Top Ten: Ewan McGregor Performances

Tuesday Thursday Top Ten

With Ewan McGregor back in theaters with Beginners and with it being Moulin Rouge! week and all, how about a list of our top Ewan performances?

I have only the dimmest recollection of A Life Less Ordinary and I just didn't want to include that awful Star Wars prequel trilogy on principle (though Ewan survived it better than most of the actors) and it's possible I forgot something else... but here we go.

10 "Jerome" in THE PILLOW BOOK (1996)
I love Ewan's ballsy (ahem) taste in material... at least at that point in his career. His screen persona often reads sweet but he's quite a wild child in terms of the cinema.

09  "The Ghost" in THE GHOST WRITER (2010)
A tricky cipher part -- who is he really? we can't know -- that he pulled off well. It helps that the movie is so damn good: top ten list!

Tilda and Ewan in "Young Adam"

08 "Joe Taylor" in YOUNG ADAM (2003)
Arriving so quickly on Moulin Rouge!'s warm heels this one was a shocker. Ewan re-embraced the amoral danger of his star-making roles in the 90s, absent the devilishly winking charisma that made his previous unsavories so palatable. Bonus points for sexing up Tilda Swinton and and expressing his love of condiments. We generally drown our burgers in them, but he prefers them on live flesh.

07  "Alex Law" in SHALLOW GRAVE (1994)
I haven't seen Danny Boyle's feature debut since the 90s but it was one sick and slick calling card with a very young long haired Ewan acing his soulless roommate act.

06 "Catcher Block" in DOWN WITH LOVE (2003)
He probably owed this flirty cocky shot at romantic comedy headlining via Moulin Rouge! but who is better suited to it. Plus, he looked so good in his suits. This is a movie I keep meaning to rewatch.

05 "Curt Wild" in VELVET GOLDMINE (1998)
We mentioned 'wild child' earlier. None of his roles embrace that concept quite as obviously. Ewan, who doesn't leash himself when acting (to our eternal gratitude), played the hell out of this unpredictable glitter-spraying, pants-dropping, drug-taking, boy-kissing, fucked-up rock star morphing from glam rock abandon to... sedated "Curt" Cobain?

NSFW

04 "Phillip Morris" in I LOVE YOU PHILLIP MORRIS (2010)
That twinkly-eyed sweetness was used to great fey affect in this uneven but funny romantic comedy about a gay romance that bloomed in prison and couldn't quite break wiggle out from behind those bars. Have any of you seen this yet? So many actors biff it when they play up "gayness" but Ewan, always so at ease on camera and free of judgements toward his characters (think about it) came across so naturally. Few actors are as good at playing romance onscreen, he nearly always makes a solid case for why the other actor/actress is gaga for him.

03  "Oliver" in BEGINNERS (2011)
A great part of the success of this whimsical melancholy exploration of a dying gay father (Christopher Plummer) and his lonely straight son (McGregor), is how sympathetically Ewan embodies the role and how much chemistry he always has with co-stars. Loneliness can be a huge self-sabotaging drag in real life -- often turning people off when the sufferer needs to connect -- but in the movies it tends to evoke empathy in audiences. You watch and you wait and you desperately want Oliver to find love and happiness and to smile broadly and often... partially because he's Ewan McGregor. Stop hiding that famous grin!

02 "Rent-boy" in TRAINSPOTTING (1996)
A performance worth diving into a toilet bowl to experience.

image via "fucking awesome ewan"

"Choose Life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television to watch Ewan McGregor movies on!' (This film should have netted him his first Oscar nomination with ease. Alas... he's still waiting.)

1 "Christian" in MOULIN ROUGE! (2001)
When The Film Experience did a "Favorite Actors of the Aughts" in 2005, Ewan McGregor landed in the top 5 (yes, I hope to republish that later this year -- donate -- to look at the entire decade rather than just its first half) and here's what I had to say, paraphrased for this new context.

