http://blogs.kitschmag.com/movies/2009/10/01/the-informant/ Just another kitsch-ka-blogs weblog Wed, 11 Aug 2010 05:20:10 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 http://blogs.kitschmag.com/movies/2009/10/01/the-informant/comment-page-1/#comment-797 Invictus » Movie Monster Mon, 21 Dec 2009 17:26:23 +0000 http://blogs.kitschmag.com/movies/2009/10/01/the-informant/#comment-797 [...] Now I don’t doubt the good intentions of those who made Invictus, just as I don’t doubt that the road to the Oscars is paved with good intentions. Judging from some of the players’ recent work, however, I also assume they’re not quite as selfless as the movie’s heroes. When I checked out David Fincher’s Seven (1995), I was shocked to discover that Freeman was actually acting—and spectacularly! Recently, he’s been the same smooth, sagacious, incontrovertibly moral compass in The Dark Knight, Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby, et al. He plays Mandela—his friend in real life—reverently, but in that same one-dimensional, award-winning style, though he curiously drops his accent during a scene in a car. (Mandela purportedly requested that he be played by Freeman; one can easily guess why.) For this part, Damon gives an earnest performance, but hasn’t any zippy avenues to meander down, as he did in The Informant!. [...] [...] Now I don’t doubt the good intentions of those who made Invictus, just as I don’t doubt that the road to the Oscars is paved with good intentions. Judging from some of the players’ recent work, however, I also assume they’re not quite as selfless as the movie’s heroes. When I checked out David Fincher’s Seven (1995), I was shocked to discover that Freeman was actually acting—and spectacularly! Recently, he’s been the same smooth, sagacious, incontrovertibly moral compass in The Dark Knight, Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby, et al. He plays Mandela—his friend in real life—reverently, but in that same one-dimensional, award-winning style, though he curiously drops his accent during a scene in a car. (Mandela purportedly requested that he be played by Freeman; one can easily guess why.) For this part, Damon gives an earnest performance, but hasn’t any zippy avenues to meander down, as he did in The Informant!. [...]

]]> http://blogs.kitschmag.com/movies/2009/10/01/the-informant/comment-page-1/#comment-769 Cold Souls » Movie Monster Thu, 08 Oct 2009 16:14:30 +0000 http://blogs.kitschmag.com/movies/2009/10/01/the-informant/#comment-769 [...] Cold Souls is a diaphanous nocturne—a little, metaphysical flower lilting in the gray autumnal light. Paul Giamatti plays himself or, rather, the person we might infer Paul Giamatti to be, given the schlub-everyman he incarnated in American Splendor and Sideways. He’s playing in Chekhov on Broadway, but can’t get out of his own head and into Uncle Vanya’s. So, under his unseen agent’s advisement, he undergoes radical soul-removal surgery that leaves him literally spiritless. (One wonders if Steven Soderbergh opted for that procedure to make The Informant!.) [...] [...] Cold Souls is a diaphanous nocturne—a little, metaphysical flower lilting in the gray autumnal light. Paul Giamatti plays himself or, rather, the person we might infer Paul Giamatti to be, given the schlub-everyman he incarnated in American Splendor and Sideways. He’s playing in Chekhov on Broadway, but can’t get out of his own head and into Uncle Vanya’s. So, under his unseen agent’s advisement, he undergoes radical soul-removal surgery that leaves him literally spiritless. (One wonders if Steven Soderbergh opted for that procedure to make The Informant!.) [...]

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