Hollywood’s night of nights has arrived. No, not the Oscars
(those are happening this Sunday, for those inclined to watch); it’s time for
the 3rd Annual Lubies. That prestigious award
ceremony in which we hand out Golden Everything Burritos to performances and
films that are deserving of recognition. Little gold men are nice and all, but
anyone can appreciate some tasty Mexican food.
What follows is a recap of the night’s impossibly glamorous
events. (Spoiler alert: Alejandro González Iñárritu
gets nothing! Hahaha!) For a more traditional year-end
wrap-up, you can also check out my picks for the Best Films of 2015 here. Now on with the festivities.
Best Supporting Actress: Jada Pinkett
Smith, “Magic Mike XXL”
I’ve already expressed my unadulterated love for “Magic Mike
XXL” — a joyously rowdy celebration of freedom, pleasure, and muscly male
strippers in leather thongs — but Pinkett Smith’s
performance deserves its own recognition. The actress plays Rome, the owner of
a private club catering to the erotic needs of an exclusively black female
clientele, who gets roped into playing emcee for the Kings of Tampa. It’s a
role that suits Pinkett perfectly: smart, commanding,
and extremely sexy.
Best Supporting Actor: Richard Jenkins, “Bone Tomahawk”
S. Craig Zahler’s brutal, witty
western-horror-comedy mash-up — about a group of frontiersman out to rescue
their fellow townspeople who’ve been snatched by a tribe of primitive cannibals
— is a grisly tale, but well worth watching for anyone who can stomach it. And
Richard Jenkins is the film’s MVP, portraying the bumbling deputy sheriff,
Chicory. With his typical skill, Jenkins turns the lovably hangdog character
into the film’s most unforgettable creation.
Best Actress: Laia Costa,
“Victoria”
I admired the technical skill of Sebastian Schipper’s “Victoria,” the story of Victoria, a young
Spanish woman who falls in with a group of thuggish young men and becomes
involved in their scheme to rob a bank. What makes it unique is that it’s told
entirely in one single take. No “Birdman”-style digital trickery here, the film
is actually one shot from start to finish — almost 2 hours and 20 minutes
later. But as impressive as the technique is, the story left me a little cold.
Costa’s performance, on the other hand, blew me away. Without benefit of an
editor cutting together her strongest moments, she delivered a powerful,
emotional performance, which we’re allowed to watch unfold in real time.
Simply astonishing.
Best Actor: Michael B. Jordan, “Creed”
Not content to make just a soulless continuation of the
40-year-old “Rocky” franchise, director Ryan Coogler
turned “Creed” into one of the most skillfully crafted, crowd-pleasing films of
the year, and the filmmaker once again gets great work from his “Fruitvale
Station” star, Michael B. Jordan. As Adonis Creed, Jordan used his impressive
physicality and oodles of charisma to turn a cocky young boxer into a hero
worth rooting for.
All Your Scenes are Belong to Me: Jessica Chastain,
“Crimson Peak”
Runner up: Rose Byrne, “Spy”
Chastain perfectly captured the tricky tone of Guillermo del Toro’s gothic romance, “Crimson Peak,” in a performance
that firmly straddles the line between camp and utter sincerity. The film’s
production designer must have hated her when the actress started chowing down
on all that gorgeous scenery.
Byrne has proved her comedic chops in films like
“Bridesmaids” and “Neighbors,” but with “Spy,” she took it to another level. As
the villainous Rayna Boyanov — and foil to Melissa
McCarthy’s heroic CIA analyst — Byrne delivers a master class in comedic
timing.
Better Than It Had Any Right to Be: “Goosebumps”
I didn’t have high expectations for a movie based on R.L.
Stine’s hugely popular series of kid-friendly spooky stories, but Rob
Letterman’s clever adaptation caught me off guard: a perfect introductory
horror film for younger audiences, it takes its characters, and most importantly
its monsters, very seriously.
This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things: “The Walk”
Over the years, there’s been a lot of discussion about the
massive shift in the way audiences consume films. With the rise of streaming
and digital downloads, we don’t have to go out to the theater to take in a
movie anymore. But when a well-made film comes along that begs to be viewed on
the biggest screen possible, hardly anyone bothered to see it. It’s a shame,
because seeing Robert Zemeckis’ “The Walk” in IMAX 3D
last October was an exhilarating and palm-sweating theatrical experience. If
you’re watching the film at home or (shudder) on a tiny mobile device, I
promise you aren’t seeing the same movie.
