Considerations...

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Gridiron Picks

(SPOILER ALERT):

For those readers who don't like football, AVOID THIS POST. (Check back in w/me tomorrow.) This is football and only football.

What follows are my yearly NFL predictions.

NFC EAST

1. Philadelphia
2. N.Y. Giants
3. Dallas
4. Washington

NFC NORTH

1. Green Bay
2. Chicago
3. Detroit
4. Minnesota

NFC SOUTH

1. New Orleans
2. Atlanta
3. Carolina
4. Tampa Bay

NFC WEST

1. San Francisco
2. Seattle
3. St. Louis
4. Arizona

AFC EAST

1. New England
2. Buffalo
3. N.Y. Jets
4. Miami

AFC NORTH

1. Baltimore
2. Pittsburgh
3. Cincinnati
4. Cleveland

AFC SOUTH

1. Houston
2. Tennessee
3. Indianapolis
4. Jacksonville

AFC WEST

1. Denver
2. Kansas City
3. San Diego
4. Oakland

NFC Wildcards : Chicago, Atlanta
AFC Wildcards: Buffalo, Kansas City

Playoffs, 1st round:

NFC: New Orleans over Atlanta
          Chicago over Philadelphia

AFC: Baltimore over Kansas City
          Denver over Buffalo

Playoffs, 2nd round:

NFC: Green Bay over Chicago
          New Orleans over San Francisco

AFC: New England over Denver
          Houston over Baltimore

Conference Championships:

NFC: Green Bay over New Orleans
AFC: Houston over New England

Super Bowl:

Green Bay 31
Houston 20

Super Bowl MVP: Aaron Rodgers

NFL MVP: Drew Brees
Offensive Player of the year: Aaron Rodgers
Defensive Player of the year: DeMarcus Ware
Offensive Rookie of the year: Andrew Luck
Defensive Rookie of the year: Chandler Jones, New England
Coach of the year: Romeo Crennel, Kansas City

Tonight's prediction:

Now, because the home team/defending SB champ never loses on these Wednesday-Thursday night season openers and because Dallas' offensive weapons are bruised and battered, a natural response would be to say the Giants will win easy, say 27-13. But sooner or later, one of these openers isn't going to go as planned. There's no way Dallas should win this game. Which is why I'm going to go ahead and predict them:
Dallas 23, Giants 20

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Rain again

Word of the day : aborning
: while being born or produced

Well, it's going to a be clusterf--- of a day, trying to figure out what we're going to do w/Gabriel in the hours when he gets out of school and Julia and I are at work. Damn!

Julia, busy as a bee, has a lot going on this fall:

- conferences in Chicago and Durham, possibly Seattle

- a possible defense of her dissertation at OSU

- maybe a job interview or two

*

More Reviews

Film:

The Thing (2011), a remake of John Carpenter's murky, overrated 1982 picture (itself a re-do of 1951's The Thing From Another Planet) has the following: eviscerations; scenes in which the gooey alien creature infests characters' mouths and eyes; gore; some decent squares; a good stand-in for Antarctica (British Columbia); a cast that, as required, demonstrate little personality. I enjoyed it.

Dream House (2011), to judge by the critical consensus, was one of the worst films in recent memory - especially one with such a talented cast (Daniel Craig, Rachel Weisz, Naomi Watts) and a name director (My Left Foot's Jim Sheridan). I would argue that it's not that bad. Craig is a book editor who quits his job to spend more time with his wife (Weisz) and kids in their new home - a residence that, unbeknownst to them, formerly housed a killer. There's a Big Twist halfway through; how much you do or don't believe it will determine your enjoyment of the rest of the picture. Narratively, I thought it held together fairly well. Well-shot by Caleb Deschanel.

The low-budgeted Elevator (2011) has a killer premise: Nine strangers, on their way to a party on the top floor, get stuck in an elevator. One of them is carrying a bomb. Writer Marc Rosenberg and director Stig Svendsen make the most of the confined space. It's not always believable, to be sure, but it's a fat-free, enjoyable ride. It's bloody and tense. I liked how we never knew when exactly the bomb, already triggered, would go off.

