Top Five Performances: Peter Dinklage

Peter Dinklage caught my attention the first time I saw him, with his miniscule but hilarious role in Elf.  It took a couple more appearances (both of which make this list) for me to fully board the Dinklage train, but once I did, there was no turning back.  I’ve seen a wide swathe of his film and television roles, and these, for my money, are the best.

Tito (Living in Oblivion)

Dinklage made an excellent debut in this odd little indie film about the making of an odd little indie film (it also features dream sequences about filming a dream sequence – meta, thy name is Living in Oblivion.)  Tito, a long-suffering actor, voices his disapproval throughout the shoot, first passive aggressively and later explicitly in this epic rant about dwarfs in dream sequences.

Fin McBride (The Station Agent)

Fin is definitely Dinklage’s breakout role and, for me, the “I will love this actor forever” role.  It’s a subtle but searing performance of a quiet loner slowly coming into a family.  By turns, he’s wonderfully deadpan, righteously indignant, heartbreaking, falling apart at the seams, and gently courageous.  He’s a fantastic introvert protagonist; I love introducing people to this character.

Maurice (Tiptoes)

Make no mistake – Tiptoes is a hot mess of a film.  It’s all over the place, an interesting idea with really haphazard execution.  However, I’ll basically forgive all of it (including the weirdness of casting Gary Oldman in the lead as a man with dwarfism, not to mention one meant to be the same age as Matthew McConaughey) for the sake of Dinklage’s performance.  He’s awesome as Maurice, the immensely watchable friend of Oldman’s character with a lust for life, a penchant for trouble, and a somewhat ridiculous French accent.  True, it would’ve made far more sense to cast him as the lead, but then we would’ve missed out on this unforgettable performance.

Arthur Ramsey (Threshold)

Though Threshold, a short-lived series about a cobbled-together team of experts investigating an alien invasion, isn’t as good as it could have been, Ramsey is made of win.  I hadn’t known that a cocky, hard-drinking, womanizing linguist was something I needed in my life, but it totally is.  Dinklage does equally well with Ramsey’s self-destructive tendencies, his probing intellect, and his more reflective side.

Tyrion Lannister (Game of Thrones)

Apparently, Ramsey prefaced this role – here’s another cocky, hard-drinking, womanizing brainiac with a sharp tongue, but Tyrion is so distinct from Dinklage’s work on Threshold.  He’s entirely his own character, a real treat to watch.  Dinklage wonderfully portrays his gambles, fears, insecurities, blusters, ecstasies, victories, and despairs.  From his moments of heroism to his darker limits, Tyrion always keeps me guessing, and I’m so glad to have him on my TV.

Relationship Spotlight: Alex Udinov & Nikita Mears (Nikita)

Yep, more Nikita!  This time, we’re hearing it for the girls; the wonderfully complex relationship between Nikita and Alex was one of the first things that hooked me about the show.  As with most Nikita-related things, massive spoilers to follow.

There are a lot of layers to Nikita-Alex, so I’ll try to unpack them one at a time.  The most obvious is the mentor/mentee angle, with Nikita initially training and prepping Alex to infiltrate Division and then guiding her through life on the inside.  She helps Alex to be strong – physically, mentally, and emotionally – and Alex proves herself time and again to be a worthy apprentice, working as Nikita’s mole within Division.  Many of the significant ties between these two begin here.  Alex often idealizes Nikita’s skills and strategies and wants to emulate her/do right by her, and Nikita is proud of Alex’s growing proficiency.

As the connection between them deepens, we see a more personal mother/daughter bond develop; Nikita especially looks out for Alex’s well-being.  As much as she respects Alex’s abilities, there’s a sense of wanting to keep Alex close to the nest and protect her.  This means physical danger, of course, but Nikita watches out for Alex in other ways, too.  A former addict herself, Nikita is the one who first helps Alex get clean, and when Alex is deep inside the belly of the Division beast, Nikita does whatever she can to spare Alex from having to go down the same dark paths that Nikita once did.  Alex, meanwhile, understands on one level that Nikita is trying to look out for her, but at the same time, she wants to prove to Nikita than she can stand on her own and doesn’t need protecting.

As time goes by, this dynamic never disappears, but it does soften as Alex matures as an operative.  Their relationship becomes one of slightly more equal footing, with Alex recognizing that Nikita isn’t perfect and Nikita more often trusting Alex to handle herself.  In this way, we’re able to see them as friends and comrades.  Both Nikita and Alex are understandably closed-off and guarded due to their past experiences, but they can open up to one another and provide support.  They can be vulnerable with one another, admitting to fears or confusion and seeking the other’s advice.  They work well in the field together and regularly have each other’s backs. 

None of this means that things always copasetic between them.  Both women come into the relationship with enormous amounts of baggage, some of it mutual, and it causes major rifts between them at different times.  Nikita’s tendencies toward keeping secrets, making decisions for other people “for their own good,” and only listening to outside input on her own terms get her in trouble with most of the cast at some point or another, and the conflicts born out of these issues are usually the most substantial with Alex.  I imagine it’s because these two are both the strongest-willed characters on the show as well as the most damaged.  As Alex gains confidence in her own instincts, she becomes less likely to be dictated to, so her stubbornness clashes with Nikita’s.  And because both have been through so much, every relationship they have is incredibly hard-earned, and any divide between them is sorely felt.  They need one another, a lot, and even though their relationship takes a number of hits along the way, they always return to each other with a greater understanding for the other’s needs and considerations.

