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Showing posts with label The Devil All The Time. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Devil All The Time. Show all posts

Sunday, December 27, 2020

Unsung Movie Acting Performances of 2020

I want to take this post to spend some time appreciating a handful of movie performances that are sure to go overlooked come award season. I'm not talking just about the Academy Awards, I'm taking about all award shows: the Independent Spirit Awards, Golden Globes, Critics Choice Awards and everything in between. There's no shortage of places where an actor can be praised come award season, yet even still, many are overlooked for their great performance. That's where I come in. These are the performances that I loved that, like Rodney Dangerfield famously states, can't get no respect. 


Robert Pattinson
Best Supporting Actor
The Devil All The Time


Why The Performance is Great: While Antonio Campos' campy Southern Gothic epic The Devil All The Time may not be very good (though it continues to live in my head rent free), Robert Pattinson's performance will haunt my dreams. He plays Preston Teagardin, a morally corrupt reverend who uses The Lord to justify his wicked ways. There's a slickness like a used car salesman to his performance that allows him to steal the show and monologue in a way where you want to punch his character in the face while hanging on his every word. In a film loaded with some of Hollywood's best young stars, it's Pattinson's performance that stands out. His attempt at a Southern accent doesn't hurt either. While the rest of his non-American co-stars are trying to use a traditional movie Southern dialect, Pattinson created a voice all his own. While Campos himself might not have approved, the words that ooze out of Teagardin's mouth like an oil sludge only helps to elevate Pattinson as one of the best young actors currently working today. 

The Devil All The Time is currently available to stream on Netflix


Margo Martindale and June Squibb
Best Supporting Actress
Blow The Man Down

Why The Performances are Great: Blow The Man is a modern day neo-noir set in a remote New England coastal fishing town, directed by Bridget Savage Cole and Danielle Krudy. Cole and Krudy do an amazing job establishing the vibe and seedy underbelly tone of the town. You can smell the fishiness from your living room, both from the sea animals as well as the actions of the townsfolk. The film centers around two young sisters in the wake of their mother's death as one of them kills her would-be sexual abuser in self-defense. The death of the both the mother as well as the attacker sets off a chain reaction pitting the sisters against the town's Madame (Enid Devlin played by Martindale) against a cadre of Karen's led by Susie Gallagher (played by Squibb). If you've seen Margo Martindale's Emmy wining wicked turn as Mags Bennett in Season 2 of Justified, then you know just how well she can play evil, and if you've seen June Squibb in anything, you know that there's a reason she an Academy nominated actress. Martindale and Squibb play characters on the opposite side of the coin. Martindale's Enid is ruthless, but sweet when she needs to be while Squibb's Susie is sweet, but ruthless when she needs to be. The great character actresses play so well off of each other that it enhances the great foundation that Cole and Krudy built. 

Blow The Man Down is available to stream on Amazon Prime

Friday, September 18, 2020

Movie Review: The Devil All The Time

Even during a pandemic, the tech titan Netflix has been consistently churning out original content. Now that Labor Day has come and gone, now is the time of the year where that original content is prestige, award-hopeful films. With Aaron Sorkin's The Trial of the Chicago 7 and David Fincher's Mank coming later in the year, and past the release of Charlie Kaufman's I'm Thinking of Ending Things, this past week saw the release of Antonio Campos' The Devil All The Time, a southern gothic epic starring basically every young and talented white actor working nowadays, such as *takes deep breath* Tom Holland, Bill Skarsgard, Sebastian Stan, Riley Keough, Jason Clarke, Harry Melling, Haley Benett, Eliza Scanlen, Mia Wasikowska, and Robert Pattinson. 

The film spans two generations during the 1940's through 1960's in the American South as the film is about the cyclical and generational cycle of religion and violence. Early in the film, Bill Skasgard's Willard, a soldier in the Korean War, comes across a fellow soldier that has been tortured and crucified. Willard comes home from the War with PTSD (never explicitly said, but shown through Skarsgard superb acting). A nice fellow, but clearly haunted by both his religious past and his overseas experiences. We see his tendencies, both pure and evil, passed down to his son Alvin, the older version of the character is played by Holland, ostensibly the film's lead but feels like he doesn't show up until two hours into the film. Along the way we meet Charlotte (Benett) who eventually becomes Willard's wife and Alvin's mother, Alvin's step-sister Lenora (Scanlen), Lenora's mother Helen (Wasikowska), Helen's pastor beau Roy (Melling), a cop named Lee (Stan), Lee's sister Sandy (Keough), Sandy's husband Carl (Clarke), and a flashy snake-in-the-grass preacher named Preston Teagardin (Pattinson).