New movie review: The Killer

Michael Fassbender, in The Killer

It would be a lot easier to be a big fan of the collected works of David Fincher. There is nothing controversial in proclaiming The Social Network one of the best films of the 2010s. No one bats an eye if you observe that Zodiac is a top-shelf crime procedural. There is, of course, the cult of Fight Club. The director is famed for his numerous takes, and over the years, his dedication to his process has become its own sort of mythology. I’m very happy for everyone, but it’s also okay to want more.

Speaking of wanting more, enter: The Killer. Fincher’s latest is a sleek little thriller that sure seems to be a lot of fun. After all, who doesn’t want to watch a globetrotting assassin story with Michael Fassbender at the center? Insert your Assassin’s Creed jokes here. The performance is great. The pictures are pretty. There is, however, an emptiness at the film’s core different from that intended by Fincher and screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker.

The film is nihilistic to a fault, which in and of itself feels a tad “been there, done that” from the guys who made Se7en. But, at the end, this was not the emptiness I felt. Rather, I sensed a thematic void. The movie spends a lot of words – a lot of words; truly, Fassbender’s Killer is almost shockingly loquacious – saying virtually nothing at all. Its defenders would have you believe this is a feature, not a bug, but I’m not buying it.

I have heard the lead character is intentionally dull, that the point is the dullness. This would hold water if not for the fact that when push comes to shove, the unnamed killer pulls out enough Jason Bourne- and John Wick-style tricks to seem sufficiently badass for a college dorm room poster. Indeed, the image of Fassbender pointing his gun directly at you will make a nice companion piece to that Tyler Durden poster your freshman year roommate definitely had.

There is no point in penalizing a filmmaker for an audience misunderstanding his work. It is not Fincher’s fault that Project Mayhem now carries a lot of Proud Boy baggage for those who lack a sense of irony or self-awareness. Still, the director seems to have ascended in the culture to that rarified air where his weak spots are declared intentional satire, and detractors are accused of not getting the joke. Make no mistake, there are jokes, and I get them. It’s just that no amount of humor can cover for what’s lacking underneath.

For instance, it’s very funny that we hear the Killer repeatedly recite a set of rules for pulling off an assassination, then proceed to break every one of these rules and never pull off a successful assassination. But, that’s it. That’s the joke. It doesn’t mean anything that he tells us, in that incessant voiceover, he is one of the best assassins in the world, then proceeds to fail at the one thing at which he’s supposed to be an expert. At best, it’s a weak joke, and at worst, it’s a story flaw.

It gets worse the deeper you dig – and from here on out, spoilers if you intend to watch The Killer – so let’s dig. After the Killer botches the opening assassination, he is targeted for elimination by some other hired guns. Those hired guns show up at his house in the Dominican Republic and badly injure – but don’t kill; I guess they’re not very good either, despite us being told they are – the Killer’s girlfriend. 

We will never learn much about this girlfriend. Her name is Magdala, and she is played by Sophie Charlotte, who is given nothing to do. She’s just a function of the plot, a reason for Fassbender’s assassin to go on, what Tarantino might call, a “roaring rampage of revenge.” Ah, but therein lies the rub. See, one of those rules he lives by is to “fight only the battle you’re paid to fight.” He will spend the rest of the film working pro bono. Again, funny, but empty.

Finally, there is the movie’s most curious choice, one I have not been able to stop thinking about and pondering, ‘Why?’ The Killer does, in fact, kill a lot of people, and every single one of them is a woman or person of color. He is hired by a white, male billionaire to kill another white, male presumably billionaire, neither of whom ends up dead. So, where does that leave us? I see two options.

One, it’s a mistake of casting. The Lawyer (Charles Parnell) doesn’t have to be black. The Expert (Tilda Swinton; we’ll come back to her) doesn’t have to be a woman. The Brute (played by Sala Baker, who is Kiwi) does not have to be ambiguously non-white. Maybe it just happened to work out that way. But, I don’t think so. The famously meticulous Fincher doesn’t leave anything to chance.

This leaves option 2: It’s intentional and meant as commentary. I’ll take a stab at it: When the elite clash, marginalized people suffer. Fine. It is perhaps marginally subtler than Fight Club in its messaging, but there is no more meat on the bone. The Killer represents whatever function of capitalism you wish to rage against, but he’s still fun. He’s still the POV character, and Fincher and Walker position him as the person we’re meant to root for, without reservation.

It is the Tyler Durden problem once more. Fincher, a consummate stylist, simply can’t make the character anything less than cool. With his keto diet, Smiths playlist, and eighth-grade nihilism, he certainly seems like someone who would listen to Joe Rogan. This is a person I know for a fact Fincher hates, but the script and filmmaking lack the restraint of style to make the critique stick.

A quick word on the performances: I will highlight two in particular, though everyone else does lovely work. Fassbender is in nearly every frame of this thing, and he is magnificent, reminding us why we loved him in the first place. Coming off a rough stretch (including The Snowman, X-Men: Apocalypse, Assassin’s Creed, and X-Men: Dark Phoenix, all reviled) and time away from acting to raise a family and race cars, this will be seen as a huge win for the actor. Warmly received and popular on streaming, if not at the box office, we can say that Fassbender is back, and hopefully, he gets more chances to do his thing.

