Mostrar mensagens com a etiqueta Catherine Keener. Mostrar todas as mensagens
Mostrar mensagens com a etiqueta Catherine Keener. Mostrar todas as mensagens
"Well, for one thing, I like being a supporting actress. I like to come and go in the film. The interesting characters are very few if you want to be the lead, and they depend on you being beautiful. Since I'm not interested in those parts, the pressure's off, in a way. I'm not cast for my physicality. I find that playing so many characters in so many films is a way to be in the moment."Keener, the third of five children, was born in Miami, Florida, to Evelyn and Jim Keener, a manager of an automotive store. She attended Wheaton College, a women’s school in Norton, Massachusetts. She majored in English and history, and she enrolled in a theater course, but only because she couldn’t get into a photography class. In 1983, upon graduation, Keener moved to New York, where she managed a McDonald's and interned as an assistant to casting agent Gail Eisenstadt. When Eisenstadt relocated to Los Angeles shortly afterward, Keener followed her employer, still relatively unambitious. But when Eisenstadt had a heart-to-heart with Keener about her future, she admitted she wanted to try acting - an unusual transition from the casting industry.
Keener officially broke into films with one line in About Last Night (1986). Although she struggled professionally the next few years, one low-quality project had an unexpected dividend. Keener met actor Dermot Mulroney working on Survival Quest (1989) when Mulroney got himself stuck trying to scale a cliff. The two dated and then married in 1990.
She then guest-starred as an artist on an episode of Seinfeld called "The Letter". She played Jerry's girlfriend, an artist who painted the infamous portrait of Kramer. Keener then earned her first starring role in Johnny Suede with the then unknown, Brad Pitt. Her performance gained critical acclaim and earned her first Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Female Lead. She later went on to work with director Tom Dicillo, again, in Living in Oblivion (1995). Through another two years of movies she again was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for her performance in Walking and Talking, an independent cult-comedy film. Critics fell in love with Keener's ability to act so naturally on the screen.
In 2000, Keener earned her first Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Being John Malkovich. In 2001, she again worked with director Nicole Holofcener in Lovely and Amazing garnering her a third Independent Spirit Award nomination. In 2002, she co-starred with Edward Norton in the off-Broadway revival of Burn This and the films Full Frontal, S1m0ne, and Death to Smoochy, all of which were box office disappointments, but since have gained a following of fans. In 2005, she made a huge comeback starring in the 2005 political thriller The Interpreter, The Ballad of Jack and Rose, and was the love interest of the main character in The 40-Year-Old Virgin.Keener's performance as Harper Lee in Capote (2005) earned her several awards and nominations, including her second Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. In 2006, she starred in the film Friends with Money, directed by Nicole Holofcener, with friend Jennifer Aniston.
In 2007, she will star in the film An American Crime, the true story of Gertrude Baniszewski, a middle aged mother who tortured and killed Sylvia Likens in her Indiana home. The movie is already creating a stir online with dedicated fans, and much Oscar buzz, and is slated for a 2007 release. Keener will play Baniszewski. Also, in 2007, she will play Jan Burres in the movie adaption of the book, Into the Wild, directed by Sean Penn.
“Kapéla, we're on opposite sides of the river.”Very interesting idea, captivating performances, professional direction, gripping character revelations, exceptionally interesting dynamics between the main characters, truly moving moments that never go cheap, essential ideas woven into the dialogue...
Why, then, did I feel somewhat cheated?
Let's not dwell on the fact that, for me, such dramatic historical truths ('every dictator begins as a savior') are betrayed when treated upon the thriller recipe. I could live with that, if it means that they reach a larger audience this way. Let's accept that there would be such a country where the main adviser of a black president is white, when at some point colour became politics. Let's just say that these are the paradoxes of dictatorship, although they could have been described much more interestingly and convincingly than they were.
The main source of disappointment for me was the script. I felt it went past tight, past thrilling, past complicated and it settled somewhere between too intelligent for its own good and completely flat.
First, the final twists were clear from the very beginning. The moment when Nils Lud appeared on the screen, it was clear he was the chief bad guy. His motivation was conspicuously stated by Kuman-Kuman in a very early scene: a near-assassination would launder all the president's sins. Nothing surprising or at least interesting here. The other twist was just as predictable, at least for this viewer. I cannot describe exactly what pointed me to expect it, but I was sure since very early on that Silvia would try to kill the president herself, on the spur of the moment. She was talking of diplomacy just a little too emphatically, perhaps. In any case, I could only yawn during what was supposed to be the climax scene where Sean Penn's character tries to convince Silvia to put the gun down. It was a pity.
Perhaps to make up for such predictable developments, there were a lot of confusing details thrown in with the sole purpose to sidetrack the viewer from the correct expectations, except there were so many and so confusing that I can only see them as plot holes. I can just about swallow that Silvia was in contact with the friend with whom she has no emotional involvement, but never with her brother and former lover. These things happen. The "you" in "I'm worried about you" can be understood as plural. Why, however, would Phillipe say that he arranged the seeing of the dead bodies during which Simon and the former lover where killed, when we have seen that the former lover had told Phillipe "No, he said just the two of us"? No real consistency here, as far as I understand, except trying to create confusion for later cheap 'thrilling' purposes.
