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Post by pacinoyes on Aug 31, 2021 17:03:35 GMT
I watched this performance yesterday - still floored by it and not quite sure how to articulate my feelings... I honestly got goosebumps - Jessica Lange in her Emmy-nominated turn as Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire. I don't think another actress has ever tapped so deeply into the character's dark despair... I can't help but think Williams himself would have been floored. pacinoyes MsMovieStar Javi I've said this before about her - I'm convinced a lot of her best work comes specifically from being able to come at it from a different angle than other actors......and the reason people don't like her is they want her to be like all the other boring actors We talk a lot (at least I do!) about Jennifer Lawrence and Debra Winger being "naturals" but we never talk about Lange being "oddly trained to appear not natural" and how she uses that so much - she can be naturalistic - but like any good actor knows the goal is not to ALWAYS necessarily be naturalistic: ............that background of hers - fashion modeling, mime, photography, living in Europe (as a teen I think?) her very bohemianism - a lot of things that are about "performing" or "presenting" expressly in her upbringing go into that performance and a lot of her other work ......her breakdown scenes are if anything almost like mime or kabuki style performance ................or better yet it's like a Grand Guignol type horror - when she says "blue as the blue in my first lovers eyes" she uses her own eyes to convey something quite more horrific and unsaid than most productions of the play even attempt to show you....... It's only Lange that portrays that line as several things clashing: her eyes doing one thing, the rest of face another : frozen on a smile but before she gets there - she halts her speech .........no one would play that line like that ........she's playing the line how she would play it if she couldn't speak and wants to express it - none of her choices in that speech are random or undisciplined in any way .........
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Post by HELENA MARIA on Sept 3, 2021 11:17:48 GMT
Rewatched Tombstone (1993) last night . One of the greatest westerns ever with a top notch cast. Val Kilmer was easily the MVP , though. He gave a mindblowing & scene stealing performance as Doc Holliday.I can't believe he wasn't nominated for his perfromance (probably the best of his career). Truly an epic film. Oh and RIP Bill Paxton and Powers Boothe.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 7, 2021 2:45:33 GMT
Volpi Cup-winner Jack Lemmon in Glengarry Glen Ross... The ending really hit me hard - Lemmon's eyes are so expressive.
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SZilla
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Post by SZilla on Sept 7, 2021 3:22:56 GMT
Michael Redgrave in The Browning Version. A monumental powerhouse of a performance.
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Sept 7, 2021 5:49:24 GMT
Carroll Baker in Baby Doll (1956) -- don't really know what to say about this, except I've never had as much fun with a Williams adaptation and it's by far the horniest movie I've seen from this era. The heat just comes off the screen. Baker and Wallach's scenes are incredible and Baker in particularly has the toughest job in tracing this character's sexual awakening and maturing, but she's also just hilarious. Delivering verbal smackdowns to Karl Malden's impotent racist cuck that'll make you blush. And she does this bizarre thing where she swaps "er" sounds in certain words for "or" sounds, like f-OR-niture and b-OR-thday, and I have never heard a single person talk like that but it's immensely charming. Worth noting that the whole cast is incredible here. I don't think I've ever liked Wallach so much (here playing a Sicilian Chad businessman) and Malden is great too as the thirsty and buffoonish Archie Lee. Oscar-nominated Dunnock is wonderful too in a very small role as the simpleminded aunt who gets spooked when the telephone rings but is the only one here who's genuinely kind.
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Post by HELENA MARIA on Sept 7, 2021 8:42:31 GMT
Volpi Cup-winner Jack Lemmon in Glengarry Glen Ross... The ending really hit me hard - Lemmon's eyes are so expressive. One of the greatest portrayals of desperation. That confrontation with Kevin Spacey was quite heartbreaking.
