Alternate Best Supporting Actor 2010: Results

5. Sam Rockwell in Conviction- Rockwell gives the best performance in his film giving some poignancy to his character's situation even though the power of his performance is limited by the film's problems.

4. Andrew Garfield in The Social Network- Garfield plays the emotions of his role a little to heavily at times but still gives an effective performance with a few stand out moments.

3. Chow Yun-Fat in Let the Bullets Fly- Yun-Fat gives a very entertaining villainous turn even if he could have brought just a little more menace to his role. 

2. Pierce Brosnan in The Ghost Writer- Brosnan gives a strong performance effectively creating the different faces of a career politicians with too many secrets.

1. Ben Mendelsohn in Animal Kingdom- Good Prediction Fisti. This might not be a great year for great performances as I don't give anyone a five, but it is a great year for good performances. My personal winner came down to the two criminal uncles of Mendelsohn and John Hawkes in Winter's Bone.

Overall Rank:

1. John Hawkes in Winter's Bone
2. Ben Mendelsohn in Animal Kingdom
3. Ben Kingsley in Shutter Island
4. Cillian Murphy in Inception
5. Pete Postlethwaite in The Town
6. Pierce Brosnan in The Ghost Writer
7. Ted Levine in Shutter Island
8. Barry Pepper in True Grit 
9. Joel Edgerton in Animal Kingdom
10. Jackie Earle Haley in Shutter Island 
11. Chow Yun-Fat in Let The Bullets Fly 
12. Jeremy Renner in The Town
13. Guy Pearce in Animal Kingdom
14. David O'Hara in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
15. Jon Hamm in The Town
16. Andrew Garfield in The Social Network
17. Max von Sydow in Shutter Island
18. John Malkovich in RED
19. Sam Rockwell in Iron Man 2  
20. Armie Hammer in The Social Network 
21. Bill Murray in Get Low 
22. Sam Rockwell in Conviction
23. Ken Watanabe in Inception
24. Ned Beatty in Toy Story 3 
25. Guy Pearce in The King's Speech 
26. Jack McGee in The Fighter
27. Sullivan Stapleton in Animal Kingdom
28. Nicolas Cage in Kick-Ass
29. Jason Schwartzman in Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
30. Tom Hardy in Inception
31. Mark Strong in Kick-Ass
32. Chris Evans in Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
33. Michael Keaton in Toy Story 3
34. Kieran Culkin in Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
35. Mark Ruffalo in Shutter Island 
36. Brandon Routh in Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
37. Michael Keaton in The Other Guys 
38. Lucas Black in Get Low
39. Chris Cooper in The Town
40. Joseph Gordon-Levitt in Inception
41. Garret Dillahunt in Winter's Bone 
42. John Carroll Lynch in Shutter Island
43. Mickey O'Keefe in The Fighter
44. Vincent Cassel in Black Swan
45. Mark Webber in Scott Pilgrim vs the World
46. Matt Damon in True Grit
47. Luke Ford in Animal Kingdom
48. Bill Cobbs in Get Low
49. Choi Moo-sung in I Saw the Devil
50. Brian Cox in RED
51. Pete Postlethwaite in Inception
52. Tom Wilkinson in The Ghost Writer
53. Don Cheadle in Iron Man 2
54. Ray Winstone in Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll
55. Karl Urban in RED
56. Rupert Grint in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows 
57. Mickey Rourke in The Expendables 
58. Paolo Bonacelli in The American 
59. Robert Pugh in The Ghost Writer
60. Andrew Garfield in Never Let Me Go
61. Michael Caine in Inception
62. Michael Gambon in The King's Speech
63. Morgan Freeman in RED
64. Tom Berenger in Inception
65. Justin Timberlake in The Social Network 
66. David Zayas in The Expendables
67. Dileep Rao in Inception
68. Eric Roberts in The Expendables
69. Jackie Chan in The Karate Kid
70. Christopher Mintz-Plasse in Kick-Ass  
71. Peter Gallagher in Conviction 
72. Mark Ruffalo in The Kids Are Alright
73. Derek Jacobi in The King's Speech
74. Josh Hutcherson in The Kids Are Alright
75. Josh Brolin in True Grit
76. Mickey Rourke in Iron Man 2
77. Ben Barnes in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader 
78. Brandon T. Jackson in Percy Jackson
79. Timothy Spall in The King's Speech
80. The Rest of the Cast of the Expendables

Next Year: 2001 Lead

Read More

Alternate Best Supporting Actor 2010: Pierce Brosnan in The Ghost Writer

Pierce Brosnan did not receive an Oscar nomination for portraying Adam Lang in The Ghost Writer.