Then there is the issue of the complot itself. I can only understand - please somebody correct me if I am wrong - that Sylvia overheard Jamal and Gamba. Then Gamba killed Jamal because he wanted to scare Silvia, but went himself to kill her days later, when it was almost certain that the flat was under surveillance - why? Why didn't he just kill her first thing, when they found out whom she was? Because he 'knew' she would be on the same bus as Kuman-Kuman? And why didn't he off Kuman-Kuman earlier on, if he was working for the president and it was so easy to do it, why now when he would have been a good suspect for the mock assassination? Of course, because now we are watching, but still, does it make any sense to anybody? To me it doesn't. I can only assume that Jamal knew about the plot because he had to smuggle in some pieces of the gun, but why did he speak with Gamba there, inside the UN, why was Gamba there at all? Why would a pawn like Jamal know the reason why he had to smuggle the gun in? Why didn't Marcus do it himself? Why did Gamba need to speak to Marcus at all? And finally, where did Marcus learn the language he was supposed to be translating, because nobody in that country looks like he does? Of course, we can imagine answers to all these questions, but I would have preferred all this to be addressed in the movie instead.
One more thing I didn't like was the drowning of the assassin thing. In itself it was a beautiful enough metaphor, but the way Senn Pean's character changed his tackle from the first scene when it was mentioned to the 'put the gun down' scene was - well - a bit risible, wasn't it?
There were things I liked in the plot, however. To end the examples on a positive note, I must say that it was, for me, extraordinarily beautiful how 'a human voice, even a whisper' is louder than, and can be recognised among, the racket of guns and screams. If only for that part, whether a quote or written specifically for the film, Interpreter was a good movie.Ultimately, all my critics only come to show how difficult it is to write a good thriller. And how sometimes trying to write both a political thriller and a character-driven movie can fail on both accounts…7/10
Why, then, did I feel somewhat cheated?
Let's not dwell on the fact that, for me, such dramatic historical truths ('every dictator begins as a savior') are betrayed when treated upon the thriller recipe. I could live with that, if it means that they reach a larger audience this way. Let's accept that there would be such a country where the main adviser of a black president is white, when at some point colour became politics. Let's just say that these are the paradoxes of dictatorship, although they could have been described much more interestingly and convincingly than they were.
The main source of disappointment for me was the script. I felt it went past tight, past thrilling, past complicated and it settled somewhere between too intelligent for its own good and completely flat.
First, the final twists were clear from the very beginning. The moment when Nils Lud appeared on the screen, it was clear he was the chief bad guy. His motivation was conspicuously stated by Kuman-Kuman in a very early scene: a near-assassination would launder all the president's sins. Nothing surprising or at least interesting here. The other twist was just as predictable, at least for this viewer. I cannot describe exactly what pointed me to expect it, but I was sure since very early on that Silvia would try to kill the president herself, on the spur of the moment. She was talking of diplomacy just a little too emphatically, perhaps. In any case, I could only yawn during what was supposed to be the climax scene where Sean Penn's character tries to convince Silvia to put the gun down. It was a pity.
Perhaps to make up for such predictable developments, there were a lot of confusing details thrown in with the sole purpose to sidetrack the viewer from the correct expectations, except there were so many and so confusing that I can only see them as plot holes. I can just about swallow that Silvia was in contact with the friend with whom she has no emotional involvement, but never with her brother and former lover. These things happen. The "you" in "I'm worried about you" can be understood as plural. Why, however, would Phillipe say that he arranged the seeing of the dead bodies during which Simon and the former lover where killed, when we have seen that the former lover had told Phillipe "No, he said just the two of us"? No real consistency here, as far as I understand, except trying to create confusion for later cheap 'thrilling' purposes.
Then there is the issue of the complot itself. I can only understand - please somebody correct me if I am wrong - that Sylvia overheard Jamal and Gamba. Then Gamba killed Jamal because he wanted to scare Silvia, but went himself to kill her days later, when it was almost certain that the flat was under surveillance - why? Why didn't he just kill her first thing, when they found out whom she was? Because he 'knew' she would be on the same bus as Kuman-Kuman? And why didn't he off Kuman-Kuman earlier on, if he was working for the president and it was so easy to do it, why now when he would have been a good suspect for the mock assassination? Of course, because now we are watching, but still, does it make any sense to anybody? To me it doesn't. I can only assume that Jamal knew about the plot because he had to smuggle in some pieces of the gun, but why did he speak with Gamba there, inside the UN, why was Gamba there at all? Why would a pawn like Jamal know the reason why he had to smuggle the gun in? Why didn't Marcus do it himself? Why did Gamba need to speak to Marcus at all? And finally, where did Marcus learn the language he was supposed to be translating, because nobody in that country looks like he does? Of course, we can imagine answers to all these questions, but I would have preferred all this to be addressed in the movie instead.
One more thing I didn't like was the drowning of the assassin thing. In itself it was a beautiful enough metaphor, but the way Senn Pean's character changed his tackle from the first scene when it was mentioned to the 'put the gun down' scene was - well - a bit risible, wasn't it?
There were things I liked in the plot, however. To end the examples on a positive note, I must say that it was, for me, extraordinarily beautiful how 'a human voice, even a whisper' is louder than, and can be recognised among, the racket of guns and screams. If only for that part, whether a quote or written specifically for the film, Interpreter was a good movie.Ultimately, all my critics only come to show how difficult it is to write a good thriller. And how sometimes trying to write both a political thriller and a character-driven movie can fail on both accounts…7/10
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