The Last, Second Last and Third Last King of Scotland

I noticed the DVD cover today for the newly released The Last King of Scotland (to the left there). Now, y'all know I truly hated that movie (I gave it a D or D+ - one of the two, I try not to think about it) because it was pretty much the most unpleasant cinema-going experience of 2006 (read more about my reaction here). But, back to the DVD. Look. I know Forrest Whitaker was the big selling point of the movie (Academy Award in tow), but was it really necessary to put him on the DVD cover three times?

One Forrest is enough, okay. Surely throwing James McAvoy on there and perhaps even Gillian Anderson (who had a small part, but was the best thing about it) couldn't have hurt? No. Instead we get Forrest Whitaker (who was good, I agree, but not that good. As the movie got progressively worse, he got progressively less interesting) three times with changing facial expressions (charming, stoic, angry). Just in case you forgot who it starred, I presume.

UMA 2006: The Worst

*This segment, the first, is now complete.*

**Please be aware that I have tested these entries using 1024x768 resolution on either Internet Explorer or Firefox. It looks fine from my computer. If the pictures and text aren't alligned (you'll know if they're not) or if they're scattered all over the place please let me know what browser/res you're using and I'll try to fix it.**


Unlike my Top 5 films of the year, there is no common theme that links the five worst movies of 2006. Other than they're all dreaful. They're all bad for different reasons. One makes absolutely zero sense no matter how you look at it (that would be The Lake House). Another was just a mess that clearly suffered from the makers not knowing how to even make a film (thank you Freedomland). The third worst is bad simply because the lead performance is so bad that it drags the rest of the already-poorly made film down with it (take a bow Colour Me Kubrick). The two worst movies of the year truly did reach the lowest of all the lows. In the end I gave them both F grades because they failed on every single level.

American Dreamz fails for, among other things, not even knowing it's own concept. If you're going to do a satire on both television music reality programs and politics, it's probably a good place to start by actually watching a few episodes of American Idol and, hell, even an episode or two of The West Wing. Get a mild understanding of what you're doing. Paul Weitz has even gone on the record to say he had never watched Idol before writing Dreamz so it makes sense that for some reason he thinks the entire globe is interested in AMERICAN music contests and that the season finale of the biggest-rating show on the planet would, somehow, go to air with only one ad break. Plus, ya know, the rest of the film is a hunk of junk, but it's all just so uninformed.

The worst however was Footy Legends. I find it fitting that in a year where I am going to crown and Australian movie as the very best of the year, that the very worst should also be Australian. Using every single possible cliché you can think of for the inspirational sports drama sub-genre, Footy Legends then adds a few more just for old times sake. I almost want people to see it just so they can spot them. It's a terrible movie and rightfully earns my title as the worst film of 2006.


Outside of those five titles however, there were plenty of other stinkers. How about the nigh-unwatchable Jackass Number Two? Or the insulting Another Gay Movie? I was bored silly throughout Basic Instinct 2, so much so that when it came to the Worst Actor and Worst Supporting Actor categories I decided to not include any of the men because I don't remember a single one of them. Aussie Project Greenlight winner Solo was another cliché-fest, as was The Last King of Scotland and Just My Luck. V For Vendetta and Hostel are adored by many, but not my me. They're unfocused and messy. And Trust the Man was a sexist load of garbage. The less said about others titles such as The DaVinci Code, Idlewild and Aussie documentary Raul the Terrible the better.

And the dishonours go to...

WORST PICTURE



American Dreamz








Colour Me Kubrick








Footy Legends








Freedomland








The Lake House






GOLD
Footy Legends
SILVER
American Dreamz
BRONZE
Colour Me Kubrick


WORST DIRECTOR

Khoa Do
Footy Legends
On the side of nausea-enducing sentimentality and cliche-ridden monotony, Do shows absolutely zero skill in directing actors, action or anything resembling a movie in general.



Kevin Macdonald
The Last King of Scotland
Turns are thoroughly interesting story into a crass and needlessly hysteric Hollywood-ised thriller. Some were taken in, I most certainly was not.


James McTiegue
V For Vendetta
Showing no skill in directing, he mishandles the action scenes (slow motion when it shouldn't be, hyperactive cutting when we want to see more), mishandles dialogue scenes (lengthy closeups of an inatimate mask) and heavyhands the "message".



Joe Roth
Freedomland
Roth creates a jumbled mess that closely resembles the riots in the film. Actors on various levels of ACTING and poorly handled plot twists with the hysterics up to 11.



Paul Weitz
American Dreamz
Insulting every single audience member with his non-knowledge of the subject he is sending up, Weitz loses tonnes of credibility in this very unfunny satire.


