Top 5: Best Working Actors Never Nominated for an Oscar

Last year I wrote a piece about the biggest Oscar snubs of the last ten years, and for this year I thought I'd take a different path in my reaction to this year's nominations. Looking back at the Academy's history, there have been a lot of actors that have never even been nominated for an Oscar. As a matter of fact, the list of never nominated actors would make one hell of an ensemble film. Since there were close to twenty that could have easily made the cut, this could have gone a lot of different ways, and I've decided to limit it just to living and working actors, as that would have only made it harder to narrow down had I included the deceased. Here's my current top five, which could definitely change over the course of the next few days or years, along with fifteen others that didn't make the cut.

I've included the role I think each of my top five actors should have been nominated for, and who they could have bumped out of the list of nominees for that year. 

Honorable Mention, aka Just Missed the Cut (in alphabetical order, with their most Oscar-worthy performance in parentheses)

Kevin Bacon (Mystic River), Ellen Barkin (Sea of Love), Steve Buscemi (Fargo), Jim Carrey (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), Michael Keaton (Clean & Sober), Val Kilmer (The Doors), Jennifer Jason Leigh (Georgia), Steve Martin (All of Me), Malcolm McDowell (A Clockwork Orange), Ewan McGregor (The Impossible), Alan Rickman (Sense & Sensibility), Meg Ryan (When a Man Loves a Woman), Martin Sheen (Apocalypse Now), Donald Sutherland (M*A*S*H*), Robin Wright (State of Grace).

5. John Goodman

Though he's been recognized for his work on the small screen, John Goodman has never been nominated for an Oscar, despite the fact that he's been performing in critically acclaimed films since the early 1980s, including having roles in the last two Best Picture winners The Artist and Argo. Goodman is reliably good in everything he does, but in particular when he works with the Coen Brothers, who didn't really become Academy darlings themselves until 2007's No Country for Old Men. Early buzz this year indicated that he might be recognized for his supporting role in Inside Llewyn Davis, but his role was likely too small, and the Academy clearly had no love for that brilliant film. 

Biggest Snub: Best Supporting Actor, 1998, The Big Lebowski
He Should Have Replaced: Pretty much all of them, but I'll go with Geoffrey Rush in Shakespeare in Love

4. John Turturro

Another Coen Brothers regular who has flirted with Oscar before, but never been nominated, is John Turturro. An actor that marches to the decidedly off-beat of his own drum, Turturro has carved out a career playing oddball characters. You kids out there who only know him from his admittedly awful performances in Michael Bay's Transformers movies are missing out on some fantastic performances from him in films as diverse as Cradle Will Rock, Miller's Crossing and Do the Right Thing. His next film, Fading Gigolo, looks to continue his trend of strange films, but something tells me he might get recognized sooner rather than later.

Biggest Snub: Best Actor, 1991, Barton Fink
He Should Have Replaced: Nick Nolte in The Prince of Tides or Robin Williams in The Fisher King

3. Jeff Daniels

The very definition of a journeyman actor, Jeff Daniels has always been a solid character actor who is sadly not talked about very often as one of the best working actors. Thankfully his role on Aaron Sorkin's The Newsroom changed people's perceptions of him dramatically, but he's been doing reliably good work since he first captured audience's attentions in the Best Picture winner Terms of Endearment in 1983. Sadly his best performance of all, as a bitter and calculating divorced father in 2005's The Squid and the Whale, which truly seemed like his best shot at a nomination, was completely ignored by the Academy. 

Biggest Snub: Best Actor, 2005, The Squid and the Whale
He Should Have Replaced: Terrence Howard in Hustle & Flow

2. Mia Farrow

This one shocked me when I found it out, not only because she's been so good for so long, but because she spent the better part of the 80s and early 90s acting in the films of her former lover Woody Allen, and he has a knack for scoring serious hardware for actresses in his films. Mia Farrow could have been nominated for any of those films, most especially The Purple Rose of Cairo (in which she co-starred with fellow snub-ee Jeff Daniels) or Hannah and Her Sisters. Her best performance by far though was her star making turn in Roman Polanski's thriller Rosemary's Baby, for which co-star Ruth Gordon won Supporting Actress, and the fact that she acts so rarely these days leads me to believe she may never be nominated. 

Biggest Snub: Best Actress, 1968, Rosemary's Baby
She Should Have Replaced: Barbra Streisand in Funny Girl

1. Sam Rockwell

It should surprise no one that my favorite actor tops this list, particularly since he somewhat inspired its creation. Sam Rockwell is one of the most versatile actors that has ever lived, and the number of films for which he could have been recognized is staggeringly depressing. He could have scored Supporting Actor noms for his work in The Green Mile, Frost/Nixon, this year's The Way, Way Back or last year's Seven Psychopaths, and was most assuredly robbed of nominations for his lead roles in Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Moon and Snow Angels. I'm sure he'll get recognized eventually, and I have no doubt it will be for high caliber work, it's just a shame that the Academy is truly late to the party on this tremendous actor. 