Swinton, meanwhile, anchors the film’s finest stretch. As one of the assassins hired to kill the Killer, she is sitting down to a quiet meal alone in a fine-dining establishment when the Killer takes a seat across from her (along came a spider who sat down beside her). The dialogue is no great shakes, but Swinton and Fassbender sell the hell out of it. And for once, Fincher lets the actors lead, setting his camera down and just watching these two great performers work together. I could have watched 90 minutes of just this scene, but alas, there was more to be done, none of it equalling these heights.

Ultimately, maybe I’m not criticizing the movie Fincher made so much as the movie people will see. But, you would think the guy who made Fight Club would have learned to be a little more careful with his aim. As the Killer would know, the ricochet can be brutal.

Countdown to the Oscars: Best Actor

Leonardo DiCaprio is the frontrunner for Best Actor for his performance in The Revenant.

Welcome to Last Cinema Standing’s Countdown to the Oscars, our daily look at this year’s Academy Awards race. Be sure to check back every day this month for analysis of each of the Academy’s 24 categories.

Best Actor

The nominees are:

Bryan Cranston for Trumbo

Matt Damon for The Martian

Leonardo DiCaprio for The Revenant

Michael Fassbender for Steve Jobs

Eddie Redmayne for The Danish Girl

You cannot stop a moving train, especially when this particular train has been picking up steam for more than two years now. The world wants to see DiCaprio win an Oscar. The Internet certainly does, and for the first time, it seems like the Academy is coming around to that view as well. For the most part, this started two years ago when DiCaprio’s The Wolf of Wall Street performance lost out to Matthew McConaughey’s more traditional work in Dallas Buyers Club.

There are other exceptional performances this year – Fassbender and Cranston are particularly memorable – but there is no other narrative as strong as the one building up around DiCaprio. Damon and Redmayne have already won Oscars. Cranston is beloved, but he is a first-time nominee. Fassbender, like DiCaprio a generation-defining talent, will have other chances. No, the story is DiCaprio and his long-overdue recognition as one of the best in the business.

Leonardo DiCaprio for The Revenant – In reality, the obsession with DiCaprio winning an Oscar started long before The Wolf of Wall Street. DiCaprio has been one of the biggest stars in the world for nearly 20 years, but even before Titanic rocketed him to superstardom, he was an Oscar nominee for What’s Eating Gilbert Grape? Many felt he was snubbed for Titanic, and in some quarters, a narrative built up that Academy members might consider DiCaprio too much of a pretty boy whose success was derived from looks and youth more than talent.

However, DiCaprio made smart choice after smart choice, rarely faltering in the projects he championed and never turning in a bad performance. His nominated work on The Aviator and Blood Diamond, as well as The Departed and Shutter Island, showed an actor willing to dig into the psyches of his characters and deliver raw, visceral experiences onscreen. We associate “getting ugly” with Best Actress winners – such as Charlize Theron in Monster or Halle Berry in Monster’s Ball – but the phenomenon is just as real for Best Actor. Consider McConaughey, Forest Whitaker in The Last King of Scotland, and Adrian Brody in The Pianist.

Well, DiCaprio not only “gets ugly” in The Revenant, but he goes feral, eating raw bison liver and subjecting himself to the many hardships of the frontier all in order to bring the story of Hugh Glass to life. However, this is more than a physical stunt. It is a searing, emotional portrait of a man betrayed, adrift, and alone. DiCaprio has never been better, and no other leading actor this year was this good. He will win, and in at least one respect, all will seem right.

Michael Fassbender for Steve Jobs – Interestingly, the last time Fassbender was nominated, he lost Best Supporting Actor for his performance in 12 Years a Slave to McConaughey’s Dallas Buyers Club co-star Jared Leto. I would have gone the other way, but at least the Academy’s choice was defensible. What is not defensible is the fact that Fassbender is on just his second nomination after incomparable work in films such as Hunger, Shame, and Frank. Oh well, he is in the club now, and he will keep coming back because there is no other actor like him working today.

Director Danny Boyle’s Steve Jobs is a frustrating movie with a number of fine elements teetering on the edge but never tipping over into greatness because the whole exercise feels just a little too self-conscious. Fassbender, however, is scintillating as the title character, a business genius whose personal life is in shambles. He creates chaos everywhere he goes, but because he sits in the eye of the storm, everything seems perfectly clear to him. Fassbender brings out the frustration and rage of someone who believes he is better than everyone else and cannot tolerate playing down to their level.

Bryan Cranston for Trumbo – Speaking of frustration and rage, we also have Cranston’s blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo. A brilliant wordsmith, Trumbo was persecuted for his political beliefs, and rather than back down, he fought back with his typewriter. He refused to let the system shut him up and stood up to become a hero for freedom of expression. The great thing about Cranston’s performance is that he does not play Trumbo as a hero. Instead, he shows us a man annoyed by the stupidity and bigotry he must endure. He battles because it is in his nature to fight. He just happens to be fighting for a righteous cause.

