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Post by TerryMontana on Jan 26, 2020 14:36:06 GMT
Kathy Bates was great as always and a worthy Oscar nominee. But it was Paul Walter Hauser who shocked me. I can't remember having seen him in anything else and his performance wowed me.
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Post by Mattsby on Jan 26, 2020 20:04:32 GMT
Donald Pleasence, The Guest aka The Caretaker (1963) from Harold Pinter's play - about a homeless man who is invited into the dilapidated home of two mentally-off brothers (Robert Shaw, Alan Bates - both are good too) and is harshly questioned and belittled by them. Pleasence - 40ish y/o playing a man who very much seems 70+ is sort of affecting in a doddery, babbling way - with constant asides and cut-off remarks he's in a way filling the air out of a nervous defense, as he slightly and warily weighs the situation which only deeply confuses him. He was Tony-nominated the year before for this role. Fascinating that this pic was co-funded by Liz Taylor, Richard Burton, Peter Sellers, Noel Coward, Peter Hall, etc..... yet oddly it opened in NYC before the UK....
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Post by stephen on Jan 26, 2020 20:34:14 GMT
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Post by Longtallsally on Jan 26, 2020 21:38:54 GMT
Lou Castel in Fists in the Pocket (1965)
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Post by pacinoyes on Jan 28, 2020 11:36:07 GMT
Ulrich Mühe - The Lives of Others (re-watch) I read a lot of BS on this board about acting all the time - merely good performances called "great" .......performances that are labeled "annoying" when liking a character is rarely the point.....performances and actors praised for peripheral nonsense like accents or consistency. But none of these is more annoying than the praising of "subtlety" - too often that is code for "fncking boring" as if not doing anything at all equals subtlety and that equals great acting. Well, if you want an example of subtle acting but genuinely great Ulrich Mühe achieves it here. He is achingly still - around the eyes especially, the slightest modulations in his voice which never rises above at most a tremulous hush at most to convey his internal life. It also has a great deal of thought and imagination in it - it suits the piece - he's not a Nazi after all, the setting and time evokes a different evil of creeping malaise in his life and what he's seen - it's awful.....and awfully quiet too.
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Post by TerryMontana on Jan 28, 2020 20:27:36 GMT
Not anything special that we hadn't seen before or didn't expect from her but she was the only thing that made the Good Liar a movie above average.
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Drish
Badass
Posts: 2,018
Likes: 1,753
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Post by Drish on Jan 28, 2020 22:26:30 GMT
@sharbs oh my god, oh my god!!
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Post by Sharbs on Jan 28, 2020 23:54:31 GMT
@sharbs oh my god, oh my god!! YES!!!! They're so great, especially Mia. Loved that she can be childlike in her demeanor, like when she is cooking in the kitchen and blabs on and on to someone who has clearly become a little disinterested in her conversation, but at the same time she can be a little twisty and mastermind any situation she is in. What'd you think of the movie?
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Drish
Badass
Posts: 2,018
Likes: 1,753
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Post by Drish on Jan 29, 2020 1:19:13 GMT
@sharbs oh my god, oh my god!! YES!!!! They're so great, especially Mia. Loved that she can be childlike in her demeanor, like when she is cooking in the kitchen and blabs on and on to someone who has clearly become a little disinterested in her conversation, but at the same time she can be a little twisty and mastermind any situation she is in. What'd you think of the movie? It's exactly what I had expected. Super twisted and really funny. The scene where Reed is preparing for the kill is downright hilarious and great filmmaking. I'm not sure if I liked the backstory of Reed or whatever they were trying to say but once that's done and they start playing their games again, the fun is back. And unlike many, I thought it was a perfect ending. Both Mia and Abbott are a hoot, playing off each other so well esp Mia with an upper hand always. Ordinarily I wouldn't rewatch a movie this gory but I am really keen on doing so. What a gem! And I forgot how much I loved Mia. Really wanna watch Judy & Punch (and I got to know about the existence of this movie today😐) Anway, glad I saw this on your Letterboxd feed.
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Post by Sharbs on Jan 29, 2020 2:53:01 GMT
YES!!!! They're so great, especially Mia. Loved that she can be childlike in her demeanor, like when she is cooking in the kitchen and blabs on and on to someone who has clearly become a little disinterested in her conversation, but at the same time she can be a little twisty and mastermind any situation she is in. What'd you think of the movie? It's exactly what I had expected. Super twisted and really funny. The scene where Reed is preparing for the kill is downright hilarious and great filmmaking. I'm not sure if I liked the backstory of Reed or whatever they were trying to say but once that's done and they start playing their games again, the fun is back. And unlike many, I thought it was a perfect ending. Both Mia and Abbott are a hoot, playing off each other so well esp Mia with an upper hand always. Ordinarily I wouldn't rewatch a movie this gory but I am really keen on doing so. What a gem! And I forgot how much I loved Mia. Really wanna watch Judy & Punch (and I got to know about the existence of this movie today😐) Anway, glad I saw this on your Letterboxd feed. My first viewing I was little miffed at the end. I thought it was a bit abrupt especially for an 80 minute movie, but after the re-watch I agree it was a wonderful, funny way to end it. As for Judy and Punch, I'm clamoring to see it. Its US distributor seems to be holding it hostage for some reason and I hate resorting to streaming leaks, but I haven't obtained any luck going that route either.
