked Contact, her role in that film was far too minor, so I settled on something else where she’s not got a lot to do, but at least has more to work with.
Finally, the strong cast of Sharper leads me to two picks. John Lithgow and Sebastian Stan. Stan’s work has been limited to the MCU and a handful of other roles that you probably haven’t heard of, but he did do a fantastic job in the film I ultimately selected. As for Lithgow. He’s a legend of an actor, but his film work is rather uninspired for the most part. That said, I went with a film from very early in his career. Now on to my five favorites.
The World According to Garp (1982)
Based on a novel by John Irving, The World According to Garp was directed by journeyman filmmaker George Roy Hill (The Sting). The film is a black comedy starring Robin Williams in the titular role as the son of a feminist writer (Glenn Close) who grows up wanting to be both a wrestler and a writer. Over the course of the film, an unfortunate series of events follow Garp throughout his adulthood with death, dismemberment, and other disheartening events following him like a plague.
Wryly observed, The World According to Garp is a bleak exploration of life in a family that views sex as transactional at best and service-minded at worst. Williams does a terrific job in one of his earliest big screen performances. John Lithgow as a transgender woman staying with Close at her home after it’s converted into a shelter for troubled and abused women. It’s Lithgow and Close that deliver the film’s best performances. The film did surprisingly well at the box office considering its subject matter, but the Academy only recognized Close and Lithgow with supporting nominations, a shame considering the film at least deserved a screenwriting nomination as well.
No original review available.
Traffic (2000)
Director Steven Soderbergh began his career in 1989 with the well regarded indie Sex, Lies, and Videotape. One of Miramax’s earliest successes, Soderbergh spent much of the 1990s directing minor and uncelebrated works before launching his most successful stretch of films, progressing through five films from 1998’s Out of Sight through 2001’s Ocean’s Eleven. The third and fourth film in this period, Erin Brockovich and Traffic led to Soderbergh’s prominence at that year’s Academy Awards where he became the first director since Michael Curtiz in 1938, more than 60 years before, to earn two nominations for Best Directing in the same year. Those films combined received ten Oscar nominations, 5 each, with the former winning one for Julia Roberts and the latter winning four including for supporting actor Benicio del Toro and for Soderbergh as director.
Traffic was a winding narrative that followed several individuals on both sides of the US War on Drugs. Events take place on both sides of the Mexican border and range from political appeasement to drug trafficking to drug addiction. It’s a strong piece that asks a number of pointed questions and basing itself partly on real events help ground the film in the real world. Del Toro may have been the Oscar winner that year, but he’s far from the only one in the cast doing fine work. Michael Douglas, Amy Irving, Erika Christensen, Topher Grace, and Catherine Zeta-Jones also deliver solid performances.
Jupiter Ascending (2015)
After The Matrix, the Wachowskis struggled to find material that not only played to their strengths as inventive filmmakers, but that also had appealing and evocative storylines. Although Jupiter Ascending is far from a great film, it was perhaps one of their most engaging films released in the wake of the Matrix juggernaut. The film follows Channing Tatum as an ex-soldier to rescued a young woman (Mila Kunis) who bares an identical genetic identity to an intergalactic woman who held ownership of Earth. As that woman’s siblings fight over who will get to claim that ownership upon the young woman’s death, Tatum must keep her safe.
The plot is relatively convoluted, but is largely explained throughout the film. It’s a bit nonsensical too, but the bountiful adoration the Wachowskis have for it helps keep much of the film afloat. Neither Tatum nor Kunis are particularly great actors, but acquit themselves nicely, though Eddie Redmayne as one of the villains of the piece is absolutely dreadful. Visually stunning and the foundation of an intriguing universe, the film has a lot of promise that is squandered in an effort to make the film as visually magnificent as it can be. That certainly makes the film a bit overbearing at times, but intriguing enough to get a small recommendation.
Nocturnal Animals (2016)
Tom Ford’s sensational follow up to A Single Man revolves around art gallery owner Susan (Amy Adams) who receives a mysterious manuscript from her ex-husband (Jake Gyllenhaal) that describes in graphic detail a harrowing event surrounding its protagonist modeled on Gyllenhaal himself. As the narrative unwinds, Susan finds that she’s been surreptitiously inserted into the novel, which attempts to lay the blame of their failed relationship at her feet.
A fascinating narrative sits at the core of the film based on Austin Wright’s novel Tom and Susan. The story within a story is compellingly told and the depth of the character development gives Adams an Gyllenhaal plenty of room to work. Adams delivers a solid performance, but Gyllenhaal demands our attention with one of his most complex characterizations he’s ever produced. Mixed with the hard-hitting neo-noir thriller elements around him, the film and Gyllenhaal’s performance elevate one another. This is the film I chose for Jena Malone who has a small role in the film as one of Susan’s co-workers. It’s not a performance to write home about, but the film is easily better than almost anything else she’s been in.
I, Tonya (2017)
For many, Sebastian Stan’s fame is built entirely on his role as Bucky Barnes, Captain America’s friend in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. While not given much to work with until the miniseries The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, it wasn’t until Craig Gillespie’s I, Tonya, that many of us saw his potential as an actor. In the film, Margot Robbie takes on the role of Tonya Harding, the disgraced skater who arranged an attack on fellow Olympian Nancy Kerrigan in hopes of taking her out of the competition. The film follows Harding as she grows up under the harsh thumb of her mother/manager (Allison Janney) whose distaste for parenting is overshadowed by her desire to turn her daughter into a ice skating legend.
The film takes a humorous look at the world of competitive figure skating and the harsh rules and requirements that go along with competing in the sport. The film doesn’t absolve Harding of any of her actions, but it does put them into stark relief against the overly structured, sexist, and demeaning world of women’s figure skating. Stan co-stars as Tonya’s quietly abusive boyfriend and husband Jeff Gillooly, who is also the mastermind of the somewhat botched attack. Stan should have been nominated for the Oscar alongside Robbie and Best Supporting Actress winner Janney. The film was also a shortlister for a Best Picture nomination, but ended up only with the aforementioned two and third for Best Film Editing.
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