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Post by pacinoyes on Aug 29, 2020 1:18:48 GMT
George C. Scott "The Street" East Side/West Side (1964) Scott is fascinating in this show and here is giving a very modern, complex turn in an episode where not much happens and he has to hold back. He's compassionate, self-aware and searching and he's fantastic at acting with props specially (a piece of gum, an old shoe, a sewing thread, a pot of cooking spaghetti). He also pulls off the romantic part of the story too. Scott is doing movie acting in a TV show and it's exciting to watch him pull this off and not compromise the way he reveals his character. For an actor who didn't do the Method, it is so complete it seems like a Method anyway.
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Post by Mattsby on Aug 29, 2020 21:19:05 GMT
Rod Steiger in Marty (1953)Marty oughta know there’s nothing wrong with staying home and watching Sid Caesar. But this unwanted Bronx butcher wants a want. His worryingly dumb friends and piling home aren’t enough. Steiger is great in this 50min original live-broadcast production, opposite Nancy Marchand who might’ve been wonderful in the expanded movie but alas (thanks Gene Kelly). It’s a missed opportunity to re-team them especially for Steiger not just career-wise but to see his performance again and more of it…. Steiger gives a gentler perf than Ernest Borgnine who is thicker, a meatball, and in moments, a man made mad. Steiger is like a boy, lost, hurt, always saying sorry like a reflex, like any blame starts with him. They play the “I’m just a fat little man” scene opposite Ma a bit differently in this way. “You get kicked around long enough, you become a professor of pain." Steiger already heartbroke not by the push but the absence, is tender and so in a way always exposed. “I’m wondering if I can have the next dance please” he says like a dry announcement, not a pulling-in question. He plays the role with absolutely no charm and little force at all, yet Steiger making the meek seem ordinary and entirely human becomes, in the process, profoundly moving.
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Post by pacinoyes on Aug 30, 2020 21:15:09 GMT
Albert Finney - The Playboys (1992)Yesterday in the Classic Movies thread I called Albert Finney "the best actor ever at portraying alcoholism on film" - it pops up in many of his roles (including TV). In this movie, a sweet but minor love story in which he plays a supporting role he's his usual brilliant self portraying a recovering alcoholic on shaky ground to start drinking again. He's complex and interesting aside from that though - and like all of the truly great actors he's willing to look foolish - when things crumble for him they all crumble, and totally and they collapse inward on him. Early on when offered to be taken out for a beer he responds, "I'm not a drinking man" and you feel the truth and potential lie implicit in that answer.
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Post by JangoB on Aug 31, 2020 19:13:26 GMT
I found Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet to be an extraordinary film on pretty much every level, and he himself is one of its great wonders. A performance of amazing humanity, wit, madness and tragedy - his Hamlet is everything (and maybe even more) that I hoped it would be. I'm a bit surprised the performance didn't get more awards attention back in 1996 but hey, it's no less tremendous because of that.
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Post by pacinoyes on Sept 3, 2020 17:02:04 GMT
Willem Dafoe - Light Sleeper (1992) - I say this all the time but I can make a case that Dafoe is the best American film actor of the 80s class and it's performances like this that sort of back him up. Here playing a role that echoes too close to Travis Bickle and where it doesn't is a scriptwriter's conceit (Paul Schrader) he does the hard work a special actor should. He plays it straight, adds nuance and grounds the character - you are in his head and feeling what he feels and seeing things as he does...........neat trick, moving portrayal.
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Post by JangoB on Sept 15, 2020 15:49:33 GMT
Isabelle Adjani in L'été meurtrier is not just another stunning masterclass by one of the greatest actresses of all time but also one of the sexiest performances I've ever seen which is an aspect not often discussed while considering acting. Similar to how female leads in horror movies usually get condescendingly labelled 'scream queens' as if there nothing else that goes into portraying their roles, performance nuances having to do with seduction and allure often get downplayed too. I think there's a lot more to performances like this that work as well as they do and Adjani's turn here is one hell of an example.
