Word: solondz
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Philip Seymour Hoffman knows how to make you wince. Remember his Scotty, the hapless gofer who desperately lunged to kiss porn star Dirk Diggler in Paul Thomas Anderson's Boogie Nights? Or his wrenching portrayal of Allen, the obscene phone caller in Todd Solondz's Happiness? Now Joel Schumacher's Flawless brings us Rusty, a transsexual who befriends a homophobic stroke victim played by Robert De Niro. It's a typically gutsy performance that tightropes between drag-queen camp and the pathos of a man who believes he's the butt of a biological practical joke...
Directors exhaust superlatives extolling Hoffman's craft. "He's extraordinarily committed to infinitesimal detail," says Schumacher. "I don't think there's anything he can't do," raves Minghella. Adds Solondz: "Whatever genius is, he has it. He's fearless. I love...
...HAPPINESS Todd Solondz sees the pursuit of happiness as a quest open to all souls, especially doomed ones. With unblinking wit and guile he paints hell as a place very like New Jersey, where an 11-year-old boy has an urgent sex chat with his loving father, a pedophile. Has tenderness ever been so frightening...
...acceptance for his film, so he finally makes the town so endearing that one of the '90s kids decides to stay there. (Gee, wait till Mom finds out!) He hopes you will too. That's the difference between today's best Hollywood filmmakers and the top independent auteurs. Todd Solondz and Hal Hartley don't care if you like, or even get, Happiness or Henry Fool. Ross wants to point a finger while you shake his hand...
...commercial actor turned documentarian told me. The budget for one "romantic drama" came from the insurance settlement the writer-director received after he was injured in an auto accident. You had to admire the sheer nerve on display. And who knows? Maybe I was talking to the next Todd Solondz (Welcome to the Dollhouse, Happiness) or Edward Burns (The Brothers McMullen), both of whom got their start at the IFFM. But probably I wasn...