Weepy Ain't That Great

It’s time to earn an Oscar. “Why!! Why!! Why did little Commentarama Jr. have to catch inoperable lumbago?! And now of all times as the main site just lost its job at the blog packing plant and the bank is threatening to foreclose on our e-home. There is no Gaaawd!” Solid.... gold. Remember that when it comes time to vote.

I’ve been thinking about acting lately. Specifically, I’ve been thinking about something that has always bothered me. Have you ever noticed that when people talk about great ACTING! they always talk about someone doing a scene where they are depressed and angry. You know exactly what I’m talking about. The actor clenches their fists and stumbles against something and proclaims that all hope is lost because little Jimmy wasn’t found at the bottom of a well after all, and now their sham marriage will fall apart. End scene. Critics applaud like trained seals and actors tear up and start gushing about how brave the actor was for making it through that scene.

Wha??

Look, these people are handing you a cliché. Somewhere along the way, probably in 1934, some actor came up with this routine. They used it in some movie that everybody saw... The Maltese Lupus. By 1935, it was all the rage and everybody was doing it on screen. Since that time, everyone has done it and only it. It’s become the go-to way to handle drama. So whenever drama is called for, the actors don’t summon some knowledge of human nature from within, they just copycat... this... same... damn... scene. There’s no skill in that. There’s no talent required. It’s impossible to do it better than anyone else either. And yet, they get praised for it like they just invented acting. It’s a massive Hollywood circle-jerk.

If you really want an acting challenge, then convince me you’re in love. And I don’t mean doggy-style love... “oh boy oh boy, the master’s home!”

Wait.

Something about that doesn’t sound right. Let me try again.

If you really want an acting challenge, then convince me you’re in love. And I don’t mean the meeting of lost lovers scene where everyone jumps into each other’s arms. No. I don’t mean the post-sex scene where someone says, “I love you.” No. And not a “you saved me from that giant robot, I love you” moment either. I’m talking about two characters minding their own business with nothing special going on at that point in the film... just two people hanging out (in a fully clothed way), and make me believe that those two people love each other in that moment.

That’s a real challenge.

It’s the same thing with comedy. Comedies never win awards because they get looked down upon by critics. But comedies require skill. They require timing. They requiring aligning your behaviors with the need to hit the right comedic notes. I would suggest that few actors can do comedy. Yet, weepy gets the awards even though everybody can do weepy.

I think back to Ayn Rand at times like this. Shut up, yes I do. As I read The Fountainhead, Rand is talking about “those who cannot” and how they creep into positions of authority like professorships and regulatory positions. Then they warp the rules to punish the true creative geniuses so their own flaws can’t be exposed. Basically, since they lack genius, they redefine the rules to declare what they can do as genius and to stop geniuses from showing otherwise.

I suspect there is something similar going on here. I suspect that most actors in Hollywood can do the cliché weepy stuff, but they would be completely lost in things like comedies and where genuine emotions like love need to be shown. The result is that they look down on the things they cannot do as beneath them and they instead elevate the things where no real talent is needed and no true distinction is possible. Call it the tyranny of the mediocre. They essentially make themselves gatekeepers of legitimacy by telling you to look down on the things where people with superior skill can shine.

That’s how I see it.

Thoughts?

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Hollywood: The Political Weathervane

We’ve talked about this before in the comments, but I think it’s worth elevating this to article status. There have been a number of celebrities who have recently “come out” as Republicans by endorsing Romney or by flat-out saying they are Republicans. And many of these are minorities, like Stacy Dash and Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson. I think this is significant.

Everybody already knew about Drew Carey, Dennis Miller, Adam Sandler, Patricia Heaton and Kelsey Grammer. And don’t forget Tom Selleck, Robert Duvall, Jon Voight, Stephen Baldwin, Clint Eastwood, Scott Baio, Gary Sinise, Gene Simmons, Jerry Bruckheimer, and a few dozen more. But they’re all old, right? So how about Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey? Sarah Michelle Gellar?

