(My) Best of 2010: Actor.

5. Mark Wahlberg in The Fighter

Wahlberg's performance in The Fighter is a knockout simply because it's not. While the actors and characters around him indulge in method acting and quirky, over the top, characterizations, he simply is.

Playing real life boxer Micky Ward, he seems to leave behind all traces of self importance and plays him like a man conflicted with the world around him. Doubting whether to stay true to family, duty or self, he subtly invades everyone's world as they try to invade his'.

Watch him in scenes with Christian Bale, during which he exudes fraternal love through tiny smiles and prideful eyes. Then watch him in scenes with Melissa Leo, who plays his mom, and observe how he disguises exasperation with obligation.

His scenes with Amy Adams are the real treat though; she plays his girlfriend and it's with her that we see him truly shine. An innocent hand grab becomes sublime support, a silence becomes an argument and a shrug opens up a world of painful possibilities, the likes of which he never exhibits in the ring. His performance proves that you don't have to wear your heart on your sleeve to show your humanity.

4. Manolo Cardona in Undertow

It must not be easy playing a symbol, and Manolo Cardona does it with such ease, that his performance becomes devastating and haunting.

As a gay artist in love with a sexually confused fisherman, he symbolizes art, homosexuality and unspeakable love, yet he never turns his character into a mere vessel.

He still plays him with the traits of a full rounded person and his eyes still look from the screen with pain and piercing desperation.

When the movie literally turns him into a symbol, he preserves this core and becomes an embodiment of memory and how its overreaching power can comfort or destroy us.

3. Edgar Ramírez in Carlos

Few actors are able to turn crime into charisma, yet Ramírez does it as famed terrorist Carlos "The Jackal". Watching him during almost six hours, he doesn't give a single false step and his performance eveolves with every passing minute of Olivier Assayas' astonishing accomplishment.

Watching him grow from a narcissist idealist into a damaged plastic surgery patient is nothing if not engaging. What's more, he changes his body with such deft unawareness (watch him go from sex symbol to chubby down on his luck criminal) that you never think twice about thinking that this man indeed aged the three decades we see him portray in the film.

2. Stephen Dorff in Somewhere

When you think "movie star", Stephen Dorff is probably not the first name that comes to mind. Yet, in Sofia Coppola's intimate Somewhere, he embodies the enigma of Depp, the effortless sexiness of Clooney and the troubled nature of James Dean, while providing him with a heartfelt sensitivity and grace.

It's easy to guess that the movies Johnny Marco does are the exact opposite of something Coppola would do (just take a look at the fiery posters featured in the film) but what Dorff proves to us is that you can't simply judge a book by its cover (or a film for its poster?).

Since Coppola gives us access to the most intimate moments in this man's life we see Johnny trying to find beauty and meaning in everything he does.

Dorff is able to overcome "poor little rich boy" clichés and delivers a sweet performance that defies our judgment. His best scene might be an awkwardly staged spectacle in which he's rewarded for his life achievements during an Italian awards show.

Watching him there paralyzed by the unknown (and giving us glimpses of subtle American xenophobia) yet thrilled by the presence of his daughter, we understand that once the movie's over we probably will never understand this man.

1. Jesse Eisenberg in The Social Network

No other actor, in no other 2010 movie, delivered his lines with the conviction with which Eisenberg infused his Mark Zuckerberg. A portrait of loneliness amidst an endless world of social interaction, he captured the desolate feeling of alienation and wanting to belong, with such precision that it made total sense he was playing a computer geek.

Every move in his performance seems calculated with such meticulousness that soon we realize that Mark is always playing a part.

Even his bouts of passion are so technically precise, within their chaos, that we are always left wondering just how much goes on inside this man's mind and how much he's willing to lose control (if any).

Yet despite the assholeness he exudes, at the end of the day we can't help but be moved by his solitude. We envy him, loathe him, judge him and even if at the end we don't love him, we'd totally be willing to accept his friend request.

