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Post by therealcomicman117 on May 4, 2020 22:13:21 GMT
Richard Burton in The Spy Who Came in From The Cold Richard Burton gave one of his best performances ever, in this classic John LaCarre adapted cold war spy thriller as a fractured agent who manages to keep his control, while things around him are seemingly falling apart. Burton is incredibly regal sounding in the role as ever, but he also allows his facial expression to show all of the frustrated anger boiling underneath him. The fact that he was an alcoholic in real life, pretending to be a fake one in the film, just adds to the overall effectiveness and strength of his performance. Anytime he speaks, you just can't take your eyes off his face.
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Post by Mattsby on May 5, 2020 18:18:51 GMT
Jean Dujardin & Adèle Haenel - Deerskin (2019)
A marvelously thought-out, committed absurdist comic-horrific performance from Dujardin - this movie is short, under 80 minutes (for the Mattsby list!) and he plays it with full dedication and mad purpose. My beloved Adèle Haenel does her usual thing of making every role she takes on seem like it could only be played by her regardless of its size or importance. She brings her wondrous and droll sensibility......and both of them seem in on the gag but not self-aware and it might be slight but it's also very amusing and often in the most throwaway lines - to people who find this funny, other people would wonder what you're even laughing at. Quite a pair they are: Loved their scenes together. That short running time, we could've had at least 15 more mins of them on the road, "collaborating" , and to further build to that final Haenel moment. Really liked the movie - the soft, antique beige colors and later during Dujardin's "spree" how the light from the movie theater makes even the snow look blood-red. Haenel is fascinating and funny here - her Pulp Fiction bit made me laugh. Dujardin is outstanding - somehow without ever forcing the gimmick of his monomania, he's absolutely hilarious, both when he's alone, like trying out different voices that his jacket might have, and around others, his self-centered ease. "Cool pants." "...Just cool?" And then the later scenes kinda frightening with his lack of conscience... He filmed this a few months before J'accuse! Those back-to-back perfs his two best?
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Post by Viced on May 7, 2020 4:28:38 GMT
Michel Serrault in Nelly et Monsieur ArnaudThe original Bill Murray in Lost in Translation? Kind of... maybe. Strangely suave, mysterious, and quietly heartbreaking.
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Post by pacinoyes on May 8, 2020 11:20:38 GMT
Benoit Magimel & Laura Smet-The Bridesmaid (2004) Director: Claude ChabrolOne of THE sexiest couples I've seen in the last 20 years in movies - Smet - the daughter of actress Nathalie Baye - is like a more alluring French Jessica Biel (not kidding) and Magimel is a marvel of repression and slipping control. This film - made late in Chabrol's glorious career when he was 73 (!) - throws logic, reason and full character development out the window but not the way you think it does - you forget (and you think Chabrol does too) and never see some characters that the plot seems to be spinning towards. But to do this swerve you better really sell the lustful passion part - Magimel & Smet & Chabrol - do it so well it becomes wily, wicked and delusional fun. They have the looks that kill:
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Post by therealcomicman117 on May 8, 2020 20:32:05 GMT
Max Von Sydow in Pelle The ConquerorThe late great Max Von Sydow gives one of the best performance of his career in this film, where he plays a Swedish farm-worker who immigrates to Denmark in hopes of finding a better life, but discovers that such things are never as easy as you might want them to be. His complicated and often troubling relationship with his son Pelle (who's also played wonderfully by Pelle Hvenegaard), is the central and emotional crux of the film, but there are so many moments where even in the face of impeding struggle, he manages to come off as relatable and true.
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Post by DeepArcher on May 9, 2020 18:09:11 GMT
Ben Kingsley in Sexy BeastThe type of over-the-top, profanity-ridden Brit performance that we all love. Surely this needs no explanation and the highlight reel speaks for itself. I mean come on... "I hope this crashes!"
