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Post by JangoB on May 20, 2020 15:56:52 GMT
I rewatched "A Simple Plan" yesterday and was just amazed by Billy Bob Thornton all over again so I immediately wanted to revisit "Sling Blade" too (thankfully I haven't seen both movies in years). Good Lord, what a marvel to watch these two performances essentially back to back. I could hardly believe I was witnessing the same actor. Two masterpiece-level turns, particularly "Sling Blade" which is just an unbelievable achievement any way you look at it.
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Post by Mattsby on May 23, 2020 19:49:54 GMT
Barbara Stanwyck , The Lady Eve (1941) - One of my favorite actresses (I'm talkin' Top 15- 20?) and I'd never seen this. Whattt! And it was mentioned more than once in the Three Fav perfs thread so I hadda finally get to it. This comes right in that four year peak where she also did Remember the Night, Ball of Fire, and Double Indemnity. They're all very captivating perfs - she's a sexy spark in Ball of Fire, and lovely tinted with longing in Remember the Night - well, she's sexier and lovelier in The Lady Eve and she touchdowns every single line of dialogue.... The mock-amused way she says "Oh he does card tricks!" - the flirty sizzle of "You like any of the rest of me?" - the honest sweetness behind "I think I'm in love with the poor fish, snakes and all." - and so many sleekly assured, funny ones - "I'll be as English as necessary" or "I need him like the ax needs the turkey" or "Good thing you weren't up there two years." What a perfectly hilarious, beautiful, awe-inspiring performance....
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Post by pacinoyes on May 23, 2020 20:05:39 GMT
Barbara Stanwyck , The Lady Eve (1941) - One of my favorite actresses (I'm talkin' Top 15- 20?) and I'd never seen this. Whattt! And it was mentioned more than once in the Three Fav perfs thread so I hadda finally get to it. This comes right in that four year peak where she also did Remember the Night, Ball of Fire, and Double Indemnity. They're all very captivating perfs - she's a sexy spark in Ball of Fire, and lovely tinted with longing in Remember the Night - well, she's sexier and lovelier in The Lady Eve and she touchdowns every single line of dialogue.... The mock-amused way she says "Oh he does card tricks!" - the flirty sizzle of "You like any of the rest of me?" - the honest sweetness behind "I think I'm in love with the poor fish, snakes and all." - and so many sleekly assured, funny ones - "I'll be as English as necessary" or "I need him like the ax needs the turkey" or "Good thing you weren't up there two years." What a perfectly hilarious, beautiful, awe-inspiring performance.... Only Katherine Hepburn and Irene Dunne can rival her having an insanely funny and dramatic acting triumphs in American film from that general era ........not only is she sexy as all Hell in The Lady Eve.........she's ahead of her time promiscuous too That performance is one of my favorite things by anybody ever in the history of stuff...........
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Post by DeepArcher on May 27, 2020 6:09:12 GMT
Rod Steiger in The PawnbrokerThis is an extraordinary performance -- for a character so bitter and full of contempt for the world, he is always believable and understandable. It's a harrowing "dead man walking" portrait of trauma that Steiger sells with a profound gravitas. Full of moments of both solemn introspection and loud, angry intensity, like a classic Lumet-directed performance in that way and also one that keeps escalating in desperation, reaching an outright hopelessness by the end that is shocking and depressing ... this is a performance I'll be thinking about for awhile.
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Post by Mattsby on May 27, 2020 20:15:19 GMT
Rip Torn - Payday (1973) ”People in hell want ice water, too.” An undaunted, smiler-with-the-knife perf of this merciless sub-Cash musician. Torn here sweats out a grim thrum - he spends a lot of time on the road in his little Cadillac kingdom of girls drugs guns and fun - and he sees all as chow for his appetite/use/misuse. He seems here to be born to play this type of part or like a Charles Willeford sociopath, came to mind. This ugly movie at least moves and amounts - to a big scene where all the elements/character bunch into one room and Torn paces and growls like an animal. There’s an outlandish ego to him. And that rear-view mirror shot at the end is shocking with his popped eyes like a horror star. This might be his best perf - and looking at his best - this, Sweet Bird of Youth, Cross Creek, Larry Sanders - it’s impressive how he was able to have these peaks over so many decades. Even something as far back as 24 Hours in a Woman’s Life w/ Ingrid Bergman - literally no one has seen this - his perf is kinda great as an impulsive, guilt-racked conman. Side note - Daryl Duke did this and the bonafide classic (should be!) The Silent Partner. He swatted around TV a lot but fhese two suggest he could’ve been the real deal for actors or genres.