Biggest Snub: Best Actor, 2002, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind 
He Should Have Replaced: Michael Caine in The Quiet American

[Images via 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]

Top 5: Biggest Oscar Snubs of the Past 10 Years

With the Oscar nominations for 2013 having been announced this past Thursday, there was as much talk about who wasn’t nominated as there was about the actual nominees. Everything from best picture snubs for The Dark Knight Rises and Moonrise Kingdom, to directing snubs for Ben Affleck (Argo) and Kathryn Bigelow (Zero Dark Thirty), to acting snubs for John Hawkes (The Sessions) and Leonardo DiCaprio (Django Unchained) had people up in arms.

Snubs for outstanding work are nothing new. Here is a look back at what I consider to be the biggest Oscar snubs of the past ten years…

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5. WALL-E - 2008 Best Picture

Beauty & the Beast broke the animation curse in 1991 when it scored a Best Picture nomination, and this was back in the days when there were only five nominees in the category. Pixar’s best film in their entire history deserved to be the second film to be honored with a Best Picture nomination, but the Academy opted not to include it in the list of nominees.

Common wisdom holds that leaving both WALL-E and The Dark Knight out of the Best Picture race was the key to them expanding to 10 nominees the very next year, but that’s still no excuse for ignoring them in favor of inferior fare like The Reader and preordained winnerSlumdog Millionaire.

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4. United 93 - 2006 Best Picture

Although it did score a nomination for its director Paul Greengrass, the most riveting film of 2006 was United 93. A straightforward, virtually real-time chronology of the events that took place on board the flight that crashed in Pennsylvania on the morning of September 11 was the perfect film for bringing catharsis to the United States.

The film is difficult to watch, but impossible to forget, and the fact that the Academy chose to nominate obvious Oscar grab films like The Queen and Letters From Iwo Jima only served to illustrate how out of touch they were with the times.

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3. Jim Carrey - 2004 Best Actor (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind)

It was a foregone conclusion that Jamie Foxx was going to win Best Actor in 2004 for his performance in Ray, but it’s an absolute shame that the Academy refused to throw a bone to Jim Carrey. After ignoring his award-worthy performances in The Truman Show and Man on the Moon, they seemed to have it in for the actor, but not nominating him for his best, most realistically grounded and wonderful performance ever was just pouring salt in a wound.

It doesn’t hurt that it’s my favorite film of all-time, and very deservedly won an Oscar for its screenplay, but a good portion of why the film is as effective and unforgettable as it is is due to Carrey’s amazing performance.

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2. Spirited Away - 2002 Best Original Screenplay

Hayao Miyazaki’s masterpiece was given the second ever Best Animated Feature Oscar, but the film’s screenplay is the absolute gold standard of script writing. The film has an economy of emotion, language and some startling imagery, and it was quite simply the best written film of 2002, animated or not.

Considering that there were two other nominees in the category that were not written in English (Talk to Her and Y Tu Mama Tambien), it’s even more egregious that this beautifully written film was overlooked.

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1. Christopher Nolan - 2010 Best Director (Inception)

You could make a case for Christopher Nolan being snubbed in this category for at least three other films (Memento, The Dark Knight, The Prestige), but it was his snub for Inceptionin 2010 that really stood out.

Nolan is arguably the most accomplished and successful filmmaker both critically and commercially since Steven Spielberg, but the fact that the Academy has ignored his work behind the camera is absurd. The way in Inception that he deftly handled multiple storylines and settings, and kept numerous balls in the air, landing them all at the exact right moment is the work of a true master.

He will get his recognition eventually, but I fear that much like Martin Scorsese, it will be far too late.

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Just missed the cut:

Best Editing & Makeup 2012: Cloud Atlas
Best Actor 2011: Michael Fassbender (Shame)
Best Supporting Actor 2011: Albert Brooks (Drive)
Best Supporting Actress 2010: Mila Kunis (Black Swan)
Best Picture 2007: The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Best Supporting Actress 2006: Ivana Baquero (Pan’s Labyrinth)
Best Actor 2005: Ralph Fiennes (The Constant Gardener)
Best Picture 2004: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Best Actor 2004: Paul Giamatti (Sideways)

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Day 273: Ride Along

"All in all I gotta say, today was a good day."