The Ghost Writer is a very effective thriller about a new ghost writer (Ewan McGregor) brought in to finish the memoirs of a former British Prime Minister while he is under scrutiny for his involvement with the torture of suspected terrorists.

Pierce Brosnan plays the former British Prime minster Adam Lang. Brosnan is of course best known as his run as James Bond, but here he goes a bit against type as the somewhat shady politician. Brosnan's character is one we hear of several times before we finally meet him in the film. He has a build up and Brosnan does not disappoint when we do meet him. He takes a rather interesting approach in his performance which is he makes Lang sort of a mystery, but he plays him as a man who does not at all wanted to be taken for one. It is an effective portrayal in his few scenes he get across the several different faces of the career politician.

Brosnan has his scenes on the television where he seems the most confidant although as well the least natural. Brosnan creates the right posture though the way he so firmly speaks, and the way he seems to be happy and confidant even when there is no reason to be. Brosnan knows just how to be basically the fake man, but at the same time makes Lang seem like the leader he should have been considered at one time. He does very well here and he does well in showing the difference between the public persona and the real man that we meet when he speaks to the ghost writer, although even then there are really two sides to the man.

On one hand Brosnan keeps Lang as a base man of former power and still one of wealth and importance. Brosnan creates the right type of casual pompousness in the man in the way he deals with his entire staff and particularly the ghost writer. Brosnan is good actually because he never makes Lang to seem overly malicious in his behavior as it Brosnan allows us to see this as the sort of behavior that developed from being a person of such power. There is more than the fairly shallow rich powerful man behavior to this man, and Brosnan does create the right depth in his performance to suggest why Lang is in the trouble he currently has.

When pressed about his troubles Brosnan shows Lang is an intensely defensive and angry man over his fall from glory. He is very good in portraying just the sheer bitterness the man feels, but as well alludes early on that maybe he is hiding a darker secret. Brosnan is great though in his very last scene though as he seems in a way breaks the mystery with his performance even if in terms of the film's development we do not yet know that he has. Brosnan creates strong passion in Lang for what has done and there is not an undercurrent suggesting otherwise in this moment perhaps suggesting that Lang is not hiding anything in terms of his own actions.

This is a very solid performance by Pierce Brosnan particularly by the way his performance allows the secret in the film to exist while completely supporting the eventual revelation in regards to his character. He handles every aspect of his character very well especially through his portrayal of each shade of the man in terms of both the public and private man. Brosnan all in all actually does not have too many scenes to his name or even that much total screen time. Brosnan within the time that he does inhabit though gives the proper life to his character to support the character who is in always at the center of the film even though is often not on screen.

Read More

Alternate Best Supporting Actor 2010

And the Nominees Were Not:

Ben Mendelsohn in Animal Kingdom

Sam Rockwell in Conviction

Andrew Garfield in The Social Network

Pierce Brosnan in The Ghost Writer

Chow Yun-Fat in Let the Bullets Fly

Read More

Best Bond: Results

6. Roger Moore in Live and Let Die- Moore sits as the worst Bond due to his excessively light approach that makes his Bond seem frankly disinterested at times. He tries to just be charming and funny but the problem he does not even do that all that well.

5. George Lazenby in On Her Majesty's Secret Service- Moore has more screen presence than George Lazenby but I do prefer Lazenby because he actually seems into the action scenes and he is pretty good in his last scene. As a whole though his Bond is underwhelming just by how indistinct his approach is to the character.

4. Pierce Brosnan in GoldenEye- Brosnan gives a slick and suave approach to Bond similar to that of Connery. He does not reach the heights of Connery but he gives nice performance as Bond that balances the serious and humorous elements of his character well.

3. Timothy Dalton in The Living Daylights- Although Brosnan is more consistent I prefer Dalton for dealing with the inconsistent tone of his picture and actually delivering well on his darker approach to Bond when there is a scene that actually allows him to do it. I would love to see Dalton in a bleak picture about espionage.

2. Daniel Craig in Casino Royale- Craig gives an excellent portrayal of Bond that shows a much more vulnerable and less experienced Bond. Unlike Dalton, who went alone, he and the film go together to effectively explore a darker place for the character.

1. Sean Connery in From Russia in Love-Good Prediction RatedRStar. My favorite Bond performance goes to Sean Connery in this film. He took on a role that was already big shoes to fill and instead of just fulfilling the role he instead made the role his own. He made him the iconic character he has become through his charming, suave, and charismatic portrayal that could even go darker when necessary. He simply made Bond.