Cranston is a beloved and respected figure in the industry. Though he is mostly known for his television work on Breaking Bad, for which he won four Emmys and a Golden Globe, Cranston has proven to be a popular character actor in films such as Drive, Argo, and Little Miss Sunshine. He is even the best part of the otherwise disposable Godzilla remake from 2014. In his first true leading film role, he knocks it out of the park. He will continue to be a force in this industry for as long as he wants, but this will not be the year he wins an Oscar.

Matt Damon for The Martian – Damon was the nominee about whom no one was really certain. There were a few other options hanging around the edges of the season such as Johnny Depp in Black Mass and Will Smith in Concussion, but ultimately, Damon prevailed. Looking back, it should not be that shocking – and if I can toot my own horn, this is the exact lineup I predicted in this category back at the beginning of December.

Damon carries The Martian on his shoulders entirely. The scenes back on Earth with the NASA team and everyone else are important to the plot of course, but the movie does not work without a tremendous actor playing Mark Watney, the man stranded on Mars. Damon is the perfect combination of brainy, funny, and sympathetic to pull off this role. Even in dire circumstances, he remains fun to watch because he gives the character a spark of mischievousness to counteract the seriousness of the situation. Everything we feel when watching The Martian is because Damon is able to bring those feelings out in us.

Eddie Redmayne for The Danish Girl – If Redmayne had not won this award just last year for The Theory of Everything, this awards race might have been a little closer. Indeed, some were positing that Redmayne could become the first back-to-back Best Actor winner since Tom Hanks in 1993-94 and just the third ever. Alas, The Danish Girl did not catch fire, either at the box office or with the industry, meaning Redmayne’s work does not have the necessary heat to make history at the Oscars.

The work is solid, and it is mesmerizing to watch Redmayne make the transition from portraying a confused man to a man becoming a woman and finally to the woman that man always was. Redmayne finds a number of subtle notes to play in the transformation, and with his guidance, the audience is never at a loss to understand the character. By the end, Redmayne simply becomes Lili, and it is as if that is how it was always meant to be.

The final analysis

There is not much else to say. Cranston and Fassbender each picked up some early critics’ awards, but that was before the locomotive that is DiCaprio in The Revenant pulled out of the station. Since then, DiCaprio has taken everything in sight – the Golden Globe, the Screen Actors Guild Award, and the BAFTA, among others. When he wins an Academy Award next Sunday, it will be one of my favorite moments in Oscar history, watching my favorite actor accept an award he richly deserves.

Will win: Leonardo DiCaprio for The Revenant

Should win: Leonardo DiCaprio for The Revenant

Should have been here: Tom Courtenay for 45 Years

Tomorrow: Best Documentary

New movie review: Macbeth

Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard star in director Justin Kurzel's Macbeth.

William Shakespeare’s Macbeth may be one of the five or 10 best literary works ever written. Contained within its tale of greed, corruption, madness, guilt, vengeance, and sorrow is just about every element of modern drama. The Scottish Play is simply staggering in its depth of insight into human character and the machinations of evil, while at the same time being one of Shakespeare’s most accessible pieces. The language is high-minded but quotable, and the story moves like a locomotive, shifting seamlessly from big action to subtle emotion.

Mind you, this is all on the page in Shakespeare’s words, which have little changed in the 400 years since they were first performed. For filmmakers looking to adapt the Bard’s work, the process can be something of a litmus test. Great directors will find something new in these old masterpieces and infuse the work with energy, style, and originality such as Akira Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood, itself a Macbeth adaptation. On the other hand, bad directors fail this test, either by slavish adherence to the text or by misunderstanding its inherent greatness.

Happily, director Justin Kurzel’s new imagining of Macbeth falls to the positive side of that spectrum. A moody, atmospheric showcase for a uniformly stellar cast, Kurzel presents a world that has turned into hell and is populated by a thousand little demons fighting to be the devil. By going darker and quieter than the text suggests, Kurzel and screenwriters Jacob Koskoff, Michael Lesslie, and Todd Louiso downplay the action and political maneuvering in order to highlight the despair and sorrow that result.

The opening battle, though exquisitely photographed by cinematographer Adam Arkapaw, is not depicted as a gloriously waged war but rather as an anonymous slaughter. Hidden in fog and caked in mud and blood, the living and the dead alike seem to sink into the earth. It is in this place, hovering between life and death, that Macbeth (Michael Fassbender) first spies the Weird Sisters who will set him on a doomed path of mayhem and destruction.

He is told he will be thane of Cawdor, a prediction that quickly proves true. He is told he will be king of Scotland, which at the urging of wife Lady Macbeth (Marion Cotillard) he makes true through murder. However, he is also told it will be his friend Banquo (Paddy Considine) whose sons will be kings, and from this looming prophecy, Macbeth’s paranoia and madness grow until he unleashes a furious plague of death and terror on all those who stand in his way.

