Cinema Experts

“The problem with me is, I guess, the way I express myself, you have to be with me 50 years before you can get a sense of what I'm talking about.”
In 1966, Pacino studied under legendary acting coach Lee Strasberg. He found acting to be enjoyable and realized he had a gift for it. However, it did put him in financial straits until the end of the decade when he had won an Obie Award for his work in The Indian Wants the Bronx and the Tony for Best Featured Actor in a Play for Does the Tiger Wear a Necktie?. He made his first screen appearance in an episode of the television series N.Y.P.D. in 1968, and his largely unnoticed movie debut in Me, Natalie came the following year.
It was the 1971 film The Panic in Needle Park, in which he played a heroin addict, that would bring him to the attention of director Francis Ford Coppola. Pacino's rise to fame came after portraying Michael Corleone in Coppola's blockbuster 1972 Mafia film The Godfather and Frank Serpico in the eponymous 1973 movie. Although several established actors, including Robert Redford, Warren Beatty, and a little-known Robert De Niro were vying to portray Michael Corleone, director Coppola selected the relatively unknown Pacino, much to the dismay of studio executives. His performance earned him an Academy Award nomination. Pacino's performance as Michael Corleone offers one of the finest examples of his early acting style, described by Halliwell's Film Guide as "intense" and "tightly clenched".
In 1973 Pacino starred in the very successful Serpico and the less popular Scarecrow alongside Gene Hackman. In 1974, Pacino reprised his role as Michael Corleone in the very successful sequel The Godfather Part II, acclaimed as being comparable to the original. In 1975, he enjoyed further success with the release of Dog Day Afternoon, based on the true story of a bank robber John Wojtowicz. In 1977, Pacino starred as a race-car driver in Bobby Deerfield. During the 1970s, Pacino had four Oscar nominations for Best Actor for his performances in Serpico, The Godfather Part II, Dog Day Afternoon, and ...And Justice for All.
Pacino continued his dedication to the stage, winning a second Tony Award for The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel and performing the title role in Richard III for a record run on Broadway despite poor notices from critics.
Pacino's career slumped in the early 1980s, and his appearances in the controversial Cruising and the comedy-drama Author! Author! were critically panned. 1983's Scarface, directed by Brian DePalma, proved to be a career highlight and a defining role. Pacino earned a Golden Globe nomination for his performance in Scarface as a Cuban drug gangster. Years later, he would reveal to interviewer Barbara Walters that Tony Montana represented the best work of his career.
1985's Revolution was a commercial and critical failure, resulting in a four year hiatus from films during which Pacino returned to the stage. Pacino returned to films in 1989's Sea of Love. His greatest stage success of the decade was David Mamet's American Buffalo, for which Pacino was nominated for a Drama Desk Award.
Pacino received an Oscar nomination as Big Boy Caprice in the box office hit Dick Tracy (1990) followed by a return to arguably his most famous character, Michael Corleone, in The Godfather Part III (1990). He would finally win an Oscar for Best Actor, for his portrayal of the depressed, irascible, and retired blind Lieutenant Colonel Frank Slade in Martin Brest's Scent of a Woman (1992). That very year, he was also nominated for the supporting actor award for Glengarry Glen Ross, making Pacino the first male actor ever to receive two acting nominations for two different movies in the same year, and to win for the lead role (as did Jamie Foxx in 2005).
Pacino has since turned acclaimed performances in such crime dramas as Carlito's Way (1993), Donnie Brasco (1997), the multi-Oscar nominated The Insider (1999) and Insomnia (2002).
In 1995, Pacino starred in Michael Mann's Heat, in which he and fellow film icon Robert De Niro appeared onscreen together for the first time. In 1996, Pacino starred in his theatrical feature Looking for Richard, and was lauded for his role as Satan in the supernatural drama The Devil's Advocate in 1997. Pacino also starred in Oliver Stone's critically acclaimed Any Given Sunday playing the team coach. The speech he performs in the film has become known world-wide as "the Al Pacino Speech" which is used to inspire many (mainly sportsmen/women) around the world.
Pacino has not received another nomination from the Academy since Scent of a Woman, but has won two Golden Globes since 2000, the first being the Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement in motion pictures, and the second for his role in the highly praised HBO miniseries Angels in America.
Pacino has turned down several key roles in his career, including that of Han Solo in Star Wars, Jimmy Conway in Goodfellas, Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver, Ted Kramer in Kramer Vs. Kramer, Paul Sheldon in Misery, Captain Willard in Apocalypse Now , Richard Sherman in a never-filmed remake of The Seven Year Itch, and Edward Lewis in Pretty Woman.
On October 20, 2006, the American Film Institute named Pacino the recipient of the 35th AFI Life Achievement Award. On November 22, 2006, the University Philosophical Society of Trinity College, Dublin awarded Pacino the Honorary Patronage of the Society.
With his box office earnings relatively modest of late, Pacino looks to be gearing up with several new projects. He starred in Steven Soderbergh’s Ocean's Thirteen alongside George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, and Andy Garcia as the villain Willy Bank, a casino tycoon who is targeted out of revenge by Danny Ocean and his crew.
On June 19, 2007, a boxset titled Pacino: An Actor's Vision was released, containing 3 rare Al Pacino films: The Local Stigmatic, Looking For Richard and Chinese Coffee. A documentary on Pacino's entire film career is also included.Al Pacino's latest film 88 Minutes is due for release early next year (2008). Next scheduled for release is Righteous Kill where he will be teamed with his Heat co-star Robert DeNiro as two New York detectives searching for a serial killer while resolving issues between them. In Rififi, a remake of the 1955 French original based on the novel by Auguste Le Breton, Pacino plays a career thief just out of prison who finds his wife has left him; in his anger, he starts planning a heist. Also Pacino is set to play surrealist Salvador Dalí in the film Dali & I: The Surreal Story.