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Post by pacinoyes on Sept 7, 2021 9:54:53 GMT
Christopher Eccleston and Tom Courtenay - Let Him Have It (1991) A personal favorite of mine - one of 1991's best - and an immaculately made film right down to its production design, costumes and use of in era music ( "Wheel of Fortune" by Kay Starr is used to marvelous haunting effect). Eccleston is just heartbreaking and true to character here - he never panders or reveals unnecessary details - he gets deep and gets overwhelmed and that's exactly the tragedy and Courtenay has a wrenching, soul consuming volcanic power in his suffering for his son. This movie not only deserves to be held in the same regard as Dance With A Stranger (1985) - which it has a ton in common with - in the real life case and the movie of it both - it would make a superb downbeat double feature with it..........and the acting matches that movie too.
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Post by JangoB on Sept 8, 2021 0:59:00 GMT
I understand that this board of ours is unofficially known as the Al Pacino Lovefest Board but what can you do when the man is that good? I didn't really know the story of Jack Kevorkian so the title You Don't Know Jack felt even more appropriate in my case (I do appreciate the pun btw). The movie told a pretty fascinating tale and did it well but above the solid cast (which even has baby Adam Driver in it) rises a mighty giant in the form of Al Pacino who gives a performance that can only be described as screen glue. And the size of the screen doesn't really matter - even though it was initially developed as a theatrical film, the TV release allowed Pacino to broaden his award collection so I'm all for that!
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Post by Pittsnogle_Goggins on Sept 9, 2021 13:26:44 GMT
Jeff Bridges in Thunderbolt and Lightfoot. Eastwood was pretty good also but Bridges was really in the zone here.
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Post by themoviesinner on Sept 17, 2021 15:52:09 GMT
Lou De Laage - The Mad Women's Ball (2021) An intense and visceral performance that is absolutely captivating to watch. The film also relies a lot on it, as it is the main anchor for it's themes and central message to develop. What is even more impressive is that the performance feels incredibly real and genuine, even though the role is a difficult one, and there were many instances that it could've easily crossed into exaggerated territory, but Lou De Laage handled those situations very well indeed. Impressive performance that is definitely the best I've seen from a film this year.
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Post by wilcinema on Sept 17, 2021 16:48:49 GMT
It was in Venice, and it's Yuriy Borisov in Captain Volkonogov Escaped
You'll have to see this when you can...
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Post by akittystang on Sept 18, 2021 13:27:36 GMT
Reese Witherspoon, FreewayIf you aren't easily offended, and want to see Reese Witherspoon in a performance unlike anything she has ever done, for the love of god, watch this. I hadn't seen this in years and forgot just how good she was in it.
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Post by pacinoyes on Sept 19, 2021 10:10:11 GMT
Jessica Chastain - The Eyes of Tammy Faye (2021)In reviewing this movie I said that Chastain is better than any 2020 Best Actress performance - and the reason I said that is because her performance - very rare these days in the era of rewarding females for being one thing only - is allowed to run across the full range of human behavior like an actual human being. Her Tammy Faye is not a joke or the opposite of a joke - an unfunny mimicry - she's fun and sad, ridiculous, stubborn, weak, crushingly deluded and hopeful. There isn't one other aspect of this performance that is reliant on anyone else in her movie - you can almost never say that: Andrew Garfield is good but even if he was better or worse - her performance would be unchanged - it's her performance that is the anchor of the movie and the electricity in the movie.......it depends on no one else. There's a complicated scene in this movie where Tammy Faye interviews an AIDS patient and Chastain plays it right down the middle - you can't tell if she's genuinely empathetic, somewhat clueless, somewhat purposely cruel, or somewhat simply honest. Because she's all of those things and has played them all prior - reading what she is at any given moment is part of the fun and part of the virtuosity of the portrayal. I often talk about how "realism" is never the point in acting - it's "truth" and this is a great example - her character isn't realistic......but she was real.......I've also said that Jessica Lange in Frances is the best performance in the worst movie I've seen because if you removed Lange from Frances it would not be worth seeing.......and you can't picture another person playing it.....this is Chastain's Frances. She's far better than her co-stars (and her co-stars include Cherry Jones so that's saying something), she's far better than her writer, she's far better than her director, she's probably better than Tammy Faye was at being Tammy Faye even.... Mirrors and mothers:
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Post by DanQuixote on Sept 23, 2021 20:45:49 GMT
I just rewatched the Mare of Easttown finale. Winslet, Smart and Nicholson are just monumental in it. Glad they all won Emmy’s this year!