For better or for worse, the surprise 1994 hit Friday turned Ice Cube from a hip hop outlaw into a mainstream comedic straight man, thanks in large part to his undeniable chemistry with co-star Chris Tucker. Though he's floundered through some less than stellar vehicles since then, including two Friday sequels that produced increasingly diminishing returns, he has more or less transitioned from a hard as nails rapper into a reliable staple of comedic films where he has shown some excellent instincts, particularly in more ensemble driven films like Barbershop and 21 Jump Street. The only thing missing from his films was a co-star like Tucker, with whom he truly showed what a gifted straight man he could be, and the best thing that can be said about his new two-hander Ride Along is that it has finally given him a worthy successor to Tucker in the form of comedian Kevin Hart. 

Ben Barber (Hart) seems to have a lot going for him. He's got a beautiful girlfriend (Tika Sumpter) that loves him a lot, he's an ace gamer, and he's just been accepted the the police academy, which will help him escape his current career as a security guard at a high school. The only problem is his girlfriend's prickly police officer brother James (Ice Cube) who is overly protective of his only sister, and cannot stand Ben. When Ben informs James of his acceptance to the police academy in hopes that it will earn him some respect with his would-be brother-in-law, James offers to take Ben on a ride along for a day, to show him what the day to day grind of being an Atlanta police officer is like.

James has been consumed with taking down a major crime lord and arms dealer in Atlanta named Omar (Laurence Fishburne, whose appearance late in the film is treated like a surprise even though he's given prominent billing in the opening credits). James' only problem is that he's too much of a renegade, putting others in harm's way to bring Omar down, including two other cops he works with (John Leguizamo & Bryan Callen). He hopes to use Ben as a distraction to get some investigative work done without the looming eye of his boss (Bruce McGill) on him, but Ben proves to be too much of a loose cannon, which could spell danger for the investigation, as well as their lives. 

Hart & Cube have terrific chemistry in the film, and demonstrate how a well tuned comedic rapport can elevate even the most mediocre material. Hart has a fearlessness as an actor that is refreshing, and he is not afraid to make himself look foolish because he fundamentally understands how much funnier a given situation is if he throws himself into it wholly. He is, without a doubt, 90% of the reason why the film works at all, and he plays incredibly well off of whomever he's sharing the screen with, whether it's Cube or, in one of the film's funniest scenes, a ten year old kid. Any doubts I may have had about his ability to carry a film were almost instantly erased thanks to his refreshing audacity as an actor.

Having said all that, it's a real shame that he and his co-star have been relegated to performing in a film that has the most pat, lackluster, tread worn plot imaginable. The script manages some funny one-liners and exchanges, but every beat can be seen coming a mile away, and the film is just frankly not clever enough to subvert your expectations, and stupidly falls victim to them. We know that certain characters will prove to be morally dubious because the film telegraphs their motives forty minutes ahead of time. We know that Ben's video game skills will come in handy because the film devotes several minutes to setting up his online dominance of war games. We know that Ben will similarly earn James' respect because that's just sort of what happens in these films. Nothing is surprising or refreshing about any of this, and anyone with even a cursory knowledge of the tropes of the mis-matched buddy cop movie will know every twist and turn long before it happens.

And that's a real shame because it severely limits the film's potential, though the heartily packed screening I attended indicates that the film will have no problem attracting viewers. Ice Cube seems reinvigorated by his co-star's antics, and rises to his level by sublimely undercutting him throughout the entire film. Their interactions serve as a solid core to an otherwise flabby script, and I would happily watch another film with them in it as I think they could do a lot more with better material. The rest of the cast is fine, but no one necessarily stands out. It's nice to see Fishburne on screen again, and he still manages to pack a lot of menace into the kind of character he's played countless times before. 

Director Tim Story has a knack for staging action well, and establishes a light hearted tone that compliments his leads well, but he does fall victim to too many cliches, particularly when it comes to the way he stages the reveals of certain characters' true intentions. It's certainly not his worst work behind the camera, but he's not quite savvy enough to keep the film from succumbing to some mind numbing cliches. Not to beat up on the script more than I already have, but the film's climax drags on for an eternity, and then quickly wraps things up in a matter of about two minutes, which could be the fault of the editing and directing, but the film feels much longer than its 100 minute running time suggests. 

For a January release, Ride Along is about as good as you can hope for. It's shortcomings reveal why it was relegated to the graveyard of release dates, but it's certainly got enough going for it that it's not a total wash. It's mainly a victim of squandered potential, but that certainly won't be enough to deter audiences hungry for an action comedy. Hart and Cube both do great work and given a better script to go on, this could have been another Friday, but as it stands, it's merely a forgettable time waster that will be all but forgotten by the time it hits home video in two months. 