Welcome Back Award: Harrison Ford, Actor
Harrison Ford is a movie star — no one would argue otherwise —
but it’s been years since he did some honest-to-god acting in a movie, choosing
instead to rely on that star persona to carry him through. But this year, it
appears that Ford decided it was time to start trying again. He’s quite good returning
to one of his most iconic roles in “Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens.”
But he’s even better in “The Age of Adaline” as a man bewildered to suddenly be
reunited with his ageless long-lost love. It’s all very silly, but Ford sells
it, delivering a performance with more passion and emotion than we’ve seen from
him in decades.
Who Knew?: John Cena, comedic genius
The professional wrestler stole scenes in not one, but two
comedies this past year. First with his, um, revealing work opposite Amy
Schumer in “Trainwreck,” and again last December as a
tough yet tender drug dealer who catches Tina Fey’s
eye in “Sisters.” I’m kind of hoping he appears in every comedy from here on
out.
Hollywood Finally Understands the Internet: “Unfriended”
In “Unfriended,” a group of friends find
their Skype chat session interrupted by a malicious and possibly supernatural
presence demanding vengeance for their past misdeeds. The entire film unfolds
on a teenage girl’s laptop screen — we see only what she sees, cycling from
chat windows to email to her music library on Spotify. It’s a clever concept,
pulled off with ingenuity and skill by director Levan Gabriadze.
Even more shocking, it’s the rare film that’s completely realistic about how people
interact with the internet.
Where’d You Come From?: Alicia
Vikander
The talented Swedish actress had a breakout year of almost
unprecedented proportions in 2015, appearing in “Ex Machina,” “The Danish
Girl,” “Testament of Youth,” “Burnt,” and “The Man From U.N.C.L.E” (I’ll be
kind and leave the long-delayed “The Seventh Son” off that list). To top it
off, her incredible year is likely about to be capped with an Oscar win, so we
can expect to see a whole lot more of her in the years to come.
I Can’t Think of a Clever Award
Title, But Cate Blanchett is a Treasure
Blanchett is an Oscar nominee this year for her impeccable
performance in Todd Haynes’s achingly tender romance “Carol,” but the actress
also deserves credit for adding shades and dimension to what should have been
the very definition of a one-note character: the evil stepmother in Disney’s
live-action “Cinderella.”
Most Spine-tingling Notes: “It Follows”
One of my favorite horror films of the year was David Robert
Mitchell’s unnerving, sexually-transmitted monster movie. The director deserves
credit for crafting a creepy and originally scary movie, but the film’s
chilling mood was expertly set by the indelible retro-synth score from
electronic musician Disasterpeace. Easily my most
listened to soundtrack of the year.
Best Case For Casting Against
Type: Jason Bateman, “The Gift”
Best known for his comedic work playing the exasperated
straight man, Bateman dials into untapped wells of malicious machismo for this
nasty little domestic thriller. Writer-director and star Joel Edgerton uses
Bateman to expert effect, casting him as an alpha male faced with an unwanted
blast from his past.
Eff This Movie: “No Escape”
Owen Wilson and Lake Bell star as a married American couple
with two young daughters, who move to an unnamed Asian country just as a
violent coup erupts, forcing the family to run for their lives. Director John
Erick Dowdle might as well have written a zombie
movie, for all the shading he gives the film’s hordes of bloodthirsty Asians.
Instead he asks the audience to root for the family of middle-class white folks
as they flee the scary brown people. This movie isn’t just bad, it’s completely
reprehensible.
The Importance of Fact-Checkers: “The Boy Next Door”
J.Lo stars in this trashy (but not
trashy enough) thriller about a high school English teacher whose affair with a
student turns deadly when he turns out to be a sociopath. But worse than any
flat performance or awkward sex scene is the unintentionally hilarious moment
when J.Lo’s would-be boy toy gifts her with a first
edition copy of “The Iliad.” Yes, Homer’s “The Iliad.” A work written sometime
around 760-710 B.C. And somehow that’s not even the most ridiculous thing to
happen in the movie.
Let’s Hear It For the
Bloodsucking Freaks: “What We Do in the Shadows”
We’ve gotten plenty of vampire movies over the years, but
nothing quite like Taika Waititi’s funny and oddly
touching mockumentary about a group of vampire roommates sharing a New Zealand
flat. Simultaneously spoofing the genre while creating a cast of characters we
actually end up caring about, it was one of the best comedies of the year. I’m
looking forward to the already-in-production sequel, “We’re Wolves” (say it out
loud).
This article appears in Feb 24 – Mar 1, 2016.