The Fighter ***½

Director: David O. Russell

Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Melissa Leo

Jack McGee, Mickey O'Keefe

If Rocky had been co-directed by Martin Scorsese and Woody Allen, it would've looked something like The Fighter. The energetic film, based on the life of welterweight fighter "Irish" Micky Ward (Wahlberg), borrows heavily from the cinematic style of those auteurs while preserving the dark humor that has characterized David O Russell's filmography.

The film concentrates on the rise to fame of Micky, who had to overcome the shadow cast by his oldest brother and trainer Dicky Eklund (Bale), a former boxer who succumbed to crack addiction.

The Fighter follows an established formula (does life come in formulas or are they heightened for dramatic purposes?) as Micky realizes the only chance he has of becoming "someone" is getting past his, well...past.
He falls for bartender Charlene (Adams), who helps him see things from a new perspective and slowly helps him to cut loose from Dicky's unhealthy drag as well as his mother7manager Alice's (Leo) excessive power over him.

What makes this film seem exciting in a way, is its screenplay, which more than delivering inspirational conventions, actually creates characters worth watching. This, combined with the dazzling performances delivered by the cast makes for a real treat.

Wahlberg, once again completely underrated (not only by other characters but by the script) moves through the film like an accessory. We mostly see him through others and in the film's centerpiece he literally has to solve his life in a boxing ring.

However beyond the huge biceps and quiet gracefulness lies a man with a harsh inner struggle. It's rare for movies to suggest families can have any sort of bad influence over people (heck, they are even romanticized in The Godfather!) which is why here it comes as surprise to see that even for a minute Wahlberg's character has to cope with choosing between family and self. It's probably not easy and the actor makes it seem like the most natural thing ever.
Bale once more recurs to his chamaleonic abilities and transforms into Dicky. The actor carries over his aggressive charm and makes this man someone who's both intensely attractive and unintentionally dangerous. His scenes with Wahlberg are amazing, as they have created a chemistry that makes us understand the bond that exists between them.

When Dicky finally realizes he might be hurting his younger brother, he doesn't do it with an intense action, he simply turns his back on him and walks away, as if telling him it's alright to move on.

The brothers' different personalities are expressed by Russell beautifully using cinema. Through most of the film we see HBO cameras following Dicky around as they make a documentary about him, on the other side we see that Micky takes Charlene to see a movie he doesn't particularly have any interest in for their first date.

Therefore while Dicky thinks he's made to be in movies, Micky uses them to hide, thinking perhaps they're more powerful than him.
The movie he sees is Belle Epoque (which he pronounces "belly epocue") and in this scene we see Amy Adams shine in completely unexpected ways. Playing a character unlike anyone we've seen her play before the actress achieves new heights and delivers a truly scene stealing performance.

She makes Charlene someone who may not have the class but certainly has the attitude. A conflicted bartender who dropped out of college, it's refreshing to see her find a new chance at happiness by being in love.
The actress delivers her lines with a defying mix of insecurity and bitchiness which makes her all the more fascinating to watch.

Leo is also terrific as the possessive mother. She expresses love for her kids in the only way she can: by making them feel still attached to her. Her Medea-like qualities are hilariously heightened by Russell through the use of her seven daughters who follow her around like a bitter Greek choir full of spinsters. When they confront Charlene in one scene their collective utterance of "skank" is brilliant.
It's ironic perhaps that the actual fight scenes in the movie don't hold a candle to the more intimate moments outside the gyms and auditoriums.
While the fighting sequences are done with superb technical mastery, the humanity felt outside the ring is what makes The Fighter feel like a champ.