GO Rating: 2.5/5

[Photos via BoxOfficeMojo]

Day 272: August: Osage County

"Thank God we can't tell the future. We'd never get out of bed."

Playwright Tracy Letts gained a modicum of notoriety for his first few plays including Killer Joe and Bug (both of which have been turned into films by director William Friedkin). It was his 2007 Pulitzer Prize winning play August: Osage County that skyrocketed him to the upper echelon of contemporary playwrights, particularly here in Chicago where he's worked on and off with Steppenwolf Theatre almost since its inception. A film version of August: Osage County presented numerous challenges to whomever decided to film it, seeing as how the entire show takes place in one three-story house, but hopes were high when it was announced that Letts himself would handle adaptation duties, as he did for the previous adaptations of his work. So how did he fare? Read on to find out...

Poet and teacher Beverly Weston (Sam Shepard) disappears from his home in Osage County, Oklahoma, prompting his cancer-stricken wife Violet (Meryl Streep) to call her family back home in hopes of finding him. Sisters Ivy (Julianne Nicholson) and Barbara (Julia Roberts) arrive first, the latter with her daughter (Abigail Breslin) and estranged husband (Ewan McGregor) in tow, followed shortly by Violet's sister Mattie Fae (Margo Martindale) and her husband Charles (Chris Cooper). Tensions are high from minute one due to Violet's current state which is heightened by her chemotherapy treatments and litany of prescription drugs she's taking to ease her suffering.

Beverly's body is found dead in his boat, bringing Ivy and Barbara's sister Karen (Juliette Lewis) and her fiance Steve (Dermot Mulroney) to town, as well as Mattie Fae and Charles' son Little Charles (Benedict Cumberbatch), gathering the entire extended family for the first time in years. Old secrets are exposed and dragged through the mud, as everyone has something to hide, and no one seems to be able to get anything past Violet, whose venom is as potent as ever despite her failing health. As the days drag on, they are all forced to confront the issues plaguing them, whether they want to or not.

The biggest problem with August: Osage County is that it feels like a film more produced into existence than directed. It fails to have a strong identity at its core, mainly due to the almost lackadaisical direction from veteran television director John Wells, a man with only one feature credit to his name. He seems to just sort of turn the camera on and allow the actors to do the work for him, and though every single performance is very good and the script is as sharp as it was on stage, it fails to make much impact as a film because it feels too much like a ship without a captain. It's wholly reminiscent of a similarly wayward film, Shakespeare in Love, that was overrated due to a great script and cast. Though Bug and Killer Joe are not likely to top anyone's list of their favorite films, they stand out because their fantastic scripts are met beat for beat with the firm hand of a director rejuvenated by great material. 

The decision to open up the world of the play and set a number of sequences away from the Weston homestead proves to be a mixed blessing. Though some scenes like a trip to the liquor store and a doctor's office make the film come alive, other scenes like an impromptu chase through a field as well as the final scene of the film reek of an inauthenticity that the rest of the film admirably shirks. Again, I lay most of this at the feet of Wells who fails to do anything interesting with these scenes, along with a downright maudlin score by Brokeback Mountain composer Gustavo Santaolalla. For a film that crackles with tension when it's forced to focus on some dynamite dialogue exchanges set inside the home, these scenes are burdened by a gloss of the prototypical Hollywood awards bait veneer that executive producers Harvey and Bob Weinstein bring to the very worst of their films. 

The performances, however, elevate the otherwise shoddy craftsmanship on display around them, and will likely cure these multitude of sins for the average filmgoer. Meryl Streep proves once again why she is perhaps the greatest screen actress of her generation with a performance that holds nothing back and screams to the back row of the balcony. She does some of her best work in this film, thanks in no small part to a character that is so well written and realized by Letts. Julia Roberts also turns in a performance that shows why she became a movie star in the first place. Devoid of any vanity, she manages to create a finely tuned character that is better than almost the whole of her career combined. In a cast full of standout performances, they manage to shine the brightest.

The rest of the ensemble is fantastic as well, with Margo Martindale, Chris Cooper and Julianne Nicholson being the other standouts. Make no mistake, however, there is not a mediocre performance to be found here, and everyone does a fantastic job with an excellent script. Letts is a savvy enough writer to know what works best on film, and pares down his sprawling stage play into a lean two hour film that only drags because of the lack of momentum created by the director. It's not hard to imagine how incredibly satisfying the entire film could have been had someone like William Friedkin directed it, particularly with his predilection for pushing actors to their breaking point.   

Stronger direction could have pushed this film into the stratosphere, but as it stands now, it feels like a film that wants to be great and does its damnedest to make you think it's great, but doesn't rise to the level of its actors or its script. It's a lifeless film that flounders because it has no spark to it and nothing for an audience to cling to. A cheap camcorder bootleg of the original stage production would likely seem like a more vibrant film than this one does, and that's a real shame because it's got an amazing script and some ace performances. It's a true testament to the power of great casting that this film manages to be as good as it is, because it works almost wholly in spite of its director.

