Three Thumbs Up: Ridley Scott

Well I haven't done one of these, my most backhanded of complimentary posts, in awhile! Indeed it's been so long that my old computer crashed and took with it the little thumb art that I made to go along with these posts but I think we can all agree that my rudimentary photoshoppery will not be missed. Anyway my "Three Thumbs Up" series is where I force myself to choose three things I like from an actor or a director or a whatever that I'm not especially a fan of. And today's lucky person is the fella I consider wildly overrated named Ridley Scott...

If only Ridley Scott’s movies were as good as his interviews

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) November 19, 2023

... who is turning 86 today and who has another messy slop-heap of a movie in theaters right now called Napoleon. Funny enough my last edition of this series was for Ben Affleck and one my choices was his role in Ridley's film The Last Duel -- a movie I genuinely loathe, except for Ben's performance. Funny -- right, Ridley? Hardy har. Anyway Ridley has some genuine masterpieces under his belt! I don't deny that! I just happen to think those happened many many decades ago and almost everything he's dropped since then has been stylish unfocused flim-flam. That said it's not like we're talking about someone deeply untalented. He remains an incredible crafter of images and atmosphere. I'm just of the mind that he's weirdly incapable of taking anything across the finish line anymore. His scripts are often to blame, but one gets the sense that he's chasing too many thoughts down too many tangents and (even worse) by the time the process is nearing completion he's just lost interest. (Fingers crossed he does right by Paul Mecsal in his Gladiator sequel.)

That said there are three movies he's made that I think

are genuine masterpieces. So let's focus on the good!

1. Alien

2. Blade Runner

3. Thelma and Louise

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Runners-up: Legend has its moments (i.,e. Tim Curry), as does the homoerotica of White Squall, and I like Prometheus more than most people even while I need to specifiy that I dig it as fun trash, full stop. And I genuinely loved The Counselor, as I think it was a truly madly deeply psychotic story that benefitted from Ridley's kitchen-sink approach, but I haven't re-watched it since it came out. And I have heard that the longer cut is even better, but then that's become the drum-beat with Ridley -- "Watch the director's cut, it's better!" But that's certainly not true about Blade Runner, and I still find Kingdom of Heaven a big honking snooze however he cuts it. 

Let's hear your thoughts on Sir Ridley in the comments!

Three Thumbs Up: Ben Affleck

It's been ages since I've updated this somewhat mean-spirited series of mine! But when I saw that today is Ben Affleck's 50th birthday I knew the time had come -- you see, "Three Thumbs Up" is where I choose three good performances from an actor I generally can't stand. It's kind of mean! It's true! But in the parlance of reality-show contestants I'm not actually here to make friends, I'm here to be an honest critic, and that sometimes involves spouting off the opposite of niceties. My dislike of Ben Affleck comes and goes -- which is to say that I've never found him particularly good at his chosen profession but sometimes he can be hot, and sometimes hot is enough. He and I are really on the down-swing at the moment, though -- I try to ignore gossip and tabloid stuff but if I see one more person cheer on that tawdry spectacle of him and Jennifer Lopez's "great romance" I'll plummet off the Winter River Bridge, I will. Anyway all that said in the spirit of birthday generosity here are three roles that he's perfectly acceptable in.

1. Gone Girl (2014) -- It is the understatement of the millennium to say that David Fincher knew what he was doing with the casting of this film, which is brilliant and unexpected from top to bottom (hello Neil Patrick Harris), but this leans so perfectly into Affleck's well of douchebaggery that it achieves Douchebag Nirvana. (Indeed you'll see below that "Douchebag" is really as far as I'm concerned the only role that Ben is suited for, and the only place he succeeds.) As "Nick Dunne" the object of Rosamund Pike's psychotic derision, Fincher's entertainment knows what this film's forebear Fatal Attraction didn't, not entirely anyway -- we are here to watch these white straight sleaze-balls squirm and suffer. (Bonus points for the dong flash.)

2. Shakespeare in Love (1998) -- I haven't seen SIL in twenty years but I'm one of those people who's always been fine with it having beaten the Spielberg movie for Best Picture, and I remember Ben being very charming and funny in a caddish way in this. In my head it's a direct precursor to our final entry in this list...

