The Sixth Sense. She creates fully realized characters that feel like real people and, even if I’m appalled by what she is doing, I understand why she’s doing it and she has my pity and/or sympathy. Ari Aster’s Hereditary is one helluva movie and a brutal experience and it’s anchored by a phenomenal Toni Collette performance.
A Simple Favor. The movie is a mixed bag (Paul Feig bothers me), but I was really impressed with the command and charisma of Blake Lively in that movie. She’s playing a woman people are intimidated/fascinated by and I think that’s challenging for an actor. They must prove worthy of those feelings in every scene and I think Lively does that. She’s so good at playing that kind of person who draws out your dirty laundry because you think it will impress their “bad boy/girl” way of life. It’s the person you are in a relationship/friends with where you forgive all the horrible things they do because they’re cool and they make you feel important by being in their orbit. I’ve liked Blake Lively before in movies like The Town and The Shallows, but this was something new for me. Maybe she was just like this on Gossip Girl and I just never knew, but regardless she’s such a movie star in A Simple Favor and you know how much I love good movie stars. Despite how I feel about A Simple Favor overall (Paul Feig bothers me), every scene Blake Lively is in is elevated by her performance. Did you know Rob likes Anna Kendrick?
Patrick: This Rob/Anna Kendrick stuff is news to me. Were there telltale signs I missed? I haven’t seen A Simple Favor. It seems super Redbox to me, so that’s how I’m going to enjoy it.
Patrick: This Rob/Anna Kendrick stuff is news to me. Were there telltale signs I missed? I haven’t seen A Simple Favor. It seems super Redbox to me, so that’s how I’m going to enjoy it.
Destination Wedding. As a fan and ardent defender of Keanu Reeves since the late 1980s, it has been rewarding to see the tide of public opinion turn to the point that everyone now (rightfully) loves him and doesn’t have to get in some stupid “Whoa” dig every time his name comes up. While he has proven his action bona fides over the last 20+ years, Keanu’s name is not often associated with romantic comedy, making his casting opposite Winona Ryder in this year’s Destination Wedding an appealing stunt that’s also a giant risk. The movie’s dialogue and structure are stylized in such a way that Keanu makes a very specific choice about how to approach his performance, and it’s one that I could see rubbing some people the wrong way or dismissing as being “bad,” but I cannot agree. What he does is so interesting and funny and unlike anything I’ve seen in another romantic comedy that I found myself in a state of heightened awareness for the entire film, wondering if the high wire act would make it to the end or result in disaster. I like how Keanu trusts enough in his chemistry with Winona Ryder being a given that he’s willing to take a chance and do something unexpected with the part.
Deadpool 2, a performance I remember very fondly in a movie I’m unlikely to revisit. Not since Thor: Ragnarok has an actress of color completely walked away with a big, colorful, expensive superhero movie simply by being cooler than everyone else on screen. There’s no reason Beetz’ character should work -- Domino’s big power is that she’s lucky, of which the movie makes a running joke -- but she sells it by just letting everything roll off her shoulders. You know, the way you might if everything always worked out for you because your mutant power is luck. It was the kind of performance that makes you stand up and take note not because it offers any sort of award-caliber acting, but because it announces an actor of major charisma and presence. I came away from Deadpool 2 not needing to see any more Deadpool movies but for sure needing to see Zazie Beetz in more stuff.
Adam: I like her on Atlanta. When’s that show coming back on?
I have a double pick for my last one, and that’s Zoe Kazan and Bill Heck in “The Gal Who Got Rattled” segment of The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. I could easily watch an entire movie about these two quiet people slowly falling for one another while on the trail out West. Kazan is an actress that’s really grown on me over time (she keeps adding more to her range every time out) and Bill Heck worked for me in a John Corbett way as this sensitive, decent, gentleman cowboy. I really wanted these two characters to live happily ever after. Grainger Hines (as Mr. Arthur) is also great in that amazing standoff sequence. Overall, I thought the movie was very solid, but that stretch of “All Gold Canyon” and “The Gal Who Got Rattled” in particular, is some of the best cinema I saw all 2018.
Patrick: Bill Heck was totally going to be my last pick. He’s one of the actors with whom I’m least familiar in that whole giant cast but he’s the one who made the biggest impression on me. Such a good call.
