Mary's Award Nonimations for 2010

**Winners have a double asterisk

Best Actor

**Christian Bale - The Fighter
George Clooney - The American
Colin Firth - The King's Speech
Leo DiCaprio- Inception
Robert Duvall - Get Low
Ewan McGregor - Ghost Writer
Kodi Smit-McPhee - Let Me In
James Franco - 127 Hours

Best Supporting Actor

**Ewan McGregor - I Love You, Philip Morris
Sam Rockwell - Conviction
Jeremy Renner - The Town
Lucas Black - Get Low
Giovanni Ribisi - Middle Men

Best Actress

**Annette Bening - The Kids Are All Right
Natalie Portman - Black Swan
Jennifer Lawrence - Winter's Bone
Helen Mirren - The Last Station
Tilda Swinton - I Am Love
Carey Mulligan - Never Let Me Go
Hailee Steinfeld - True Grit

Best Supporting Actress

**Barbara Hershey - Black Swan
Mia Wasikowska - The Kids Are All Right
Mia Wasikowska - I Am Love
Rebecca Hall - The Town
Amy Adams - Fighter

Melissa Leo - The Fighter

**Actually, the entire cast of Winter’s Bone should be nominated.

Best Movie

**True Grit
I Love you, Philip Morris
The Town
Inception
The Kids Are All Right

Great Acting in these flicks, but "Best Movie"? I don't think so:

Black Swan - Too Weird
Winter's Bone - Too Depressing
I Am Love - Didn't get Tilda's attraction to her lover
127 Hours - Not much story, too much with the regrets
King's Speech - Too slow
The Fighter - I hated all the characters

Best Foreign Film

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Män som hatar kvinnor)
**The Girl Who Played With Fire
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest
The Secret in Their Eyes* - Actually this already won Best Foreign Film last year!

Best Documentary:

**Oceans
Babies
Waiting for Superman
Inside Job
NOTE: I never saw Exit Through the Gift Shop, but that will probably win

How Do You Know

Chick Flick, Comedy
3 stars
Cute movie, better than I expected. Reese Witherspoon and Paul Rudd star as two people who meet on a blind date on the worst day of their lives. Another wrinkle is Witherspoon is already dating Owen Wilson. Jack Nicholson co-stars as Rudd’s father. My complaints are that the film did not really tell you what the characters occupations were. At least I knew from the previews that Wilson was one of the Washington Nationals baseball players, but they don’t tell you this until halfway through the film. Witherspoon plays women’s softball? Baseball? But she gets cut from the team at the beginning of the movie, and now she is out of work. I wasn’t aware there was a professional women’s ball club? Rudd works for some sort of financial company, but even that is left very vague. It’s a cute romance, and since most Chick Flicks suck anyway, this one is better than most this year, since thank God there are no silly pratfalls. Cute Romance.

I Love You, Philip Morris

Indie, Comedy
4.5 stars
Loved it! It’s probably best not to know anything about the movie going in, so I’ll save the “what’s it about” for the end here, but I’ll tell you it’s not for homophobes. Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor star in this very quirky, funny and original film. This is probably the first time I’ve seen Ewan McGregor become so immersed in his character, that I forgot who I was watching – i.e. excellent acting on his part, and Carrey was really good here too (not the crazy, out of control Carrey we are used to). Really good, mostly light and quirky, but it did make me cry once or twice, only to make me laugh again a few minutes later. Don’t read any further if you don’t want to know what it’s about. Carrey stars as a suppressed homosexual who finally comes out of the closet only to learn “it’s really expensive being gay”, so he turns to cons to make enough cash to support his new flashy lifestyle. McGregor co-stars as the love of Carrey’s life, and as I said earlier, I thought he was fantastic. Very good movie.

True Grit

Drama, Dry Comedy
5 stars
Excellent movie, and I don’t even like Westerns! The real star is Hailee Steinfeld as a brainy 14 year old girl who hires a mean and nasty U.S. Marshal (Jeff Bridges) to hunt down and capture the man who killed her father (Josh Brolin in a too-short role as the bad guy). Along for the ride is Matt Damon as a Texas Ranger who also wants to capture Brolin. Thanks to the talented Coen Brothers’ screenplay and direction, the plain-spoken dialogue and wry humor are just right mix for a gritty, but amusing tale. I never saw the original John Wayne version, but Jim, who is a big John Wayne fan, liked the new version better. Excellent acting, excellent film, just go see it.