GO Rating: 3/5

[Photos via BoxOfficeMojo]

2014 Golden Globe Predictions

I've made a strange habit of posting an entry for the last two years where I predict the Golden Globe winners in the film categories, and I might as well continue. Below you'll find my predictions for the show, along with who I feel deserves the award alongside who I think the eventual winner will be. The Globes air this Sunday the 12th, and I'll update with how I did after the awards. I'll also be liveblogging by thoughts during the show itself over on Facebook, so make sure you're over there during the show to participate.

Best Picture Drama: Will Win: 12 Years a Slave/ Should Win: Gravity

Best Picture Musical/Comedy: Will Win: American Hustle/ Should Win: Her

Best Actor Drama: Will Win: Chiwetel Ejiofor/ Should Win: Chiwetel Ejiofor

Best Actress Drama: Will Win: Cate Blanchett/ Should Win: Judi Dench

Best Actor Musical/Comedy: Will Win: Bruce Dern/ Should Win: Oscar Isaac

Best Actress Musical/Comedy: Will Win: Meryl Streep/ Should Win: Amy Adams

Best Supporting Actor: Will Win: Jared Leto/ Should Win: Barkhad Abdi

Best Supporting Actress: Will Win: Lupita Nyong'o/ Should Win: Lupita Nyong'o

Best Director: Will Win: Steve McQueen/ Should Win: Alfonso Cuaron

Best Screenplay: Will Win: Her/ Should Win: Her

Best Animated Film: Will Win: Frozen/ Should Win: Frozen

Best Foreign Language Film: Will Win: Blue is the Warmest Color/ Should Win: N/A

Best Original Score: Will Win: 12 Years a Slave/ Should Win: Gravity

Best Original Song: Will Win: Let it Go/ Should Win: Let it Go

Update: To recap, I went 6 for 14, my worst score yet. That wily HFPA definitely threw some curveballs my way this year, and I just don't know what to expect at The Oscars. Nominations come out on Thursday, so we'll see what happens.

Day 271: The Legend of Hercules

"It's a boy sire. A fine, large boy."

Mythical figure Hercules doesn't exactly have the most prestigious history on film with his screen exploits ranging from the absurd yet entertaining Steve Reeves films of the late 1950s to the absurd yet entertaining Hercules in New York that launched the acting career of Arnold Schwarzenneger. Even Walt Disney Animation's 1997 Hercules film is one of the weakest efforts of their 90s renaissance, meaning that the demigod has a less than stellar track record on film. The announcement of dueling Hercules films in 2014 was greeted more or less with apathy from the moviegoing public, if for no other reason than the fact that the one everyone was looking forward to was being directed by Brett Ratner. The first film out of the gate this year though is director Renny Harlin's The Legend of Hercules, which the trailers led people to believe would be nothing more than a $70 million write down for Summit Entertainment. Could it rise above those awful trailers and actually deliver something worthwhile? Read on to find out..

The film opens with what sounds like a toilet flushing, but actually turns out to be a siege of the city of Argos led by King Amphitryon (Scott Adkins). After defeating the king of Argos in hand to hand combat, Amphitryon takes over rule of the city, expanding his empire much to the chagrin of his wife Queen Alcmene (Roxanne McKee). Alcmene, against the wishes of her husband, calls on help from Zeus to teach her husband a lesson, and is told by a prophet that she will bear the child of Zeus that prophecy has foretold will end Amphitryon's reign of tyranny. After being impregnated by the wind, Alcmene gives birth to a baby boy that Amphitryon names Alcides, but whom his mother calls Hercules.

Now a man Alcides (Kellan Lutz) finds himself falling for Princess Hebe (Gaia Weiss) of Crete, and in a constant rivalry with his older brother Iphicles (Liam Garrigan). After defying his father and brother, Alcides is sent to fight alongside eighty other soldiers, commanded by Sotiris (Liam McIntyre), and when word reaches that he has been killed in battle, Amphitryon pledges that his surviving son Iphicles will marry Hebe. Alcides survives however, and is sold into slavery, taking the name Hercules and becoming an ace combatant alongside Sotiris, the only other member of the army who survived. Together, they pledge to return to Argos and reclaim Hercules' birthright, fulfilling the ancient prophecy.

