Actors who should have been nominated

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 19:03:00 +0000

Freelance critic and photographer N.P. Thompson blogs at Centuries Since the Day.

Given that our nation’s critics (almost all of whom are center-right) failed to champion Ang Lee’s "Taking Woodstock," Woody Allen’s "Whatever Works" and Terry Gilliam’s "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus," it is scarcely a wonder that the three most engaging films of '09 were Oscar shutouts (save for "Imaginarium's" nods in costume design and art direction). Demetri Martin, Larry David and Christopher Plummer all should be in the running for best actor, instead of the current crop of granite-faced milquetoasts thrust on parade. Among Allen’s flawless cast, Patricia Clarkson and Ed Begley Jr, note perfect as Christian conservatives, most assuredly were robbed of their deserved nominations in the supporting categories. And of the actual nominees, what is there to say?

Films of the decade: “The Ballad of Jack and Rose”

Wed, 30 Dec 2009 18:45:00 +0000

Several of the decade's most beguiling cinematic risk takers flew well under the radar. Joanna Hogg's "Unrelated," warmly received in its native Britain, has yet to cross the Atlantic, although the writer-director's perceptive gaze at a "mature" woman's summertime fancy toward a young hedonist has "art-house hit" stamped all over its passport. Other expectation-defying films were openly jeered (Spike Lee's""She Hate Me," Woody Allen's "Anything Else") or were held captive by archaic copyright laws (Nina Paley's "Sita Sings the Blues").

But of all the masterworks denied their rightful place in the noonday sun of mainstream recognition, the one dearest to me is Rebecca Miller's "Ballad of Jack and Rose." By turns a frenetic comedy, a sun-dappled meditation on nature worship, and a poignant study of how hippie idealism sputters in a materialist world, "Ballad," above all, centers on the intimacies that develop in father-daughter relations given the absence of a mother figure. Miller handles the incest theme with great delicacy, hiding neither behind manufactured sentiment nor falsely ironic hipster posturing.

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Actors who should have been nominated

Films of the decade: “The Ballad of Jack and Rose”