3. The Last Duel (2021) -- I hated this movie a whole lot, but Affleck was by leaps and foppish little bounds the best thing about it, which... well when you're saying that about a movie you know that we're in trouble. Anyway this feels like the above two roles in this list smashed together -- he's a charming cad in a period film, only using that patented douchbaggery to poison the well. I wouldn't have nominated him for any awards as some people were clamoring for because I don't think anything about Scott's film was worth rewarding -- as there are every year there were lots of good movies worth giving awards to that year and we didn't have to go digging through dreck just because big names were attached! -- but Affleck did bring some humor to an otherwise slog.

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What are your favorite Ben Affleck roles?

Three Thumbs Up: A Pacino By Any Other Name

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Scarface is on IFC right now and honestly the time has come to rewrite history where Michelle Pfieffer is the Acting Legend of the 1980s and Al Pacino is a flailing hambone who co-starred with her once

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) April 22, 2018

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It's been a very long time since I've done one of these posts - wherein I choose three roles I do like from a performer I tend not to like at all - but I tweeted the above the other day after the brouhaha out of the Scarface reunion at Tribeca, and today I see that it's Pacino's 78th birthday... and so let's do this.

First things first: listen, I know people like Al Pacino. He is a living legend who's starred in some of the most important movies ever made. I get it. I am not here to take your precious Pacino away. I just find him... let's just say he is not to my tastes. I mean there exists in this world a Greta Gerwig movie I haven't been able to make myself watch, and it's because it's really an Al Pacino movie. That said if you were holding a gun to my head I could come up with more than three performances from him I do admire. But you're not. My head is gun free. So I'm keeping it to three...

Michael Corleone, The Godfather - 

What, I'm not insane. (But Part II is overrated.)

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Steve Burns, Cruising - He's not actually "good acting" in this, he's ridiculous, but I like the ridiculous and I love the movie and think his strutting nonsense makes this a better movie, so I'll take it.
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Sonny, Dog Day Afternoon - Easily far and away by leaps and by bounds my favorite performance of his. It actually might be the only performance of his I actively "like" and don't just admire as "good acting." He's very moving here.

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Runners-up: Frankie & Johnny, Dick Tracy, 

The Devil's Advocate, Insomnia, Angels in America

So what are your favorite Pacino performances?

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Three Thumbs Up: Cary Fukunaga's 40

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This is a bastardization of my "Three Thumbs Up" series, which I created as a way to give a little bit of love to actors that I generally do not like - normally what we would do is scrounge up three times we didn't hate watching them on-screen. But I haven't done one of those in quite some time, and so I want to take a different angle on it today - it's the director Cary Fukunaga's birthday today. We like him just fine. The beloved pigtailitier is turning 40. (Yes this means he and I were born five days apart, hint hint wink wink.) 

But as much of a name as Fukunga has made for himself, he's only directed three feature films. (It was his TV series True Detective established him as a name - sidenote: what do we think about Mahershala Ali doing the third season of that show?) Otherwise, as with the It adaptation he keeps falling off of projects, or directing small things like Jake Gyllenhaal singing. (We're not complaining.) Anyway we like all three of his films very much! But we're going to rank them from bottom to top, because why not.

3. Beasts of No Nation -- I never reviewed this apparently? I have a vague recollection of Netflix dropping it at a busy time - it's like the memory of the guilt I kept feeling having not written about it. But I also have the ghost sensation of that feeling nagging at me because of how good and moving Beasts was - a difficult watch as assured by the subject matter but worth it, with Idris Elba giving an ickily charismatic turn and Abraham Attah a super find.

2. Jane Eyre -- A gorgeous and sad, sadly gorgeous, rendering of Bronte's master-work with two super duper performances anchoring it. It feels underrated and under-remembered here just six years later, but I hope kids in High School are being forced to watch it. (My review here.)

1. Sin Nombre -- A masterpiece, and Cary rightly built an enviable career off of it. It's no surprise he was able to land actors like Michael Fassbender and Mia Wasikoska's caliber two years after working with a cast of mostly non-professionals on this. It was my 13th favorite film of 2009 but I would probably place it higher today. (Here's my original review.)

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How would you rank Cary's movies?

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Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

LA Story (1991)

Harris: SanDeE*... your breasts feel weird.

SanDeE*: Oh that's cuz they're real.

