Word: hollywoodizations
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Lawrence as I do to follow George Clooney's career plans. In very different ways, I am excited by what I read in EW and The New York Review because each periodical gives me something to think about--whether it is the cultural significance of the evolution of Hollywood's screwball comedy or the validity of Pat Buchanan's ideas on economic policy...
...Hollywood, then, McKellen is a new face in an energetic, middle-age frame. He is frequently referred to (on his own website, www.mckellen.com for instance) as "the leading British actor of his generation." The implied qualifier is stage actor; he wants to change that. "I've done a big wadge of theater," he says, "which has been very satisfying. Now I'd like to do a wadge of movies. I do think my acting in these films is good enough so people will no longer say, 'Well, we can risk giving a role to McKellen...
...lust or fear that may not even be there. Reacts with a prim wryness that hints at the Nazi's superiority, at Whale's indulgence. These lovely scenes give the audience a chance to study McKellen in wary repose. It's a face worth studying. A movie face, as Hollywood should soon understand...
...even endurable, epitomizes Apt Pupil. As in almost any drama, the villain is far more interesting than the "hero," who is likely asleep while our villain is drinking Old Crow, listening to opera and amusing himself by throwing cats into ovens or something. Of course, as in any Hollywood film, the one inviolable taboo is that no matter how many humans are gruesomly murdered, an adorable pet cannot die. As in any film based on a work by Stephen King, there are scenes like this one, whose horror is edged with an absurdity that seems almost humorous...
Scenes in the style of Mr. King, normally complex and intriguing, are here sickening. Certainly the convention that spares cute animals in Hollywood movies, normally annoying, is here unforgivable: a movie that seems to pride itself on confronting its audience with the fact of the Holocaust nonetheless stops short of this triviality, which makes one consider how real the Holocaust is for this movie, and so for its audience. The ethics of making Dussander the interesting character and his strident accusers the bland and vapid ones are, of course, also questionable. Perhaps if he were a man at once horrified...