so we all know Mike Faist is a phenomenal actor, singer, dancer, human being etc. but i was watching WSS for the ten thousandth time and it’s hard to see but in the Cool scene with Ansel, he is actually crying. I DONT UNDERSTAND HOW THE OSCARS DIDNT JUST HAND HIM THE AWARD???
“Robert Pattinson’s unflagging dedication to his recent directors, from James Gray to Josh and Benny Safdie to Claire Denis, has resulted in some of the finest screen acting of the decade and performances that are something like acts of immersion. In Denis’ High Life, Pattinson’s physical beauty is an ideal object of scrutiny for a director long fascinated by the ways in which a cinematic body can reveal and refract a lived experience the cinematic possibilities of the human body. As Monty, one of a group of convicts shot into deep space for a doomed mission, Pattinson lends methodical concentration and welcome soulfulness to Denis’ virtuosic foray into the realm of science fiction. For all its shocks and provocations, nothing in High Life haunted me quite as profoundly as the wearied spirit beneath Pattinson’s hard body, a sadness that will not yet allow itself to surrender to death’s oblivion. Psychological portraiture is seldom the focus of Denis’ filmmaking, but Pattinson implies an intricate interior world inflected by the sordid desires and burning, sometimes brutal impulses that Monty refuses to give in to. Although Denis forbids us from seeing all the way inside the character, those intently concentrating on Pattinson are rewarded by his habit of lingering on certain moments, lengthening pauses and prolonging glances to encourage our own exploration into the psyche of this tortured but resolute man, a prisoner in more ways than one.” — Matthew Eng
“In the films of her husband and ongoing collaborator Jia Zhangke, Zhao Tao has burrowed into each of her central roles with the prowess of a performer willing to discard any and all traces of herself in the name of her characters. She is that phenomenal being: an actor entirely without vanity. Her performances exist where Jia’s work exists—at the intersection of life and art, a place where the differences between reality and fiction cease to matter. In Ash Is Purest White, Zhao applies her extraordinary, unselfish talent to the transmogrifying arc of Qiao, a gangster’s moll forced to build her life anew after making the ultimate sacrifice for her inamorato. As she did in her previous film with Jia, Mountains May Depart, the actress ages decades across this personal epic, relying not so much on conspicuous cosmetic transformation or surface-bound tics to signal maturation but her unadorned face, which can express anything and everything; here, it manages to contain and communicate a lifetime of anguish and lasting passion. By stripping her style down to the wordless, elemental basics of screen acting, Zhao makes certain that the clarity of Qiao’s emotions and her durable connection to the audience are never diminished. In doing so, she continues to occupy her rightful place as the heart—and breath—of Jia’s lifelike cinema.” — Matthew Eng
Get ready for Haley Bennett’s monster of a performance in Carlo Mirabella-Davis’ electrifying, jaw-dropping, feminist thriller Swallow, which won Bennett a Best Actress prize at Tribeca 2019 and is coming to theaters this March from IFC Films. Take a look!
“There is a unique and heartening thrill in watching an actor often shunted to the sidelines of films and TV shows finally obtain the spotlight she has been denied throughout her career. Such is the sensation of watching Mary Kay Place in Kent Jones’ Diane, a portrait of a worn out Massachusetts woman whose enduring sense of charity mirrors Place’s characteristic generosity as a performer who has tirelessly aided her fellow actors in countless projects, on the big screen and small, for over 40 years. Place’s Diane is the unwavering focus of the drama that bears her name, an emotional and psychological pilgrimage through the final winters of an aging, self-punishing caregiver prone to attending to everyone’s needs but her own. There is little flash to Place’s performance, which is consonant with Diane’s shrinking persona, the determined, tight-lipped, head-down reticence that only collapses when in the presence of her adult son (Jake Lacy), a hopeless addict whose irresponsibility enrages Diane to no end. Even when Diane reaches the end of her rope in these squabbles or in another quick-tempered quarrel with an insensitive volunteer at her local soup kitchen, Place never implores the audience for easy, uncomplicated sympathy; instead, she earns our rapt consideration by standing steadfast in the honesty of her minimalism, a mark of both her professionalism and her artistry. The actress is assured enough in her ability to touch upon a vast reserve of life experience to illuminate Diane’s inward struggle. She doesn’t strain for the teary, self-serving catharsis that would diminish the quiet desperation of the character’s circumstances, which Place seems to feel from the inside and exquisitely personifies with endless variations on exhaustion, agitation, and insuperable soul-sickness. By staying true to Diane, Place ensures that we are with the character every step of the way and gives depth to the type of woman who may move unknown through our daily lives but is far from unknowable.
