#David Straithairn

[livesinyesterday]

Happy 75th Birthday, David Russell Straithairn!

(b. 01/26/1949)

[historiavn]

* ⠀⠀ If an original character does not have a linked biography, you may find a short summary about them here.

John Adams

HISTORICAL MUSE ⠀⠀| ⠀⠀ Paul Giamatti & William Daniels

BIOGRAPHY ⠀| ⠀STARTER CALL ⠀| ⠀ SHIPPING CALL

Celeste Franklin

Turn AMC ORIGINAL MUSE ⠀⠀| ⠀⠀Megan Follows

BIOGRAPHY ⠀| ⠀STARTER CALL ⠀| ⠀ SHIPPING CALL

Sarah Phillips

Liberty’s Kids CANON MUSE ⠀⠀| ⠀⠀Amybeth Mcnulty

BIOGRAPHY ⠀| ⠀STARTER CALL ⠀| ⠀ SHIPPING CALL

Jane Austen

HISTORICAL MUSE ⠀⠀| ⠀⠀ Anne Hathaway

BIOGRAPHY ⠀| ⠀STARTER CALL ⠀| ⠀ SHIPPING CALL

Cassandra Fatesworth

Bridgerton ORIGINAL MUSE ⠀⠀| ⠀⠀Rose Williams

BIOGRAPHY ⠀| ⠀STARTER CALL ⠀| ⠀ SHIPPING CALL

Abraham Lincoln

HISTORICAL MUSE ⠀⠀| ⠀⠀ Various Actors

BIOGRAPHY ⠀| ⠀STARTER CALL ⠀| ⠀ SHIPPING CALL

Robert Todd Lincoln

HISTORICAL MUSE ⠀⠀| ⠀⠀ Various Actors

BIOGRAPHY ⠀| ⠀STARTER CALL ⠀| ⠀ SHIPPING CALL

Mary Todd Lincoln

HISTORICAL MUSE ⠀⠀| ⠀⠀ Sally Field

BIOGRAPHY ⠀| ⠀STARTER CALL ⠀| ⠀ SHIPPING CALL

William Henry Seward

HISTORICAL MUSE ⠀⠀| ⠀⠀ David Straithairn

BIOGRAPHY ⠀| ⠀STARTER CALL ⠀| ⠀ SHIPPING CALL

Ulysses S. Grant

HISTORICAL MUSE ⠀⠀| ⠀⠀ Justin Salinger

BIOGRAPHY ⠀| ⠀STARTER CALL ⠀| ⠀ SHIPPING CALL

Lieutenant General Ethan Clay

ORIGINAL MUSE ⠀⠀| ⠀⠀ Henry Cavill

BIOGRAPHY ⠀| ⠀STARTER CALL ⠀| ⠀ SHIPPING CALL

Andrew Carnegie

HISTORICAL MUSE ⠀⠀| ⠀⠀ Adam Jonas Segaller

BIOGRAPHY ⠀| ⠀STARTER CALL ⠀| ⠀ SHIPPING CALL

Captain Edward J. Smith

Titanic HISTORICAL MUSE ⠀⠀| ⠀⠀ Bernard Hill

BIOGRAPHY ⠀| ⠀STARTER CALL ⠀| ⠀ SHIPPING CALL

Bruce Ismay

Titanic HISTORICAL MUSE ⠀⠀| ⠀⠀ Various Actors

BIOGRAPHY ⠀| ⠀STARTER CALL ⠀| ⠀ SHIPPING CALL

Anastasia Andrews-Ismay / RMS Titanic

Titanic ORIGINAL MUSE ⠀⠀| ⠀⠀ Adelaide Kane

BIOGRAPHY ⠀| ⠀STARTER CALL ⠀| ⠀ SHIPPING CALL

Dr. Constance Morgan

ORIGINAL MUSE ⠀⠀| ⠀⠀ Vera Farminga

BIOGRAPHY ⠀| ⠀STARTER CALL ⠀| ⠀ SHIPPING CALL

Joseph Pulitzer

Newsies HISTORICAL MUSE ⠀⠀| ⠀⠀ Daniel Brühl

BIOGRAPHY ⠀| ⠀STARTER CALL ⠀| ⠀ SHIPPING CALL

Giles Andrè

Phantom of the Opera CANON MUSE⠀| ⠀Matthew Mcfadyen

BIOGRAPHY ⠀| ⠀STARTER CALL ⠀| ⠀ SHIPPING CALL

Justine Javert

Les Mis ORIGINAL MUSE ⠀| Keira Knightley / Emma Watson

BIOGRAPHY ⠀| ⠀STARTER CALL ⠀| ⠀ SHIPPING CALL

Agatha Morrible

Wicked ORIGINAL MUSE ⠀⠀| ⠀⠀ Anya Taylor Joy

BIOGRAPHY ⠀| ⠀STARTER CALL ⠀| ⠀ SHIPPING CALL

Octavia Ozpin / The Land of Oz

Wicked ORIGINAL MUSE ⠀⠀| ⠀⠀ Emilia Clarke

BIOGRAPHY ⠀| ⠀STARTER CALL ⠀| ⠀ SHIPPING CALL

Francesca Tchaikovsky

Anastasia ORIGINAL MUSE ⠀⠀| ⠀⠀ Sonya Priss

BIOGRAPHY ⠀| ⠀STARTER CALL ⠀| ⠀ SHIPPING CALL

Emmeline Eisenhower

ORIGINAL MUSE ⠀⠀| ⠀⠀ Hayley Atwell

BIOGRAPHY ⠀| ⠀STARTER CALL ⠀| ⠀ SHIPPING CALL

Chief Justice Isaac Roosevelt

ORIGINAL MUSE ⠀⠀| ⠀⠀ Cillian Murphy

BIOGRAPHY ⠀| ⠀STARTER CALL ⠀| ⠀ SHIPPING CALL

Dr. Ophelia Chronsturn

ORIGINAL MUSE ⠀⠀| ⠀⠀ Jenna Coleman

