FYC: Kristen Wiig in Ghost Town

In Ghost Town, Kristen Wiig doesn't do anything different from her usual Saturday Night Live schtick (the same schtick she schticked in Knocked Up). The schtick is still f*cking funny and it works in this movie, which is a charming soft-shoe into the afterlife. Wiig plays a surgeon who prepares and administers a colonoscopy to Ricky Gervais. Talk about a great comic setup.

She has two scenes -- before and after anesthesia -- and in both she exploits her masterful deadpan and clipped cadence. She's delightfully flippant in both, and adds a bit of verbal slapstick that mixes nicely with Gervais' straight man routine. Actually, when the two are sparring over whether or not Gervais died briefly during the procedure, you can't really tell who is the straight man:

WIIG: Ehhhverybody dies.
GERVAIS: Yes, but at the ends of their lives, and usually just the once.
WIIG: Ehhhverybody's different.

What a curious repeat pair of line readings. What a curious comic actor. If this is the one note Wiig has in her repertoire, then at least she can take heart that it's a good one. There are those who might say her appearance in Ghost Town is too brief to elevate it from cameo to supporting, but I say who cares. Supporting is supporting, not "second lead." It's the small gems, the quicksilver laughs. Wiig delivers them here.

This post is part of StinkyLulu's Supporting Actress Blogathon. What actor would you nominate in the category?

FYC: Hannah Bailey in American Teen

American Teen is billed as a documentary -- about what it means to be a high schooler in the United States in the 21st century -- and that's what it is, I suppose. It is a document. I saw it several times over the summer (for professional reasons). The first time I thought it was cute. The second time I thought it was cheap. And the third time I thought the film's glossy packaging, re-staged moments, and adherence to the narrative conventions of fiction made it a document about a generation raised in front of screens. This movie is not about real-life high school as much as it is about a generation who has been raised by television, and movies, and cell phones, and technologies that keep us occupied in a fantasy land instead of engaging us in the real world. This generation (my generation) knows how to present itself on camera, and its members know what's expected of them after "action." They know how their peers act on MTV and Bravo reality shows. And with American Teen, they had a director whose vision seemed about as real as The Real World.

I'm not suggesting Hannah Bailey is a fictional character. She is a real woman who had a real high school experience during which real things happened. I'm not suggesting her triumphs and problems were manufactured. But never once in American Teen does she forget the camera is watching her. By virtue of her natural traits and her screen savvy, Hannah is the heart and soul of the movie: pretty, charismatic, hip, nerdy in an endearing way, kind of a real-life Juno. American Teen director Nanette Burstein wisely focuses on Hannah, who has the necessary charisma and self-awareness to "carry a movie." And the two collaborate to create one of the more endearing characters onscreen in 2008.

Hannah Bailey laughs, cries, drinks, rocks out on the guitar, descends into depression, yearns to get out of her podunk town, and finally hops in a car and heads West. And we do all these things with her. All of these disparate events are packaged like a coming-of-age movie, with a beginning, middle and end. Hannah must perform when monologuing to the camera, when going through the natural beats of her story, when re-living the beats of her story that the camera missed the first time around. She knows the camera is there, and she knows what lines and actions will make a good scene (she gets more laughs and votes of sympathy than any of the other "characters"). Maybe the Hannah Bailey onscreen is the same as Hannah Bailey in real life. But when you know you're on camera, and you have a director who reinforces this self-awareness, and you have been raised in a media-savvy world...

Well, when the camera starts rolling, you become a character and you give a performance. And Hannah Bailey's was a memorable one, for more reasons than one.

This post is part of StinkyLulu's Supporting Actress Blogathon. What actor would you nominate in the category?

FYC: Kristen Thomson in Away from Her

By her very nature, Julie Christie is luminous. But Away from Her, in which she plays a woman succumbed to Alzheimer's, boasts two more intricate and moving performances: Gordon Pinsent's (her stoic, crumbling husband) and Kristen Thomson's (the kindly nurse at the rest home). Quibble: The Oscars tend to reserve the supporting actor categories for big stars or second-tier leading performances; the Academy appears reluctant to nominate and award "small" work, especially work that confines itself to the background in order to be most effective. After all, the Oscar is gold, and heavy, and shouldn't it go to something substantial and showy?