Anyway, here’s where it gets interesting to me. In recent months, Kim Kardashian has come out as a Republican. So has Stacy Dash and Lindsey Lohan. At the same time, the ones who have come out are being much more vocal in going to the convention, campaigning for Romney, and generally expressing their views everywhere.

In 2008, for any of these people to declare that they are a Republican would have been career suicide. After 8 years of Bush, the Republican brand had become toxic. And these people depend on getting the nation’s youth, i.e. the brainless slacker demographic, to buy their films, shows or songs. The slacker demographic is notoriously groupthink in their outlook and simply cannot stomach liking the wrong things. Thus, declaring yourself a Republican in 2008 would likely have led to these celebrities losing the very audiences they rely upon. Not to mention that they work in an industry where the power-that-be are all doctrinaire liberals, and not just doctrinaire liberals, but obnoxiously anti-conservative liberals. . . the kinds of people who blacklist those with whom they disagree.

But now they are coming out and waving the flag. This is significant.

What this tells me is that the Republican brand is no longer toxic. But even more than that, it tells me that the Democratic brand has lost its luster and is no longer preferred in the culture. Otherwise, these people would still pretend to be Democrats or would remain silent. Indeed, if Kim “the Butt” Kardashian believed that her fans, who are core slackers, were Democrats, then she would never have declared herself a Republican because she knows her audience would have abandoned her. Ditto on Jessica Simpson, Stacy Dash, Nick Lachey, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Lindsay Lohan. And if the rest thought the public still saw Republicanism as some sort of disease, they certainly wouldn’t be openly campaigning. Don’t forget, in 2008, most conservatives in Hollywood were calling themselves “libertarians” or “independents,” and even well-known-conservative Kelsey Grammer was saying that his political views were not something he wanted to talk about. Now he’s trumpeting them.

How this plays out exactly remains to be seen, but I think it tells us that the cultural pendulum is swinging back. These celebrities are a weathervane for the culture, and they clearly think that average Americans are abandoning the Democrats and embracing the Republicans. Making this belief even stronger is the fact that many of these new “outies” are young women, the one demographic on which the Democrats hold an iron grip. Don’t underestimate the significance of this, this has the potential to change places like Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Wisconsin.

Thoughts?

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Liberal Hollywood Shortchanges Actresses

Originally posted at Big Hollywood: LINK

Great films need great actors and great actresses. Unfortunately, Hollywood doesn’t do great actresses anymore. . . it does Barbies. In truth, Hollywood never was great with actresses, but it’s gotten much worse lately. Talent, apparently, no longer matters when casting actresses, just looks. To be a modern “actress,” you need to be under 35 years of age and look like every other Hollywood ditz. What’s worse, Hollywood is now trying to pass off sexual exploitation as “strong roles” for women.





Megan Fox adjusts her "talent" before their next scene.





1. Dear Hollywood: Stop The Age Discrimination

Age discrimination is a problem in Hollywood. Seriously, what is the fascination with jamming twenty-somethings into every role? It doesn’t work. These young girls simply don’t have the maturity or the depth to play the parts of women. It strains credibility beyond the breaking point when they cast some silicon enhanced girl to play the nuclear scientist or the head of a corporation or. . . well, any woman in a position of authority. I know powerful women, professional women, and women with a great deal of maturity, and none of them look or act anything like Hollywood seems to think.

And please stop casting girls as the wives of old, old, old male actors. It’s creepy. Teri Garr and Richard Dreyfuss worked in Close Encounters because they looked like a couple. Septuagenarian Harrison Ford married to Megan Fox doesn’t. Not only can we not see them getting together in the first place, but we can’t see them as a “normal, loving couple.” Instead, the words “gold digger” and “cradle robber” and even “grave robber” come to mind. And holy cow, stop casting “mothers” who are only a year or two older than their movie “daughters.” Was there a plague in Hollywood that wiped out all the women over 40?