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Post by pacinoyes on Sept 16, 2020 22:07:36 GMT
Peter Falk & Faye Dunaway - "It's All In The Game" (1993) Columbo - One of the best Columbo episodes and one that very much plays on our relationship with Columbo and how we see the character. Faye Dunaway is great (and sexy) here and Falk is happy to play the fool.........up to a point anyway. A superbly smart last scene too........and Falk's birthday today - his influence on De Niro isn't mentioned enough...
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Post by Mattsby on Sept 20, 2020 16:17:35 GMT
Tim Roth in Jumpin' at the Boneyard (1991) Roth stepped into the 90s like a solar flare, Vincent & Theo, Rosencratz, Reservoir Dogs, and this, one after the other. He is positively De Niro-esque here, sounding like him too...... he activates the movie, giving it an urgency and layers, and he invests into the character a hurt, a cold awareness, a fed-up toughness. Lotta great eye-acting moments where he holds his looks on people, like he's waiting for their tell. And there's a brilliant line-reading when he tells a kvetching taxi-driver Luis Guzman, "That's right you gotta deal with it." Movie itself is really solid until the ending. It'd be a right double-feature with Roth's Gridlockd from a few years later, or even Safdies' Good Time. It also feels slightly influenced by Mikey and Nicky, like an early cemetery scene which brings back childhood memories for Roth, but to his drug-addicted brother, it's a scary destination. It also has M&N's feel for a vacant yet paranoid urban space.
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Post by pacinoyes on Sept 28, 2020 20:30:21 GMT
Richard Burton in Hamlet (1964) - rewatchCompared to other filmed Hamlet's he is neither melancholy like Olivier or complicated like Branagh but I prefer him to both.........by a lot actually. This "film" is not a film at all, it's a recording of the play often at a distance, with no help at all from the camera (in fact it hinders it). It is staged as a rehearsal (ie no one is in costume) and Burton, lean and all in black and casual is.........striking as a lightning bolt. Burton is very theatrical - often times he blows through text......or he screams through it......I don't really "believe" his Hamlet nor do I care either - this is the actor as a great musician or something like that with so much mastery over his instrument he could literally play Hamlet a million different ways and sometimes here he seems to be doing just that from scene to scene. As the actor with the greatest voice ever (and that includes James Earl Jones) - he has so completely mastered the text that he is merely playing with it not trying to play it.....and I could never take my eyes off of him. This is, the first example of acting as a Rock star performance I think - so when he uses hands in a way that seems random or turns away from a character he's speaking to well it's valid because he's Richard Burton in the same way Mick Jagger can dance or do anything in any way he wanted to.......the performance has stunning technique, and then throws away all technique and then recaptures it. There's not many performances where you can see them and understand why someone would say they wanted to be an actor because of that performance.......here that seems completely logical.......but you're not sure if they'd want to be an actor, or be Richard Burton, or be Hamlet or ..........be Richard Burton as Hamlet in 1964.
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Post by Mattsby on Oct 4, 2020 17:43:43 GMT
Ian Bannen in The Risk (1960) - This is a rarely seen, not very good yet kinda underrated movie from the Boulting brothers about those deciding what to do upon finding the cure for a plague. In the middle of this uneven and slightly dull movie is a psychologically complex perf from Bannen as an armless war vet ("a man who’s got two hands, real hands, can do such a LOT of things with them") - there's all sorts of romantic stress and self hate and wit to his perf. And he has a soliloquy later ("Look at me, it's bloody unfair") that is almost Shakespearean and heartbreaking. He has a few scenes with Donald Pleasence (seeing them is worth the price of admission for me, and they shared the screen memorably later in From Beyond the Grave).... Peter Cushing has a sizable part too but doesn't act with them.