Cotillard in Macbeth.

Throughout the film, Kurzel displays a fantastic feel for the momentum of the story, expertly picking his spots to go big and flashy but smartly pulling back and letting the characters speak for themselves when the moment calls for it. Macbeth, the play and film, is filled with visions of ghosts and unimaginable horrors, but Kurzel’s restraint means that when he finally unleashes his ghastly imagery, the full visceral and emotional impact is felt.

However, the film is more than just its gorgeous tableaux as Kurzel and his screenwriters demonstrate a complete understanding of the tragedy of Shakespeare’s story. In an opening scene that is the invention of the filmmakers, the Macbeths lay to rest their dead child, creating a perfectly judged subtext for both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth that informs their actions for the rest of the plot. They are consumed by a quest for control. Determined not to let fate, which took their only child, dictate their destinies, their final tragedy is the realization that it was fate all along that led them to this place.

I said back in August when I named Macbeth among my most anticipated movies of the fall that one of its chief draws would be to watch two of the greatest characters ever written portrayed by two of the best actors of their generation. Fassbender and Cotillard do not disappoint and in fact exceed all reasonable expectations. They are shockingly good in roles that require madness and cunning, fury and tenderness, confidence and fear.

Fassbender is easily the best Macbeth since Toshirô Mifune in Throne of Blood, which Fassbender has said in interviews is his favorite Macbeth adaptation. One of the best things about this performance is the consistency Fassbender finds at the core of the character. Macbeth is a madman from the beginning, but a madman wielding a sword on the battlefield is a different beast from one wielding a crown in a kingdom. By tapping into the underlying threat of insanity throughout, Fassbender shows how it is not power that drives Macbeth mad but instead guilt that tears away at his soul.

Cotillard deftly handles the arguably trickier task of playing the woman who sets in motion this terrible chain of events but whose soul cannot bear the carnage she has wrought. Even apart from the fact English is not her first language, Cotillard demonstrates a facility for Shakespeare’s words that rivals that of the great Shakespearean actors.

It is a brilliant, show-stopping moment when Cotillard delivers the famous “Out damn spot” speech, which Kurzel chooses to shoot almost entirely in a single, extreme close-up. Before our very eyes, Cotillard transforms Lady Macbeth from just another demon possessed by avarice into a weary shell of a woman who can no longer bear the thought of how hollow she is. Cotillard is a gifted performer who takes an already great sequence and turns it into a scene for the ages.

All of this builds to an epic conclusion in which Macbeth’s actions have transformed his world into a literal inferno – a bit of poetic license the filmmakers take to bring Birnam Wood to Dunsinane Hill. Everything he built and everything he cherished, he has burned it all to the ground. He mounts one final charge against the forces of fate, but surrounded by the ash and rubble of a shattered world, he must confront the truth. His destiny was decided long ago.

See it? Yes.

New movie review: Steve Jobs

Michael Fassbender stars as Steve Jobs in director Danny Boyle's new film Steve Jobs.

Apple founder Steve Jobs is a hard character to pin down. Some want to paint him as a god of the tech industry, a forward-thinking innovator, and a full-stop genius. Others think of him as closer to the devil, a temperamental tyrant, and a fraud who was not responsible for half the things for which he gets credit. As ever, the truth is likely somewhere between the two extremes, but death has a polarizing effect on the way we interpret the legacies of prominent figures. Look at Ronald Reagan.

Since his death from cancer in 2011, the company he founded has only grown in power, influence, and ubiquity, and there have been countless attempts to place Jobs’ contributions to the culture in a larger context. They feature titles such as Genius by Design and How Steve Jobs Changed the World. In many cases, though, they are just his name followed by a colon and some positive or negative descriptor, depending on the point the makers want to communicate.

For the new film from director Danny Boyle and writer Aaron Sorkin, the filmmakers drop the descriptor. It is just Steve Jobs. It gives the impression this will be the definitive portrait of the man and his machines, but it is not that, nor does it try to be. Instead, Sorkin’s script is broken down into three snapshots of Jobs’ life – or rather, his career, following as it does three product launches that define the arc of his time with Apple.

Sorkin is an undeniably good writer, and he has given us a slew of great television shows (The West Wing; Sports Night; The Newsroom) and films (A Few Good Men; An American President; The Social Network). As ever, his dialogue crackles with the humor and intelligence for which he is known. The problem is that the snapshot structure does not work for telling this story. There is simultaneously too much condensed into these three moments and too much left out.

To the first point, by sticking rigidly to this structure, save for two brief flashback sequences, Sorkin must include everything he wants us to know about Jobs in dialogue set on just three days in his life. There are five or six main characters, and each one’s story has a beginning, middle, and end, but because we are seeing only three specific days, each character arc happens on the same contrived timeline.

Movies are contrivances, but this stretches credulity. By the time Jobs points out how every product launch, it seems like everyone goes to the same bar, gets drunk, and tells him what they really think, you just get angry at Sorkin for clearly being aware of this flaw but taking no steps to address it.