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Javi
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Post by Javi on Sept 25, 2021 22:26:48 GMT
Terence Stamp & John Hurt, The Hit (1984) - Stamp keeps moving up my favorite actors list! In The Hit he's a lean, buddhist devil who might convince you of pretty much anything... for example, that death is a moronic fear... Whenever someone listens to him, you know they're screwed. He has the kind of presence you can't fight off, but you can't really pin him down as a villain, either. And John Hurt, always a soulful actor, uses that quality to darkly comic effect. The guy is falling apart from the beginning of the film, but you almost wouldn't guess it looking at him. And a young, funny Tim Roth - amazing ensemble.
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Post by stabcaesar on Sept 26, 2021 16:22:06 GMT
Spencer Tracy - Judgment at NurembergIt's quite unbelievable to me how overlooked this performance is. When this all-stars cast comes up, Schell, Clift, or even Garland and Lancaster are usually singled out as the stand-out performances. As good as they all were in their own right, none of them could have shone as bright as they had without an anchor to ground them, and that anchor is the Honourable Judge Dan Haywood - Mr. Tracy himself. One probably wouldn't think twice at first glance when Judge Haywood enters into the screen. Like he said himself to Frau Bertholt, he's "provincial" - simply a retired district judge from Maine half-forced to preside over a trial all his colleagues avoided like a plague. But perhaps it was with this ... awareness, if you will, of his own limitations, that he was able to approach the chaos, grievances, brutality, doubt, and hostility surrounding him with remarkable humility and inquisitive sincerity. He has a lot on his plate here: an overzealous, sophistical and borderline fanatic defence lawyer, an eager and indignant prosecutor, victims of indescribable horror, a deeply remorseful fellow jurist, and the ever-frustrating geopolitics in the dawn of the Cold War, but he navigates through all with his head straight on his shoulder and never once falters. I believe his closing statement to be one of the great monologues in cinematic history - not only is the writing impeccable, Tracy's delivery is nothing less than dignified and transcendent. Atticus Finch is often cited as the embodiment of justice in American cinema. Perhaps Dan Haywood isn't quite that: he merely listens, observes, and tries his best to do the right thing. But that makes him all the more human, all the more real, and just as just.
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Post by stephen on Sept 26, 2021 16:25:46 GMT
Spencer Tracy - Judgment at NurembergIt's quite unbelievable to me how overlooked this performance is. When this all-start cast comes up, Schell, Clift, or even Garland and Lancaster are usually singled out as the stand-out performances. As good as they all were in their own right, none of them could have shone as bright as they had without an anchor to ground them, and that anchor is the Honourable Judge Dan Haywood - Mr. Tracy himself. One probably wouldn't think twice at first glance when Judge Haywood enters into the screen. Like he said himself to Frau Bertholt, he's "provincial" - simply a retired district judge from Maine half-forced to preside over a trial all his colleagues avoided like a plague. But perhaps it was with this ... awareness, if you will, of his own limitations, that he was able to approach the chaos, grievances, brutality, doubt, and hostility surrounding him with remarkable humility and inquisitive sincerity. He has a lot on his plate here: an overzealous, sophistical and borderline fanatic defence lawyer, an eager and indignant prosecutor, victims of indescribable horror, a deeply remorseful fellow jurist, and the ever-frustrating geopolitics in the dawn of the Cold War, but he navigates through all with his head straight on his shoulder and never once falters. I believe his closing statement to be one of the great monologues in cinematic history - not only is the writing impeccable, Tracy's delivery is nothing less than dignified and transcendent. Atticus Finch is often cited as the embodiment of justice in American cinema. Perhaps Dan Haywood isn't quite that: he merely listens, observes, and tries his best to do the right thing. But that makes him all the more human, all the more real, and just as just. For me, this is far and away Spencer Tracy's best work, and you beautifully elaborated on why.
