Broadway Legend Joined: 6/30/05
Seriously...
Every single actor plays up to the audience as if they're a high school drama club member sucking up to the judge of a local theatre tournament. Watching Sean Penn in this film is enough to make you cringe.
I thought Penn's performance was the only good one.
The fault in the film is the direction and screenplay.
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/30/05
Penn was awful. His performance reminded me of something I would see at a high school theatre.
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/30/05
Penn was awful. His performance reminded me of something I would see at a high school theatre.
I tried watching this movie last week and I couldn't get through it, so I just ended up fastforwarding though the middle half.
Muffalo was okay in it though. He gave his usual Muffaloish performance, not good, not bad, just...normal for him. He's always the same in every single movie I've ever seen him in. Boyfriend needs to stop with the quaaludes for a little bit.
A-HA!
so we've found a film from this year that Cruel DIDN'T like!
Why does Hollywood find it necessary to remake classic movies - and screw it up in the process ?
The Broderick Crawford version is definitive
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/25/05
Almost every movie actor, no matter how talented, has made a fool of himself or herself onscreen. It seems to be a greater danger when accents are involved. Back in the 1930s, the great Katharine Hepburn was forced to play a backwoods hick in the ludicrous "Spitfire". Watching Hepburn, with her cultivated cheekbones, enunciating each line in a careful Midwestern drawl, is much more painful than watching Sean Penn in "All the King's Men."
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/30/05
I don't recall Meryl Streep ever making a fool of herself onscreen.
I mean, I primarily blame the writing and the direction, which did make the movie feel like one acting class scene after another...I feel like if you just watched one of the scenes you wouldn't mind the acting, but because you were forced to watch that style of acting for an entire movie by the end you were considering suicide. It's one of the perils of film, that because you're not shooting in sequence (nor do you have any say over which take is used) the actor actually has very little power over what the overall performance is going to look like. Film is a director's medium.
What a tragically bad film.
Broadway Legend Joined: 10/18/04
Oh, it was awful. I tried to watch it all the way through twice and just gave up.
Cruel...re: Meryl. You're correct. The answer is never. Falling in Love was a disappointing movie, but she still managed to have some luminous moments.
"She-Devil" anyone?
Broadway Legend Joined: 10/18/04
mattnyc, I can't help myself...She-Devil is a guilty pleasure for me. And I love Meryl in the movie!
blueroses = Meryl apologist
Simple. Oscars are not based on talent. Film casting is not based on talent.
It's not always NOT based on talent.
If you ask me, the Oscars uphold excellence far more than the Tonys do.
I just rented this movie. Thanks for ruining it for me! lol
It just proves that winning an Oscar has absolutely nothing to do with talent.
i remember feeling STUNNED by the preview alone. i thought the whole film might send me into seizure.
and i love meryl in SHE-DEVIL especially after she has been dumped. hi-larious!
I don't recall Meryl Streep ever making a fool of herself onscreen.
Not even in STILL OF THE NIGHT?
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