Sunday, June 22, 2008

The movies come to Angus

Thanks to on demand cable, we get to see a wider range of movies at Chez Angus than what shows in the local multiplex (though with a lag of course). We just watched "Lars and the Real Girl" and I have to say based on his performance there and in "Half Nelson" that Ryan Gosling is an incredibly talented actor. Both movies required his character to do really strange things and he was amazingly believable and compelling at all times.

On the face of it, the plot of "Lars" is untenable, but Gosling (along with the actors playing his sister-in-law and his doctor) really pulls it off. If you haven't seen it, you should (Half Nelson too!).

My favorite actor used to be Guy Pierce, but while "Memento" is a better movie than any in which Gosling has appeared, I gotta give Ryan the nod at this point (Guy will no doubt be devastated to hear this news).

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

End of your career indeed.

Both of those movies were...terrible. Now granted Gosling is better than the movies, but still. Half Nelson is really an unwatchable Marxist diatribe. Half Nelson is just plain stupid, insipid and unentertaining.

The hype for Gosling is confusing because he is nothing special. His performance in The Notebook is the highlight of his career. There are plenty of actors who are better and who choose better films.

Angus said...

Lol, wow Bob, did Ryan steal ur girl or sumptin'??

We obviously disagree and that's fine, but maybe you could name some of the "plenty of actors who are better"?

I do think Gosling *is* something special. If that makes it "hype" so be it.

Anonymous said...

Ben Kingsley, Daniel Day-Lewis, Sean Penn, Terance Howard, Michael Caine, Anthony Hopkins, Al Pacino, Kevin Spacey, James Cromwell, Dustin Hoffman, Jake Gyllenhaal, Kenneth Branagh, Jeff Daniels, Cuba Gooding Jr., Leonardo DiCaprio , Paul Giamatti, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Liam Neeson, John Turturro, Clive Owen, Ed Harris, Harvey Keitel, James Gandolfini, Jason Lee, Geoffrey Rush, Hugh Laurie, Samuel L. Jackson, David Cross, Alan Rickman, James McAvoy, Matt Damon, Christopher Guest, Robin Williams, Adrien Brody, Gael Garcia Bernal, Willem Dafoe, Ray Winstone, Chris Cooper, Mark Wahlberg, Jim Carrey, Don Cheadle, Steve Buscemi, Johnny Depp, Brad Pitt, Benicio del Toro, Ricky Gervais, Forest Whitaker, Mark Ruffalo, Thomas Haden Church, Ethan Hawke, Woody Harrelson, Alan Alda, Tom Hanks, Ian McKellen, Bill Murray, Tommy Lee Jones, Edward Norton, Nicolas Cage, Robert Duvall, Viggo Mortensen, Robert Downey Jr., Jamie Foxx, Michael Cera, John Cusack, Morgan Freeman, Martin Landau, Tim Robbins, Javier Bardem, Denzel Washington, Tom Wilkinson, Casey Affleck, Gene Hackman, Michael C. Hall, Christian Bale, Ralph Fiennes Even, Tom Cruise

Angus said...

lol, so RG stole yer girl and kicked yer dog too I see!

Robert Downey Jr. and Benicio del Toro are good actors too.

Chris Cooper was great in Lone Star.

PS Hoffman was great in The Savages and C. Wilson's war.

Did you leave off Vinnie Gallo by oversight or do you think he's even worse than my boy RG??

Anonymous said...

I don't really think I've seen any of Vincent Gallo's work. Though I hear that The Brown Bunny is interesting...