Showing posts with label Jessica Chastain. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jessica Chastain. Show all posts

Saturday, November 7, 2015

2014 SQUID Actress of the Year

The race for SQUID Actress of the Year is always a tough one, you can check out the previous winners below and notice that it's slightly less about volume than it is about purely incredible performances. While 2014's candidates may not be as plentiful as their male cohorts, the four horses in this race are proved that they are the real deal.

Jessica Chastain, most exceptionally featured in Interstellar, proved to be the most prolific actress. She also starred in A Most Violent Year, The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby, Miss Julie, and Salome. 

Shilene Woodley firmly entrenched herself as the zeitgeist queen with her various YA vehicles over the past couple years. This year brought forth two particularly noteworthy entries with variable results. The odorous Divergent series sprung forth, starring her amicable performance in a cookie cutter role. The well received adaptation of The Fault in Our Stars garnered a little more genuine praise. Her best received role was in the film White Bird in the Blizzard. All noteworthy but none too special.

Scarlett Johannsen dropped a quartet of films whose range goes unmatched. From swinging and flipping through an explosive blockbuster (Captain America: Winter Soldier) to being center face as the lead in the colorful actioner, Lucy. She went from the deepest depths of strange in the alien-indie Under the Skin, all the way to a sweet supporting job in Chef, Jon Favreau's darling little food truck film. Johannsen brought her stuff in 2014 and it took some serious destiny for her not to win.

Our champion is the holder of that destiny. She's wasn't as present as the others but her performances showcased the wide spectrum of her craft.

Coming from the world of franchises, after dabbling and succeeding quite a few times with heavier fare like Atonement, her 2014 roles were more dominating than she has ever been. As with the SQUID Actor of the Year, our recipient was unquestionably a force to be reckoned with on the silver screen.

Keira Knightley is crowned as 2014 SQUID Actress of the Year. With electric performances, requiring both acting and singing in Begin Again, and beyond-compelling work in the remarkable film, The Imitation Game, she puts forth a twosome that towers above every other actress' work this year. Her characters and her performances in those roles, defied convention spectacularly showing how female characters can be whole, can be an actual agents of change in their story. She added Laggies, a lackluster and contradictory film as far as women's progress goes, but one where she sported an amusing American accent. Knightley was tagged in with the botched attempt to revive a franchise with Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit. She has managed to build a formidable career after Pirates, one that soars to the top in 2014. Knightley begins 2015 in the adventure ensemble, Everest, where she'll look to carry the momentum of a victory she'll never hear of.  


SQUID Actress of the Year recipients:

2014 winner - Keira Knightley
The Imitation Game, Begin Again, 

2013 winner - Amy Adams
American Hustle, Man of Steel, Her

2012 winner -  Anne Hathaway and Jennifer Lawrence
Hathaway - Les Miserable and The Dark Night Rises
Lawrence - Silver Linings Playbook and The Hunger Games

2011 winner - Emily Blunt

Your Sister's Sister, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, The Adjustment Bureau, Gnomeo and Juliet, The Muppets

Friday, October 16, 2015

The Martian (2015) - A true sum of all its parts.


Directed by Ridley Scott (Kingdom of Heaven - Director's Cut)
Screenplay by Drew Goddard (Cabin in the Woods)
Based on the novel by Andy Weir 

Starring:
Matt Damon (The Departed)
Chiwetel Ejiofor (Serenity)
Jeff Daniels (Looper)
Jessica Chastain (Interstellar)
Sebastian Stan (Kings)
Kate Mara (We Are Marshall)
Michael Peña (Ant-Man) 
Askel Hennie (Headhunters)
Mackenzie Davis (Halt and Catch Fire)
Kristen Wiig (Bridesmaids)
Donald Glover (Community)
Benedict Wong (The I.T. Crowd)
Sean Bean (Lord of the Rings)

The Appeal  .

Ridley Scott is at the helm, Drew Goddard, fresh off of Netflix and Marvel's Daredevil (2014), is penning, and the cast is a swarm of A-list talent. I've not read the novel, and a plot centered around a stranded astronaut comes across as potentially clichéd and uninteresting. Add to that the red setting and how few filmmakers have been able to transcend the general blandness of the fourth planet from the sun and I'm left with a lukewarm intrigue towards the whole deal. These big names, however, had me at least curious. Can they all come together and fulfill their potential?