BIOGRAPHY ⠀| ⠀STARTER CALL ⠀| ⠀ SHIPPING CALL

Theodosia Davy / HMS Terror

AMC’s The Terror ORIGINAL MUSE ⠀⠀| ⠀⠀ Keira Knightley

BIOGRAPHY ⠀| ⠀STARTER CALL ⠀| ⠀ SHIPPING CALL

[patwrites]

All I want for Bourne 6 is Greengrass bringing David Straithairn back. Vosen is such a great antagonist.

[kamreadsandrecs]

By Vince Mancini

Oppenheimer is a sumptuous drama from one of our finest directors working at the top of his game—but there's only so much information you can pack into a three-hour movie. The movie entertains and makes you feel dumb in almost equal measure, making it hard to escape the basic takeaway that we probably should know a lot more: About this guy, the Cold War, the birth of the Atomic Age, and quantum physics in general. And while you can (and should) head straight to Wikipedia, the real lore is in books and documentaries, and here are 11 to get you started. 

At the risk of being painfully obvious, the book on which the movie was based seems a logical place to start. Written by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, it was published in 2005 and went on to win the Pulitzer Prize. Nolan reportedly began adapting it after Robert Pattinson gave him a collection of Oppenheimer’s speeches as a parting gift when the two finished Tenet. (It would’ve been called “Oppie” if not for a last-minute veto from an editor.)

The other big book on the subject, from Richard Rhodes, published in 1987, which also won the Pulitzer Prize. Focused more on the general history of the bomb than on Oppenheimer himself, Rhodes relied heavily on lengthy interviews with the scientists and engineers of Los Alamos.

Less well-known than Rhodes or Bird and Sherwin’s books, UC Merced historian Gregg Herken received a MacArthur Grant to write this history of the nuclear age, told through the three titular personalities, Oppenheimer, Lawrence, and Teller—who you may now know as Cillian Murphy, Josh Hartnett, and Benny Safdie.

For those of us who prefer watching to reading, there’s Jon Else’s Oscar-nominated 1981 documentary about Oppenheimer’s anti-proliferation advocacy. 40-year-old documentaries can be tough to find these days, but this one is luckily available from the Criterion Channel. “Through extensive interviews and archival footage, The Day After Trinity traces Oppenheimer’s evolution, from architect of one of the most consequential endeavors of the twentieth century to an outspoken opponent of nuclear proliferation who came to deeply regret his role in ushering in the perils of the atomic age.”

Also in the documentary department, there’s PBS’s 2009 re-enactment-style documentary about Oppenheimer and the subsequent battles over his communist affiliations, produced as part of the "American Experience" series, starring David Straithairn as Oppenheimer. Directed by David Grubin, it’s about as straightforward a telling of some of the background information covered in the film as you’ll find. (It’s also available on Apple TV.)