"When I made Batman Forever (1995), I felt like I was making a movie. When I made Batman & Robin (1997), I felt like I was making a toy commercial.”
O'Donnell was discovered when he was cast in a McDonald's commercial, in which he served Michael Jordan. His first television role was an appearance on the series Jack and Mike in 1986. At the age of seventeen, he was offered a chance to audition for a part in the movie Men Don’t Leave, with Jessica Lange, and he won the role. In the early 1990s, O'Donnell was a featured player in many successful movies such as Fried Green Tomatoes (1991) and Scent of a Woman (1992) with Al Pacino. He was named one of the twelve Promising New Actors of 1992 in John Willis' Screen World, Vol. 44.
After the success of Circle of Friends (1995), O'Donnell was chosen over Leonardo DiCaprio for the role of Robin in the hugely successful Batman Forever. The role of Robin was one of the most sought-after roles at that time. O'Donnell was part of a field that included DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Christian Bale (who went on to play the Dark Knight himself in Batman Begins), Jude Law, Ewan MacGregor, Corey Haim, Corey Feldman, Tobey Stephens, and Scott Speedman. Producers narrowed their choices to DiCaprio and O'Donnell. At a comic book convention, they asked a group of eleven year-old boys, the target audience, attending which actor could beat the other in a fistfight. When the boys overwhelmingly declared O'Donnell the winner, he was ultimately given the role.
O'Donnell followed that film with an appearance in the 1996 film The Chamber, based on the John Grisham novel, which was a good success at the box office. He subsequently appeared in the Batman sequel, Batman & Robin, in 1997. Critically panned, the movie turned out to be one of the largest box office failures in history. He was considered for the lead role in Spider-Man, when the project was in development with James Cameron directing in 1996. Tobey Maguire was ultimately cast.
O'Donnell did not appear in another movie for two years. He was the producers' original choice for the role of James Edwards in Men in Black (1997), but the role went to Will Smith. His next appearance was in the Robert Altman film Cookie's Fortune, as part of the ensemble. His more mainstream comeback films The Bachelor (1999) and Vertical Limit (2000) were only moderately successful. Following Vertical Limit, a four-year hiatus led many to believe he had met the same career fate of his Batman & Robin co-star Alicia Silverstone. However, in 2004, he appeared in the widely praised Kinsey.
O'Donnell took a lead role in the Fox Network television series Head Cases in 2005. The show was the first show of the fall 2005 season to be cancelled, and only two episodes were aired. He was subsequently cast as veterinarian Finn Dandridge on the popular ABC drama Grey's Anatomy. O'Donnell appeared in the last six episodes of the 2005-2006 season, and has made additional appearances in the 2006-2007 season.
Most recently, he has figured prominently in the acclaimed TNT miniseries The Company as fictional CIA agent Jack McCauliffe in a performance which subtly portrayed his character's progression from spoon-fed Yale elitist to jaded, post-Cold War cynic.

“Out of order, I show you out of order. You don't know what out of order is, Mr. Trask. I'd show you, but I'm too old, I'm too tired, I'm too fuckin' blind. If I were the man I was five years ago, I'd take a FLAMETHROWER to this place! Out of order? Who the hell do you think you're talkin' to? I've been around, you know? There was a time I could see. And I have seen. Boys like these, younger than these, their arms torn out, their legs ripped off. But there isn't nothin' like the sight of an amputated spirit. There is no prosthetic for that. You think you're merely sending this splendid foot soldier back home to Oregon with his tail between his legs, but I say you are... executin' his soul! And why? Because he's not a Bairdman. Bairdmen. You hurt this boy, you're gonna be Baird bums, the lot of ya. And Harry, Jimmy, Trent, wherever you are out there, FUCK YOU TOO!”
The Scent of a Woman is the kind of film that many would think belongs to a bygone era. While it is frank and contemporary without sugar coating it illustrates the value of character over glitz and how small acts can have long lasting consequences.The film pits two characters who are diametrical opposites. Al Pacino plays the world weary retired Army Lt. Colonel who through a stupid accident looses his sight and his way of life. Chris Donnelly is a young prep school kid on a scholarship whose way of life may be coming to an end owing to the acts of richer kids at the exclusive prep school who pull a stupid stunt.
The blind Lt. Colonel needs an escort so that he can go to NYC and have a rip roaring time before he makes a fateful decision. The poor preppy needs to earn a few bucks to travel and is in desperate need of some advice on how to get through his crisis at school.The interplay between the two characters is mind boggling. Both characters are asked to make life and death decisions that call for them to reach deep into their inner core. The right decision is unhappily the tougher decision to make.
Two terrific scenes that are not to be missed. The first is in the New York ballroom where the blind Lt. Colonel teaches the actress Miss Anwar to dance the tango. The second and most profound is the speech that Al Pacino makes in defense of Chris Donnelly at the prep school disciplinary hearing. It has to go down as one of the great orations of all times.
There's something about this film that keeps you company. It's like you're also spending the weekend with Colonel Slade. It entertains your darkest notions and tops your depth of grief and then somehow elevates you to find hope amidst our consciously blind existence. Really worth the two and a half hours. Every last second… 9/10