> Didn't get "Nashville" quite the way so many did; it seemed to > "cluttered" for me.
I echoed the same sentiments, however, I thought Lily Tomlin was the stand-out. Has she ever won an Oscar in the past? She is so underrated. I heard that she had this SEARCH FOR SIGNS OF INTELLIGENT LIFE filmed but I don't know where to look for this. THE PLAYER is really Hollywood at its gutter-worst and I love the way Altman skewered just about anyone. I thought the ensemble cast in THE PLAYER is as ideal and as the cast in THE HOUSE OF THE SPIRITS is as disappointing (all were miscast in my opinion except Glenn Close who was nearly incandescent as Ferula). And don't get me started in GOSFORD PARK. I thought it was brilliant and although some people say that nominating GP is recognition enough, I think its even better than my favorite IN THE BEDROOM. The camera angles, pans, the superb born-to-play-their parts cast were as inch-perfect as the people who inhabited that world in the not-too-distant past. I thought Ryan Philippe is a disaster waiting to happen but I was pleasantly surprised he pulled it off (peripherally related: Reese Witherspoon's performance in THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST was lovely and her accent was not to be faulted but I have this wish that I want to see someone else play her role -- an English woman along the likes of Kate Beckinsale). > Franklin> Judy Davis! What a gal! I'm not familiar with her > "lambasting Sir David Lean" but it sounds intriguing. Any web > transcripts you could direct (no pun intended) me to on that? There are plenty of things that she said on the web that put her directors in a bad light. She hated Gillian Armstrong's approach in handling MY BRILLIANT CAREER (although that film made the world aware of Judy Davis brilliant acting career). She said also that Sir David Lean is highly nervous of her because she questions a lot of things in the set. For a relative newcomer, Judy Davis came too strong and always bristling with intelligence. People say her best performance is in this Australian film HIGH TIDE which, if I am not mistaken was also directed by Gillian Armstrong. Her great performances ranged from a combative wife of Kevin Spacey in THE REF to BARTON FINK's muse and as a woman who died and who keeps on surfacing in David Cronenberg's THE NAKED LUNCH. As for Woody Allen's reticence as indication for his approval, British director Mike Leigh wanted the actors to improvise on their parts. He would let them play their parts as real people, and you can see it in SECRETS AND LIES and even obscure ones like LIFE IS SWEET, FOUR DAYS IN JULY and NAKED. Altman and Sayles are both "painters". In fact, for the > "Matewan", Sayles and his DP - multiple Oscar winner, Haskel > Wexler, went through several Art Museums and books detailing > paintings by the various masters and story-boarded "Matewan" FRAME BY > FRAME as a series of portraits and paintings - it shows! BTY - > EVERYONE on that film worked for union scale. It cost three million to > make, yet easily compares cinematically to another classic done around > that time - "Dances With Wolves" easily - which cost, I > believe 23 million. I didn't even know that Robert Altman is a painter, yet one can discern the picture-perfect framing of his scenes... well, not the postcard-pretty ones, but the balance he achieves, the symmetry and the lack of parallax errors. I like the haunting and meditative pace of MATEWAN. Its almost like a homage to a mountain, very placid and Zen-like. As to LONE STAR, don't you think Frances McDormand was a tad awful in that film? I like this woman but her excesses make one forget she was the same actress in FARGO and MISSISSIPPI BURNING. Thanks, Franklin for a wonderful and informative post. By the way, who is this Robert who you are quoting? He seems to be quoting what I said. LOL!! Joseph in Manila np: Wynton Marsalis "Soul Gestures in Southern Blue" Vol. 2