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on May 10, 2020 4:07:16 GMT
Ben Kingsley in Sexy BeastThe type of over-the-top, profanity-ridden Brit performance that we all love. Surely this needs no explanation and the highlight reel speaks for itself. I mean come on... I remember reading that Kinglsey modeled the perf on his abusive grandma and that comes through loud and clear in his tirades. He berates Winstone like a child and goes on crude verbal rampages full of schoolyard insults with a total lack of self-awareness. It's such a fascinating dynamic to me. I love the idea that Glazer made this film about one criminal trying to bring another criminal back into the game, but in that isolated location it reverts to a vicious and uninhibited (on Kingsley's part) clash of personalities. It's wild.
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Post by Pittsnogle_Goggins on May 10, 2020 17:40:12 GMT
Robert Duvall in Open Range
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Post by theycallmemrfish on May 10, 2020 23:03:58 GMT
Something that's never spoken of: Anthony Hopkins in A Bridge Too Far.
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Post by therealcomicman117 on May 10, 2020 23:12:56 GMT
Something that's never spoken of: Anthony Hopkins in A Bridge Too Far. That movie's underrated in general, and it's got an incredible all-star cast, but Hopkins going all in on the battlefield of war is just awesome. That, and he delivers some great sarcastic remarks too. "She does realize there's something of a war going on, doesn't she?
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Post by theycallmemrfish on May 10, 2020 23:24:51 GMT
Something that's never spoken of: Anthony Hopkins in A Bridge Too Far. That movie's underrated in general, and it's got an incredible all-star cast, but Hopkins going all in on the battlefield of war is just awesome. That, and he's delivers some great sarcastic remarks too. "She does realize there's something of a war going on, doesn't she? "WE HAVEN'T THE FACILITIES TO TAKE YOU ALL PRISONER... THANK YOU!"
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Post by therealcomicman117 on May 10, 2020 23:28:31 GMT
That movie's underrated in general, and it's got an incredible all-star cast, but Hopkins going all in on the battlefield of war is just awesome. That, and he's delivers some great sarcastic remarks too. "She does realize there's something of a war going on, doesn't she? "WE HAVEN'T THE FACILITIES TO TAKE YOU ALL PRISONER... THANK YOU!" "I'm awfully sorry, but I'm afraid we're going to have to occupy your house." - I legitimately loled when he said that.
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Post by pacinoyes on May 11, 2020 1:21:34 GMT
Daniel Day-Lewis - There Will Be BloodI'm not going to bore everyone by analyzing a no-brainer top half dozen male performances of the modern era........but just physically this is astonishing work and it should be looked at in that way first. "I'm an oil man" Daniel Plainview is fond of saying and that encapsulation probably eliminated a whole lot of actors for this role. The opening broken leg sequence - amazing by itself - the running towards the fire scene(s), climbing of the rig, the way he takes slaps from Eli (and H.W.), killing with his hands (literally), swinging axes, the scene in the water with Henry......chasing Eli drunkenly on the lanes, beating him in the mud earlier. There is so much physicality to this role it's breathtaking to consider - he has to evoke a type not merely master a physical skill - ie he's not playing a lumberjack - he's an oil man. Now when there's NOT physicality in play you're literally left to wonder what he's improvised because I think much of this glorious scene is and if it is........well damn that napkin move is an f'n inspired choice.
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Post by pacinoyes on May 12, 2020 7:20:16 GMT
Cate Blanchett - Manifesto (2015)Astonishing compendium of vignettes in a difficult, pretentious but effective experimental film that I had seen before but through the lens of Mrs America now takes on more actorish weight. The best "scenes" here - in particular a take on Dada as a funeral speaker are spellbinding and technically masterful with dazzling use of vocal control especially.......not sure who else could have done this and since she's in like 12 vignettes she's outpacing her rivals 12 times over.