Dishonourable Mentions: Alejandro Agresti can't save The Lake House, Brian Cook can't liven up the proceedings of Colour Me Kubrick, Michael Caton-Jones probably gave up after one day on Basic Instinct 2, Eli Roth misses the point on Hostel and Ron Howard must've been transfixed by Tom Hanks' hair instead of directing The DaVinci Code.

GOLD
Paul Weitz for American Dreamz
SILVER
Khoa Do for Footy Legends
BRONZE
Kevin Macdonald for The Last King of Scotland


WORST ACTOR

André Benjamin
Idlewild
He may have presence in his music, but considering he barely sings any decent songs in Idlewild Benjamin doesn't pass the "leading man" test.



Anh Do
Footy Legends
Do is straining incredibly hard to reach the simplist of emotions. Oh! He's squishing his face up. He must be angry... or sad... or confused...



Hugh Grant
American Dreamz
I know he's playing someone smarmy and sleazy, but my god he is sleepwalking and doing a terrible job at it.




Tom Hanks
The DaVinci Code
One word that I keep coming back to is "ridiculous" and that's exactly what this is. And, yes, the hair is terrible. Surely a new low for Hanks.



John Malkovich
Colour Me Kubrick
An incredibly embarassing performance by Malkovich. He spends the entire movie doing a bad sendup of some tragic camp queen with the limp wrist and the boa and it's just all too much. Turn it down.

Dishonourable Mentions: I wrote in my notes that David Morrissey was bad in Basic Instinct 2, but I honestly can't for the life of me remember a single second of him or even what he looks like. Keanu Reeves gives a typically dumb performance in The Lake House while Samuel L Jackson huffs and puffs in Freedomland.

GOLD
John Malkovich for Colour Me Kubrick
SILVER
Anh Do for Footy Legends
BRONZE
André Benjamin for Idlewild

WORST ACTRESS

Kate Bosworth
Superman Returns
Completely unbelievable, completely wrong for the part and completely flat in all her deliveries. Did they not want to cast someone who had more personality than Brandon Routh (Superman himself)?


Marcia Gay Harden
American Gun
A terribly fussy reworking of her amazing Mystic River performance. Yakking away incessantly and doing her now well-worn depressed mopey face.



Julianne Moore
Freedomland
Much like Malkovich in the Actor category, this is purely embarassing career-nadir work by Juli Moore. I was rendered speechless for a while by how awful it was. I'm, obviously, not so speechless anymore. It's terrible.


Sharon Stone
Basic Instinct 2
It's as if everyone knew they were making a dog of a movie yet went on with it anyway. Sharon looks bored and tired and tries to get as much miliage out of the silly dialogue as possible - "I may never come again!"

There were only four performances bad enough! I didn't see Miss Potter, Super Ex-Girlfriend or other obvious choises. And I'm giving Lindsay a free pass. Yes. And I don't care what you say. It really was a great year for women though. I was even tempted to not put Stone on there.

GOLD
Julianne Moore for Freedomland
SILVER
Marcia Gay Harden for American Gun
BRONZE
Kate Bosworth for Superman Returns


WORST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Paul Bettany
The DaVinci Code
I'm not really sure what exactly it was that Bettany was doing, but it wasn't good. Like some psycho-warped Villain 101 or something. But he's failing.



Billy Crudup
Trust the Man
He's stuck with the movie's worst character, and his dialogue is terrible, but Crudup doesn't try to make his character even into a "lovable larrikin" kind. He just makes him a pig.


Linal Haft
Solo
Talk about A-C-T-I-N-G. Haft breaks into so many sweats in Solo purely from yelling and screaming so much. I was just wanted him to shut up!



Terrence Howard
Idlewild
Could Howard at lead have tried to act? Please. It's not that much to ask. Because all we're left with is a very bored man doing a lame evil schtick.



Kiefer Sutherland
River Queen
Oh god. It doesn't help that Sutherland's accept is so thick I could barely understand a word out of his mouth, but he also screams a lot and in general just acts like a deranged lunatic. Not the good kind, either.
Dishonourable Mentions: Both David Thewlis and Heathcote Williams were, my notes tell me, dreadful in Basic Instinct 2, but WHY?! I can't remember a single second of them. The Entire Male Cast of Footy Legends (mostly people who's names I don't know/care about plus Angus Sampson) infuriated me to no end. Owen Wilson just screamed a lot in Night at the Museum, while Ricky Gervaise was improvising badly (from the looks of it) in the same flick. Jonah Blechman was acting to the back row in Another Gay Movie.

GOLD
Linal Haft for Solo (he sent me hate mail!)
SILVER
Kiefer Sutherland for River Queen
BRONZE
Terrence Howard for Idlewild

WORST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Marcia Gay Harden
American Dreamz
Needless to day, Harden had a rough year, especially in movies with "American" in the title. So one-note it hurts, Harden's First Lady character is annoying in every aspect.