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Post by pacinoyes on Oct 10, 2021 9:36:14 GMT
Anna Thomson in Sue (1997 / 1998) - aka "Sue Lost in Manhattan" on TUBII had never heard of this movie (wtf ?!?) - and this is one of the very best performances in a "bad" movie I've ever seen - although the movie isn't exactly bad, it's just unsatisfying aside from her work - which justifies it entirely. Unbelievably downbeat New York City movie - and poorly, unrealistically scripted on a scene to scene level - it's about a mentally unstable young woman who opens herself up to - invites even - her own incremental descent. She follows a terrible pattern - that the screenplay spells out quite clearly in its best spots - she is unable to manage the multiple tasks of sustained living or accept significant help - so she's destined to be devoured - she fears being rejected so she stagnates until she gets worse: People buy her drinks, food, offer her money ($1200 out of an acquaintance level friendship - a ridiculous plot contrivance) - she will take a sip and then leave, or not even take a bite or politely demur the money - she doesn't know how to transform anything into improving her declining situation or prioritize her next steps - she's thankful for the moment only. She substitutes sex (or even flirtations) with deeper human contact - in fact, that sex / surface acquaintance thing is a replacement for her ill mother as her social safety net - which sets her entire emotional equilibrium off to begin with and spins downward from there. Thomson is terrific here, even in scene after illogical scene (one set in a movie theater really set off my bullsh it detector) opposite lots of actors who frankly suck here (including her sub- Mickey Rourke doppelganger boyfriend). The 2nd half of the film rings false - with a Story of Adele H. ironic final scene no less - where she seeks strangers to "talk" too because of the script and amateurish staging but Thomson plays those scenes so achingly real and true you stick it out until the end - and it's slow and painful to watch her unravel and be the cause and recipient of each additional indignity. She gets thrown lifeline after lifeline - and she doesn't see it - she smiles through it all - it's not a cinematic psychological disorder - it's rather a very common and real world recognizable type of one .........her smile......... is a lie.
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Post by Pittsnogle_Goggins on Oct 10, 2021 14:53:22 GMT
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Post by Mattsby on Oct 14, 2021 3:22:33 GMT
Kang-ho Song, The Host - Not only what introduced me to Song but one of the first foreign films that I saw (holla Netflix slip), loved, and needed to own. I've seen it several times, surprised over again by Song - I always think of his perf as messily charming and funny, but he spends nearly the whole movie so desperately, painfully distressed and what's funny about that! It's a great physical perf of emotional overload and boozy, catching-up legs which makes sense for someone we're told is forever asleep and finally awake, and whose instincts are just tuning into what he's capable of. Song's such a great, unique star - he might've been a career comic relief, but he's fleshed out so many Fools, like here, and he has a rare quality for an actor, absolutely no ego or need to seem a certain way. He's a world-class treasure.
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Post by JangoB on Oct 17, 2021 22:49:19 GMT
What better time to watch a great performance after an announcement of a remake (or, yes, another adaptation)? Kim Stanley in "Seance on a Wet Afternoon" was everything they said she would be. A wonderful manipulator (who you end up both despising and perversely rooting for, at least in some way), a profoundly disturbed individual and ultimately a truly broken person. All of those layers are revealed throughout the film, making it a rather exciting character experience. But that final scene of hers? Something utterly special and heartbreaking. Attenborough is excellent as the whipped husband but Stanley is just something else.
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Post by stephen on Oct 23, 2021 2:36:47 GMT
Joe Carnahan has a gift at writing whacked-out loonies in his film, from the demented Tremor Brothers in Smokin' Aces to Chris Pine's twisted take on Howard Hughes in Stretch. But there's a very good chance that Copshop has allowed him to write the most insanely delightful character of his career: the deliciously goofy hitman-for-hire Anthony Lamb, played to glorious perfection by Toby Huss. This is a performance that just seizes the film by the nards the second he shows up (in the most ridiculous disguise ever) and doesn't let up one bit. This is a performance that has to be seen to be believed, and one that we should remember for the AMARAs.
