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fflo[at Mallet's Creek again, on a Saturday]
Howdy.
Hollywoodland, in the later showing at the Mich, was entertaining enough, if not the noir-y fab spiffiness I'd hoped for. Course it wasn't its fault how it seriously lost momentum when the sound fizzled and the film snapped as the picture neared climax, and I had to stick my fingers in my ears during the wait to escape the inane chatter of the two young women behind me. Ben Affleck wasn't the somewhat muggingly self-satisfied usual that is what I assume gets him in trouble with critics, but I don't know that he was all that accomplished in the part, as many seem to be suggesting he was--- and, here's the fat-lib point, a good percentage of the handful of reviews I've read, and the one radio piece I heard, cite his having gamely gained 20 pounds for the part as not only part of what makes him a good actor in the part but also, implicitly, vaguely heroic in what it says about how he'll sacrifice for his art. At least that seems to me to be implied in what I've seen. Now I grant you, I haven't done the extensive snooping about it I would if making a case to send to Paul McAleer, fer instance, but that's precisely because I'd just as soon not be exposed to more of that shit.
Ah, hell--- maybe I'll tip Paul anyway, and see if he wants to kvetch broadly about it. Wouldn't it actually be good acting to pull off portraying Reeves withOUT trying to look more like him? If anything, gaining weight seems to me to be a cheap, unskilled part of preparing for a role.
Reminds me of all the praise Nicole Kidman got for her brave acting devotion in being willing to don an "unattractive" fake nose & "drab" clothing to be Virginia Woolf in The Hours. Which is sorta like how they'll put you up an Oscar for crappily portraying someone in a wheelchair, or with some freaky scary mental illness, just (to my mind) to reassure the normies that they're not like that, that's so other, that's so other in fact it's a huge stretch for a regular person like these actors to have pulled off being something so terrible & other, not to mention the great courage needed to be willing to be seen as a terrible otherly other not-at-all-like-us-regular-people Thing.
After the film I went home and somehow, oops, watched all 4 episodes of "Lost" on the 2nd DVD of season 2. Maybe it was partly due to my nearly-4-a.m. weary, weakened condition, but I broke out in major tears toward the end of that last one. Nigh-on blubbery, even. Can you guess when? Ah, no spoilers here: I can tell you all that it was when something good, and against the odds, happened for people we really wanted it to happen for--- even though I already knew it was going to happen for them, having seen part of a later show when it aired, and even though I knew it was coming in this episode when it was coming. (You gotta admit they're not real subtle in the foreshadowing in that show.) (Though not as bad in the transparent[-for-teens] "Veronica Mars," which I like just as much [in the guilty-pleasure dept], and whose season 2 I am also in the midst of sucking down on DVD.)
It hit me there at 4 a.m. that that's when I cry most readily, and when the odds are very high or even certain that I will be unable not to: at real-life or literary/cinematic/etc representations of the too-sweetly delish long-suffering good guy(s) (<--genderless) getting the very good thing that's tremendously unlikely but is actually coming about somehow nonetheless.
This is an aesthetic weakness of mine, I acknowledge. What it says about me personally, I don't know, but I don't feel bad about it, whatever it is. I consider it an accomplishment to be able to cry easily. You know, when it's genuine feeling, not an act. That there are any circumstances under which that's true for me feels like a good thing.
I wish there were more. Maybe someday there will be.
Howdy.
Hollywoodland, in the later showing at the Mich, was entertaining enough, if not the noir-y fab spiffiness I'd hoped for. Course it wasn't its fault how it seriously lost momentum when the sound fizzled and the film snapped as the picture neared climax, and I had to stick my fingers in my ears during the wait to escape the inane chatter of the two young women behind me. Ben Affleck wasn't the somewhat muggingly self-satisfied usual that is what I assume gets him in trouble with critics, but I don't know that he was all that accomplished in the part, as many seem to be suggesting he was--- and, here's the fat-lib point, a good percentage of the handful of reviews I've read, and the one radio piece I heard, cite his having gamely gained 20 pounds for the part as not only part of what makes him a good actor in the part but also, implicitly, vaguely heroic in what it says about how he'll sacrifice for his art. At least that seems to me to be implied in what I've seen. Now I grant you, I haven't done the extensive snooping about it I would if making a case to send to Paul McAleer, fer instance, but that's precisely because I'd just as soon not be exposed to more of that shit.
