ADIFF: Behind the Scenes

Audi Dublin International Film Festival’s “Behind The Scenes” strand will consist of Industry Panels, Seminars and Master Classes. Thi­­s strand enjoys a broad focus, whether you are a filmmaker, film student or film enthusiast, touching on subjects from film programming, screenwriting and cinematography to history on film, emerging technologies, classification and music composition. Notable guests are Oscar-nominated screenwriter and celebrated playwright David Hare, Oscar-winning composer Jan A.P. Kaczmarek and double Oscar-winning cinematographer Chris Menges.

History on Film is a key theme throughout the programme and will be the subject of a panel discussion hosted by Pearse St. Library. Seen, but Unnoticed is a reunion event for those who took part in the production of Michael Collins, reuniting 20 years on to share memories and anecdotes from their time on set. 1916 At The Pictures will see City Hall turned into a cinema for a triple bill of Charlie Chaplin films that were screening in one of the many cinemas on O’Connell St at the outbreak of the Rising.

This year ADIFF is presenting not one, but two exhibitions of photography. Patrick Redmond, 25 Years will celebrate the work of the Festival Photographer and his extensive catalogue of wonderful guest portraits dating back to the early 1990s. The second photography exhibition #Setlife aims to highlight and celebrate skilled and hardworking crews working on location and on set for very long hours through key moments snapped to allow audiences a view of life in production.

 

MASTER CLASSES in association with Screen Training Ireland

David Hare: “Telling Details” – A Writer’s Master Class

Saturday 20^th February at 11:00am

The Teachers’ Club, Parnell Square West, Dublin 1

Tickets: €25 apply via Industry@diff.ie

Host: Malcolm Campbell

A unique opportunity to hear directly from one of Britain’s most prolific writers for both stage and screen. This is a fantastic opportunity for writers both of original screenplays and anyone seeking to adapt works for the screen. As part of this Master Class the components of plot, character and structure will be dissected and explored. This Master Class will focus on approaches to screenwriting and delve deeply into the various elements that are integral to the delivery of a quality screenplay.

 

Chris Menges: “Scenes Being Believed” – A Cinematographer’s Master Class

Sunday 21^st February at 12:00pm

The Lir Academy, Pearse St, Dublin 2

Tickets: €25 apply via Industry@diff.ie

Host: Irish Society of Cinematographers

This Master Class will draw on Chris Menge’s vast experience working across different genres, formats, locations and environments (including The Mission and The Killing Fields). The aim is to bring this knowledge to bear in a context that will teach the participants about collaborative dynamics between a director and their cinematographer. It will also aspire to touch on a cinematographer’s tools of the trade, traditional methodologies and how story and character should influence the look of the piece as opposed to format or the latest technological toys.

SCREENTEST in association with the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI)

Rebellion: From Script to Screen

Monday 22nd February at 13:30

The Teachers’ Club, 36 Parnell Street West, Dublin 1

Tickets: €7 / Book Online at diff.ie

The divisive television production Rebellion marked the beginning of RTE’s 1916 centenary programming. Boasting a starry cast led by Charlie Murphy and Sarah Greene it focused on various female protagonists from different backgrounds, loyalties and ideals, in the days surrounding the Rising, occasionally weaving in the actual heroes of 1916 amidst locations such as Dublin Castle, the G.P.O. and Collins Barracks. Writer Colin Teevan, Producer Catherine Magee, Costume Designer Alison Byrne, as well as some of the key crew, look back on the shoot and discuss the various production stages beginning with script, casting and scheduling right through to principal photography and post-delivery, including location shooting during the summer in Dublin’s city centre.