Ewan makes me feel. He makes me smile. Some actors we relate to as identity surrogates. We want to be them or see the story through their eyes. In the case of McGregor I find I'm always the other characters; I'm always with him. The apotheosis is the "Elephant Love Medley" scene. Like Nicole Kidman's 'Satine' I usually start out trying to resist Ewan McGregor (my critical/cynical self usually in control). As he keeps battering away at my defenses with his unique spark, humor, and openheartedness (both as character and actor), I start to cave. I resist, I complain, I explain all the reasons why not. But before long I am totally his.

It still applies. Come what may...

Top Ten: Tom Hardy's Back Side

A week ago I just couldn't get myself worked up over the first glimpse of Tom Hardy's back in The Dark Knight Rises. The new pic spread across the internets so fast you'd think his flesh was covered in Lady Gaga tattoos. I couldn't get excited because I'd seen it so many times before with better views; the back, not the shot of "Bane"! Bane once broke Batman's back so it's fitting that we'd see that side of him first. It all comes back to the spine.

So herewith an impromptu top ten random ten shots of Tom Hardy from the back.

10 THE CODE  (2008)
The Code, which often films Tom Hardy from the back as more important characters are viewed from the front while they chat is a prime example of the retroactive casting problem with rising stars. When you watch their pre-ascendance movies, it's totally distracting how little the director notes their presence... as if you should actually care more about the characters who share their scenes. As if!

Stop talking men in suits. Show us the Hardy!

09 STAR TREK: NEMESIS (2002)
One of Hardy's earliest roles was one of his highest profile parts as he puts the nemesis in Nemesis. When Shinzon (Hardy) meets the crew of the Starship, the room is dark and the camera is careful to only show him from behind (or cloaked in shadow) for minutes on end.

You're not at all what we expected you to be.

...Capt. Jean Luc Picard tells him and he doesn't even know how true that is. Turns out Shinzon is actually genetically identitical to Picard, a clone! The antagonist decides to stop playing coy. "Computer bring the lighting up four levels," he says for the dramatic reveal. The lights come up and I think you're supposed to gasp that Tom Hardy LOOKS EXACTLY LIKE Patrick Stewart.

If by exactly like you mean: also bald. Hollywood hates bald people! We all look the same to them.

08 THE DARK KNIGHT RISES
Seen up top. The reason it's not higher is I actually prefer my Hardy with less steroid bulk. Where are the architectural details of a screen body when it's shaped like a brick wall? Give me "Handsome Bob" rather than "Bronson" is what I'm saying... even if Bronson is definitely the... uh... fullest... way to really enjoy your Tom, heartily. To date.

More on Bronson in a bit. Warning: nudity after the jump...

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Top Ten Triple: Time Tables 'Tween Movies

Generally speaking a human infant can be produced in nine months. Baby elephants take two years. But when it comes to directors birthing their next celluloid or digitial babies, the time tables from conception to birth remain a calendrical mystery. Outside of Woody Allen, who brings an infant film into the world each and every year and Clint Eastwood, who often has twins, there's just no telling!

It's so hard to please movie buffs

We're thinking about this because Darren Aronofsky is lining up his post Black Swan project and Serious Film was just rejoicing over the news that P.T. Anderson is back to work. His thinly veiled Scientology film, formerly titled "The Master" has a June start date. Michael is like Goldilocks on the topic of time between pictures and we are too -- it's hard to satisfy us! -- but the Robert Altman / Martin Scorsese time table, a film every two or so years, is deemed "just right".

Michael writes:

Sure that makes them more vulnerable to the occasional dud, but it also opens them up to all the interesting follies and surprise discoveries that wind up being as treasured as their major masterpieces. Marty would never had produced anything as odd and discomfiting as King of Comedy if he has been moving at the glacial pace of a Terrence Malick, and the cinematic landscape would have been poorer for it.'

Can he get an amen?

We're limiting the following lists to living filmmakers / post-studio time frame because everyone was more regular when films ruled the world (prior to tv) and were assembled with greater efficiency. So for today's lists, let's look at the slowpokes, inbetweeners and quickies. These are not exact lists -- imagine trying to research every director in the world and we've also extracted shorts, tv films and documentaries -- but lists of commonly discussed feature filmmakers and a few of our favorites thrown in for good measure. 