John Hershey’s 30,000-some word report focusing on six survivors of the first atomic bomb exploded on a civilian population initially took up an entire issue of the New Yorker in the summer of 1946, and was turned into a book soon after. It’s one of the most famous pieces of journalism ever, to the point that it spawned an entire book about the making of it – Fallout: The Hiroshima Cover-up and the Reporter Who Revealed It to the World, by Leslie M.M. Blume. Chances are you’ve already heard of Hiroshima, but the perspective it offers from the bomb’s actual victims is the mandatory counterpart to any Oppenheimer viewing.

If Oppenheimer advances (somewhat) the traditional narrative that the A-Bomb was the revolutionary weapon that ended the war, Princeton historian Michael D. Gordin presented a counter-interpretation in his 2007 book that “the military did not clearly understand the atomic bomb’s revolutionary strategic potential, that the Allies were almost as stunned by the surrender as the Japanese were by the attack, and that not only had experts planned and fully anticipated the need for a third bomb, they were skeptical about whether the atomic bomb would work at all.” 

If the race to beat the Germans to developing the atomic bomb is the obvious cinematic center of Oppenheimer, Nolan devotes a surprising portion of the film and especially the last hour to the 1953 hearings over Oppenheimer’s security clearance, which was denied over his alleged communist ties (and, according to the film, all spearheaded by Oppenheimer’s nemesis, Atomic Energy Commissioner Lewis Strauss, played by Robert Downey Jr.). In this volume, Cornell historian Richard Polenberg drew on annotated transcripts of the hearing and Oppenheimer's subsequent appeal, as well as declassified FBI files, to create a portrait of the Cold War atmosphere of the time and what the hearing's outcome meant for Oppenheimer and for the world. 

If Oppenheimer presents a fairly sympathetic portrait of Robert Oppenheimer in his relationships to his left-wing friends, this pair of articles from Esquire and the New York Review of Books are… less sympathetic. The former also offers detailed interpretations of Oppenheimer’s conflict with Strauss. 

Oppenheimer opens with its subject trying to understand, and then teach, the truly strange and seemingly paradoxical science of quantum physics. Certainly there are more scholarly works on the subject, but probably there exists no goofier introduction to subatomics than AC Weisbecker’s 1986 cult semi-autobiographical novel about a pot smuggler who becomes obsessed with quantum physics and his dog. The easiest way to learn something is by accident, and it doesn’t get more accidental than this footnote-heavy farce.



[tuppencetrinkets]

#9,000 200x100 icons of David Straithairn as Klaes Ashford in season 3 of The Expanse; slightly sharpened.

This content is free for anyone to use or edit however you like; if you care to throw a dollar or two my way for time, effort, storage fees etc you are more than welcome to do so via my PAYPAL.  Please like or reblog this post if you have found it useful or are downloading the content within.  If you have any questions or you have any problems with the links or find any inconsistencies in the content, etc. please feel free to drop me a politely worded message via my ASKBOX (second icon from the top on my theme!)

Previous Expanse resources can be found HERE and HERE. There are also some Expanse gif icon & base icon sets on my blog w/ more to come.

[kammartinez]

By Vince Mancini

Oppenheimer is a sumptuous drama from one of our finest directors working at the top of his game—but there's only so much information you can pack into a three-hour movie. The movie entertains and makes you feel dumb in almost equal measure, making it hard to escape the basic takeaway that we probably should know a lot more: About this guy, the Cold War, the birth of the Atomic Age, and quantum physics in general. And while you can (and should) head straight to Wikipedia, the real lore is in books and documentaries, and here are 11 to get you started. 

At the risk of being painfully obvious, the book on which the movie was based seems a logical place to start. Written by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, it was published in 2005 and went on to win the Pulitzer Prize. Nolan reportedly began adapting it after Robert Pattinson gave him a collection of Oppenheimer’s speeches as a parting gift when the two finished Tenet. (It would’ve been called “Oppie” if not for a last-minute veto from an editor.)

The other big book on the subject, from Richard Rhodes, published in 1987, which also won the Pulitzer Prize. Focused more on the general history of the bomb than on Oppenheimer himself, Rhodes relied heavily on lengthy interviews with the scientists and engineers of Los Alamos.

