Word: actorly
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...entertain. In a festival where 12 of the 20 competition films ran two hours or longer, and five clocked in near two and a half hours, the top honors went to a pair of these epic-length dramas. Austrian and French films received the top two prizes; an Austrian actor and a French actress took the awards for best performances, in English-language films. No American won anything. (See pictures of the red carpet at Cannes...
...ascension up the Hollywood hierarchy was anything but. Though blessed with good luck and good looks, Newman also relied on a rigorous work ethic and a determination to overcome savage criticism. In a typically revealing aside, Levy, a film critic for the Oregonian, recalls a slap the young actor suffered early in his career. In January 1953, after being promoted from understudy to the lead role in the hit Broadway play Picnic, Newman's director told the blue-eyed actor, "You don't carry any sexual threat at all." It was an insult that Newman said he spent 20 years...
...Scenes like this stream through Levy's sweeping tribute to Newman, who passed away last September at the age of 83. The iconic actor was both a vintage superstar and an anticelebrity, a man who worked tirelessly to impress audiences even as he built his home in Connecticut, thousands of miles away from Beverly Hills. Newman devoted himself to philanthropy before it was fashionable, turned his back on the Oscars after being snubbed repeatedly (he went so far as to boycott a ceremony at which he was given an honorary award) and remained married to his second wife for half...
...Given his film expertise, one might expect Levy to build this biography around an analysis of Newman's films and his place in the cinematic canon. Instead, Levy offers reportage as impressive as his critical insights. Paul Newman: A Life is a layered and absorbing portrait of how the actor's personal life differed from his public persona. Levy paints Newman not just as a movie star but as a determined entrepreneur, family man and racer - a man who admitted mistakes as he made them, took advantage of good luck when it came his way, and did his best...
...conflict is fought mainly between nasty Nazis and resourceful women. In her slinky dresses and fancy footwear (sometimes just one shoe), Kruger is steely glamour incarnate. And Waltz has the purring efficiency of a sleek German vehicle, not a tank but a Mercedes-Benz; he could take Cannes' Best Actor prize on Sunday night. The movie is pretty scrupulously played in the languages its characters would speak - except for one odd moment early on, when Landa tells the French farmer, "I ask your permission to speak English for the rest of the conversation." (He and the film have a reason...