DISCLAIMER: We're fully aware that financial backing is a factor in speed but have to ignore it for the purposes of this article. Also, we're aware that release dates don't always reflect timetables but you try looking up start of filming dates versus release date disparity on thousands of movies.

also: eating, sleeping, thinking, applying sunscreen.

SLOWPOKES
Listed from the very slowest to quickest among the slow. One is forced to imagine that the following filmmakers actually hibernate inbetween films. Only intense hunger pains ever reawaken them. This list is dedicated to Spike Jonze (who has only made 3 features since he started movies and they're all brilliant. But three is no kind of legacy: Commit!) and to Jonathan Glazer who we can only assume is having problems with financing. He's only made 2 films, both of them wonderful, in the past 10 years. His next feature is supposedly Under the Skin (2014) which would arrive a full decade after Birth, one of the most brilliant films of the Aughts.

1. Terrence Malick
   Quickest: 5 years between Badlands and Days of Heaven.
   Slowest: 20 years between Days of Heaven and The Thin Red Line.
   Rough Breakdown: One film every seven and ½ years (5 films thus far)
2. Baz Luhrmann
   Quickest: 4 years between Strictly Ballroom and Romeo + Juliet
   Slowest: 7 years between Moulin Rouge and Australia
   Rough Breakdown: One film every four years and 9 months (4 films thus far)
3. David Lynch
   
   Bob, Dale Cooper and Lynch in the prolific Twin Peaks years.Quickest: He's managed one year gaps on occasion
   Slowest:

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Tues Top Ten: Toy Story

I'm in a toon'ful mood. What can I say? After some time with Disney's dogs, how about Pixar's toys?

2011 is the 25th anniversary of Pixar Animation Studios (they opened their doors in February 1986!) so I wanted to look back a bit at their marvelous output. I enlisted some other people from around the web to chime in too, so we'll have the results of an informal poll later on. But to start, let's look at the ten best moments from their first full length feature, TOY STORY (1995). Do these choices line up with yours?

TOP TEN MOMENTS IN TOY STORY (1995)

Hey Etch, Draw!

10. I almost went with Mr Potato Head's "Hey look I'm Picasso" bit but Woody's showdown with Etch-a-Sketch is the best visual gag during the movie's extended opening scene. It's a perfect illustration (nyuck nyuck) of Pixar multiple joke approach. It's three gags in one: visual, verbal, cinematic.

09 INSIDE BUZZ'S VISOR.
Pixar's always been adept at endearing you to their stable of characters. But one of the most confident things about Toy Story -- remarkably confident given that it was their first feature -- is that both Buzz and Woody are pitched as hero and villain at some point. Woody is selfish and bossy (especially in the first half) and they don't really soften that and your first moment "inside" Buzz's persona, a great point of view shot, is from inside his bubble where he's breathing like he's Darth Vader. It's a fun reference but it also sets up the possibility that he's the antagonist that Woody's protagonist believes him to be.

08 YOU'RE A TOY.
Buzz Lightyear seeing himself on TV. A shock to his senses (of self.)

Buzz is greater than Woody and here's why. Woody is a dog; he's desperate for Andy's love and affection 100% of the time, content to follow. Buzz is a cat; he enjoys Andy but his sense of self worth comes from his actual sense of self.

07 "MRS NESBITT"

Poor Buzz. He's never been able to roll with improv like the other toys. My other favorite part of this scene is the headless dolls "Marie Antoinette and her sister"

06 CODE RED
The opening birthday party reconaissance mission. The monkeys and the green aliens have since replaced them as this franchises' favorite multiple character gag, but The Bucket of Soldiers are so endearing in their complete lack of humor. They have some weird old school pull, don't they? The're not brightly colored or showy of personality or funny looking. The mission is everything!

05  Sid performing 'double bypass head surgery.' Buzz's indignant response is so hilariously straight-faced.

I don't believe that man has ever been to medical school.

04 "WILL ANDY PICK ME?"

