Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Cat Man Cat Man Where Did You Come From

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I need to stop tweeting out brief thoughts on movies that I'm only ever going to have briefs thoughts on, because, for example, let's take David Gordon Green's latest film Manglehorn, which is his love letter to Al Pacino - I don't really have a ton to say about it beyond this tweet:
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I've never been much of a Pacino fan in the first place - only in films where his patented brand of Too Much are utilized appropriately, like say Scarface or Cruising, do I find myself relaxing with him on screen. That sounds paradoxical sort of but what I mean is the movie has to meet him on his same level of effort - it's gotta be pushing one way as he's pushing the other - for me to find an equilibrium. Otherwise all I see is him acting acting acting, and I'm not even talking about his obvious "Hoo ahh!" screaming performances - even his supposedly smaller stuff often rings hollow to me.  

Manglehorn's a good example of this because the movie's small and the performance is pretty small but it's still just adds up to a bunch of tics that don't make sense. I don't know what the hell that voice he was using was supposed to be and for a movie set adrift in voice-over that's a drowning sensation. And the movie itself eventually take Al's lead and hand in hand they tumble right off a cliff - a cliff of nonsense. They fall in love with their mutual masturbation, eyes locked in a self-destructing grimace, and the rest of us are just left standing there with a face full of "Come on now." So maybe David Gordon made the perfect Pacino movie in the end? I'm just not the audience for it. (Holly Hunter is pretty terrific though!)
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3 comments:

das buut said...

Bernice!

Jason Adams said...

Love to you for forever das buut for getting that :)

FoxVerde said...

Have you ever seen the glorious film that is 'Glengarry Glen Ross'? This is one i watch with the bf just for some great laughs we know it by heart. Jack Lemmon is tremendous and the acting all around is top notch. Pacino is great in this as a rapacious salesman. Kevin Spacey is wonderful the Arkin guy cracks me up and Ed Harris is at his 'born loser' best.