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Post by Mattsby on Oct 6, 2020 18:59:09 GMT
Joan Crawford in Strait-Jacket (1964) - This is more psychological than psychobiddy. And I mean a lot more than I was led to believe. Take the doctor visit scene. She's upset he's come, he's a painful reminder to her, so she distracts herself, plays a vinyl, fails to light a cigarette but in a flash of dare strikes it on the vinyl with a smirk, then she suddenly turns shy and sits like a girl in a principal's office. No dialogue yet. Then she boasts of her looks, knits like mad ("It's all unraveled") and then sadly-sweetly says "Who told you about my dreams?" then she roars angered. That seems like a lot. It could've all been played in one way, with contempt, or just weakly, or just over the top, but Crawford all wavering odds and mentally bobbing behavior somehow lines it up excitingly and sensitively, her perf becomes one that vibrates, keeping you engaged, questioning her, maybe laughing, but ultimately feeling for her, an axe murderer. It's an amazing turn. "You never can be sure about coffee stains."
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Post by pacinoyes on Oct 7, 2020 9:28:29 GMT
Lauren Ashley Carter - Darling (2015)Derivative but totally awesome horror movie that I just reviewed in the October Horror Watches thread......Carter is definitive of a type here and a lot of that type comes off her timeless, yet out of time look - shown here in an eerie, classic black and white.......sort of caught between small framed girlish and a fully formed and complex woman - the scene where she puts on lipstick shows the jump from one to the other. Her eyes in particular - a deadened black - are simultaneously aggressively evil and hopelessly sad.....and she also understands how to use her voice which can go from a sort of committed quaver to a frightening, deeper declarative tool. When her voice or manner of speaking changes it's really jarring. Much of this performance though is silent too aided only by the sound design - watching her merely "existing" and then acting......reacting....alone.
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Javi
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Post by Javi on Oct 16, 2020 22:06:41 GMT
Jennifer Jason Leigh, Georgia - Had been meaning to catch more JJL after falling hard for her in Kansas City (which people should watch before the 90s poll btw ). This is the ultimate rock 'n roll performance: she's a washed-up mess and she's brilliant. Featuring multiple musical performances throughout the film, each one specific and a world in themselves. Aside from being an original, JJL is a dazzling mood-setter. In Kansas City she was the jazz; here she's a new mood in every scene, a new narcotic for every song, and she connects them. There's a 10-minute sequence where she sings before a hostile audience, and at one point desperation turns to pathos and pathos to magic--embarrassment is gone and you're up there with her, her trance takes hold, and there's no doubt right there she's the real deal--bruised but open, a punk Joan of Arc about to burn. Among other things the perf forces you to consider what's "good" and "bad" in a performance. "You shouldn't sing", her sister tells her, but even when she's off or ambivalent Leigh's Sadie is revealing in ways that Mare Winningham's harmonious, domesticated, 'artful' Georgia could never hope to be. This perf is a triumph of seemingly disorganized feeling--of truth in chaos. Wonder how many so-called GOAT actresses could pull this off... probably close to zero Glad she took NYFCC for this, though Oscar snubbed her. Can't wait to watch Mrs Parker and the Vicious Circle next
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Post by dadsburgers on Oct 18, 2020 17:47:50 GMT
Sacha Baron Cohen in Borat
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Post by pacinoyes on Oct 20, 2020 10:13:47 GMT
Guillaume Canet - Next Time I'll Aim For The Heart (2014)The performance of his life (that I've seen anyway) as a gendarme who is also a serial killer (based on a true story) where Canet underplays to a chilling perfection evoking Daniel Auteuil and Robert De Niro no less. Not only physically does he remind you of them but also in actor choices - where he smartly shapes the character by letting big actor scenes on paper pass in favor of shaping the character arc in a more deliberate and methodical way. He is in every scene here - and this is a very smart and patient portrayal....
