Movie Thread (All forms)

[BlackHawkPaul]

The fact is this every actor has a process and all of them are pampered and hard to work with. This happens to be his process and it's made him one of the best actors of his generation with some of the most memorable charectors I've ever seen. It could absolutely make him a better actor, and you could just as easily put a different actor in that role and have it flop. I don't think anyone could have done Bill the Butcher like him.

Let me know which films you've directed and what actors you've worked with to back up this statement.

 

[MassHavoc]

Let me know which films you've directed and what actors you've worked with to back up this statement.

Ahhh shuddap, you know what I mean. I didn't mean the fact is... more that 1.) the big hollywood types are all pampered, and two many of them, both good and bad actors are hard to work with. But Just because a guy is a method actor and takes his roles extremely seriously doesn't mean that he's pampered and hard to work with. And even if DDL is hard to work with as has been rumored, i'm sure others don't have a problem with him. My point is, it's his way of doing it and decicating himself to the craft. He has a been nominated for 4 academy awards and won 2 of them. and got beat by Tom Hanks in Philedelphia for the 3rd I believe. (which by the way is an excellent movie but I'm not sure it was as good as folks make it out to be, but the controversialness of it pushed it over the top.)

 

[BlackHawkPaul]

Don't get me started on the Academy.

 

[BlackHawkPaul]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htyEJSEZYNU

Real Injun.



First 20 minutes are a bit scatterbrained, but the film nicely comes into its own. It's on Netflix and worth a peek.

7.5/10

 

[MassHavoc]

Don't get me started on the Academy.

gggggggggguuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrllllllllllllllllllllllllllll don't get me started.

 

[bookjones]

That's your opinion that he's one of the best actors of his generation, and it might even be the general concensus, but he's still meh, to me

I love him but also concede that many of his roles the past 10-15 years have been nothing but de facto method-y type period thingies and the films themselves pretty boring. He's got a super solid acting instruction foundation and that usually means he'll err of the side of getting everything "spot on" and perfect. I can easily admit to appreciating the beauty in artistic perfection but can also just as easily say it's far too often too clinically perfect.



He's great IMO and especially at "nailing" a character but I wouldn't say I in any way become emotionally invested in his characters. There's really no resonance for me. This is actually very far from how I thought he would wind up back 25 or so years ago when he first started garnering notice and acclaim. I thought the variation in his films would continue and it really hasn't for me which is why his first half dozen or so are still my preferred "period" for him. In general I'll say that I prefer Sean Penn, Javier Bardem, and Edward Norton more at this juncture. Then there's the ones who had SO, SO, SO much potential, whose choices were off-kilter but then went horribly astray in Nic Cage (my god, before the complete concentration on crap SO interesting and effective in so many different roles) and then Ewan McGregor was another one I was all gaga and had high expectations for.

 

[phranchk]

Great write up on The Blues Brothers

http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2013/01/making-of-blues-brothers-budget-for-cocaine

 

[the canadian dream]

I love him but also concede that many of his roles the past 10-15 years have been nothing but de facto method-y type period thingies and the films themselves pretty boring. He's got a super solid acting instruction foundation and that usually means he'll err of the side of getting everything "spot on" and perfect. I can easily admit to appreciating the beauty in artistic perfection but can also just as easily say it's far too often too clinically perfect.



He's great IMO and especially at "nailing" a character but I wouldn't say I in any way become emotionally invested in his characters. There's really no resonance for me. This is actually very far from how I thought he would wind up back 25 or so years ago when he first started garnering notice and acclaim. I thought the variation in his films would continue and it really hasn't for me which is why his first half dozen or so are still my preferred "period" for him. In general I'll say that I prefer Sean Penn, Javier Bardem, and Edward Norton more at this juncture. Then there's the ones who had SO, SO, SO much potential, whose choices were off-kilter but then went horribly astray in Nic Cage (my god, before the complete concentration on crap SO interesting and effective in so many different roles) and then Ewan McGregor was another one I was all gaga and had high expectations for.

Sean Penn gets on my top 5 of his generation he too is one of my favs. But christ a few of his rolls have been in cliche films also. I was really upset when he won the oscar for Milk over Mickey Rourke for The Wrestler. Not saying Penn was bad but Rourke did something brilliant in an indy film with a small budget and a mediocre script. Don't think anyone else but Rourke could have brought The Wrestler character to screen while Penns Harvy Milk portrayal could have been done by a handfull of different actors IMO. Penn was good in a cliche seen it before style bio pic. That of course has little to do with the actual acting performance other than having a bigger budget to make an average performance look like a masterpiece. Which the academy loves. That's sort of the problem I have with DDL's hype in Lincoln.



