Best of 2012: Supporting Actress

I know, I'm terrible at keeping up with these, but this just hasn't been my week, okay? I'm back now, though, with the latest addition to my 2012 personal ballots. This time with the next acting category.

Best Supporting Actress

• Gina Gershon for Killer Joe - For absolutely giving herself over to the degrading and woozily foreboding mess that is Killer Joe with brittle, unflinching desperation.

• Louise Harris for The Snowtown Murders - For shading this devastated mother with gravel-coated bitterness and a sense of life-stricken weariness without wallowing in miserabilism.

• Nicole Kidman  for The Paperboy - Because she fearlessly tackles the film's disarmingly vulgar form of veracity and lustful tones with deliciously grimy, yet human detail.

• Diane Kruger for Farewell, My Queen - For exquisitely furnishing Marie Antoinette with delicate vulnerability, narcissism and heartbreaking flourishes of longing.

• Elena Lyadova for Elena - For breaking through her character's cracked shell with such rich, thematically perceptive wit, and shaping sharp, resentful and reluctant edges while doing so. 

Honorable Mentions: My sincerest apologies for not getting around to Middle of Nowhere beforehand, which Lorraine Toussaint is supposedly sublime in. I promise to rectify the situation as soon as it releases on DVD (seriously, DVD people, any day now).

Now that that's out of the way, both Macy Gray and Isabelle Huppert (two names you always knew you'd see mentioned together) both craft thematically vital and emotionally stingy miniature portraits in The Paperboy and Amour, respectively, and are my very honorable mentions.

Megalyn Echikunwoke broadcasts hilarious impatience and insightful navel-gazing, while nailing Damsels in Distress' very bleak comic tone; Olivia Munn gracefully ignites her character with a winning combination of personality, nuance, intelligence and sultriness in ways that may not have clicked as well with other actresses in Magic Mike; Emily Blunt continues to prove her unique simpatico relationship with her characters, showing layers of flaw and regret in Looper; I wish Kathryn Hahn had been able to earn the uncommon deftness of humor and character she possesses in Wanderlust with a little more to do, but she's a no-bullshit comic delight, regardless; Eva Green has the misfortune of being in a movie that doesn't entirely deserve her (though, I was more forgiving of this film than others), she's still so cheekily game, sexually vivacious and in tune of the tongue-in-cheek goofiness of Dark Shadows; Jennifer Ehle exudes personable fatigue in Zero Dark Thirty and brings out Chastain's best moments with gal pal jovialness; and Emma Watson channels her inner-Molly Ringwald in The Perks of Being a Wallflower coloring a surprisingly complex and warm spin on teenage angst.

I can't say I'd readily include Amy Adams  for The Master (who, becoming especially apparent on a second viewing, isn't given much of a character), Anne Hathaway for Les Miserables (who, to me, does the exact opposite of what Louise Harris does in Snowtown), Sally Field  for Lincoln (who I actually like as Mary Todd Lincoln, but wasn't quite Honorable Mention material), or Jacki Weaver for Silver Linings Playbook. Though, they all have their moments, if we're being generous to Jacki Weaver, an actress I love, but is offensively underutilized in her film. I really don't get what people saw in that performance. It's all especially befuddling when you consider how well David O. Russell has captured family discord in the past through his lively ensembles. Anyway, as for Helen Hunt, well, just wait until I announce my Lead Actress nominees. Since it's a LEAD performance.

I believe I've covered all of my bases. Can't promise this week will be as productive (tests and whatnot), but the benefit of being your own audience is that you don't have to worry about the impatience of your readership. Have a lovely rest of the weekend!

Best of 2012: Makeup and Visual Effects

Best Makeup & Hairstyling

• Goon - Because those fights are so effectively disgusting, and the aftermath never forgets to accentuate how much of a teddy bear Scott is as he displays those nasty injuries.

• Holy Motors - For ingenious singular creations and for evoking such alive, loose-screwed moods that are indelible in its ode to the craft.

• Lawless - For nailing and primly enveloping the ensemble in the film's authentic period-specific style.

• Looper - Because JGL as Bruce is just uncannily executed. Gordon-Levitt's prosthetics are never rendered acting-proof.