 

BYOD: BRING YOUR OWN DEVICE

Wednesday 24th February at 13:30

The Teachers’ Club, 36 Parnell Street West, Dublin 1

Tickets: €7 / Book Online at diff.ie

It has been said that constant mobile device usage is isolating and restricts human contact. But, like it or not, mobile devices are now an integral part of daily life. While some people simply long for a time when phones simply made and received calls, the reality is fast moving toward the virtual, or even the augmented. Google Cardboard, vlogging, 360° video, mojo journalism, even the film industry itself with films like Tangerine, are all now extending the use of mobile devices and pushing boundaries daily. Hell, you can even buy a camera drone for £50 and give your short film aerial photography now. A panel of experts will discuss how new cutting edge apps will rapidly become the thing you cannot live without.

 

Explicit Content

Friday 26th February at 13:30

The Teachers’ Club, 36 Parnell Street West, Dublin 1

Tickets: €7 / Book Online at diff.ie

With the landscape of broadcast and cinema constantly changing, approaches to classification and content regulation require constant appraisal. This panel discussion aims to take an in-depth look at the various factors that must be applied to both film classification and content regulation for broadcast. Issues like classifications on youth targeted films, depictions of violence on television, or codes of fairness will be explored in a unique opportunity to see how and why decisions are reached. Experts from the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, the Irish Film Classification Office and the media will discuss the various aspects of managing complaints, adhering to regulations for youth audiences and freedom of expression. Just don’t expect a serious discussion of why Rebellion opted for a hard R-rating thus invalidating its use as an educational tool unlike either HBO’s John Adams or BBC’s 37 Days.

 

SPECIAL EVENTS

Cinema Snapshots / With Sunday Miscellany & Dublin City Libraries

Sunday 7th February at 09:10, radio broadcast and online podcast on RTE.ie

Going to the cinema is a unique and sometimes magical experience. It can transport you out of your seat; at Q&As your mind can be opened up to the worlds of the director, the actor, the screenwriter. Writers and poets involved with Dublin City Libraries writing groups shared their experiences of cinema in Dublin. Sunday Miscellany on Sunday the 7th February at 9.10am is a special edition that will hear the winning submission from those Library groups and also feature well-known Irish filmmakers, lecturers, presenters and writers (including John Connolly, Ciaran Carton and Ruth Barton) providing their own perspectives on what the cinema and film in Dublin means to them.

 

#SetLife / Photography Exhibition

Thursday 18th – Sunday 28th February

Lighthouse Cinema

#SetLife is an exhibition of photography from behind the scenes of various Irish film and television productions. Presented in association with Lovemovies.ie on behalf of the Industry Trust for IP Awareness, this exhibition will run in the Lighthouse and will display a selection of photographs taken on Irish sets by various cast and crew members of day-to-day life on set. #SetLife aims to capture the scale of work that goes into bringing something from script to screen, and the army of people across various departments who work tirelessly to make it all happen.

 

Dublin Here, Dublin There

Saturday 20th February in Dublin Public Library, Dublin Texas

Friday 26th February in Dublin Arts Centre, Dublin Ohio & Pulaski County Library System, Dublin Virginia

ADIFF has a strong history of successful outreach programmes and has a fantastic reputation of working with festivals around the world. In 2016 ADIFF has allied with the communities of Dublin in Ohio, Texas and Virginia – who have each offered their knowledge, resources and venues to help share a programme of the best Irish shorts with audiences in the US. The project aims to strengthen Dublin’s connection with these communities to bring awareness, as well as Ireland’s love of cinema, to the greater worldwide diaspora.

 

Programming for Programmers

Friday 19th February at 14:00

The Teachers’ Club, 36 Parnell Street West, Dublin 1

Tickets: €7 / Book online at diff.ie

Chaired by Hugh Murray (Pavilion Theatre).

Mark Adams (Artistic Director, Edinburgh Film Festival), Nashen Moodley (Festival Director, Sydney Film Festival), Gregg M. Schwenk (CEO and Executive Director Newport Beach Film Festival) and Ania Trzebiatowska (Artistic Director PKO Off Camera & Manager of Acquisitions for Visit Films) will provide insight into the world of programming as an international Artistic Directors. From the moving puzzle of international distribution to inviting guests and the challenges of the red carpet, these experts will discuss the subtlety of programming. This event is a networking opportunity for new and advanced programmers to meet each other and to gain perspective from top festival professionals.

