I AM LOST

Get a Grip

There is a recurring dream I have where everything is bigger than I am. I mean ginormous. It could be chairs , and tables, or even those cinders that stop your car from going over the allotted space in a parking spot. But I am surrounded by the objects, and the sheer size of these objects in relativity to how tiny I feel induces vertigo. I feel imbalanced, unconnected, I am on the ground, but I am grounded to nothing. I feel sick, but I cannot vomit, and any thought I have feels locked behind a door I can’t summon enough wherewithal to reach, let alone unlock. Eventually, this feeling of helplessness, of lopsidedness, becomes so overwhelming to my senses it yanks me hurriedly from my sleep, but the feeling may stay with me a further fifteen minutes. That dream used to just be a dream, (a reoccurring one) but a dream nonetheless, now it feels like its my life.

Same old Story

I always wanted to be in movies, around movies. I grew up shuffling around various parts of the Inland Empire (A large metropolitan area just east of Los Angeles) in Southern California. We were a steadily growing family, (we would eventually be nine - seven children) that would move from neighborhood to neighborhood each time trying to move up, and away from the consequences of the inner city. I never had many friends, just my imagination, courtesy of books and television. We could rarely afford going to the movies when I was younger, so most of my movie watching came via TV and video rentals, but I fell in love with the escapism. The farther away from reality, from the world I knew, a movie went.. the more I loved it. Movies allowed me to disappear, and at the time I liked disappearing. Not in some morose, melodramatic sense, ....I just liked it better somewhere else. My favorite book then was C.S. Lewis’s “The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe”, I became somewhat obsessed with the idea that this world, and another so much more fantastic than this one could be so conjoined that merely going through a closet could transport you from one to the other. I would walk around waving a pencil in front of my eyes, drawing out the world I imagined myself in, most of which I borrowed from movies. In some sense movies were my closet, but I wasn’t hiding from anything drastic. I wasn’t abused, I wasn’t bullied until middle school, (and lightly even then) I wasn’t the only black kid in my neighborhood, and I wasn’t an outcast. I spray painted walls with my sometime friend Charlie, played Nintendo with Jeremy, rode bikes, and flipped on mattresses (cliché but true) but I just preferred the company of the TV set, and the inside of my head. I lived in worlds conjured by Spielberg, and Ron Howard. I watched films like “DragonSlayer”, “Return of the Jedi”, “Conan/Red Sonja”, and “The Neverending Story” until I memorized them. School came pretty easy save for math so I daydreamed through most of that, despite being placed in classes for gifted and talented students. At this time I had no conception of self, and I didn’t put much time into thinking about it. The only time I did it was in pretending I was someone else, the actor in me already forming. Indiana Jones, Conan, He- Man, anyone but myself. Because at the time the only thing that mattered was in those worlds. We spend a lot of time talking about fairy tales for women, and subsequently their effect on women because we largely effeminized the word, coded it for women. But men have fairy tales, and I wonder how much these male constructed fairy tales around masculinity affected my sense of reality.

In these tales, these male fantasies like; James Bond, Sherlock Holmes, Dune, Conan, Star Trek, Star Wars, there is always destiny, and at some point surety. There is a time of being unsure, of feeling lost, helpless, incapable, but that is mostly a sign of boyhood. Manhood was all about knowing, and it was this “knowing” I was afraid of, even as a child. Fear…How much room is allotted for that in manhood? “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me”. I mean we can talk about it, I’m sure in the abstract, disconnected from the reality, from its true face, from its worst possibility. I’m sure in this era where we are deconstructing the pillars of toxic masculinity, we mean it when we say men should be able to express it. But when it’s front and center in our face, when it doesn’t take the form we see in our minds eye, when it’s not polite, or poetic like in the cinema, or literature..still? I am reminded of a quote…

“in china there was once a man who liked pictures of dragons, and his clothing and furnishings were all designed accordingly. his deep affections for dragons was brought to the attention of the dragon god, and one day a real dragon appeared before his window. it is said that he died of fright. he was probably a man who always spoke big words but acted differently when facing the real thing. ”

