Nick's Flick Picks: The Blog
The Fifties for 2013: Best Supporting Actor
Joe's Picks
Keith Carradine, Ain't Them Bodies Saints — Emory Cohen, The Place Beyond the Pines — John Gallagher, Jr., Short Term 12 — Ben Foster, Ain't Them Bodies Saints — Peter Sarsgaard, Blue Jasmine
Nick's Picks
James Franco, Spring Breakers — John Henshaw, The Angels' Share — Peter Kazungu, Paradise: Love — Yiftach Klein, Fill the Void — Ben Mendelsohn, The Place Beyond the Pines
JOE: Nick, I came sooooo close to putting Ben Mendelsohn on my own list. For a movie I had a decent number of issues with, the uniformly strong cast went a long way toward keeping things on the right track for me, while Cianfrance worked his themes out. Of course I was highly tempted to once again throw my beloved Dane DeHaan some recognition, but ultimately, my surprise at Cohen's layered surliness won the day. Such a recognizable character for someone so closed off, and the friendship/bully axis he works with DeHaan unlocked a good deal of that movie for me.
I ultimately—and perhaps unfairly—disqualified Franco from my field because I was so disillusioned at how Spring Breakers became so enamored of him and promptly ignored the women whose story I thought we were following. He's certainly the performance from the first half of the year that people are still talking about. Buzz justified, I guess you'd say?
NICK: Weirdly, I wouldn't say that. I actually don't like Franco's performance as used in the film. Where you see it as pulling focus from the girls (and I don't disagree), I hate how it locks down the preternaturally mobile and expressive camera into a series of Behold the Master close-ups and medium shots. As a formal element, Alien is my least favorite thing in Spring Breakers. But as much as I associate Franco with cockiness and am therefore tempted to blame him for showboating, I think the performance itself is a pretty sensational act of self-transformation and witty repackaging. He almost lost his slot to an opposite performance—Alec Baldwin's small and utterly unshowy part in Blue Jasmine, playing to me the most plausible human being in the film—and he'll probably fall out later.
Say more about why Cohen isn't "overdoing it," which is the same critique Franco's vulnerable to, and one I've heard lobbied against Pines in general and Cohen in particular. Then I promise I'll reply about Mendelsohn!
Read more »
Keith Carradine, Ain't Them Bodies Saints — Emory Cohen, The Place Beyond the Pines — John Gallagher, Jr., Short Term 12 — Ben Foster, Ain't Them Bodies Saints — Peter Sarsgaard, Blue Jasmine
Nick's Picks
James Franco, Spring Breakers — John Henshaw, The Angels' Share — Peter Kazungu, Paradise: Love — Yiftach Klein, Fill the Void — Ben Mendelsohn, The Place Beyond the Pines
JOE: Nick, I came sooooo close to putting Ben Mendelsohn on my own list. For a movie I had a decent number of issues with, the uniformly strong cast went a long way toward keeping things on the right track for me, while Cianfrance worked his themes out. Of course I was highly tempted to once again throw my beloved Dane DeHaan some recognition, but ultimately, my surprise at Cohen's layered surliness won the day. Such a recognizable character for someone so closed off, and the friendship/bully axis he works with DeHaan unlocked a good deal of that movie for me.
I ultimately—and perhaps unfairly—disqualified Franco from my field because I was so disillusioned at how Spring Breakers became so enamored of him and promptly ignored the women whose story I thought we were following. He's certainly the performance from the first half of the year that people are still talking about. Buzz justified, I guess you'd say?
NICK: Weirdly, I wouldn't say that. I actually don't like Franco's performance as used in the film. Where you see it as pulling focus from the girls (and I don't disagree), I hate how it locks down the preternaturally mobile and expressive camera into a series of Behold the Master close-ups and medium shots. As a formal element, Alien is my least favorite thing in Spring Breakers. But as much as I associate Franco with cockiness and am therefore tempted to blame him for showboating, I think the performance itself is a pretty sensational act of self-transformation and witty repackaging. He almost lost his slot to an opposite performance—Alec Baldwin's small and utterly unshowy part in Blue Jasmine, playing to me the most plausible human being in the film—and he'll probably fall out later.
Say more about why Cohen isn't "overdoing it," which is the same critique Franco's vulnerable to, and one I've heard lobbied against Pines in general and Cohen in particular. Then I promise I'll reply about Mendelsohn!
Read more »
Labels: Awards 2013, Best Supporting Actor, Blog Buddies, Fifties, James Franco, Peter Sarsgaard
posted by NicksFlickPicks at 9:00 AM
9 comments