I'd totally forgotten that Sarah Jessica Parker's character spells her name "SanDeE*" in this movie - god I love LA Story. I haven't watched it in years and years though - time for a revisit! Oh and a happy 50 to SJP today. I might not be the world's biggest Sex and the City fan but she's made a ton of movies in the 90s that I loved. 

Actually now that I think about it, SJP would be perfect for one of my "Three Thumbs Up" posts, where I choose three performances that I like from an actor that I don't. Saying that I "don't like" SJP might be an overstatement - I grew tired of Sex and the City's schtick quick but she was generally not my problem, and I find her presence charming despite myself. Sex and the City just swallowed ALL the air in the room, ya know? So let's step in the time machine and remember a world before Carrie Bradshaw...

Ed Wood (1994) - The voice of sanity in an insane world... an insane world that thankfully has no patience for boring ol' sanity and her cutesy-poo ringlets. But Parker's very funny constantly side-eyeing the weirder and weirder proceedings, and slowly inching her way the hell outta there.

Mars Attacks (1996) - How strange that Tim Burton brought out the best from her. I suppose her hard sharp angles attract the cartoonist in him - she's a pencil's idea of a hot chick. But I'll be dog damned if that image of her merged with a chihuahua isn't the greatest thing she's ever done.

The First Wives Club (1996) -- I contemplated a few of her roles for this third choice - I remember being okay with The Family Stone, and digging Honeymoon in Vegas way way back when, for instance. And here's a shocker of a factoid for you: I have never seen Hocus Pocus all the way through! But I love First Wives Club and First Wives Club isn't the kind of movie I'm gonna blog about unless it sneaks up on me like this, so let's say First Wives Club for number three. She's clearly having a blast making you hate her, anyway.

What's your favorite SJP performance?

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Three Thumbs Up: Chloë Moretz

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I reviewed Olivier Assayas' new film Clouds of Sils Maria over at The Film Experience last week during the New York Film Festival and I only briefly mentioned Chloë Moretz in there (snidely calling her "well-cast") but she came up in the comments where I had to admit, sigh, I actually think she's terrific in the movie. I mean I loved the movie as a whole so maybe she was the lucky recipient of some happy-mood spill-over, but in a couple of key scenes I actually think she, sigh, nails it. It's hard for me to say! I have struggled against her tide for quite awhile now. But here we are and I'm gonna give her some props and what better way than my most passive-aggressive post series, wherein I select three not-bad performances from folks I otherwise can't tolerate.

The Amityville Horror (2005) - Okay honestly I didn't even remember her being the little girl in this movie until I looked it up, and this is an awful awful awful remake, but anything that makes me remember Ryan Reynolds walking around with a beard on his face and not much else on the rest of his body, well I ain't gonna knock it. (Although judging from that picture Ryan might be the reason she's been forever stamped with that irritating pout, him not knowing his strength and all.)

30 Rock - This has been my go-to performance of hers to prove I'm not a hateful monster spitting in the face of a child for some time; I cringed when I found out she was showing up on one of my favorite shows but she ended up being very funny as Jack Donaghy's nemesis for the three episodes she showed up on."I just had fruit roll-ups for dinner at a strip club!"

Clouds of Sils Maria - Alright so this might be cheating, using the performance that inspired this post in the first place, but don't push me; I'm trying, dammit. And I do have things to say about her work in this movie. She really only shows up a few times but they're all vital to understanding the film, spinning our understanding of Juliette Binoche's character into a series of opposing directions - Jo-Ann Ellis is basically a Lindsay Lohan type, but every time we meet her it's some splintered side of her we're seeing (putting on a good face for her first meeting with Binoche, all the way through to the nasty indifference once the play they're working on together is on) and Chloe really made me see them all as part of one girl. The fun comes in watching the way these different aspects are filtered through Binoche - how she sees Jo-Ann each time, and how she changes because of what she sees. Anyway I really can't underestimate how vital I think Chloe's work is here.

What's your favorite Chloë Moretz performance?

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Three Thumbs Up: George Clooney

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Not to usher in a black cloud on his 53rd birthday (with him finally settling down and everything!) but does anybody else feel their like for George Clooney hitting a wall these days? I thought his current brand of smug was used well in Gravity - it was a gag, how assured he was... til it wasn't - but there's something about his delivery these days that's begun to really grate on my nerves. It was especially pronounced when I watched the unforgivably tepid The Monuments Men this past weekend - you really get the feeling that he really thinks you would be way better off if you just let Goerge Clooney help you out, and it's started to make my skin crawl. 