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Post by pacinoyes on Oct 24, 2021 0:21:52 GMT
The entire cast of Toc Toc (2017) - On Netflix.............. but especially Alexandra Jiménez - Oh, I'm going to Hell for laughing myself sick at this movie which is about a group of people with different forms of OCD who go to the same Dr.'s office for help. It's gloriously over the lines of good taste ........but it's also very sweet and extremely funny too.......they get a lot of mileage out of this thin premise - and that's because of the cast who keep this zipping along. Jiménez - who played what I called "the Spanish Holly Hunter" in The Innocent is riotous here as a germophobe - where every thing goes against her - I mean, how many times can you wash your hands anyway? That's her in the middle of the photo and film is on Netflix ....... Very highly recommended
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Post by Mattsby on Oct 24, 2021 21:36:41 GMT
The entire cast of Toc Toc (2017) - On Netflix.............. but especially Alexandra Jiménez - Oh, I'm going to Hell for laughing myself sick at this movie which is about a group of people with different forms of OCD who go to the same Dr.'s office for help. It's gloriously over the lines of good taste ........but it's also very sweet and extremely funny too.......they get a lot of mileage out of this thin premise - and that's because of the cast who keep this zipping along. Jiménez - who played what I called "the Spanish Holly Hunter" in The Innocent is riotous here as a germophobe - where every thing goes against her - I mean, how many times can you wash your hands anyway? That's her in the middle of the photo and film is on Netflix ....... Very highly recommendedVery funny movie! Good find...... did it remind you of What's In A Name (2012) a bit? I need a master list of all similar movies bc I love those single-set whisked ensembles. The group here reminded me of The Breakfast Club and the rock tumbler theory - sharp rocks smoothing each other out. I thought I had the twist figured but it slightly fooled me. I couldn't help but cast a remake in my head while watching..... Nina Arianda, of course, and maybe Bobby Cannavale, Dan Levy, Frances McDormand (crossing herself like a glitch) and as the older guy with Tourettes, I'm thinking Bill Murray (s/o to the What About Bob scene - "If I fake it, then I don't have it" lol). Then again it's based on a French play and Camille Cottin would be insanely perfect as the hypochondriac.
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Post by countjohn on Oct 24, 2021 22:08:26 GMT
Timothy Hutton in Ordinary PeopleSaw this for the first time a few days ago and it's certainly the last great performance I've seen. I didn't have particularly high expectations for the movie, it always sounded like one of those syrupy 80's/90's family dramas the Academy loved at the time, but it was solid work and Hutton definitely lived up to everything I've heard about him, an all timer. It's a role where there were so many easy ways out and moments for "Capital A Acting" that he avoids every single time. Really amazing how someone so young and inexperienced could give such a modulated performance, I don't think I've seen anything quite like it before. Some actors would have crammed the performance full of weird tics (Sean Penn auditioned for it apparently so just think about that) but Hutton conveys the character's pain in the subtlest of ways and otherwise acts completely normal, which only amplifies it further. When I was watching it it occurred to me that this would be the kind of story that would be a YA novel or adaptation today (teenage boy returning to school after a suicide attempt), but this just feels so much more mature and avoids the soapy and manipulative depictions of mental illness you get in YA and stuff like Good Will Hunting and it's largely because of Hutton's performance. Actors talking about "choices" is one of those Inside the Actor's Studio cliches but that's really the strength here. I had seen Hutton in many of his supporting roles over the years and he seems like a solid pro but I had no idea he had something like this in him. Watching it I don't know why he didn't blow up into an A-lister with a Dustin Hoffman/Tom Hanks type career playing nice guy leads because that's what I would have thought was in the cards for him after seeing it at the time.
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