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He seems like a actor who goes at his own pace, it can be a success for some if you pick great films and roles. But sometimes it can backfire on some. But Bana's had a decent career, for me he's never come close to topping his breathtaking performance in Chopper. But he's done fine, sure his run from Chopper to Munich is probably his best.
Chopper, Black Hawk Down, Finding Nemo, Hulk, Troy and Munich. I'm sure Hulk's not so great success did him in for studios as a superstar. But looking at his post 2005 career, I wouldn't call it a fall from grace.
Lucky You (from the director of LA Confidential, didn't prove a success but you can see why he did it)
He's excellent in Romulus, My Father, probably his best role since Chopper
The Other Boleyn Girl, with two popular young actresses and him been the lead male.
Star Trek proved a success. He's a good villain in that.
Funny People, he's funny in that.
The Time Travelers Wife, probably his most famous role for a big audience.
From 2011 onwards, I think he's been on cruise control for sure. He's done good stuff but he's mostly been in supporting roles in Lone Survivor and The Finest Hours.
He probably never lived up to Chopper, say look at Tom Hardy for example after he did Bronson, he mixes commercial blockbusters with indie work and has lived up to his potential. I think with Bana I think he's never lived up to the hype rather then fallen from grace.
She's a interesting actress, Run Lola Run and The Bourne Identity are probably going to be the roles she's always remembered for. Plus she's never got the meaty roles like her former partner Tom Tykwer gave her. Probably from the late 90's and early 00's was her peak as biggish actress. She's been a very hit and miss actress in terms of her choosing her projects, a lot of the work she followed Run Lola Run with were B-Movies or horrors.
The Bourne Identity & Supremacy, Blow, Storytelling, Run Lola Run and The Princess and The Warrior. I liked her in Romulus, My Father and Eichmann both from 2007. I remember she was in a film from 1999 with Daniel Bruhl called Schlaraffenland that's worth checking out. Also a film called Atomised from 2006, which is well worth checking out but not to everyone's tastes to be fair.
We have to remember Franka was only 24 when Run Lola Run was released, still pretty young for someone to get the success she did. People forget how big that film was when it came out, it was probably the biggest Foreign cinema release that year and probably of the 90's. It's a iconic role that would be tough to surpass for any actress. She's done well to still be working actress today.
I'd say yes for sure, definitely top 3 no argument.
Since 1997, she's been knocking out great work. She was fantastic in Paradise Road (1997), Oscar and Lucinda (1997), Elizabeth (1998), The Ideal Husband (1999), The Talented Mr Ripley (1999), Charlotte Gray (2001), Heaven (2002), Veronica Guerin (2003), Coffee and Cigarettes (2003), The Missing (2003), The Aviator (2004), Little Fish (2005), Babel (2006), Notes on A Scandal (2006), I'm Not There (2007), Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007), Blue Jasmine (2013), Carol (2015), Thor: Ragnarok (2017).
Those are the films I think she's at the top of her game in imo. Her C.V doesn't have that many duds in them if at all.
So many in her resume to be fair.
Heavenly Creatures (1994)
Sense and Sensibility (1995)
Iris (2001)
Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind (2004)
Little Children (2006)
Revolutionary Road (2008)
Steve Jobs (2015)
The Dressmaker (2015)
I never really rated her Oscar Winning performance in The Reader, also thought that was "snubbed you for years, here's you're Oscar" win.
There's a great film in there but I felt it was wasted on the romance stuff with Shia and Sasha Lane. I end up only giving it a 6/10, which is a shame cause it had so much potential but went down the wrong path for me.
For me, I would have done a film about Sasha Lane's character getting out of a abusive relationship and wanting to find a new family and finds it with rag tag family. I would have shown it with these group of interesting characters, with Riley Keough and Shia LaBeouf been like the mum and dad of the group. Having Sasha mix with the other's and become like a mum and friend to them. They had so many interesting characters in the film but decided to make it all about Shia and Sasha romance. I would have cut the romance out of it.
We barely get to know the rest of the gang, and I didn't like the romance subplot. Really wanted to know more about Riley Keough's character. Such a shame really.
I don't know what you can get in the states but good TV series from Australia
Wentworth Prison- a female Prison drama, think more OZ then Orange is the new black.