• This Must be the Place - For delivering wonderfully eccentric detail to the aging rocker and for allowing Sean to breathe livability and melancholy into the design. The novelty, surprisingly, never grows dormant.

Honorable Mentions: Despite how much I admire the films' individual achievements above (especially Holy Motors and Looper), I'd be lying if I said this category was laden with strong contenders to begin with. Anna Karenina, Bullhead and The Grey all beautifully utilize their makeup design to wonderful effect, and came very close to cracking the top five, but other than that, I struggled with coming up with a top 10. Had I decided to highlight five in the honorable mentions, the two films to round out the top 10 would've been Django Unchained and The Paperboy, both of which are mainly for two pairs of actors' makeup/hair work in each of their respective films (Waltz/DiCaprio and Kidman/Gray), though they tend to overdo it and underdo it at the same time in other areas. 

And no, I didn't forget The Hobbit, Lincoln or Les Miserables. I liked The Hobbit: The Pointlessly Meandering Journey okay, and still find Gandalf lovably designed, but the dwarves were kind of an eyesore. Lincoln, I will say, does tremendously nuanced work in turning Day-Lewis into the 16th president, but for every delicate detail of Lincoln's visage there are five as garishly designed as James Spader or Tommy Lee Jones' wigs. As for Les Miserables, I will always appreciate Hugh Jackman's malnourished, soul-deprived Jean Valjean at the film's opening, but the rest of the film is just riddled with statically dour and just plain befuddling choices. Zombie whores? Really?!

Best Visual Effects

• The Avengers - For diligent detail in its elaborate, atmospherically-aware setpieces. And for the best and least self-serious use of The Hulk out of all three film incarnations.

• Life of Pi - For utter loveliness in its epic, luminescent beauty. Refreshingly earnest in its sweeping use of scale.

• Looper - For minimalistic resourcefulness in its futuristic detail and the ingenuity of the film's time travel logic (the deteriorating Old Seth and Joe's self-inflicted secret messages).

• Skyfall - For both strainlessly serving its action sequences and playing into the film's stylized elegance with brilliant pizazz.

• Ted - For making Ted's facial expressions, beer-chugging and bong rips feel so palpable, and for perfectly incorporating him into his live-action environment.

Honorable Mentions: I actually didn't see that many VFX-driven films in 2012, which isn't usually a problem for me, despite how much of a film snob I'm perceived to be. So it should be noted that, despite seeing 129 films from 2012, I never got around to The Impossible, Prometheus or Snow White & The Huntsman.

Nevertheless, Chronicle, The Dark Knight Rises and Flight were the only other films I really considered before compiling the list.

Best of 2012: Cinematography & Film Editing

Welcome back to my belated celebration of the best of 2012! Sorry it's been a while, but sickness and last week of classes before Spring Break kept me busy. Nevertheless, I'm back with two of my favorite categories!

Best Cinematography

• Alps - For enveloping us in its world of nervy unsustainability with bizarre, absurdist textures; and for crafting an appropriately alien surface in which to project them.

• The Master - Because while at times they feel impenetrable, each image (beautifully shot in 65mm) bursts with dream-like beauty and captivating surfaces.

• Skyfall - For crackling use of light in its setpieces (and an apt sense of pure sensuality). Deakins might be showing off, but it's a wonder of gobsmackingly beautiful lensing.

• Tabu - Speaking of gobsmackingly beautiful, Tabu, a film that swells with unapologetic romanticism in its images, uses gorgeous B&W to capture fragmented memories of the past and foggy loneliness of the present. Deserves much more than one sentence can give it.

• The Turin Horse - For apocalyptic sorrow in its wonderfully dreadful atmosphere and engaging mundanity in its compositions. Unrelenting work.

Honorable Mentions: In a year as strong as this one for cinematography, it killed me to leave off Wuthering Heights' brutal elemental awareness, The Snowtown Murders' well-earned sordid imagery, Beasts of the Southern Wild's magical naturalistic detail, Moonrise Kingdom's warm storybook aesthetics and human detail, and Once Upon a Time in Anatolia's hemispherical richness and ingenious natural lighting.