Book:

Pat Conroy's My Reading Life (2010) is a memoir of his lifelong relationship with books. Conroy's chapters in which he speaks of his influences (James Dickey, Thomas Wolfe), a high school teacher who was a mentor-like figure, his first job on Daufuskie Island, or a bookstore owner in Atlanta he befriended are the best - they're telling, poignant, impactful. The bad news is that almost every other chapter, in which he pontificates windily and fatuously on books, his childhood, what he requires literature to do for him, is a slog. I wanted more autobiography, less of the overwritten, grandiose bullshit.

Patricia Highsmith's The Blunderer (1954) is mmm-mmm good. It's a classic Highsmith premise: Walter, a henpecked man, wants to kill his nagging, stifling wife. When she ends up dead, all the evidence - including the absurd interest he displayed in a man who may have killed his wife in a similar manner - points to him, despite the fact that he didn't do it! Walter Stackhouse, the suspect, is a typical Highsmith character, an ordinary man plodding through an ordinary world that has suddenly gone blandly sinister and claustrophobic. It's a tight, well-worked plot, with a great supporting villain (a trim, malicious policeman merrily brutal and relentless), undone perhaps only by a characteristically clipped, abrupt ending.

*

The NFL season is almost here. Each Friday, I'll give my Weekly Picks. But I'm not done with my lists either: Here's one for today:
Best Linebackers of My Lifetime:

1) Ray Lewis
2) Junior Seau
3) Derrick Thomas
4) Chris Spielman
5) Patrick Willis
6) Greg Lloyd/Kevin Greene
7) Derrick Brooks
8) Bill Romanowski
9) Brian Urlacher
10) DeMarcus Ware
11) Ken Norton
12) James Harrison
13) Zach Thomas
14) Pat Swilling
15) Karl Mecklenburg

Tomorrow, I'll give my overall season predictions and a prediction for the opener tomorrow night in the Meadowlands.

*

A performance today for my list of the 500 Greatest Performances of All Time:

Tom Hanks
as Forrest Gump in Forrest Gump (1994)

An easy pick. Hanks (in his second Oscar-winning role) takes a character that could easy become a cloying caricature and makes him into a figure for the ages. Everyone loves Forrest Gump. Hanks gives Forrest a distinct look and sound and a body language all his own. Despite Forrest's limited intelligence, Hanks never plays Gump as stupid - just someone who moves through life at his own measured, unique pace. Hanks is funny and witty and though you never once think of Hanks' other roles (Gump is a far cry from characters Hanks played in Philadelphia or, say, Splash), the actor's beloved, special charisma and charm carries the day.

*

Images:

http://cinemashock.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/forrest-gump.jpg

http://images.vogue.it/imgs/galleries/peole-are-talking-about/art-photo-design/015038/dream-house-

http://images.indiebound.com/446/322/9780393322446.jpg

http://themeatlockersports.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/ray-lewis-jpeg.jpg

Sunday, September 2, 2012

New Week

Word of the day : wend
                                      : to direct one's course
                                      : travel, proceed

Well, the Fischer family had a wonderful time in Savannah yesterday. Pizza, frozen yogurt, some toys and a new shirt for Gabriel. Other news:

- Julia and I are pleased that I got a part-time job - money that will come in handy for our upcoming, destined-to-be-epic trip to Italy next May.

- College football season kicked off with a blast, didn't it? Roll Tide.

- Gabriel has class pictures on Friday. Once again, this will be good for some laughs.

- There was a frog in our house the other day! No, I didn't scream like a girl when it leapt onto my wrist...

*

Here are a bunch of capsule book and movie reviews of some works I've read and seen over the last couple of weeks:

Books

Pat Conroy's The Lords of Discipline is probably my favorite novel by the author. It's quintessential Conroy - grandiloquent, sentimental, autobiographical, moving - a loving ode to Charleston and an equally big-hearted and scathing portrait of the Citadel in the mid-1960s. I was caught up in the story of Will McLean, a young cadet who gets through four ritualized, hellish years at the Citadel with a sense of humor and three dependable roommates. There's mystery and intrigue too, romance as well. It's melodramatic yet deeply felt, and I don't think anyone everywhere has expressed their feelings about South Carolina, the south, and Charleston as unabashedly as Conroy has.
(****)