— Tsunetomo Yamamoto, Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai

I am often afraid, always have been. Afraid of my destiny, and afraid of saying I’m afraid of my destiny. If fear, or vulnerability is used as the dragon in the above quote, then I am the dragon, and I wonder for that dragon what it must’ve felt like watching a man die of fright at the sight of him, after expressing such deep affection for him? How many people can really stand the sight of a man truly afraid? There is acceptable fright in a man, the kind that drives us to action like in this scene from Jurassic Park…

Jurassic Park movie clips: http://j.mp/1nXDPTF BUY THE MOVIE: https://www.fandangonow.com/details/movie/jurassic-park-1993/1MVfaa4d254242cf0c06aa0772c9318099d?cmp=Movieclips_YT_Description Don't miss the HOTTEST NEW TRAILERS: http://bit.ly/1u2y6pr CLIP DESCRIPTION: Dr. Grant (Sam Neill) helps the children escape from the T-Rex, but the lawyer, Mr. Gennaro (Martin Ferrero), is eaten while hiding in the outhouse.

But what about the kind of fear that paralyzes us, leaving us unable to move in any direction, leaving us rudderless, and unable to help ourselves more less others? I don’t think we like to see that up close in anybody, but in men it can be seen as borderline repulsive. In my life right now, when anxiety, self doubt, and fear seize upon me without mercy, it’d be a lot easier to punch them, to fight them, but I can’t fight them, not in that way, and I can’t joke them away, or even love them away. I don’t feel a call to action, and I don’t feel brave, I feel a lot more like this..…

"Saving Private Ryan" is a 1998 American epic war film set during the Invasion of Normandy in World War II. Directed by "Steven Spielberg" & Starring "Tom Hanks, Tom Sizemore, Edward Burns, Barry Pepper, Vin Diesel, Matt Damon, Giovanni Ribisi, Adam Goldberg & Jeremy Davies".

“It is said, If you want to see into a sick persons heart, become ill yourself. When a man is sick or in trouble, those who do not keep company with him are cowards, even those who are close to him in daily life. We should visit those that are unhappy and give them gifts. We must not become estranged in life from those who have a sense of gratitude. At such times one can see into a mans heart .In the world there are men who ask of others when they are in great need. However there are men who don’t remember their obligations afterwards.”

— Yamamoto Tsunetomo, Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai

“Do you know what fear stands for? False Evidence Appearing Real”. 

I am sick. I have seen into the hearts of others, I have been a crutch to others but I have hid my sickness. I have hid it in idleness, in busy work, in advice given to others, in promises, in drink, and laughter, in sex, and darkness. My sickness, I am sure everyone else has in some form or another, but theirs seems less detectable than mines, I must hide it more.

“Pride goeth before a fall”

This year I turn 40. I have two goals and they have always been near me; To be an actor, and to be a writer. My relationship with them is polyamorous and I want both, one is not sufficient enough for me without the other. I have worked and studied thirteen years to be an actor, performed in plays, and short films that number enough for even a skeptic like me to be proud of, and that work no one can take away from me try as I may. Since I started writing again a year ago I have written over seventy pieces, and though that’s not gangbusters, it’s also work that cant be taken away. The Romantic in me says that is beautiful, the idealist, that, that is enough, and the realist says none of it has paid so much as one bill. Near the end of last year I was evicted out of my cheap studio apartment in LA. Gentrification did not care that I had no place to go, that I had mostly kept up with my rent , and that I was only one week late, with payment in hand. I had space near the “New and Improved” downtown LA, a minutes walk to the Staple Center, and so I was gone, my pride stayed there though.

“Don’t just stand there, try and brace it with something”