Just writing all that was exhausting, and it only covers about the first forty minutes of the movie. To say that this film moves at a snail's pace is an insult to the rapid speed with which those mollusks travel. The film is absolutely interminable and has absolutely no momentum to it whatsoever, making it quickly devolve from so bad it's good to so bad it's unwatchable. The first ten minutes are a laugh riot of overacting and shouting, most of it courtesy of Scott Adkins who mistakes speaking loudly for emoting. Once the film jumps forward to cover the adventures of the adult Hercules played by Kellan Lutz, all of the air is sucked out of the room and it's a long, slow slog through a dozen tropes and mimicries of much better films. 

Renny Harlin could never be accused of being a master action director, but he's managed a handful of competently made films like Cliffhanger and The Long Kiss Goodnight. Here he seems content to crib from films as diverse as 300 (slowed down then sped up shots), Lawrence of Arabia (an interminable sequence in the desert, shot and scored like borderline plagiarism), Goodfellas (dolly shot around characters having a conversation), Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (every arena fight sequence), Gladiator (every arena fight sequence), Stanley Kubrick's Spartacus (every arena fight sequence) and every film that's ever featured a reluctant hero rallying his troops with a speech that sums up what they're about to fight and possibly die for. It's not that this film merely has no identity, it's that it wants to simultaneously be a dozen other films, and fails to focus on anything for more than five minutes, proven by his proclivity for cutting away to the same establishing shot of the castle at Argos anytime the story moves back there.

It doesn't help matters that he cast a lead actor with all the charisma of a wet dish rag. Kellan Lutz may get teenage girls all hot and bothered in the Twilight movies, but his patented inability to emote or deliver lines with any conviction behind the words makes him a laughable leading man. He creates a vacuum at the center of this film with his stupid metrosexual stubble that either can't or just plain doesn't grow into a full beard over the course of the month in which this film takes place. I felt legitimately bad for Liam McIntyre who plays most of his scenes opposite this chiseled mass of machismo because the poor guy is acting his little heart out and getting nothing back from his co-star. Pardon the football analogy here, but Kellan Lutz is the Ryan Leaf of action movies.

As for the rest of the cast, it's a mixed bag of people trying too hard or not at all, and I don't blame anyone on either side of that divide. Adkins all but foams at the mouth with every line delivery, trying his damnedest to get this thing cooking, but it's all for naught. Liam Garrigan looks like a low rent Jude Law who watched Joaquin Phoenix's performance in Gladiator and said to himself "screw it, I'll just do that." My favorite performance in the film by a mile comes courtesy of Jonathon Schaech, another actor who has matinee good looks but a dearth of talent to back them up. Here he's outfitted with ridiculous cornrows and an accent that sounds like a piss poor Bela Lugosi impression, which are both so wildly misguided that you can't help but laugh along with a guy who's clearly messing with the audience. 

The biggest issue with the film, as if to suggest there might be only one, is the PG-13 rating. The absolutely bloodless violence makes the film even worse somehow, as the comically absurd cutaways from various stab wounds and decapitations make the film somehow more inept that it already was. I'm no gore hound, believe me, but I'm even more turned off by a director's obvious attempts to secure a PG-13 rating for a film no one was going to go see in the first place, let alone teenagers who'd rather buy a ticket for this and sneak into Wolf of Wall Street to see Leo snorting coke out of a hooker's ass. It's a cop-out on top of an already poorly made film and it only makes the whole thing seem worse as a result.  

Had anyone involved in the making of The Legend of Hercules just stopped for one second to consider the possibility that a few tweaks could have made this a camp classic, the film would be infinitely better than it is in its current state; I mean, a woman gets raped by the wind for Christ's sake. Instead it manages to be the worst film in a genre full of filmmakers falling all over themselves to create the next 300, which I hate to say wasn't a very good movie in the first place. As it stands now, however, I cannot recommend this even as a guilty pleasure because there's absolutely nothing pleasurable about it. It's a cheap looking, vapid, soulless film that demonstrates nothing other than it's own inability to have something new, different or original to bring to the table. I can't believe I'm about to say this, but at this point, it would be impossible for Brett Ratner to direct a worse film than this one.

GO Rating: 1/5

[Photos via RottenTomatoes]

Day 270: Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones

"You guys ever feel like someone is watching you?"

When Paranormal Activity became a word of mouth phenomenon in 2009, horror fans everywhere rejoiced that the torture porn craze which swept the nation for the latter half of the decade had finally seen its reign as the go-to horror sub genre came to an end. Unfortunately, the increasingly dumb sequels and litany of found footage horror films that followed in its wake made this new phenomenon seem as tired as the old one, and the filmmakers' fundamental misunderstanding of what made the atmospheric horror films of old such a success in the first place. They began to replace suspense with nonsensical jump scares designed to startle audiences rather than scare them.