Ah, hell--- maybe I'll tip Paul anyway, and see if he wants to kvetch broadly about it. Wouldn't it actually be good acting to pull off portraying Reeves withOUT trying to look more like him? If anything, gaining weight seems to me to be a cheap, unskilled part of preparing for a role.
Reminds me of all the praise Nicole Kidman got for her brave acting devotion in being willing to don an "unattractive" fake nose & "drab" clothing to be Virginia Woolf in The Hours. Which is sorta like how they'll put you up an Oscar for crappily portraying someone in a wheelchair, or with some freaky scary mental illness, just (to my mind) to reassure the normies that they're not like that, that's so other, that's so other in fact it's a huge stretch for a regular person like these actors to have pulled off being something so terrible & other, not to mention the great courage needed to be willing to be seen as a terrible otherly other not-at-all-like-us-regular-people Thing.
After the film I went home and somehow, oops, watched all 4 episodes of "Lost" on the 2nd DVD of season 2. Maybe it was partly due to my nearly-4-a.m. weary, weakened condition, but I broke out in major tears toward the end of that last one. Nigh-on blubbery, even. Can you guess when? Ah, no spoilers here: I can tell you all that it was when something good, and against the odds, happened for people we really wanted it to happen for--- even though I already knew it was going to happen for them, having seen part of a later show when it aired, and even though I knew it was coming in this episode when it was coming. (You gotta admit they're not real subtle in the foreshadowing in that show.) (Though not as bad in the transparent[-for-teens] "Veronica Mars," which I like just as much [in the guilty-pleasure dept], and whose season 2 I am also in the midst of sucking down on DVD.)
It hit me there at 4 a.m. that that's when I cry most readily, and when the odds are very high or even certain that I will be unable not to: at real-life or literary/cinematic/etc representations of the too-sweetly delish long-suffering good guy(s) (<--genderless) getting the very good thing that's tremendously unlikely but is actually coming about somehow nonetheless.
This is an aesthetic weakness of mine, I acknowledge. What it says about me personally, I don't know, but I don't feel bad about it, whatever it is. I consider it an accomplishment to be able to cry easily. You know, when it's genuine feeling, not an act. That there are any circumstances under which that's true for me feels like a good thing.
I wish there were more. Maybe someday there will be.
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no subject
Date: Sep. 9th, 2006 08:32 pm (UTC)I totally cried then as well. I love those two!
no subject
Date: Sep. 9th, 2006 09:23 pm (UTC)The first guy is playing an inspirational deaf man, who gives a climactic speech that concludes, "I may not be able to hear with these [points to ears], but you all can't hear with this [points to heart]!"
The second guy is playing an inspirational wheelchair-bound man, who gives a climactic speech that concludes, "I may not be able to walk with these [points to legs], but you all can't walk with this [points to heart]!"
The third guy is playing an inspirational man with a railroad spike stuck in his head.
And the fourth guy is playing Hamlet, and his clip is about two seconds long. When the award is read, it's a three-way tie: "Everyone but the Shakespeare guy!"
It's so perfect.
no subject
Date: Sep. 10th, 2006 07:00 pm (UTC)realized after this post that i should have said something like "Oscar official trademark of the Awards of the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences," or whatever the f their name is, with lots of TMs and Rs in circles and "all rights reserved" stuff stuck in
no subject
Date: Sep. 9th, 2006 11:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Sep. 10th, 2006 07:05 pm (UTC)rankling vs. wrangling?
Date: Sep. 10th, 2006 07:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Sep. 10th, 2006 02:09 am (UTC)I'm not trying to be snide or anything like that, but could it be that at 4 in the morning, your emotions tend to be more raw because you're tired.
On the other thing, about the actors who have the "courage" to protray ugly people or differently-abled people or fat people, I'm right there with you.
no subject
Date: Sep. 10th, 2006 07:09 pm (UTC)