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I wish Gene Hackman was my dad. Except I feel bad for saying that cos I've got a dad and he's ace, but ... sigh.
Even Loose Cannons (excruciatingly unfunny mismatched cop comedy) is watchable, just because he's in it. Dan Aykroyd I like a lot, but in a bad film he can be quite irritating, QED. I never have that problem with Mr Hackman. I hear he's quite a pain in the arse sometimes, stubborn and picky about character motivation and so on, but I never get the sense with him that he's doing it to be a wanky acTOR, he just wants what he's sure is best for the role.
Mississippi Burning is definitely one of his finest couple of hours, especially in the scenes where he shares an incipient but doomed 'romance' with the heartbreaking Frances McDormand. Juxtapose these scenes with the one where he threatens all the rednecks in the bar (motherfucker grabs one of them (I think it's Michael Rooker) by the nuts and calls him 'shitkicker' and doesn't let go even when sucking on his beer bottle) and you get a prime example of how he can explore such apparently contradictory aspects of the same character.
The tricky thing about Mr Hackman is that he often seems to play himself, or at least some variation on the same persona. But on closer study I've found that that's really not true. Certain mannerisms like the eye twinkly smile and naughty cackle keep recurring, but I don't think that means the same character. There's something different going on in each film, I'm sure of it. Anybody agree with that, or is it wanky drama bollocks? |
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