The Verdict  .

Absolutely. Set The Martian along side Sunshine (2006), Interstellar (2014), Moon (2009), and Serenity (2005) to join the upper echelon of modern space odysseys

A smooth mixture of Interstellar's scope and Gravity's (2013) realism without both films' tendencies to induce a bit of vertigo. The Martian is a film that yields a stirring and triumphant return to form for Ridley Scott. A film that captures the vastness of space as an instrument of our future rather than a gargantuan uncertainty. Stunning visuals are on display without a daunting hopelessness that usually accompanies disaster films. It's a pleasant change of pace. 

The science is exhilarating while also being relatable. There's a multi layered sense of humor, too. This survivalist adventure uses cinematic and dramatic limitations (censorship, time delay, gravity, trust) to great effect. With a depiction this sharp, you have to wonder what the point is of actually going to Mars if we can pretend this well that we already will have done it. (That last sentence works if you let it.)

The scenic details are a treat to behold as Mars is given center stage. The planet certainly needed as big a win as Scott did after the critical beatings they've both suffered (Scott more recently and Mars more consistently). This not only compensates for Ghosts of Mars (2001), Red Planet (2000), Mission to Mars (2000)Mars Needs Moms (2012) and John Carter [of Mars] (2012), but also, Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014), The Counselor (2013)and Prometheus (2o12)That's some heavy lifting for a single film.

Andy Weir's novel provides a strong narrative paired excellently with Goddard's resonant screenplay to give the actors and Scott every opportunity to soar. The shifting perspectives feel natural on camera and the performances are provided by a cast whose resumes are wonderfully eclectic. At the heart is Matt Damon's terrific performance as the ever-quotable, stranded, resilient botanist, Mark Watney.  

The supporting characters are thankfully diverse. We get to witness a decent melting pot with the power dynamics between genders, cultures, and ranked officials are never insulting. It's nice to know, too, that there was an effort to be more diverse. Ejiofor's character (Surname: Kapoor) was definitely supposed to be an Indian guy and only wasn't due to scheduling conflicts. 

There also isn't a role in the movie that induces a face palm. Each person makes believable, rational decisions with good intentions. There isn't a slimy publicist, there's a rational publicist. There's no callous boss, there's a decisive boss with hard choices to make. 

While that means that there's no true villain here (not even Mars), it also show's that there doesn't need to be one. Bonus points for not forcing a romance to take center stage while still having a gentle touch of love floating about. On the whole we are given a clichéd story that avoids clichés. 

Lightness aside, The Martian succeeds at being a survival tale that never feels predictable. The run time is two and a half hours but you'll be so enraptured by the film that you'll hardly notice. 

Spotlight: The highlight of the film was most certainly the moment when Project Elrond's significance is explained by an attendee of Elrond's Council. Glad whoever forced Scott to keep that in the film succeeded. Sean Bean's Mitch Henderson shines bright in the film as a guy who's clearly seen the middle seasons of every drama on the CW and knows the value of honesty. I'm sure Bean's character would have had a more gruesome fate were he at any point in space but, fortunately for him, he is safely on Earth the entire 
time. 

And now for the placement...

2015 Rankdown  .
2.     Mad Max: Fury Road***
4.    The Martian***
5.     Me and Earl and the Dying Girl*
6.     Ant-Man***
7.     Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation***
8.     Jurassic World***
9.     Avengers: Age of Ultron****
10.   Furious 7***
11.     Shaun the Sheep*
12.    Spy***
13.    Sicario*
14.    Inside Out**
15.    Predestination*
16.    Run All Night*
17.    Dope
18.    Straight Outta Compton
19.    Black Mass
20.   Terminator: Genisys*
21.    Paddington*
22.    What We Do In the Shadows
23.    The Water Diviner
24.    Ex Machina
25.    Jupiter Ascending
26.   Slow West
27.    Everest
28.    The Gift
29.   Fantastic Four
30.   Pixels*
31.    Inherent Vice
32.    Mortdecai

(*denoted rewatchability)