Special Secret Guest Post!
This New-York-based performer (and Emmy-nominated writer) has been a SAG member for 19 years, though this is his first time on the SAG Awards Nominating Committee. He works primarily in television -- most famously, playing a role on a series that has been seen in over 100 countries. We've invited him to share impressions from SAG Nominating Committee screenings which are happening left and right of late. Here we go...
THE FAREWELL: For what it’s worth, this is the only screening I’ve been to where the movie itself—not the panelist, but the movie itself—got a standing ovation. I, frankly, wasn’t bowled over by it (I thought, for such a dramatic subject, the emotions were curiously muted—I didn’t feel much during the movie, but maybe that’s me)…But anyway, the crowd loved it. When Awkwafina came out for the Q&A, the comments were positively effusive. One guy called it a “perfect” movie. Everything was perfect, he said: the acting, the writing, the directing, the editing. (The editing?) With a celebrity in the room, it’s hard to know when people are really being honest with themselves. But Awkwafina seemed super cool.
Side note: SAG members ask the dumbest questions. One person asked Awkwafina how she got her start in the business—which is fine, but I’m thinking, really? You’re in a room full of peers, you’ve just spent two hours watching something that’s ripe for discussion, and this is what you ask? Look it up online. At least it gave her an entree to talk about her youtube video “My Vag,” which, amusingly, caught a few people off-guard.
The Irishman and Marriage Story after the jump...
MARRIAGE STORY: The drama was okay, the comedy was gold. (It’s too bad there isn’t an acting award for someone who shows up in one scene and doesn’t say much, because Martha Kelly would totally win it.) The panel was Noah Baumbach, Laura Dern, Alan Alda (my hero), Ray Liotta, Azhy Robertson (all of nine years old), Julie Hagerty, Wallace Shawn and Kelly—who was so sweetly amazed that she was even a part of the panel. I have to say, I was a little turned off by Baumbach—who kept patting himself on the back about how balanced the story is. It’s not. It’s clearly from the male point of view—just like the other movie it keeps getting compared to, Kramer vs. Kramer (great movie, though). Most of it is told from the perspective of Adam Driver’s character, who is struggling to deal with curveballs thrown by his wife. (They created a life for themselves, for their son, in New York. Then she decides she wants to upend it all and go to L.A. to what—be in some ridiculous television show? You can sense Baumbach trying to be fair, but the characters’ actions speak for themselves.) It didn’t help that I’ve always found Scarlett Johansson to be kind of a wooden actress. Fun panel, though. In this one—and bear in mind, they try to keep the audience Q&A very short—someone asked each of the eight people to name their favorite line from the movie and their favorite line from any other movie they’ve been in. The only person who indulged in the second part was Ray Liotta, who barked “Fuck you, pay me.” (Fun fact: Ray Liotta’s cousin tutored me for the SATs! Okay, moving on…)
THE IRISHMAN: Physically, you feel the three and a half hours (boy, did my butt hurt)—but, emotionally, you don’t. It’s kind of miraculous, actually. He’s quite the storyteller, that Scorsese—even though this is less kinetic than his other gangster movies, you’re swept away nonetheless. I got a little tripped up by the young De Niro stuff—maybe because we all know what De Niro looked like in his 30s, and that ain’t it. The face stuff is okay, but he still has the body of a 76-year-old man. De Niro has some wonderful moments in the film (including a phone call scene that will probably get him the Oscar nomination), but might it have made more sense to cast a younger actor and then age him up? Because the old-age stuff they do on De Niro and Pesci—I don’t know if it’s digital or makeup, that’s how good it is—is amazing.
And speaking of Pesci, the crowd was absolutely rapturous (they clearly missed him). They cheered when he came on screen, when his name came up at the end, and every time the panel mentioned him. (He was not there. But almost everyone else was: De Niro, Pacino, Ray Romano, Bobby Cannavale, Anna Paquin, Jesse Plemons.) This was certainly one of the looser, more enjoyable panels I have been to; De Niro was his usual taciturn self, but Pacino was a hoot (he’s clearly enjoying himself these days…have you seen him on Inside the Actors Studio, interviewed by Ellen Burstyn?) and Romano was practically doing stand-up. (While referring to the fact that Scorsese had been trying to get the film made since 2007: “I’m glad it took that long. Otherwise, I’d never have been cast in it. In 2007, I was working at a Bed Bath & Beyond.” No, Ray, in 2007, you were a multi-millionaire whose super-successful sitcom had already been off the air for two years. But okay.) Oh…and stupid SAG question alert: Someone got up and asked De Niro which movie of his is his favorite. What is this, 'Entertainment Tonight'? Anyway, he said Raging Bull…and this one.