The only potential upside to these films was the extremely low risk factor for making them. Studios could give a filmmaker four or five million dollars and turn a substantial profit, so it paved the way for filmmakers to try new and innovative things with the genre. While some have been successful (see Josh Trank's Chronicle for a perfect example of this), most have continued to play it safe even with the lowered risk involved. With only one feature film to his credit, director Christopher Landis seemed like a prime candidate to do something original within such confines.

So, could his new film Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones be the film that breaks the mold, or would it end up just another failure on a road littered with them? Read on to find out...

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Jesse (Andrew Jacobs) has just graduated from high school, and has gathered with several friends, including his sister Evette (Noemi Gonzalez), his best friend Hector (Jorge Diaz), and the class valedictorian Oscar (Carlos Pratts) to celebrate. During this party, it is established that Anna (Gloria Sandoval), the woman who lives below Jesse, is into some weird stuff, and the partygoers can hear moaning and other strange noises coming from her apartment. Hector and Jesse get into all manners of shenanigans with Hector's video camera, videotaping all of their exploits for no apparent reason. One evening, they are stunned to discover police taking away the murdered body of Anna, and are further shocked to learn that their friend and classmate Oscar is the one responsible for her murder.

Not long after this, Jesse wakes up to discover a strange bite mark on his arm, which somehow gives him superhuman strength. I think so anyway, I'm not really sure. The film's mythology is so convoluted, I'm not sure if there's a correlation between the bite mark and his feats of strength which follow, but the basic premise is that Jesse is now marked, and they come to find out that Oscar was marked as well, and they must unravel the mystery of what it means to be marked before it's too late.

I must confess some ignorance up front in regard to this series. I have only seen the first Paranormal Activity film, and thinking that this was a standalone effort, I didn't feel the need to watch the other films before seeing this one. That was a mistake, as the mythology of this film is tied to the earlier films, and was clearly not devised until after the success of the first film. The same demon that possessed Katie in the first film is the same demon that possesses the characters in this film, I believe, but since that whole backstory wasn't fleshed out until the second (or third or fourth) film, I was a bit lost during all of this. It's not required that you see the other films to understand this one, but there are clearly bits of information that were doled out elsewhere that would have come in handy.

Overall, the film is pretty lame. It makes the mistake of thinking that a sudden jolt after several seconds of silence is scary, when it's actually just a cheap and stupid scare tactic used as a poor substitute for building actual suspense. I fully cop to jumping several times during the film, but there was nothing memorable about the scares. One was a firecracker going off after you thought it was extinguished, one was an arm coming up out of a trap door after several seconds of a girl staring into it; in other words, cheap scares masquerading as horror. There was also a half-hearted attempt to be clever by using an old Simon electronic game in a nod to the original film's Ouija board scene, but even that came off as imitation more than homage.

The performances are fine in the film, particularly considering these are mostly inexperienced young adults with little to no acting experience. Nothing earth-shattering, but they all play their parts well, which isn't surprising considering they were more or less raised on these films and know exactly what's expected of them. Considering that Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat from the first film have still not broken out (five of Featherston's eleven credits are Paranormal Activity films) this is also likely the last we'll see of any of them anyway. Not to be too mean, but films like this are hardly a launching pad to a long career, just ask Heather Donahue.

And speaking of The Blair Witch Project, what made that film effective, and what other filmmakers have failed to capitalize on in its wake, is that it scared the audience by never showing them anything. The mind can drum up horrors that have no budgetary constraints, and for all the missteps Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez have had since that film, they at least knew that fundamental truth, making their film ten times scarier as a result. Creepy girls with solid black contact lenses and naked old ladies just aren't scary, sorry Christopher Landis. Give me a bandana full of teeth or possibly entrails (or who knows what exactly, since we never got a clear shot of them in Blair Witch), or a guy standing silently in a corner with his back to us, because those were scary moments that were set up early in the film and paid off at the end. This is just slapdash nonsense that attempts to be clever by carrying over convoluted backstory from the other Paranormal Activity films.

Fans of the series will likely enjoy this film, as they'll probably appreciate it on a deeper level than someone who is ignorant to this series' charms, a category which I can comfortably place myself in. If you're really hard up for horror, this is pretty much your only option at the moment, but considering the myriad phenomenal films that came out at the end of the year, many of which have yet to open in wide release, I can't in good conscience recommend this film. It does what it sets out to do, but when you've set the bar so low, that's not exactly challenging. Perhaps the studios will one day realize the truly low risk there is in throwing a talented filmmaker five million bucks to make something new and original, but even then, they'll package it and build a mythology around it and fence everyone in, dooming themselves to constantly repeat the past as they will clearly never learn from it.

[Images via 1-3, 4, 5]

Day 269: The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

"Beautiful things don't ask for attention."

