In Contention

Tag: Guy Pearce

  • Debating historical hiccups in ‘The King’s Speech’

    Unless you really haven’t been paying attention, you’ll have noticed by now that a few people have taken issue with the history lesson given by “The King’s Speech.” Or more specifically, with the one not given: that George VI supported British PM Neville Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement towards Adolf Hitler, while his brother Edward VIII was an outright Nazi sympathizer, none of which is acknowledged in the film.

    Writing for The New Republic, Isaac Chotner took the film to task both for “grossly misrepresenting real events and people” and for shortselling its own dramatic potential through these omissions, while none other than Christopher Hitchens raised the same issue in a recent Slate essay, damning the film as “a major desecration of the historical record.”

    Whatever my own issues with the film, its historical filleting hasn’t been high on the list. As much as I think the gray political alliances of the Royal Family would make for a far richer narrative, the bottom line is that screenwriter David Seidler was more interested in George VI’s personal struggles — as a dramatist, it’s his right to frame the story as he wishes, free of the obligation to furnish the audience with every historical detail.

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  • THE LISTS: Top 10 performances in Christopher Nolan films

    The word of the day Friday will most certainly be “Inception,” as casually interested movie-goers and anxious fanboys alike line up to take in Christopher Nolan’s latest effort.

    Now, I have suggested in this space that the film’s ensemble is an organic one, alive and driven.  And that the performances are separately less than their sum impact. It nevertheless seemed a good time to look back over Nolan’s septet of offerings thus far and cherry pick the best portrayals for a return to this semi-regular feature at In Contention.

    Nolan always puts together a great cast. His carefully selected leads tend to ably balance themes of identity, control and psychosis, while highlighted supporting parts always prove to be charming outside-the-box considerations.

    With the latter in mind, I’d have loved to make room for the Steven Tobolowskys, Rutger Hauers, David Bowies, Ritchie Costers and Tom Berengers, but I naturally kept settling on the larger roles when push came to shove.

    So, without further ado…

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  • Better and better

    Two weeks ago, Kris expressed his (and, well, pretty much everyone’s) excitement over Todd Haynes’s HBO reimagining of “Mildred Pierce,” with Kate Winslet stepping into Joan Crawford’s Oscar-winning shoes in the title role.

    Today, The Playlist passes on two further reasons to anticipate the project, namely Guy Pearce and Evan Rachel Wood. The latter, in particular, strikes me as a smart get — assuming, of course, that she’s filling the place of Ann Blyth. The longer I think about it, the more easily I can see Wood as Winslet’s daughter.

    Does this have to be on TV? I’d watch four hours of this in a theater, frankly.

  • The Great Performances: 2001

    Gene Hackman in The Royal TenenbaumsIn one of the weakest years in memory, not just for performances but for great films, 2001 saw Denzel Washington and Halle Berry knock “two birds out with one stone,” as the former declared on Oscar night, as two African Americans won the top acting prizes for the first time ever.  And it was difficult to argue with either.

    Washington was superb in “Training Day,” clearly loving his role as crooked cop Alonzo, walking the line without ever going over the top, blowing everyone off the screen. In many ways it was a make-up award for his having lost for “Malcolm X” in 1992 to Al Pacino’s ranting work in “Scent of a Woman” and perhaps, though lesser so, for his loss for “The Hurricane.”

    Berry gave a raw, sexually charged performance in “Monster’s Ball,” one of such searing truth and rage you could never look away from the screen. Robert Duvall called her performance the finest by an American actress he had ever seen and was not the least bit surprised when she won the Oscar for Best Actress.

    My question remains: Should Denzel Washington have won over the non-nominated performances of Gene Hackman in “The Royal Tanebaums” or the vastly under-appreciated Jack Nicholson in “The Pledge,” one of his finest recent performances? Don’t think so.

    There was a lot of love shown to Tom Wilkinson for his heartbreaking work in “In the Bedroom” as well as Russell Crowe (again) for his performance in “A Beautiful Mind,” which eventually won the Best Picture Oscar. I was very surprised that Sean Penn was nominated for his performance in “I Am Sam” because though I consider Penn one of the greatest actors in the history of the cinema, his work in that film represents one of the very few times I could “see” him acting.

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  • ‘L.A. Confidential’ gets a deluxe DVD release

    L.A. Confidential Special Edition DVDOne of the greatest experiences I have ever had at a Toronto festival was the North American premiere of Curtis Hanson’s “L.A. Confidential,” which was instantly declared a masterpiece and one of the great film noirs in movie history.

    Dark and entertaining with a twisting and turning narrative that keep viewers guessing throughout, the film was embraced by the critical community in a huge way, topping most of the 10-best lists that year and winning best-of-the-year prizes from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, the National Society of Film Critics and the New York Film Critics Circle.

    The film is receiving a shiny new DVD release this year and I couldn’t be more excited.  The package offers a slew of special features: commentaries from film critic Andrew Sarries, author James Ellroy , nearly the entire cast, director of photography Dante Spinotti and production designer Jeannine Oppewall; a new making-of documentary with updated interviews with the players; detailed examination of the look of the film; “From Book to Screen” with Hansen, Brian Helgeland and Ellroy; and a focus on the film’s ensemble.

    As always the star of any re-issue is the film itself,  and “L.A. Confidential” remains one of the great films of the 1990s — a sublime work of art.

    Superbly acted by Guy Pearce, James Cromwell, Kevin Spacey, Danny Devito, David Strathairn, Kim Basinger and Russell Crowe (in a star-making turn), the picture was a tight ensemble piece.  It fired on all cylinders: direction, cinematography, design elements, and a film score that effortlessly zapped us back to 1950s Los Angeles.

    Kevin Spacey, two years after winning the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for “The Usual Suspects,” portrayed Jack Vincennes with a Dean Martin sort of cool, an honest cop who had sold his soul to television where he worked as an adviser on a popular series. Spacey was the anchor for the film, giving a marvelous performance that the other actors bounced off of nicely. His swift and shocking end remains one of the most startling moments I have witnessed in a film. I remember gasping out loud when the tables turned so quickly.

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  • TORONTO: ‘Good,’ ‘Me and Orson Welles,’ ‘Every Little Step,’ ‘The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond,’ ‘The Hurt Locker’

    Christian McKay in Me and Orson WellesListening to the conversations of the other critics in the various theaters, it becomes very clear that this year’s fest has been something of a disappointment, the first in a long, long time.

    At least one critic pointed out to me that Oscar and TIFF divorced this year, which has been mentioned ad nauseum and is probably a pretty fair assessment of the situation. A lot of the press are heading home today and tomorrow as the festival begins that slow march toward the end, always exiting with a whimper and never a bang.

    These last couple of days I have screened some interesting films: a noble failure, a superb documentary, a fine war film that is still not the great film we need about Iraq.  I will get to them as I can, but for now, some quick catching up…

    (Reviews after the jump.)

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