½way mark - part 2 of ? You can't see everything but you should see as much as possible if you're in the awardage business, or business of watching awardage, or business of watching awardage watchers and... well you get the picture. SEE MORE MOVIES. I know I need to and I see plenty.
Let's take stock of what's come out in theaters thus far (Jan 1st - Jul 1st for our purposes here). Even if conversations suggest otherwise in November through January each year we always pray that Academy members are regular moviegoers and don't just wait until their screeners arrive.
10 best lead performances from the year's first half...
Best Actress
• Juliette Binoche, Clouds of Sils Maria
Here's your assignment: Play an unflattering but hyper glamorous and entitled version of yourself. Amp up the comic timing and intellectual heft but stir it all up confusingly with sudden grief, regretful sorrow, and contrarian cluelessness masquerading as superiority. Now thinly layer all that over a restless crisis in confidence while also demonstrating the actor's process and connecting memorably to every scene partner. If you can do all that, congratulations - you're Juliette Binoche!
• Blythe Danner, I'll See You in My Dreams
Wonderful contouring of a guarded woman wrestling with 'is that it?' late life anxiety, loneliness and spoken and unspoken requests for intimacy with two new men in her life. Bonus points: beautiful singing.
• Melissa McCarthy, Spy
For much of the film she seems to have created a wholly new signature part, tender and endearing, with a great mix of competence, clumsiness, and wildly varying degrees of confidence. Even if she careens towards a more familiar bad-ass bulldozer toward the end, her comic skills are on point. Her best work since Bridesmaids
• Carey Mulligan, Far From Madding Crowd
She's arguably miscast but Mulligan clears that hurtle with her lively interior and bewitching surface. She reminds us -- and, frankly, we needed the reminding -- that she felt like a bonafide movie star when she first broke through in An Education
and...
• Alicia Vikander, Ex Machina
Even if the sound design and editing weren't so brilliant in Ex Machina, we're confident you could still hear the faint whisper of gears turning and circuitry whirring in Vikander's every movement and careful conversation, where she's always processing what to hide, what to reveal, what to say, how to be seen, whether to warn, and so on as her own understanding grows. People often describe deeply felt performances as "lived in" but if Ava couldn't quite qualify to be accurately described in that way (this AI was practically born yesterday after all) this is as authentic as synthetic gets. Vikander may be in 8 movies this year but a decade from now, well into her superstardom, this may well be the performance that people still talk about as the key to her ascendance.
Honorable Mention: With apologies to Anna Kendrick in The Last Five Years and a few other actresses but you can't list everyone!
Best Actor
There's been far less of note to choose from when it comes to the leading men but here are five men that impressed.
• Jack O' Connell, '71
Unbroken may have been the breakout last season but Starred Up and '71 (released in the States finally in 2015) were the far superior pictures. While this one is more of a filmmaking feat than an acting picture - it's damn relentless in its momentum - O'Connell holds the camera and his character like a true star even while merely running for his life or collapsing exhausted at the mercy of strangers
• David Dastmalchian, Animals
We knew early on that he could do much more than bit parts with how vividly he played them. So he wrote his own leading role, and nailed the execution. Animals works a very well trod path (the addiction drama) but his character arc is a wonder of clarity and naturalism with a heady mixture of regret, shame, love and acceptance ... and maybe some redemption around the corner
• Oscar Isaac, Ex Machina
Dance break! Isaac's performance may be best remembered for the idiosyncractic dance sequence (in this picture? well, ok!) but he refuses to let Vikander have all the challenging fun by complicated his mad scientist as much as possible with his own shaded performance, especially that agressive sexuality that feels less interest in fucking your body than your mind.
• Gaspar Ulliel, Saint Laurent
The movie makes a huge blunder in continuing on into YSL's old age without its star player but for most of the picture he's perfect at summoning the sexually and artistically compulsive soul of this celebrated designer.
and...
• Paul Dano, Love & Mercy
I've personally been all over the map in terms of Dano's work in the past but it all comes together here. He's excellent at burrowing into the mysterious impulses of a great musician in this painfully introverted performance as a man beset by both mental illness and artistic inspiration. He doesn't ask you to connect them (thankfully) but he does fine work showing how they possessed Brian Wilson in similar ways. He even makes John Cusack tolerable (as his older self) through how much of your sympathy he's aroused.
Honorable Mention: With apologies to the ever charming Channing Tatum as Magic Mike (we'll take his word on the XXL) but that movie is enough of a shrine to his stardom already without us also praying at the altar or tossing dollar bills.
Which leading performances really resonated with you this year? Are you eager to catch up with any of these.
Previously: ½way mark - pt 1 Oscar Chart Updates