Sometimes Woody's three film flipflopping between "favorite toy" confidence and disabling insecurity annoys, but this scene, is so beautifully lit (the magic hour) and it makes so much of such a tiny thing (who will Andy take to dinner at the Pizza Palace?) that it sends you right back to any childhood or adolescent (or vulnerable adult) moment where some minor thing was THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERED, LIFE OR DEATH. But it's really the use of the Magic 8 Ball that sends the scene to movie perfection. "Don't Count On It."

Goddamn it that Magic 8 Ball is a bitch.

03 The repeated shot of "ANDY" written on Woody and Buzz's shoes. In permanent ink!  Aren't you jealous of every boy named Andy who can watch these movies and pretend it's literally their toys that the movie is about?

02 SID'S COMEUPPANCE

We toys see everything...

...SO PLAY NICE.

The follow up shot of him terrified of his sister's doll is the perfect capper. "Don't you wanna play with Sally?"

01 "THE CLAW"
Subsequent Toy Story's have regurgitated the joke too often, dulling its neon bright genius, but I still had to give this absurdly clever Pizza Planet flourish the top spot. Everything about the sequence works wondrously starting with Buzz Lightyear's entrance, which is the best kind of pop culture comedy. It plays off universally understood genre tropes -- in this case sci-fi -- rather than referencing one specific property and therefore dating itself.

I come in peace.

And then it soars ever higher. "The claw!!!!" Pixar's process must allow for a lot of brainstorming because you rarely feel they haven't explored every comic possibility of a scene or a character or an environment.

One of the unsurpassable joys of moviegoing (and live theater) is the communal rush you can feel when a piece of art is connecting with everyone in the room. I saw Toy Story on opening night at a huge packed theater in Utah with my brother. Had the theater been empty I'm sure we would have laughed heartily. But would the mad euphoria have set in? We were giggling so hard, we couldn't stop; the laughs were ricocheting back and forth like they were made of rubber. (It wasn't until I saw the film a second time that I remembered anything about the next couple of scenes.)  It's not only one of my single favorite moviegoing memories, it's one of my single favorite memories of my brother.

Do you remember the first time you saw Toy Story?

Top Ten: Surprise Nominations

Michael C. here from Serious Film for Tuesday Top Ten.

The great contradiction of awards season is that there is nothing spectators enjoy more than a surprise yet that doesn't stop anyone from doing everything but pick through the trash of Academy members looking for clues that might help in divining their choices. The truth is that film awards, like presidential elections or tomorrow's weather, are not all that difficult to predict once you know a few basics. That's what makes genuine shockers such a rare treat.

So, with the Golden Globe winners suggesting a year of easy calls across the board and the BAFTA nominees giving tiny flickers of hope to a few longshot candidates (particular in the actress categories), let's dive into past out-of-the-blue choices with the ten most surprising Oscar nominations and see if they hint at any rays of hope for this year's long shots.

     Ten Most Surprising Recent Oscar Nominations

Michael Shannon (2008) Supporting Actor

People talk a lot about momentum and popular films having coattails when it comes to supporting performances. There is truth to this, but in the end sometimes it's better to simply give a killer performance. This was the case when those predicting Dev Patel would take this slot due to Slumdog fever turned out to be wrong and the nomination instead went to Michael Shannon's brief, explosive performance in Revolutionary Road. Social Network contenders Andrew Garfield and Justin Timberlake no doubt hope that their film's frontrunner status is enough to keep any dark horses from sprinting past them at the finish line.

Letters From Iwo Jima (2006) Picture

Part two of Clint Eastwood's WWII double feature (immediately following Flags of Our Fathers) got nominated despite subtitles, minimal precursor attention, and tiny box office. It took the slot universally expected to go to Dreamgirls proving that all the prerelease hype in the world can't land a Best Picture nomination if voters simply don't go for a film - a lesson Clint learned three years late with Invictus. 

