Saturday, October 17, 2009

Underappreciated Actors.

I have an obsession with actors who are underappreciated--I'm not sure what it is--maybe I feel like if no one else knows who these actors are at least I recognize their greatness (of course this could also be construed as if I like holding this knowledge over the heads of those I consider less cultured than myself--or maybe I'm just incredibly nerdy). I suppose my obsession started after I really got to love Gone With The Wind and I realized how much I loved the actor who played Ashley Wilkes (whose name is Leslie Howard--it's such an annoyance for me that no one knows his actual name) and I felt so bad that this character got everyone's hate (and justly) but still...So I looked up other movies he was in and I discovered how much I loved this actor--my three favorites are:
1. Intermezzo--A Love Story (Ingrid Bergman's Hollywood debut)
2. The Petrified Forrest (made Humphrey Bogart a star--he named one of his kids Leslie because Leslie Howard petitioned for Bogie)
3. The Scarlet Pimpernel
I also love Edward Norton (and if you know me then you know the extent of my love for him) I first saw him in Primal Fear during my Junior year of high school and his performance just blew me out of the water--plus he totally acts the pants off of Richard Gere and Laura Linney. After I saw him in this, I looked him up on www.imdb.com and started watching his movies and looking up reviews for his movies in Entertainment Weekly (my go-to review guide) and found out that critics love him--it was the mainstream who didn't really know who he was, which makes me really sad because if people went to the movies and saw actors like this on the big screen more often then the standard for theatergoing would be higher.
Top Five Films:
1. Primal Fear (but only for his performance--the actual movie's kinda dumb)
2. The Score (he totally holds his own onscreen with Robert De Niro and Marlon Brando)
3. The Illusionist
4. The Painted Veil
5. American History X
alternate (and purely for pleasure)--Keeping the Faith.

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