Hello there and welcome to Thursday Movie Picks a weekly series where you share your movie picks each Thursday. The rules are simple: based on the theme of the week pick three to five movies and tell us why you picked them. For further details and the schedule visit the series main page here.
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This week's Thursday Movie Picks is Great Final Films of Actors/Actresses
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Today's theme is one by thevoid99. Well this is a tricky theme. It was such a challenge to find any movies, but I did manage to find three. While I do think these are good movies, I don't think it was these actors performance that elevated them; they were good movies because of other actors' performances or it was just a really good screenplay.
Adrienne Shelly - Waitress (2007)
If we're talking about acting performance, it would be Keri Russell's, I thought she was great in this. Shelley did however act in this movie too, her final film which she had also written and directed; and it is a great movie. It manages to be the right balance of quirky, funny, sad and heartwarming.
If we're talking about acting performance, it would be Keri Russell's, I thought she was great in this. Shelley did however act in this movie too, her final film which she had also written and directed; and it is a great movie. It manages to be the right balance of quirky, funny, sad and heartwarming.
James Gandolfini - The Drop (2014)
Gandolfini's last feature film. As far as I remember he was good in it. I actually want to rewatch this. I remember thinking it was a really good gritty crime drama. And the dog...it was so cute.
Philip Seymour Hoffman - The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 (2015)
The Hunger Games movies are by far the best YA series adaptations. While I did like this movie I don't feel as invested in it as I was in the book, and this adaptation wasn't the best in the movie franchise either. I much prefer Catching Fire and the first movie, they were I think better movies. Still as I've said this was still good and it was Hoffman's last. I have to say he wasn't really given much to do in this franchise. Still he was decent...he certainly has better performances in his filmography.
Gandolfini's last feature film. As far as I remember he was good in it. I actually want to rewatch this. I remember thinking it was a really good gritty crime drama. And the dog...it was so cute.
Philip Seymour Hoffman - The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 (2015)
The Hunger Games movies are by far the best YA series adaptations. While I did like this movie I don't feel as invested in it as I was in the book, and this adaptation wasn't the best in the movie franchise either. I much prefer Catching Fire and the first movie, they were I think better movies. Still as I've said this was still good and it was Hoffman's last. I have to say he wasn't really given much to do in this franchise. Still he was decent...he certainly has better performances in his filmography.
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I've only seen Waitress out of these three and it was a delightful film. Russell was super in the lead and Andy Griffith added just the right touch of warmth to the film. A horrible end for Shelley, so much promise lost.
ReplyDeleteI might give The Drop a try but you couldn't pay me to see any of the Hunger Games.
So many last films of great stars aren't so great themselves which made this a challenge but I found a common thread that ties my four together and they are all superior films that afforded these performers a graceful final bow.
To Be or Not To Be (1942)-In German occupied Warsaw during World War II a Polish theatrical troupe headed by husband and wife stars Joseph & Maria Tura (Jack Benny & Carole Lombard) set out to prevent a German spy from revealing key members of the Polish underground to the Nazis by means both desperate and humorous.
Ernst Lubitsch directed masterpiece was Lombard’s final film. America entered the war just before the film’s premiere and Carole was the first star to go on a bond tour (to her native Indiana) and perished in a plane crash, along with her mother, on the return journey. A line her character spoke “What can happen in a plane?” was excised before the film debuted.
The Misfits (1961)-In Reno for a divorce Roslyn Taber (Marilyn Monroe) meets aging cowboy Gay Langland (Clark Gable), WWII aviator Guido Racanelli (Eli Wallach) and broken down rodeo rider Perce Howland (Montgomery Clift). Lonely and feeling lost Roslyn accepts Guido's invitation to stay at his desert home with the trio and the four wrestle with life’s questions.
Directed by John Huston and written for Marilyn by her then husband Arthur Miller this somber film was the final one for both Gable and Monroe. Gable, who performed some of his own stunt work died 12 days after the film wrapped. Marilyn started the trouble plagued “Something’s Gotta Give” but died before its completion and the picture scrapped.
The Iceman Cometh (1973)-In 1912 New York’s Last Chance Saloon a group of chronic alcoholics are momentarily shaken from their hopeless ennui by the arrival of Hickey (Lee Marvin) one of their number now sober urging them to abandon their pipe dreams and face reality. It does not go well. Powerful with a powerhouse cast (beside Marvin-Jeff Bridges, Robert Ryan, Fredric March, Moses Gunn, Bradford Dillman among others) full book adaptation of the Eugene O'Neill play couldn't be better presented (it’s directed by John Frankenheimer) but it's so long (four hours!) and full of doom and gloom it’s a hard one to embrace.
This was the last film for both Robert Ryan (who died before the film’s premiere) and Fredric March who retired on the film’s completion and passed away shortly afterwards.
Advise & Consent (1962)-Secretary of State nominee Robert Leffingwell (Henry Fonda) is being investigated by a Senate committee headed by Senator Brig Anderson (Don Murray) before his appointment. When serious allegations are leveled against Leffingwell engineered by Senior Senator Seab Cooley (Charles Laughton) pressure is applied to Anderson in the form of exposure of a long hidden secret to influence the outcome. Otto Preminger directed, star-studded (Gene Tierney, Walter Pidgeon, Lew Ayres, Franchot Tone, Burgess Meredith, Betty White etc.) political drama is still timely.
This was Charles Laughton final feature (passing away within six months of completion), by happenstance he co-starred with each of the other stars excepting Ryan in one of their films (Lombard-They Knew What They Wanted, Gable-Mutiny on the Bounty, Fredric March-Les Miserables and Monroe-O Henry’s Full House).
"films that afforded these performers a graceful final bow" you said it better than I wanted to.
DeleteWe match on Waitress! Losing Phillip Seymour Hoffman still hurts. He was so talented.
ReplyDeleteI've seen two, haven't seen The Drop tho. But also I hardly remember Waitress so I couldn't mention it myself.
ReplyDeleteThe Hunger Games is the only I've seen and I wasn't a fan. As for Waitress, I've heard about it before and it sounds good.
ReplyDeletePhilip Seymour Hoffman's character was important in the last Hunger Games movies - he's a great actor. Waitress was a great film, I was looking forward for more of Adrienne Shelley's work, not knowing that she passed away after that.
ReplyDeletePhilip Seymour Hoffman's character is important to the plot of Mocking Jay. It is just not a role that truly allow him to flex his acting talent. He had had better roles.
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