Penn also has a long resume of horrible films and rolls to go along with the good ones. I imagine that's the case for all actors who have been in the business as long as he has though. This is where DDL sort of differs as I mentioned before. His resume really isn't as big as his counterparts and to me that says a lot about his ability to remain relevant in a cut throat industry that can easily forget as they do remember. DDL's resume isn't very watered down. Thats something that killed Cage as you said and probably McGregor. At the same time you need the pay day films wether you are DDL, Sean Penn, Cage, McGregor, Laurence Olivier, Hopkins, Newman, etc etc etc. There is nothing wrong with taking the pay day films but yes too many can kill your creditability and your craft after a while. Denzel washington belongs in a top 5 talk he is surely close on mine.



And of course genre actors get involved in the conversation also. Not going to see a guy like DDL play a super hero anytime soon and he would be shit at it anyways. There is a lot to be said about those who can do action films well just as there is for praising those who can do the dramas. Shit Bruce Willis has become a decent drama actor after his action rolls (which he was good at). It's refreshing to see a trend sort of reverse itself.



Bardem I love also but hes 1 or 2 rolls away from cracking my personal current top 5. He will though no doubts about it. Guys brilliant. Norton I love also but like Bardem a couple rolls away and like DDL he doesn't have a watered down resume either (Not a big Hulk fan though

..pay day films..can't blame him just glad he did go back to better scripts afterwards..he was great in Moonrise Kingdom).



Lets not forget about the females out there also. Cate Blanchett is incredible (I love her anyways), Winslet is becoming one of the best of her generation, Meryle fucking Streep belongs in the conversation in any generation and she is possibly the greatest actor (actress whichever pc word is correct these days) of all time. That woman doesn't fail..period!!



And I am going to throw one other category out here. That is the next actor to hit a heavy exposure and who deserves it...that honour in my opinion is going to go to Jeffrey Wright. He has played some incredible parts (my personal fav being Jean Michel Basquiet which I believe is one of the best performances of all time). Seeing he has first and foremost been a stage actor he hasn't had his time to properly shine on screen yet. He will and I am calling it right now hes going to have a huge 2013.

 

[Variable]

And of course genre actors get involved in the conversation also. Not going to see a guy like DDL play a super hero anytime soon and he would be shit at it anyways. There is a lot to be said about those who can do action films well just as there is for praising those who can do the dramas. Shit Bruce Willis has become a decent drama actor after his action rolls (which he was good at). It's refreshing to see a trend sort of reverse itself.

Bruce Willis has had quite a career. I remember watching Kevin Smith on one of his DVDs talk about him and directing him in one of his bad movies. About how he's really the last of the 80s action hero guys still going and surviving and still being a big star throughout the 90s and 00s and still to this day. Van Damme and Stallone faded away, Arnold become governor, Segal was.....Segal. He talks about how Stallone is trying to bring that genre back with his Rambo and Rocky movies and also bring back the mold of the big action movies of yesteryear, (Expendables) and along with, the stars of those types of movies. I'm not really a huge fan of any of Smith's films but it really is interesting listening to his stories and experiences in Hollywood and film-making in general, especially about directing (or attempting/fearing to) Willis, that is hilarious.

 

[bookjones]

Sean Penn gets on my top 5 of his generation he too is one of my favs. But christ a few of his rolls have been in cliche films also. I was really upset when he won the oscar for Milk over Mickey Rourke for The Wrestler. Not saying Penn was bad but Rourke did something brilliant in an indy film with a small budget and a mediocre script. Don't think anyone else but Rourke could have brought The Wrestler character to screen while Penns Harvy Milk portrayal could have been done by a handfull of different actors IMO. Penn was good in a cliche seen it before style bio pic. That of course has little to do with the actual acting performance other than having a bigger budget to make an average performance look like a masterpiece. Which the academy loves. That's sort of the problem I have with DDL's hype in Lincoln.



Penn also has a long resume of horrible films and rolls to go along with the good ones. I imagine that's the case for all actors who have been in the business as long as he has though. This is where DDL sort of differs as I mentioned before. His resume really isn't as big as his counterparts and to me that says a lot about his ability to remain relevant in a cut throat industry that can easily forget as they do remember. DDL's resume isn't very watered down. Thats something that killed Cage as you said and probably McGregor. At the same time you need the pay day films wether you are DDL, Sean Penn, Cage, McGregor, Laurence Olivier, Hopkins, Newman, etc etc etc. There is nothing wrong with taking the pay day films but yes too many can kill your creditability and your craft after a while. Denzel washington belongs in a top 5 talk he is surely close on mine.



