The Screengrab : Bob Hoskins

Morning Deal Report: Nicole Kidman Marries Charlize Theron

Scott Von Doviak — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 15:30:00 GMT

If the voters of California had visualized that headline, Prop. 8 might have had a completely different outcome. Alas, it’s a match made only for the movies (as far as we know): Nicole Kidman and Charlize Theron will star in The Danish Girl. Kidman plays artist Einar Wegener, a man with a very smooth forehead who, with the encouragement of his wife Greta (Theron), adopts a female guise for a series of portraits. “What began as a harmless game led Einer to a metamorphosis and landmark 1931 operation that shocked the world and threatened their love,” per The Hollywood Reporter. That operation? Well, it ain’t liposuction.

As we await Werner Herzog’s highly unnecessary version of The Bad Lieutenant, news reports of an even less essential remake have surfaced. Larry Clark (Kids) will direct an update of Neil Jordan’s Mona Lisa, per Screen Daily. But that’s not all! “Hayden Christensen is in formal negotiations to take the lead in HandMade's remake of Mona Lisa. He will take on a younger version of George, the character made famous by Bob Hoskins in the original.” I’d rather see Bob Hoskins as Anakin Skywalker, but maybe that’s just me.

More! We demand more bad remake news! How about this: “Columbia Pictures is back in the dojo with a new version of the 1984 hit The Karate Kid, which has been refashioned as a star vehicle for Jaden Smith,” Variety reports. That’s Will Smith’s 10-year-old boy, who co-starred with his dad in The Pursuit of Happyness.

Related:
Charlize Theron Is a Sexual Creature
Werner Herzog's Very Bad Idea

The Screengrab Highlight Reel: August 24-30, 2008

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 21:00:00 GMT

My fellow Americans, I am here to humbly accept your nomination of Recapper of the Week in Screengrab! I think we all know it is time for a change. No longer can we sit by, complacent, while the screenwriter of Showgirls turns to Jesus. No longer can we allow Robert Downey Jr. to badmouth The Dark Knight. No longer can we stand by while good men like Phil Nugent and Andrew Osborne face-off over Judd Apatow and Pineapple Express!

No, my friends, this is a time for unity. A time for us to gather together and marvel at the World’s Greatest Animated Shorts – Parts One, Two, Three, Four and Five! We must respect the Screengrab Fall Preview Picks of Andrew Osborne and Leonard Pierce, as different as they may be, as equal planks in our broad platform.

Some will tell you Guy Ritchie is caught up in the zeitgeist of slaggery. Some will insist that Fascination and Meet the Spartans are actually watchable movies. Some will wonder when Robert Zemeckis went bad, or why Terrence Howard would record an album, or under what circumstances David Lynch met Devo.

We don’t have all the answers! But we do know that That Guy is Bob Hoskins! We do know that Sukiyaki Western Django is some fucked-up shit! We do know that An American Carol is coming out whether we like it or not! And if we all stick together we can survive anything, even RocknRolla or a sequel to The Strangers !

God bless the Screengrab, and let’s make it a Wet Hot American Summer!

That Guy!: Bob Hoskins

Leonard Pierce — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 19:45:00 GMT