 

Pat Redmond, 25 Years / A Celebration

Tuesday 16th February – Wednesday 16th March

The Georgian Society, 58 South William Street, Dublin 2 and The Powerscourt Centre, 59 South William Street, Dublin 2

In a world increasingly dominated by the snap, selfie and speed shot, this exhibition will celebrate the work of a true master of the art of film portrait photography, who has provided Dublin’s film festival, in its numerous guises over the past quarter century, with an indelible photographic record of the eclectic array of filmmakers who have graced the festival.

HISTORY ON FILM

 

Seen But Unnoticed / A Reunion of the Background Artists and Extras of Michael Collins

Saturday 20th February at 12:00

The Teachers’ Club, 36 Parnell Street West, Dublin 1

Tickets: Free event / Please email industry@diff.ie to register your interest

They came by the busload, graciously offering time for free (in a move that saw Hugh Leonard award Neil Jordan his ‘Cute Hoor of the Year’ Award) and supplementing the period costumes with clothes they brought themselves in order to participate in one of the most ambitious undertakings of Irish Cinema history, Neil Jordan’s Michael Collins. To celebrate the 20^th anniversary of this remarkable production ADIFF invites those who took part in the production to join a special reunion and retrospective of the amazing shoot.

 

History on Film / Film on History

Tuesday 23rd February at 17:00

Pearse Street Library, 144 Pearse Street, Dublin 2

Tickets: Free event, book online at diff.ie

In this year of anniversary and commemoration a panel of filmmakers, academics and journalists will discuss the relationship between cinema and history. A full list of films included in the ‘History on Film’ strand will be accompanied by talks and discussions. The nettle that might not be grasped is the baneful effect of films like Zero Dark Thirty on popular understanding of historical events even as they attempt to win Oscars by virtue of their historical cachet.

 

1916 At The Pictures

Wednesday 24th February at 14:00 (81 minutes)

City Hall, Dame Street, Dublin 2

Tickets: Email info@diff.ie for ticketing information

ADIFF will recreate the cinema of 1916 as it was, by representing the films which would have been shown in the cinemas of Dublin on that fateful Easter week. Archive research has uncovered cinema listings from April 1916, including screenings at old venues on O’Connell Street such as the Picture Pillar House. From within the list of archive titles a restoration of some classic Charlie Chaplin films from his early career shows the beginnings of some of his most beloved and remembered characters including the Tramp.

The Bank: Charlie the janitor loves Edna, the pretty bank secretary, but her sweetheart is another Charles, the cashier.

The Champion: This comedy has Charlie finding employment as a sparring partner who fights in the prize ring and wins the championship match, with the help of his pet bulldog.

The Tramp: Charlie saves a farmer’s daughter from some thieving toughs and subsequently stops their attempt to rob the farm.

PUBLIC INTERVIEWS

 

Interview with David Hare and ‘The Hours’ screening

Saturday 20th February

15:00 Interview (60 minutes)

16:30 The Hours (114 minutes)

IFI 1

Tickets: €9 each or €15 for both events. Tickets also available from IFI Box Office, www.ifi.ie

Host: Sean Rocks

David Hare is well known for his work in theatre, having written more than thirty plays including Plenty, Pravda, Skylight, The Judas Kiss, snd a version of Ibsen’s The Master Builder currently running in the Old Vic. He has also been widely honoured for his long list of credits for the screen. He has written more than twenty screenplays for film and television including Plenty, Paris by Night, Weatherby and Damage. As a screenwriter he has twice been nominated for Oscars for his adapted screenplays on The Hours and The Reader, each of which also earned him nominations for a Golden Globe.  His haunting drama Weatherby won him a Golden Berlin Bear in 1985 and he has directed many actors to win awards for their work across his formidable back catalogue. ADIFF will present a screening of his adaptation of Michael Cunningham’s novel The Hours, where he will participate in a pre-screening interview with Sean Rocks of RTE Radio 1’s Arena.

