The Woody Awards: Best Supporting Actress

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
My Nominees:
Emily Blunt, Sunshine Cleaning
Maggie Gyllenhaal, Away We Go
Anna Kendrick, Up in the Air
Diane Kruger, Inglourious Basterds
Rachel Weisz, The Brothers Bloom

Oscar Nominees:
Penelope Cruz, Nine
Vera Farmiga, Up in the Air
Maggie Gyllenhaal, Crazy Heart
Anna Kendrick, Up in the Air
Mo'Nique, Precious

Maggie Gyllenhaal, Away We Go

Maggie Gyllenhaal's performance in Away We Go as the main couple's bizarre stroller-hating hippie friend LN Fisher-Herrin provides some of the funnier moments of the film. She manages to capture the ridiculousness of her character's wannabe progressive (but actually self-deluding) beliefs with a kind of snobbish sincerity without over-doing it and pushing her character into the realm of cartoonishness. She exaggerates her character just enough to make her funny, while still maintaining enough realism to prevent her from becoming a completely unbelievable character.

Anna Kendrick, Up in the Air

Anna Kendrick is excellent as Natalie Keener, the idealistic young woman who accompanies George Clooney's character as he shows her the ropes of their business (which is firing people). Kendrick flawlessly conveys the way her character projects total confidence outwardly while struggling inwardly with both doubts about herself and the emotional difficulty of the business she's chosen. When she first appears onscreen, Kendrick's character appears to be nothing but a fearless young woman determined to be the best in her profession at all costs, but as the story continues, Kendrick subtly reveals the complexity of her character and her emotional and moral struggles.

Diane Kruger, Inglourious Basterds

Though her character is not introduced until relatively late in the story, Diane Kruger plays an essential role in shaping the film's final act. In German actress (and undercover agent for the Allies) Bridget von Hammersmark, Kruger creates a character who is much more than she appears. Kruger injects her character's exchanges with German officers with just the right amount of phony confidence to suggest that her character has been well-trained to be someone she's not. Kruger plays her character's final exchange with Colonel Hans Landa very well, capturing the suppressed fear and false bravado of a person who knows she is treading on very dangerous ground and is fully aware of exactly how grave the consequences would be for her if she were found out.

Rachel Weisz, The Brothers Bloom

Rachel Weisz is both hilarious and lovable as the very quirky Penelope in The Brothers Bloom. As a character who has spent her life shut up in a mansion who finally gets the chance to have an adventure, Weisz is perfectly delightful. She plays her role with the appropriately childlike glee of a character who never really had a childhood (or at least not the right kind of one). Her sheer enthusiasm for the titular con men's latest caper is infectious, drawing the audience in to the point where they too feel like their suppressed inner kid is going on its first big adventure.

THE WINNER: EMILY BLUNT, SUNSHINE CLEANING

Emily Blunt's performance as Norah, the underachieving and overlooked younger sister still struggling to cope with the emotional damage of a childhood tragedy, is truly moving. Though Norah is not the center of the story, she is certainly the most interesting character. Blunt's portrayal of her, with her careless attitude and tough exterior hiding deep emotional wounds, allows the viewer to really see the pain she experiences daily over her inability to move on from her mother's death and from the longing (which she would never admit to having) to prove herself to her older sister and father and establish a place for herself in her family.

The Woody Awards: Best Supporting Actor

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
My Nominees:
Zach Galifianakis, The Hangover
Andrew Garfield, The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus
Jackie Earle Haley, Watchmen
Zachary Quinto, Star Trek
Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds

Oscar Nominees:
Matt Damon, Invictus
Woody Harrelson, The Messenger
Christopher Plummer, The Last Station
Stanley Tucci, The Lovely Bones
Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds

Like Best Screenplay, this was a tough category to narrow down to five. There were a lot of really great supporting performances this year that didn't quite make my list - Mark Ruffalo in The Brothers Bloom, Anthony Mackie in The Hurt Locker, and Woody Harrelson in Zombieland, to name a few. But there can only be five nominees, and those nominees are:

Zach Galifianakis, The Hangover

The Oscars virtually never reward acting in comedy, but that doesn't mean that some of the best performances on film aren't comedic ones. In The Hangover, Zach Galifianakis creates a truly unique character and completely steals every scene he's in. As Alan, the awkward, socially inept, unwanted member of the group, Galifianakis plays it completely straight - rather than camping it up or being outrageous to the ridiculous extent that a lot of comedic actors would have in the role, he simply plays his character with wide-eyed honesty, as a truly weird guy who is totally oblivious to how bizarre the things he says and does are. And the fact that Galifianakis plays this hilarious character with such sincerity makes him all the funnier.

