The Hoff Is Back
I am I the midst of a movie drought. It has been almost two weeks since I have seen a single film. This happens sometimes, I’ll go through a burst and watch several all at once and follow it with a dry spell. I always tell myself while I’m on top of things that this isn’t going to happen anymore, that I will continue to obsessively eat up the celluloid. Yet it never fails.
Yes, dammit, I am a movie junkie, and proud of it. Enough about me, they’re more pronouns in that last paragraph than I’d (fuck!) like to admit and that’s no way to write.
Two movies that you need to watch, both starring Phillip Seymour Hoffman, who has been gone too long.
Hoffman and Laura Linney are brother and sister, estranged from their Pop, who are tasked with finding a home for Dad when his live in girlfriend bites the dust. The plot itself is simply two people adapting their father for a new life in a nursing home and the emotional toll this takes on them personally, being that their relationship with him and with each other isn’t the best.
The film succeeds with damn near perfect dialogue and acting. Hoffman and Linney are both excellent as always, and the behind the scenes creative team knows well enough to leave the movie to these two. You don’t have fancy directing or camera tricks here. Simple and effective.
Hoffman and Ethan Hawke are brothers who decide to rob their parents jewelry store. Goddamn good movie, I’m not going to talk too much about this one because it’s one that is good to go into without much knowledge. As opposed to Savages, where Hoffman is a depressed man child struggling to get through life, here he is a ruthless asshole that will fuck over anyone to get ahead. Two complete opposite characters, absolute perfection in both. I could be wrong, but it seems that Hoffman kinda disappeared for a couple years. I guess he didn’t, really, he did that Truman Capote movie which I never saw. He just wasn’t in the indies, the genre in which he excels. I’m stopping here now, so check out these movies.
steve