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Post by pacinoyes on Nov 13, 2019 9:16:35 GMT
Gian Maria Volonté - I Am Afraid (1977) re-watchOne of films best actors and also one of the most easily watchable - he must have been a great asset to filmmakers who could cast him and know audiences would see things through his eyes and his working mind. Here you think as he thinks, and the tension ratchets up in increments there is never a hint of a performance at all but rather you just accept it because he's in utter control of what he wants you to feel and when he wants you to feel it.
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Post by pacinoyes on Nov 14, 2019 11:48:15 GMT
Olivia D'Abo as "Nicole Wallace" in "Anti-Thesis" - Law & Order Criminal IntentI rewatched this yet again (I've seen it a billion times) - and even though her character arc became increasingly improbable and ludicrous as the shows writing slipped, this very first introduction of the character - a sort of female Moriarty to Vincent D'Onfrio's Sherlock Holmes - was sheer genius. Introduced almost beyond low-key as a professor (naturally) and slowly adding layers of wit, menace, sexuality and (deep, really deep) mental health issues - D'Abo here was at her most fascinating and alluring. She's a great modern villainess and like D'Onofrio's Robert Goren she intrigues because we don't really understand her background all the way, later the show tried to explain way too much about them both.......but here.....D'Abo was a sinister enigma played with a disarming zeal.
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Post by pacinoyes on Nov 16, 2019 21:33:41 GMT
Christian Bale - Ford vs. FerrariA performance far more complex and well thought-out than is even necessary, Christian Bale could do the bare minimum and get by in this role, but instead creates a whole character. From his very first scene, where he's funny/insulting, to his second scene where he's flirtatious and charming, he brings a special angle to everything he does here. As he says in the film, he doesn't lose.
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Archie
Based
Eraserhead son or Inland Empire daughter?
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Post by Archie on Nov 16, 2019 21:46:36 GMT
John Hurt - The Hit
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Post by stephen on Nov 16, 2019 22:01:31 GMT
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Post by JangoB on Nov 16, 2019 22:29:25 GMT
Javier Bardem is one of the great actors of our generation and his performance in 2002's "Mondays in the Sun" is yet another wonderful proof of that. A man who firmly believes that the past owes him and keeps waiting for that moment of reckoning to come and yet it seems to never do. So there's nothing left except to ponder, to vent his anger, to half-assedly rebel because he can't find the strength within himself to carry on and start a new life...and to spend his mondays under the glow of the calming sunshine.
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Post by pacinoyes on Nov 16, 2019 23:07:28 GMT
Javier Bardem is one of the great actors of our generation and his performance in 2002's "Mondays in the Sun" is yet another wonderful proof of that. A man who firmly believes that the past owes him and keeps waiting for that moment of reckoning to come and yet it seems to never do. So there's nothing left except to ponder, to vent his anger, to half-assedly rebel because he can't find the strength within himself to carry on and start a new life...and to spend his mondays under the glow of the calming sunshine. Bardem like many great actors is hindered because people think they "know" him by just his English roles which is absurd - like Depardieu and Huppert without seeing him in his first language and particularly in Spanish productions in his case you don't see his full range. A genuinely world class actor.
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Post by pacinoyes on Nov 17, 2019 17:38:30 GMT
Jack Lemmon - The April Fools (1969) rewatch Not even a career highlight.......not a particularly great (though it's an underrated) film.......and yet Lemmon is a laugh riot and deeply moving and emotional too in a role that reminds but also looks ahead to his great Everyman parts. No actor of his stature ever ever balanced comedy and drama better than he did. With Catherine Deneuve:
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Post by pacinoyes on Nov 20, 2019 10:54:11 GMT
Joe Pesci - Easy Money (1983) - re-watch In the midst of all The Irishman praise I decided to go back and visit this piece of hilarity where Pesci as Nicky Cerone is comic dynamite and exceedingly memorable as Rodney Dangerfield's hair-trigger best friend. As he so wonderfully puts it when asked who he is: "Who Am I? I'm the guy who put the bathrooms in this joint, that's who I am."