I guess for my last pick, I’ll mention Logan Marshall Green in Upgrade. I’m sure I’m responding to his performance for all the reasons you cited Tom Hardy’s work in Venom (because the two movies are very similar, only one of them is good and one of them is one of the most successful movies of the year), though what impresses me about Green -- himself a kind of JV Tom Hardy, at least as far as success and recognition (not talent) are concerned -- is the physicality of his performance. His characterization of a guy who doesn’t fully understand what’s happening to him is fine and all, but it’s all the amazing stuff he does with his body that makes him so memorable in the movie. There’s stuff he does in Upgrade that reaches Buster Keaton levels of greatness. Between this and The Invitation, it turns out I like LMG a lot more than I realized I did back when he was doing stuff like guest spots on The O.C.
Adam: I like her on Atlanta. When’s that show coming back on?
I have a double pick for my last one, and that’s Zoe Kazan and Bill Heck in “The Gal Who Got Rattled” segment of The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. I could easily watch an entire movie about these two quiet people slowly falling for one another while on the trail out West. Kazan is an actress that’s really grown on me over time (she keeps adding more to her range every time out) and Bill Heck worked for me in a John Corbett way as this sensitive, decent, gentleman cowboy. I really wanted these two characters to live happily ever after. Grainger Hines (as Mr. Arthur) is also great in that amazing standoff sequence. Overall, I thought the movie was very solid, but that stretch of “All Gold Canyon” and “The Gal Who Got Rattled” in particular, is some of the best cinema I saw all 2018.
Patrick: Bill Heck was totally going to be my last pick. He’s one of the actors with whom I’m least familiar in that whole giant cast but he’s the one who made the biggest impression on me. Such a good call.
I guess for my last pick, I’ll mention Logan Marshall Green in Upgrade. I’m sure I’m responding to his performance for all the reasons you cited Tom Hardy’s work in Venom (because the two movies are very similar, only one of them is good and one of them is one of the most successful movies of the year), though what impresses me about Green -- himself a kind of JV Tom Hardy, at least as far as success and recognition (not talent) are concerned -- is the physicality of his performance. His characterization of a guy who doesn’t fully understand what’s happening to him is fine and all, but it’s all the amazing stuff he does with his body that makes him so memorable in the movie. There’s stuff he does in Upgrade that reaches Buster Keaton levels of greatness. Between this and The Invitation, it turns out I like LMG a lot more than I realized I did back when he was doing stuff like guest spots on The O.C.
Avengers: Infinity War, Letitia Wright in Black Panther, Rami Malek in Bohemian Rhapsody, Richard E. Grant in Can You Ever Forgive Me?, Kurt Russell in The Christmas Chronicles, Rachel Weisz in The Favourite, Rose Byrne in Instant Family, Andrea Riseborough in Mandy, Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible: Fallout, Anne Hathaway in Ocean’s 8, Matilda Lutz in Revenge, Regina Hall in Support the Girls, Charlize Theron in Tully, and Joaquin Phoenix in You Were Never Really Here.
Patrick: There are still a few of those I haven’t seen (cough Instant Family), but I totally back all the others you name there. To that list, I might add Claire Foy in Unsane, Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween, John David Washington in BlackKklansman, Geraldine Viswanathan in Blockers, Millie Simmonds in A Quiet Place, Teyonah Parris in If Beale Street Could Talk, John Cho in Searching...I’m sure there are others I’m forgetting.
Thanks for writing this with me again. It’s always fun to think back to these performances, because sometimes it makes me like movies I like even more and sometimes it’s nice to think about the things I liked from movies I maybe otherwise wasn’t crazy about.
Adam: Ditto.
Patrick: There are still a few of those I haven’t seen (cough Instant Family), but I totally back all the others you name there. To that list, I might add Claire Foy in Unsane, Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween, John David Washington in BlackKklansman, Geraldine Viswanathan in Blockers, Millie Simmonds in A Quiet Place, Teyonah Parris in If Beale Street Could Talk, John Cho in Searching...I’m sure there are others I’m forgetting.
Thanks for writing this with me again. It’s always fun to think back to these performances, because sometimes it makes me like movies I like even more and sometimes it’s nice to think about the things I liked from movies I maybe otherwise wasn’t crazy about.
Adam: Ditto.
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