Less well-known than Rhodes or Bird and Sherwin’s books, UC Merced historian Gregg Herken received a MacArthur Grant to write this history of the nuclear age, told through the three titular personalities, Oppenheimer, Lawrence, and Teller—who you may now know as Cillian Murphy, Josh Hartnett, and Benny Safdie.

For those of us who prefer watching to reading, there’s Jon Else’s Oscar-nominated 1981 documentary about Oppenheimer’s anti-proliferation advocacy. 40-year-old documentaries can be tough to find these days, but this one is luckily available from the Criterion Channel. “Through extensive interviews and archival footage, The Day After Trinity traces Oppenheimer’s evolution, from architect of one of the most consequential endeavors of the twentieth century to an outspoken opponent of nuclear proliferation who came to deeply regret his role in ushering in the perils of the atomic age.”

Also in the documentary department, there’s PBS’s 2009 re-enactment-style documentary about Oppenheimer and the subsequent battles over his communist affiliations, produced as part of the "American Experience" series, starring David Straithairn as Oppenheimer. Directed by David Grubin, it’s about as straightforward a telling of some of the background information covered in the film as you’ll find. (It’s also available on Apple TV.)

John Hershey’s 30,000-some word report focusing on six survivors of the first atomic bomb exploded on a civilian population initially took up an entire issue of the New Yorker in the summer of 1946, and was turned into a book soon after. It’s one of the most famous pieces of journalism ever, to the point that it spawned an entire book about the making of it – Fallout: The Hiroshima Cover-up and the Reporter Who Revealed It to the World, by Leslie M.M. Blume. Chances are you’ve already heard of Hiroshima, but the perspective it offers from the bomb’s actual victims is the mandatory counterpart to any Oppenheimer viewing.

If Oppenheimer advances (somewhat) the traditional narrative that the A-Bomb was the revolutionary weapon that ended the war, Princeton historian Michael D. Gordin presented a counter-interpretation in his 2007 book that “the military did not clearly understand the atomic bomb’s revolutionary strategic potential, that the Allies were almost as stunned by the surrender as the Japanese were by the attack, and that not only had experts planned and fully anticipated the need for a third bomb, they were skeptical about whether the atomic bomb would work at all.” 

If the race to beat the Germans to developing the atomic bomb is the obvious cinematic center of Oppenheimer, Nolan devotes a surprising portion of the film and especially the last hour to the 1953 hearings over Oppenheimer’s security clearance, which was denied over his alleged communist ties (and, according to the film, all spearheaded by Oppenheimer’s nemesis, Atomic Energy Commissioner Lewis Strauss, played by Robert Downey Jr.). In this volume, Cornell historian Richard Polenberg drew on annotated transcripts of the hearing and Oppenheimer's subsequent appeal, as well as declassified FBI files, to create a portrait of the Cold War atmosphere of the time and what the hearing's outcome meant for Oppenheimer and for the world. 

If Oppenheimer presents a fairly sympathetic portrait of Robert Oppenheimer in his relationships to his left-wing friends, this pair of articles from Esquire and the New York Review of Books are… less sympathetic. The former also offers detailed interpretations of Oppenheimer’s conflict with Strauss. 

Oppenheimer opens with its subject trying to understand, and then teach, the truly strange and seemingly paradoxical science of quantum physics. Certainly there are more scholarly works on the subject, but probably there exists no goofier introduction to subatomics than AC Weisbecker’s 1986 cult semi-autobiographical novel about a pot smuggler who becomes obsessed with quantum physics and his dog. The easiest way to learn something is by accident, and it doesn’t get more accidental than this footnote-heavy farce.

[therealmadblonde]

Sneakers: Just sayin’...

[kevrocksicehouse]

Going to the show. Warren Oates, who played in supporting and ensemble roles for most of his career, got the lead in “Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia”(a movie with merit and a very memorable title). Here are five other memorable times character actors got the lead role.

Jeff Goldblum in The Fly. D: David Cronenberg (1986). “Is this death? Am I dying?” No, a botched teleportation accident fused your DNA with a housefly’s, but this question, and that Jeff Goldblum dropped his trademark querulous irony to ask it, gets to the heart of Cronenberg’s vision – if we’re just biological matter, what then?

