News and Notes
Commentary From the Editors
Sunday, January 03, 2010
Philip Seymour Hoffman is Beloved by Roger Ebert but He's Still Scary, Mommy
Roger Ebert has named his top 10 films of the last decade -- and Philip Seymour Hoffman is in three of them.
Synecdoche, New York (2009), Almost Famous (2000), and The 25th Hour (2003) are the three films. In case you're not familiar with the third, it's "A film about the last 24 hours of freedom for Monty Brogan (Edward Norton), a convicted drug dealer." And Hoffman? He's "a pudgy English teacher, not accustomed to drinking, who makes a devastating mistake involving appearance and reality."
But Synecdoche is the very best film of the decade, says Ebert:
It intends no less than to evoke the strategies we use to live our lives. After beginning my first viewing in confusion, I began to glimpse its purpose and by the end was eager to see it again, then once again, and I am not finished.One might have a lively argument about whether a film that can be grasped only after multiple viewings (by an expert film critic) can, by definition, be "the best movie of the decade."
But let it pass. I'm not really knocking the movie, because I haven't seen it. I AM doing my level best to knock Philip Seymour Hoffman.
God bless the guy for appearing in many unusual and thoughtful movies. But as a leading actor, or more precisely as any supposed-to-be-sympathetic figure, there's no one more unsettling. You can't root for the guy that way. It is like rooting for a dentist who is at that moment giving you a root canal without Novocaine.
That's the PSH Factor -- the uneasy aura of flop-sweat, menace, impending doom, and awkward social blunders. Young children should not be allowed to view him. He should have his own MPAA warning: "Rated PG-13 for violence, sexual situations, and Philip Seymour Hoffman." He's cast as a lead, I'm convinced, only by self-conflicted directors who subconsciously want to undermine sympathy for their own movies.
And don't tell me about Hoffman winning the Oscar as creepy ol' Truman Capote. That only proves just how horrifying he can be in a lead role.
Now, as Lester Bangs in Almost Famous, he's perfectly cast. Because Bangs is an outlier: he's nice to our teen kid hero, but you also know that if we had time to dig much deeper Bangs would turn out to be very weird. Perfect for Hoffman.
He's great in Charlie Wilson's War, for another example:
Tom Hanks does the heavy lifting of likability in the title role -- that's his forte, after all -- while Hoffman is Gust Avrakotos, the eccentric CIA agent with the polyester necktie. Perfect use of the PSH Factor. (In real life, Avrakotos ended up marginalized at the CIA and then died of a stroke. Charlie Wilson retired to Texas and married a ballerina. 'Nuff said.)
So I'm certainly not saying Hoffman is a bad actor. Just the opposite -- he may be too good an actor. He frightens and disturbs me. I'm happy to have him appear in my movie-going universe, infrequently, in roles where I don't have to pin any hopes on him. I just don't want him (with apologies to Ebert) as my star of the decade.
So, directors of America, please keep Philip Seymour Hoffman busy with juicy "offbeat" supporting roles, and don't even think of casting him as any kind of sympathetic lead in this coming decade. Is that so much to ask?
(Images supplied by WENN.)
Labels: Charlie Wilson, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Roger Ebert, Tom Hanks, Truman Capote
Posted by Mr. Holznagel at 7:50 AM0 comments 
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Happy Birthday, Truman Capote
In honor of what would have been Truman Capote's 85th birthday (he died in 1984), here are a couple of video interviews from 1966, as he talks about working on In Cold Blood.In this video he tries to explain what he means by "non-fiction novel."
In this video he talks about what it was like to arrive in Kansas.
As an extra -- and extra-weird -- treat, try viewing this roast of Capote from Las Vegas, with host Dean Martin. It's crazy.
Labels: Dean Martin, Truman Capote
Posted by Mr. Hehn at 5:14 PM0 comments
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
Chuck Barris is 80!
No gong from the Grim Reaper for Chuck Barris. The game show impresario is 80 today -- born in 1929.Here's a Barris photo from 2006.
"Chuck Barris and guest at Christie's 40th anniversary of Truman Capote's Black and White Ball. New York, 3 March 2006" is the caption provided by our friends at WENN. (Nice guest, Chuck!)
As an aside: I think we can just about put to bed the legend of Tru's famous oh-so-super-duper Black and White Ball. God bless the old scribe and all, but it was just a party.
Though we'll need a 50th anniversary party in 2016, of course. Barris can attend at age 87!
(Photo credit: Doug Meszler/WENN)
Labels: Chuck Barris, Truman Capote
Posted by Mr. Holznagel at 11:04 AM1 comments
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Gapper: Harper "TKAM" Lee
The newest gapper for our files: Harper Lee, author of the classic novel To Kill a Mockingbird.Editor Paul Hehn, at the Southern Literature desk, has written a fine new profile.
(And dang it, Truman Capote did NOT write her book.)
Labels: Harper Lee, Truman Capote
Posted by Mr. Holznagel at 8:05 AM0 comments
