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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Oct 25, 2021 6:37:18 GMT
Barbara Markham in House of Whipcord (1974)Obscure performance in an obscure film by an even more obscure actress! Markham is terrifying in women-in-prison UK horror film as an insane cross between Hope Emerson in Caged and Rachel Roberts's ruthless schoolmarm in Picnic at Hanging Rock. And it's not just that Markham's work here was unrecognized, it's that there seems to be very little info about her online at all. She appeared in some British TV shows but it seems much of her work is either lost or hopelessly obscure. Doesn't have a wikipedia page, has a very scant IMDB page. Possibly she just didn't act in many shows/movies (although she does have a credit as "Party Guest" in Sunday Bloody Sunday). Maybe she did theater? Anyways, I'm sure I'll be seeing her in my nightmares.
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Post by hugobolso on Oct 26, 2021 0:57:36 GMT
Rewatched Deneuve in Indochine. The Best movie vehicle for such classy lady
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Post by pacinoyes on Oct 26, 2021 7:26:55 GMT
Carmen Maura in La comunidad (English title: Common Wealth) - 2000 wilcinema has talked about how much he likes this film and he's out of his mind because it sucked - nah, just kidding wil it's a black comic gem (thanx 4 the recomendation) from Álex de la Iglesia which not only has everything he does well but also adds the awesome Luis Tosar in a very small early role too for fans of his! A cast of unforgettable (and unforgettably mean!) characters eager to pounce on a found fortune spins hilariously, improbably out of control - but also genuinely threatening too. Think The Tenant crossed with Shallow Grave and you're getting close......... The great Carmen Maura steals the show here in a performance that's funny, sexy, terrified, determined and physically believable and consistent. There is a great deal of "joy of performance" to observe from her here throughout the film - a great wit and understanding of the piece in how to play broadly yet keep it grounded physically and within her scene by scene performance logic. Side note: Also a stupendous opening credit sequence in this movie Side note #2 - This movie has a very humorous Star Wars motif running through it - that is made for people like me who never got Star Wars - I mean seriously grow the fnck up - but also for people who looooooooooooove Star Wars and have a sense of humor about not growing the fnck up - it also has a genuine affection for you guys too ........and at least we can always agree neither of us will think of "The Force" the same way exact way again ammirite?
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Post by wilcinema on Oct 26, 2021 8:58:01 GMT
Carmen One of the queens of Spanish cinema. And Alex De La Iglesia rules.
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Post by pacinoyes on Oct 27, 2021 19:26:07 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 Oscar Martinez in The Distinguished Citizen (2016) on Netflix I had never seen this even though it won Oscar Martínez a Volpi Cup - and Martinez - who is the Tourette's patient in Toc Toc ^ and as the millionaire who avoids justice for his son in the unforgettable Wild Tales (2014) - gives a tremendously wise, and subversively funny and ravaged performance in this dramedy (depending how you read this movie it's a drama first - if you read it subliminally in another way it's a "comedy" first). Martinez is so perfect for this kind of role because he carries a clear gravity without any presumption of it - his acting has a marvelous, lived in quality - he not only makes it look easy (which, frankly is NOT the sign of a great actor actually) - he rather makes it looked "lived in". There is humor in all his work but it's the kind - that is hard earned and knowing...........his acting suggests someone who has lived a whole life. He's quite special at conveying a character's history and in this movie that's absolutely crucial.
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Post by JangoB on Oct 30, 2021 0:30:10 GMT
Kind of knocked out by the 1963 Oscar-nominated duo of Richard Harris and (especially) Rachel Roberts in "This Sporting Life". Terrific, tough and powerful film with two amazing performances as its main anchors. Harris is often reminiscent of Brando here, and although it does occasionally seem like he's perhaps a touch theatrical, the performance always works and resonates. And the aforementioned occasional theatrics are absolutely in line with the central concept of his character who's very importantly described as a bit of an ape. Meanwhile, Rachel Roberts is just heartbreaking and genuinely terrific as a woman who's made the conscious decision to lock the joy out of her life. To see how she portrays that and then to observe a gradual blooming of an emotional fire within her is quite an experience.