Andrew Garfield, The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus

In this very strange movie filled with very strange characters, Andrew Garfield's performance as Anton gives the audience someone to relate to. Anton's earnestness, both in his love for the Doctor's daughter Valentina and in his determination to keep the Doctor's failing sideshow afloat, give the story a dose of humanity. Garfield's performance creates a very believable and human character who is both sympathetic and relatable.

Jackie Earle Haley, Watchmen

Watchmen was a very flawed movie, but the one aspect of it which director Zach Snyder managed to get exactly right, the one ingredient which remained perfect for the entire three hours, the one element which very nearly salvaged the film (and did at least make it watchable), was the casting of Jackie Earle Haley as the vigilante Rorschach. Haley embodies the character so well that the fact that he spends about 90% of his screen time with his face completely obscured by a mask doesn't even matter. The gravelly growl with which he narrates from Rorschach's diary is spot-on, and he plays the character with exactly the right kind of energy and passion to make the audience wonder whether Rorschach is truly unstable, or merely extreme.

Zachary Quinto, Star Trek

Not a lot of people can pull off the correct balance it takes to re-create an iconic screen presence without falling into the trap of either straying too far from the original and failing to grasp the essence of the character or following the original too closely and creating nothing but a sad imitation of the original actor. But Zachary Quinto manages to take Spock, one of the most recognized and beloved screen characters in the world, and make him completely recognizable while also making him completely his own. He portrays perfectly the inner battle between Spock's emotional human side and his rational Vulcan side. His relationship and interplay with Chris Pine's James Kirk (another great performance) is extremely well-constructed, and a large part of what makes this movie such a pleasure to watch. Who would guess that this was Quinto's first major film role?

THE WINNER: CHRISTOPH WALTZ, INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS

Christoph Waltz's performance as SS Colonel Hans Landa is flawless. The character of Landa will undoubtedly take a place alongside Darth Vader and Hannibal Lecter as one of the greatest and most memorable villains in the history of cinema. And while that is thanks, in part, to Quentin Tarantino's superb writing, the real reason is the incredible conviction and energy with which Waltz brings Landa to life. Waltz's performance as the wildly charismatic yet deeply evil "Jew Hunter" is the force that drives the entire film. Waltz creates in Landa a character who, despite his apparent sophistication, intelligence, and geniality, is actually an unspeakable monster. In every scene he's in, Waltz generates a sense of foreboding, even when his character is performing seemingly innocuous acts such as smoking his pipe or eating strudel. He brings such an energy and realism to the character that it is often easy to forget that Landa is, in fact, a creation of Tarantino's imagination, and not a real historical figure. Tarantino has himself said that Landa may be the greatest character he's ever written, and he's probably right - but it wouldn't matter a bit if that character was not portrayed with the depth and complexity with which Waltz plays him.

The Woody Awards: Best Screenplay (Original or Adapted)

BEST SCREENPLAY (ORIGINAL OR ADAPTED)

My Nominees:
District 9
Inglourious Basterds
Up
Up in the Air
Where the Wild Things Are

Oscar Nominees:
(Best Original Screenplay)
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
The Messenger
A Serious Man
Up
(Best Adapted Screenplay)
District 9
An Education
In the Loop
Precious
Up in the Air

I consolidated these two Oscar categories into one for my awards, mainly because the distinction between Original and Adapted Screenplay that the Oscars make is somewhat arbitrary, particularly with some of the possible candidates this year, such as District 9, which is based on writer/director Neill Blomkamp's own short film, and Where the Wild Things Are, which expands a book with very little plot or dialogue into a feature-length film.

There were a lot of good candidates for this category, and even looking at the list of Oscar nominees, I wouldn't say that there are any there that don't deserve to be there, at least from the ones I've seen (although how they could leave Where the Wild Things Are out, I don't know). It was tricky narrowing my list down to five, and I was especially sorry to have to leave out Funny People and (500) Days of Summer.