 

Jan A.P. Kaczmarek / Composing For Film Seminar

Saturday 27th February

Royal Irish Academy of Music

Tickets: €15 Book Online at diff.ie

Host: Bill Whelan

Jan A. P. Kaczmarek is a composer with a tremendous international reputation that continues to grow. His first success in the United States came in theatre. After composing striking scores for productions at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre and Los Angeles’s Mark Taper Forum, he won an Obie and a Drama Desk Award for his music for the New York Shakespeare Festival’s 1992 production of John Ford’s ’Tis Pity She’s A Whore, starring Val Kilmer and Jeanne Tripplehorn. Having composed music for films in Poland, he achieved recognition with scores to Total Eclipse, Bliss, Washington Square, Aimée & Jaguar, The Third Miracle, Lost Souls, Edges of the Lord, Quo Vadis and Unfaithful. In 2005 he won a Best Original Score Oscar for Finding Neverland.

 

 

Sicario

Emily Blunt is an FBI agent in over her head in the crusade against cartels in director Denis Villeneuve’s gripping thriller of a dirty war.

Kate Macer (Emily Blunt) is a ‘thumper’. She kicks in doors to rescue hostages. Or, as in the startling opening sequence, her armoured car kicks in an entire wall before unleashing her gun-toting squad. But all her rescues don’t really make a dent in the war on drugs, so when prosecutor Dave Jennings (Victor Garber) offers her the chance to join a taskforce led by Graver (Josh Brolin) she volunteers. But the taskforce soon starts to trouble her. It’s bad enough being surrounded by Graver’s crew, trigger-happy jocks like Forsing (Jeffrey Donovan), but their stoic DoD ‘adviser’ Alejandro (Benicio Del Toro) is troublingly mysterious, and their mission soon creeps over the border from El Paso to Ciudad Juarez. Her FBI partner Reggie (Daniel Kaluuya) urges her to quit after that mission erupts into quasi-legal slaughter, but Kate needs the truth.

Sicario is a triumph. Icelandic composer Johann Johannsson’s extraordinary score makes you anxious even before the first image, with its insistent sinister rhythm. At times he almost mischievously quotes Brad Fiedel’s Terminator 2 T-1000 cue, as if to relieve tension, but his melding of digital beats with brass and strings consistently unnerves. Sicario is always riveting, and even when the script (by Sons of Anarchy actor Taylor Sheridan) appears to be losing its tension it’s merely misdirection to increase paranoia. Roger Deakins’ cinematography is jaw-dropping: aerial photography gives a drone’s eye view of the warzone, while a pan across the border-crossing makes Juarez seem incredibly alien, and a climactic sequence with thermal imaging surpasses Zero Dark Thirty. Villeneuve equals Michael Mann in his staging of a prisoner transfer in cartel-run Juarez and a gun battle in a stalled motorway jam.

The opening titles tell us originally ‘sicario’ were Jews murdering occupying Romans. Like Villeneuve’s Incendies, this is a contemporary film with mythic echoes of savagery past. Kate in her conflict with Alejandro is Creon to his Antigone: devotion to upholding the law is the right thing for Kate, where Alejandro believes in breaking the law to do the right thing. Meanwhile Graver’s cynical “If you can’t stop 20% of Americans putting stuff up their noses and in their arms, let’s have some order at least” is not only as grimly realistic as the similar dirty war tactics depicted in ’71 but also oddly reminiscent of the simultaneously historically inspiring and dubiously propagandistic message of Zhang Yimou’s Hero. A major achievement for Villeneuve is that, despite Deakins and Brolin’s involvement with No Country for Old Men, Sicario is its own universe.