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Post by HELENA MARIA on Nov 3, 2021 14:02:53 GMT
Adam Driver & Alba Rohrwacher in HUNGRY HEARTS (2014) Hungry Hearts is a perfect indie gem and a true work of art. Brilliant in every possible way including the acting, the writing, and the direction (very simply yet effectively executed). Adam Driver gives the best performance of his career (thus far). I'm a huge fan of his work and absolutely admire how he never fails to portray the raw emotions.Alba Rohrwacher is magnificent too.Eventhough , you're horrified by her character's actions , you cannot help to feel sorry for her as well. The movie can be hard to watch sometimes because of its subject matter (especially if you're a parent I guess) . It's disturbing and heartbreaking .It had me bawling my eyes out by the end of it. Still , a very powerful and memorable cinematic experience. ps : Both Adam and Alba won respectively the Volpi Cup for Best Actor + Best Actress at the 2014 Venice Film Festial
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Post by Mattsby on Nov 10, 2021 22:19:26 GMT
Nicolas Cage - Matchstick Men (2003) (nth rewatch)Roy Waller is not a con man. He's a con artist. There's a scene of Cage preparing a "character" pre-con.... trying on wardrobe, rehearsing lines. Roy's cons are performances - it gives him, an OCD neurotic, something he rarely has: Control. He's so hysterically meticulous you're able to buy him as a career grifter and as a spiraling phobic. He's planned, slick, but utterly naive - faraway points Cage makes work bc he keeps them weaving. He's asked to time all of those tics and winks with a fluctuating self-frustration.... It's an impressive, steeply active physicality. And then there's great heart in his perf too. Finding his legs as a father, like The Family Man, Cage brings you in. It's an excellent character-focused script by Ted Griffin (Ravenous, Wolf of Wall Street) and one of Ridley Scott's best (his style feeds off Cage, they sizzle alike). Ebert 4/4 - he assumed Cage would be Oscar nominated. And he should have!
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Post by theycallmemrfish on Nov 11, 2021 20:09:59 GMT
Nicolas Cage - Matchstick Men (2003) (nth rewatch)Roy Waller is not a con man. He's a con artist. There's a scene of Cage preparing a "character" pre-con.... trying on wardrobe, rehearsing lines. Roy's cons are performances - it gives him, an OCD neurotic, something he rarely has: Control. He's so hysterically meticulous you're able to buy him as a career grifter and as a spiraling phobic. He's planned, slick, but utterly naive - faraway points Cage makes work bc he keeps them weaving. He's asked to time all of those tics and winks with a fluctuating self-frustration.... It's an impressive, steeply active physicality. And then there's great heart in his perf too. Finding his legs as a father, like The Family Man, Cage brings you in. It's an excellent character-focused script by Ted Griffin (Ravenous, Wolf of Wall Street) and one of Ridley Scott's best (his style feeds off Cage, they sizzle alike). Ebert 4/4 - he assumed Cage would be Oscar nominated. And he should have! Not only one of Cage's best, but it put Rockwell on the map for me (I don't think at that point I'd seen him in anything before... except maybe The Green Mile, but I feel like I saw that later on).