I might do something like this again down the road if I can think of something good

Overall Rank:

1. Sean Connery in From Russia With Love
2. Daniel Craig in Casino Royale
3. Sean Connery in Dr. No
4. Sean Connery in Goldfinger
5. Daniel Craig in Skyfall
6. Daniel Craig in Quantum Of Solace
7. Timothy Dalton in The Living Daylights
8. Pierce Brosnan in GoldenEye
9. Sean Connery in Thunderball
10. Sean Connery in You Only Live Twice
11. Timothy Dalton in License to Kill
12. Pierce Brosnan in Tomorrow Never Dies
13. Sean Connery in Diamonds Are Forever
14. Pierce Brosnan in The World is Not Enough
15. Pierce Brosnan in Die Another Day
16. George Lazenby in On Her Majesty's Secret Service
17. Roger Moore

Next Year:  1935

Read More

Best Bond: Pierce Brosnan in GoldenEye

Pierce Brosnan became the fifth man to portray James Bond in GoldenEye.

GoldenEye is an entertaining Bond film with some fairly memorable villains, and action set pieces.

There was several years between Timothy Dalton's second and Brosnan's first. The time delay was probably a good thing as this film now has a tone that feels right for Bond unlike The Living Daylights and especially the previous License to Kill which failed to find a consistent tone leaving Timothy Dalton moving in every direction to meet the demands of the part which he did quite well considering the difficult situation. Pierce Brosnan has much to benefit from the fact that GoldenEye does find a consistent tone for Bond, therefore allowing Brosnan to make an entirely consistent Bond.

Brosnan, like the actor I will be getting to next, actually goes for covering Bond in a way to the manner a previous Bond handled him. Brosnan forgets the darkness Dalton tried to examine for the most part, and goes instead to opt for an approach similar to Sean Connery. What this means is he takes Bond as a much lighter character on the whole although never nearly as light as Roger Moore, but darker when needs to be although never as dark as Dalton was. This means the thing Brosnan aims at first being a charming Bond, but still a Bond with a mission to do unlike Roger Moore who seemed frankly disinterested at time. 

Brosnan I should specifically say does not copy Connery in any way in terms of even the manner of charm he uses, or the fashion in which eh brings weight to the performance, but I would put these two in the same style of Bond. Brosnan's task is a bit different this being a 90's action movie instead of a 60's action movie. This means there are less diversions really and the action is louder and the danger tends to be more oppressive in a certain way where in the 60's Bond there was usually some breathing room along the way. Here Brosnan is almost always on the move, or if he is not the story is doing very much the same around him.

As the suave charmer Brosnan is properly suave and charming. He knows how to deliver the lines of "Bond, James Bond", "Shaken not Stirred" and the quips he has throughout the film although these are far less frequent here than they were present the past films. Brosnan still has to say them on occasion but there are not the stream of them like there was before, making it so he actually has less of challenge to keep them having an impact throughout since he just does not have that many to say.  Brosnan though handles the lighter qualities well, and while doing keeps it within Bond still going about his task, the best example is when he deals with a Russian mobster and Brosnan is playful, humorous yet he still shows that Bond is still keeping his mission in mind.

Brosnan does a good job of handling the action scenes. He makes them believable, and is able to bring the wit needed for Bond well still creating that illusion of threat needed. Brosnan's Bond treads through serious situations but there is only one major personal issue that his Bond faces which is that the main villain is a former fellow agent and friend. There are not too many scenes that linger on Bond's feelings toward this in fact Brosnan pretty much has to express his feelings about it almost entirely in his reactions, but even with these limitations Brosnan does handle them well. He does not have Bond lose his resolve at all but he does handle in a satisfying fashion of Bond more of being surprised and disappointed with his friend more than anything else.

In a way this is the mainstream streamlined Bond by Brosnan is in the vein of Connery. I will say he never quite reaches the heights of Connery's best work as Bond, but his portrayal of Bond is a good one. He leads the film well and although he does not get all that deep with the character he does find his own way to play Bond that harkens back to Connery without ever copying him. Brosnan went on to play Bond three more times and the quality of the films and to a lesser degree Brosnan's performance went down in quality as well, although he never became bad in the role, this film is by far his highlight as Bond though. Brosnan is not the best Bond but he is a good Bond that handled the role effectively in a fashion fitting for his set of films.

Read More

Best Bond

And the 007's Were:

Sean Connery in From Russia With Love

George Lazenby in On Her Majesty's Secret Service

Roger Moore in Live and Let Die

Timothy Dalton in The Living Daylights

Pierce Brosnan in GoldenEye

Daniel Craig in Casino Royale

Well I thought I would have some fun and review all the actors who have played James Bond in a serious film. Also I thought I might as well do it since it will open spots up for other actors in 63, and 2006 at least. For these six the prediction contest is still in place.

Read More