2. Dear Hollywood: Stop Cloning Actresses

Hollywood also needs to end its cloning experiments. It needs to stop rejecting actresses if they have the slightest trace of individuality or if their bone structure is 1% off the model. Seriously, this makes it impossible to cast people who look the part. Forget the nuclear scientist mentioned above, what about the average waitress or the mother of three or the cop? Real women don’t look, act or dress like Malibu Strip Club Barbie™. This is the female equivalent of casting only musclemen as extras, and is again kinda creepy.





"We are the Borg. We are ready for our close up."




More importantly, by casting clones, Hollywood guarantees that few modern actresses will be memorable because it’s the distinct actors we remember. Indeed, few of the top male actors fall into the “pretty boy” category. Outside of a Redford, a DiCaprio, or a Cruise, few leading men look anything like male models. Bogart was a small man with a crooked face and a lisp. Stallone looks like he lost a fight with a blender. Bruce Willis beat the blender, but it took 12 rounds. Jack Nicholson is the blender. How about James Cagney, DeNiro, Bill Murray, Charles Bronson, Steven McQueen, Clive Owen, Benicio Del Toro, Alan Rickman, Adrien Brody, Daniel Day-Lewis, Dustin Hoffman, Tommy Lee Jones, Richard Dreyfuss, etc. . . not a standard profile in the bunch. And when you get into character actors, the defects and distinctions multiply. . . Steve Buscemi anyone?

I'll bet you could visualize each of these men as you read the names. Why? Because these men are memorable. They weren’t cast because they are pretty to look at, they were cast because they are distinct -- they stand out both in looks and personality.

Believe it or not, the same thing has always been true with the great actresses as well. Look at the actresses we remember. Few of them can be called “classic beauties”: Lauren Bacall was rather butch, as was Katharine Hepburn, and is Sigourney Weaver. Lucille Ball was hardly a looker. Sophia Loren and Julie Andrews were beautiful, but not in a beauty queen sort of way. Loren was gorgeous and wild. Andrews had “girl next door” beauty. Bette Davis, Barbara Stanwyck and Angela Lansbury all looked 60 the moment they were born. We remember these actresses because they stood out, i.e. because they were different. What’s more, we feel we know them because their personalities come across so strongly on the screen.

Now tell me how many of these you can visualize: Scarlet Johansson, Kate Hudson, Rosie Whitely, Cate Blanchett, Elisha Cuthbert, Rachel McAdams, Kristen Stewart, Jessica Biel, and Elizabeth Shue Banks. I doubt most people could pick them out of a line up and none of them have memorable personalities. In fact, most actresses today are so interchangeable that I wonder if anyone would notice if you swapped a couple out in the middle of the film. . . “hey, weren’t you blonder before?” And even when they do stand out, it's usually for the wrong reasons: Megan Fox. . . idiot, Lindsay Lohan. . . train wreck, Anne Hathaway. . . bleached by aliens.

Unfortunately, because Hollywood is looking purely for beauty, they aren't finding great actresses anymore. To me, the test of a great actor/actress is whether or not they could have taken on a great role. For example, could any of the actor/actresses listed above replace any of the guys in Glengarry Glen Ross? The male actors listed above could have done it. Hepburn, Bacall, Weaver, Davis, Stanwyck and Lansbury could have done it. . . Julie Andrews, probably not. But what about the modern actresses just listed? Don’t make me laugh. Nor could any of them have taken over for Bacall in To Have and Have Not or Hepburn in The African Queen. Sure, they can all take over Megan Fox’s role in Transformers or whoever's role in the next romantic comedy, but that’s about it.

3. Dear Hollywood: Stop Lying About Strong Roles

Finally, we come to the issue of strong roles. Hollywood actresses have complained for some time about a lack of strong roles for women in Hollywood. I think their complaints are valid. But Hollywood doesn’t know how to fix the problem. So instead, they try to redefine the problem. Now we’re told about an El Guapo-like plethora of strong roles involving action heroines. But this is nothing but el toro kaka public relations.