Date Night ***

Director: Shawn Levy
Cast: Steve Carell, Tina Fey
Mark Wahlberg, Taraji P. Henson, Jimmi Simpson, Common
William Fichtner, Leighton Meester, Kristen Wiig
Mark Ruffalo, James Franco, Mila Kunis, Ray Liotta

Hollywood often has the mind of a child; they often team up rising stars and robots or famous legends and musicals, assuming that putting together A and B will always result in a hit.
More often than not this strategy implodes all over them but when they decided to put together the two funniest people in showbiz things actually worked out in the most unexpected ways.
Tina Fey and Steve Carell star as Claire and Phil Foster, a married couple from the Jersey suburbs whose existence revolves around their house, their kids and their jobs.
Watching their attempts at rekindling their sex life-with only five hours of sleep between the forced foreplay and the time their kids jump on them to wake them- is hilarious but also bittersweet.
As funny as they make the normality of their house scenes (you never see them as something other than the Fosters) they also keep the characters grounded and the comedy sometimes gives way to deep sadness.
After they learn a couple they know is getting a divorce, both decide it's time to relight the flame for good. They decide to venture out of their comfort zone and go have dinner on a Friday night in Manhattan.
They dress up, arrive at the hippest seafood place in the city and are sent to the oblivion of the bar until a table becomes available-if ever.
Trying to impress his wife, Phil steals a reservation from a couple that never shows up, called the Tripplehorns and after their fabulously overpriced dinner is over, they are approached by two men (Common and Simpson) who ask them to walk out with them.
Thinking this has to do with the stolen reservation (and an embarrassing moment involving will.i.am) the Fosters are surprised to learn the two men are actually looking for a flash drive the Tripplehorns stole from a big mobster.
Soon they're on the run across the city trying to clear their name and preserve their lives, in the process having the most exciting night of their lives.
Anyone who says they do not know how this movie will end is lying, the plot's predictability is obvious from its title. The one thing that might surprise you is that Fey and Carell create the chemistry one would've deemed too good to be true.
He's a master at his kind of goofy, heartwarming comedy (when he's called "androgynous" by a guy in a strip club his droll stare is priceless!) while Fey's own kind of dorky sexiness serves her to deliver her OCD bitchiness with enough oomph to make her more likable than not.
Together they have no fear of being absolutely ridiculous (scenes with Henson who plays a police detective make one wonder how did the actress contain her laughter with these two around) and awkward (an often shirtless Wahlberg gets the best out of the dynamic duo).
What's so special about Date Night is the fact that despite your best knowledge of how silly and preposterous the situations might get you are always willing to invest into the main characters.
It's not like one of those movies where you laugh against your better judgment, this one doesn't care to steal a random giggle from the audience, it makes your stomach literally hurt from laughing so much.
Even when they are involved in an oh so typical dance with a pole sequence, you won't be thinking "this is so stupid" but "boy, I wish I could bring someone to see this with me".

The Lovely Bones ***

Director: Peter Jackson
Cast: Saoirse Ronan, Rachel Weisz, Mark Wahlberg, Susan Sarandon
Stanley Tucci, Rose McIver, Nikki SooHoo, Carolyn Dando
Michael Imperioli, Thomas McCarthy, Reece Ritchie