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Post by pacinoyes on Nov 13, 2021 21:03:55 GMT
Anna Magnani - Mamma Roma (1962)Anna Magnani is in many ways baffling in how her performances have stood the test of time. In her day some would accuse her of going way over the top (which was, you know the whole point) and a snob might have said her technique would not have lasted .......however that is not the case at all - it is rather the exact opposite. Magnani is so full-bodied, so alive and emotive when she goes big she makes those around her seem timid or afraid........and when she stops going big, she can break your heart in a matter of seconds. This performance - arguably her best - is one of the obvious great female performances in film history and is a testament to what movies should be and what she is - insanely alive and pulsating with lifeblood....and Magnani herself is utterly devoid of a technique that we would call "false" rather she herself is something else - she acts in a way we recognize as distinctly hers. Very few actresses were ever blessed with eyes like her - she can stare right through you or breakdown in an instant......not only does her work stand the test of time.......you may be able to argue her as the GOAT more now than in her day even ......because now where almost every female role needs a character mask or schtick - Anna Magnani is almost shockingly exposed on screen behind no overt artifice - she seems now especially more feral, more passionate, more sensitive and perceptive, more human.......it's the movies that seem smaller and prosaic.
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Javi
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Post by Javi on Nov 15, 2021 20:51:28 GMT
Ruth Negga, Passing - The only actor in her movie who seems to have sprung out of the 1920s (most are in the wrong 20s). Normally roles wrapped in mystery like this is are doomed to fail, but Negga is herself mysterious. She doesn't act to be "understood"; she's playing an extinct type of person and sets out to inhabit her. And there's a worldly naivete to her that is a magical fit for the period... you could see her in a Lubitsch comedy, or a Hawks. Only downside is that it's one of those perfs that peaks in their first scene - astonishing intro.
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Post by stephen on Nov 17, 2021 20:49:02 GMT
A stunning pair of performances that encapsulate the traumatic wake of tragedy, Nora-Jane Noone and the late Nika McGuigan's work in Cathy Brady's devastating Wildfire are riveting from the start. The elder sister is fiercely protective of her damaged younger one, who is desperate not to live up to the perceptions that the community has of her and their mother, whose passing is a common source of gossip and speculation. McGuigan's tragic death last year only serves to fuel the haunting stamp she leaves on this film, and Noone's grounded work perfectly complements that swan song.
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Post by pacinoyes on Nov 18, 2021 9:47:28 GMT
Frances McDormand (& also Denzel Washington and Kathryn Hunter) - The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021) - Remember when we had a thread about Frances McDormand's range? I don't think she has the range of the other 3 time + Oscar winners - Bergman, Streep, Hepburn........she does have range - she's great, I'm a big fan - but not equivalent to them imo. Well, this performance isn't about range or versatility - it's about whether you can rewrite a role based on you playing it - "assuming" the role..........and it results in one of her most fascinating portrayals - unlke any in her filmography afaik. McDormand takes a very famous role here and bends it to her exact qualities - and by doing that sort of changes the role and re-defines it. She makes Lady Macbeth fit her rather than the other way around - and she is maybe the 4th or 5th or 6th (!) attribute that most people will talk about in this movie - but that would be a mistake. She immediately appears too old - older than I feared - in close-ups at multiple angles! - for any Lady Macbeth. She does not really alter her speaking voice much (she sounds modern, USA in how - not what - she speaks), she also negates sexuality (what Lady Macbeth does that?) - and she does not really attempt to locate the meter or musicality within this text much either (and this is ALL original text). .......but .........she gets something else so right she forces you to rethink what you see - she frightens in multiple ways and makes you feel for her too and McDormand makes her age the whole key to this - even though there are no concessions made for it in the staging just in her casting and performance. I can't think of a recent portrayal - that I started by seriously doubting that then won me over for the exact same reasons that I had doubted it to begin with. She never goes about "trying to get it right" - she "reads the behavior right".......it reminded me a lot of John Malkovich in Dangerous Liasons - where he does not fit the role on paper but made the role work in a very specific way towards his skills. McDormand is a terrifying bitch-shrew and then a pathetically, nerve-addled, heavily burdened, "old lady" and when those two extremes switch - then she does alter her verbal and physical projection - suggesting several oncoming panic attacks (or something much worse than that) that she can't suppress. Her evil here seems removed and all consuming - removed from sexuality, time, motherhood, that manifests itself in control freak-ism, co-conspirator machinations - which have turned her into an overtly aggressive and I think a clearly "masculine" co-conspirator - soul corrupted - she is removed from everything until she is overwhelmed by it. The saddest, most hushed and haunted Lady Macbeth .......and part of that is because she makes herself and the stylized approach more pronounced so you feel her more. You could watch this Macbeth just through her character's eyes to get a key thematic point of this piece overall: She's our window and warning - the movie is often literally about watching physical worlds disappear, vanish, an illusion, it caves-in and collapses: consumed by water, fire, smoke, mist and fog ....... there's almost no solid ground to even see in this movie at times ...........and there's no corresponding moral ground for her mentally to land on either. She knows it.