It's been a long time since we've seen a new entry for That Guy!, the Screengrab's sporadic celebration of B-listers, character actors, and the working famous. So who better to mark our return than one of the most enjoyable contemporary character actors? Robert William Hoskins, the short, broad Cockney from Bury St. Edmonds, is one of England's most beloved actors -- quite unusual given that he's never had an acting lesson and his first role came purely by accident. At the time, Hoskins was seeking a career as a writer, and supported himself, like most failed artists, by working odd jobs -- in this case, as a warehouse worker. Showing up drunk and a theater to collect a friend who was auditioning for the lead, he was clowning around in the audience and, mistaken for one of the hopefuls by the casting director, he acquitted himself marvelously in the audition and got the part. It cost him a friend, but it launched one of the richest careers in modern British cinema. At 5'6", stout, and with an unmistakable working-class accent and demeanor, Hoskins is rarely the best-looking man in the room, even when he's alone; but he's parlayed his unusual appearance and forceful personality into some electrifying roles. At first known for his ability to play intense and sometimes brutal criminals and assorted villains, he later convinced his agents that he was more diverse than his resume indicated and soon showed an exceptional gift for comedy as well, both verbal and physical. His big break came in 1980, when, after a number of high-profile television appearances, he netted the lead role in The Long Good Friday (about which see below); it proved to be a turning point in his career, and he's worked steadily ever since, rarely in a lead role but always worth watching (well, maybe with the exception of Super Mario Brothers). With both blockbuster films and small independent movies to his credit, Hoskins has proven his diversity, and even now, at age 65, he gets offers that men half his age would envy. Curiously, he has played a number of political leaders from the 1940s and 1950s in his storied career: Churchhill, Mussolini, Krushchev, and Soviet secret police killer Lavrent Beria. Of this phenomenon, Hoskins has said, with typical self-deprecation, "Most dictators were short, fat, middle-aged and hairless. Besides Danny DeVito, there's only me to play them."

Where to see Bob Hoskins at his best:

THE LONG GOOD FRIDAY (1980)

Hoskins' breakout film role came in this gripping, suspenseful gangster movie, which he earned by a stellar performance in Dennis Potter's fantastic television mini-series Pennies from Heaven. Playing Harold Shand, a short-tempered and violent British gangster, Hoskins is endlessly fascinating to watch: his character, used to being in complete control, is a textbook case of slow, angry boil as his world begins to completely unravel on what should be the occasion of his greatest triumph. Watching Shand fall to pieces as he thrashes about helplessly, trying to find out who is out to destroy him and why, is one the greatest treats the gangster genre has to offer.

MONA LISA (1986)

Once again returning to the well of British gangster films, Bob Hoskins chose wisely in taking the role of George, a down-on-his-luck ex-convict who, shunned by his former colleagues, can only secure employment as the driver for a high-priced call girl. In a role rife with sexual tension, danger, and class conflict, Hoskins shines as the shy but confident George, whose initial disdain for Cathy Tyson's Simone grows into respect and finally affection. Considering that he shared the screen with some genuinely great actors -- including Robbie Coltrane, The Wire's Clarke Peters, and Michael Caine as a sinister mob boss -- it's even more impressive how good Hoskins is in this; he secured an Oscar nomination as well as a BAFTA nod for the performance.

WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT? (1988)

In the role that ensured he'd have success in the United States as well as his native England, Hoskins got a chance to stick to the rough-edged hard men he was accustomed to playing while still having ample opportunities to show off his gift for physical comedy. In this Bob Zemeckis blockbuster (profiled recently in our look at the greatest animated features of all time), he plays Eddie Valiant, a hardboiled noir detective in a 1940s version of Los Angeles where cartoons are as alive as anyone else -- though Valiant wishes otherwise when he's called upon to defend the notorious Roger Rabbit, who's been framed for murder. His Golden Globe-nominated performance is still a delight to see; it's the rare actor who doesn't come across as a complete tool acting opposite a drawing, which is why we can always forgive him for Super Mario Brothers.

The Top Ten Great Scenes From Not So Great Movies (Part Two)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 20:30:00 GMT

The watch scene from THE COTTON CLUB (1984)