Michael Stuhlbarg, Fassbender, and Kate Winslet in Steve Jobs.

Conversely, the movie is fairly empty when it comes to Jobs’ work. By choosing to show us only these product launches – the Macintosh, the NEXT, and the iMac, respectively – Sorkin fails to explore Jobs’ creative process. It is the ultimate tell-not-show movie as we hear in dialogue over and over how brilliant he is but never actually see that brilliance in action. Some of this falls on Boyle’s doorstep, but the density of Sorkin’s script leaves little room to play with form.

Boyle is an excellent director, but this is his most restrained and constricted film – an assessment that includes 127 Hours, about a man literally trapped in one spot for nearly the duration of the film. Gone for most of the runtime is Boyle’s usual flair for dramatic camera movement and clever, propulsive editing. It feels almost workmanlike, which is unfortunate because the best part of Boyle’s films has always been the directorial stamp he places on them.

However, where Sorkin’s work constrains the director to a degree, his words give all the performers the chance to soar, none more than Michael Fassbender as Jobs. Fassbender is a wonderful, chameleon-like actor who has shown his range in projects as diverse as 12 Years a Slave, Shame, the X-Men films, and Frank. As Jobs, he finds a new part to play – the petulant genius – and he is astounding. Though Fassbender little resembles Jobs nor really sounds like him, he discovers the character of Jobs. His performance is less an imitation of the man than an interpretation, and it works beautifully.

Fassbender, a longtime stage actor with a facility for language that helps tremendously with Sorkin’s dialogue, is by turns menacing and gentle. He thankfully avoids the pitfalls so many other actors fall into when portraying tech geniuses – often playing them as somewhere on the autism spectrum – and instead builds brick by brick the figure of a confident, volatile icon. Nothing in the film would work without the steady, grounded work of Fassbender. The film necessarily revolves around Jobs, like a hurricane, and Fassbender is the perfectly calm eye at the center of the storm.

Jeff Daniels in Steve Jobs.

The rest of the cast swirling around him is stellar as well, beginning with Kate Winslet as Joanna Hoffman, Jobs’ head of marketing and closest confidant. Hoffman is the film’s moral center and the one person in Jobs’ life with the wherewithal to stand up to him as she stands by him. Winslet matches Fassbender beat for beat and is able to project strength even as she shows warmth.

As former Apple CEO John Sculley, Jeff Daniels is given a fairly obvious archetype to play in Jobs’ father figure, but Daniels finds nuance and shading in the two men’s relationship that is not strictly on the page. In the middle section, the film’s best sequence has Sculley asking Jobs why the world thinks he fired his protégé from Apple.

It is one of the only scenes where Boyle is able to liven up the proceedings with a series of rapid-fire edits between their present-day argument and Jobs’ removal from Apple, the film’s only extended flashback. The editing ramps up the tension, while Daniels and Fassbender bring energy and passion to the conversation. Sculley is the only person in the film Jobs consistently out-maneuvers, and Daniels finds in Sculley a beaten man who refuses to go down without a fight.

In the “character actors who deserve to work more” category, we have Michael Stuhlbarg and Katherine Waterston in small but pivotal roles as Jobs’ employee and ex-girlfriend, respectively. Stuhlbarg, who was excellent in this year’s Pawn Sacrifice and will also appear in Trumbo, is one of my favorite actors and one of Hollywood’s best reactors. His changes in expression say a hundred things his words never could, and his character’s hurt silences are among the most affecting moments in the film.

Waterston, who was tremendous in last year’s Inherent Vice and the best thing about the Alex Ross Perry misfire Queen of Earth this year, stuns in a few brief scenes as the mother of Jobs’ daughter. As written, she is all fire and fury, but Waterston is able to create levels of sorrow and repressed rage that even Sorkin may have missed.

What we are left with is an often brilliant, sometimes frustrating film about an often brilliant, sometimes frustrating man. Boyle perhaps does not do enough as a director to rein in Sorkin’s more writerly tendencies, but the performances are so magical that it is impossible to look away. By refusing to take a clear stance on the man or his work, Steve Jobs functions more like a Rorschach test for viewers. You will see in Jobs what you want to see in him – saint or sinner, paragon or pretender – but the film’s real achievement is that no matter what you see, afterward, you are more likely to see a human.

See it? Yes.

10 most anticipated movies (no, Star Wars is not one)

Michael Fassbender stars in Macbeth, one of Last Cinema Standing's 10 most anticipated movies of the fall.

We did it last year. We’ll do it this year. If we do it next year, that will make it a tradition. Last Cinema Standing’s 10 most anticipated movies of the fall actually falls in line with another annual tradition: the end of summer blockbuster season. It’s that time of year when Hollywood studios put away their superhero spandex and bust out their prestige pictures. That’s right – it’s Oscar-chasing time, which is just fine by me.

Before we get to the 10, a couple notes: First, merry Christmas to me as my two most anticipated movies both come out Dec. 25, so if you do not hear from me on Christmas Day, it is because I am at the movies. Second, if it seems these selections skew toward name recognition, they do. I love a good story, but what gets me excited about going to the theater is the idea of talented directors, actors, and craftspeople taking on interesting projects.