If you haven't read David Goodis (1917-1967), a Philadelphia-born, underrated writer of pulp and noir in the fifties, you're not the only one. But do yourself a favor and check out his 1956 novel (well, at about 160 pages, it's more of a novella) Down There, which was the inspiration for Francois Truffaut's great 1960 film Shoot the Piano Player. Eddie is a former Carnegie Hall pianist who now performs at night in a down-and-out Philadelphia bar, glazedly and abstractedly in a world of his own. He's yanked into the messy, turbulent present by a saucy waitress and the arrival of his criminal brother, who's being hounded by a couple of low-rent thugs. Fatalistic and inevitable (like most noir), with a feel for the squalid underbelly, full of lost dreams, humor, it's a top-notch book. Eddie's internal dialogue is well-done, nicely conveying the character of a man dragged back into a world he thought he had risen above.
(****)

Suzanne Collins' Catching Fire, the second book in The Hunger Games trilogy, just can't match the first book's excitement and freshness. Unlike the first book, I felt this book's overlength - by the time Collins got around to the Games (the Quarter Quell), I had almost checked out. Still, for a sequel, it's not bad - imaginative, with some surprises, though none of the new characters are that interesting. No need to read Mockingjay.
(**1/2)

Truman Capote's In Cold Blood has certainly lost none its galvanic allure and creepy bravura. For all intents and purposes, Capote invented the "new journalism" - which, in this landmark instance, takes the form of a non-fiction novel. Perry Smith is of literature's great characters - the half-Cherokee, neglected, beaten, intelligent psychopath who murders the Kansas farm family. Capote's empathy is on par with his open-hearted, wide-eyed observations of a truly startling crime. You'll wonder how he was able to capture so much.
(*****)

I'm not sure why Ruth Rendell felt the need to pen a follow-up to 1998's blistering, dark A Sight For Sore Eyes, whose plot came full-circle. Nevertheless, she does with Rendell's long-standing Inspector Wexford, now retired, on the scene, trying to piece together the mystery of the bodies recently unearthed in the vault - only there's an additional body down there now with the others. Chapter by chapter, it's pretty good, but it feels very slight and I began to lose interest in finding out the identity of the new body: turns out it was a victim of human trafficking - yawn.
(***)

Well, I'll do film reviews tomorrow, I guess.

*

Here's an entry in my 500 Greatest Performances of All Time:

Tom Hanks
as Captain Miller in Saving Private Ryan (1998)

Ah, yes, 1998. The year in which one of Oscar's true travesties took place: Roberto Benigni's grating, nails-on-chalkboard performance beat out career-best work by Ian McKellen, Nick Nolte, and Edward Norton. Hanks, too, of course, was beat out, even though he was at his commanding, clear-eyed, charismatic best in this war drama, lording over a disgruntled, courageous, loyal band of charges as they seek to find and return Matt Damon's now-siblingless title character. Hanks' face is a map of sorrow and hell.

*

A football list (or two) today:
Best Safeties of My Lifetime:

1) Ed Reed
2) Ronnie Lott
3) Troy Polamalu
4) Steve Atwater
5) Brian Dawkins
6) John Lynch
7) Rodney Harrison
8) Carnell Lake
9) Darren Sharper
10) Leroy Butler

Best Teams of My Lifetime:

1) 1989 San Francisco 49ers
2) '99 St. Louis Rams
3) '92 Dallas Cowboys
4) '96 Green Bay Packers
5) '07 New England Patriots
6) '03 New England Patriots
7) '98 Denver Broncos
8) '91 Washington Redskins
9) 2010 Green Bay Packers
10) '04 Pittsburgh Steelers
11) '94 San Francisco 49ers
12) '01 St. Louis Rams
13) '00 Baltimore Ravens
14) '05 Indianapolis Colts
15) '04 New England Patriots
16) '98 Minnesota Vikings
17) '90 Buffalo Bills
18) '02 Tampa Bay Buccaneers
19) '93 Dallas Cowboys
20) '06 San Diego Chargers

*

And, finally, #59 on Professional Photographer's list of the "100 Most Influential Photographers of All Time:" Horst P. Horst

The German-born Horst had the good luck to meet the star photographer of Vogue, George Hoyningen-Huene, in 1930 Paris. Huene became his mentor, companion, boss. Through him, Horst met the creme of international culture: Cocteau, Chanel, Cole Porter, etc. After a period in America, he became a hot, in-demand photographer for French Vogue, capturing some of the great artists of the time: Dali, Dietrich, Gertrude Stein. His range encompassed many styles: film noir, Bauhaus, Surrealism, Greek classicism, Baroque romanticism. His subjects posed formally, mannered-ly. He used light and shadow triumphantly, often incorporating the shadow left by the model. During the second world war, he fought in the U.S. Army (!) and was afterwards taken on by American Vogue.