Sarah Polley
Don't Come Knocking
It's a good thing her directing career is going gang-busters because after several performances threatening it, she has finally performed what I thought impossible - She has done a performance entirely in a coma!! Way to go!!

Missi Pyle
Just My Luck
Something about this performance irritated me because I wrote her name down but so many things in that movie were so insta-forgettable that she's here due to lack of options.

Charlotte Rampling
Basic Instict 2
This ridiculous french lesbian role is such a throwaway that nobody could have made it work, not even the usually-ravishing Rampling.



Tracie Thoms
The Devil Wears Prada
Yes, she has the worst character in the movie, but she doesn't really try very hard to make her anything more than a stock one-dimensional friend role. Being the sassy one isn't character.

Dishonourable Mentions: I considered putting Claudia Karvan in here for Footy Legends, but it's not her fault really. I also considered Gong Li for Miami Vice purely because I wish if she intends to really try and start making more films in English then she oughta get a better dialect coach. I didn't think she was that bad, but almost nobody else I know could understand her. Poor girl.

GOLD
Marcia Gay Harden for American Dreamz
SILVER
Sarah Polley for Don't Come Knocking
BRONZE
Charlotte Rampling for Basic Instict 2

WORST PERFORMANCE BY AN INANIMATE OBJECT

The Fake Baby Doll
L'Enfant
If that thing was meant to look real then they did a piss-poor job of it. That thing didn't look real for a second.



WORST CINEMA TREND

I gotta tell ya, I am sick of all these multi-narrative films that don't finish what they started. This year alone we had Aussie suicide drama 2:37, the internation Babel, the seemingly-made-for-tv American Gun and the book adaptation Fast Food Nation. They all had interesting parts, but they also all had uninteresting parts. Oh, if only I were an editor. I would snip out the "uneven steven" storyline of 2:37 and expand on the Teresa Palmer storyline. Babel may've been great if it were all about Rinko's storyline. American Gun should have just followed one or two of it's four storylines and Fast Food Nation could have easily just been one film focused on illegal immigrants (the most interesting storyline). Each movie had tangents and characters that didn't help the movie to be anything other than longer. And all of them had unfinished business. All four pictures essentially dumped the third acts for most of the story strands. What happened to Brad and Cate when they got home? What happened to Teresa Palmer after that day at school? Where did Greg Kinnear go halfway through the film? How did the kids get on in American Gun. I wanted to know, but these directors didn't want to tell me. They wanted me to see the suffering and the immediate after effects but nothing else. Come on people. Lift your game!

UMA 2006 Profile: Best Actor

It's getting to the point of the year where I just want to get my yearly awards, The UMAs, over and done with. I figure, there comes a point where I just can't keep waiting to see a movie like Half Nelson (not yet released) or where I just can't be bothered to see virtual non-starters such as Venus until DVD many months away (Best Actor being the only category it would seem to have any play in). I don't ever intend to see Blood Diamond - if I didn't see it before the Oscar telecast, I sure as hell am not going to put myself through it now. The only other conceivable player that I can think of is Ken Watanabe (Letters from Iwo Jima) who I will hopefully get to see before I do my awards.

For now though I thought I'd just go through the candidates. Who's in play for me and who is not. I haven't decided upon a winner yet, but it's a race between several men who give the best work of their careers. To be honest though, a lot of the men in this race gave their best work this year.

Gabriel Byrne in Jindabyne
Byrne is an actor I have never cared for. Not in a Coen Bros. film (Miller's Crossing), not in ridiculous horror movies (Stigmata), and definitely not in that awful sitcom he had (I don't even care about what that hunk of junk was called), so it came as a big fat complete surprise to discover how excellent he was in Jindabyne. I know I shouldn't have been surprised, considering he was being directed by Master Ray Lawrence. Never underestimate the power of Ray Lawrence.

Sasha Baron Cohen in Borat! Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
Some may say it's not so much of a performance, but more of a piece of performance art (I've seen very similar things performed in Federation Square on a Sunday arvo), but name me one of those performance artists (talented or not) who managed to get this much out of people. The mark of a great performance lies in an actor's believability, so say people. And, well, the proof of that is in the film. If there was a more believable performance to the people involved (while, admittedly, being unbelievable at the same time, if that makes sense) this year then I must have missed it.

Daniel Craig in Casino Royale
The most sexually masculine performance of the year, that's for sure. But, you know what? There's more to Craig's performance than just sex appeal. Don't get me wrong, it's not up to the dramatic front that several other contenders reached (that's more due to genre limits than because of Craig himself), but what he puts out is so rich and layered that it seems rude to just dismiss it as either a plain ol' action movie performance or, even worse, a James Bond performance.

