From the Fourth Row!

After almost eight months of movie watching and sixty or so movies in the tank we have a few Best Actor candidates. With four months or so left this year there are sure gonna be a few more contenders for best actor. In this blog though I’m gonna talk about my favorites this year so far and some I’m looking forward to seeing in the next four months. There have been a lot of movies I have liked this year but, only a few performances I have left the theater saying wow at there performance!

I have been singing the praises of A Place Beyond the Pines and along with that goes the performances of Ryan Gostling as (Luke Glanton) and Bradley Cooper as (Avery ). They are the reasons this movie is so great. The performances were and are 2 of the best this year so far. Cooper has at least one other role this year in American Hustle as (Richie DiMaso). He is also starring with  a great cast in that movie as well. American Hustle is from Cooper’s Scar nominated director of The Silver Linings Playbook David O’Russell. Gostling has been in two other movies this year, The Gangster Squad and Only God Forgives, when he worked with director Nicolas Winding Refn for the second time after two years ago giving a great performance in Drive. Gostling previously worked with director Derek Cianfrance’s 2010 Indie Hit Blue Valentine. Matthew McConaughey gives one of his best performances of his career in Mud the title character of the same movie. He plays a drifter who befriends two young teen boys. He enlist there help with fixing a boat so he and his girlfriend can float off into the sunset together.

Other great performances this year have been given by someone you would expect to give a great performance and someone you wouldn’t. Lets start with the Oscar winning actor who gave an amazing performance in Lee Daniel’s The Butler. Forest Whitaker as Cecal Gaines, who previously won the Best Male Oscar for portraying Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland. The character of Cecal Gaines is as the title states a butler during eight president’s terms. All the while trying to keep his family together during troublesome time for African Americans in this country.  Whitaker also has a few other project out later in the year as well Out of the Furnace. The other actor who gave a great performance this year so far is none other then Ashton Kutcher as Steve Jobs in Jobs. Not usually someone you would think of, when talking about great acting performances. Kutcher really show when a role means a lot to him like this he can turn in a great nuanced acting job, no pun intended.

In the next couple months we will see who has got what it takes to be added to this company. With films like Ridley Scott’s The Counselor  about a corrupt lawyer in Texas starring Micheal Fassbender and Javier Bardem. The Fifth Estate about the Wiki Leaks scandal starring Benedict Cumberbatch as Julian Assange. 12 Years a Slave has a lot of a liters in it and it comes out around Christmas but, the real star who has probably the best chance at winning the Oscar this year is Chiwetel Edgiofor. This is the latest film from acclaimed director Steve McQueen who previously directed Micheal Fassbender in Hunger and Shame. This will make the third time these two have worked together. So Fassbender has got a couple good roles this year. American Hustle has one Oscar winner and one nominee Christian Bale and the afore mentioned Bradley Cooper who, as I said before worked with David O’Russell in last year’s A Silver Linings Playbook. Leonardo DiCapripo and Matthew McConaughey also could be up for some awards this year in Martin Scoreses’s The Wolf of Wall Street.

This much is for sure there have been some great performances this year and there are some great performances still to come this year! You can never count out someone coming from know where like Micheal B.  Jordan in Fruitvale Station or Matt Damon in Elysium or even George Clooney in The Monuments Men. I’ll keep everyone up to date on all the latest movies and all the best performances this year. As the year unfolds.

Dan “Skip” Allen