Bobby Cannavale Ranked

Welcome to "Ranked"-a weekly series where I rank a franchise or filmography from worst to best and hand out assorted related superlatives. This week, I'm profiling the work of Bobby Cannavale-whose latest project "Blonde" is now streaming on Netflix.

Bobby Cannavale's Filmography Ranked:

25.Movie 43 (D)

24.Jolt (D+)

23.Tom & Jerry (C)

22.Motherless Brooklyn (C)

21.Paul Blart: Mall Cop (C)

20.Lovelace (C)

19.Thunder Force (C+)

18.The Bone Collector (C+)

17.Adult Beginners (C+)

16.Parker (B)

15.Daddy's Home (B)

14.Ant-Man and the Wasp (B)

13.Win Win (B)

12.Ant-Man (B)

11.Danny Collins (B)

10.Snakes on a Plane (B)

9.Chef (B)

8.Spy (B)

7.The Fundamentals of Caring (B+)

6.The Irishman (B+)

5.The Station Agent (B+)

4.Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (A-)

3.Blue Jasmine (A)

2.The Other Guys (A)

1.I, Tonya (A)

Top Dog: I, Tonya (2017)

I'll never forget the sense of pleasant shock that I felt walking out of I, Tonya. The director of Mr. Woodcock made a riveting, often extremely funny biopic that creates sympathy for Tonya Harding and her (mostly lack of direct) involvement in the Nancy Kerrigan scandal that made her infamous without glossing over the messier aspects of her life/personality. This deserved more Oscar love other than the 3 nominations (fortunately Margot Robbie's career-best turn as Harding was among them) and lone (deserving) win it received for Allison Janney's brilliant performance as Harding's abusive, chain-smoking mother, but it's an incredible movie, nonetheless.

Bottom Feeder: Movie 43 (2013)

Hooray, the shittiest, largest ensemble piece seemingly in the history of Hollywood makes its 892nd appearance in a piece on this site! Making a goofy anthology comedy piece with a million superstar actors and several capable directors including James Gunn, Elizabeth Banks and Peter Farrelly-who was heavily involved in the creation of this project- is a cool idea on paper, but the execution couldn't have been shoddier. There's maybe a handful of laughs present in the 13 sketches that make up this film as the filmmakers only goal seemed to be seeing how many awful gross-out jokes they could fit into a 90-minute movie.

Most Underrated: The Station Agent (2003)

Tom McCarthy has put together a pretty uneven filmography on the whole, but when he hits, he's one of the most emotionally potent filmmakers on the planet. One of those instances where he churned out a real winner was The Station Agent. It's one of those rare movies that tackles grief, and the positive effects true human connection can have on a person's emotional state in a completely honest, non-manipulative or cheesy way and the performances from Peter Dinklage, Patricia Clarkson and Cannavale are beautiful, sensitive and fearless.   

Most Overrated: The Irishman (2019)

This probably isn't the fairest distinction to hand out to The Irishman since it is still a very good movie that has some very vocal detractors. However, there are plenty of people in the critical/cinephile community that have hailed it as one of Martin Scorsese's best movies and I disagree with that sentiment so strongly that I ultimately view The Irishman as overrated. As incredible as its best moments and performances (Robert de Niro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci and Anna Paquin are all exceptional here) are, it suffers from the exact same problem as many of Scorsese's other movies over the past 20 years have: it's never able to justify its exceptionally long running time (in this 209 minutes). There are so many scenes here that either add nothing to the story or hammer home thematic points that have already extensively been made, which subsequently makes the film feel needlessly bloated and thus diminishes its overall effectiveness. 

Top Shockingly Great Reboot: Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017)

There hasn't been a more successful, creatively rewarding reboot in ages than either of the new Jumanji films. Welcome to the Jungle is notable for introducing the franchise's very simple formula for success: Have charismatic, well-matched actors (Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, Karen Gillian) play against type via a body swap scenario and unleash them in a perilous adventure video game world that they are woefully unprepared to handle. That simple narrative twist and brilliant casting is enough to power a film that contains enough inspired jokes and old school rollicking adventure fun to fill 100 movies. Hopefully Sony can find a gap in the schedules of their extremely busy leads and churn out another installment within the next few years.