Thursday, April 24, 2008
Hackman hangs up his spurs
One of my all-time favorite actors is apparently calling it quits, if this UK paper has it right.
I can't add too much to the kudos being offered in the article. I will say that as a mere casual moviegoer, Hackman always impressed me as a guy who got totally lost in his characters. You never said to yourself, "gee, why does Hackman always play Hackman in his roles?" Unlike, say, Donald Sutherland, or, from a later generation, Tom Cruise, or, from an even later generation, Tobey Maguire.
Whether he was doing great comedy as Royal Tennenbaum or playing a cold-hearted thug like Sheriff Bill, he always seemed to fit the role. From this layman's perspective, that makes for one heck of an actor.
I can't add too much to the kudos being offered in the article. I will say that as a mere casual moviegoer, Hackman always impressed me as a guy who got totally lost in his characters. You never said to yourself, "gee, why does Hackman always play Hackman in his roles?" Unlike, say, Donald Sutherland, or, from a later generation, Tom Cruise, or, from an even later generation, Tobey Maguire.
Whether he was doing great comedy as Royal Tennenbaum or playing a cold-hearted thug like Sheriff Bill, he always seemed to fit the role. From this layman's perspective, that makes for one heck of an actor.
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3 comments:
If I could clarify one part of my post, I didn't mean to equate Sutherland, Cruise, and Maguire as actors. I'd take Sutherland over the other two by a mile, and Maguire probably deserves some more time to show what he can do (although he almost single-handedly ruined "The Good German" for me, and "Cider House Rules" was an abomination, no matter what the critics say).
The similarity between the three is that you can't get past their distinguishing characteristics (Sutherland=voice, Cruise=looks, Maguire=boyishness). It tends to remind you of the actor and, as a result, distract you from the characters they're portraying.
I was actually going to call you out about lumping sutherland in with those other two tools, so I'm glad you threw in the comment. Look, Sutherland was in Animal House and that's all you need to know.
hackman was definitely awesome, which you could really see by his ability even in a shallow action movie like Enemy of the State..
That was a good one. I'd forgotten about that film.