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Nov 20, 2019 20:55:12 GMT
Maggie Smith and Pamela Franklin in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969)Smith plays an eccentric schoolteacher in an all-girls school in the 1930s and is a wealth of contradictions and flaws. Romantic yet narcisistic, independent yet lacking in self-awareness, venerating the virtues of Italian and Francoist fascism from a safe distance while haunted by a past far more thrilling than her present, her best years long gone despite the delusion of being in her prime. It's such a remarkable characterization, and Smith throws herself into the role commanding attention from the viewer but neither exactly sympathy nor antipathy for this complex and lonely woman. Nearly everything she says is coated in passionate longing, pulled from recesses of intense feeling. Flawed, certainly dangerous, but fully and wonderfully human. Pamela Franklin is wonderful too as one of Brodie's sensible but impressionable students caught in Brodie's web of misguided idealism and romance, and finally confronts the teacher in the climactic scene with mixed motivations. She acts partly as a conduit for the viewer and finally an alternative to Brodie's fanatical adoration of fascist tyrants but also out of vengeance, and you can see the petty hurt in her fiery stare. A much subtler performance than Smith's but no less effective. Loved this movie. Wouldn't have minded if it had been a full hour longer.
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Post by pacinoyes on Nov 21, 2019 12:05:32 GMT
There's a place in Hell reserved for the Academy members who didn't vote Jane Horrocks as a Best Actress nominee (they did nominate Brenda Blethyn as BSA so they saw it) for Little Voice (1998) - re-watch. A heartbreaker/heartwarmer where Horrocks is nothing less than astonishing and deeply moving where in lesser work it might just seem like a stunt.
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Post by Mattsby on Nov 21, 2019 22:45:32 GMT
Claude Rains, Deception (1946), which opened a month after Notorious! It's an okay movie really only worth seeing for Rains, playing a brilliant and enigmatic composer. Even Bette Davis pales next to him here as Rains impresses with every scene and in a way creates an atmosphere around him too - for instance a dinner scene with his crush Bette Davis and her lover - he's constantly showing off, humoring himself, testing and toying with them. He's lovelorn, pompous, jealous, and plays all of it slyly and flamboyantly..... smacking together talent and ego and humor to ward off a deeply unstable problem within.
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Post by pacinoyes on Nov 22, 2019 7:55:05 GMT
Philippe Noiret - Masques (1987) re-watch The great actor stars for the great director and together they make for one of the wittiest creations in Chabrol's whole filmography. Noiret has a wonderful time here and some layers to this performance are cleverly conveyed to the audience and how we see fame and the media too. Noiret is one actor who you wish had even collaborated with Chabrol more - he's always thinking, and operating on multiple levels too - comic and not at the same time. He conveys the nasty wit and mad joy always lurking in Chabrol's best work - when he's not on-screen you are still thinking of him.
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Post by Longtallsally on Nov 22, 2019 9:07:27 GMT
Philippe Noiret - Masques (1987) re-watch The great actor stars for the great director and together they make for one of the wittiest creations in Chabrol's whole filmography. Noiret has a wonderful time here and some layers to this performance are cleverly conveyed to the audience and how we see fame and the media too. Noiret is one actor who you wish had even collaborated with Chabrol more - he's always thinking, and operating on multiple levels too - comic and not at the same time. He conveys the nasty wit and mad joy always lurking in Chabrol's best work - when he's not on-screen you are still thinking of him. MASQUES is the next film on my watchlist. Now, that I’ve read your review I’m eagerly looking forward to it.
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Post by Viced on Nov 22, 2019 16:26:01 GMT
Warren Oates in Two-Lane BlacktopOnly Oates could bring such a unique humanity to a character only known by the name of his car. Such a brilliant mix of cocky and pathetic... and he makes every bullshit story he tells a hitchhiker seem so strangely authentic. Same year he gave one of the best performances ever in a western in The Hired Hand too. What a legend!
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Post by pacinoyes on Nov 23, 2019 12:02:20 GMT
John Cassavetes and Peter Falk - Mikey and Nicky (rewatch, again) Not merely all-time level acting in its complexity but also works as a double feature warm-up film for The Irishman - this was as close as you could come to seeing Pacino (Cassavetes) and DeNiro (Falk) together in 70s. Not only are we reminded of DePac in their specific acting styles but also where the actors real life rapport effects and shapes the movie performances we're watching them give.
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Post by Pavan on Nov 23, 2019 14:01:43 GMT
Christian Bale, Ford v. Ferrari.