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Javi
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Post by Javi on Nov 18, 2021 18:07:04 GMT
That was brilliant Pac Will you do one for Denzel/Hunter?
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Post by pacinoyes on Nov 18, 2021 21:01:23 GMT
Thank you Javi ! Sure that's possible - I'd like to give it another viewing also........ McDormand just seemed better for me to write about so I could say something specific about how she made it fit her and I really do think some people will miss it. Washington's performance is built very much on his charisma, star wattage, his legacy and his presence - and it all increases in resonant ways as it gets nearer to the end - he also does his best "facial acting" than any I've seen from him prior - on film or on stage. His Oscar clip could literally be a reaction shot - especially from the last third. My guess is everybody will see his work in the same general way though more than they do McDormand's work - I don't think people will "miss" what he's doing here. Hunter reminded me of the book The Shining (but it's not in Kubrick's 1980 movie) where the topiary animals talk .......and if an actor actually played the topiary animals ....it's almost that jarring to see. My first reaction was "Did they design this whole movie's aesthetic tableau around this specific (brief) performance first?" - which can't be true at all - but it feels that way.....almost like part of the set design more than a part of the cast.....and I mean that as a compliment.
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SZilla
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Post by SZilla on Nov 22, 2021 18:31:20 GMT
I know this thread is more for film & tv performances, but I just saw Medicine by Enda Walsh at St. Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn and it was phenomenal. The writing, direction, and sound design are all wildly spectacular, but the performances from the entire cast - Domhnall Gleeson, Clare Barrett, and Aoife Duffin were breathtakingly funny and heartbreaking. If you're in NY, definitely check out the show, as I can't recommend it enough, but even if you're not, the show is being broadcast live (for US & Canadian viewers) on November 28th and December 5th. I know pacinoyes is a fan of theatre, so interested to hear your thoughts, but I really think there's a lot of posters on here that'll enjoy it.
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Post by akittystang on Nov 24, 2021 4:13:47 GMT
Kristen Stewart, SpencerIf she doesn't win this year, I'll be shocked. I was skeptical when this was announced but I loved what Pablo Larrain did with Jackie (I was so wrong on my initial thoughts on that one based on the clip that was released), and Stewart surprised me in Lizzie (I have not seen Clouds of Sils Maria or Personal Shopper) so I kept an open-mind, but I wasn't expecting the movie or Stewart to be as good as they were.