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Post by pacinoyes on May 27, 2020 21:08:19 GMT
This might be his best perf - and looking at his best - this, Sweet Bird of Youth, Cross Creek, Larry Sanders - it’s impressive how he was able to have these peaks over so many decades. Even something as far back as 24 Hours in a Woman’s Life w/ Ingrid Bergman - literally no one has seen this - his perf is kinda great as an impulsive, guilt-racked conman. Mattsby - have you seen Coming Apart (1969) - one of his best and really out there, risk taking ......movie has some big flaws but fascinating really for its time.......
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Post by Mattsby on May 27, 2020 23:45:29 GMT
This might be his best perf - and looking at his best - this, Sweet Bird of Youth, Cross Creek, Larry Sanders - it’s impressive how he was able to have these peaks over so many decades. Even something as far back as 24 Hours in a Woman’s Life w/ Ingrid Bergman - literally no one has seen this - his perf is kinda great as an impulsive, guilt-racked conman. Mattsby - have you seen Coming Apart (1969) - one of his best and really out there, risk taking ......movie has some big flaws but fascinating really for its time....... I haven't! Seems like something De Palma might've cooked up back then, with the 'secretly filming' aspect, which seems like it'd work in a modern remake too
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Post by therealcomicman117 on May 30, 2020 14:56:20 GMT
Harrison Ford in WitnessOne of Ford's best performances and sole Oscar nomination, came from this incredible Peter Weir directed crime drama, where he plays an uptight detective whose investigation of a young boy, leads him to find himself stranded in an Amish community. Ford is often considered an actor who is not particularly strongly emotional, and he is often subdued throughout the film to great effect, but he really lets it all out at several points, especially in a big scene near the end, and it's truly. Also his relationship with the boy's mother played by Kelly McGillis is beautiful to watch, and winds up being the surprising crux of the film's plot. It plays well to Ford's strength as a performer, as well as showing him in a vulnerable state rarely seen before or after.
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Post by Mattsby on Jun 2, 2020 2:08:35 GMT
Depardieu, Cyrano de Bergerac (1990) rewatch. Forgot how physically bursting this performance is. Depardieu sprints and zigzags around rooms, his intellect fueling flight. Like the heartbreaking last scene, he moves when he has more to say. And he's a natural at the silver tongue - all these romantic monologues and displays of wit - he can boom and be gentle and align the two like no other.
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Post by Mattsby on Jun 2, 2020 20:57:58 GMT
Vonetta McGee, Thomasine & Bushrod (1974). Maybe not a great perf but very good and like Maggie Cheung in Irma Vep, which I saw recently, it made me wanna watch everything the actress has done. McGee stars in this "black Bonnie and Clyde" Western (don't forget her first movie was The Great Silence) but plays multiple "parts" - a bounty hunter, a pretend prostitute, a bank robber outlaw, and a lover slowly starting to fear the unforgiving society itself stuck between progress (cars chasing horses and vice versa). She makes them all work and opposite a flat actor too - she says to him, "I was making it by myself before you came passing into my life with all your mystery shit!" Damn right.
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Javi
Badass
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Post by Javi on Jun 2, 2020 22:10:35 GMT
Anthony Hopkins in Magic - Finally got to this after all the praise here and expectations were met and exceeded . A deviously superficial premise--a performance outside a performance: nothing within in sight (so we're led to believe)... for this character the internal is barred, childish, shameful. As the dummy goes from alter-ego to antagonist to ironic ugly little mirror, so does Hopkins come to resemble the dummy more and more in his primary perf. There's a deeply disturbing scene where Hopkins is asked to put the dummy down for five interminable minutes. What's left is an actor without a performance. He's astonishing: 'tis the black side of artistry, a seedy little man brought down to shame and terror. He's a horror story into himself, afraid of what he is not and what he might be. And as the act swallows the performer whole, we might wonder what exactly is it we find so thrilling about it. (It certainly is to watch). As Burgess Meredith says "Nothing's funny... not anymore". Beyond the performative aspect, Hopkins taps into the nature of timidity. It's hard to look at it quite the same way afterwards. I also think it's a great horror film or at least a vehicle for greatness. Something marvellously strange about a showbiz story that takes us to the dark woods instead just as we're getting warmed up. That lake sure seems to be hiding something. It's foreboding. Hopkins is a special one. Like the Redgraves (Michael & Vanessa) he has an otherworldly quality. Unlike the Redgraves, he is disquieting. Like he doesn't belong.