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Post by isabelaolive on Nov 23, 2019 14:45:23 GMT
Tahar Rahim - A ProphetAfter this performance he should have a much bigger career than he has today.
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LaraQ
Badass
English Rose
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Post by LaraQ on Nov 23, 2019 14:57:42 GMT
Tahar Rahim - A ProphetAfter this performance he should have a much bigger career than he has today. Right??.How is this guy not a superstar already?.Hopefully that Damien Chazelle show, The Eddy, will raise his profile.
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Post by isabelaolive on Nov 23, 2019 16:08:39 GMT
Tahar Rahim - A ProphetAfter this performance he should have a much bigger career than he has today. Right??.How is this guy not a superstar already?.Hopefully that Damien Chazelle show, The Eddy, will raise his profile. In fact when I said he should have a bigger career I didn't mean to be a superstar. I just think he should get better roles and work more with top directors, not necessarily in Hollywood. After A Prophet he worked with Farhadi, Akin, Kurosawa, Annaud, etc. but still I think he should be getting better roles, most of the films he made in this decade except three or four are bad or forgettable .
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Post by The_Cake_of_Roth on Nov 23, 2019 19:04:03 GMT
Christian Bale - Ford vs. FerrariA performance far more complex and well thought-out than is even necessary, Christian Bale could do the bare minimum and get by in this role, but instead creates a whole character. From his very first scene, where he's funny/insulting, to his second scene where he's flirtatious and charming, he brings a special angle to everything he does here. As he says in the film, he doesn't lose. Just saw this last night and was also struck by how Bale clearly had a very precise conception of his character, from the speech patterns down to the physical posture, it just felt so vividly defined. Even when he's not speaking, his resting facial posture seemed very specific without appearing overly affected (though part of that might be due to the weight loss). Really an impressively detailed character creation.
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Post by JangoB on Nov 24, 2019 0:22:22 GMT
Marcello Mastroianni never ceases to impress me - he's just one of the most reliable actors when it comes to terrific memorable performances. And his turn in "Dark Eyes" is among his best achievements for me. The mere fact of his collaboration with Nikita Mikhalkov (a fascinating yet dubious figure in Russia) is peculiar enough to me but somehow the combo worked terrifically. Mikhalkov's pull towards lyricism can sometimes feel a bit too earnest and overcooked but it is Mastroianni who manages to strike the perfect balance between the OTT nature of what's required of him from the director and the inner beauty of his character. The final monologue is among the greatest scenes Mastroianni has ever done.
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Post by pacinoyes on Nov 24, 2019 11:12:23 GMT
Dustin Hoffman - Tootsie (1982) - re-watch It is almost impossible to reconcile the creative position of Dustin Hoffman - age 45 when this was released - with his artistic descent after ~1989. Not merely a big star doing a mere turn or one capable of "being funny" (big deal) but one willing - even eager - to dive headlong into this role and use every bit of his actor smarts to pull it off. I came across this on TV after not seeing it for a loooooooooooong time and you forget just how positively winning he is as a left-field romantic lead (opposite Jessica Lange no less) and how utterly, hysterically "unconvincing" he is as a female He makes you laugh, think, empathize and feel. It is one of the great comic lead performances ever - and not just as a woman but of an actor too - in an utterly commercial Hollywood film that scores on every conceivable mass audience level.
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Post by stephen on Nov 24, 2019 15:08:41 GMT
I had 99 problems with this movie, but a Pacino ain't one.
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Post by jimmalone on Nov 24, 2019 16:58:24 GMT
Marcello Mastroianni never ceases to impress me - he's just one of the most reliable actors when it comes to terrific memorable performances. And his turn in "Dark Eyes" is among his best achievements for me. The mere fact of his collaboration with Nikita Mikhalkov (a fascinating yet dubious figure in Russia) is peculiar enough to me but somehow the combo worked terrifically. Mikhalkov's pull towards lyricism can sometimes feel a bit too earnest and overcooked but it is Mastroianni who manages to strike the perfect balance between the OTT nature of what's required of him from the director and the inner beauty of his character. The final monologue is among the greatest scenes Mastroianni has ever done. I didn't care for the movie, but Mastroianni was terrific. My Best Actor winner that year.
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