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Post by Mattsby on May 12, 2020 18:13:23 GMT
Cate Blanchett - Manifesto (2015)Astonishing compendium of vignettes in a difficult, pretentious but effective experimental film that I had seen before but through the lens of Mrs America now takes on more actorish weight. The best "scenes" here - in particular a take on Dada as a funeral speaker are spellbinding and technically masterful with dazzling use of vocal control especially.......not sure who else could have done this and since she's in like 12 vignettes she's outpacing her rivals 12 times over. Love this perf(s). On that thread of 'Great underrated perfs of last decade' this was one of the first that came to mind for females after Chastain/Salome. Shot in 12 days - did she perform one character per day? That is INSANE. This is on Amazon Prime for those interested !!!
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Post by Mattsby on May 12, 2020 18:22:05 GMT
Laura Dern & Stockard Channing in The Baby Dance (1998) Showtime TVM from Jodie Foster's production company, written-directed by the talented Jane Anderson. This simple plot/conflict gets an enormous amount of tension and feeling from these two perfs - with all sorts of shame, defense, buffering, and empathy. They play off each other incredibly well. It all leads up to a devastating, extremely complex ending. Viced Mentioned this pic in another thread - it's on Tubi, and I'd recommend for fans of the actresses.
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Post by DeepArcher on May 12, 2020 19:00:03 GMT
Humphrey Bogart in In A Lonely PlaceAlready wrote about this film and performance here and in my LB review -- but this is really an all-timer for me. Bogart introduces this character as, well, the archetypal Bogey character ... relentlessly sarcastic, grimly sardonic in an endearing way. We immediately like him yet as the film and performance progresses we have to question whether or not we ever should have liked him to begin with, as we become frightened of the character yet we can hardly tell if it's even because his behavior is actually changing. It's an active subversion of the type of character that he usually plays, a subversion that literally forms the arc of the film itself, as his classic charm slowly turns into a breathtaking intensity that we hold our breath whenever he comes on-screen. A truly brilliant performance operating on a number of complex levels.
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Javi
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Post by Javi on May 12, 2020 19:28:11 GMT
Michael Redgrave in The Browning Version - One of the most devastating performances I've seen. The teacher role in films is a magnet for sentimentality and caricature; what Redgrave gives us instead is a grown man shriveled by the formality of academia and shaped by the judgment of children. A man who never outgrew his teenage passions--Aeschylus, his only real lover; his whole life a daily rereading of 'The Agamemnon', all punctilious delectation (there's great wit to Redgrave's delivery); a man whose subtle feeling makes him incompatible with living, elevation turned to cruelty. But then, somehow, this ridiculous creature is transformed before us, sublimated. Redgrave's mastery is linking the fossil that passes as a man with the life not lived and the life that could've been. (He delineates not just the fullness of one life but the possibility of others). The brilliance in the performance endows greatness to the character, who is in some sense exorcized. In the great confessional scenes towards the end, Redgrave is so inspired that he gives the illusion of having forgotten the character, the camera, himself; you can marvel at the specific moments where he regains self-consciousness and the character is back as if conjured... the impression is that we are intruding on an excruciatingly personal tragedy. With nothing to separate him from us, the intimacy is almost unbearable, but the genius of the performance purges it of mawkishness. It has a kind of purifying effect--it's triumphant. I don't have to watch this again to know it would make my all-time Top 10 perfs if I had to make such a list Can't wait to watch more from him!
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Post by therealcomicman117 on May 13, 2020 23:20:00 GMT
Richard Attenborough in 10 Rillington Place Just rewatched this great movie on Amazon Prime recently, and forget how incredibly good Attenborough is in it. He gives a "two-sided" evil performance. At first he just seems like a normal calm guy doing his daily routine, but once the actual murder happens, suddenly his demeanor takes on a whole new unhinged almost psychotic meaning. His conversations and subsequent taunting of the young Timothy Evans, played marvelously by John Hurt, along with his clear lack of remorse for his actions, makes it one of the most chilling screen portrayals I've ever seen of a serial killer.
