Otts in Film - Decade Awards

BEST ACTION STAR:

NOMINEES:

Daniel Craig

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Layer Cake, Munich, Infamous, Casino Royale, The Golden Compass, Quantum of Solace, Defiance

I’m going to stop citing the script and just say what I think: he’s the best Bond ever.

Matt Damon

The Bourne Trilogy, The Ocean Trilogy, The Departed, Invictus

I’m leaving out a large body of work that’s not action. Bourne is a mainstay of the decade. I had trouble picking him instead of Mark Wahlberg, but Markey Mark’s action resume is surprisingly slim. Not a born action star, it’s a credit to Damon that he can make the crossover.

Hugh Jackman

X-Men, Swordfish, X2, Van Helsing, X3, The Prestige, Deception, Australia, X-Men Origins: Wolverine

It’s mostly Wolverine and a lot of failure. The Prestige isn’t action, but I put it on the list just to help him out. You have to give him credit for keeping one foot in musical theater and the other in comic books.

Dwayne Johnson

The Mummy Returns, The Scorpion King, The Rundown, Walking Tall, Doom, Southland Tales, Gridiron Gang, The Game Plan, Get Smart, Race to Witch Mountain, Planet 51,

Given how much time he spent in the ring, it’s incredible he has time for so many movies. A lot of this career reads like a hard slog to establish himself as something more than a wrestler. He’s really good and he’s only now starting to get the roles he deserves. Hopefully his body can stand up to the wear long enough to land him in a Terminator-level series.

Jason Statham

Snatch, Turn It Up, Ghosts of Mars, The One, Mean Machine, The Transporter, The Italian Job, Collateral, Cellular, Transporter 2, Revolver, The Pink Panther, Crank, War, The Bank Job, Death Race, Transporter 3, Crank: High Voltage

It’s hard not to cheer on the bald, tiny Englishman who took himself from Guy Ritchie’s ubiquitous huckster to Sylvester Stallone’s expendable through ten years of creatine and no conscience as to his role choice.

WINNER: Daniel Craig. In addition to rescuing Bond, he was the best thing in Munich and knocked out some solid indie action movies. The Rock has more action chops but spent too much time just trying to cement himself as a legitimate star.

BEST COMEDIC ACTOR OR ACTRESS:

NOMINEES:

Sacha Baron Cohen

Ali G Indahouse, Madagascar, Talladega Nights, Borat, Sweeney Todd, Madagascar 2, Bruno

Often more uncomfortable than funny, when he’s willing to just play a character in a movie rather than playing one in real life, he’s proven surprisingly talented.

Will Ferrell

Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Old School, Elf, Starsky & Hutch, Anchorman, Kicking & Screaming, Bewitched, Wedding Crashers, The Producers, Curious George, Talladega Nights, Stranger Than Fiction, Blades of Glory, Semi-Pro, Step Brothers, You’re Welcome America, Land of the Lost, The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard

Ferrell’s highs are the funniest movies of the decade. He’s also the only person on this list who did serious work that wasn’t awful. But he also made more than a few duds.

Seth Rogen

Donnie Darko, Anchorman, The 40 Year Old Virgin, You, Me, and Dupree, Knocked Up, Shrek the Third, Superbad, Horton Hears a Who!, Kung Fu Panda, Step Brothers, Pineapple Express, Zack and Miri Make a Porno, Fanboys, Monsters vs. Aliens, Funny People

Rogen is more just a funny person making movies than anything else. He never does any acting and he always plays himself.

Ben Stiller

Keeping the Faith, Meet the Parents, Zoolander, The Royal Tenenbaums, Duplex, Along Came Polly, Starsky & Hutch, Envy, Dodgeball, Anchorman, Meet the Fockers, Madagascar 1-2, Tenacious D, Night at the Museum 1-2, The Heartbreak Kid, Tropic Thunder

Stiller made it big playing the straight man in There’s Something About Mary and Meet the Parents. We’re left with that impression of him being buttoned-down in our minds…unfairly. The majority of his decade was spent playing increasingly preposterous roles – in movies, TV, and award shows.

  

Vince Vaughn

Old School, Starsky & Hutch, Dodgeball, Anchorman, Be Cool, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Wedding Crashers, The Break-Up, Fred Claus, Four Christmases, Couples Retreat

The last one in, barely, over Steve Carell. Like Rogen, he’s not an actor, just a funny person making movies. He’s just a bigger jerk than Rogen.