Images:

http://i2.listal.com/image/3265466/500full.jpg

http://www.jacksonfineart.com/images/artists/large/385.jpg

http://alafoto.com/listing/albums/userpics/10001/Horst_P_Horst_11.jpg

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgchcuRchJleqz6xW7twvYq2CxVAigoHSXcGOgXyY-dZzcQTWf8e98PjVlmZlKlIFdaUEEnBLyYROW09lVi4Sgi-Q9JiFAndpyLZdMjpXXj0laHQd8xYM_wYXR4hYUsCGxoXwkDfNhhXTKm/

http://blog.oregonlive.com/sportsupdates/2007/07/WalshMontana.JPG

http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/media_content/m-1741.jpg

http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1327873309l/168642.jpg

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbwdNHoPPfhmCM4QTGPqW-LR_Lup6znibfWG-mndF-mebzt2ojQ4aF-w1snNEF481zj0vWcXGwBAPPrxJldMgTTk3iI1h9TesGkQrM6ZvLLScz8XBUVNGFFuzbvjRiT5VaPSh8vAYpVPY/s1600/Goodis011.jpg

Information:

http://www.vogue.com/voguepedia/Horst_P._Horst

Thursday, August 30, 2012

Fall Books

Word of the day : servile : befitting or behaving like a slave

Well, the family is getting ready for a four-day weekend. Might be a rainy one, but we should be able to get Gabriel over to the pool one day and to Savannah on another.

New movies opening this weekend, the last of August:

Lawless From the writing-directing team behind 2006's striking Australian western The Proposition (director John Hillcoat, writer Nick Cave) comes this gangster tale about the real-life Bondurant brothers (Shia LaBeouf, Jason Clarke, and Tom Hardy), bootlegging brothers in Prohibition-era West Virginia. Jessica Chastain, Gary Oldman, Guy Pearce, and Mia Wasikowska co-star. The critics are split on this one; no one loves it, no one hates it.
Verdict: Not Interested

The Tall Man Jessica Biel stars in this horror story set in the Pacific northwest as a young widow who moves with her young son to a mining town. Turns out kids have gone missing in the area for a while now - their disappearances reportedly at the hands of a mysterious legend known as the "tall man." Supposed to contain lots of twists. Could be decent B-movie junk.
Verdict: Mildly Interested

The Possession Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Kyra Sedgwick star in this supernatural horror film as a divorced couple whose young daughter purchase an old wooden box at a yard sale. Turns out the box contains a dybbuk, a spirit that seeks to devour its human host. Not good reviews, but could be some gross fun. A Jewish horror film! Roger Ebert loves it.
Verdict: Mildly Interested

The Good Doctor Orlando Bloom is said to give a compelling, creepy performance as a enthusiastic, ambitious young doctor out to impress his colleagues. He falls for an 18-year old patient suffering a kidney infection, then does everything in his power to tamper with her treatments, so that she will be forced to stay longer in the hospital. A dark, creepy black comedy getting good reviews, it co-stars Taraji P.Henson, Rob Morrow, J.K. Simmons, and Michael Pena.
Verdict: Mildly Interested

*

A little something different for the readers today. Let's take a quick glance at some of the upcoming Fall 2012 books that I think will be worth reading:

Breed, by Chase Novak (a.k.a. Scott Spencer - Endless Love, A Ship Made of Paper)

A wealthy New York couple undergoes horrific changes after they undergo fertility treatments and other, more dangerous, operations to have children. Stephen King calls it the best horror novel in decades.

Winter of the World by Ken Follett

Follett's second book in his century trilogy. 2010's Fall of Giants was pretty spectacular - melodramatic and absorbing, long and involving. I would expect more of the same here.

Live by Night by Dennis Lehane

Like he did in 2008's The Given Day, Lehane goes back in time again - this time we're in Prohibition-era Boston. This book moves from Tampa to Cuba and back up north as a the son of a Boston police captain takes a different path in life, rising through the ranks of organized crime.