Tom Wilkinson in In the Bedroom. D: Todd Field (2001).  Wilkinson has the kind of face  that you wouldn’t pick out in a crowd. Playing a man whose son has been killed, he shows everything he’s lost behind that unremarkable face and how when revenge is what’s left, he might get away with it.

Paul Giamatti in American Splendor. D: Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini (2003). Harvey Pekar’s autobiographical comic made the life of an average schlub and the ordinary people around him (and why “average” and “ordinary” are such inadequate words). Giamatti’s character actor visage works the same magic. There’s not a second his sour, nervous face doesn’t hold the screen.

David Straithairn in Good Night and Good Luck. D: George Clooney (2005). Straithairn has a touch of Gregory Peck’s rectitude in his voice, which can make him sound stiff. It’s perfect for this portrayal of legendary TV newscaster Edward R. Murrow, whose moral authority dovetails with his own moment in history (the red-baiting McCarthy era) when the nation was threatened from within by a self-promoting demagogue chasing even greater power by exploiting a nation’s fear and resentm — yeah, it pretty much works for these days too.

Michael Shannon in Take Shelter D: Jeff Nichols (2011). Shannon is every villain these days, but in this film he’s just a sweaty, terrified prophet obsessed with protecting his family from the ecological disaster he sees in visions, and scared he’s going crazy. This film gets scarier every year.

[home-and-minor]

To celebrate the fact that the 4th season of The Expanse is going to launch on December 13th, I decided to create 13 drawings representing 13 of my favourite characters from the show. I’m going to use the hasthag #TheExpanseDec13th to make them easier to find. Hope you like them!

12. KLAES ASHFORD

"Guilt is like salt. You put a little on, and it hides all the bitterness."

Portrayed by the incredible David Straithairn.

[kwebtv]

McMafia  -  BBC One / AMC (US) -  January 1, 2018 - Present

Crime Drama (8 episodes to date)

Running Time:  60 minutes

Stars:

Main cast

James Norton as Alex Godman

David Strathairn as Semiyon Kleiman

Juliet Rylance as Rebecca Harper

Merab Ninidze as Vadim Kalyagin

Aleksey Serebryakov as Dimitri Godman

Maria Shukshina as Oksana Godman

Faye Marsay as Katya Godman

David Dencik as Boris Godman

Oshri Cohen as Joseph

Sofia Lebedeva as Lyudmilla Nikolayeva

Caio Blat as Antonio Mendez

Kirill Pirogov as Ilya Fedorov

Nawazuddin Siddiqui as Dilly Mahmood

Karel Roden as Karel Benes

Recurring cast

Yuval Scharf as Tanya

Anna Levanova as Natasha

Clifford Samuel as Femi

Maria Mashkova as Masha

Kemi-Bo Jacobs as Karin

Atul Kale as Benny Chopra

Evgeni Golan as Marat

Eve Parmiter as Jennifer

Tim Ahern as Sydney Bloom

Ellie Piercy as Sandrine

Danila Kozlovsky as Grigory Mishin

Alexander Dyachenko as Oleg

Fernando Cayo as Guillermo Alegre

[citizenscreen]

“You don’t identify him with one kind of film.  He can do it all.  He has what I call an omni-talent.  360 degrees.”

Cliff Robertson said those words of Sydney Pollack – actor, writer, producer and director.

  Sydney Pollack began his career as an actor and as an acting teacher. He transitioned to director with episodic television with series like, Shotgun Slade, Ben Casey and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour and the first feature he directed was The Slender Thread starring Sidney Poitier in 1965.

“In those days the film industry looked to television for its directors.”  – Pollack

Sidney Pollack’s over forty films received a total of 46 Academy Award nominations, including four for Best Picture. Pollack himself was nominated three times and received his only Oscar for directing, Out of Africa (1985) for which he also won the Best Picture honor as producer. Out of Africa, which stars Robert Redford and Meryl Streep earned eleven Academy Award nominations in all with seven wins, including Pollack’s two. I think it’s telling and certainly worth mentioning that Pollack directed twelve different actors to Oscar-nominated performances during his career: Jane Fonda, Gig Young, Susannah York, Barbra Streisand, Paul Newman, Melinda Dillon, Jessica Lange, Dustin Hoffman, Teri Garr , Meryl Streep, Klaus Maria Brandauer and Holly Hunter.