And looking through his last several movies - again Gravity excepted, but titles like The Ides of March and (ugh) The American and (UGH TIMES INFINITY) The Descendants... well it's an exercise in exhausting yourself and all the goodwill you have in your body and may ever have. We're not quite to the point of none ever return we're at with Matthew McConaughey or Robert Downey Jr., the two former recipients of one of these posts - unlike those just-named fellas I could name more than three roles of George's that I've enjoyed here (his work on Golden Girls is iconic), and also I'm on-board with George's political activities and/or ambitions - but things are veering towards dire-straits enough that I feel I should remind myself of me and Georgie-boy's good times together.
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Fantastic Mr. Fox -- The bright spot from the past several years on his resume that doesn't rhyme with Bravity - I've seen FMF (that abbreviation makes it look like a personals ad) several times now and it's charm has legs. Long pretty legs. Long pretty legs covered with teensy little individual hairs that are being manipulated frame by frame by frame by obscenely dedicated animators. Anderson uses Clooney's voice, assured to the point of snapping, perfectly - it's as frustrating as it is freeing.

Out of Sight -- A movie so good it made us all think that there was a point to Jennifer Lopez for a hot minute. (Some people seem to still labor under that delusion, even.) That sex scene, sexless as it is, remains a high water mark.

From Dusk Til Dawn -- When I think of FDTD I immediately think of a couple things - Salma Hayek dancing in a bikini with a boa constrictor, Tom Savini's dick-gun... and those snaking tendrils of tattoo coming up George Clooney's neck make the cut every time. I don't think those things (or Tarantino, for that matter) get enough credit for every single person on Earth knowing the names of George's entire string of nobody girlfriends and the exact lake he's got a villa on.

What is your favorite George Clooney performance?

Three Thumbs Up: Matthew McConaughey

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I really couldn't type enough reallys out without wearing my fingers down to nubs when I try to express to you how much I really really really et cetera for infinity hate Matthew McConaughey's phony corn-pone performance on True Detective. Oh I have no doubt, none at all, that there's some projection going on with how undeserving of all the praise I found his work in Dallas Buyers Club (not to mention that whole gross movie - I somehow missed director Marc-Jean Vallee's gross comments about transgenderism on the radio back in December, adding fuel to the hate-fire) and how grotesque I found his sweaty self-infatuated behavior on the awards circuit. (Don't even get me started on Jared Leto though.) The passion with which I am loathing Matthew McConaughey and everything he smears himself across these days does seem to be inversely related to the praise he gets - the more people go on and on about how great he is, the more frantic my own bewilderment at said praise gets, and the more worked up I become. I'm drowning here.

I realize this is not healthy. I was watching the most recent episode of True Detective last night (I keep watching because there is stuff I love about it) and it probably was the best episode so far - there were a couple of reveals that had me super creeped out. But instead of being able to appreciate that every time McConaughey opened his jabber-jaw I just wanted to throw my TV out the window. So what I need here before next week's finale is a deep breath. A talking down. I hate to even keep his name in the air right now but my sanity, it needs a'fixin. And I introduced this series just last week for this very reason, so let's do this thing. 

... for Matthew McConaughey.

Frailty - It's been years, I really should rewatch this movie of Bill Paxton's (why hasn't Paxton directed another movie since 2005 anyway?), I remember liking it quite a bit, and I remember thinking McConaughey was very good, nicely restrained. I don't know if we'll ever get another performance from him this dialed back since he's become such a clownish slurring caricature.

Reign of Fire - From dialed back to dialed to one thousand and fifty percent - if we're gonna get a clownish caricature, I prefer mine to be chomping on a cigar and slaying dragons; call me crazy. This is a pretty terrible movie but it lights up every time McConaughey shows up (or Christian Bale takes his shirt off).

Magic Mike - A moment, a brief shining moment, where I thought Matt and I might  actually stumble out of the darkness together, into the light. He wasn't my favorite thing going on in Magic Mike but that's a movie I really like, and not just for the asses, so there was stiff (hardy har) competition. And by the time last year's Oscars rolled around I did think it would've been a hoot if he got a nomination for it. Little did I know how fast the worm would turn on that one.

What are your favorite Matthew McConaughey performances?

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