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Post by pacinoyes on Nov 24, 2021 13:39:12 GMT
Robert De Niro - Everybody's Fine (2009) -What happens to you when you do some of your best work - in De Niro's case THE best work post 1995 up until 2009 - in a movie that is just at best so-so (48% RT)? Well, in De Niro's case you get people saying "oh he hasn't been good in years!" (I call bullsh it), "he did too many bad comedies! (I call bullsh it and say some of those comedies are big feathers in his cap too - its more complicated than reducing it to 1 sentence). In this movie - a remake of a better one starring a great Italian actor ( Marcello Mastroianni) that in his case requires us to shatter "Myth #3" - "De Niro got sooooooo boring!" (I call bullsh it, again - he's not boring in ths era even - he's just not in Taxi Driver, yanno? ) - and De Niro is underplaying in such a way - it's pretty rare to see this much star power turned OFF at the center of a movie. Playing off a gifted cast, De Niro has to sublimate his star power - I mean lots of actors can be charismatic but very few can turn OFF their charisma and play off others who are not - in this context at least - not giving him "anything great" to work off. He's working with a weak director - a cast who doesn't have the material to challenge him or themselves - and he's playing, in effect a boring guy. It's a recipe for disaster given what people "say" about De Niro but he never coasts here, he never tries to top Mastroianni's performance......and he finds a realistic, believable note and tone that is not only "right" - it's deceptively skillful. Is it "great"? I dunno .........maybe it's more "greatish" overall or only really great just for a few scenes but I think you see more about what made him great originally here and it's this performance that allowed him to be better and more affecting in the next decade than he was in the 00's too.....in the 2010s he did this "played real" in better projects than this......but this was an important performance for him - if you aren't going to be a jerk off and legitimately look at his whole body of work. I'm just saying we on MAR look past it too much and construct bullsh it arguments for why "De Niro isn't THAT great anymore" instead of assessing why he kind of always will be great. The holidays are a good time to revisit this movie .... Drab.......... in various shades of brown:
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Post by Mattsby on Nov 25, 2021 3:57:04 GMT
Judy Davis - Nitram (2021) As well as the whole cast. Caleb Landry Jones is great casting bc there's instant unease to him. And he won the Cannes Best Actor. Essie Davis is spooky good, like a girl trapped in the attic of older age. She's teamed again with her husband Justin Kurzel - she's my Supp win last year for their Kelly Gang. And I'm not a fan of Anthony LaPaglia but he's at his heartbreaking best. It's one of the best movies I've seen this year, a seeping character study, and at times almost Herzogian. Not so much in the nightmarish style as We Need To Talk About Kevin, but there's a poetic, dark hum to it. Nominated in every category it could at the Australian academy awards - the ceremony is in a few weeks. That includes empress Judy who already has five Lead wins and three Supporting - no actress has more wins in either category. It's her first movie role in over six years - could you imagine someone like Streep away for that long. It's like that, a big deal and of course there's no US distribution yet. If you've seen the trailer you already know Judy is great in this. Her mother is someone beyond shock, she's already been thru that stage and it's as if she's stepped outside her own life and watches from there. She tags back in now and then, and when she does it's an internal flux - toward her son and simultaneously she seems to hold behind the resignation a shame and fear and, hesitantly, bc it once was certainly there - warmth. Judy has been hilarious lately - dolled and pompously in Feud and Ratched, or even while disintegrating in The Dressmaker. This is a fairly pared-down and colorless part.....but one etched with great understated clarity, the kind only masters might conjure. Can you tell I'm a fan?
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Post by stephen on Nov 25, 2021 14:09:35 GMT
Most people on this board are going to glom onto Al Pacino's boisterous bombasticity (and justifiably so) as proof that there's still a lot of life in the old lion, but for me, bearing witness to the batshit insanity that is Jared Leto's portrayal of the family's fashionista Fredo was the true great joy of House of Gucci. Watching Leto's performance was akin to a religious experience; I wasn't sure if I was watching something brilliant or offensive, touching or demented. It is a performance so forceful that it either stalls out other actors (Driver, who seems at times not to know what to do when he's on-screen with him) or galvanizes them to hit his level (Pacino, whose best scenes are with Leto and they deserved an entire prequel film about Aldo's disappointment at Paolo's incompetence). And yes, the ridiculous bald pate and the nonsensical Italian accent that made it sound like Leto was auditioning to take Chris Pratt's spot in the upcoming Mario movie is ripe for parody and takedown... but there is a genuine earnestness to the bizarre, a sad soul to the clown. Paolo is Pagliacci.