Last year, my most anticipated films provided an interesting dichotomy. That list included three films that wound up on my end-of-the-year top 10 list, including my No. 1 film of the year, Leviathan. However, it also included Interstellar and Unbroken, which I would call two of the worst films of last year. Hopefully, this year’s list will trend toward the former.

Finally, Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens (and may need a nap again after saying that whole title) will not appear below. The new Star Wars film will probably top many of your lists and may be the most anticipated movie since The Phantom Menace in 1999. My anticipation level hovers somewhere between curiosity and dread. If it floats your boat, more power to you, but it does nothing for me. Here are 10 movies that do:

10. The Walk, directed by Robert Zemeckis

Release date: Oct. 9

Zemeckis is a great stylist, but he has a tendency to use visual flair for its own sake. However, when he has a compelling story to tie his more whimsical flights of technical fancy to, few can compare (see: the plane crash in Flight). If you have seen the Academy Award-winning documentary this film shares its story with, Man on Wire, you know what to expect. The true story of a tightrope walker (played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt) attempting to walk between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center should be a perfect vehicle for Zemeckis’ particular gifts.

9. Trumbo, directed by Jay Roach

Release date: Nov. 6

As a film fan, I am also a nerd when it comes to old Hollywood. The history of film often reflects the history of America, and this is doubly true in one of this country’s darkest chapters – the era of McCarthyism and communist witch hunts. Trumbo is the story of writer Dalton Trumbo (Bryan Cranston), who as a result of government pressure, was blacklisted by Hollywood for socialist leanings and fought back the best way he knew how: by writing. This is one of the most interesting and troubling periods in our shared cultural experience, and I cannot wait to see it brought to life on screen.

8. Steve Jobs, directed by Danny Boyle

Release date: Oct. 9

Counting Steve Jobs, Oscar-winning director Boyle has made just 11 feature films. None is less than interesting, and several (Trainspotting, 28 Days Later, Slumdog Millionaire, 127 Hours) are unimpeachably brilliant. Add to that Michael Fassbender – whom I consider the most exciting actor working today – and my favorite actress, Kate Winslet, and I will be there on day 1. I cannot say I am terribly intrigued by a biopic of the late Apple founder, but with Boyle, this cast, which also includes Seth Rogen, Jeff Daniels, and Michael Stuhlbarg, and an Aaron Sorkin screenplay, I think we have every right to expect something extraordinary.

7. Suffragette, directed by Sarah Gavron

Release date: Oct. 23

Led by a cast including Carey Mulligan, Meryl Streep, and Helena Bonham Carter, Suffragette details the rise of the feminist movement and the push for women to gain the right to vote in the U.S. I will admit to being unfamiliar with Gavron’s previous work, though screenwriter Abi Morgan co-wrote one of my favorite films of the last few years, Steve McQueen’s excellent Shame, which also starred the fearless Mulligan. The story is timely and relevant, and it will be exciting to see one of the most important struggles of American democracy dramatized.

6. Crimson Peak, directed by Guillermo Del Toro

Release date: Oct. 16

Del Toro has a weird place in the Hollywood machine. He is the director of movies such as Blade II, Hellboy, and Pacific Rim, as well as a number of B-level horror films He also wrote the three Hobbit movies. There is nothing necessarily wrong with any of this work, uneven as some of it may be, but right in the middle of it all sits Pan’s Labyrinth, an absolute gem of a film. Crimson Peak, starring Jessica Chastain and Mia Wasikowska, looks like a return to the gothic fairytale horror of that masterpiece, and if so, we are in for one hell of a ride.

5. The Lobster, directed by Yorgos Lanthimos

Release date: To be determined

Greek writer-director Lanthimos is incapable of making a boring film, and there is nothing about the romantic sci-fi comedy The Lobster that suggests it will be his first. It is, however, his first feature in the English language, and it stars an enticing, eclectic international cast, including Colin Farrell, Rachel Weisz, Léa Seydoux, Ben Whishaw, and John C. Reilly. About a futuristic society in which those who do not mate are turned into animals, Lanthimos does not appear to be dialing back the weirdness to appease the larger audience The Lobster seems likely to attract. For that, we should all be thankful.

4. Bridge of Spies, directed by Steven Spielberg

Release date: Oct. 16

Could anything feel more classic than a Spielberg-Tom Hanks war movie? Any Spielberg film is reason to be excited, and this one seems right up his alley, following an American lawyer (Hanks) who helps the CIA rescue an American pilot in the Soviet Union. The script is co-written by Joel and Ethan Coen, as well as by Matt Charman, and while the Coens have not had much luck handing over their writing to other directors (Unbroken; Gambit), this is Spielberg. For good, old-fashioned moviemaking, there simply is no one better.

