acting

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HASTY REACTION: The Apartment (1960) Directed by Billy Wilder; watched on DVD. The latest in my personal Festival of Billy Wilder Movies I Haven’t Seen Yet. I was a little apprehensive because in a recent re-watching of Some Like It Hot, I found Jack Lemmon’s comedic affect to be jarring, over-the-top and unfunny. Released only a year later, The Apartment re-teamed Lemmon and Wilder, but fortunately the circumstances were considerably different. The central device of insurance drone C.C. “Bud” Baxter (Lemmon) allowing executives the use of his bachelor apartment for their extramarital trysts in return for professional advancement establishes a rather darker palette than two guys in drag joining an all-girl band. It’s a comedy, but the kind that rests upon all-too-familiar predicaments, e.g. being conscripted into the secrets of others. The movie takes off and flies because of Shirley MacLaine as Fran Kubelik, elevator attendant and the object of Bud’s desires. The 26 year old MacLaine is irresistible — she speaks volumes in few words (compared to the voluble Bud), with a face both beguiling and wholly incapable of untruth. A thoroughly good movie; I now see why so many list it among their favorites, and how influential it has been to later filmmakers (Exhibit A: Cameron Crowe).

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May 11, 2010 | 1 comment

Google Map of Accents for Actors: Great Idea or Dumb Idea?

May 6, 2010 | 7 comments

accentmap-screenshotHere’s the idea: make a Google Map wherein each placemark on the map contains a link to an audio or video source of that place’s authentic accent/dialect — for example, documentaries which can be rented or found at libraries, or radio segments that are archived online (like at the NPR website, and the sites of some specific public radio shows). The important thing is that the media sources contain the speech of ordinary people (i.e., non-actors). See also the screenshot at right for an example of what a placemark on the map would look like.

Great idea or dumb idea? Vote in the comments. And comment in the comments, if you are moved to do so.

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It’s Like One of Those Facebook Questionnaire Things, Except Not on Facebook

October 10, 2009 | 4 comments

Last July, following his triumph of conceiving what may be my favorite name of a blog ever, cinephile Dennis Cozzalio devised this cinematic quiz-tionnaire for a post at Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule. Though I am, as is often the case, way late to the party on this mini-meme, I’ve never let that stop me. Anyway, enough prelude.

  1. Second-favorite Stanley Kubrick film.
    Second-favorite? Dr. Strangelove.
  2. Most significant/important/interesting trend in movies over the past decade, for good or evil.
    The takeover of Hollywood studios’ production slate by the parents-with kids or “family” film genre. In the last few years I’ve been going to the movie theatre less and less often, mainly because there are fewer and fewer movies showing there that I’m interested enough to pay $12-$14 to see. Nothing whatsoever against parents, or kids — I love kids. However, I figure that as long as I don’t have children of my own, I should see as many grown-up movies as possible in case I do end up with kids somewhere down the line. Unfortunately the studios aren’t making movies for people like me anymore. They’re making Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. Or, for the older end of their target demographic, Twilight.
  3. Bronco Billy (Clint Eastwood) or Buffalo Bill Cody (Paul Newman)?
    Read the rest of this entry »

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Get Psyched – The Doctor Is In

March 10, 2009 | 2 comments

In Treatment - Season 2The second season of HBO’s brilliant drama series In Treatment is finally almost here. I haven’t been this geeked for the next episode of a TV show since The Shield ended.

If you didn’t act upon my entreaty to watch In Treatment during its first season, don’t beat yourself up, because I couldn’t walk the walk myself. I was going without any TV service at the time, and after the first 15 or so episodes HBO stopped streaming them for free on its website. Now, fortunately, there are remedies for dramatic completists like me who need to catch up:

  1. If you have HBO, you have until March 15 to check out any of the first 20 episodes via HBO on Demand. Presumably, after that they’ll have episodes 21-43 available the same way.
  2. HBO’s bogarting of the In Treatment Season One DVD set ends March 24. So great is my esteem for the show, I may just pre-order it.

If you’re not familiar with the show, here’s my attempt at a brief run-down. Psychotherapist Paul Weston (Gabriel Byrne, pictured above) conducts weekly sessions with four different clients, and each session is depicted as one half-hour episode of the series. Paul’s Fridays are dramatized as his weekly visitations of his mentor Gina (Dianne Weist), who apprehensively counsels him on his own abundant issues despite questionable ethics of doing so.

In a broader sense, In Treatment is all about ethical dilemmas. Read the rest of this entry »

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Whad’ja Think: Rachel Getting Married

January 18, 2009 | 3 comments

With the possible exception of certain horror genres, “cringe” is not a word that most people hope to see in a recommendation.  Common connotations, however, often don’t tell the whole story. Consider the case of Rachel Getting Married, a movie that made me cringe for all the right reasons.  And with the right frequency – I didn’t cringe throughout, and the occasional cringes were hardly my only physical reaction to the film.  They were good ones, though, and without them I wouldn’t have made it to the fond grins and I found later.  I cringe because I care.

Anne Hathaway & Rosemarie DeWitt

I’ve attended a lot of weddings over the last decade, and at nearly every one (my own certainly included) I’ve been struck by the high-stakes atmosphere of the event. Weddings have an uncanny knack for coaxing latent agendas and resentments out of hiding places in even the most apparently harmonious families; the most that be hoped for is that the appearance of unbroken harmony is maintained in the eyes of the guests. Since most of us don’t have dysfunction-free families, throwing a wedding is a calculated gamble from the outset.

I don’t know that I’ve seen a better dramatization of this phenomenon than Rachel Getting Married. Read the rest of this entry »

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