Francis Coppola spent the first half of the 1980s despoiling his reputation and laying waste to his bank account by turning out a string of movies that concentrated on technological wizardy and hollow flash to such a degree that involving the audience in what was supposed to be going on became a moot point. Reduced to working as a gun for hire, he signed on to direct this elephantine period musical about the legendary Harlem night spot, and made all the same mistakes that he'd made with his own labor-of-love fiascoes. He and his screenwriting partner, William Kennedy, were not helped by their producers, who signed Richard Gere to star in the movie, and accepted his demand that he get to play a cornet player, before a script had been written. (This meant that Coppola and Kennedy had to vamp their asses off to come up with a story that would be set at a jazz club which only employed black musicians yet had a white musician at its center.) The best scene in the movie is a throwaway moment between the Cotton Club's gangster owner, Owney Madden, and his baleful partner, Frenchy Demange, played by Bob Hoskins and Fred Gwynne, who were not considered to be among the most glittering members of the movie's crowded cast. (At the time, Hoskins was largely unknown in America, and Gwynne, at 58, was just beginning to crawl out from under the shadow of Herman Munster, a role that had left him badly typecast for twenty years.) Frenchy has just been released from the clutches of a sociopathic thug (Nicolas Cage) who kidnapped him for ransom; Owney is reluctant to let Frenchy know how worried he's been for him, and Frenchy is pissed off because he's heard, falsely, thay Owney tried to bargain down the price of the ransom. Reunited, they use the ostensible subject of a busted watch as an excuse to dance around and finally reveal how much their friendship means to them. It's the only fully human scene in the movie, and not only does it not involve the leads, but Coppola and Kennedy didn't write it. Hoskins and Gwynne came up with it while hanging out together on the set, waiting for something to do.

The pie-eating scene from STAND BY ME (1986)

I know that a great many people have tender feelings for this gentle look at the bond between little boys -- or, to put it the way the grown narrator (Richard Dreyfuss) puts it at the very end, "I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve. Jesus, does anyone?" I guess that's sort of true: later on, I was never so hard up for someone to hang out with that I was willing to tolerate having friends who ate worms. The fact is that some of us would rather not even have to think about the possibility that Stephen King has a soft, sensitive side (and that goes triple for Meathead). However, there is one scene that fully lives up to what some of us might have hoped for in a collaboration between the author of Carrie and the director of This Is Spinal Tap. It's the scene where the kid who likes to tell stories (and who's going to grow up to be Richard Dreyfuss, i.e. Stephen King) gathers his mates together and enthralls them with the tale of Lardass, the fat kid who rewards the people of his town for their years of abuse with a little plan involving a pie-eating contest and a dose of castor oil. I never heard any gross-out stories that could top the ones invented by twelve-year-old boys who were secretly a lot less sensitive than they wanted to believe. Jesus, does anybody?

Darth Maul, Sebulba & The Pod Race from THE PHANTOM MENACE (1999)

After the pure, cinematic orgasm of Star Wars blew my pre-pubescent mind beyond any hope of repair, even The Empire Strikes Back was something of a let-down (although watching the teaser trailer for the sequel during one of the theatrical re-releases of the original may stand as the most exciting two minutes of my entire movie-going life). In retrospect, it was pretty obvious that seeing The Phantom Menace as a grown-ass man (especially after HOURS in line waiting for a seat at the Mann’s Chinese screening in Hollywood on opening night) would never come anywhere close to replicating the experience of watching the original trilogy at more or less exactly the right age. But from the dense trade federation blather and Sesame Street robots of the film's opening minutes through all the disheartening talk of mitochlorians and CGI miasma of its overlong running time, Phantom Menace barely even achieved the all-important Star Wars “feel” until Darth Maul unfurled that wicked pissa double-sided light saber and Sebulba hopped into his souped-up muscle car for the big Pod Race midway through the movie. Here, at last, were some worthy additions to that far, far away galaxy I'd known and loved, swaggering, mysterious and truly alien figures who (like Jango and Li’l Boba Fett in Attack of the Clones, General Grievous in Revenge of the Sith and Ian McDiarmid’s series-spanning, scenery-chewing evil Emperor) were far more compelling than whatever nonsense was going on with Jar-Jar Binks and the rest of the so-called “main” characters over in the boring “A” story. And the Ben-Hur pod-race sequence (despite the hokey, sub-Spaceballs intrusion of those “wacky” sports announcers and the fact that Sebulba wuz robbed) was such a breathless, seemingly effortless mini-masterpiece of lucid storytelling and high tech filmmaking that it gave me the smallest flicker of hope that Lucas wouldn’t blow the rest of the new trilogy as badly as he'd blown Episode One.

Click here for Part One & Part Three

Contributors: Phil Nugent, Andrew Osborne