By Ray Bennett
Brad Pitt (above) is my choice as best actor with Casey Affleck as best supporting actor for “The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford.” Laura Linney is best actress for “The Savages” with Romola Garai best supporting actress for “Atonement.”
Pitt deservedly won the best actor award at the Venice International Film Festival with a scorching performance combining his extraordinary charisma and poise with a psychopath’s hair-trigger taste for violence. Following his selfless ensemble work in “Babel,” Pitt has moved up to the level of movie stars who can really act and much will be revealed in his next choices.
Casey Affleck (below) is mesmerizing as the young man Robert Ford, who is wholly in thrall to the bandit star. The film’s director, Andrew Dominik, frames scenes that allow Ford’s adoration and envy to become increasingly haunting. Affleck applies shrewd intelligence to prevent the character from turning into simply a weasel.
Laura Linney has been doing sterling work for years and she’s at her very best in Tamara Jenkins’ absorbing comedy drama “The Savages.” Linney combines with another outstanding actor, Philip Seymour Hoffman, to create indelible portraits of cultured siblings at a loss over dealing with their ailing father (Philip Bosco, also a fine performance).
Romola Garai has the toughest job in “Atonement” as an 18-year-old World War II nurse. She shows extraordinary poise in vital scenes, saying very little, as the director trusts her formidable expressive powers to convey meaning.
Best Actor in a Leading Role
Brad Pitt (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford)
Sergei Makovetsky (12)
Sasson Gabai (The Band’s Visit)
George Clooney (Michael Clayton)
Ivan Barnev (I Served the King of England)
Russian actor Makovetsky has the starry role in Nikita Mikhalkov’s brilliant trial drama “12” as the sole jury member to dissent from a rushed decision. He underplays to make the alcoholic idealist unforgettable among a dozen memorable performances. Sasson Gabai (left with Ronit Elkabetz) is superb as the strict Egyptian leader of a ceremonial police orchestra lost in Israel in “The Band’s Visit,” capturing the man’s grave dignity and the emotions churning inside. George Clooney’s performance as a jaded attorney who does the right thing in “Michael Clayton” is a master class in top-flight big-star movie acting. Using charm, artful phrasing, and silence, Clooney ranks with the best. Playing a slight but resourceful waiter in Jiri Menzel’s splendid Czech comedy “I Served the King of England,” Ivan Barnev has the physical grace of great comedians and expressive features that encourage sympathy despite some of the unsympathetic things he does.
Honorable mentions: Benicio del Toro (Things We Lost in the Fire), Christian Bale (Rescue Dawn), Philip Seymour Hoffman (The Savages), Mathieu Amalric (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly), Matt Damon (The Bourne Ultimatum), Jake Gyllenhaal (Zodiac), Christopher Plummer (Man in the Chair), Adam Goldberg (2 Days in Paris)
Best Actress in a Leading Role
Laura Linney (above with Philip Seymour Hoffman), The Savages
Anamaria Marinca (4 Months, 3 weeks and 2 Days)
Cate Blanchett (Elizabeth: The Golden Age)
Ronit Elkabetz (The Band’s Visit)
Kierston Wareing (It’s a Free World)
Anamaria Marinca, who won acclaim on the Channel Four miniseries “Sex Traffic,” shines in “4 Months, 3 weeks and 2 days,” a harrowing tale of abortion in totalitarian Romania. As a pregnant girl’s best friend, she is superb at displaying internal turmoil as she mirrors the horrors of the situation. Cate Blanchett is the best thing in “Elizabeth: The Golden Age,” using her extraordinary vocal agility to capture a ruler at the peak of her remarkable power. Ronit Eljabetz plays the sympathetic Israeli woman who helps out a troupe of lost Egyptian musicians in “The Band’s Visit,” and she gives her wisdom and grace with a sense of no little regret. Kierston Wareing is Ken Loach’s latest acting discovery and she gives a winning performance as a brash and misguided young woman caught up in the exploitation of immigrants in the U.K. in Loach’s “It’s a Free World.”
