Tag: tom hooper

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Now Playing: The Danish Girl and Joy

Dan Seeger

In this era of Caitlyn Jenner and loads of respectful awards attention paid to the Amazon series Transparent, it’s tempting to look at the tepid, staid The Danish Girl as sadly behind the times in its depiction of an individual coming to terms with their true self. Then Ricky Gervais returns to the Golden Globes hosting gig with a slew of jokes that utilize cheap, hateful mockery of transgendered individuals as punchlines, the least offensive of which is the dig at Jenner which has stirred the most ire. (The casual derision towards Jeffrey Tambor’s work in Transparent, with Gervais, for … Continue reading Now Playing: The Danish Girl and Joy

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In my life, why do I give valuable time to people who don’t care if I live or die?

Dan Seeger

Let’s start with this: if Jennifer Hudson could win a Best Actress in a Supporting Role Academy Award, despite showing no apparent capacity for acting beyond a suitable performance of a show-stopping musical number, then it’s somewhat remarkable that Anne … Continue reading In my life, why do I give valuable time to people who don’t care if I live or die?

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Demme, Frears, Hooper, Lee, Wang

Dan Seeger

Swimming to Cambodia (Jonathan Demme, 1987). Jonathan Demme may not have been the best filmmaker of the nineteen-eighties, but I think there’s an argument to be made that he was the most interesting. This film is a good illustration of that point. It’s a film version of one of Spalding Gray’s monologues, a meandering but always focused act of storytelling that springs from his involvement in the film The Killing Fields. Gray’s approach was simplicity itself, sitting behind a small wooden table with his spiral notebook before him and little more than a couple of maps to help fill out … Continue reading Demme, Frears, Hooper, Lee, Wang