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Post by therealcomicman117 on Jun 2, 2020 23:01:04 GMT
Anthony Hopkins in Magic - Finally got to this after all the praise here and expectations were met and exceeded . A deviously superficial premise--a performance outside a performance: nothing within in sight (so we're led to believe)... for this character the internal is barred, childish, shameful. As the dummy goes from alter-ego to antagonist to ironic ugly little mirror, so does Hopkins come to resemble the dummy more and more in his primary perf. There's a deeply disturbing scene where Hopkins is asked to put the dummy down for five interminable minutes. What's left is an actor without a performance. He's astonishing: 'tis the black side of artistry, a seedy little man brought down to shame and terror. He's a horror story into himself, afraid of what he is not and what he might be. And as the act swallows the performer whole, we might wonder what exactly is it we find so thrilling about it. (It certainly is to watch). As Burgess Meredith says "Nothing's funny... not anymore". Beyond the performative aspect, Hopkins taps into the nature of timidity. It's hard to look at it quite the same way afterwards. One of my earlier favorite Hopkins performances. He plays twisted and tormented so well, and he manages to create distinct personalities out of The Ventriloquist main character and Fats The Dummy, and superbly merges them together as the film goes along. It's quite the spectacle of a performance. It's a shame the movie isn't talked about more too. It's a solid psychological horror drama adapted by William Goldman from his book.
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Post by pacinoyes on Jun 8, 2020 7:20:12 GMT
Klaus Kinski - Woyzeck (1978) - re-watchThe only collaboration between Herzog and Kinski where it feels like Herzog has turned his film over to the actor. His overall vision seems less complete than it usually is and Kinski's seems somehow strangely more so......a series of gorgeous scenes that may feel inert without Kinski playing them and pushing them. His mad gaze is perfect for this role and slow motion seems invented for him here too......
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Post by Mattsby on Jun 12, 2020 1:28:04 GMT
John Turturro & Sam L Jackson - Jungle Fever (1991). Two heartbreaking perfs but in different ways. Turturro is miniaturized by a stagnant lifetime and the crassness of those around him, he does this thing where he starts to react but then sinks bc that's all he can do, though he eventually explodes "I want a life!" to his father (Anthony Quinn) and it's powerful stuff bc we get it and the building to that moment is subtle - like how his eyes linger on a ringing phone when Sciorra officially breaks up with him. Or the sweet, forward way he asks out the customer (Tyra Ferrel) - their relationship (a total of two minutes?) is far more immediately interesting than Snipes/Sciorra's. It's one of the most sympathetic of roles and an underrated perf. A lot more attention goes to - Samuel L, as Gator, whose own life informed this part and he's very very good too - they created a new category at Cannes just to award him. He plays the addict as inviting and slyly sadly aware. He tries to enliven rooms to ease into what he's aiming for. Eventually his addiction pushes out the flavor of his personality, but not completely his awareness, like the taunting dance at his father (Ossie Davis). Besides these two, the best thing about the movie (which I didn't like overall) might just be the casting - I mean, Tim Robbins and Brad Dourif as two sides of the same corporate coin; Ossie and Ruby together; Sciorra's quite believable Italian family (very pre Sopranos) - Frank Vincent ("She made a dinner fit for kings!") and Michael Imperioli ("What is this prom NIGHT?")
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Jun 12, 2020 7:03:07 GMT
watched it a couple of days ago, but it feels wrong to go another minute without shouting out Naomi Watts's stunning performance in The Impossible. Suffering can be such an affectation in a performance if there's not more to it but Watts really tapped into the vulnerability and chaos of this woman's situation and brings out her humanity and strength. Flawless work.
