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if You’re not constantly at war with everyone in sight to achieve the perfect vision, and as a result letting your body, mind, and anything else in immediate proximity deteriorate completely, youre a hack. you better look like you’re hanging on for dear life. you better look like the next cigarette or coffee might fucking kill you. you should be running on 2 hours of sleep, max. You should be in crippling debt. You should have insufferable back pain. And an alcohol problem. if you’ve had a haircut before your film is finished You’re delusional. How could you possibly make time for that. your masterpiece is at stake every waking minute of the day. Grow the fuck up.
Jan 2, 2024
Related Recs
The minute that Gene Hackman walks into the brothel in the 1992 Neo-Western Unforgiven, he's so casually evil that you want to spit phlegm at him to the screen from your couch. It's a particular role too, since the movie regards the previous iterations of Westerns as false. Unforgiven is about how all the outlaws of the past were no-good liars, that this is a no-good way of life. Clint Eastwood's William Munny is an alcoholic, wrestles with his pigs in the mud because he could no longer stand the pain from his exploits. But, it is Hackman --- who died in his Sante Fe home this Thursday morning -- who most understood the bleak vision that Eastwood is projecting to us. Sheriff Little Bill, his character in Unforgiven, was a keeper of sadism, a keeper of that bleakness that Eastwood conveys. Where the sheriffs of the myth that you read would be righteous veterans respected for their sincere integrity, or big defenders of justice, Little Bill is a gang in the way policemen are in didactic urban movies. When he needs to be empathetic, he is cavalier, letting the men who abuse the lovely prostitute in the beginning of the movie leave without any repercussions. When he is needs to be fair, he is sadistic; to him, vigilantes are one thing: villains here to take the shine away from him in his small-town that he runs for the sake of his ego. Hackman is shiveringly good as Little Bill; it's my favorite role from him in a career full of dynamic screen performances that have captured the rot of American life. You get the point that there is no point to any of what Bill is doing besides his own egocentrism. He finds vigilantes bad, not because it is amoral, but rather because they get the credit and not him. Popeye Doyle, for all of his tenacity, has a twisted sense of justice and what the police can do. The nastiness he conveys in his service of a conspiracy that goes beyond anything what Doyle can defeat -- yet, he can't help but continue the imperial march for his own ego. When you look at television cops like Jimmy McNulty or Vic Mackey, you see Hackman's portrayal of Doyle, and his Captain Ahab-like drive to be lower than the criminals he is chasing.
I was nervous to write about Hackman, that's why I took so long to complete this blog. I didn't know what to write about, what performance to highlight, or how to start it. He's lived a monumental, complete life that brought a presence which changed the way audiences viewed actors. He wasn't a movie star in the way that Jimmy Stewart, Cary Grant, or even James Cagney was, but he was not a underrated character actor. Instead, his definition would be "a screen presence" --- a word used for an actor who is always the key component of the movie regardless of what his screen time is. He was both Popeye Doyle and the best of an ensemble cast, like he was in Wes Anderson's The Royal Tenebaums. He was great as Denzel's antagonist in Crimson Tide, as a ruthless meat boss in Prime Cut. Those roles suggested a brilliance that was unpretentious but intelligent.
I would be remiss if I didn't bring up that performance as the Tenebaum family patriarch. His old man period was awesome -- he felt like a hired gun for a baseball team every free agency period, like he signed one year deals with every famous director on the planet --- and Royal Tenebaums is a prominent character in Anderson's filmography for his joy, irresponsibility, racism, unique humor, yet there is an underlying humanity that sets him apart from the other deadbeats. When Ben Stiller's Chas says "I've had a rough year, Dad." Hackman, in a line reading that is a caption for the wonders of friendship, empathy, and understanding says, "I know you have, Chassie." Cinema can really be unsettlingly pertinent, and that Hackman role is as good as a string part of a grilled cheese sandwich.
Feb 27, 2025
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This man has been publicly slugging it out with his humanity and spirituality in what he writes and directs his whole career. And making some profound art in the process. His declaration here chokes me up. I’m glad he’s finally finding some peace in this life.
Jul 2, 2024
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whenever I was hungover I always wanted to watch Fincher for some reason. Zodiac, Fight Club, Se7en, Mindhunter. Theres something so specifically man-centric about most of his work that meant I could watch them with a detachedness that requires very little brain power. Even though basically all of them involve women being killed brutally, so really shouldn’t be comforting.
Aug 1, 2024
Top Recs from @uncle_hesh
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cloutchasing Is stupid you Should only be trying to meet people who make you laugh
Jan 27, 2024
the best and easiest to access archive of free movies I've seen on the internet. this google drive folder has thousands of films and basically covers the entire history of tasteful, cool, and/or groundbreaking cinema. there are deep cuts like Abel Ferrara's debut feature - 9 Lives of a Wet Pussy (a porno from 1970) - and classics like Barry Lyndon. There's hundreds of random DVD extras, a bunch of licensed stock footage, curated collections in folders like "Male Manipulators" and definitely a lot of stuff I haven't figured out yet. It's kind of an unorganized shit show in there but you gotta dig through dirt to find gold, so just shut up and grab ur shovel. I wish I found this when I was a teenager because it would have changed my life.
Mar 3, 2025
no one told me to watch this until now so I’m telling you you need to watch this now
Feb 10, 2024