Category: Actor
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The forgotten brilliance of Harvey Keitel
You’d be hard pressed to find a more expressive face than Harvey Keitel’s. The kind of face the likes of Humphrey Bogart and Spencer Tracy had and to which they owed a huge chunk of their success. The kind of face that – had Keitel been born thirty years earlier – would have made him…
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The real-life tragedy of John Huston’s Misfits
Few movies can reflect and predict – without knowing, of course – the real-life tragedy of the people involved in their making as accurately as John Huston’s off-beat and fatalistic film from 1961, The Misfits, starring Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe, Montgomery Clift, Thelma Ritter and Eli Wallach. Huston’s film is drenched in the tragic fate…
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The blue-collar swagger of Bruce Willis
When at his peak, Bruce Willis was the guy we all knew from somewhere busting people’s heads, sarcastically shrugging his shoulders and smoking a billion cigarettes with that trademark grin of his, the one that suggested his characters were mostly losers with a good heart, losers who, if given the chance, would take one last…
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A Most Wanted Man: Capturing the Hopelessness of Espionage
When we lost Philip Seymour Hoffman, we lost a man who knew how to be human in front of a camera. A man who knew exactly how to give a complete and detailed account of the human condition. His characters never dared to fall into the trap of clichés, never felt diminished by a bad…
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Midnight Run: The Art of Buddy Comedy
What happens when you get an award-winning method actor in De Niro, a timid comedian in Charles Grodin, a young up-and-coming director in Martin Brest and tell them, Go out there and make a really good comedy about a bounty hunter going through a mid-life crisis while chasing a white collar criminal? Well, what happens…
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Dirty Harry: The Doomed Protagonist
In 1971 a young Clint Eastwood and veteran director Don Siegel collaborated on three occasions, including Play Misty for Me – Eastwood’s directorial debut (featuring a brief and rare acting cameo by Siegel) – The Beguiled – a Southern gothic thriller set in the American Civil War – and Dirty Harry – the story of…
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The Man Who Dared to Be King: Remembering Sean Connery
It’s always unfortunate when an actor’s career, in the wake of their death, gets narrowed down to their singular, most popular role. With the passing of Sir Sean Connery, it was inevitable that the world would be busy bidding farewell to the one and only 007, aka James Bond. After all, he was the first…
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So Long, Friend.
Interaction between actors is key in order to fully enjoy a movie, isn’t it? There have been countless movies, even ambitious ones, with interesting concepts, fine directors, but when the interaction between actors isn’t there everything comes crashing down. There has to be some sort of understanding between the characters, a feeling of acknowledgment because…
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And the Oscar goes to…
Today’s topic: this year’s Oscar nominations. Many people tend to ignore the Oscars, simply considering it a celebrity event, and even more people don’t care about Oscar status as a whole. Rightly so. However, it is important to remember that being nominated for or even winning the prestigious golden boy often leads to more possibilities…
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The Charming Cop
Today’s topic: LA Confidential, and more precisely the character of Jack Vincennes. The superb noir drama, Oscar winning picture that came out in 1997, gives me the chills every time I give it a watch. For those of you who are not familiar with the title I just mentioned, I’ll say this: find it and…
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