Sicario, powered by Blunt’s assured lead performance as a heroine too dogged for her own good, grips from its thunderous opening to its soft-spoken and extremely resonant last lines.

5/5

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes 3-D

Andy Serkis (in motion capture) returns as evolved primate Caesar, but Cloverfield director Matt Reeves cannot rescue this iteration of the franchise from itself.

A chilling prologue shows the lights going out globally as the GenSys-created simian flu decimates humanity. A decade later Caesar (Andy Serkis) is in command of the apes in the Bay Area forest, flanked by scarred warrior Koba (Toby Kebbel), wise orangutan Maurice (Karin Konoval), and loyal Rocket (Terry Notary). There is tension between Caesar and his petulant son Blue Eyes (Nick Thurston), and everything falls apart when Rocket’s son Ash (Doc Shaw) is shot by Carver (The Black Donnellys’ Kirk Acevedo). Carver is part of a team led by Malcolm (Jason Clarke), which includes Malcolm’s wife Ellie (Keri Russell) and son Alexander (Kodi Smith-McPhee). They are trying to restart a dam to provide power to San Francisco’s human colony led by Dreyfus (Gary Oldman). The dam is Caesar’s, and Dreyfus gives Malcolm three days to negotiate a peaceful solution…

Matt Reeves inserts some visual trademarks; a lengthy tracking shot in which chaos explodes into frame, a fixed-position sequence from a tank turret’s POV, and a nicely vertiginous use of the Golden Gate bridge; but whereas Let Me In’s slow-burning approach achieved agonising levels of suspense, this is just agonising – Reeves takes forever to unfurl a very simple and remarkably boring plot. Technically everything’s competent: Michael Giacchino’s music is effective if uncharacteristic (no sad tinkly piano!), and Michael Seresin’s cinematography approaches that of Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, and would be commendable if it likewise served a mood – but you can’t help feel it’s hiding creaking CGI. Ah, CGI… This is our defining modern paradox; an air of distancing unreality hangs over everything, but the great technology and preparation that created it is extolled as cutting-edge and therefore preferable to engaging verisimilitude achieved practically. The non-ending is as insulting as that of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, and a trend that needs to be denounced: it’s like ending The Two Towers halfway through the battle of Helm’s Deep.

Writing takes effort. 2011’s reboot had a shocking poverty of characterisation but was a roaring success. Writing becomes much easier for Jaffa, Silver, and Bomback if they know the audience doesn’t want characterisation… Blue Eyes is petulant. That’s his one note. Then later he’s cowardly. He’s easily duped, because… and sides with Koba, because… then finds his steel, because… the script said so. Koba recalls Firefly’s “Curse your sudden, but inevitable, betrayal!” He discovers Dreyfus’ preparation for war and returns to warn Caesar, but loses his rag because he sees Caesar helping humans; except Caesar’s not actually helping them when Koba arrives… But hey, in event of plot emergency break glass for jerk, right? Carver’s rejoinder to Ellie’s fact – “The virus was created by scientists I don’t think the apes they were testing it on had much say in it” “Don’t give me that hippie-dippy bullshit” – is comically awful, but it’s easier to have jerks spark plot points rather than have Dreyfus and Malcolm’s reasonable disagreement over how to achieve their aim be teased out; perhaps that’s why Oldman is barely in this movie. By the climactic “What are you doing?” “Saving the human race!” gambit we’ve reached a truly low point where self-sacrifice that doesn’t work (like Alona Tal in Supernatural) isn’t tragic, but a running gag from 21 Jump Street.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is so poor it makes you nostalgic for the awful Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Whither Rod Serling’s scripting intelligence?

1/5

Top Performances of 2013

As the traditional complement to last week’s Top 10 Films, here are the Top Performances of 2013. The refusal to isolate single winners is deliberate; regard the highlighted names as the top of the class, and the runners up being right behind them, and the also placed just behind them. They’re all superb performances.