There Was a Country by Chinua Achebe

Achebe's Things Fall Apart is required high school reading in a lot of schools and it's worth it - it's a great book. Here is his long-awaited memoir and might be essential reading for anyone interested in the bloody birth of Nigeria and the Biafran Civil War.

Sweet Tooth by Ian McEwan

One of Britain's greatest writers gives the spy genre a try. A beautiful, book-loving Cambridge student, Serena, is recruited in 1972 by MI5 to infiltrate a literary circle and get close to an upcoming novelist. Sounds great.

Back to Blood by Tom Wolfe

Always interesting to see what Wolfe is up to. In this novel of our times, Wolfe takes on the city of Dexter and Lebron James... er, Miami. Racism, sex addiction, corrupt cops, psychiatry, immigrants, young billionaires, sex, modern art (the Basel Fair), regattas, Adult Only condos.

Dear Life by Alice Munro

Munro is arguably the best short story writer alive and is always worth reading.

The Absent One by Jussi Adler-Olsen

Hooray! The follow-up to the electrifying The Keeper of Lost Causes, this one has Carl Morck back working cold cases. He's intrigued by one: the murder of a brother and sister, in a which one of the suspects confessed and was convicted. Turns out that the case isn't dead.

Last to Die by Tess Gerritsen.

A Rizzoli and Isles mystery, always a good thing, about strange goings-on at Maine boarding school. Seems as if a predator might be tracking the students at the school one by one.

The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton.

I have to catch up on my Morton in preparation for this upcoming novel about an actress living in London who is still haunted by a crime she witnessed fifty years ago on her family's farm.

Also, there will be new novels by Michael Connelly, Zadie Smith, and Nelson Demille.

Images:

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi12gGAHU_TlkUcV7nWmAt42e4fjI_7mk8H3kyCD-37DD8oKyd0zKprwXzRbEeCr5DYmdpAfWBXMHa0xKpJVzXlacS4eUCOZgk1_3gFtxzPP7s5_OFYOMDgj4omOMaqSHY17iHPPPLusHs/s1600/51kq1dzrMdL._SS500_.jpg

http://avidmysteryreader.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/live-by-night-dennis-lehane.jpg

http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1337193845l/13588385.jpg

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Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Humid... HUMID!

Word of the day : aliment
: food, nutriment
: sustenance

Yesterday marked the date of Titian's death. As a belated gift, here is Titian's masterwork The Worship of Venus:

The Worship of Venus
1518-20
oil on canvas
Museo del Prado

In the painting we witness a Roman ceremony of worship; the people are honoring the goddess Venus. In such a ceremony the women would clean themselves and makes themselves blemish-less for the goddess. The ground is littered with male infants - putti. The work was one of several Titian pieces that was commissioned by Alfonso d'Este, the Duke of Ferrara.

*

I always try to discover who was born today - artists, etc. that you and I might not know too much about. Today is the birthday of the Irish supernatural writer Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, whom I've never read. Le Fanu (1814-1873) isn't taught or even read very much anymore, and almost none of his works are anything you would recognize. He was an Irish writer who studied law at Dublin's Trinity College. He never practiced, though, switching careers to become a journalist. He wrote short stories and, after the death of his wife in 1858, entered his most productive years as a novelist. His most famous novel is Uncle Silas (1864), about an orphaned teenage heiress fearing for her life at the hands of her dastardly uncle. It is his novella Carmilla (1872) that he will most likely be remembered for, if for no other fact that it pre-dated and highly influenced Bram Stoker's Dracula. LeFanu's tale is about a young woman under the charms of a female vampire.

*

Today's entry in the 500 Greatest Performances of All Time:

How about a two-fer:

Henry Fonda
as Tom Joad in The Grapes of Wrath (1940)

Perfect casting. Fonda brings his quiet, innate dignity to the part of literature's most famous Okie - the tower of strength that is Tom Joad. It might be the definitive Fonda performance - cut-and-dry, plainspoken, oozing a responsible, churning power. This is one of those black-and-white adaptations of a Great Novel you might have had to watch in high school - and enjoyed.