Based on Alice Sebold's bestseller "The Lovely Bones" tells the story of Susie Salmon (Ronan) a fourteen year old girl who is raped and murdered by her neighbor George Harvey (Tucci) on December, 6, 1973.
"Back when people believed things like that didn't happen" narrates Susie from beyond the grave as the film follows the aftermath her murder has in the lives of her family and friends.
Stuck in a sort of limbo ("the blue horizon between heaven and earth" she calls it) she seeks redemption for her crime and tries to comfort her family by communicating with them.
In that way we meet her mother Abigail (a terrific, understated Weisz) who has denial issues, her father Jack (Wahlberg who had rarely been so moving),who becomes obsessed with solving the murder, sister Lindsey (McIver), little brother Buckley (Christian Thomas Ashdale) and crazy grandma Lynn (Sarandon who despite being the kind of character who always has a lit cigarette and a drink, remains compellingly watchable in the actress' hands).
Coming from an extensive special effects background Jackson once again tries to push boundaries creating Susie's personal heaven.
The results consist of majestic New Zealand vistas enhanced with computer effects which represent Susie's mood.
Jackson comes up with some clever setpieces, but there's nothing we hadn't seen before.
The most spectacular "effect" in this in-between is Ronan herself. Giving yet another breathtaking performance, the actress turns Susie into a girl next door. The kind of which you would've noticed if she went missing. She's sweet in scenes where she tries to reach out to her father (she's spectacular with Wahlberg) and punches your gut in her scenes with Tucci.
Ronan's ability to act like someone her own age seems easy to achieve, but definitely requires a special effort because child actors are always thought to be playing themselves.
Most special of all are her reactions with Reece Ritchie, who plays the guy Susie has a crush on. Her blushes are honest and real and when she escapes his kiss, but then accepts an invitation from Harvey, she doesn't become an accomplice in her own death, but acts like a girl that age would. When faced with the prospects of love she doubts herself and naturally trusts an adult more.
Whoever ended up adapting Sebold's book would've had trouble encompassing the author's rejection of the howcatchem and her delicate portrayal of grief. Jackson is no exception and sometimes he dedicates all his resources towards creating unjustified tension and police drama (Imperioli plays the detective in charge).
Scenes involving Harvey are all overwrought and storybook creepy, Tucci overdoes it by using every creepy trick in the notebook. Suspicious hairstyle, conniving mustache, weird accent, weirder walk. It's a surprise that it takes them so long to even think of him as a suspect.
But this makes sense when you think that the whole film is seen through Susie's perspective. When someone else becomes suspicious of the quiet Mr. Harvey, it's not an adult, or even a human being, but the Salmon family dog; who probably cared for Susie.
Maybe the Mr. Harvey we're seeing has nothing to do with how adults see him and Susie-being a child and all-overdoes the creep factor so that we too get to hate this man.
If this was Jackson's intention it gets lost from time to time in the war between style and substance he holds throughout the movie. "The Lovely Bones" has some serious elliptical problems and some characters act out of seeming deus ex machina.
But most of this can be forgiven for Ronan, who makes this almost heavenly.

Max Payne *1/2

Director: John Moore
Cast: Mark Wahlberg
Mila Kunis, Olga Kurylenko, Amaury Nolasco
Chris O'Donnell, Nelly Furtado, Ludacris, Beau Bridges

Why is it that the hero survives a shower of bullets and the seemingly invincible villain only needs one to be done with?
Based on a famous video game "Max Payne" is a dull, often preposterous attempt at neo noir that seems to be in love with fulfilling comic book aesthetic clichés.
Wahlberg plays the title character, a New York City detective investigating the death of his wife and daughter more than three years before.
After what sounds like the longest cold case ever, he suddenly gets a lead that has him meet the mysterious Natasha Sax (Kurylenko) who is murdered soon after.
When Max becomes prime suspect he uncovers a network of underground crime and drug trafficking along with Sax's pissed off sister Mona (Kunis) and clues that might finally get him the redemption he seeks.
While the film is stunningly shot, there is so much invested into the dark look and "Matrix" like action sequences that everyone forgot that the things they are lighting and animating so attentively needed to spark a bit of interest in the audience.
You rarely care about Max finding his wife's murderer, because apparently neither did he until he found out a movie was being made about him.
Even more, the film's need to show off visually is taken to the x level when they include Nordic mythical creatures that part the heavens like jelly and plague the film with a creepy presence. If you think they serve a purpose in the plot, then the film has pulled off a magnificent job of sending the audience into the wrong direction.
In a mystery you might admire their tricks, but in here you realize it's just part of their extravagant need for attention. And apparently this film thrives when it lies indiscriminately to the audience (watch out for the disappearing tattoos in one character that suggest plot twist at times but end up being just continuity errors)
Wahlberg is robotic and the rest of the cast doesn't really help much.
Apparently this Max is all about giving the audience some pain.

The Happening *

Director: M. Night Shyamalan

Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Zooey Deschanel

John Leguizamo, Ashlyn Sanchez, Spencer Breslin, Betty Buckley

If such things as film deities exist, M. Night Shyamalan is seriously out of favor with all of them.

After the stupifyingly stupid "The Village" and the masturbatory "Lady in the Water", he returns with his take on the impending apocalypse to deliver a thriller that ends up being mostly unintentional comedy.