Little Fockers

Comedy
2.5 stars
Only for Focker fans. Ben Stiller and Robert De Niro star as in-laws at odds again. Expect much the same humor as in the two previous films, no better, no worse. Too bad Barbara Streisand’s role was so small because she was the best part of movie. This time Jessica Alba co-stars as a pharmaceutical rep who tries to seduce Stiller. While I appreciate the writers trying to come up with a new storyline, it seemed like her role dragged down the story. As usual, Dustin Hoffman and Owen Wilson co-star, but Babs was the best. Don’t even rent it; wait for cable.

Gulliver’s Travels

Comedy
3 stars
Cute, passable comedy starring Jack Black as a mailroom clerk who finds himself on a trip to the Bermuda Triangle only to wake up tied down by hundreds of tiny people. Emily Blunt plays a tiny princess and Amanda Peet plays Black’s love interest. I enjoyed the special effects, but I wouldn’t bring young ones unless you want them repeating “lame ass”. It’s a cute take on the classic tale, but not the best effort.

The King’s Speech

Indie, Period
4 stars
Slow, but good. Based on a true story, Colin Firth stars as a stammering king-to-be George VI, who seeks assistance from an unconventional speech therapist, Geoffrey Rush. Costars include Helena Bonham Carter, Guy Peirce and Michael Gambon. There are some amusing scenes, mostly when Rush’s colorful character emerges on screen and especially when Firth goes on a swearing rant. Firth was excellent as the royal stutterer but my money is still on Christian Bale as Best Actor. Good movie.

The Fighter

Drama, True Story
4 stars
Not fun to watch, but outstanding acting performances. Christian Bale and Mark Wahlberg star as “Dicky and Micky” (I kid you not!), two very different but very loyal brothers in the boxing world. Wahlberg stars a boxer trying to get ahead, but his loser family holds him back. Bale plays the ne’er-do-well, crack addicted, has-been, older brother. Melissa Leo and Amy Adams provide memorable performances as the crazy Mom and foul mouthed girlfriend, respectively. For the first half of the film I realized my face was twisted in a sneer at what complete ignorant losers the large family was and frustrated at how they were dragging down Wahlberg. As far as movie-enjoyableness goes, I’d rather watch Rocky again, because that’s a much more inspirational story. But, I need not see anymore films this year to know that I just saw the Academy Award winner for Best Actor in Christian Bale. I’m not just saying “nominee”, I am saying “winner”! Not many actors so completely lose themselves into character with such intensity as he. Let me be clear, I positively hated his loser character, but his transformation was incredible. Oh yeah, kudos on all the Boston accents – and that’s a rare compliment! Excellent acting, but not my kind of movie.

Inside Job

Documentary, Economy
4.5 stars
Very interesting and informative documentary describing the downfall of our economy thanks to deregulation, greedy Wall Street CEO’s and bankers, including interviews with politicians and others in-the-know. We all know the story, but this movie fills in all the details and mostly wants to promote public outrage at the fact that none of the guilty parties were punished and things still seem to be status-quo. There’s some unsavory details about our (most likely) future Chicago mayor, Rahm Emanuel as well as Alan Greenspan and more. Narrated by Matt Damon. Very interesting, very well done, and definitely not boring.

Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

Fantasy
4 stars
Enjoyable, but Jim and I agreed it’s not as good a story as the two previous Narnia movies. This time, the two youngest kids, plus a rotten little cousin, get called to Narnia to help King Caspian locate seven lords and their seven magical swords which are needed to prevent some evil darkness from spreading throughout the world. I’m a bit hazy on the details of the dark island and the weird green mist, but to stop it, they need the seven swords. This film just didn’t seem all that exciting, save for a huge sea serpent and we liked the one-legged guys. I don’t recall any exciting battles or anything noteworthy, just an annoying little cousin who should have been tied up and left in the hull of the ship! But the visual effects were stunning as usual, the acting was decent, and there’s a nice little moral of the story for young ones. (BTW, that annoying little cousin, Will Poulter, costarred in Son of Rambow which is a really cute Brit flick you should add to your Netflix queue). Good movie, just not as great as the two previous films.