Holly Hunter
as Ada McGrath in The Piano (1993)

A wondrous performance, full of rapture and expression, though of course Hunter doesn't speak once. As a mute mother who's forced to move to New Zealand with her daughter (Anna Paquin in her Oscar-winning, fetching turn), Hunter is truly beguiling. It's lyrical work, entirely dependent on facial expressions and contemplation - acting at its most elemental. The film was probably overrated, but the acting sure isn't - though, upon reflection, casting Harvey Keitel as a Maori was a stretch.

*

Today's Football List:

Best Tight Ends of My Lifetime:

1) Tony Gonzalez
2) Shannon Sharpe
3) Jimmy Graham (is this premature? I don't think so)
4) Rob Gronkowski (same with this - these guys are revolutionizing the position)
5) Antonio Gates
6) Ben Coates
7) Jason Witten
8) Brent Jones
9) Jeremy Shockey
10) Todd Heap
11) Jay Novacek
12) Keith Jackson
13) Mark Bavaro
14) Aaron Hernandez
15) Wesley Walls

Images:

http://uploads2.wikipaintings.org/images/titian/the-worship-of-venus-1518.jpg

http://acertaincinema.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/fonda-wrath_opt.jpg

http://blogs.dailyprincetonian.com/intersections/files/2011/11/pianohats.jpg

http://a.espncdn.com/photo/2009/0716/nfl_g_gonzalez_600.jpg

http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1333158947l/13569434.jpg

Information:

http://www.antiquesartgallery.com/titian-list-of-works/the-worship-of-venus/

http://www.online-literature.com/lefanu/

Sunday, August 26, 2012

Bernie

Word of the day : sedulous : involving or accomplished with careful perseverance
: diligent in application or pursuit

I'm lovin' the Fantasy Football season. As of this writing, I have seven teams! AHHHH!

Movie Review

If you want to see one of the best films of the year, check out Bernie. Why? Here are five reasons:

1) It's based on a wild true story. In 1996, Bernie Tiede, a funeral director and all-around beloved community man in Carthage, Texas - in the eastern part of the state - shot and killed the elderly woman, Marjorie Nugent (played in the film by Shirley MacLaine), he had been working for. Tiede had met her at her late husband's funeral, and Tiede slowly and surely weaved his way into the life of the wealthy Nugent, a mean old rich woman largely despised by Carthage. Before long, Tiede and Nugent were arm-and-arm all over town, traveling the world together, with Tiede having unlimited access to her money. Eventually, the increasingly henpecked Tiede decided to do away from her. He stored her body in the garage freezer, where it wasn't discovered for nine months.

2) The filmmaker.

Richard Linklater is the writer-director here. He's one of America's best filmmakers, a national treasure, responsible for some of my favorite films of the last twenty years: Dazed and Confused, Before Sunrise/Before Sunset, School of Rock, Fast Food Nation. His style is easy and freewheeling, adventurous without being pretentious. He captures period and locality beautifully and he can juggle tones - hilarity and heartbreak, melancholy and silliness - masterfully.

3) The supporting cast.

Throughout the entire film, local townspeople comment on the action, in documentary, talking-head fashion - they provide humorous anecdotes and local color. At first, I thought these were real people who lived through the events of the film. I thought, wow, kudos to the casting director. Turns out, they're just actors - which is even more remarkable, considering how authentic they are.

4) You can't pinpoint this movie.

The film works as a character piece, a study in criminal behavior, a courtroom drama (with a sly, winning Matthew McConaughey as the DA out to seal Bernie's fate), and a To Die For/Fargo-esque black comedy; To Die For, Gus Van Sant's wonderful 1995 satire with Nicole Kidman as a weathergirl who knocks off her husband, really is the frame of reference here. It's short, too, without wasted scenes. It's a slight movie that doesn't feel slight - the filmmakers never treat the various serious, very sad subject matter with jokiness or lack of gravity.

5) An Oscar-worthy turn.

I'm not sure I'll see a better performance by an actor this year than the one by Jack Black as Bernie. Black is walking on a tightrope here - a little too much caricature to the right or left and over he goes. He succeeds brilliantly. Almost impossibly, Black fools and woos us the same way Bernie did the townspeople of Carthage. Constantly, we're reminded how nice and earnest and polite and good-hearted Bernie was - Black seems to have born with these qualities, and we can't help but like him despite us being a little on edge. Is he gay? We're not sure - Black suggests it, without overplaying it. Is he acting? Black certainly suggests slipperiness. And the other attributes of Bernie - rage, confusion, deviousness, mania - well, Black plays these too. The actor gets ample chances to show off his rich voice - Bernie often leads the church choir - but I was really, deeply impressed by the number of levels on which this performance worked, a detailed, virtuous characterization of a man whose motives may never be clear.
(****)

*

The next entry in my 500 Greatest Performances of All Time is...

