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There’s a great story Minnie Driver tells About director Joel Schumacher, who responded dryly after a lead actor complained that Driver’s performance in “The Phantom of the Opera” was too exaggerated.
“Oh honey,” replied Schumacher, “no one paid to see under the hill.”
I’ve been thinking a lot about this bon mot this movie season when so many stars are swinging for fences. think Lady Gaga and Jared LetoIn “House of Gucci” who is so boldly big or Jessica Chastain and Andrew Garfield As a TV personality in “The Eyes of Tammy Faye,” where they performed their performances almost as wide as Tammy Faye Bakker’s mascara-laden eyes.
In “final duelBen Affleck has a lot of fun playing the costume-drama hard to the end, and doing it all in a blonde wig and nu-metal goatee makes the role even more overdone. And then there is Kristen StewartHe eschews his idiosyncratic minimalism for the extremely maximalist “Spencer,” where he is sometimes asked to swing, shout, dance, and stand up on stage.
After celebrating last Oscar season’s quiet, naturalistic “Nomadland,” it’s a kick to see many of this year’s prestige dramas go in a different direction and embrace the majestic. In an age dominated by superhero movies, perhaps smaller movies now need a performance that feels like an event. Or maybe it’s refreshing to watch gamers break free from their shackles after a time when so many of us lead limited lives.
Whatever the case, it works. “Tick, Tick… Boom!” revived by GarfieldGusto as composer Jonathan Larson, a guy who always works at 11. While watching it, I remembered the “30 Rock” joke where Jenna Maroney lobbied the Tonys to add a category.live theatrical in normal life” And this month brings a doubly big Cate Blanchett performance on “Don’t Look Up,” which makes it look like a horrible “”.flattenedcable news anchor and “Nightmare Road,” where he handled the film’s dazzling production design as if it were tailor-made for the fatal woman.
I do not mean to say that these extreme performances are a miscalculation. Quite the opposite: An actress like Blanchett sets the tone of her films as much as a singer who asks for the intended key and then begins to tighten its belts. When a talented performer can hit all those high notes, it’s more than just technically dazzling: It makes notes played softly feel even more resonant.
But hey, there’s nothing wrong with glamorizing it just for the sake of it. It’s fun when Bradley Cooper shows up on “Licorice Pizza” to scare the young leads with wild, tense electricity: Just when the movie feels like it’s coming to an end, Cooper adds a jolt to “Licorice Pizza,” enough to power 30. more minutes. Part of the excitement of watching such a great performance is that you know how much the actor will be ridiculed if he fails to do so. Consider poor Ben Platt in the movie adaptation of “Dear Evan Hansen”: The crying sounds that were so strong on stage proved themselves. unfortunately i am happy in the movies.
And sometimes, the most fascinating thing about a movie is the excitement between a hit actor and a failed lead actor. When I first saw “The Power of the Dog,” I will admit that I did not connect with it. Benedict CumberbatchAs sadistic cattle rancher Phil Burbank, I felt the performance too broad. After all, primary stage partners Kirsten Dunst and Jesse Plemons, a real-life couple who are two of the best practitioners of American naturalism: They can do anything on screen, and you won’t just believe it, you’ll almost never catch it doing it. To them, I found Cumberbatch to be too well-behaved as an actor determined to show his work.
But when I watched the movie a second time, I realized that all these tricks were perfect for Phil, who was hiding more than just his silver spoon upbringing and his Yale diploma. Put the pieces of the backstory together and you’ll realize that Phil’s dirty cowboy act is totally crap, his machismo performance so full that an intruder like Dunst threatens him because he doesn’t need to act at all. It took courage for the film’s director, Jane Campion, to put together that kind of cast and trust that it would work, just as Cumberbatch took the courage to take it a little further than some actors thought she was comfortable with.
And hey, at least bigger-than-average performances will make for some good Oscar clips. Most star-studded stars get the attention of the awards, but I want to go at bat for Affleck, who’s as delicious as the glorious earl in “The Last Duel” and deserves some serious supporting cast consideration. This Golden Globes instead he nominated him for his stark work on “The Tender Bar” – a mistake, because the only thing Affleck has made this year comparable to “The Last Duel” is his contribution to pop culture as half of Bennifer. 2.0.
Maybe that’s part of the fun of the massive performances: They eventually scaled up to the celebrity level we trust someone like Affleck or Gaga to serve. Hollywood has often asked the biggest living stars to shrink themselves to gain critical acclaim. But where’s the fun in that? They made that screen big for a reason.
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