  Perhaps more impressive than the Oscar nods Pollack received during his career is that among the 100 best-loved American movies ranked by American Film Institute (AFI) in June, 2002, Pollack is the only director credited with two films near the top of list. His The Way We Were (1973) is ranked #6 and Out of Africa (1985) is ranked #13. I think that may surprise people because Sidney Pollack is rarely mentioned among top director lists, but there’s just so much to enjoy in his movies, which, no matter the genre, always have solid relationships at the center. Pollack had a knack for people and despite the fact that his movies range from thrillers to epics to comedies, the best of them are relatable on a personal level.

Like most people I enjoy several movies in Pollack’s repertoire with my favorites being They Shoot Horses, Don’t They (1969), The Way We Were (1973), Three Days of the Condor (1975), a terrific thriller I had the privilege to see on the big screen at the Turner Classic Movies Film Festival, and Tootsie (1982). But while perusing my movie collection recently I ran across Pollack’s 1993 legal thriller, The Firm starring Tom Cruise, which is based on a popular novel by John Grisham and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it and so here I am discussing a non-classic as I am compelled to do now and again…

THE FIRM (1993)

Produced and directed by Sydney Pollack.

Admittedly, Sidney Pollack had a lot of trouble trying to visualize John Grisham‘s hugely popular novel, The Firm, as a feature film. He felt that if he followed the book exactly, he couldn’t make the film work. So, Pollack made changes to the script that many disagreed with. One of those changes is the ending of the story in the film, which is quite different from the one depicted in Grisham’s novel. I have no problem with the changes Pollack made to the film, except that it is too clean, if that makes any sense. I start then with what I like least in The Firm. While the overall story told in Pollack’s version of the story is clear and enjoyable, there are several convoluted moments in the film where one wonders what’s going on. It’s a bit messy and I feel the ending should be a bit messy too. Having said that, with a running time that exceeds two hours, The Firm manages to keep me interested for its duration.

As The Firm opens we see Mitch McDeere (Tom Cruise), a recent graduate of Harvard Law interviewing with different law firms. He is, in fact, being wooed by notable firms from New York and Chicago. But it’s a small firm in Memphis, Bendini, Lambert & Locke that makes Mitch an irresistible offer that includes a substantial salary , a low-interest mortgage rate so he can buy a house, several bonus packages, and the Mercedes of his choice. Bendini, Lambert & Locke become “the firm.”

Once Mitch accepts the offer he and his wife, Abby (Jeanne Tripplehorn) attend a large party thrown by the firm so they can get to know everyone, a welcoming into the family. Mitch is sold immediately, but Abby sees early signs of trouble. Although, honestly, they’re pretty blatant. One woman at the party, the wife of one of the partners tells her, “oh, you’re allowed to work and children are encouraged.” Stepford much???

Domestic bliss before The Firm’s claws are felt

After the party Abby tells Mitch about her unease, but they move to Memphis anyway and start a new life with the firm. Unfortunately, it’s not long before all starts going awry. I don’t intend on telling you the entire story – as if I could – but know that there are murders, wire tapping, mysterious trips, serious over-billing issues, organized crime, misadventures, chases, disguises and a guy who thinks he’s Elvis. In other words there’s enough sinister goings on to keep you entertained. Of the excess of legal thrillers made in the 1980s and early 1990s, of which I’ve seen many, The Firm may not be one of the best, but it’s not one of the worst either.

PERFORMANCES

Of Tom Cruise’ performance in The Firm, John Grisham said, “did a good job. He played the innocent young associate very well.” I agree. Cruise is perfectly suited for the role of Mitch at that point in his career and is enjoyable as the “conspiracy buster,” (EW). Cruise is certainly a lot more entertaining in this than in most of his later performances, where the off-screen Cruise overwhelms his performances in my opinion. The rest of the cast is also enjoyable including a wonderful array of actors in great character performances. To begin, there’s Ed Harris, who plays the FBI agent in charge of the case against the firm. Then you have David Strathairn, who plays Mitch’s older brother who’s doing time for manslaughter. And then there’s Holly Hunter who’s just fantastic as Tammy, a woman who by choice and circumstance gets embroiled in the plot to get the firm. Hunter received one of the two Oscar nods for The Firm – Best Supporting Actress. Interestingly, Hunter’s on-screen for a total of five minutes and 59 seconds, one of the shortest (to that time) performances ever to receive an Oscar nomination. I was quite surprised when I read this bit of trivia in IMDB because she’s so good in the role that it feels as though Tammy’s a huge part of the movie. Smaller parts are played convincingly by Hal Holbrook, Wilford Brimley, in a rare bad guy part as the firm’s “security director,” and Gary Busey.