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Post by pacinoyes on Nov 26, 2021 0:13:18 GMT
Ugo Tognazzi, Philippe Noiret, Marcello Mastroianni and Michel Piccoli - La Grande Bouffe (1973) on TUBIA hilarious cult film I may have seen maybe like 50 times (?) which basically would be like in the US if you had the "Big 4" of the 70s all team up in 1 film. In its day this great comedy about eating yourself to death was considered vulgar, obvious and in excruciating bad taste. That happens sometimes..........but for those who know it - it's also one of the funniest and most insightful satires of its era too and a Thanksgiving perennial around my way. The 4 leads here are all funny and like I always say if you can't do comedy - well .......it's a negative let's leave it at that.......all these guys could and did do comedy and heavy drama too......and you'd be hard pressed to find a big name cast throw ego aside like these guys do here. At some point every one of them comes off badly ..........and looks bad too. The feast begins.......or really by now.....it has ended ........
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Post by jakesully on Nov 26, 2021 0:49:00 GMT
I watched Scorsese's Mean Streets a couple of days ago (Happy Birthday to Martin Scorsese btw) and the combination of Harvey Keitel and Robert De Niro's raw performances were so great to watch. De Niro was an enigma as the unpredictable loose cannon Johnny Boy and played so well off of Keitel's outstanding performance. Every scene they shared together was outstanding to watch.
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Post by pacinoyes on Nov 27, 2021 16:28:34 GMT
Damian Alcazar - La ley de Herodes (Herod's Law) (1999) - on Netflix - I looked this movie up after I watched it early in the AM and I was shocked to see some ho hum reviews for it from US critics who seemed to think its plot was a little too obvious (68% RT) to give this very entertaining (and kind of daring) movie a "thumbs up" (wtf). But this movie actually works because it is so obvious - it's dead on target like a good satire should be - and Alcazar is wonderful lead to guide you through it. He has that way of suggesting more than he overtly shares - as an actor he's perfectly suited to satire. This is one of the times where Netflix says "Hidden Gem" and it's not a flat out lie........longish .......but good stuff, interesting movie Absolute power, corrupting .......well you know how it goes:
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Javi
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Post by Javi on Nov 27, 2021 17:30:30 GMT
Gaga, House of Gucci - For my money, the best movie star turn by an actress since Huppert in Elle. Who would've thought the meat-wearing pop star would turn out to be more of a natural film star than most actresses her age?? (I didn't see A Star is Born, so this is new to me). I believe her when she says she was inspired by classic Italian actresses, because those actresses weren't traditionally beautiful, but fascinating and rather alarming. She's Pop Magnani-Valli with a slightly mocking edge, but basically this is an old-fashioned turn meant to entertain. Nothing about this turn is edifying, and that's the whole corrupt glory of it. Love how, at the beginning, she's too hungry to be sweet, too eager to be properly awe-struck by the Gucci glitter. She's never an innocent. Later, she's devouring, vicious, but sweetness does get out, as in her embarrassment before the Switzerland 'elite'. Gaga is shameless throughout. It's been a while since I've seen someone not give a rat's ass what critics (audiences??) will think of her. We could use more of that character. Really hope Al and Leto get those Oscar noms... they are wonderful and even more wonderful together. And Driver gives his 2nd strong perf in a Ridley film this year!
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Post by stephen on Nov 28, 2021 19:27:36 GMT
A sullen and shaggy hulk who shambles around the film like a captive lion far too big for its cage, Caleb Landry Jones's performance as eventual mass-murder Martin Bryant in Nitram is a masterclass in physicality. It is a performance that just feels like a complete antithesis of what makes a human human... or, if not the antithesis, a reversal (which is reflected in the film's title). Everything just is wrong with this character's chemistry and attitude, and we are not sure why or how. Usually, this sort of thing would keep us at arm's length, but there is something captivating about this work. Jones's portrayal keeps us from really getting under this man's skin, but he easily finds his way under ours.
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