Word: arkin
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...Well," replies his date for the evening, "there's the Godard, an old Fellini, the new Truffau'-"How about something without subtitles for a change? 2001. Or The Midnight Cowboy. Or the Alan Arkin picture...
POPI. Alan Arkin is magnificent as a Puerto Rican widower struggling to get his two sons out of the New York ghetto in this funny, occasionally angry little comedy that is one of the year's most refreshing films...
...comedy and poverty mix, one of them is probably lying. In the case of Popi, the plight of the poor is told with harrowing accuracy. It is the laughs that arise from calculated invention. A Puerto Rican widower, Popi (Alan Arkin) holds down three jobs to keep his family together. He is kept so busy that his children's hour is shrunk to a minute, and his two boys, Luis and Junior, are reduced to shiftless street Arabs...
...Popi, Arkin speaks with an accent that smacks aptly of the Caribbean, but many of his gestures are strictly Baltic. His perception of the role is something else entirely. A slight and soft-spoken man offscreen, he manages to give himself bulk and ferocity as a man driven up the walls of el barrio by the conflict of pride and circumstance. As a comedian, he clambers over the film to reach the top rank of American performers. Barking like a watchdog to frighten off apartment thieves, or purifying English curses into harmless Spanish, Arkin transforms slapstick into exuberant social comment...
...also can become the shortest line to an Oscar-as Cliff Robertson proved at this year's Academy Awards show. Competitors like Alan Arkin and Alan Bates may have been content to rest on their performances; Robertson knew better. Starting in October 1968, ads on his behalf were placed in the trade papers. "Best actor of the year-the National Board of Review" they reminded readers. "Cliff Robertson is CHARLY," they trumpeted in full-page splashes. The campaign culminated in a giant double foldout inserted in Daily Variety. Its contents: 83 favorable reviews of Robertson from a spectrum...