Strong Performances Worth Checking Out

Written by Kirk Baird

While watching the comedy-drama Take This Waltz, I was reminded again of the importance of casting. The film by writer-director Sarah Polley is good if unexceptional as a whole, but it’s elevated into the must-see category based solely on the terrific lead performance by Michelle Williams as a happily married woman who falls for a tall, dark artist who lives on her street. Williams is funny, sad, tragic, and by film’s end what you remember most about Take This Waltz. It will hopefully be remembered come Oscar time.

I felt similarly about Williams’s Oscar-nominated performance in last year’s My Week with Marilyn, which also featured an Oscar-nominated turn by Kenneth Branagh as a witty and exasperated Sir Laurence Olivier.

Williams, oddly enough, lost the Oscar to Meryl Streep and her tremendous performance in The Iron Lady, another flawed film that succeeds on the back of its two lead performers (Jim Broadbent as Thatcher’s husband Denis being the other). The Blind Side was a big hit, but it was an OK movie with a career-best performance by Sandra Bullock.

Richard Gere as a morally bankrupt hedge fund manager in this year’s the people vs. Wall Street drama Arbitrage leaps to mind as well. He takes a less interesting Gordon Gekko character and bends him into someone we may not like, but care enough to watch. And while Russell Crowe won his Best Actor Oscar for Gladiator, a better role comes as the troubled mathematics genius in A Beautiful Mind, a performance that transcends what is a rather unexceptional film.

The Master is brilliant and confounding at times, but no matter the response to Paul Thomas Anderson’s brave misfire, the lead performance of Joaquin Phoenix is stunning, as is Philip Seymour Hoffman in the supporting role. And check out Benicio Del Toro’s riveting and menacing enforcer for a Mexican drug cartel in Oliver Stone’s Savages.

Hot This Week: December 10

The Amazing Spider-Man stays strong for another week at the top of the DVD list. Alicia Keys really is on fire, coming in at #1 on the CD chart, while the other newcomers are all Christmas albums. New releases from Jim Butcher and Michael Connelly debut at the top of the fiction list, while Killing Kennedy returns to the top in non-fiction.


DVD

1. The Amazing Spider-Man
2. The Expendables 2
3. The Campaign
4. Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
5. Brave
6. Prometheus
7. Marvel's The Avengers
8. That's My Boy
9. Magic Mike
10. Madagascar 3

CD

1. Alicia Keys, Girl on Fire
2. Taylor Swift, Red
3. Rod Stewart, Merry Chistmas, Baby
4. One Direction, Take Me Home
5. Phillip Phillips, The World from the Side of the Moon
6. Rihanna, Unapologetic 
7. Michael Buble, Christmas
   
8. Lady Antebellum, On This Winter's Night
   
9. Blake Shelton, Cheers, It's Christmas
   
10. Kid Rock, Rebel Soul

Fiction

1. Cold Days, Jim Butcher
2. The Black Box, Michael Connelly
3. Notorious Nineteen, Janet Evanovich
4. The Forgotten, David Baldacci
5. The Racketeer, John Grisham
6. Agenda 21, Glenn Beck
7. Merry Christmas, Alex Cross, James Patterson
8. The Last Man, Vince Flynn
9. Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn
10. The Casual Vacancy, J.K. Rowling

Non-Fiction

1. Killing Kennedy, Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard
2. Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power, Jon Meacham
3. Killing Lincoln, Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard
4. No Easy Day, Mark Owen and Kevin Maurer
5. America Again, Stephen Colbert
6. The Last Lion, William Manchester and Paul Reid (Vol. 1 | Vol. 2 | Vol. 3)
7. Antifragile, Nassim Nicholas Talib
8. Waging Heavy Peace, Neil Young
9. Unbroken, Laura Hillenbrand
10. The Patriarch, David Nasaw

Five Great Christmas Movies

Written by Kirk Baird

The Christmas season is all about traditions, especially when it comes to holiday films. In addition to those annual viewings of classics including It’s a Wonderful Life, Miracle on 34th Street, and A Christmas Story, here are five other holiday treats worth the time.

Christmas in Connecticut (1945): In this warm holiday tale, Barbara Stanwyck is a food writer sorely lacking culinary and housekeeping skills whose deception may be exposed when her boss and a returning World War II soldier invite themselves to her home for a Christmas Day feast.

Nutcracker with Rudolf Nureyev (1968): This filmed performance features perhaps the greatest male ballet dancer in peak form in a celebrated interpretation of Tchaikovsky’s ballet masterpiece and holiday mainstay.

The Ref (1994): Denis Leary plays a cat burglar who breaks into a home on Christmas Eve and then must play mediator to a warring couple (Kevin Spacey and Judy Davis) and their family in this painfully funny R-rated dark comedy.