Underbelly- First two or three seasons are great, avoid the rest imo.
Rake- Far better then the U.S Remake
The Secret Life of Us- Stick with the first 3 seasons, most of the original cast drop like flies as each season goes on. Joel Edgerton got his start in this.
I wouldn't call real life Paige model material, she's not a bad looking woman especially when she first hit the WWE. She was always going for this Anti-Diva thing (I think the WWE officials were pushing that on her) but I always got she wanted to be a Diva and she totally killed her gimmick for some once she started to become a regular on Total Diva's.
Django, Basterds and Kill Bill all have great stuff in them but they have a lot of weaknesses in them, and most of them are too overlong. Tarantino peaked with his first three films imo. A lot of Anderson's work are original and god knows what his influences are in some cases.
With Friedkin I think you could even go with The Boys In The Band, which is a fantastic film. So that's 4 in a row. He even had Cruising and To Live and Die in L.A to come as well.
There Will Be Blood is the greatest film of the last thirty years or so for me, always going to be tough to top that. I thought The Master and Phantom Thread are masterpieces, and Inherent Vice a strong film not quite up there with his truly great work.
He's never made a bad film so far, and all of work ranges from 4/5 to 5/5. I won't rule him out churning out a film that comes touching distant of There Will Be Blood.
She was the best supporting actress from a pretty poor year to be fair, and I thought Ruel was very good.
The Nominees that year
Diane Ladd- Rambling Rose
Juliette Lewis- Cape Fear
Kate Nelligan- The Prince of Tides
Jessica Tandy- Fried Green Tomatoes
Not a strong year to be fair.
Wouldn't disagree with anyone who has Se7en as their favorite Fincher film. It's definitely in the top 3 for me, I still think Fight Club is the best thing he's done to date. Zodiac is another straight out masterpiece as well.
Agreed 100%, shocking it's rating is 6.2 on IMDB for me it's a 7.7 to 7.9 at best. I can see why the critics and audience might have taken agaisnt it at the time of it's release. Critical of Obama and his government was a brave ballsy move that didn't pay off and I'm sure it pissed off a lot of the film critics who supported the man. Also for audiences expecting a Snatch like comedy/gangster instead got a slower pace downbeat film instead weren't please. The film reminds a lot of the 70's gangster films like The Friends of Eddie Coyle.
It's a far bleaker film the more you watch it, seen as how stupid and dumb everyone is besides Brad Pitt's Jackie and Richard Jerkin's Driver/Council man. You actually feel for Scoot McNairy's low rent criminal Frankie as he clearly knows as it leads to his end that he's out of his depth. Fantastic performances all round, especially from James Gandolfini as Mickey, the over the hill and heartbroken hitman Jackie hires and Ben Mendelsohn as Frankie's junkie mate Russell. Also Ray Liotta in a smallish role. Brad Pitt probably delivers one of his best performances for me in this.
Andrew Dominik is such a underrated director, with only 4 films under his belt in 19 years. One of them in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford been one of the best films in the last 19 years. Looking forward to his action film War Party with Tom Hardy and his Marilyn Monroe biopic Blondie coming up.
I think when Ben is seen with a different girl after she disappears, is when he feels Haemi is ready to be on her own, and he takes on his next disciple. The whole statement on how 'you don't believe you have an orange in your hand, you 'forget' it's not there in the first place' really comes into play here. That's why he keeps her watch and her cat. That's why he lies to Jongsu's face and convinces Haemi to do so as well.
Ben probably has some sort of superiority complex, and, as he puts it simply, 'plays' with other people. He loves seeing others go through different emotions, ones he can't go through himself (he states he can't cry), he's fascinated with manipulating others into transforming into completely different people, and seeing them lie to themselves, and others, thus 'playing' with their emotions. Definitely a hobby that came as a by-product of growing up rich and not learning about dealing with consequences of one's own actions. Which is why he seems genuinely surprised when Jongsu stabs him and kills him in the end, since he thought it was all a game and he himself would never be on the receiving end. I personally think Ben had so much money to himself he never had to work, and boredom drove him to manipulating others as a sense of satisfaction, with the objective of allowing his victims to transform themselves being some sort of 'moral' justification for his actions.