Hear this, AMPAS: Thomson's performance is supporting work at its finest, though we first see her only as part of the narrative's furniture. She's Kristy, the cute nurse who always seems to be on duty at the rest home, who always has a smile for Pinsent. She's texture. She's one facet of the scenery. She's the dose of humanity in an environment full of distant people. Then slowly she becomes Pinsent's confidante, telling him what he can expect from his wife, buffering him against the indignities wrought by the disease. Pinsent visits the rest home to see his wife but he goes to talk to Kristy. She appears young and wise, a sage ferrywoman on this emotional River Styx. Like a priest, she also hears his confessions.

And then one day she and Pinsent have a conversation over a smoke outside the nursing home. Without giving too much away, Pinsent makes some assumptions about Kristy's personal and professional life and she sets him straight. We see a sad, bitter side of her. After so much pleasantry, we see the fullness of Kristy. We see Kristy the human, the mortal. Thomson looks so much older in this scene. She lets her professional spriteliness melt away and we see someone in as much (if not more) emotional turmoil than the grieving husband. It's here we realize Kristy goes through what Pinsent does -- but doubled, and a hundred times over, every day.

Thomson strikes chords that are low in volume but resonant. They echo through every scene of Away from Her. Kristy even delivers the movie's tagline. "It's never too late to become what you might have been," she tells Pinsent, and we sense through some deep and subtle acting that she, too, needs to believe this or she'll be lost.

This is post is part of StinkyLulu's Supporting Actress Blogathon, which is a great service to the film blogosphere and will hopefully one day be established enough to sway the unimaginative members of AMPAS. What actor would you nominate in this category this year? View last year's contribution here.

FYC: Sook-Yin Lee in Shortbus

The film: A riotous celebration of our capacity to connect.
The actor: A Canadian musician in a star-making turn.
The character: A spritely couples counselor in pursuit of an orgasm.
The moment: When her tension boils over during a session with the Jamies. This could've been a forced, ungainly scene, but Lee has charisma to spare. She spins her wheels throughout the scene -- groping, lurching, finally making an admission. It's some nice comedy, and a great entrée to a character's journey. And it does feel like a journey -- a great arc -- thanks to Lee's emotional nakedness.

FYC: Pam Ferris in Children of Men

The film: A highly-praised dystopian action film set in 2027. It has much to say about our mortality, and is a stunning technical achievement -- more seemless, affecting battle scenes I have not seen. See Dargis for a graceful appreciation.
The actor: Heretofore unknown to me, save for her part as the aggressive battle axe Ms. Trunchbull in 1996's Matilda. Welsh by way of Kiwi. Also known for Aunt Marge in one of the Harry Potters and for her long career in British TV shows like "Rosemary & Thyme" and "Darling Buds of May."
The character: Miriam, a nurse-turned-rebel who can tangle with the best of 'em. Portly and dowdy: not your typical vision of an action heroine (save the dreadlocks), but she matches Clive Owen step for step. It's a true supporting performance. No flash, all texture. Cuaron could've cast a babe in this role, and the movie would've withered. Instead, we have this wonderful, mysterious, complete human being who quietly electrifies the movie's nervous system.
The moment: When she's describing her work on the frontline of extinction -- delivering humanity's last babies before our species goes inexplicably sterile. It could've been a theatrical monologue, but Ferris turns it into a profoundly understated bullet point on her war-torn resume. It makes her final scene all the more excruciating.

This post is part of StinkyLulu's Supporting Actress Blogathon. What actor would you nominate in the category? My runner-ups to Pam Ferris: Laura Harring and Pell James in The King and Diane Lane in Hollywoodland.

FYC: Matt Damon & Daniel Craig

The films: The Good Shepherd is a quiet epic of espionage both international and personal. Casino Royale is a flashy epic of espionage both international and personal.
The actors: Damon, one of the gravest and most charismatic actors of his generation, and Craig, who is joining him in that field.
The characters: Men of steel. Edward Wilson and James Bond. Tough as nails. All business. These aren't "performance" roles. These characters require reserve and control. They require actors whose mere presence can turn one note into a symphony. Wilson and Bond each betray one smile in their films, and Damon and Craig make these instances well worth the ride of stoicism.
The moments: For Damon, it's the film's opening sequence, when his gait and deameanor -- the way he carries his briefcase, and his shoulders -- convey Wilson's entire history of repression. For Craig, it's the torture scene. It must be hard as hell to act a torture scene, and even harder to be an irrepressible prick during it.

FYC: William Hurt in The King

The film: A bitter pill. Shakespeare by way of Faulkner. God's people go godless.
The actor: A subtlist. There's not a showy thing about him.
The character: A preacher with a sacrilegious past.
The moment: When he confesses his transgressions to his congregation, which starts to walk out on him. "God bless you," he says to his parting sheep. "I deserve your rebuke."