And of course genre actors get involved in the conversation also. Not going to see a guy like DDL play a super hero anytime soon and he would be shit at it anyways. There is a lot to be said about those who can do action films well just as there is for praising those who can do the dramas. Shit Bruce Willis has become a decent drama actor after his action rolls (which he was good at). It's refreshing to see a trend sort of reverse itself.



Bardem I love also but hes 1 or 2 rolls away from cracking my personal current top 5. He will though no doubts about it. Guys brilliant. Norton I love also but like Bardem a couple rolls away and like DDL he doesn't have a watered down resume either (Not a big Hulk fan though

..pay day films..can't blame him just glad he did go back to better scripts afterwards..he was great in Moonrise Kingdom).



Lets not forget about the females out there also. Cate Blanchett is incredible (I love her anyways), Winslet is becoming one of the best of her generation, Meryle fucking Streep belongs in the conversation in any generation and she is possibly the greatest actor (actress whichever pc word is correct these days) of all time. That woman doesn't fail..period!!



And I am going to throw one other category out here. That is the next actor to hit a heavy exposure and who deserves it...that honour in my opinion is going to go to Jeffrey Wright. He has played some incredible parts (my personal fav being Jean Michel Basquiet which I believe is one of the best performances of all time). Seeing he has first and foremost been a stage actor he hasn't had his time to properly shine on screen yet. He will and I am calling it right now hes going to have a huge 2013.

Simmer the **** down Canadian! I never said Sean Penn wasn't also known for immersing himself in method-y type roles. My point with DDL is that while I recognize that's he's being excellent in a role at delivering the part, there's no emotional resonance with me anymore. Not like in his earlier filmography.Of course Penn has also been known his whole career for complete immersion in roles just like DDL. Of course Penn's been in crap (Hello? "Shanghai Surprise) and also maudlin shit (Hello? "I Am Sam") but for me he still can elicit an emotional response across the spectrum from me whether I am watching some old shit like "Taps", "Fast Times" or "The Falcon and the Snowman" to a recent role like in "Milk". With him I am still interested in and invested in what he's doing onscreen and it's the same for me with Norton or Bardem or say Don Cheadle or Philip Hoffman and from a slightly older generation say Thornton, Macy, or Malkovich. And this is not even talking about all the lesser-known actors who toil away delivering time after time and are actually known for being "character actors" like my main man David Straithairn.



I also didn't say that any of the actors shouldn't do mainstream pay day roles. D'uh. There's no one here that isn't a realist or believes they all need to live some cliche "starving actor" lifestyle. That's why I specifically said in regards to Cage his "complete concentration" on shit films. He has likely always gravitated more towards being a bad script magnet but there was a time when still had the ability to balance it out by doing something fantastic and it was enough for me to get by on. He doesn't do that anymore IMO and only does shit. McGregor fizzled out for me not because he was in big-budget Hollywood films or even because they were BAD big-budget films because I know folks just want some financial security it's because the smaller or indie films he's done the past 5-8 or so years have also been bad IMO---he used to pick some really fantastic small films to be in and even though he can work at his own leisure now because of wealth or can only choose to work on small films if he so chooses he picks some real duds now IMO.



As for the chicks of a certain generation OF COURSE Cate Blanchett and Kate Winslett are the shit. And Emily Watson and Toni Collette are usually pretty stellar. And yay though her American films have been shit Penelope Cruz get's nothing but love from me because she's all "Game on!" in her foreign language films and she also chooses interesting films when she does ones in other languages. And then there's my girl Maggie Gyllenhaal who is just fucking brilliant. And just like with the men there are actresses who I had high hopes for and thought they would become bigger but who sort of stalled out like especially Lili Taylor or even say Parker Posey---they still work and usually deliver but never got the name recognition I thought they would.

 

[nana]

Ahhh shuddap, you know what I mean. I didn't mean the fact is... more that 1.) the big hollywood types are all pampered, and two many of them, both good and bad actors are hard to work with. But Just because a guy is a method actor and takes his roles extremely seriously doesn't mean that he's pampered and hard to work with. And even if DDL is hard to work with as has been rumored, i'm sure others don't have a problem with him. My point is, it's his way of doing it and decicating himself to the craft. He has a been nominated for 4 academy awards and won 2 of them. and got beat by Tom Hanks in Philedelphia for the 3rd I believe. (which by the way is an excellent movie but I'm not sure it was as good as folks make it out to be, but the controversialness of it pushed it over the top.)