Could be, I think it's far too easy imo. I found this on Reddit that gives a different view on that happened in the film. I'm liking it more as I read it.
I'm pretty sure after thinking very much about the film that Steven Yeun's character essentially helps girls like Shin Haemi, girls who are at the short end of the stick and want to 're-invent' themselves by leaving everything in their life behind and becoming someone completely different. One of these methods is basically learning how to convincingly lie to their friends about past experiences, or about completely new traits about themselves. Hence the whole 'pantomime' technique. I feel like the whole 'trip to Africa' was a lie and Shin Haemi was consulting Ben on how to detach herself from her old life and leave everything behind. One of her motivations clearly being to become an actress. If she can convince her only friend, if she is willing to take drastic measures, then she has what it takes.
She's obviously able to convincingly conjure up stories (she already aspired to become an actress beforehand and could lie to her parents in the past), and I feel like Ben convinced her to lie to the one person she truly trusted, Jongsu. In the scene involving her dancing topless at dusk, I think its supposed to portray her feelings of re-inventing herself as someone new, then when her high slowly fades away she realizes how much she has lost her old self. This is further emphasized when Jongsu confronts her about becoming a whore. I felt it was somewhat odd at first that she would lie to the one person she trusted, but I believe Ben convinced her to do so.
Fantastic film, had me thinking long after watching it. I have my own take on what happened with Hae-Mi, but I could be totally wrong. Great performance from Steven Yen as Ben, even at the end you don't even know if he's just a bored rich guy looking for friendship in the wrong way or something worse. Yoo Ah In as Jong-su was fantastic. Jeon Jong-Seo as Hae-Mi really left a mark when she left the film midway through, you need a actress you leave a impression and she did.
It's definitely not a film who want to be led by the hand through what's going on. The ending will upset few. But I loved the film.
She was going to stay with Craig/Malkovich as she thought whoever is in the body of Malkovich will please her plus using Craig for all the fame and wealth as he was so loved up. Then over time soon finding out that it was Lottie not Malkovich she loved. I don't think she loved Craig at all and found him a loser and only stayed with him cause of her own greed.
The only good people would be Malkovich and young child Emily, they are just vessels for greedy people to live on forever no matter the difference between Dr. Lester and Craig in terms of their personalities both are cruel to what they are doing to another living person. Lotte I'm on the fence with, she only did the same thing Craig was doing but found success with it, basically falling in love with Maxine. Craig and Lotte marriage seemed like a loveless one before Maxine came on the scene, so it was bound to happen. Maxine, changes for the better in the end knowing she messed up. But before that she was really a cruel person. Craig doesn't change and is the same guy he was in the beginning.
Craig deserved everything he got. He was a married man who went out of his way to bed another woman (Maxine), used another human's vessel to bed said woman, happily screws over his wife cause she pretty much got the woman he wanted, is a wimpish selfish arrogant man. He was even at a point willing to let his pregnant wife die to stay in the body of Malkovich. Sure Maxine is flawed but at least by the end she redeemed herself and
Craig deserved what he got.
Looper is a good film, flawed like most of his work but a good sc-fi film. Brother's Bloom is underrated, with a starry cast and interesting plot seem to slip by without much fuss when it was released. Rian's a weird director, he's yet to direct a full on masterpiece and his films have been flawed but still worth a watch.
I think she did by the time she was pregnant and soon figured out it wasn't about Malkovich like she thought it was but really about the person inside and it was Lottie who she loved. She only cared about Lottie in Malkovich but at the end she wanted Lottie without Malkovich.
I think Maxine came off as a heartless person at the start but gradually you can see her change especially around Lottie. She likes Lottie cause she's not pretending to be anyone but herself. You can see when she decides to go off with Malkovich/Craig that she's in two minds. The truth is people can change with their mistakes and time, she finds out Malkovich isn't making her happy and that Lottie was the one she wanted.
I think Maxine loves Lottie in the end.
I think it was a successful film and it worked it's gimmick well, 40's noir set in High School. I think down to having a charismatic lead and well written hero, once you have that in place you can wing it with the rest. The film flows really well, besides the odd sluggish moment. Some of the cast don't feel comfortable with the dialogue but most aren't on screen long enough to really make too much damage. But overall I think it's Rian Johnson best film to date.