3. Macbeth, directed by Justin Kurzel

Release date: December

Remember how I said Fassbender is the most exciting actor working in Hollywood today? Well, as neat as it will be to see his imitation of Steve Jobs, the idea of him playing one of William Shakespeare’s greatest creations is enough to make me shake in my seat. On top of that, Marion Cotillard is Lady Macbeth. If you cannot get excited about seeing two of the best actors of their generation play two of the best characters ever written, there is something wrong with you. Kurzel is a relatively untested director, but if he can balance the epic canvas of the story with the intimate drama of the characters, this has the chance to be something special.

2. The Hateful Eight, directed by Quentin Tarantino

Release date: Dec. 25

Yeah, I grew up in the ’90s, and yeah, Taratino is one of the main reasons I love film. Django Unchained was neither the best nor my favorite of his films (I humbly submit Inglourious Basterds and Reservoir Dogs for those respective titles), but any new film from Tarantino is more exciting and more interesting than almost any new film by almost any other director (see one spot below on this list for the exception to this rule).

The Hateful Eight finds Tarantino back in the Western mode he explored with Django Unchained, and for this one, he brings along a similarly star-studded cast, including Samuel L. Jackson, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Kurt Russell, Bruce Dern, Zoë Bell, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, and many more. If you love movies, this is the kind of movie that is made for you.

1. The Revenant, directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu

Release date: Dec. 25

Fresh off winning three Oscars as the director, producer, and co-writer of last year’s Birdman, Iñárritu returns with something wholly different. If you check out last year’s list of Last Cinema Standing’s most anticipated films, you will find Birdman in the No. 1 spot. That is not a coincidence. No director chooses more thrilling or intriguing stories to tell than Iñárritu.

He also brings along a crew of unrivaled skill: cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki (back-to-back Oscars for Birdman and Gravity); editor Stephen Mirrione (Oscar winner for Traffic, nominee for Iñárritu’s Babel); production designer Jack Fisk (Oscar nominated for There Will Be Blood); and costume designer Jacqueline West (twice Oscar nominated for Quills and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button). What I am saying is the movie has one hell of a pedigree.

That alone would be enough – and frankly is enough – to land at the top of this list, but there is more. The film stars my favorite actor, Leonardo Dicaprio, in what looks like the most physically demanding role of his life. There is a lot of talk about Dicaprio possibly finally winning an Academy Award for this part. That would be great, but in the grand scheme of things, it does not matter. What matters is that Dicaprio is nearly certain to turn in the performance of his career. All of these factors combined, I cannot imagine another film more deserving of the title “most anticipated.”

Year in Review: Top 10 Performances

New blood is vital to the film industry – young storytellers with no fear of failure and young actors with the energy and spark to try anything. Young people are great for the arts because they do not know any better. Certain things should not work and sometimes probably should not even be attempted, but if you are starting at the bottom and there is nowhere to go but up, taking the biggest risk you can is really the only plan.

That having been said, this list of performers is almost all seasoned veterans. As I wrote Tuesday in the Best & Worst feature, when established actors take chances, there is little more invigorating. Two of the actors I mentioned in that piece top this list. Acting is often associated with vanity and beauty and all their related issues, but that is not what I associate with art. Art is ugly, dangerous, and confrontational. It should scream out for recognition from its core, not its surface. The following performances cry out for attention because they come from places of pain and truth, usually buried deep inside but unearthed by these fantastic performers.

Before we move on to the list, here are five more performances worth checking out: Katherine Waterston in Inherent Vice; Mark Ruffalo in Foxcatcher; Andy Serkis in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes; Mia Wasikowska in Tracks; and Eddie Redmayne in The Theory of Everything.

10. Chris O’Dowd in Calvary

Of all the lost souls Father James encounters over the course of Calvary, Jack Brennan, played by Chris O’Dowd, seems both the most lost and the most in need of being found again. O’Dowd embodies this contradiction with grace and subtlety. Many of you will know him only from his comedy work, in particular as Kristen Wiig’s love interest in Bridesmaids, but this performance is about a thousand miles removed from anything like that. Here, O’Dowd brilliantly captures the soul of a desperate man in search of anything to repair the damage done to his life.  

9. Michael Keaton in Birdman

There is certainly a meta-cinematic angle at play in Michael Keaton’s performance in Birdman, with Keaton, a former megastar for playing Batman in the early 1990s, playing a washed-up former superhero-movie star. That reading of the film exists and is fun to ponder, but it does a disservice to the edgy, complex character Keaton creates in Birdman. He is not Riggan Thompson, but he understands him on a level none of us could hope to. That some may be unable to distinguish the two is a credit to Keaton’s performance.

8. Lisa Loven Kongsli in Force Majeure

Forgive the play on words, but Lisa Loven Kongsli’s performance in Force Majeure is a tour de force. I have already written a bit about her work in the film (here), but it bears repeating. Kongsli is a relatively untested film actress with only a handful of features to her name, but she is the beating heart and wounded soul of Ruben Östlund’s black comedy. Her contribution is nothing short of a miracle, and though there are flashier roles on this list, Kongsli is the one who does the most with the least. While the rest of her family’s world spins out of control, she is the one left to sort out the pieces, and as she does, Kongsli invests the character with sharp wit, cool calculation, and deep empathy.