Best Supporting Actress

Ellen Page (The East) Page is extremely menacing as the forceful Izzy, so enigmatic as to appear without moral limits, but almost mythological in her convictions and actions as lieutenant of eco-terrorists The East.

Jennifer Ehle (Zero Dark Thirty) Acting plaudits mysteriously went to Jessica Chastain’s petulant heroine, but it was Ehle’s humane turn as the wiser, more plausible agent that gave the film its emotional grounding.

Maggie Gyllenhaal (White House Down) Giving it EVERYTHING, she’s so ferociously committed, especially in scenes of betrayal and redemption, that her dignity makes all the nonsense around her plausible.

Runners Up:

Melanie Laurent (Now You See Me) To an extent Laurent is playing French Agent Mulder. She wants the criminals she’s hunting to employ real magicks – and her willingness stands in for the audience perfectly.

Elizabeth Debicki (Gatsby) Short-shrifted by Baz ,who deleted her final scene, the Aussie newcomer stood out as Jordan Baker, her drawling accent, flapper look, and careless air redeeming part of the film’s mess.

Lola Creton (Something in the Air) As the most sensible of all the young socialist revolutionaries we meet in early 1970s France she’s later sadly abandoned by the script, but has impressed enough to be missed…

Also Placed:

Rila Fukushima (Wolverine) As the petite samurai who teams up with Logan she’s instantly adorable as a warrior with a softer side.

Gal Gadot (Fast 6) Gadot is there for her looks, but she manages to inject an unexpected undercurrent of sadness to her part.

Best Supporting Actor

James Franco (Spring Breakers) Franco’s turn as bling-adorned terrible rapper Alien, constantly muttering “for real” and “spring break forever”, was a terrific use of charisma to glamorise a seedy criminal.

Ben Kingsley (Iron Man 3) A Fassbendering Kingsley showed great range as he found very surprising comedy in The Mandarin, despite having a traumatising scene where he tested the President live on TV.

Sam Shepard (Mud) His mysterious neighbour was a tour de force as he brought to life a character who keeps to himself yet has acquired over his life insight, wisdom, and ruthlessness he employs to guard a select few.

Jacob Lofland (Mud) Neckbone rode a motorbike and pilot a motorboat but he was a contemporary Tom Sawyer and newcomer Lofland was wonderfully naturalistic as the more cautious of the two teenagers.

Runners Up:

Keith Carradine (Ain’t Them Bodies Saints) Carradine puts his now considerable gravitas into his toughened by life mentor who has been hurt by his charges but is still deeply invested in assuring their happiness.

Rob Lowe (Behind the Candelabra) He was hysterically funny as a plastic surgeon whose eyes never seemed to quite fully open after a facelift and who seemed barely conscious at times as he pushed pills.

Samuel L Jackson (Django) An almost unrecognisable Jackson was sensational as the house slave Stephen, in the best acting performance he’s given in years he was racist beyond belief because it secured his status.

William H Macy (The Sessions) His priest was vital to the success of the film, as he counselled its crippled hero he mixed sincere but inept attempts at being matey with a forgiving theological approach.

Ben Foster (Ain’t Them Bodies Saints) Foster gave an unshowy performance as the taciturn face of the law, but it was a performance that didn’t seek to conceal a far sweeter note than his usual hard man.

Also Placed:

Jason Clarke (Zero Dark Thirty) Clarke was on fine form as the torturer par excellence who burns out from the job.

Tommy Lee Jones (Lincoln) His radical abolitionist Thaddeus Stevens was a very funny slice of TLJ with extra intelligence.

David Schwimmer (The Iceman) He was unrecognisable as the inept Jewish mobster trying to pass himself off as being Italian.

Arnold Schwarzenegger (Escape Plan) Arnie freaked out – in German! I want to see newly cuddly Arnie speak German more often.

Jim Carrey (The Incredible Burt Wonderstone) Carrey is wonderfully callous and rude as an obnoxious David Blaine type.