What I tried to look for in this category was originality, sharp dialogue, and a well-told story.

Up in the Air

Though I've never read the book on which it is based, I think it's safe to say that, of all my nominees, this film's screenplay relied most heavily on previously written material (I'm not saying that's a bad thing, I just think it's worth pointing out). This is a film about people, and more specifically, how people interact with and rely on other people. Because the conversations between the characters are what give the audience an idea of who the characters are, the success of the movie relies heavily on solid dialogue. And this screenplay delivers it. George Clooney's character is particularly witty and well-written, because his character's very way of life depends entirely on his way with words.

Up

As is the case with most Pixar movies, Up tells a fresh and original story with remarkable humor and depth. The opening scenes of the film, which contain almost no dialogue, are simply heartbreaking, and help the audience understand and sympathize with a character who otherwise might be perceived as nothing but a grumpy old man. And as the narrative unfolds, telling the story of that old man and a young boy having adventures in a far-off land, the audience also sees the deep emotional scars each character is struggling with, and how they slowly begin a healing process through their growing friendship. It is the subtly written development of this relationship that makes Up so much more affective than many of today's movies aimed at kids.

District 9

District 9 is a film with a unique vision and a clever, unpredictable storyline. And not least of this carefully written film's achievements is the fact that, even though this is a story about aliens, it feels completely real. And that realism is used to examine the sometimes monstrous ways in which humanity responds to the unknown. This film also has a sharply written lead character, who starts the story as an annoying corporate bureaucrat but who, through circumstances beyond his control, is practically forced to find his own humanity. He is a self-interested coward (at least in the beginning), and at times he makes the wrong choices. Because he is not an archetypical hero, he makes a very relatable protagonist - here is a guy who doesn't want to save the world, he just wants things to go back to the way they were so he can go home to his wife.

Where the Wild Things Are

This movie is an example of what a good adaptation should be - it captures almost perfectly the spirit of the original work, while at the same time creating something wholly unique. This screenplay does not slavishly try to recreate the exact plot of the book on which it is based (although that plot is admittedly very limited, allowing a lot of freedom for interpretation), but focuses instead on re-creating the feeling of the book, while at the same time delving into the deeper meaning behind the story. This is the story of a kid named Max who feels all the things every kid feels and doesn't always know what those feelings mean or how to deal with them. The script uses the carefully crafted characters of the Wild Things to embody those feelings, allowing both Max and the audience to experience them too.

THE WINNER: INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS

I wasn't thinking specifically of Inglourious Basterds when I said that I was looking for originality, sharp dialogue, and a well-told story in this category, but I might as well have been, because this film contains each of those elements to a greater degree than any other movie released this year. It is filled with fascinating, well-developed characters and absolutely phenomenal dialogue. The plot is fearlessly and wildly original, and the pacing and structure used in telling the story are spot-on. There are scenes in this film which will make you squirm with discomfort at the sheer intensity of a conversation between two people sitting at a table. There are twenty-minute scenes which consist entirely of dialogue, yet contain more suspense than the entire running time of most thriller movies. Simply put, Inglourious Basterds is screenwriting done masterfully, and in a year filled with superbly written films, it is an easy choice for Best Screenplay.

London Travels

On Saturday, Jenny and I got back from our lovely trip to London! Jenny's university had a break last week, so we went to stay with our friend Eve, who is from London and was going home for the break.

It was the first time either Jenny or I had been to the U.K., and it was the first time we'd been in an English-speaking country since the beginning of September. We arrived at St. Pancras International via Eurostar on Friday afternoon, and Eve came to meet us and show us to her house. She's from a section of London called Islington, and her parents still live there in the house she grew up in (but they were in Berlin for most of the time we were staying there).