Pollack directing Cruise

Particularly impressive in major roles here are Jeanne Tripplehorn and Gene Hackman. Then again, has Hackman ever brought anything but his A game to any movie? Well, he’s as impressive as ever here. One of the most enjoyable scenes from an acting perspective is between Hackman and Tripplehorn. The scene takes place in a schoolyard, should you happen to tune in. This is how it’s done.

The other Oscar nod received by The Firm – aside from Hunter’s supporting recognition – went to Dave Grusin for Best Music, Original Score, which is a thrilling, piano-based ride. (By the way, “piano-based” simply means the piano stood out for my non-musical ears.)

Upon its release The Firm received decent reviews and went on to become the third highest grossing film of 1993. It’s worth noting that John Grisham was at the height of his popularity then and had, I believe, three novels on the New York Times Best Seller list the week The Firm was released. That’s not a bad promotion for the movie.

Trivia tidbit – Sydney Pollack makes a cameo appearance in The Firm as the voice of the prison warden on the phone. Pay close attention to when that voice informs Special Agent Terrance (Harris) that a prison guard sent an unauthorized fax regarding Mitch McDeere’s brother Ray.

POLLACK

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that I am a huge fan of Sydney Pollack the person. Or, at least, the person he seems to be in every clip and/or interview I’ve ever seen him in. I am always compelled to listen to him closely. He’s one of those directors whose love of film (like Martin Scorsese for instance) is evident by the passion with which they discuss the movies. It’s not only admirable, but contagious. Turner Classic Movies (TCM) features Pollack on a clip in which several filmmakers discuss letterbox vs. pan and scan and although I’ve seen the clip more times than I can count – who hasn’t? – I can never look away from it because of Sydney Pollack and the way he describes the importance of staying true to the work as dictated by the original format. And Pollack didn’t just talk the talk. In 1997 he brought a lawsuit against Danish TV for screening Three Days of the Condor in pan-and-scan in 1991. The court ruled that the pan scanning conducted by Danish television was a ‘mutilation’ of the film and a violation of Pollack’s legal right as an artist to maintain his reputation by protecting the integrity of his work. Nonetheless, the court ruled in favor of the defendant on a technicality. (IMDB)

In tribute to Sydney Pollack the film fan, albeit a fan with extraordinary knowledge of film, here’s a clip from AFI during which he discusses our fascination with The Godfather films. And the following clip, as you’ll see, is from when Pollack was a host on The Essentials on TCM. Here he introduces Stanley Kubrick’s, 2001 A Space Odyssey.

For his love of film and for the films that he made that I love, I post this in honor of Sidney Pollack (July 1, 1934 – May 26, 2008).

Sydney Pollack and THE FIRM (1993) "You don't identify him with one kind of film.  He can do it all.  He has what I call an omni-talent.  

[hotniatheron]

black sails needed so many characters they had to hire australians and americans cause we know england only got 10 actors and rupert penry jones is three of them 

[hollywoodoutbreak]

Nightmare Alley is the new psychological thriller from writer/director Guillermo del Toro, based on the 1946 William Lindsay Gresham novel (and a remake of the 1947 film). The movie, set in the strange world of carnival performers, features a highly acclaimed cast, with Bradley Cooper starring alongside Cate Blanchett, Toni Collette, Willem Dafoe, Rooney Mara, Ron Perlman, Mary Steenburgen, and David Straithairn, among others. Originally, Cooper says, the allure of working with such a top-flight ensemble drew him into the film, though he says he soon found himself immersed in the film’s twisted reality. Click on the link to hear Bradley Cooper Nightmare Alley opens in theaters on December 17.

[soundtrackalley]

Soundtrack Alley 126: Sneakers

Soundtrack Alley 126: Sneakers

Today on Soundtrack Alley, Erik Woods and I delve into Sneakers, the 1990 techno thriller with the amazing cast of Robert Redford, Sidney Poitier, River Phoenix, Dan Aykroid, Ben Kingsley, Mary MacDonnell and David Straithairn. We’ll discuss things on the film itself, and we’ll also enjoy the film score by the late James Horner. Sit back and relax as you enjoy the show. I’m on Social Media…