WINNER: Will Ferrell. A much closer victory than expected over Stiller. But if you’re not first, you’re last. 

BEST ACTOR:

NOMINEES:

Christian Bale

American Psycho, Shaft, Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Laurel Canyon, Reign of Fire, The Machinist, Batman Begins, The New World, Rescue Dawn, The Prestige, 3:10 to Yuma, I’m Not There, The Dark Knight, Terminator Salvation, Public Enemies

The deepest dramatic resume, though terribly humorless and heavy on what-might-have-been disappointments like 3:10 to Yuma, Terminator IV, and Public Enemies.

George Clooney

O Brother, Where Art Thou?, The Perfect Storm, Spy Kids, Ocean’s 11-12-13, Solaris, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Intolerable Cruelty, Good Night and Good Luck, Syriana, The Good German, Michael Clayton, Leatherheads, Burn After Reading, Up In The Air, The Men Who Stare at Goats, Fantastic Mr. Fox

What stands out about Clooney’s series of nominations is that he never fronted a big-money picture. He’s a curiously big star for having never delivered, on his own, at the box office.

Johnny Depp

The Man Who Cried, Chocolat, Blow, From Hell, Pirates of the Caribbean 1-3, Once Upon a Time in Mexico, Secret Window, Finding Neverland, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Corpse Bride, Sweeney Todd, Public Enemies

The broadest resume, touching on every drama. Courageous and creative, if a bit heavy on Tim Burton.

Robert Downey Jr.

Wonder Boys, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Good Night and Good Luck, A Scanner Darkly, Zodiac, Iron Man, Tropic Thunder, The Soloist, Sherlock Holmes

Missing half a decade due to drug addiction, he still puts together a resume that beats out most of his generation. Thanks for staying back on the bandwagon.

Brad Pitt

Snatch, The Mexican, Spy Game, Ocean’s 11-12-13, Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas, Troy, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Babel, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Burn After Reading, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Inglourious Basterds

Brad Pitt is probably not the smartest person ever. He slept with Mike Tyson’s wife, for example. But damned if that’s not a lot of good movies.

WINNER: Brad Pitt. If Downey Jr. had a full decade of work, he’d probably win. Clooney may be a better actor, Bale’s definitely a better actor, and Depp is much more creative in addition to being more talented. But Pitt just has an inate star in him that uplifts even his bad movies. He has enough range here to not be a John Wayne star always playing himself, but he never creates something as forced as Depp’s Willie Wonka or some of Clooney’s man of constant sorrow.

HONORABLE MENTION: Russell Crowe, Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio, Ian McKellan, Will Smith

BEST ACTRESS:

NOMINEES:

Cate Blanchett

The Man Who Cried, The Gift, Bandits, The Lord of the Rings 1-3, The Shipping News, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, The Aviator, Babel, The Good German, Notes on a Scandal, I’m Not There, Elizabeth: The Gold Age, Indiana Jones IV, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

The other Meryl Streep. Arguably the hardest set of characters to take on, in that she doesn’t take Streep’s outsized cartoons, favoring instead subtle characters.

Angelina Jolie

Gone in Sixty Seconds, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider 1-2, Life or Something Like It, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, The Good Shepherd, A Mighty Heart, Beowulf, Kung Fu Panda, Changeling, Wanted

The only big starlet in Hollywood who can legitimately do action. Her attempts at drama have been substantive from the acting respect but weak as actual films. What is possibly the most interesting thing here is her complete disinterest in rom-com and comedy.

Keira Knightley

Bend It Like Beckham, Pirates of the Caribbean 1-3, Love Actually, King Arthur, Pride & Prejudice, Domino, Atonement, The Edge of Love, The Duchess

Unlike Jolie, some of Knightley’s dramas are successful as movies rather than being semi-desperate bids to be taken seriously. As for her action career, it’s bizarre that she has one. She’s so skinny she can’t make a 3D movie. But it’s hard to argue with a decade spent starring in a lot of beloved films.

Julia Roberts

Erin Brockovich, The Mexican, America’s Sweethearts, Ocean’s Eleven, Grand Champion, Full Frontal, Mona Lisa Smile, Closer, Ocean’s Twelve, Charlie Wilson’s War, Duplicity

It was a strange decade for her as she aged. She found some good roles and she found some real duds. Having to take a role in Closer, where she doesn’t belong, raises real questions about what her place is going forward. I think she’s breaking bad.

