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Okay, it's been a while since we did one of these. Like this and I'll write a tweet about a favorite TV or movie performance!
The Terror, Adam Nagaitis
As the mutinous, social-climbing Mr. Hickey, Nagaitis has a kind of wet rat sensuality I've never seen elsewhere, cocksure and cunning, feeding without disdain on whatever is at hand.
As the mutinous, social-climbing Mr. Hickey, Nagaitis has a kind of wet rat sensuality I've never seen elsewhere, cocksure and cunning, feeding without disdain on whatever is at hand.
Christian Bale, American Psycho
His only really great role. Bale gets through Bateman's mythologization of his own emptiness to the venal, pitiable jealousies and anxieties that drive him, communicating the murderer's squirming fragility with incredible precision.
His only really great role. Bale gets through Bateman's mythologization of his own emptiness to the venal, pitiable jealousies and anxieties that drive him, communicating the murderer's squirming fragility with incredible precision.
Duane Jones, Night of the Living Dead
Watching Jones work through the body language of self-editing his words and behavior around the fragile, hysterical roles occupied by his white co-stars is grindingly intense, like a knife sharpened until it breaks.
Watching Jones work through the body language of self-editing his words and behavior around the fragile, hysterical roles occupied by his white co-stars is grindingly intense, like a knife sharpened until it breaks.
Sheryl Lee, Fire Walk With Me
One of the great performances of the last half-century. Lee is a white-hot point of nuclear fire, a fire with nothing but herself to burn. When she says "So you want to fuck the homecoming queen?" it feels like watching the sky fall.
One of the great performances of the last half-century. Lee is a white-hot point of nuclear fire, a fire with nothing but herself to burn. When she says "So you want to fuck the homecoming queen?" it feels like watching the sky fall.
Meiko Kaji, Lady Snowblood
A blisteringly isolated performance, desperate for connection and fatalistically resigned to its impossibility. With every stroke of her sword you can feel how badly she wishes she were killing herself and not the men in front of her.
A blisteringly isolated performance, desperate for connection and fatalistically resigned to its impossibility. With every stroke of her sword you can feel how badly she wishes she were killing herself and not the men in front of her.
Robert Shaw, Jaws
Shaw is wide open here, and inside there's only dark water and desperation and the sound of his mad laughter covering up his terror. It's a perfect turn as a frightened man running at his fear, unable to turn away from it even as he breaks down.
Shaw is wide open here, and inside there's only dark water and desperation and the sound of his mad laughter covering up his terror. It's a perfect turn as a frightened man running at his fear, unable to turn away from it even as he breaks down.
Nancy Marchand, The Sopranos
Livia only really looks alive when she's enraged, her slack facial skin pulling taught over her skull, her wrinkled lips peeled back from her teeth. Marchand gives her a cold, nakedly inauthentic quality I've never seen otherwise.
Livia only really looks alive when she's enraged, her slack facial skin pulling taught over her skull, her wrinkled lips peeled back from her teeth. Marchand gives her a cold, nakedly inauthentic quality I've never seen otherwise.
Alida Valli, Eyes Without a Face
Girlish, fatalistic, and deeply alienated, Valli as the disfigured Christiane is a breakable woman-child who lives only in other's visions of what she should be. Her gradual descent into despair is piteous.
Girlish, fatalistic, and deeply alienated, Valli as the disfigured Christiane is a breakable woman-child who lives only in other's visions of what she should be. Her gradual descent into despair is piteous.
Hari Nef, Assassination Nation
Nef more or less steals this movie with her sinuous, loose-limbed body language and expressive face. Her workaday hurts and heartbreaks hit as hard as her panic-stricken, desperate fight for survival in the third act.
Nef more or less steals this movie with her sinuous, loose-limbed body language and expressive face. Her workaday hurts and heartbreaks hit as hard as her panic-stricken, desperate fight for survival in the third act.
Gong Li, Raise the Red Lantern
Li is so believably embittered, so matter-of-fact about her fate as a stranger's plaything that she makes the vast compound where the film takes place feel like a tomb built solely for her occupation, immovable, severe, and final.
Li is so believably embittered, so matter-of-fact about her fate as a stranger's plaything that she makes the vast compound where the film takes place feel like a tomb built solely for her occupation, immovable, severe, and final.