St. Pancras International, the station where we arrived

After we got settled in and Eve made us some dinner, Jenny and I took the Underground to West End to see Billy Elliot the Musical, which we had bought tickets for online. It was a really good show! The music wasn't particularly memorable, but the dancing was amazing. It was really cool to see a kid who's like eleven years old who is such a phenomenal dancer. I probably wouldn't have picked Billy Elliot as one of the shows I wanted to go see if Jenny hadn't wanted to, but I'm glad she did, because I really enjoyed it!
After Billy Elliot, we met up with Eve and her boyfriend Steve to go see the Features, who are an awesome band from Tennessee who just happened to be playing at a club in London while we were there! (If you haven't heard them, you should visit their myspace here.) It was really great to be able to see them - they are one of my favorite bands ever to see live, plus they remind me of home. And Eve and Steve really liked them too!

The next day we went down to Leicester Square to try to get cheap tickets for Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, but they were sold out. So we went back to Eve's house for the afternoon, and for dinner, Steve made us his specialty lasagna, which was quite good. After dinner we went to meet up with our friends Amie and Ed, who were staying in London with their friend Amy, and some friends of Eve's. We all went to this anti-Valentine's dance night called "Feeling Gloomy", where they played songs with sad lyrics, which was fun.

The next day, Jenny and I had tickets to see Waiting for Godot in the afternoon. It was really interesting to see a play I've read multiple times and discussed at length in different classes on stage, and it was quite cool to see Ian McKellen performing in person! But it was also a hard play to sit through at times, because it's basically a couple of people talking nonsense onstage for two and a half hours. After that, Jenny and I went to eat dinner at a nearby restaurant, then headed back to Eve's, where we spent the rest of the evening.
Ed and Amie had come over the night before, and Ed hadn't been feeling well. Ed was supposed to fly to Stockholm really early in the morning, but when the rest of us got up, he was still there, and still very sick. We made sure he was okay, then went to take a free walking tour of some of London's most famous sites with Eve's friend Dave, who is a tour guide.

Buckingham Palace, the first stop on the tour

It was a great tour - we saw all the main touristy things, like Buckingham Palace (Where we saw the Changing of the Guards, kind of. There were so many people watching that mostly all you could see was the backs of other people's heads.), Trafalgar Square, Big Ben, The Houses of Parliament, and Westminster Abbey. Then, after the tour, Dave invited everyone who was on the tour to eat lunch with the tour guides in a pub, so we went along. Eve, Amie, Jenny and I all got fish and chips, which were good, but unsurprisingly, not much different from any other fried fish or "chips" I'd eaten before in my life.

The Changing of the Guards - this is pretty much the clearest view I had the whole time
A Royal Guard - sadly, they weren't wearing their red coats because it was cold

Trafalgar Square

That night we went to a small play put on by a friend of Eve's. It was actually a couple of short plays in a row with the same cast, written by Christopher Durang (who I'd never heard of before, even though he's American). They were pretty funny. Afterward we went for a drink with Eve's friend who put on the play and her boyfriend.

The next day was really rainy and nasty. We went to some "charity shops", which are like Goodwill, but nicer. Jenny, Amie, and Eve got clothes, and I got some books. Then we went to have fancy English tea at The Liberty, a department store which has a famous little cafe. We then went back to Eve's and got our stuff ready to go, because Amie was heading back to Lille and Jenny and I were going to stay with our friend Johanna (a former UT professor we both knew from doing work study in the Religious Studies department) in Otley, a town near Leeds.

Otley - somewhat hard to see because of the fog

Jenny's stomach had been feeling weird that day, but she had thought it was just because we'd gone to a kebab shop kind of late the night before. But on the train, she got really sick, and we realized that she had the same sickness as Ed had. That night at Johanna's I got really sick too, and we both spent the whole next day lying in bed.

Luckily the sickness passed pretty quickly though, and we both felt able to venture out of the house the next day. Johanna's husband David drove us up to a nice trail that went along the side of a hill overlooking Otley, and we had a nice walk on it, then walked down and explored the town some. The next day Johanna took us to breakfast before we got on the train back to London. I wish that we had been able to see more of Otley and Leeds, but hopefully we can go back some time.

This is the trail we walked on

When we got back to London, we decided to try to go ride the London Eye. But when we got down there, we learned that it was 18 pounds a person to ride it, and we had already been unsure of whether it would be worth riding after dark, so we decided not to. Instead, we walked along the Thames and looked at all the things there are along there, like the Globe Theatre, London Bridge, and Tower Bridge.