Imagine you are a director and you want your daughter to have a “strong role” in your film. Here you are describing the role: “Basically, you put on a tight leather cat suit and some S&M gear. Then you run around shooting at people and flashing your chest and your butt. I will collect money from men who will reeeally enjoy watching you jiggle and bounce across the screen. Sound good pumpkin?”





"For an extra $10, I'll do an empowerment table dance."





Hollywood apparently sees no problem with this, as that pretty much describes most roles given to female action stars. But how is this a strong role? These women are acting out an adolescent male sexual fantasy. They might as well be in Hustler.

A strong role is one you would be proud to let people watch. It involves playing a character that either brings out strong emotions in the audience or it involves being the kind of person people respect. That means using your wits and maintaining your moral code in the face of adversity and pressure to surrender. It means overcoming the obstacles you face through strength of character. The leather-clad dominatrixes and slinky spies are not demonstrating some strength of character within themselves, they're selling sex.

Mommas don't let your daughters grow up to be actresses. . .

Am I right? What actresses would you say are great? And don’t you find it a little bit strange that a place as liberal as Hollywood would be so openly sexist and ageist? Hmmm.

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What Makes An Actor Great?

I’ve often wondered what makes an actor a great actor. It’s not as obvious as it may seem. Indeed, to answer the question of what makes an actor great, you need to start by asking what it is that we ask of actors? But that’s really where this whole problem begins. For it appears, that we want two contradictory things from our actors. And in the end, I think that truly great actors need to deliver both things. . . even though that sounds like a contradiction.

Looking at the films Hollywood has produced, it appears that actors generally fall into one of two categories: those who play themselves in each role and those who disappear completely into their roles.

Indeed, in the first category, you find people like Tom Cruise and Arnold Schwarzenegger. No matter what role they play, they remain Tom and Arnold -- just try to name the characters they’ve played. But that’s not to denigrate them. In fact, Tom and Arnold did wonders playing themselves. They managed to put millions of rear ends into seats across the entire planet, people remember their roles and still quote their dialog, and their movies still have staying power today. But something is missing, isn’t it? There is something about Tom and Arnold that keeps us from calling them great actors.

At first, I thought this might be a problem with the category itself, but that doesn’t seem to be the issue. I say this because Robert De Niro and William Hurt, both of whom have been called “the greatest actor of our generation,” fall into this category as well. And before you try to tell me that De Niro is “versatile,” tell me when he hasn’t played an Italian mobster or an Italian cop? And do you have any doubt that what you see on screen isn’t what you would meet in person? It’s the same thing with Hurt, though it took me a lot longer to realize that he fell into this category, because the roles he chooses are so varied.

So what is the difference between Cruise/Schwarzenegger and De Niro/Hurt? Could it be as simple as De Niro and Hurt sticking with drama, whereas Tom and Arnold stick with action flicks? Perhaps. But I think there is more to it. Indeed, I can’t see Tom or Arnold playing any of the roles in The Usual Suspects, Glengarry Glen Ross or L.A. Confidential even if they wanted to -- though De Niro or Hurt could do that with ease. So there must be something more missing than simply their choice of roles.

To continue, let’s leave that category for a moment. The other category includes actors who simply vanish into the roles they play. These actors so thoroughly become the characters they are playing that we all but forget they are actors. Instead, we see their characters as real people. Some of the better character actors fall into this category, as do guys like Daniel Day Lewis, Robert Shaw and Jeremy Irons.

But simply disappearing can’t be enough either. Tim Curry and Christopher Lloyd disappear into their roles quite nicely, yet they aren’t considered “great actors.” And if disappearing is all it took to be considered a great actor, then shouldn’t anyone who pulled off a monster suit character be considered a great actor? Again, there must be something more to it?