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Jun 12, 2020 7:20:20 GMT
and how about Vanessa Paradis in the queer giallo Knife + Heart (2018). Lot of reasons to love this film but Paradis as a director of gay porn in the Golden Age of Porn is one of them. She brings a childlike vulnerability and emotional immaturity to the character that's simultaneously endearing and frightening in how it contrasts with an unsettling (and at one point rapey) obsession with her ex-girlfriend and editor, and also the way she callously appropriates the vicious deaths of her past actors in her art. Characters like this are so fun, especially in films like this, and Paradis manages it without falling back on camp (this ain't no Ryan Murphy joint but just as blissfully shameless and carnal).
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Post by Mattsby on Jun 12, 2020 18:56:15 GMT
Wendell B Harris Jr in Chameleon Street (1989). "I think therefore I scan." Tour de force performance and a special, fascinating, slightly flawed debut that he also wrote and directed. This won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance beating out Charles Burnett, Whit Stillman, Hal Hartley - never had proper distribution, though Warner Bros bought remake rights, was a lost movie for around a decade and still hard to come across (DVDs go for over $80). Harris has a smooth sonorous radio voice, and this perf/pic is like Welles in more than one way (even quotes the scorpion/frog tale like Mr Arkadin). Playing a multitude of parts within this one movie I got the impression he could play Othello and Iago..... smart sophisticated Poitier/Denzel type roles (doctor, lawyer, professor).... comedic roles (his French exchange student bits are hysterical).... Westlake/Willeford esque crime characters, etc. He has a brief role in Soderbergh's Out of Sight (Sod led the Sundance jury back in '90 that awarded him) but that's about it. This is a sharply clever script too, but we really missed out on what other screen perfs he might've gave if he wasn't cold-shouldered by the biz.
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Post by pacinoyes on Jun 16, 2020 14:12:14 GMT
Brad Renfro - Law & Order: Criminal Intent "Watch" (re-watch)I'm not sure this is "great" but it's something: One of Renfro's last roles is an extremely uncomfortable story of abuse and adult dysfunction. Completely riding a parallel to his life and an impending death that really couldn't been "known" in 2006. He is very creepy and very sad and far darker than a mere TV show could capture.......this performance evokes his Apt Pupil one in a whole different and specific way and actually reminds you of Heath Ledger ...or did for me at least. RIP
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Post by theycallmemrfish on Jun 16, 2020 15:50:44 GMT
Sam Shepherd in The Right Stuff.
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Post by Mattsby on Jun 17, 2020 20:17:12 GMT
Lee Marvin, Death Hunt (1981). Okay movie directed in a big, silly way, but with a standout Lee - a great, resolute perf, with some winking humor and charismatic moments opposite Angie Dickinson. There's such a cool ease to him on screen, usually but especially here. “I ain’t a sir, a mister, or a grandpa. Got that?”
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Post by pacinoyes on Jun 17, 2020 22:32:38 GMT
Hugh O'Conor - The Young Poisoner's Handbook (re-watch)Should have had a much bigger career - you see him pop in things now and then - but he's fantastic here suggesting nothing so much as a teen Jeremy Irons. Not just in physicality by in how he plays this role as a genius level mind obsessed with things the he shouldn't be and can not control. Chilling stuff.....
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Javi
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Post by Javi on Jun 18, 2020 14:26:41 GMT
Gena Rowlands & Sandy Dennis in Another Woman (1988)Rowlands is very good (pained, often great) as this stiflingly intellectual character but Sandy Dennis blew me away in her 2 or 3 scenes. Every single word that comes out of her mouth has character. And they seem at odds with each other. Dennis' perf is an electrifying mockery of Rowlands' character... I could watch their scenes together over and over. "You should've been the actress"
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Post by IceTruckDexter on Jun 21, 2020 2:40:31 GMT
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Post by Viced on Jun 26, 2020 14:28:20 GMT
Philip Seymour Hoffman in Love LizaKind of insane how well he carries this quirky little movie on his shoulders and elevates it into something powerful. Not sure I've seen a performance that's a better mix of depressing, pathetic, and absolutely hilarious... all while being 100% real. One of his best.
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Post by sirjeremy on Jun 26, 2020 18:22:34 GMT
In what may be the TV performance of the year, Sarah Lancashire is devastating as a woman struggling to come to terms with incestuous feelings for her teenage son in a new monologue of Talking Heads, broadcast this week in the U.K, evoking growing horror and empathy in the viewer with her character's feelings and situation. It is a difficult and disturbing story, and you feel every second of her character's despair.
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