Take Three: Chris Cooper

Craig here with this week’s Take Three. Today: Chris Cooper

Take One: Adaptation. (2002)
Cooper was up against a quartet of big names in the 2003 Best Supporting Actor Oscar race: Christopher Walken (Catch Me if You Can), Ed Harris (The Hours), John C. Reilly (Chicago) and Paul Newman (Road to Perdition). As the then least weighty name, his nomination didn’t necessarily guarantee success. But, conversely, his fifteen prior award wins and a further 5 nominations for the role spoke volumes. He emerged victorious, yet, inexplicably, Adaptation remains his only nod to date.

Spike Jonze’s very meta, self-referencing Adaptation was unique and playful in equal measure. It mulled over plenty of original ideas with its life-fiction overlap. Cooper, as orchid thief John Laroche, a real-life figure, stole the film away from actors as lively as Nicolas Cage, Meryl Streep and Tilda Swinton. He played the wry humour and the tragedy of Laroche with equal skill. The event that haunts him (the death of his wife in a car accident) has plot repercussions that Cooper almost invisibly folds into his performance. He uses Laroche’s dry, off-kilter amiability as a subtle yet defining trait. And in the driving scenes featuring with Streep he can be glimpsed looking cautiously for each road turn, knowing danger can arrive out of anywhere, any day. Such moments reveal how immersed Cooper is in the role. But, further than that, he navigates the increasingly bizarre and intentionally conventional plot swerve into thriller territory with ease. It’s a cranky, clever piece of acting both oddly knowing and incredibly moving.

Thanks to his Oscar win here, his career since has been a plethora of top-drawer performances, not least his largely under-appreciated role in Take Two’s film...

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A Modern Day Fleming?

Jose here. I am fully aware that Stephen Daldry isn't among the most beloved filmmakers in the world; however, I feel that he's earned a bad rep on some extremely unfair bases, given that he excels at a kind of filmmaking that was the norm during Hollywood's golden age. His entire career seems to have been made to piss off auteur theorists, and today on Mr. Daldry's 52nd birthday, I couldn't help but wonder: is he a modern day Victor Fleming?

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Take Three: Melissa Leo

Craig here, back with the third and final season of 'Take Three'.

This week: Melissa Leo

Take One: Red State (2011)
Leo gives an ugly yet riveting supporting performance as Sara in Kevin Smith’s Red State. She’s the matriarch with no maternal manners of the Five Points Trinity Church and wife to Michael Parks’ Phelps-like religious nutjob. We first see her open a trailer door to three horny teens who, we eventually gather, she entraps with the promise of a ‘good time’. She’s chugging a beer, resignedly eyeing these unsuspecting victims, playing her part in their “punishment”. Leo makes Sara immediately unlikeable. She’s a fully paid-up cult member either lost in ecstatic zeal (when Parks’ Abin spouts his bile-filled sermons) or riddled with utter contempt for ‘outsiders’ (all other times). But at no point does Leo deliver a two-dimensional portrait of hatefulness.

It takes a seasoned pro to make such a distanced and indefinably spiteful presence feel truly compelling. There’s something horribly absorbing about the way Leo carries herself. [More after the jump]

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3 Days Until Handsome Bludgeoning...

Oscar is an octogenarian so you know he's heard everything. He's been reviled, exalted, and called all sorts of things other than "Oscar" over the years. My favorite name-calling recently was from Daniel Day-Lewis. At the 80th Oscars in February 2008, he called our shiny man the "the handsomest bludgeon in town".

Remember that?

That's the closest I'll ever come to getting a knighthood so thank you. My deepest thanks to the members of the Academy for whacking me with the handsomest bludgeon in town. I'm looking at this gorgeous thing you've given me and I'm  thinking back to the first devilish whisper of an idea that came to him and everything since.

Mad Beautiful-Headed P.T.It seems to me that this sprang like a golden sapling out of the mad beautiful head of Paul Thomas Anderson.

I wish my son and my partner H W Plainveiw were up here with me, the mighty Dylan Frazier. So many people to thank. One amongst them would be Mrs Plainview down there, the enchantingly optimistic, openminded and beautiful rebecca miller.

I hope that all of those to whom I owe and to whom feel the deepest gratitude will forgive me if I say just simply 'Thank you, Paul.'

I've been thinking a lot about fathers and sons in the course of this. I'd like to accept this in the memory of my grandfather Michael Balkan, my father Cecil Day Lewis and my three find boys Gabriel Ronan and Kashel. Thank you very much indeed, thank you.

This is not Dylan Frazier. HW Plainview had to put on a few years first.

Only an actor as great as Daniel Day-Lewis could make you forget that they're actually elegant and erudite and endearing in person. When he's onscreen in There Will Be Blood, glowering and strategizing his heart pumping out only oily greed it's impossible to imagine that they're the same person.

When do you think we'll see a performance that massive winning Best Actor again? Don't say "the next Paul Thomas Anderson picture!" because then I'll have to remember that it's Phillip Seymour Hoffman who's starring in it. When do you think we'll start seeing production stills from The Master? Even with PSH leading I want. Gimme.

15 Days... (Remember When?)

Just a fortnight + 1 until Hollywood's High Holy Night

Remember what Jude and Nicole were looking at?
Remember when?

Jude Law Nicole Kidman Renée Zellweger

What profiles those two have, eh?

Continue for flashback / discussion

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