This is a short filler piece originally written for York Vision
Good Year : Benedict Cumberbatch
Cult TV to global megahunk in barely a year? Not a bad effort at all.
After several years gathering an army of Cumberbitches from his TV work, Benny C (Yes, Benny C) hit BIG this year, receiving universal praise for his role as Kaaaaaaahn in the latest Star Trek film, showing off his intense brooding monologue skills as well as considerable action chops, he acted Chris Pines face clean off.
Meanwhile, a recent supporting role in the critically acclaimed Oscar bait "12 Years A Slave" (out here in a month or so) has also served to raise his profile somewhat.
And, ok, so he was also in the admittedly naff The Fifth Estate, which garnered, should we say, an apathetic response from the critical community. But his performance as golden haired super-creep Julian Assange was still well received and certainly hasn't harmed his upward trajectory.
That's not the end of it, either. The return of Sherlock next year is so highly anticipated there's rumors the BBC want to project it onto the moon, and murmurs of a starring role in the new Star Wars trilogy will surely help keep him on the radar for a while.
He also has an upcoming role as Enigma hero Alan Turing and (whisper it) he's also playing Smaug the Dragon in a little film called The Hobbit next month... so that might get a bit of attention as well.
Bad Year : Jaden and Will Smith. And everybody who made After Earth.
First up is the winner of the "Annoying Little Shit of the Year" Award, Jaden Smith for his role in the abomination that is After Earth.
Killed off by a complete lack of anything even resembling charisma and compelling narrative, the film was treated with what you might call an all-pervasive apathy by most cinemagoers and made about 50p at the box office.
Director M.Night Shyamalan who, let's be fair, has been having a bit of a shocker recently, probably wasn't the best choice to make the film, but it's still no excuse for the totally boring phoned in performances of all involved. Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian summed it up thusly: "Much like his dad, Jaden Smith shows no fear. Or any emotion. Or any acting talent of any sort." Ouch.
Meanwhile, An over saturation of un-earned smug whilst doing the promotional rounds surely can't have helped, nor can the faint whiff of Tom Cruise-esque weird Scientology nonsense spouted at an alarming frequency by his usually fairly reliable dad. Even wheeling out The Fresh Princes' Carlton to do the funny dance didn't help matters.
The pursuit of Happiness this was not.
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