I think that “something” is the ability to stand at the top of both groups. Cruise may be at the top of the first group, but he simply can’t disappear into a character. Shaw became whoever he played, but people didn’t clamor to see his movies. But when you look at someone like Johnny Depp, you suddenly see the difference.

There is no doubt that Depp’s name on a movie pulls people into theaters, just as Cruise’s name does. There is something about Depp that is simply compelling and makes you want to see him act. Part of this could be that we know from prior experience that he will bring great acting to the role, but part of it must also be that there is something we like about him personally. Indeed, the fact that his interviews pull high ratings tells us this. But Depp also gives us more than Cruise. We know that once the film starts, Depp will not be playing “Johnny Depp as the spy.” Indeed, Depp more than anyone these days disappears into his roles so believably that we no longer see Johnny Depp at all. Instead, we see the quasi-inebriated Captain Jack Sparrow of Pirates of the Caribbean or that the slimy, cowardly, and yet compelling Dean Corso of The Ninth Gate. And that, I think, is the real difference. To be a great actor, an actor must have the compelling personality that makes us want to spend time with them, but once the film begins, they need the skill to vanish into the role so that all that is left is the character. The audience can’t be left seeing “Johnny Depp the pirate.”

Another actor who fits into this category would be Gene Hackman, who is a compelling actor but also presents compelling characters. Bogart and Jimmy Stewart pulled this off as well. I would add Harrison Ford to the list, at least until the last few years. From the actress ranks, I’d offer Glenn Close.

If I’m right, and I leave that up to you to decided and to comment upon, then the best advice we could give an actor would be to carefully hone a public persona that is irresistible to the public, but also to work hard to lose themselves in their roles.

So what do you think? Am I right? If not, what makes an actor a great actor? And tell us who you would include in that list?

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Shortchanging Actresses

Many Hollywood actresses claim that Hollywood shortchanges them. They claim the industry doesn’t take them seriously and that there are no good roles for women. You might not believe this, but I think they’re right. And I don’t think this is a good thing.

The way Hollywood selects actresses has become perverse. Forget about acting talent or being right for the part, those days are gone. Instead, Hollywood asks three questions these days: (1) are you under 35 year old, (2) do you have the dimensions of a Playboy centerfold, and (3) do you look like every other Hollywood ditz. If you can’t answer “yes” to all three, then don’t apply. This bothers me.

1. The Age Thing

What is the fascination with jamming twenty-somethings into every role? It doesn’t work. It strains credibility beyond the breaking point when they cast some silicon enhanced “young thing” to play the nuclear scientist (Denise Richards) or the head of corporation X or. . . well, any woman in a position of authority. I’ve met powerful men and women in my life, and they just don’t look or act like MTV-raised young hotties.

And stop casting these girls as the wives of old, old, old male actors. It’s ridiculous. Teri Garr and Richard Dreyfuss worked in Close Encounters because it was believable that these two would marry. Octogenarian Harrison Ford married to a Megan Fox is not believable. Not only do we have a hard time seeing them getting together in the first place, but there is no way we will see such a couple as a “normal, loving couple.” Instead, the words “gold digger” and “cradle robber” spring to mind much more so than “husband and wife.” And holy cow, stop casting “mothers” who are only a year or two older than their movie “daughters.” That just reeks of “fake movie family.”

These young girls simply don’t have the maturity or the depth to play the parts of women.

2. Ban Cloning

Another thing that really bothers me is that Hollywood is basically looking for clones when they cast modern actresses. They seem to want no trace of individuality. If you have so much as a hair out of place or a bone structure that is 1% less than optimum, then you’re gone. This just bugs me to no end.

First, this makes it impossible to cast people who look the part. Forget the nuclear scientist mentioned above, what about the average waitress or the mother of three or the nurse? In the real world, these women don’t look like Barbie. . . no one does. Heck, you can’t even cast the awkward girl next door anymore (the kind of girl who would date Jimmy Stewart or one of the Goonies), because all the actresses look like strippers now.