Honorable mentions: Marian Alvarez (The Best of Me / Lo mejor de mi), Ellen Page (Juno), Julie Christie (Away From Her), Galina Vishnevskaya (Alexandra), Marianne Faithfull (Irina Palm), Guylaine Tremblay (Summit Circle / Contre toute esperance), Julie Delpy (2 Days in Paris)
Best Actor in a Supporting Role
Casey Affleck (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford)
Steve Buscemi (Paris je t’aime)
Tom Wilkinson (Michael Clayton)
Philip Bosco (The Savages)
Sergei Garmash (12)
Honorable mentions: Saleh Bakri (The Band’s Visit), Javier Bardem (No Country For Old Men), Josh Brolin (No Country For Old Men), Steve Zahn (Rescue Dawn), Sam Rockwell (The Assassination of Jesse James), Oldrich Kaiser (I Served the King of England), Philip Seymour Hoffman (Charlie Wilson’s War), Vlad Ivanov (4 Months, 3 weeks and 2 days)
Best Actress in a Supporting Role
Romola Garai (above, Atonement)
Cate Blanchett (I’m Not There)
Marisa Tomei (Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead)
Noemie Kocher (1 Journee)
Laura Vasiliu (4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days)
Honorable mentions: Allison Janney (Juno), Tilda Swinton (Michael Clayton), Emmanuelle Seigner (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly), Juliet Ellis (It’s a Free World).
Oscar clues among the Golden Globes winners
By Ray Bennett
No acting prizes for “Atonement” (pictured) in the Golden Globes but its richly deserved win as best film drama makes an Oscar nomination appear certain although last year’s Globes winner, “Babel,” lost to “The Departed” at the Academy Awards.
Last year’s Globes winner for best comedy or musical, “Dreamgirls,” didn’t get a look in at the Oscars but this year’s victor, “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street,” probably will.
Julian Schnabel’s Globes win as best director for the excellent “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” (which also won the foreign-language film prize) throws both the helming and best picture categories wide open at the Oscars.
Last year, Martin Scorsese won both prizes but fewer Academy voters will have seen Schnabel’s picture and that lets in Tim Burton with “Sweeney,” the Coen Bros. and “No Country For Old Men” (especially given their Globes screenwriting prize), Joe Wright with “Atonement” and possibly Justin Reitman and “Juno.”
This year’s dramatic acting winners Julie Christie for “Away From Her,” and Daniel Day Lewis for “There Will Be Blood” not only look good for Oscar noms but also become favorites given that last year’s honorees, Helen Mirren in “The Queen” and Forrest Whitaker in “The Last King of Scotland” went on to Academy Awards glory.
The comedy and musical acting prizes didn’t fare so well last year although Meryl Streep was Oscar-nominated for “The Devil Wears Prada.” But Sacha Baron Cohen’s performance in “Borat” was ignored. This year’s Globes winners in that category may fair better: Johnny Depp in “Sweeney Todd” and Marion Cotillard in “La Vie En Rose” have each won critical plaudits for their performances.
The Globes last year honored Eddie Murphy and Jennifer Hudson in the supporting categories and Hudson claimed an Oscar while Murphy stomped unhappily away from the proceedings. This year’s Globes winners, Cate Blanchett for “I’m Not There” and Javier Bardem (below) for “No Country For Old Men” both become best bets for Academy Awards.
Best original score awards this year were always going to see a tussle between two terrific works, the typewriter flourish of Dario Marianelli’s “Atonement” and Alberto Iglesias’ soaring music for “The Kite Runner.” Britain’s Marianelli copped the Golden Globe but last year’s choice, Alexander Desplat’s “The Painted Veil” lost out to Gustavo Santaolalla’s “Babel” at the Oscars, so the Spaniard remains in the hunt.
In the foreign-language film category, the Globes last year chose Clint Eastwood’s splendid Japanese language “Letters From Iwo Jima” over the German Oscar-winner “The Lives of Others.” The Eastwood film was ineligible for the category at the Oscars but copped a straight best film nomination anyway.
This year’s Globes foreign-language winner, “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly,” is also ineligible in the category for the Academy Awards, and so is “La Vie en Rose,” which leaves the door open to the brilliant Cannes winner, “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days.” It would be great if Jiri Menzel’s enthralling “I Served the King of England” and Nikita Mikhalkov’s Russian epic “12” would also get a look in, but it won’t happen.