Jessica Tandy
as Daisy Werthan in Driving Miss Daisy (1989)

A well-deserved, late-life Best Actress Oscar for a beloved star of mostly stage went to Tandy for her indelible performance as the crotchety, set-in-her-ways Daisy, whose hardened resolves slowly begins to melt the longer she is friends with Morgan Freeman's Hoke. Tandy is impeccable here, never hitting a false note. She never softens the character, never lets you see ahead to any profound character change, but there's never a second of screen time when we don't recognize the universality of this type of woman and see the societal changes she's adjusting too on her face- and, of course, deep down, she's not all that bad or stubborn. The relationship between her and Freeman is extraordinarily touching and subtle.

Images:

http://parabasis.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451ce4269e2016306b3b683970d-800wi

http://www.tcdailyplanet.net/sites/tcdailyplanet.net/files/imagecache/teaser/images/Jessica%2BTandy%2BDriving%2BMiss%2BDaisy.jpg

Thursday, August 23, 2012

Thoys-day

Word of the day : dundrearies : long flowing sideburns

For a moviegoer, these are the dregs of the season - comparable to mid-January, when the studios just dump out inferior product. That said, there are two new movie this week that looks pretty good:

Premium Rush I'm usually interested in the work of writer-director David Koepp (who wrote Jurassic Park, Carlito's Way, Death Becomes Her) and any movie that has Joseph Gordon Levitt and Michael Shannon raises my hackles. I feel like I first saw the trailer for this movie a year ago: Levitt is a New York City bike messenger - a daredevil-ish profession - who finds out that someone is trying to kill him. Not many critical reviews are in yet, but Roger Ebert likes it - he says it's fast and furious and technically impressive.
Verdict: Very Interested

Hit and Run Parenthood's Dax Shepard wrote, co-directed, and stars in this junky-looking road comedy, which also stars Shepard's wife, Kristen Bell. The two play a couple who are forced to hit the road to LA, all the while being pursued by various types - from Tom Arnold to a dreadlocked Bradley Cooper. Critics don't like it.
Verdict: Not Interested

Robot & Frank Uh, Frank Langella in a small comedy as an aging, retirement-age jewel thief who decides to start carrying out heists with his robot helper. Um, yes please. Co-starring James Marsden, Susan Sarandon, Liv Tyler, and the voice of Peter Sarsgaard.
Verdict: Very Interested

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Julia and I watched Cocktail last night. It's not a great movie by any stretch of the imagination, but it was easy to see why women went gaga over an impossibly-young, pre-Scientology Tom Cruise. Where have all the good bar movies gone?

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Another entry in my list of the 500 Greatest Performances of All Time:

Zach Galifinakis
as Alan in The Hangover (2009)

In one of the freshest, most unique breakthrough performances in a comedy in a long time, Galifinakis steals the film as the infantile Alan, a character who needs to seen and heard to be believed. Galifinakis' style is so individualized and bracing, that he can make an audience crack up just by the way he looks. Spewing non sequitirs, making pseudo-poignant speeches ("four of us wolves, running around the desert..."), and gallivanting through the action with a glazed, knowing demeanor, the actor walks away from the movie - no mean feat, considering how funny everyone else is.

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Next up in Professional Photographer's list of the "100 Most Influential Photographers of All Time:"
Lord Snowdon
(#58)

From 1962-1990, the British Snowdon worked for the Sunday Times. Two years before that, he married Princess Margaret, whom he was married to for 18 years. He was born into money but contracted polio at the age of 16. His early career was dedicated to design, fashion, and theater, but during his tenure at the Times, he became a well-known portraitist, often shooting British royals. He wasn't just a royal photographer, though - he shot all areas of society, his works often showing loneliness and old age. He was, according to his own biography, quite a bed-hopper too! He has also worked for Vogue and Telegraph Magazine too.