The Imitation Game (2014, PG-13)

As soon as I heard about this upcoming movie, I was crazy excited for it.  A biopic about Alan Turing, genius code-breaker who helped dramatically shorten World War II with his technical and mathematical knowhow, British hero who was treated appallingly by his country due to his sexuality?  A fascinating lead character for Benedict Cumberbatch and a host of other fine British actors?  Period costumes, awesome 1940s proto-computers, and ciphers as far as the eye could see?  I was all over that.

So, I was disappointed that it wasn’t everything I wanted it to be.  Don’t get me wrong – it’s a good movie, and I really liked watching it.  However, it’s not without its cinematic issues and, while it’s enjoyable as a movie, it’s problematic as a biopic.  The latter issue is wider in scope and more spoilery than I want to get into for an overall review, so I’ll save the dramatic license for another post.

Film-wise, I only have one major complaint – the movie doesn’t seem to know quite what it wants to be about.  The brunt of the story follows Turing’s work at Bletchley Park during the war, augmented by childhood flashbacks of his earliest love of puzzles/ciphers (as well as boys,) and a police interview during his later legal troubles serves as a framing device for the whole movie.  While the individual scenes flow into one another pretty well and don’t feel disjointed, the film feels a bit at a thematic loss.  It’s not a comprehensive bio, but it’s not an in-depth snapshot either.  The split focus on three different periods of his life don’t quite come together, and in the final scene, it’s clear the movie’s not sure how to reconcile them.

As I said, though, the assorted pieces of the film come off well.  The dialogue is sharp and entertaining, filling us luddites in on the pertinent math without condescending.  I like seeing a war story that’s so far from the front lines, where the battles are waged over radio signals and the heroes’ strongest weapons are their intellects.  I’d heard pre-release rumblings that the film played up Turing’s relationship with colleague Joan Clarke too romantically, but I think they have a good, platonic connection based on their work and mutual fascination with puzzles.

Cumberbatch gives a predictably fantastic performance.  His Turing is piercingly intelligent, and he puts many off with his laser focus and casual arrogance, but Cumberbatch never lets him feel cold.  When Turing fails to connect with others, it’s because they’re a puzzle he doesn’t know how to solve.  Keira Knightley’s Joan is brilliant, gutsy, and perceptive.  Many of the other characters don’t get much focus or nuance, but the rest of the cast provides fine support.  I always like Matthew Goode (though A Single Man is still the first film that comes to mind when I see him,) Mark Strong (admittedly, not my favorite Mr. Knightley, but that’s just because there have been so many great ones) is reliably good, and it’s fun to see Allen Leech outside of Downton Abbey (although hearing him with a Scottish accent rather than Irish was really odd to hear!)  Still, with this film, it’s clearly Cumberbatch’s world, and everyone else just lives in it.

Warnings

Thematic elements, smoking, drinking, and mild sexual references.

Buster Keaton’s Bag of Tricks (Filmmaker)

Time for another look at the tools of Buster Keaton’s trade.  We’ve already talked about him as a performer, but today is about his work as a writer, director, and gag man.  (He really was quite the auteur, wasn’t he?)  Spoilers for certain almost-100-year-old gags.

 

Rube Goldberg Devices

I doubt Buster ever met a machine that didn’t fascinate him.  Throughout his career, he came up with all sorts of clever mechanics from the bell-ringer in The High Sign to the inventive breakfast-making gadgets in The Navigator.  His best are the contraptions that do double duty; most famously, there’s the Rube Goldberg house in The Scarecrow, where everything serves dual functions (the bookcase/refrigerator and stove/record player are my favorites.)

Chase Scenes

Could anyone stage a chase like Buster?  He dives through trap doors, scrambles up fire escapes, hides in plain sight as statues, executes tricky moves with elevators, forms human ladders, tries to make getaways on wooden horses, leaps between buildings, and uses ladders like seesaws, and that’s just off the top of my head.  I’ve never seen anyone so creatively fleet-footed.

Circular Gags

Buster liked riding a comic sequence back around to its starting point.  There’s the moment in Neighbors when he zips over the clothesline to escape his girl’s father, but then slides down the bannister and rides the clothesline right back over.  One Week has another great example when, after he and his bride hop out of the car driven by her jealous ex, Buster whacks a police man on the head, blames the ex, and gets back in the car as the policeman drags the ex out of it.  Sometimes, while working with elaborate sets, he pulls the camera back far enough to see the literal circles he makes as he treats the set like his own personal jungle gym.

Going Out on a Punch Line

Buster’s films are usually good for ending on one final joke, like he can’t give up the chance to make you laugh once more before you go.  I love the ending of Our Hospitality, where he throws off his blanket to reveal all his concealed guns, and Sherlock Jr.’s terrific last sequence, where he takes cues from a movie to woo his girl, ends on a fantastic shot of him perplexedly trying to figure out how the characters onscreen got from sharing a kiss to raising twins.

Planes (Boats), Trains, and Automobiles

Put Buster in the vicinity of a vehicle, and you know you’re in for comic gold.  There’s a reason The General is considered his masterpiece – the train gags are sharp, hilarious, and endlessly inventive.  The Navigator and The Boat are basically just excuses for doing as many sea-vessel jokes as possible, and there are plenty of Buster movies with memorable car gags (it’s hard to beat the collapsing car in Three Ages, but I also love the drive-by proposal in Seven Chances.)