After close to twenty years in perpetual development hell, Ben Stiller recently rescued an adaptation of James Thurber's short story The Secret Life of Walter Mitty by agreeing to star in and direct the film. With only four feature directing credits to his name, he seemed like an odd choice to helm such an ambitious film, but his most recent directorial effort, Tropic Thunder, showed that he could handle a large scope picture well. So would he deliver on the promise shown on that film, or would this be a fumbling misstep? Read on to find out….

The story opens on Walter Mitty (Stiller), a negative assets manager for Life Magazine who has a serious problem with daydreaming. He frequently zones out and imagines himself a hero, which in reality he most certainly is not. He's a meek individual who just wants to ask out a woman named Cheryl (Kristen Wiig) that works at the magazine with him, but can't bring himself to do so, opting instead to "wink" at her on an online dating site to set up a "Pina Colada Song"-style meet cute. Instead, his crippling social anxiety and frequent daydreaming have put him at a major disadvantage.

When a strangely bearded man (Adam Scott) arrives at Life Magazine as part of a corporation that has acquired the magazine, he informs everyone that Life will be folding it's print edition, and that the next issue will be their last. Everyone is awaiting the arrival of a negative of a photograph taken by renowned photographer, and Walter's friend, Sean O'Connell (Sean Penn) which he has said shows off "the quintessence of Life," and that they intend to use as the cover for the final issue. When Walter cannot find the negative among the roll that Sean sent, he decides to embark on a journey across the world to track down the elusive O'Connell and retrieve the negative. 

To say that The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is a deeply flawed film is an understatement, however, it is not without its charm, particularly in light of its many flaws. Tonally the film is all over the map, spreading out from Walter's elaborate fantasy life which shades the first half of the film, making it impossible to settle in to any sort of rhythm. It was obviously intentional, but the script does the film no favors by going to such extremes to convey his daydreams that it removes any sort of grounding for the film. Thankfully as the film progresses and Walter begins his journey to find Sean, his daydreams cease, and the film becomes infinitely better as a result.

As for the script, it's easily the weakest element of the entire film, which is baffling considering how many hands it passed through during its long development process, but ultimately Steve Conrad's version suffers from a case of not knowing what it kind of film it wants to be. Take the two most convoluted daydreams from the early goings, one of which is a pavement chewing fight between Stiller and Scott's characters, and the other a baffling parody of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. These both go to such extreme lengths to convey the depths to which Walter's mind journeys when he zones out, but they play more like the inner life of some sort of madman, never mind a nice guy who feels more at home in fantasy than reality. 

Walter's journey to Greenland, then Iceland, and various other parts of the globe is a much more grounded film, much easier to grab a hold of, and much more in line with the kind of film Stiller is trying to make. There are some nice bits in the early going, and thanks to the top notch work of cinematographer Stuart Dryburgh, the film always looks gorgeous whether scaling mountains in Afghanistan, or discovering the dreary basement in which Walter works at Life Magazine. The film looks amazing, and that goes a long way towards rectifying many of the film's other significant flaws.

Stiller the actor has always suffered from a similar syndrome that the script does, not knowing when to be serious and when to be funny, and always seeming to throw that balance out of whack by wanting to do one or the other at the wrong moment. Here he manages to give one of his best performances, grounding the character in such a way that makes him relatable in spite of his borderline psychopathic delusions. The script's other major flaw is that it makes the character of Cheryl a little too perfect, in spite of a second act development that tries to overcompensate for this character flaw, and Wiig does a fine job playing this ideal woman. She's incredibly natural and in the moment at all times, but the script does her no favors.

Sean Penn is as reliably stoic and mysterious as ever, and Adam Scott relishes the chance to play a mustache twirling villain, but again, is done no favors by a script that prefers to have him be a totally irredeemable black hatted antagonist rather than an actual human being. The rest of the supporting cast is good as well, including a persistent eHarmony representative played by Patton Oswalt and an underused Shirley MacLaine as Walter's mother. And speaking of eHarmony, I realize that this is a Hollywood production, and that means that product placement pays some of the bills, but the bizarre choice to make Papa Johns and eHarmony integral parts of the plot was a bit jarring as well. 

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is clearly designed to be Stiller's magnum opus as a director, and while he does admirable work both in front of and behind the camera, it's too flawed for me to call it a total success. It is an easy film to like however, and wears its heart brazenly on its sleeve, making it a nice diversion for two hours, but it's deeply imperfect script makes it impossible for the film to be a true success. Many people will love the film, and I can easily see myself revisiting the film in a year or two and still being wooed by its many charms, but it has so many shades of wasted potential that I can't call it an unmitigated success. 

[Photos via BoxOfficeMojo]