side-taking: heist vs. man who be not dere

Some say shurely we should be asking Heist vs Score - since they have self same plot, one comes from popcorn land, one comes from the house of art. But I ain't seeing Heist til Wednesday...

i. I like "Heist" better.

ii. DRAMA = protagonist's better instinct is set against against things which run counter to it; in many movies today (and ALL action movies) this instinct is stripped to its crudest and most animal form: simple survival (—mamet explored this particular instinct in the anthony hopkins movie about the bear)(sometimes the forces that are trying to destroy a protag's better instincts come from within protag himself (laziness, etc)) Anyhow: forces arrayed against BillyBob in ManWho are implacable, unnamed, impossible to persuade. as hard to get a purchase on as the surface of a spaceship. Forces arrayed against Hackman in Heist are tangible, personal, swayable. Words can do damage here, make all the difference. Therefore all must be proactive - actors Act, rather than simply be Acted On.

Or, heroes vs. antiheroes. Ever since Camus it's been 'antiheroes: subject to soial forces beyond our control yay for realizm!' and 'heroes: last vestige of court dramas and old theory that only noblemen make good protags cuz only they can Act with total impunity and immunity from forces to which all we (antihero) commoners are subject to'. Heist has characters who operate outside bounds of the law, for essentially this same dramatic reason that most of Shakespeare's plays featured nobility, and the same reason that most "thrillers" etc are about cops, mobsters and others who get to Act rather than get Acted On. And it is well and good that we have movies featuring those who do not have this type of leeway (cf. Jimmy Cliff character in The Harder They Come, who is all action, but nothing he does actually furthers whatever he wants to accomplish). But this is more on the level of a lesson rather than a drama. I wanna see characters fight tooth and nail for what they're trying to accomplish. I want to be inspired by what I see. I want a character to fight for their better instincts. So I like Heist better. Better instinct = get tha GOLD and/or stay ALIVE (these instincts are constantly weighed against one another but both are fought for) and the characters do it with verve, style, wit, and grace.

"take me!!" vs. "(i hope i am taken)"

I have seen only Heist and was a tad disappointed. I love Mamet but Heist felt too much like a rehashed Spanish Prisoner. And man, his wife is painful to watch. She made me appreciate Gene Hackman's acting subtelty. Heist also seemed to have more big-bang action than Mamet's other work, which made it feel more common place.

who is mamet now married to? (useta be lindsay crouse = ran the Initiative in Buffy = married to C.Walken in communion = gratest movie evah made except Search and Destroy)

Rebecca Pidgeon ist ver new model. It's hard to tell if she's a good actress or not (in his movies; don't know how much she does elsewhere) because Mamet-as-director pushes ppl to choose the most hardboiled route possible. Crouse's career was almost literally ruined by House of Games. Pidgeon's is almost there. Fortunately DeVito and Hackman are GRATE at being the toughguy so their dialogue crackles as it is meant to. bnw it worries me not that it's the same plot as house of games etc. - I love that plot!

i think LC is good in house of games, in a VERY LOWKEY way — she's totally one of my favourite actresses (wasted in buffy: by which i mean, buffy roXoR obv, but they failed to put crouse's character to good use); i believe she is more yay for stage than screen tho, so "career ruined" = overstating the case?

I love Glengarry Glen Ross but I keep seeing Mamet crime films that make me wish I didn't see any more Mamet crime films. Too fucking self-consciously 'real' dialogue. If I wanted that I'd watch a motherfucking play, not a movie.

I didn't like The Score, nor The Heist. Mamet used to be good, now it seemed selfconscious. Marlon Brando isn't paid to move lots, is he? ;-) Nonetheless I am liking Gene Hackman more and more. Used to dislike his acting.

'self-consciously "real"' = seeing how people 'perform' themselves to get what they want = motherfucking faB00!

If I wanted to see that point made I could watch fucking Law and Order. Making it awkwardly self-conscious gets him nothing extra.

josh i know EXACTLY what you mean about mamet's dialogue. when he directs his own films he seems to push people into some toughguy monotonia. i too suffered thru 'homicide' etc. But it's not the dialogue's fault. i know of no other dramatic writer who gets the repetition and and outlandishness of normal speech down so well. mamet's direction betrays his incredible writing, sets it up; the direction is a frame-job. That said, the principals in heist - especially hackman and devito - make the writing their own. they spit it out as if their lives depended on it. pidgeon is content to just be beguiling and mysterious, the newbie is actually very good, the black buddy doesn't seem altogether comfortable, and ricky jay is just atrocious - stick to the sleight of hand, ricky! still - best movie i've seen all year (besides yi-yi).

I saw The Score a few times, enough to make up for not having seen Heist, and I'm sure The Score is better than Heist. Rebecca Pigeon is the worst actress I've ever seen, and Mamet is and always has been a joke. I don't even care about the Coen Brothers anymore. Surely if you think these movies are good your standards are too low. Bandits and Behind Enemy Lines are better examples of Billy Bob and Gene's acting, respectively, doubtless?