There’s a moment in “The Program,” Stephen Frears’s new biopic about Lance Armstrong’s rise and fall, in which the cycling champion, then at the top of his career, muses about who will play him in an upcoming biopic. “It’s supposed to be Matt Damon but I think it’s gonna be Jake Gyllenhaal,” he muses, pronouncing the latter man’s name with a hard “G.” The meta-joke, of course, is that this Armstrong is played by Ben Foster, that stealth bomb of an actor who brings a moody, broody intensity to everything from “X-Men” to “Six Feet Under.” It’s a clear indication of how Armstrong’s image has changed since his heyday.
Archive | Book Matters
The Solidarity of Sin: ‘Barney Thomson’
“Barney Thomson,” a Glasgow-set ensemble crime comedy rocking so many strong brogues that it’s best watched with subtitles, may be the most Scottish film to wash up on American shores since “Trainspotting.” For the record, that’s a compliment, especially since a Scottish passport is no more required to appreciate this salty dog than New York City citizenship is required to enjoy the (twentieth century) films of Woody Allen. Adapted from Douglas Lindsay’s novel The Legend of Barney Thomson, The Legend of Barney Thomson, “Barney” is the directorial debut of proud Scotsman Robert Carlyle, who’s best known for playing the unspooled misfits of “The Full Monty” and, yep, “Trainspotting.” Here he tamps down his usual fire as the titular character, a middle-aged, mullet-sporting barber widely described as having undergone a “charisma bypass.” Continue Reading →
The WTFery of ‘Whiskey Tango Foxtrot’
More than any other American film actress under fifty, Tina Fey is an old-school screen siren. In the 1940s — the era of Barbara Stanwyck and Judy Holliday; the era of dames whose appeal stemmed as much from their crackling brilliance as from their gorgeously irregular features — Fey would have been the queen of marquee. As it is, this Philadelphia native of Greek descent has been edging past Hollywood’s biases against grownup women ever since she sprang out of the “Saturday Night Live” writers room to deliver the Weekend Update in 2000. Now, in “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot,” she comes into her own like the librarian who whips off her glasses to reveal the beauty already obvious to anyone paying attention. Continue Reading →