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Post by pacinoyes on Jan 30, 2020 20:23:19 GMT
Jason Patric, Rachel Ward, Bruce Dern - After Dark, My Sweet (rewatch)Jason Patric gave a star making turn that he never really delivered on in a role made for Sean Penn or Mickey Rourke, he improbably got it and hit it out of the park. Rachel Ward is lovely and haunted and Bruce Dern is oily and dangerous. The film is far more romantic than the book and yet true to it too - it is one of two marvelous Jim Thompson adaptations that year (1990's The Grifters being the other).
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Post by Viced on Jan 30, 2020 22:27:01 GMT
Gene Hackman and Dennis Hopper in HoosiersCheesy underdog story 101 (for the most part)... but these two guys sell the absolute hell out of it and almost elevate the movie to great. Hackman does so much with just a look, and on the other end of the subtlety scale is Hopper who really goes for it in the alcoholic scenes... but somehow never comes close to going overboard. And that first game where he shows up in the suit... what a moment! Two wonderfully authentic performances.
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Post by isabelaolive on Jan 31, 2020 0:00:58 GMT
Charlie Chaplin - The Great DictatorThis is the second movie I watched from Chaplin (the first was Modern Times) and I thought his performance was excellent, it has everything in the right measure, satire, comedy, drama, sensitivity ... He is quite convincing playing both Adenoide and the Barber, he almost made me believe that both roles were played by different people.... The final scene where he climbs on the platform to give the speech almost left me in tears.
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Post by Mattsby on Jan 31, 2020 0:16:26 GMT
Adele Haenel in The Bloom of Yesterday (2016) My ninth Haenel.... and I've always thought the first I saw, Love at First Fight, was her best and what captured her talent best.... but this one is high up there. Bloom is a mostly very interesting and complex "romcom" until some miserable plot twists but Haenel is the standout in one of those perfs you can apply a hundred adjectives to. It's amazing how seamlessly she leads this German-language pic - and it's one of the funniest performances I've seen in a long time by anyone. She nails the reactions and one-liners ("Why do stumbling people need tea?") - she turns simple situations like ordering food at a restaurant into a sprightly comedy routine. It's also a sly perf where her behavior plays as impulsive and kooky and mysterious but later is revealing in what it suggests. It's a very appealing and beautiful perf at times - almost suddenly it comes on as heartbreaking too - and she gets a moment on an airplane reciting a poem that will leave all who see it blushed and unworthy. French, German, English... Michael Haneke has no excuse not to cast her in w/e he does next!
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Post by pacinoyes on Jan 31, 2020 8:57:30 GMT
Anjelica Huston, John Cusack, Annette Bening - The Grifters - re-watchA trio of bad intentions, fear, neediness and greed - unlike After Dark My Sweet which turned casting on its head The Grifters is so well cast it's a kind of genius in itself even down to supporting roles. Huston, here, the worst mother this side of Angela Lansbury in The Manchurian Candidate is particularly unforgettable - tough, dangerous like a trapped animal.
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Post by sirjeremy on Jan 31, 2020 9:33:48 GMT
Ben Silverstone - Get RealJust 18 at the time of filming, he carries this film with his sensitive, intelligent and deeply moving performance, nailing all the complexities and conflicts of his character who struggles to come out yet within himself and to his best friend is unapologetic about his sexuality. The film is wonderful, too, and offers an interesting and refreshing insight into the gay teenage experience in mid-90s pre-internet Britain.
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Post by Mattsby on Jan 31, 2020 17:01:48 GMT
James Woods in Promise (1986) - "Do you remember me?" Very great, Emmy winning perf. I did a huge streak of Woods last year and missed a bunch, including this. I wouldn't argue if someone called it his best. It's a rare perf that's immediately heartbreaking - I teared up during a few of his scenes tbh! Woods, an actor who sort of masters a lasered intensity and crooked slickness, here is completely forceless and it's devastating. Down to the smallest notes - hesitations in movement, a heavy exhale when a stranger walks too close to him on the street, how he lights up when his brother talks about his childhood, a time before his mental illness...