Un Conte de Noel (A Christmas Tale) (2008): Catherine Deneuve stars in this acerbic French comedy-drama about a highly dysfunctional and feuding family that gathers at the parents’ house for Christmas and learns the strong-willed matriarch has leukemia.

Arthur Christmas (2011): Santa’s clumsy son Arthur alternately ruins and then saves Christmas in this wondrous holiday classic. While audiences missed the film in theaters, Arthur Christmas deserves to be a staple of the season for years to come.

Arthur Christmas a Worthy Holiday Entry

Written by Kirk Baird

Arthur Christmas is a charming holiday film that deserves a place among the classics of the season. This animated tale is as joyous as the season it celebrates, with a warm message for Christmas about the spirit of giving.

The story concerns the silly and sometimes clumsy son of Santa, Arthur (voice of James McAvoy), a good-natured soul who spends time working in the letter department at his dad's North Pole facility. Arthur loves Christmas, but his taskmaster brother Steve (voice of Hugh Laurie), who runs Santa's workshop and the gift deliveries, treats the holiday as a business. He's transformed Santa's workshop into a high-tech business to ensure children worldwide receive their Christmas gifts on time.

But when a little girl is inadvertently passed over, Steve focuses on how well the operation went otherwise, with only a tiny percentage point of error, and convinces an old and rather worn down Santa (voice of Jim Broadbent) that he shouldn't worry about the happiness of a single child out of a billion. Arthur feels differently, and with the help of his Grandsanta (voice of Bill Nighy), who retired from the family business long ago, as well as a gift-wrapping elf, he sets out to make things right, leading to a rash of problems and important life lessons along the way.

Arthur Christmas eschews most of the conventions of today's animated films. There are no cute, talking animals, and only a few scattered pop culture references. In that respect, Arthur Christmas, like its message about losing some of the magic of Christmas with high-tech gadgetry, is a throwback. The computer animation is well done and the 3-D subtle but effective. The cast, led by McAvoy and Laurie, are spot on. McAvoy brings a quirky and fun sensibility to Arthur, and Laurie makes Steve stern but never overbearing. Steve is as close to an antagonist as the film provides, but he's really not that bad — just a bit misguided about the importance of Santa.

Arthur Christmas was directed by Sarah Smith in her feature-film debut. Smith also co-wrote the script with Peter Baynham (Borat and Bruno). Arthur Christmas was overlooked by audiences during its holiday run last year. Now out on DVD and Blu-ray, here's hoping holiday history won’t be repeated.

Hot This Week: December 3

A slew of new titles come to the CD charts this week, headed by Rihanna's latest coming in at the top. Heavy hitters Janet Evanovich, David Baldacci, and Glenn Beck leap to the top of the fiction list. Jon Meacham's biography of Thomas Jefferson pushes Killing Kennedy to #2 in non-fiction, but a biography of JFK and RFK's father Joe Kennedy makes the list at #7.

DVD

1. The Amazing Spider-Man
2. Prometheus
3. The Campaign
4. Brave
5. That's My Boy
6. Magic Mike
7. Marvel's The Avengers
8. Madagascar 3
9. The Raven
10. Arthur Christmas

CD

1. Rihanna, Unapologetic 
2. Taylor Swift, Red
3. One Direction, Take Me Home
4. Phillip Phillips, The World from the Side of the Moon
5. Kid Rock, Rebel Soul
6. Rod Stewart, Merry Chistmas, Baby
7. P!nk, The Truth About Love
8. Jason Aldean, Night Train
9. Led Zeppelin, Celebration Day
10. Keyshia Cole, Woman to Woman

Fiction

1. Notorious Nineteen, Janet Evanovich
2. The Forgotten, David Baldacci
3. Agenda 21, Glenn Beck
4. The Last Man, Vince Flynn
5. The Racketeer, John Grisham
6. Merry Christmas, Alex Cross, James Patterson
7. The Casual Vacancy, J.K. Rowling
8. Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn
9. Flight Behavior, Barbara Kingsolver 
10. Cross Roads, William Paul Young

Non-Fiction

1. Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power, Jon Meacham
2. Killing Kennedy, Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard
3. Killing Lincoln, Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard
4. No Easy Day, Mark Owen and Kevin Maurer
5. America Again, Stephen Colbert
6. The Last Lion, William Manchester and Paul Reid (Vol. 1 | Vol. 2 | Vol. 3)
7. The Patriarch, David Nasaw
8. Unbroken, Laura Hillenbrand
9. Waging Heavy Peace, Neil Young 
10. The Outpost, Jake Tapper