7. Julianne Moore in Still Alice

Julianne Moore is among the most reliable actresses working in the business today. Even when the films around her are lacking, she devotes herself fully to her craft. Still Alice is a film worthy of that devotion, and Moore does not disappoint. She plays a brilliant woman struck in her prime by early-onset Alzheimer’s. We see her at her best and at her worst as the disease ravages her mind, and through it all, Moore gives us the full picture of a woman who loses everything she held dear but only rarely has the faculties to realize it. It is devastating, immaculate work of the kind we have come to expect from Moore but should treasure none the less.

6. Brendan Gleeson in Calvary

With every performance, Brendan Gleeson just gets better and better, such that I hasten to call Calvary his career-topping work because he is capable of magnificence every time he appears on screen. It is enough, then, to say this is his best so far. He plays Father James, a Catholic priest in a town without faith. The locals try to beat him down and bring him to their level, but they cannot. His large build commands attention wherever he is in the frame, so even as the townspeople try to belittle him, it is bred into his DNA that he will stand tall. Gleeson is expert at using his body as part of the character, imposing his will simply by being imposing, though the town continues to slip from him.

5. Philip Seymour Hoffman in A Most Wanted Man

It is impossible to discuss Philip Seymour Hoffman’s work in A Most Wanted Man without feeling the pangs of sadness at the knowledge we will never see him lead a film again. Though the despair will linger, we have the work, and his final starring turn is among the best work he ever did. As a German intelligence officer tasked with preventing terrorist attacks, Hoffman has the walk, the talk, and the weary energy of a man who has been at this too long but who does not know what else to do. The character is built in silence, as Hoffman slumps his shoulders, shuffles his feet, and scrunches up his face to clue us in to who this man was and is. It is a masterclass in subtlety and understatement, and when he finally does erupt, we remember what made Hoffman so great, and we feel sad once more.

4. Michael Fassbender in Frank

With Hoffman gone, the title for “best actor of his generation” is up for grabs, and if I am on the nominating committee, Michael Fassbender gets my vote with no runner-up. From Shame to Hunger to 12 Years a Slave, Fassbender has proved time and again that he can grasp the soul of pain and reflect it back to us through film. How refreshing, then, to see him pull a complete 180-degree turn from anything he has done before. As Frank, the leader singer of the best band you will never hear of, Fassbender drips pure joy and manic energy. With his face covered nearly every minute he is on screen, Fassbender conveys everything he needs to with his body and his voice. Even behind a mask, the character is nothing less than fully present, and that is thanks to Fassbender’s tremendous talent.

3. Timothy Spall in Mr. Turner

 This may well be the definitive portrait of the artist as an old man. JMW Turner has reached the pinnacle of his profession, then watches it all fade into nothing. As Turner, Spall captures essence of the highs and the lows, the successes and indignities, as he takes us on a 25-year journey through the character’s life. What makes it all the more remarkable is that Turner, while notoriously prickly, is the least expressive character in the film. He communicates by grunts, grumbles, and grimaces, yet through Spall, the audience experiences the full range of emotions of a man whose surface rarely changes but whose feelings run as deep as anyone’s.

2. Jake Gyllenhaal in Nightcrawler

No one transformed himself more for a role this year than Jake Gyllenhaal in Nightcrawler. As Louis Bloom, the logical result of a gold-star, self-esteem culture manifested in human form, Gyllenhaal is unrecognizable. He is a gaunt, angular, predator of the night, preying on the pain of others with no moral compass to guide him through the darkness. He is not evil. He is worse. He is a sociopath who sees the world as his inheritance. His persistence and self-belief are his weapons, and he wields them expertly.

From 2013’s Prisoners to Enemy earlier in 2014 to Nightcrawler, Gyllenhaal has taken on the kinds of roles other actors in his position would shun. At this point in his career, he could do anything he wants. In choosing these parts, Gyllenhaal is reaffirming a commitment to craft over commerce, and that will always be commendable.

1. Charlotte Gainsbourg in Nymphomaniac

Though she has been acting for 30 years, you may not be familiar with Charlotte Gainsbourg, and that is okay. If pressed to name the most popular films she has appeared in, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s 21 Grams and Michel Gondry’s Science of Sleep would probably top the list. As much as she might deserve to be, she will never be one of the most famous actors in Hollywood. However, she is one of the most adventurous, passionate actors you will ever see on screen.

I have written before about her collaborations with director Lars von Trier. He makes dense, angry, challenging films about dense, angry, challenging people. In von Trier, Gainsbourg has found an ideal partner, and together, they have stretched the perception of what is possible in film acting. As a sex addict whose addiction has finally gotten the best of her in Nymphomaniac, Gainsbourg elevates her performance to the level of art, then transcends that. She is a walking, talking totem to pain, misery, and disappointment, all of which ooze out of every pore. When we talk about performances that scream out from their cores, this is what we mean. This is the best performance of the year.

Check back tomorrow as Last Cinema Standing's Year in Review concludes with the Top 10 Films of the Year.