Another dream. I am surrounded by snakes. Snakes in the sky, and snakes on the ground, so I hover, but my movement is restricted. The snakes can move, some of them are cobras, some of them seem larger than is natural for cobras, they reach for me, but they don’t hiss, and they don’t seem to want to bite me, but rather to swallow me. I begin to move faster hovering above and below them, but they begin to enclose. I wake up. How much work is there for a 40 year old, actor/writer? How much work is there period? I served my country for six years, but the work I did is not very transferrable to the real world. There are jobs I could do, but they are careers. I don’t want careers, I have two. People suggest I get a new career. They do it politely for the most part, they mean well..well some of them. They offer suggestions on how to build upon my craft, to monetize it. Some of the suggestions are good, all of them require money, money I don’t have. Besides that, there is my sickness. Suggestions on how to neutralize it are much worse than the suggestions for my craft. They are all sympathy, they lack empathy. There is some disdain I sense there too, some platitude ready to plant its flag on the newly discovered island of “get it together” …except there are already other flags here too. I reflect on these suggestions often. Some of them I have tried, to varied results. I tried to take on several jobs in Los Angeles, the idea was to create multiple streams of revenue. I couldn’t get the one, while maintaining the other. I was only fired once, most of them I lost to some form of relational nepotism, racism, or seasons. I was always grateful, because I was always that close to quitting. I took jobs in Long Beach, The Valley, and Santa Monica while living in downtown Los Angeles with no car. If you know the area you know what that means. I spent four hours of my day in transportation each day. I’ve worked as an extra in movies and TV, a security guard, a financial aid advisor, a concierge, a leasing consultant, and even a door to door knife salesman (don’t ask) and Im still working on the monetizing. In both the artistic world, and what some refer to as the practical world, building an audience, and competing for jobs is both exciting and exhausting, and I haven’t done enough. And maybe that’s why I am here, back at my parents house, (which I am very grateful for) trying to get my bearings, trying not to sink, trying not to let the snakes swallow me whole.

“Be like water my friend”

Every time I watch the beach scene with Juan and Chiron in Barry Jenkins masterpiece “Moonlight” I cry. There is such vulnerability there, such tenderness, but more-so than anything I appreciate being encouraged to let go, knowing that someone has got you. I can feel the water in that scene. I have never had a good relationship with water. I almost drowned more than once. I didn’t care much for showers when I was a kid, I don’t drink enough water, and have taken to forcing myself to lug around a jug of it to ensure I do better. I once went boogie boarding with a friend near Carlsbad. He rode me out, tried to teach me how to balance myself on the board, and to ride small waves. He was very patient my friend. I was very bad. He left me for a few minutes after I assured him I was fine. I was not fine. I fell off my board, and could not stay on when I would try to board it, so I gave up and decided to head back to shore. I’m a pretty good swimmer, my high school coach told me I’m a natural, and I agree. There is something calming about swimming and running, you can shut everything else out and just pay attention to the rhythm “1..2..1..2..1..2”. I swam confidently to shore, but each time I looked up it seemed I was further away. I swam more furiously each time, minding my form, pushing harder with each stroke, flapping my feet about vigorously, but with precision, but I made little to no headway. I could feel the panic settling in, I could feel it enjoying itself…I wasn’t going anywhere. I had tired myself out, I could barely move my extremities. The water rose above my head in much of the same way it does the camera in Moonlight. That part always makes me uneasy. I started calling out for my friend, as the water rose above my mouth muffling my voice, and filling my lungs with water. Water surrenders, there is that great Bruce Lee quote about water “Be like water my friend”, I long to be like water. My friend heard me, I am beyond relived, I want to cry. He pulls me up and lets me rest awhile. He instructs me to surrender. I have to swim, but let the current take me in. I want to surrender. I want to surrender to “Its okay I’m not doing …., by 40”. I want to surrender to needing help, and a lot of it, to the present, and to time, and most importantly to being lost.

“Just keep swimming”

My Mother gets lost on purpose. She is at this point by far the better driver (between her and my father) and a human GPS because she is willing to get lost. I asked her how she knows so much about backroads, and shortcuts, and street names, and she said she just takes new roads. I feel that panic again as if her story is mines, and the first thought catapulted into my conscious is “but don’t you get lost that way?” I ask her, and I remember her tone a lot more than even her exact words because there was no anxiety in it. It was some version of “I don’t mind getting lost”, but I definitely remember the follow up.. “That’s how I find my way”. I hate being lost. I’m probably as far as any one being could be from a control freak, but being lost is a bridge too far for me, and yet, here I am. I turn 40 this year, and I am lost, and I am afraid I have no idea where I’m going. I guess the idea is to let go of the idea I need to know. To take both my mother’s, and my friends advice to just keep swimming, surrender to the water, and to understand that is exactly how I find my way. I want to cry.