Secondly and most importantly, by casting clones, Hollywood guarantees that few modern actresses will be memorable. Indeed, it’s the actors and actresses who are not physically perfect that we remember. Seriously, think about it. Very few of the top male actors fall into the “pretty boy” category. Outside of a Redford, a DiCaprio, or a Cruise, few leading men look anything like male models. Bogart was a small man with a crooked face and a lisp. Stallone looks like he lost a fight with a blender. Bruce Willis beat the blender, but it took 12 rounds. Jack Nicholson is the blender. How about James Cagney, the Marx Brothers, Bill Murray, Charles Bronson, Steven McQueen, Clive Owen, Benicio Del Toro, Alan Rickman, Adrien Brody, Daniel Day-Lewis, Dustin Hoffman, Ben Stiller, Kirk Douglas and his chin, Tommy Lee Jones, Richard Dreyfuss, etc. . . not a standard profile in the bunch. And when you get into character actors, the defects and distinctions multiply. . . Steve Buscemi anyone?

Believe it or not, the same thing has always been true with actresses as well. Indeed, the most memorable actresses can hardly be called “classic beauties”: Lauren Bacall was rather butch, as was Katharine Hepburn, and is Sigourney Weaver. Lucille Ball was hardly a looker. Sophia Loren and Julie Andrews were beautiful, but not in a standard way. Judy Garland was downright homely. Betty Davis, Barbara Eden and Angela Lansbury all looked 60 the moment they were born. Etc. Yet, these are the actresses we remember so much more than the beauty queens.

Compare those names to today’s actresses, who all look alike. Heck, when I say names like Hudson, Winslet, McAdams and Blanchett, I’m not even sure I could identify them from photographs, even though I’ve seen their films. Indeed, they are so interchangeable these days that I sometimes wonder if anyone would notice if you swapped a couple out in the middle of the film?

Moreover, consider this difference: Which of the modern names couldn't take over Megan Fox’s role in Transformers or Kate Hudson’s role in. . . well, anything? Now ask yourself, who could have taken over for Bacall in To Have and Have Not or Hepburn in The African Queen?

That’s the reason this difference is important. Just as no pretty boy could have taken over for Jack Nicholson in The Shining, no bland, blond hottie could have taken over for any real actress in any of their definitive roles. But today’s actresses are so forgettable, so interchangeable, that any of them can play any role. They simply don’t stand out.

3. Strong Roles Need Strong Actresses

And that relates to the last issue that always arises: “there are no strong roles for women today.” You hear this all the time, and I actually think it's true. And I think this is a consequence of modern casting because there are almost no actresses left in Hollywood today who could even handle a “strong” role. Ask yourself, if you were going to replace any of the guys in Glengarry Glen Ross with a modern actress, who could possible fill one of those roles? Hepburn could have. Hudson sure as heck can’t. What if you wanted to replace Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada? Could Garner or Fox do it? Could any of the current crop? No, they don’t have the gravitas to play that strong of a personality.

That's why I think it’s no surprise that when Hollywood needs a strong woman, they hire a British actress like Judy Dench or Helen Mirren, because the Brits don’t seem to throw their actresses out once they hit the onset of middle age. If you've ever watched the new Doctor Whos or anything else from the BBC lately, you've seen a ton of impressive middle-aged, not-hot actresses. You just don't see that in Hollywood anymore.

I think this is horrible for films. Not only does it strain the credibility of films, as noted above, which makes it harder to believe what you are seeing on film, but it makes it that much harder to produce memorable roles for female characters. Memorable roles are what make movies interesting and what give them longevity. But you can't produce memorable roles if you don't have actresses who can play those roles. Thus, by repeatedly casting pointless fluff and should-be-strippers instead of talented actresses, Hollywood has made it all the harder to give us films that stay with us, i.e. great films.

And that stinks.

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