Five Favorite performances: Bill Hader

Since he first came onto the scene as one of the strongest additions to Saturday Night Live of his generation, Bill Hader has been an omnipresent comedic force like few others. With writing (and even a couple directing) credits, Hader has shown skill both in front of and behind the screen, recently co-creating one of the most awarded shows currently airing on HBO, Barry.

Although he is almost exclusively a comedic actor, his range found in some of the darker shows and movies he appears in not only work dramatically, but even show his ability to generate tension and fear with his bizarre and manic mannerisms and line delivery. While he still doesn't have the filmography built up to put him in the high end of a favorite actors list, I still feel he belongs in the conversation when attempting a personal top 100.

What follows are a handful of my favorite performances of his, which I suppose I will condense down to a clean five.

200 Items Or Less: The Skeleton Key (2005)

A few thoughts: Voodoo and the like is a very intriguing and often overlooked subject in the history of film, so it's always pretty exciting to me to run into a movie focused on it. That being said, these movies usually feature strong visuals, a cool atmosphere, or intriguing plots. Sadly this movie only has one of these three, and that one (the plot) is told in a pretty straight-forward and sterilized sort of way. In spite of being interesting, the plot of this movie often feels pretty empty. Visually, this isn't a terribly creative sort of movie, with the practically genre-less sort of approach essentially cutting itself off at the ankles. If they had pushed the film into a more horror, fantasy, or even dramatic direction, I think it would have resonated throughout the entire movie, but instead it all feels beige and uninspired. But even with all of my negativity, I did enjoy the movie enough. It had good performances, a cool story, and it all culminates in an effective finale. Not terribly engrossing, but interesting enough.

10s of 2020 (pt. 1)

2020, as might be expected, has been a pretty slow year for movies. Not much has come out of interest in the first 5 months, and I doubt much more will be showing up over the next 7. That being said, I still have watched 10, so why not briefly keep track of them and order them as the year goes on? Sure, it will make my eventual year-end countdown less of a mystery, but I'm gonna break them up into isolated groups of 10, so this won't necessarily prove to be too much of a 10-months-from-now spoiler.

Alright, let's get into this.

A few words on The Vast Of Night (2020)

The Vast Of Night, d. Andrew Patterson

A few words on Come To Daddy (2020)

Come To Daddy, d. Ant Timpson

A few words on The Invisible Man (2020)

The Invisible Man, d. Leigh Whannell