Word: scene
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Born in Seattle, he spent his early childhood at U.S. military bases overseas, where his father was a Navy engineer. When the family settled in San Diego, he started acting in junior high--the first scene he ever played was from (what else?) The Taming of the Shrew. His mix-and-match racial background (African American, German, Scottish, American Indian and maybe a couple of others) didn't stop him from getting roles. "I can kind of play everything because I am everything," he says. He landed a part in TV's Roots: The Next Generations when he was just...
...performance as Henry. Rather than playing up to traditional jilted husband clichs, Rea imbues the character with a sad dignity that ends up far more affecting than the lovers' travails. As Parkis, the detective hired by Bendrix to follow Sarah, the enormously underrated British actor Ian Hart steals every scene he's in. His Parkis is bumbling and a bit obsequious, but somehow a pervasive pathos in the performance overwhelms the lesser comic effect...
...This, coupled with the fact that Rosetta appears in every scene, lends to what is initially bizarre behavior--running helter-skelter through a factory simply because she was fired. The film creates a sense of continuity, because the world, from our view, does not exist as the town, her work or anything beyond Rosetta's skewed perspective. Tight camera work creates comfort, which transmutates into sympathy, although the Dardennes do not actively court affection. Rosetta makes uncomfortable choices, but, instead of condemning her character, blame is firmly placed on her society...
...cartoon that purposely surfed right over the kiddie's heads, providing pretty eye candy for tots and self-referential fun for the big ones. While Disney went back to its melodramatic basics for its feature-length animation of the '90s, Pixar adopted a distinctly modern--practically postmodern--sensibility. Each scene in Toy Story and the even better A Bug's Life (1998) has epic ambition: to touch the heart, engage your brain, tickle the funny bone. Did we get any of that in Pocahontas? Or the god-awful Prince of Egypt? Pooh. Toy Story 2 proves that Pixar...
...scene-stealer is Hoffman, who follows up on his fine work in Happiness and Boogie Nights. With his undulating voice and quick reversals of emotion, he nicely portrays Rusty's painful limbo between lonely man and gaudy transvestite. Reading in between his frequently trite lines, Hoffman exposes Rusty's inner vulnerability. De Niro, too, raises his Walt above mere caricature. His subtle expressions reveal the pain of an independent man losing his mobility while his cautious moves towards Rusty make the burgeoning friendship relatively believable...