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meowy
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Post by meowy on Oct 22, 2020 7:58:20 GMT
Jack Nicholson in The Last Detail
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Post by pacinoyes on Nov 2, 2020 11:10:57 GMT
Gene Hackman - The Conversation (1974)I joke on here (a lot!) about where actors "rank" in American film (top 5 tier/10 tier/top 15 tier etc.) and I joke that we sometimes overrate Gene Hackman on MAR (he's top 10 imo)......but it's also true that Hackman gets a raw deal. From 1970-75 he had a dazzling streak of his own: I Never Sang For My Father, French Connection, Scarecrow, The Conversation, Night Moves, French Connection II. That streak is only really surpassed from the great work of some of his peers. It was an insane decade for acting that a run like that could be "overlooked" (relatively) at all. The Conversation is my 2nd favorite film ever and at one point Francis Coppola tried to talk Marlon Brando into playing it.....and even with that, I can't imagine anyone being better than Hackman here. I've seen it a million times, watched it last night to get the horror of "Halloween" movies and that scary in a different way Cowboys/Eagles game (um) out of my mouth and I always see something different. The way Hackman is not only NOT introverted - which is often misread - he likes to go out etc. - and he doesn't "want" to be alone, he wants to be not bothered, not to lose himself, yet to connect. That's a crucial difference and those shades of meaning are beautifully conveyed and delineated. An all-time performance, his best ever and not, at all a one-dimensional one..
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Post by Mattsby on Nov 2, 2020 19:17:41 GMT
John Heard, Cutter's Way (1981) - "Tragedy, I take straight." I just watched Chilly Scenes of Winter ('79) two months ago, and now this. Can't believe how tense, interesting, and conniptive Heard could be on screen especially during that time. Alex Cutter is a classic role and he fills it out with great physicality, brimming rage, and tragic waywardness. He's very funny at times, or shockingly aggressive, he keeps you rethinking the character as he plays it out. It's a perf that doesn't drop for a moment.
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Post by pacinoyes on Nov 8, 2020 10:06:25 GMT
Humphrey Bogart - High Sierra (1941) - re-watch High Sierra was, I'm pretty sure the first Humphrey Bogart movie I ever saw........and it is the film I first think about when I think of him.........which I do a lot. Not only is he fascinating in it - wasting his all-too short time on the unappreciative goody two shoes Joan Leslie who could never understand a man like Mad Dog Earle the way that tough good bad girl Ida Lupino could he's also heartbreaking in a way too: Convinced that a "good act" will change him (maybe - the script is vagueish but........) but the name he calls at the end is (crucially) Lupino's and underneath that big empty sky his death scene is poetic and metaphorical too.
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Post by TerryMontana on Nov 8, 2020 12:00:10 GMT
Denzel Washington in The HurricaneI hadn't watched it for 20 years but always thought it was one of Zel's best performances ever. After the re-watch I'm pretty confident about that. He had to play a character grown up in hatred, taught to hate others, even after he achieved fame and glory. And in the second half of the movie he found love, learned how to love people and won through the use of it. That kind of transformation, even though rough at the edges at times (when listening/talking to the voices in his head), it was not an easy task to accomplish but DW managed it and he was 100% convincing!! A very underrated film/performance I think. Most ppl when making a Zel top-10 or something, tend to forget about that movie, which is a shame imo.
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Nov 9, 2020 0:52:25 GMT
Cate Blanchett in Mrs. America. whew. Y'all weren't playing. I'm still wrapping my mind around it. She's intensely triggering (I've known women like this) and awe-inspiring at the same time. Really revealing the ugliness of this woman without once devolving into caricature. Schlafly is perversely sympathetic because she's deeply unhappy and unsatisfied but has constructed this narrative about herself publicly and politically where the thought of admitting that unhappiness to herself would be unthinkable and destroy her entire identity, so she actively campaigns against her own interests. The bitterest irony is that Schlafly succeeded in bettering a lot of men around her. She defeated the ERA and helped Reagan to his presidency but she could never escape the box she made for herself. Karma's a biiiiiitch. but Blanchett... you guys... I don't think she's ever been better. I think this is one of the all-time greats. Not just of her career but of all time. She attacks the screen and takes no fuckin prisoners. worth noting that the entire cast is fuckin great. Martindale maybe has never been better, Ullman is a joy to watch as the gruff Betty Friedan, and Uzo Aduba is stunning as Shirley Chisholm who is the most tragic character on the show and the most short-changed.
