The Hollywood adult drama is dead. Any talk of resurrecting it is futile. Nihilism and leftism killed it. It’s gone. If you miss it, get Turner Classic Movies.

A genre still salvageable, though in need of CPR stat, is the smart Hollywood comedy. These days, it seems were stuck with only an increasingly desperate Jim Carrey and Will Ferrell, the Judd Apatow gross-out collection, and overheated romantic comedies based on lame concepts like “Ghosts of Girlfriends Past,” or lamer still, catchphrases: “He’s Just Not That Into You” and “What Happens in Vegas.”  

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And while the Hollywood comedy may not be dead, every time I think it deserves to be killed there’s a spark of life, and most recently that spark came from “Ghost Town,” a delightful, heartfelt little sleeper from last year starring The Mighty Ricky Gervais and two actors I normally don’t care for: Greg Kinnear and Tea Leoni (both have a television-level presence and project less warmth than ice). (more…)

The Academy Awards for 2008 have been handed out, and the “popular kids” have Oscars on their mantles, but the dirty little secret about winning awards is that you’ve gotta campaign for them. Thousands of dollars were spent by the distributors and filmmakers behind Slumdog Millionaire (Fox Searchlight), Milk (Focus Features), The Reader (Weinstein) and other assorted winners and nominees, but not all performances received that sort of big money backing.

I am an unabashed lover of the acting craft. I see virtually every movie, large and small, that passes through the US marketplace, and, taking nothing away from Sean Penn, Kate Winslet, Penelope Cruz and Heath Ledger, not all of 2008’s best performances have been recognized. I’m not going to be obvious here. Clint Eastwood was snubbed for Gran Torino, but he received lots of acclaim for the role including being named Best Actor by the National Board of Review. My goal is to highlight 10 performances from last year that have received virtually no acclaim in the US. Many of these roles can be found in hardly-seen, under-appreciated movies that came and went without much notice. Each and every one of these movies deserve a spot in your Netflix (or Blockbuster) cue. (more…)