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Post by JangoB on May 14, 2020 0:23:43 GMT
Plenty of Paul Schrader's scripts deal with men whose inner beings sprial out of control and deteriorate in front of our eyes. This always creates a special challenge for actors lucky enough to realize those characters on the screen and for my money Nick Nolte in "Affliction" is one hell of an example of how to do justice to such rich parts. Nolte is an actor who's never afraid to go big and really put the expressive pedal to the floor, and he's allowed to do that because he simply makes it work. Look no further than "Affliction" for an outstanding showcase of his remarkable talent.
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Post by Viced on May 16, 2020 4:12:57 GMT
James Spader in The Music of ChanceI read the book last year and pictured Spader as the main protagonist Jim Nashe... I believe he was the same age as the character when the movie was released, and it seemed to be right in his wheelhouse to play an oddball drifter (à la sex, lies, and videotape.)... but man, am I glad he played Pozzi in the film. Fast talking, somewhat sleazy... but strangely lovable. He's so damn convincing I was ready to put my car on the line to stake him. This reminded me of a '70s-era Dustin Hoffman performance (and not just because he has the same sideburns as Dusty in Straight Time here ).
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Javi
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Post by Javi on May 16, 2020 16:36:08 GMT
Richard Burton & Peter Firth, Equus - Richard Burton as the brilliant psychiatrist who never galloped. He is all mind in this, with close-ups fixated on his eyes, inquisitive, melancholy. He traces the way the mind turns against himself--it's exhilarating. Too smart to buy into his cult of mental health as he calls it, but too civilized to do anything about it. And Peter Firth, acting with his naked body a lot of the time, is asked to be just the opposite--all intuition. There are scenes that shouldn't even work at all but he finds a way into them and transcends them. If we buy into his self-myth and all its stages (discovery, ecstasy, rebellion, desolation) it's because the performance evokes them... there's only so much a script can do here. And he surprises you in other ways, like when he's caught watching a (rather innocent) "dirty picture" by his dad; suddenly he's just your average teen... anxious, awkward, normal. They work amazingly well together, too. There's a hint of Death in Venice I think, the way the older guy is destroyed by youth. Except here, Burton's character was never young in the first place.
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Post by theycallmemrfish on May 17, 2020 0:13:39 GMT
Bullock in Gravity.
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Post by Mattsby on May 17, 2020 19:14:09 GMT
Depardieu (the big man's son) and Cluzet in Les Apprentis (1995) - I've seen this a buncha times already, it's a favorite. This, Withnail & I, Scarecrow - love these kinda mismatched duo movies of scrounging, comic failure. It completely amazes me how hilarious the movie and these perfs are while at the same time being so crushing a look at the attitudes of failure between the two. There's a simmering behind the sarcasm of Cluzet ("There I was, standing with my jamjar of pennies") that degrades into bitterness and madness and it's another one of his astonishing perfs of stunned distress.... and yet he's very very funny too, especially in his sharpness towards Depardieu ("Remember tomatoes?").... and he somehow doesn't really seem to be nearly 20 years the senior of his costar. Depardieu who won a Most Promising Actor Cesar (over Cassel/La Haine) also gives a great and very winning perf with his puppy loyalty and gets the biggest laughs with his convincingly naive reactions.
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Javi
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Post by Javi on May 18, 2020 0:35:37 GMT
Anna Magnani in Wild Is the Wind - Anthony Quinn is very good but this is Magnani's film. She brings emotional and linguistic anarchy to the Nevada ranch, tossing English and Italian around as she sees fit. She makes language seem insufficient, inconvenient. Every gesture counts--the way she drowns her coffee with sugar in the middle of a speech; the world must have flavor to her and it must have it now, not later. She's moved by some excess of spirit so when she finally is still or silent you pay close attention... her pauses are like death. I also don't know of any actor/actress who breaks into sudden joyous laughter the way she does. It breaks the spell of even the most tragic scene... frighteningly and beautifully.
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