Leonardo DiCaprio in The Departed
I've always liked DiCaprio. From his first great performance (that would be his Oscar-nominated turn in What's Eating Gilbert Grape) I was sad to watch him flounder in the late 1990s after Titanic, but watching his reassurgance has been a delight. I didn't too much care for Gangs of New York, but DiCaprio's two subsequence Scorsese features have presented us with riches far beyond his promises back in the early 1990s. Oozing masculinity like nobody could have forseen, DiCaprio takes the role of a the cop in deep you-know-what and makes it edgy and exciting.

Aaron Eckhart in Thank You for Smoking
Yes, he's a sleazebag, but a sexy forget-the-buttons-i'll-just-rip-you-shirt-off sleazebag. That I was utterly under Eckhart's spell is a testaent to Eckhart himself and not, I presume, writer/director Jason Reitman. The highest compliment I can pay him is that I'd probably become an even bigger smoker* if I had Eckhart giving me lectures all day about how they're not as bad as the "good guys" say, despite the fact that I know full well how bad they really are.

* Don't look at me like that! I haven't touched the filthy things in over two month, I swear!

Hugh Jackman in The Fountain
My beloved reaches (unexpected, to some) untapped depth and wealth of character in Darren Aronofsky's The Fountain. Jackman is asked to make three seperate characters believable, compelling and emotionally attached. Others have done that, but how many can claim to have done it with three characters stretched over 1000 years? Taking the basic elements of a conquistador, a brain surgeon and a Buddhist space traveller, Jackman tunes into each one with the precission of said surgeon with a scalpal. He knows where to go and does it with a steady hand. The final product is simply amazing. Jackman also gets bonus points for being sublimely smooth in The Prestige.

Shane Jacobson in Kenny
The character of Kenny is one of those that has now instantly gone into the lore of Australian film. The reasons are quite simple. He's a lovable hard-working Aussie battler (the type that we love, apparently, oh so much). But the reason I liked him and the movie itself, was because Jacobson (with the help of co-writer and director, Clayton Jacobson) filled the character of Kenny with just enough good and bad to make him believable and endearing. Kenny is a man just going through life, dealing with things as they come. From the way he tries to charm a lady to the way he unclogs a terribly unappealing portaloo, he's truthful and funny in the best possible way.

Jude Law in Breaking and Entering
Law's character doesn't have any of the factors that helped make many of the other performances this year special. He's not playing a famous person, he doesn't yell alot, he isn't a sci-fi parable, or a sexy charmer. No, he plays an ordinary simple man. His problems seem so small and minute compared to the issues at play in the other films. But why should that be held against him? Law puts in his best-ever work as a man going through a sort-of midlife crisis because (I guess) he's bored and a midlife crisis feels like a good way to go. He is the real threat to take the crown from the more obvious/flashy/popular choices.

Heath Ledger in Candy
After giving the best male performance of the decade so far (in the UMA winning Brokeback Mountain, duh), Ledger continues his fine form playing a drug addict. The film wasn't the greatest, but what Ledger (and co-star Abbie Cornish) brought to the table was the irresistable rock-star meets down-and-out loser look that you associate with these characters. Sure, he's too pretty to be a drug addict (as is Cornish), but you can believe that he thinks he's the greatest (well, until it all turns to the crapper).

Clive Owen in Children of Men
This is a hard one to discuss. It's one of those performances that works in the grand scheme of the movie, yet is hard to define outside of those surroundings. There's nothing that screams with a big neon signs LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME!, yet when I think back over it, I can't put a finger to anything that was done wrong. I'm almost keen to say these are the best sort of performances (it works on the same lines as Jude Law's actually) because it's as good as the film that encompasses it and it never tries to be better because the actor knows it doesn't have to be. Am I making sense?

Forest Whitaker in The Last King of Scotland
In any other movie Whitaker would be right up there with a chance, but considering I thought The Last King of Scotland was a retched horrible disaster of a manipulation movie, Whitaker is probably going to be an unfortunate casualty. Whitaker was good, but my affection for it is constantly brought back down by my disgust and contempt for the movie. He'd be riveting if everything else around him wasn't being engulfed by the vile flames of hell sprouting up around him.

Patrick Wilson in Little Children and Hard Candy
Two performances with many similarities (men with hidden secrets), yet both equally amazing. You can, scarily I might add, believe how an underage girl could fall for his charms in the revenge fantasy Hard Candy while also believing, not as scarily thankfully, why he would be the drooling fantasy loverboy of suburbia in Little Children. And on neither occasion does Wilson let his leading ladies (Kate Winslet and Ellen Paige respectively) get away with all the best work. He's more than willing to steal some limelight for himself.

--

Over the next couple of weeks I'll be doing some more of these. Culminating in the 2006 UMA Awards. But, who knows, when I will actually get around to them. There are certain movies that I feel I must see beforehand and, well, y'all know how those things are.