"The Happening" begins in New York City, Central Park to be exact, where all the people suddenly freeze like extras from "Last Year at Marienbad" before they start comitting suicide.

Construction workers jump from buildings, policemen shoot themselves and teenage girls use their hair pins as weapons.

The media begins to assume its terrorism, while others debate it might have natural causes and Shyamalan does his best pseudo-Hitchcock impersonation relishing in the creepy factor raised by the unknown.

The story then moves to Philadelphia (where else?) where high school science teacher Elliot Moore(Wahlberg) listens about the event and flees town with his wife Alma (Deschanel), his friend Julian (Leguizamo) and his little daughter Jess (Sanchez).

When their train makes an unexpected stop they realize they're on their own and must travel cross country until the event ends and before they perish.

The acting is appalling, the writing lazy, to say the least, and together they end up with a weird plant raiser (Frank Collison) saying "You know, hot dogs get a bad rep. They gotta cool shape, they got protein." while all everyone else can think of is running away.

Wahlberg seems stale and zombie like, or out of "The Blob", Leguizamos is satisfying and Deschanel seems to be so aware of the garbage dialogue she's given that she doesn't even try to hold back her mocking smile.

Audiences familiar with Shyamalan will be expecting a surprise twist (which isn't completely fair of them to expect or of him to feed) and while that moment arrives they will undoubtedly try to figure out what the hell is actually going on.

Things that might pop in your head might include extraterrestrial attacks, some sort of lazy metaphor for not thinking before we act, bees (don't ask) or even the preposterous idea that the disaster is only deviced to aid the leads realize that they do love each other.

This time around, unable to sustain his egocentric charade long enough for us to care, Shyamalan tries to deliver his own philosophical take on what we're doing to the planet and before you can say "an inconvenient fool", his preachy message has made Al Gore look like the most subtle speaker out there.

But while apathy, irresponsible behavior towards the planet and the unbeknownst future of the human race are things that provoke fear, the only thing that induces terror in "The Happening" comes off in the opening credits when the words "Written, Produced and Directed by M. Night Shyamalan" appear.

We Own the Night *1/2

Director: James Gray
Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Wahlberg, Eva Mendes, Robert Duvall

How to judge a movie in which Eva Mendes' character is the sanest of the bunch?
During one key scene she points out to her boyfriend why everything he's involved in, is just plain wrong and unnecessary.
Her boyfriend is Bobby (Phoenix) who works as manager in, "El Caribe", a notorious club owned by a Russian mobster (Moni Moshonov) where they only seem to play Blondie songs.
His father , Burt(Duvall), and brother, Joseph (Wahlberg), are policemen, but Bobby has been able to maintain his family connections hidden just by using his mother's maiden name.
Things change, when Joseph is shot after raiding "El Caribe" and Bobby learns that (surprise!) it was the guys he works for.
Bobby has a change of heart and decides to make the family proud by becoming a double agent which makes the film turn into a lazy version of "The Deaprted" with biblical undertones.
Before things turn into a soap opera, which they do in the second half, you are already trying to convince yourself the characters' motivations are sparked by the least amount of coherence.
You never really know why Bobby became estranged from his family and why would he betray the people who treated him so well, even if they are drug dealers and murderers.
While Phoenix is such a good actor that he can convince you of almost anything (see this in an especially good scene where he sheds an unexpected, very Method, tear) you can't help but try and diagnose Bobby with some very serious Oedipal issues.
Duvall's performance seems to be fueled by an awkward patriarchal pride measured by how much his sons risk their lives and Wahlberg certainly has
The film's twists are constructed just for the sake of being twists and when one of the last ones happen, the real surprise is that you didn't even know you were supposed to be expecting a twist.
When more questions regarding the characters' motivations start circling your mind the only reasonable conclusion you may come to is the fact that you are witnessing a movie that has put every last ounce of coherence at the service of its plot.
How can you take seriously a movie that has a whole system (in this case the NYPD) working around its characters' redemption?


P.S: I carry matches and a lighter as well!