The London Eye
The Houses of Parliament and Big Ben at night
The re-creation of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre
The sign on London Bridge, which frankly is more interesting than the bridge itself - it's just a typical bridge that cars drive across
Tower Bridge

The next morning we packed up our stuff and headed back to Lille. It was a really good trip, and I would definitely like to visit again!

The Best in Film 2009: The Woody Awards

Well, the nominations for this year's Oscars came out last week. As usual, a few of the picks were spot-on, some of the picks were shocking in their ridiculousness, and most of the picks were, predictably, for movies that are specifically engineered to win awards. So, since the people that actually give out the big film awards each year have a tendency to choose mediocrity and predictability over true greatness and originality, I'm creating my own list of awards for the best in film from 2009*. I'm not following the same weird rules as the Oscars concerning eligibility - even if a film has been shown at a film festival or something prior to 2009, if it was released in theaters in the U.S. in 2009, it's eligible. I'm going to have the same major categories as the Oscars, with five nominees and one winner in each (excluding Best Picture, which will include ten nominees, same as the Oscars are starting to do this year). I will post the list of nominees below, and then I will post one category at a time over the next few weeks, discussing each nominee and naming the winner. Here's my list of nominees, and along with my picks, I've included the actual Oscar nominees in each category.

BEST SCREENPLAY (ORIGINAL OR ADAPTED)
My Nominees:
District 9
Inglourious Basterds
Up
Up in the Air
Where the Wild Things Are

Oscar Nominees:
(Best Original Screenplay)
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
The Messenger
A Serious Man
Up
(Best Adapted Screenplay)
District 9
An Education
In the Loop
Precious
Up in the Air

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
My Nominees:
Zach Galifianakis, The Hangover
Andrew Garfield, The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus
Jackie Earle Haley, Watchmen
Zachary Quinto, Star Trek
Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds

Oscar Nominees:
Matt Damon, Invictus
Woody Harrelson, The Messenger
Christopher Plummer, The Last Station
Stanley Tucci, The Lovely Bones
Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
My Nominees:
Emily Blunt, Sunshine Cleaning
Maggie Gyllenhaal, Away We Go
Anna Kendrick, Up in the Air
Diane Kruger, Inglourious Basterds
Rachel Weisz, The Brothers Bloom

Oscar Nominees:
Penelope Cruz, Nine
Vera Farmiga, Up in the Air
Maggie Gyllenhaal, Crazy Heart
Anna Kendrick, Up in the Air
Mo'Nique, Precious

BEST ACTOR
My Nominees:
George Clooney, Up in the Air
Sharlto Copley, District 9
Tom Hardy, Bronson
Jeremy Renner, The Hurt Locker
Sam Rockwell, Moon

Oscar Nominees:
Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart
George Clooney, Up in the Air
Colin Firth, A Single Man
Morgan Freeman, Invictus
Jeremy Renner, The Hurt Locker

BEST ACTRESS
My Nominees:
Amy Adams, Sunshine Cleaning
Zooey Deschanel, (500) Days of Summer
Melanie Laurent, Inglourious Basterds
Leslie Mann, Funny People
Maya Rudolph, Away We Go

Oscar Nominees:
Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side
Helen Mirren, The Last Station
Carey Mulligan, An Education
Gabourey Sidibe, Precious
Meryl Streep, Julie & Julia

BEST DIRECTOR
My Nominees:
J. J. Abrams, Star Trek
Neill Blomkamp, District 9
James Cameron, Avatar
Spike Jonze, Where the Wild Things Are
Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds

Oscar Nominees:
Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker
James Cameron, Avatar
Lee Daniels, Precious
Jason Reitman, Up in the Air
Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds

BEST PICTURE
My Nominees:
Avatar
Away We Go
The Brothers Bloom
District 9
Inglourious Basterds
Moon
Star Trek
Up
Up in the Air
Where the Wild Things Are

Oscar Nominees:
Avatar
The Blind Side
District 9
An Education
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Precious
A Serious Man
Up
Up in the Air


*Films released in 2009 that I have not seen yet, which I suspect may have been in contention in some categories if I had: Adam, World's Greatest Dad, Mystery Team, The Informant, Whip It, An Education, Antichrist, The Men Who Stare at Goats, The Messenger, The Road, A Single Man, Crazy Heart