Yes... and from the imdb bio I posted:

[font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]"He was [/font]Jonathan Demme[font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]'s first choice for the part of Andrew Beckett in [/font]Philadelphia[font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] (1993). He turned the part down to work on [/font]In the Name of the Father[font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] (1993) and [/font]Tom Hanks[font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] was cast in [/font]Philadelphia[font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] (1993) instead. Day-Lewis earned an Oscar nomination for best actor in [/font]In the Name of the Father[font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] (1993), but Hanks won the best actor Oscar for [/font]Philadelphia[font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] (1993), the part Day-Lewis turned down."[/font]



[font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]OH, and SAMESIES - agreed on Javier Bardem and Edward Norton, although I need to see more of Bardem's work. No Country for Old Men was enough to convince me though! Also agreed on Winslett and Blanchett. I think Charlize Theron is pretty much always great. Some other favorites are Marisa Tomei, Frances McDormand, & Meryl Streep. For "up-and-comers" I really like Rachel McAdams and Amanda Seyfriend and think they could have great careers (along with Anne Hathaway who inexplicably bugs me but I think is probably going to have a long, good career).[/font]

 

[BlackHawkPaul]

I find Sean Penn very convincing in State of Grace. Gary Oldman performs much better in that film-- and it is often overlooked.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrIEKS1PdfI

 

[bookjones]

Yes... and from the imdb bio I posted:

[font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]"He was [/font]Jonathan Demme[font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]'s first choice for the part of Andrew Beckett in [/font]Philadelphia[font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] (1993). He turned the part down to work on [/font]In the Name of the Father[font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] (1993) and [/font]Tom Hanks[font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] was cast in [/font]Philadelphia[font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] (1993) instead. Day-Lewis earned an Oscar nomination for best actor in [/font]In the Name of the Father[font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] (1993), but Hanks won the best actor Oscar for [/font]Philadelphia[font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] (1993), the part Day-Lewis turned down."[/font]



[font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]OH, and SAMESIES - agreed on Javier Bardem and Edward Norton, although I need to see more of Bardem's work. No Country for Old Men was enough to convince me though! [/font]

I've liked Bardem since I first saw him back in the day in "Jamon, Jamon" sister! If you haven't you should catch him in "Before Night Falls"---that he plays the late exiled Cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas is just an added bonus because I love Arenas' work, heh. Also, the namesake book it's based off of is brilliant IMO. <---Also, the film was directed by Julian Schnabel who in a matter of less than a decade has all "Poof!" like become one of my absolutely favorite directors! Amazing that he could transition so smoothly AND more importantly effectively from painting to directing besides the obvious things like you can clearly see he's got an especial eye for color and the aesthetic. He's a director I now always anxiously await his next release because he just seems to be getting better and better from film to film. It's been a real treat watching his filmography grow.

 

[bookjones]

I find Sean Penn very convincing in State of Grace. Gary Oldman performs much better in that film-- and it is often overlooked.

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrIEKS1PdfI[/media]

I completely agree about Oldman---his favorite film for me still remains the devestatingly awesome "Prick Up Your Ears". I left him and sundry others off because I thought the convo was more about actors who we now generally accept as "leads" and Gary really hasn't been in any leading roles for a while IMO though he definitely was considered so back in the day. When you start stretching it out to co-star or supporting type roles he RIGHT on the top of the list though I agree. I luuuuurves him.

 

[phranchk]

I'm so back and forth with Edward Norton. He's played in some of my favorite movies, but at times he was a weak spot in the movie. For instance, Rounders. I loved his character, but I don't think it was one of his finer acting performances. I also hated the Illusionist. Although he was stellar in 25th hour, Fight Club and American History X

 

[BlackHawkPaul]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPKhWXhiMSw

He leads a nice cast in this film.

 

[phranchk]

He leads a nice cast in this film.

I think he steals the show a lot of times, but often it's in a secondary role or a smaller budget movie. He was great in True Romance. I also loved his character in The 5th Element, as cheesy as that movie was.

 

[BlackHawkPaul]

I think he steals the show a lot of times, but often it's in a secondary role or a smaller budget movie. He was great in True Romance. I also loved his character in The 5th Element, as cheesy as that movie was.

I agree.

Leon, the Professional is one of my favorites (uncut version).

 

[MassHavoc]

Gary Oldman to me, is always going to be best in one of my favorite films of all time. The Professional. Still Natilie Portmans best. And I love love Jean Reno in it. It's a great film, and probably not as great to others as it is to me, but everyone has a couple of those films that they just saw at the right place and right time that hit home and stuck in their head forever. To me this is one of them. For me it's one of those films that if I'm flipping through and it's on, I can't change the channel.

 

[MassHavoc]

I agree.

Leon, the Professional is one of my favorites (uncut version).

Holy shit.... jinx. as I was typing even.