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Post by Mattsby on Nov 11, 2020 19:41:57 GMT
I'd post a picture but I can't find any!
Alan Bates in two from Play for Today, Plaintiffs and Defendants and Two Sundays (1975) - they aired a week apart and are sort of companion pieces written by Simon Gray (Butley), using the same cast, and director Michael Lindsay Hogg who between these, Nasty Habits, Object of Beauty seems to be skilled at pulling great perfs out. These two 60m movies were unavailable before last month when some hero of our time put them on youtube, in yikes quality but what can ya do.
"It's just the pips doing its pipping." Plaintiffs reminded me of Woody Allen, and both actually slightly reminded me of a much less dark From the Life of the Marionettes. Bates plays a stuck lawyer in Plaintiffs who fears his bad health, can't seem to end an affair, and wishes his son would appreciate Jean Renoir movies! and in Sunday he's a sensitive, gullible teacher meeting an old friend he was/is obsessed with - both undergoing a midlife crisis and marital/sexual questioning - they are very different perfs in open and subtle ways. Two Sundays is a great piece and the better perf of the two - Bates has a nervous spring and pestering that is believable, and there's a deep sadder quality.
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Post by Mattsby on Nov 16, 2020 19:38:30 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. Very well put! I just rewatched this, forgot how Hollywood-busy it is around Bogart who is dynamite (and he's referred to here as literal dynamite). The whole making of this movie and those involved really ante up the depth of it, and the inverting/subverting of genre and expectations. Bogart's perf is amazing how he slides around his own ego and assumes protection. I agree with Javi - his perf is "bluntly funny" ( "I haven't been up this early in years" ). That is, until we sense the cloud of him and the threat in him, there from the very first scene. There's a terrific moment that Ray gets in a single take in the kitchen, when Bogart says "Anyone looking at us could tell we're in love.” He's either being sadly sarcastic or straight up oblivious to what is. As a major star daring to close the entry to his charm, and as the writer character here bitter and longing and lost - this film rightly ends just as lost, in a courtyard above and between the two.
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Post by HELENA MARIA on Nov 17, 2020 9:29:21 GMT
Sophia Loren in THE LIFE AHEAD (2020) : How lovely to see Queen Sophia back in a vehicle worthy of her talent ! Her character has an inner fragility despite her outer demeanor and she beautifully captures all of that. It's a performance that SHOULD NOT BE MISSED by the Academy. Oh and Ibrahim Gueye is a true revelation ! What a talented young actor !
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Post by pacinoyes on Nov 17, 2020 11:21:59 GMT
Paul Newman The Verdict (1982) - re-watch
There are certain actors - marvelous actors too - that I'd argue are overrated in the general public because people confuse how much they like them with how much talent they're maybe displaying - Jack Lemmon....Tom Hanks.....Denzel Washington etc. but Paul Newman - who many would rank the best of that esteemed bunch is maybe this thing more than anyone.
He never stretched that much, but like Nicholson (who he influenced in career balance) he stretched when he had to and in The Verdict he goes deeper than he ever did before. Newman is always at his best when he has an ace script - by peak era David Mamet here nonetheless - and he collapses all his hero qualities onto some far darker impulses. We still like him.......even when he doesn't like himself and maybe when we shouldn't either.
It's a masterfully constructed and arc'd performance and he handles the Mamet dialog - a Shakespeare of our times in cadence/poetry/tone beautifully too:
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