Best Actress

Cate Blanchett (Blue Jasmine) Essaying a comic Blanche DuBois  she was able to shift from gorgeous and intelligent to haggard and schizophrenic within a scene by dint of sheer facial expressiveness. More extraordinarily she was also able to retain audience sympathy despite being vicious.

Brie Larson (Short Term 12) Larson is terrific as chief counsellor Grace, enigmatic even to her live-in boyfriend, she’s an unknowable figure who reveals little of herself for most of the film, and can switch from companionable and warm to commanding and cold in a second when needed.

Jennifer Lawrence (Catching Fire) Lawrence nuanced her formidable heroine with a healthy dose of PTSD and survivors’ guilt. Her sedition-inspiring reaction to seeing the family of her surrogate little sister, slain District 11 tribute Rue, was devastating and her final gesture in the Quarter Quell iconic.

Aubrey Plaza (Safety Not Guaranteed) Sullenness has never been so loveable. A sub-plot that’s dispensable puts a lot of pressure on a slight plot, and it’s hard to think anyone else could’ve pulled off this role. Plaza makes her intern both understandably saddened by her life and internally driven.

Runners Up:

Greta Gerwig (Frances Ha) Gerwig was wonderfully convincing as the immature but winning graduate who hasn’t been as successful as her peers and desperately bluffs while she flails about trying to be an adult.

Rooney Mara (Side Effects, Aint Them Bodies Saints) Mara’s patient was compelling thru all her medicated character changes, while her domesticated outlaw gave nuanced glimpses of savagery behind the facade.

Amy Adams (Man of Steel) Adams was a fantastic Lois, abrasive, charming, romantic, and finally cinematically we got a reporter who discovered Superman’s true identity by dogged investigating!

Also Placed:

Mary-Louise Parker (RED 2) Parker had a tricky role as the overtly unnecessary element in a spy caper but she managed to pull it off with some remarkable absurdist comic timing in many of her scenes.

Best Actor

Matthew McConaughey (Mud) McConaughey confirmed his renaissance by deploying all his charm and naivety to dramatic import as the superstitious fugitive hiding out from the law and Texans, and bonding with Ellis, as, with irrepressible romanticism, he waited for his true love Juniper.

Michael Shannon (The Iceman) Shannon was chilling as the cold-blooded contract killer, not least as he displayed little conflict; a stunning scene in which he gave James Franco time to pray to God confirmed this; yet his love for his family kept you rooting for his Atlantic City property scheme to pay off.

Michael Douglas (Behind the Candelabra) Douglas gave his best sustained performance since Traffic in an uninhibited performance, unafraid to show the ‘vanity gone mad’ horrors of plastic surgery in practice, that created a character of insatiable appetites, misused talent, and confused religiosity.

Runners Up:

Casey Affleck (Aint Them Bodies Saints) Affleck was on fine form as an outlaw possessed of such romantic passion that his violent outbursts seemed less criminal than regrettably necessary to find true love.

Tye Sheridan (Mud) Sheridan gave a subtle turn as the teenager enduring the disintegrating marriage of his parents who reacted to the loss of his riverside life by appropriating Mud’s belief in everlasting love.

John Hawkes (The Sessions) Hawkes’ performance was showy in the sense that he physically discomforted himself to play the real-life polio victim and poet, but it only worked because he was so very funny.

Also Placed:

Robert Downey Jr (Iron Man 3) Sure he complicated Stark with some panic attacks but the real triumph was the envelope-pushing abrasiveness to a helpful kid that only Downey Jr could get away with.

Henry Cavill (Man of Steel) Goyer’s script too often merely sketched personalities but luckily once Cavill donned the suit he transformed vocally and grew into the role as a rather good Superman.

Leonardo DiCaprio (Gatsby) DiCaprio did his damndest to just ignore Baz’s shtick and play F Scott’s Gatsby, and if you’ve seen Revolutionary Road, you’ll know he can perform the novels, not bad scripts.