Jones’ film makes room for plenty of splendid, underused veterans in addition to Place, among them Andrea Martin, Estelle Parsons, Phyllis Somerville, and, best of all, Deirdre O’Connell, a superb actor of stage and screen who usually resides even further on the margins of her projects than Place does in hers. O’Connell, a ringer who has been called upon many times to complement thankless parts, absolutely nails her small but significant role as Donna, Diane’s dying cousin, who has forgiven but not forgotten a betrayal in their shared past and refuses to flatter Diane in her final days. Delivering her entire performance from a hospital sickbed, O’Connell conveys tough wisdom with an authoritative whisper and the uncanny ease of someone made acutely aware that time is no longer on her side. When the character slips away, O’Connell’s powerful, straight-talking integrity, a force that supersedes her mortal frailty, weighs heavily over the film that follows, a phantom presence impossible to leave behind. In just a few scenes, the actress imparts the unmistakable and unfading impression of a life actually lived and lost.” —Matthew Eng
“If Hollywood still made the loquacious screwball comedies that dominated the 1930s and ‘40s, André Holland would be an ideal choice to lead them. At several key instances in High Flying Bird, director/cinematographer Steven Soderbergh simply fixes his camera—in this case, an iPhone—on Holland as the actor delectates in the rapturous delivery of one of Tarell Alvin McCraney’s fantastically florid monologues. Holland is ideally cast here as a dynamic sports agent sowing the seeds of rebellion during an NBA lockout, not just because the actor remains a veritable wellspring of charisma, but because he is uniquely gifted at harnessing breakneck dialogue to reveal psychological nuance through purposeful emphases and odd, seemingly off-the-cuff cadences. He creates an idiosyncratic character beneath, on top of, and in between the lines of the script, often while wearing the irresistible grin of a born talker—and performer—who knows his mind is always ten steps ahead of even the worthiest sparring partner.” — Matthew Eng
“Bong Joon-ho’s knives are unquestionably out for the prosperous and prepossessing family of one-percenters who become the unwitting dupes of a lower-class family’s cunning machinations in Parasite. But Cho Yeo-jeong triggers something other than disdain. As matriarch Yeon-gyo, the actress eliminates all irony and self-awareness from her performance, instead walking around in a lulling fog of blithe, dimwitted amiability, the personification of Bong’s idea that kindness is one of the only luxuries that the rich deign to share with those below them. Yeo-jeong is not playing a broad caricature of affluent vapidity but actual vapidity. Her character is a flibbertigibbet who has submerged any sense of an ego beneath the immediate concerns of home and family; there doesn’t seem to be an intimidating or interrogative bone in her body. Yeon-gyo’s inquiring, open-mouthed mien and artless, often idiotic inquiries in her scenes with the Kim family are never less than amusing, but they’re also unexpectedly pitiful because Yeo-jeong renders them with such peculiar wholeheartedness. By personating her character as someone fundamentally impaired by her social rank, the actress guarantees our critical sympathy, rather than our ridicule, and makes this class-conscious satire so much richer for recognizing the mortal insecurities of its well heeled targets.” — Matthew Eng
This is from the movie “Okaasan, ore wa daijobu” (Mother, I’m fine).
After downloading, I stayed up until 2 am just to watch it cause I’m stupid like that and I don’t want to wait till tomorrow either.
Once you watch this movie, you’ll witness an extraordinary acting from Yamada Ryosuke. I even cried so much, gomen ne.
I bet haters will cry too, haters can’t hate this !
Ryosuke did a good job with this one. If I’m not mistaken, he once said in an interview that he didn’t sleep for one night for a role in a movie, to be able to grasp the weak and tired kind of feeling. I think it was this movie.
Don’t hesitate, please watch it !! Cause it’s good like that !
one day in the distant future no one will know what bedspread crisperbitch’s name really is because of how many times we have mispronounced it and there will be historical artifacts on fifty year old iPhones yet no one can find one consistent name except that most of the variations end with cucumber patch.
And we will know. But we withhold the information. We are gods and goddesses and everything in between.
Any of my followers (oh god hi and why are you still here?!) familiar with Thorton Wilder’s “Our Town”, to help me with a bit of script analysis? Playing Emily Webb in a production, and I’ve gone over this one scene (pre-drugstore/soda fountain) a million times and still cannot quite “get” it. I can fake it, but I’m just not connecting and I hate that I don’t fully understand it or empathize with it.