Ed Norton (1998) Lead Actor

In this awards race, SAG (the Screen Actors Guild) ignored Ed Norton's intense work in American History X for the more conventional choice of Joseph Fiennes in Shakespeare in Love. The switch on the Oscar ballot was undoubtedly an example of Norton doing well with Oscar's system of weighted ballots, with an extremely passionate fan base pushing him over the top of more widely seen choices. Actors like Tilda Swinton or Ryan Gosling with similarly strong supporters might find themselves the beneficiary of this system come the morning of the 25th.

Samantha Morton and Djimon Hounsou (2003) Lead Actress, Supporting Actor

In America was looking like a sentimental also-ran after neither of these actors landed SAG or Golden Globe nominations. Just goes to show that certain late bloomers can hit the Academy sweet spot without making much of a ripple in the early stages of awards season. Hopefully, that means contender's like Another Year's Lesley Manville have more of a shot than the odds suggest.

Troy (2004) Costumes

This entry could just as easily be The Village's Best Score nomination from the same year. It's to the credit of the Academy's smaller branches that they've shown a willingness to stray outside the frontrunners to pick out quality work in otherwise forgettable projects. Are there any standout elements from otherwise off-the-radar 2010 films that could pop up unexpectedly? The nicely realized costumes from Centurion spring to mind.

The Secret of Kells (2009) Best Animated Film

The nomination of this beautiful, obscure Irish animated fable is a strong reminder that when the voters actually watch all the eligible films in a category, the conventional wisdom falls by the wayside pretty quick. Imagine if actors could only vote for Best Actress if they could prove they've seen Blue Valentine, I Am Love and Another Year? I dream, I know. As far as eligible animated contenders this year, I've heard My Dog Tulip is incredibly moving and Idiots and Angels is a feature from beloved animator Bill Plympton, a guy who certainly has some fans in the animation branch. Look out for those two.

The Reader (2008) Picture

This shocker is going to have reverberations for years to come. When Stephen Daldry's sober drama side-swiped The Dark Knight out of its expected Best Picture nod the Academy panicked, expanding the Best Picture field to ensure that small independent films wouldn't lead them down the road to obsolescence. The only lesson to draw from this - Oscar voters still don't dig superheroes, especially when there's a film with Nazis available - doesn't exactly apply this year, although the snub has granted Christopher Nolan "overdue" status that can only help Inception.

Mike Leigh (2004) Director

The lone director slot has become something of an Oscar tradition over the years with the director's branch making sure to recognize deserving auteurs whose films are too out of the mainstream for the big prize. Examples range from David Lynch in '01 back to such icons as Akira Kurosawa in '85 and Fellini four separate times. I selected Mike Leigh because these lone directors are usually not that hard to spot - a couple of people, including Nathaniel right here, saw Almodovar coming in '02 - but nobody picked up on any buzz for Vera Drake outside Imelda Staunton. If voters heard how hard Blue Valentine's Derek Cianfrance fought for years to get his film made he might be the latest member of this very exclusive club.

Keisha Castle Hughes (2003) Lead Actress

Even if people generally agree that a category designation is false it still tends to stick. My guess is that most voters would rather go with the inaccurate classification than risk wasting their vote by swimming against the current. This wasn't the case in '03 when to everyone's amazement Oscar voters plucked this child actress's performance in Whale Rider out of the supporting category where it was nominated by SAG and promoted it to the big leagues. The parallel to 2010 is all too obvious so I will merely say that the leading ladies should watch their back for a precocious 14-year old armed with her father's revolver and the Coen brothers' dialogue. 

City of God (2003) Director, Screenplay, Editing, Cinematography

These four out-of-nowhere nominations for Fernando Meirelles's Brazilian crime epic are the kind that give hope to followers of the gaudy circus that is Oscar season. They suggest that voters will not only go out of their way to see small films of quality, but will remember them from early in the year and then ignore the frontrunners to vote for them in sufficient numbers to make a difference. It gives free rein to imagine your dark horse favorite isn't totally out of it. Maybe an out-of-the-blue Best Picture nod for I Am Love or Somewhere this year? I wouldn't bet on it, but look at those four nominations again before you tell me it's impossible.