10 Great Acting Performances
There are too many great performances to try and rank the ten best. Who is the best villain? The best hero? The best romantic lead? The best in a comedy role? Which actor made me cry the most or laugh the hardest?
Hacksaw Ridge
About this point in the movie, it dawned on me that as an 18 year-old, my Dad served in the Battle of Okinawa. Like plenty of U.S. soldiers, he was wounded in the engagement. Some brave medic carried my father to safety back in 1945, so the film resonates with me.
Jack Reacher: Never Go Back
But let’s chat about Tom Cruise for a moment, shall we? There was a time when Cruise’s name on a film meant something. It meant you were going to get your money’s worth from the theater-going experience. “The Color of Money” was high quality entertainment, “Rain Man” was nothing short of amazing and Cruise was well-known for being great to work with.
Blacker Than a Moonless Night: Best in Noir
Film Noir. The term was coined in 1946 by French critic Nino Frank. He saw a mood change in the films coming out of the Post-War American cinema. Something darker, a trend of detectives, dangerous women and pot-boiler plots ripped from the pages of Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, and James M. Cain pulp novels.
The Battle of Algiers
Gillo Pontecorvo’s classic film, opening this weekend at Ken Cinema, has been gloriously restored in celebration of its 50th anniversary. All of these years later, the picture still holds its transcendent power.
The Girl on the Train
“The Girl on a Train” is based on a New York Times Best-Selling novel, and the up-coming film was featured on the cover of Entertainment Weekly not long ago. In short, the pressure was on director Tate Taylor to deliver the goods. In several ways, he did.
Recordlection: Murmur
When “Murmur” played, dancing was compulsory. Singing along with Stipe’s unintelligible lyrics and discussing their meaning until dawn was a regular occurrence. Friends would come by to study, but we just ended up flipping “Murmur” over and over
The Magnificent Seven
I have always thought if a movie is being remade, it better top the original or be a marked departure from its predecessor. John Huston’s version of “The Maltese Falcon” was different from the Roy Del Ruth original in tone and it had Humphrey Bogart.
Interview w/ Mark Bacino
One artists I’ve been playing on repeat lately is Queens, New York-based singer, producer, multi-instrumentalist Mark Bacino. While his music ranges further than the above description, his style fits it often enough to make me a fan of his earlier work as well as his current single, the catchy-as-Hell “Not That Guy.”
In Any Language: Best in Foreign Films
I speak one language fluently: English. I understand enough Spanish to get myself in trouble if I wander into Tijuana. My Italian language skills have faded horribly since my grandparents passed away. But I can read subtitles.