Meryl Streep

A.I., Adaptation, The Hours, The Manchurian Candidate, Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, A Prairie Home Companion, The Devil Wears Prada, Rendition, Lions for Lambs, Mamma Mia!, Doubt, Julie & Julia, Fantastic Mr. Fox, It’s Complicated

The award is named after her. Still, there is some dismal decisionmaking in there – most notably the failed turn to Iraq War movies in 2007 presumably trying to recapture the Deer Hunter glory. Roberts should be taking notes – Hollywood is very unkind to aging females. She has to start staking out Streep’s claim on an annual role written for a mature female adult.

WINNER: Cate Blanchett. If she wasn’t around, I’d actually go with Knightley, strange as that may seem. Streep soaks up the best scripted roles, and it’s quite possible Knightley just got lucky or has a great agent. But Blanchett is on top talent-wise and should be getting roles written for her more often.

HONORABLE MENTIONS: Sandra Bullock, Jennifer Connelly, Penelope Cruz, Nicole Kidman, Cherlize Theron, Rachel Weisz, Reese Witherspoon

THE DEPENDABLE SUPPORTING ACTOR OF THE DECADE: Philip Seymour Hoffman

State and Main, Almost Famous, Punch-Drunk Love, Red Dragon, 25^th Hour, Cold Mountain, Along Came Polly, Strangers With Candy, Capote, Mission: Impossible III, The Savages, Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, Charlie Wilson’s War, Synecdoche, New York, Doubt, Pirate Radio, The Invention of Lying

Special love for Lester Bangs from Almost Famous. Cool is the booze they feed you.

THE DEPENDABLE SUPPORTING ACTRESS OF THE DECADE: Judy Dench

Chocolat, The Shipping News, Die Another Day, Home on the Range, The Chronicles of Riddick, Pride & Prejudice, Mrs. Henderson Presents, Casino Royale, Notes on a Scandal, Quantum of Solace, Rage, Nine

Between her, Helen Mirren, and Maggie Smith, it was a great decade for grand British dames. If only American actresses could look forward to such reliable late-career. Come to think of it, Ian McKellan, Albert Finney, and various Dumbledores...either there’s something about British theater that extends Britons’ careers or we, as audiences, have a distinct positive prejudice towards elderly British gravitas. Call it the Churchill Effect. 

BEST DIRECTOR:

NOMINEES: 

Joel & Ethan Coen

O Brother, Where Art Thou?, The Man Who Wasn’t There, Intolerable Cruelty, The Ladykillers, No Country for Old Men, Burn After Reading, A Serious Man

An impressive catalogue that, to paraphrase one of their characters, “is a little artsy-fartsy”. There’s something to be said for being able to talk to everyone. Nevertheless, given how infrequently writer-directors get something up on screen, that’s a lot of movies.

Clint Eastwood

Space Cowboys, Blood Work, Mystic River, Million Dollar Baby, Flags of Our Fathers, Letters from Iwo Jima, Changeling, Gran Torino, Invictus

Consistently above-average but never spectacular. Of those movies, I’d probably most want to rewatch Space Cowboys. Not exactly transcendence. 

Christopher Nolan

Memento, Insomnia, Batman Begins, The Prestige, The Dark Knight

Never a false step, always something to say, and a very broad range. He can talk to any audience and in multiple formats. But he could probably use a sense of humor.

Steven Soderberg

Erin Brockovich, Traffic, Ocean’s Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen, Full Frontal, Solaris, The Good German Che: Part One, Part Two, The Informant!

The most prolific but shallowest of the nominees. It’s hard to fathom how generous Mr. Soderberg has been with his time. I had to cut some of his lesse-rknown stuff and compile all of his sequels just to fit it into a reasonable text block. It’s a surprisingly deep resume.

Quentin Tarantino

Kill Bill: Vol 1 & 2, Sin City, Grindhouse: Death Proof, Inglourious Basterds

Tarantino’s work is truly style for its own sake. Good though it is, it’s never about anything.

WINNER: Christopher Nolan. “How’d they do that” technical prowess with real narrative control. He’s yet to make a bad movie.

HONORABLE MENTIONS: Wes Anderson, Judd Apatow, Brad Bird, Jon Favreau, Ron Howard, Peter Jackson, Ang Lee, Sam Raimi, Jason Reitman, Guy Ritchie, Martin Scorcese, Ridley Scott, Andrew Stanton, Gore Verbinski.