question re: pacino - Angels in America (2003) Discussion

[–] 16 years ago

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[–] xxx_23_99 16 years ago

Pacino is very often hammy, it's part of his on-screen persona. He always outshines anything else going on in the frame. When Pacino is around everything else tends to fade into the background. That being said, I think Angels in America is easily his best performance since Heat. And he deservedly won many awards for it :)

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[–] rockycairns 16 years ago

He was fantastic in Donnie Brasco and The Insider between Heat and Angels in America, I personally rank Donnie Brasco in my Top 5 Al Pacino performances.

"It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything." - Tyler Durden

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[–] JaysonT 15 years ago

Oh please, how can you rank Donnie Brasco as one of his top 5 performances, and he never even got an Oscar nomination for it?

Come on!

His best 5 are easily:

The Godfather, Part II
The Godfather
Dog Day Afternoon
Scent of a Woman (which he won for, by the way)
...And justice for ALl

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[–] ZildjianDFW 14 years ago

...so, the Oscars are the end-all determining factor in a performance's quality...really?

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[–] vicky_lc2001-1 10 years ago

So what if he wasn't nominated for DB? Pacino gave a mind blowing performance in TGF yet he never won an Oscar for it. I recommend that you watch TGF, then Scarface, then DB - it's hard to believe they're all played by the same guy. Do you know of any actor as versatile as he was in these 3 films? Who could've played all those 3 characters as well and as believable as Pacino has? Also, I recommend you watch Donnie Brasco Director's Cut, far superior to the theatrical release.

Global Warming, it's a personal decision innit? - Nigel Tufnel

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[–] vicky_lc2001-1 10 years ago

I agree with Rocky, Pacino was outstanding in both Insider and Donnie Brasco but I also have to mention The Merchant of Venice, as well as Insomnia. My heart broke watching TMOV thanks to Pacino's riveting performance.

Only Pacino can play a gangster who are so different from each other, examples:

Michael Corleone (The Godfather trilogy)
Tony Montana (Scarface)
Lefty Ruggiero (Donnie Brasco)

Whereas De Niro plays the same gangster in every film.

Global Warming, it's a personal decision innit? - Nigel Tufnel

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[–] Thomasina 16 years ago

I loved it, because it reminds me of university. My group did a total revisioning of his AIDs-revelation scene, and how he isn't a homosexual.

Your more recent post notwithstanding, what you wrote here really makes it sound like you do not understand that Roy Cohn's monologue does not mean that he wasn't really a homosexual. The point of the scene is that Cohn (the character) is both homosexual (though deeply closeted) and extremely homophobic--very apt considering that the real Roy Cohn was closeted and came to fame by persecuting people for (among other things) being gay.

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[–] Aulic Exclusiva 16 years ago

It pays to watch Roy Cohn in that famous clip of the army-McCarthy hearings in which Joe McCarthy and army counsel Welch have that "pyxie/fairy" dialogue. He looks sick to his stomach.

If we are to be brothers, let us be brothers for life, die together.

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[–] nouveauzenboho 16 years ago

You told on me to the administrators? I didn't even say anything that bad! Your post was unclear and irrelevant, why censor me? You're the one who called me a "dick" and I'm not whining to get you deleted. Grow up.

http://thenewyorkcourier.blogspot.com/

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[–] 16 years ago

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[–] 16 years ago

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[–] manch_united 14 years ago

The very idea to criticize Pacinos performance in this film should in all essence be illegal.
It's simply ridiculous. It's without question his best performance thus far in this millennium.

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[–] fanaticita 14 years ago

While I have noticed that over the years Pacino's performances have been a bit over the top. . . lots of yelling where internalizing and subtlety might have worked better.. . . he did some of this in Angels, but for the most part I thought he did a great job.

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[–] vicky_lc2001-1 10 years ago

If you mean that he never yelled in his earlier films, then I have to recommend that you watch his 70s films starting with The Panic In Needle Park. You're confusing the change of his voice from quiet to raspy with his acting ability.

Global Warming, it's a personal decision innit? - Nigel Tufnel

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[–] angelofvic 14 years ago

I thought Pacino, and Jeffrey Wright as Belize, were easily the most watchable actors in this piece. Storyline notwithstanding, I had problems occasionally with a lot of the other actors.

Pacino is riveting. The only critique I could possibly give him is that he didn't quite capture Cohn's Jewishness or precise accent so he wasn't a carbon copy of Cohn, but that's pretty hard to do when you're an Italian. Beyond that, Pacino was perfect, and he was the perfect actor for the movie, I think.

I would have loved to see Ron Liebman play the part on Broadway. However, Liebman almost always plays hang-dog, underdog roles, as he's not a strong presence, so I'm not sure he would have exuded the power and disdain that Pacino can and did.
.

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[–] childers-3 14 years ago

I watched this again this weekend. Love it. My thoughts about Pacino was, maybe he's too big of a name actor to have been in this. The role needed subtelty, which I haven't seen Pacino use since The Godfather. He was distracting and kept taking me out of the scenes he was in. The only scene I thought he did well was the scene when he's talking to his doctor. James Cromwell was wonderful even though he had a very small part. When actors become too famous, the mere fact that they're in a movie tends to take me out of the movie. Except Meryl Streep. She is so good that she can blend in to any character (she WAS buried under tons of makeup though). She never overacts and is always good. Pacino is just too full of himself.

"Hey, I should be mad at YOU . . . now turn around"

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[–] joelk-2 14 years ago

In real life, was Roy Cohn subtle?

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[–] vicky_lc2001-1 11 years ago

You should watch Pacino in Bobby Deerfield & Frankie & Johnny.

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[–] the sphynx 10 years ago

And Insomnia.

He was also wonderful portraying Kevorkian in "You Don't Know Jack".

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[–] bellaluna711-1 14 years ago

I don't know who made the comment, but in my opinion his performance was brilliant.

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[–] 10 years ago

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