Best Film Editing

• How to Survive a Plague - For masterful arrangement of archival footage and emotionally-stirring confessionals that vividly insert us in this important place in history and tells a wholly rousing story while doing so.

• Moonrise Kingdom - For what some might call fussy preciosity I find to be quaintly immersive and  pleasantly paced storytelling. The letter montage is an utter delight.

• The Snowtown Murders - For an impeccable vice-grip on its complex narrative structure, slow-burn tension and eerie economy in claustrophobic dread that slowly slithers its way under your skin. 

• Tabu - For the profound dead air of "Paradise Lost" and the nostalgic liveliness of "Paradise." "Paradise" especially evokes an exciting free-flow of sensations.

• Zero Dark Thirty - For juggling a vast conduit of details while remaining light on its feet and assembling such a tight, muscular final act.

Honorable Mentions: Magic Mike for an eclectic array of surprises in its genre-weaving (from Mike's final dance to Adam's awry night of drug experimentation); Alps for a constant unspooling of new perspectives and wavy formal flow; Amour for surgical precision in its long takes and clinical cuts; and Oslo, August 31st for a mesmerizing and hypnotic tracking of a day in the life of Anders.

Best of 2012: Supporting Actor

My second official post!

I figured since the Oscars have come and gone, and we're now looking forward to the 2013 film year, I thought it would be a good idea to finally begin my own year-end lists now that I've seen pretty much everything I wanted to see (with deepest apologies going to Middle of Nowhere, which played at the Belcourt at the worst possible time for me) in an attempt to both usher in the new year and to sort of informally introduce myself a little more. The lists in question are my personal perfect-world Oscar ballots, which will eventually lead up to my top 10 of 2012 (or my Best Picture nominees).

Best Supporting Actor

• Simon Russell Beale for The Deep Blue Sea - For imbuing such a contrived, and self-serious script with sobering regret, barely-contained composure, and a "guarded" sense of both care and disdain.

• Jason Clarke for Zero Dark Thirty - For resourcefulness and curiosity in this intentionally thinly-drawn character, Clarke bears the mental scars that come with his job beautifully with permeating physicality and masculinity in the film's only character arch.

• Stephen Cone for The Wise Kids - For treating his portrayal of Austin with the same sensitivy and communal grace in which he treats his script. Never finding the easy answers to this film's complex and tender-hearted questions, while brimming with sincere heartache.

• Matthew McConaughey for Magic Mike - For perfectly utilizing his star persona and typically energetic humor to explore Dallas' sketchy, yet irresistible charms. And for always surprising us by just how seamlessly he slides into Dallas' skin.

• Bruce Willis for Moonrise Kingdom - For effortlessly inserting himself (and all the things that make us love Bruce) into Anderson's deadpan comic energy and simmering gradations of sadness and heartbreak that complements all angles of this bittersweet love story.

Honorable Mentions: Noe Hernandez who emanates raw terror and frightening unpredicatability, serving as the protagonist's closest ally and most dangerous enemy in Miss Bala; Javier Bardem for delightfully unhinged grudge-holding and unabashed queer villainy as one of Bond's most exciting enemies in Skyfall; Aris Servetalis for dangerous, misplaced devotion to his own patriarchal social institution in Alps; Richard Green for having a similar devotion to his film's more dangerous group of "heroes," but in more disturbingly self-sabotaging ways in The Snowtown Murders; Tommy Lee Jones for providing Lincoln with it's most poignant moments of earnest outrage, rich (unhammy) humor, and generous characterizations; Ezra Miller for perfecting his all-too-comfortable state of playing smart-ass teens with 'tude, whilst injecting his character with unexpected warmth and the oft-forgotten art of showing true friendship in The Perks of Being a Wallflower; Jude Law who, perhaps, wishes for the uncommon depth that Simon Russell Beale has in a very similar role in The Deep Blue Sea (or at least wishes Wright would allow him to do exude such depth), but still glows with thick-bearded hurt in Anna Karenina; and Andrey Smirnov serves as a wonderful foil in Elena, while also never forgetting to show his frustration and understanding toward the titular character.