ACTOR OF THE YEAR

They say TV is a writer’s medium, film is a director’s medium, and theater? Well, that’s the province of the actor. We remember live performances so powerfully for that very reason: Because they are live, sometimes mere feet away. It’s a personal experience. And North Texas is blessed with many great actors, who each year do standout work.

Some locals achieve greatness outside of Dallas — in 2019, Betty Buckley (Hello, Dolly!) and Clinton Greenspan and Major Attaway (Aladdin) returned to their native digs in national tours and showed us what they share with the rest of the country. Closer to home, more than a dozen actors shared their gifts with us. Catherine Carpenter Cox reprised her title role of Evita 10 years after first taking it on at Lyric Stage, and if possible, she improved in the interim. Garret Storms has become a stalwart of local theater in recent years, once again impressing with roles in Lela & Co. and Reykjavik.

Storms’ Reyjavik costars Mitchell Stephens and Aaron Campbell made that one of the most memorable productions of the year. Other shows hosting multiple star turns include Quin Solley and Laura Lites hamming it up hilariously in Disaster!, Sally Nystuen-Vahle and Kenajuan Bentley digging deep into the Rust Belt for authentically desperate characters in Sweat, and Jeremy Whiteker and Christopher Lew exemplifying farce in Raptured. Speaking of farce, when you’re the best performer in a show overflowing with great performances, as Tadeo Martinez was in Theatre 3’s Noises Off, that says something. By contrast, a solo turn — by Paul J. Williams as the ageing, bitter drunk in Bright Colors and Bold Patterns — transfixed audiences with the power of his solitary presence.

We’ve also come to expect good things from Jennifer Kuenzer, Stephanie Cleghorn Jasso, Alex Organ and Sonny Franks, and all of them delivered stellar characterizations this year: Kuenzer in In the Next Room; or The Vibrator Play, Jasso in Queen of Basel, Organ in Twelfth Night and Franks in The Cake.

But it was actually costars of the last two who most defined theatergoing for me this year. Blake Hackler’s Andrew Aguecheek in DTC’s Twelfth Night, plus his work in Two by Churchill at Second Thought, proved he’s not just a great playwright, but a great actor. And Shannon McGrann once again delved into the insecurities and depth of Christian middle-agedom via the medium of comedy: As an East Texas church lady in Raptured, and going one-on-one with Franks as a baker whose faith battles her feelings in The Cake. Especially in the latter, her ability to humanize internal conflict pierced our hearts and earned McGrann the accolade as my 2019 Actor of the Year.

— Arnold Wayne Jones

30 for 30: The outstanding film performances this year

 

 

Scarlett Johansson, Adam Driver and Laura Dern, Marriage Story
Joaquin Phoenix, Joker
Renee Zellweger, Judy
Charlize Theron, Margot Robbie and John Lithgow, Bombshell
Taron Egerton and Richard Madden, Rocketman
Antonio Banderas, Pain and Glory
Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Roman Griffin Davis and Taika Waititi, JoJo Rabbit
Eddie Murphy and Wesley Snipes, My Name Is Dolemite
Maggie Smith, Downton Abbey
Kelvin Harrison Jr., pictured, Waves and Luce
Jennifer Lopez, Hustlers
Himesh Patel and Joel Fry, Yesterday
Tom Hanks, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
Molly Shannon, Wild Nights with Emily
Cate Blanchett, Where’d You Go, Bernadette?
Jonathan Pryce and Anthony Hopkins, The Two Popes
Beanie Feldstein, Booksmart
Kenneth Branagh and Ian McKellen, All Is True

— Arnold Wayne Jones

THE BOTTOM 10

 

It is much, much harder to pick the worst films of a year than the best. After all, the best you tend to love unconditionally. The worst? Well, they get under your skin in tons of ways — bad production values, poor acting, failed screenwriting, misguided direction, or they just don’t do what they are supposed to do (unfunny comedies; predictable mysteries; dull thrillers). And let’s face it: Many of the worst films project their terribleness by not even getting you into the theaters, so you don’t even see them. (The worst movie I saw in 2019 was actually at SXSW, and hasn’t, so far as I know, gotten a U.S. release yet, so I’ll save it until it does find an audience to include it on the list.) But the ones that made this tried for something bigger… and failed miserably. Good riddance.

1. High Life (Claire Denis’ insufferable, pretentious space drama actually made me angry). 2. Serenity (a close second sci-fi influenced potboiler, this McConaughey-Hathaway faux noir led the year with its stupidity). 3. Midsommar, pictured disappointing sophomore horror from Ari Aster, whose Hereditary was on the other end of the list). 4. Godzilla: King of the Monsters (how bad does your monster movie have to suck to even be considered worthy of such dislike? This is a standard-bearer). 5. Long Shot (bad Seth Rogen is less surprising than bad Charlize Theron… and this was baaaaaddddd). 6. Stuber (misfiring cop comedy that squanders virtually every bit of potential, and it doesn’t have much). 7. Greta (frustratingly coy psycho-drama). 8. Spider-Man: Far from Home (the worst MCU film since Thor: The Dark World… odder still as it came immediately after one of the best). 9. Papi Chulo (cliché-ridden gay “comedy”). 10. Harriet (cumbersome and needlessly melodramatic biopic about the abolition hero).

— Arnold Wayne Jones