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Post by TerryMontana on Jan 31, 2020 22:40:23 GMT
This guy is very talented to waste his career is dumb comedies... He could have definitely gotten an Oscar nod for this.
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Post by mhynson27 on Feb 1, 2020 2:57:23 GMT
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Feb 1, 2020 6:08:38 GMT
Brian Cox in Succession season 2, a step up from season 1 IMO but probably just because he has more screentime. Logan Roy is the kind of bullish role Cox was born to play. It's the summation of all the crotchety character actor roles he's ever done, ratcheted up to 11 and shoved down your throat.
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Post by pacinoyes on Feb 1, 2020 10:55:05 GMT
Laurence Olivier - Marathon Man re-watchI say this a lot but Laurence Olivier is to me a baseline actor - what Brando is to the US, he is to the UK and everything great in UK acting stems from him. No "great" actor - ever achieved the totality of what he did in all stage/TV/film - he is as close to really being the single GOAT as we can ever truly get. Here he is fascinating and not merely for his chilling "Is it safe?" sequence which he repeats those words, slightly altered each time in a dazzling display of an actor mastering line reading with voice tone, manner, volume, modulation. It is rather in the amazing earlier scene - one of the great scenes he ever appeared in - where this character must go to NYC's diamond district and "deal" with Jews as equals and he simultaneously exhibits disgust, fear, panic, a murderous intent towards them all. Rarely has evil been expressed so intellectually and never has it been expressed in a sustained way that is more complex and less verbal - the exact opposite of the famous "Is it safe?" scene. No way out:
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Post by JangoB on Feb 2, 2020 10:56:53 GMT
"Uncut Gems" is a terrific film for many reasons but the primary one for me is that it's a double emotional experience - on the one hand you absolutely understand that it's a cautionary tale but at the same time you can't help but get completely drawn into Howard's insane whirlwind of a gambling fervor. You know everything he's doing is wrong yet you get sucked into the euphoria of the thrill of a potential win, you become a totally complicit viewer. And the key to that is Adam Sandler's electrifying portrayal of Howard. It's not just how the Safdies write the story and shoot the film that gets you inside that hurricane - a more moralistic or subdued central performance could've turned it into some sort of a lecture. But just like how Scorsese did with his leads for "Goodfellas" or "The Wolf of Wall Street", they go for an actor who's able to show the gambling juices run through him at all times. He may be putting himself deeper and deeper into a pit of shit but dammit if he's not gonna have a fucking blast on the way there. And even when he seems to recognize and reflect on the situation in a bit of a breakdown, the minute a winning opportunity presents itself his whole entity just gets swept up in it once again. And that energy is absolutely contagious.
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Post by Mattsby on Feb 3, 2020 18:14:43 GMT
Nicol Williamson & Jane Lapotaire in "A Curious Suicide" episode of Chillers (1990). These two prolific stage actors of the UK - Lapotaire is a Tony winner! - they play a wealthy New York couple in London on some business and some not-so-business. They have terrific convincing chemistry as a couple who practically loathe each other but have mastered the motions of marriage. Nicol is an uptight, uncomfortable man who decides to commit a quick murder, and thats-that. These two played Macbeth and Lady Macbeth in a production in the early 80s - and that murderous and aware and slow-mad dynamic is here as well. The director Robert Bierman does a good job - his previous work was the amazing, indelible Vampire's Kiss.
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Post by Mattsby on Feb 3, 2020 21:14:58 GMT
Personal favorite of mine on rewatch - great for Labor Day too - one of the best movies about working - Michael Caine in A Shock To The System. One of his very best performances sly, complicated, malevolent........charming. love Shock... it's great all over, as a dark satire of both the workplace and in a certain transgressive way staving off a mid-life crisis and thru that amazing Caine perf, devil may care, winking ('what a shock') and a little frightening (subway).... Love the side characters and details, how so lost and carded off the John McMartin character is.... and it's so briskly smoothly well made I'm surprised it's not more popular, there's a lot of fun flavor to it. I showed it to one of my friends years ago and to this day he quotes that "Bring in the whole goddamn New York Knicks just to make sure your trash hits the basket!" line Don't know who the big Caine fans are on MA - but A Shock to the System was added to Amazon Prime today in great quality. It's only like 85min. Viced I think you'll like it...
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Post by Viced on Feb 4, 2020 4:20:47 GMT
Michael Caine in A Shock to the SystemI knew this was gonna be a great performance from the first expression we see on his face in the opening scene... and it's definitely a performance full of awesome expressions. He's also somewhat pathetic, suave as fuck, calculating, absolutely hilarious (laughed my ass off every time he impersonated someone under his breath), and..... kind of scary? Especially impressive that he's doing all this while acting alongside a bunch of performers that are clearly nowhere near his level. Shoutout to Mattsby who's been telling me to watch this for around 14 years...
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