The Tourist

Intrigue
4 stars
Fun movie with Angelina Jolie playing the beautiful girlfriend of a highly wanted man who uses Johnny Depp to throw off the people following her. It’s glamorous, dangerous, exciting and takes place in one of the most beautiful places in the world, Venice. What’s not to like? OK, maybe it’s not the most original story, but it’s enjoyable all the same. My 2 cents: if they ever make a movie about Brigitte Bardot, Angelina would be the perfect choice. Paul Bettany, Timothy Dalton, Rufus Sewell and Steven Berkoff (Octopusssy) co-star as the assorted bunch of folks following Jolie and Depp. Good fun.

Black Swan

Indie, Dark
4.5 stars
Very dark and creepy – and who cuts their nails with scissors?!? Natalie Portman stars as a mentally unbalanced ballerina who has scary hallucinations so you don’t know what’s real and what isn’t, mostly. Barbara Hershey is perfectly creepy with her unnatural nurturing of Portman and effectively gave me the heebie-jeebies every time she was on the screen. Mila Kunis was great at easing the almost constant tension while Portman saw her as competition for her role in Swan Lake. Vincent Cassel and Winona Ryder also deliver memorable performances. Unfortunately, this was filmed partly with a shaky hand-held camera and the picture is irritatingly fuzzy throughout. Excellent award-worthy performances by all, though really, really creepy.

The Next Three Days

Drama, Action
3.5 stars
Exciting jailbreak drama, though the previews and the title lead you to expect a different movie. Russell Crowe and Elizabeth Banks star. If you’re a Liam Neeson fan, you’ll be disappointed that his role is limited to the one scene you see in the previews. Banks is arrested right near the beginning for a murder that the audience doesn’t get to see until near the end (so irritating!), aside from a few bits of flashbacks. Crowe spends most of the movie planning her escape in “the last three years” and “the last three days” (yes, that's how they segment the story) and “the next three days” are the very end of the film. So if you’re going in expecting to see the “next three days” following a prison break with lots of action and chase scenes, this isn’t the film, unless you wait until the last 20 minutes or so of the movie. So thanks to the previews and the terrible film title you already know Banks gets sprung from jail; but the bulk of the movie is spent planning those three days. Decent film, just badly titled and badly marketed.

Love and Other Drugs

Dry Comedy, Romance
3.5 stars
Not so much. Anne Hathaway stars as an off-putting, rhymes-with-“witch” who is suffering from the early stages of Parkinson’s disease. Jake Gyllenhaal costars as a charming, lovable, womanizer who can’t resist her (love him!). While it’s obvious Hathaway’s character is pushing people away as a defense mechanism, she is just so completely unlikable it’s almost impossible to feel sorry for her. Initially, Jake’s just in it for the sex, but you know what happens. The acting was very good, but like I said, Hathaway’s character is such a smug know-it-all, all I could hope for was for Jake to dump her! Also, I don’t have a problem with nudity for the occasional love scene or doctor’s visit, but I got real sick of her boobs popping up in almost every scene. This is a romance, but I won’t put it in the “chick flick” category as I think it’s more of a man’s film with Anne’s boobs and Jake’s womanizing ways. Oliver Platt and Hank Azaria co-star as comic relief. There is a very moving scene, where we begin to like Anne’s character, which includes other people suffering from the terrible disease. The movie is good in every other aspect except for the very unlikeable lead character (though she grows on you in the end).

Unstoppable

Action
4 stars
Very exciting, much better than I expected. Chris Pine and Denzel Washington star as train operators who try to stop a runaway train before it derails and costs lives. Based on a true story, but I believe Hollywood took a few liberties with it. At first I was resistant to seeing this, because if I recall correctly, Denzel was also aboard a runaway train in the Taking of Pelham 1 2 3. But I’m glad I went because this really was an edge of your seat thrill ride, and you could feel the danger at every turn. Rosario Dawson co-stars as well as Kevin Corrigan as an inspector. Fun thrill ride.