RSS
 

Archive for the ‘Tim Robbins’ Category

A Life Of Crime

16 Aug

Life Of Crime – directed by Daniel Schechter. Crimedy. 98 minutes Color 2013.

★★★★★

The Story: three inept criminals target a rich woman for kidnapping.

~

Aren’t you glad I never give away the story?

Why should I when sitting through one as pleasing as this is half the reason for going to a film at all.

Jennifer Aniston plays the lady earmarked for snatching. Is she not the best actress before the cameras today? You may discount her because her haircut does not change. But don’t short-sell her as an actress to watch, follow, wait for, harken to. Her responses are always fresh. You’d think they might not be. You’d think maybe she was stale from all that TV work. You’d wonder that she hasn’t aged. You’d discount her because she always looks good in her clothes. You’d be distracting yourself, if you did, from the brilliance of her work, her mastery of the tone of a role, her instinctual sizing of a part, her ability to strategize a role. Her delivery. Her artistic self-possession. I don’t know what you’re waiting for. She is a masterpiece Chinese meal, a little taste at a time, and a feast throughout.

The film is well written and played perfectly. Tim Robbins plays her cad-husband with disarming relish and talent. Isla Fisher is wonderful as his doxie. Yaslin Bey (known to many as Mos Def, rap artist) is right on the money as one of the crooks. But the one I liked a lot was John Hawkes, an actor I do not remember having seen before, but have actually seen a number of times, mainly in The Sessions where is plays a paraplegic laid out on a bed and receiving sexual services from a surrogate. Where have my eyes been all this while. He has had a big career in film, Oscar nominations and all. I shall seek him out, good, self-taught Virgos as we both are. And he’s just wonderful here as the crook with some common sense and sensibility.

Have I gone off my rocker?

I hope so. Join me. Delight in A Life Of Crime.

 
Comments Off on A Life Of Crime

Posted in ACTING STYLE: AMERICAN REALISTIC, Jennifer Aniston GODDESS COMEDIENNE, John Hawkes, Tim Robbins

 

Thanks For Sharing

28 Sep

Thanks For Sharing – directed by Stuart Blumberg. A quartet of sex addicts in recovery stumble toward one another in mutual aid and redemption. 112 minutes Color 2013.

★★★★

Josh Gad is probably miscast as the premier liar of this story, for his casting is like casting Bud Abbott in the role. He is meant to supply fat-boy comic relief to material that does not welcome it, since the underpinnings of the lie are nothing-funny.

These people are stern addicts. And their humor would have been best served by its emerging in meetings themselves, where 12 Step style can be very funny indeed, but germane, which Gad’s is not. It’s not the actor’s fault. It’s the fault of the role.

Otherwise we have an excellent film to go to with your fellowship buddies or with those who need some education as to the catastrophe of the condition of addiction to pornography, prostitution, exhibitionism, sexual resorts, and the long list of the rest. For the film does a fair and honest and informed job of looking closely at the addiction in action and in remission – remission being no guarantee of recovery, of which no such thing has ever been known. It’s hard to quit sex addiction; harder than alcohol. You carry around your saloon in your britches.

Pink is completely convincing as the raving sex maniac who comes into the program late and, with help, finds her way toward sobriety. Mark Ruffalo plays a man five years on the sexual wagon, and he is solid in the role. Tim Robbins plays his long-time sponsor, a bleeding deacon of the S-Fellowship (which is never defined), and the parent of a son who has gone sober from drugs cold-turkey on his own. His relation to this son, his refusing to work an 8th and 9th Step with him, is a key drama in the story and one important to behold.

The Ruffalo character has not had sex or a date in five years, and, when he allows himself to, he falls quickly in a relationship with an eager beauty played by Gwyneth Paltrow.

Paltrow is one of the great creatures of the modern screen. When Audrey Hepburn appears on screen one falls in love with her. There is no question as to how good an actress she is. She occupies our heart. And the same holds true for Gwyneth Paltrow, who is a very good actress indeed. She is an actress of great suppleness, intelligence, and grace. Aways fresh. She responds to everything happening to her physically, as though it belonged to her. Like Audrey Hepburn, she is a lady. But one with no stodginess to her. She is fascinating fun to watch.

And all this being true of her, the audience’s energy moves more towards whether this relationship will work out than to whether the quartet of addicts will stay sober.

But the story still honors their stories. And the record of them is true to the facts of sex addiction and its effects on everyone, addict or not, sober or not. So inform yourself. Thanks For Sharing will do for sex addiction what The Lost Weekend once did for alcoholism. It’ll give you the inside story.

 
Comments Off on Thanks For Sharing

Posted in ACTING STYLE: AMERICAN REALISTIC, Carol Kane, DRAMA, Gwyneth Paltrow: SCREEN GODDESS; ACTING GODDESS, Mark Ruffalo, Tim Robbins

 
 
Rss Feed Tweeter button Facebook button Technorati button Reddit button Myspace button Linkedin button Webonews button Delicious button Digg button Flickr button Stumbleupon button Newsvine button