My Favorite Performances of 2018

Performances are far and away my favorite part of any film. What actors commit to, what they do from behind a camera is a strange magic, and at the height of its power can alter your own connection to reality. Causing any one of us to temporarily lose the sense of the real and our grasp on discernment, like confusing the character on screen with the actor behind it. This year was one of my favorite in film, and much of that was due to a bevy of fantastic performances in some of my favorite films of the year. That being said, there were certain performances that rose above, that reached out grabbed me by the collar, looked me in my eyes and whispered simply…”Remember”. These performances mixed, technique, and skill, magnetism and charisma, authenticity, and risk, and created a concoction so powerful that when I thought about 2018, the year in full, the memory of them came tumbling out right along side my own actual highs and lows, achievements and disappointments, as well as memories made with friends , family, and lovers. I am thankful as an audience member and as an actor I was treated to every last one of them.

M'Baku Black Panther

Black Panther (2018) - It's Challenge Day Scene Subscribe To FilmVerse For More ➤ http://bit.ly/2l5ySn0 Movie Info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1825683/ Blu-ray: Film Description: After the death of his father, T'Challa returns home to the African nation of Wakanda to take his rightful place as king.

Black panther was one of the most enjoyable cinematic experiences I've had in recent memory. Definitely the most enjoyable experience at the movies i've had this year.  And while there were a number of fun, charismatic, performances In the film, none stood out to me as much as that of Winston Duke as M'Baku.  Duke imbued M’Baku with more charisma than Boseman’s T’Challa, while having as much fun with it as Letitia Wright as Shuri,  and crafted a better character than Michael B. Jordan as Kilmonger.  In the movie, Duke”s tribe (The Jabari) worship the gorilla, and within duke's performance, you can see him take on the elements of the animal, not just in the barks, but in his physical gesturing, posturing, the way he engages with his opponent.  Duke does interesting things with his cadence, with his eyes, and with the physical space around him. That's one of the reasons why what Duke did resonated with people so well. Consider that afterward something called the M’Baku challenge went viral. Wherein which people would record his now famous monologue right down to the cadence, and his purposeful and noticeable filler word “Hmm”. For people to be so moved and enamored with his work to perform his monologue? As an actor, I don't think there's any greater compliment. It was a beautiful thing for any actor, I think, to see and indicative of the greatness of Duke's performance in that scene and throughout the movie.

Anna Kendrick A Simple Favor

If there is any problem I have with comedic actors as compared to actors who engage in comedy, is that comedians tend to put the punchline, the gag, the joke, the funny over authenticity. This is the reason why I disengaged from a lot of what everyone else tends to love about certain comedic performances in films, especially when they are given by comedians. Anna kendrick's performance, in “A Simple Favor, is one of those that merges the most important aspects of being an actor with the important instincts of a comedian.  The movie is such that it hinges itself, (much like “The Favourite”) on the performances of its stars, because a lot of the plot is going to be driven by them. Where you do, or don't think the plot is going is going to be based in what they do or don’t give you.  The power of kendrick's performance is in it's ability to choose the complexity of both comedy and acting instincts so that she never strays too far from where she seems to have tethered her performance while clearly offering moments of inspired improv. When you're an actor and you’re discovering a character, there always has to be some kind of driving objective, a through line to return to to make sure that you're never moving too far, that your always tethered to something that motivates this character in almost every way. Every reaction, gesture, movement will flow forth from this well once you have located and internalized it. From there it becomes easier to make the right decision in combination with your instincts with your instincts literally glueing themselves to that objective, merging with that objective until they become one so that you get a whole new performance even while acting somewhat similar to the piece of you that remains present in all of your other performances. This is something that DeNiro and Denzel Washington do extremely well, and this is what Kendrick does in “A Simple Favor”. I wish I had the video in order to show a lot of the little, tiny things she does, especially when she's stumbling, or when she's bumbling for answers, or when she feels unsure about herself, but as a guide I will say her introduction to Blake Lively, and subsequently her drunk scene on the couch with Blake lively, where she tells the story about her brother were amazing work. The degree of difficulty involved with playing that character while trying to convey discomfort, being drunk and telling a lie while giving just enough for us to detect that something is off but not so much as to make it easily detectable cannot be understated. Her reactions to being prodded, her deflections….that scene right there is good enough for me to make it one of my absolute favorite performances i've seen all year.

Ethan Hawke First Reformed

I won't say much about Ethan Hawke's performance in Paul Schrader’s “First Reformed”, because it's the kind of performance that I think requires a lot of tape viewing, a lot of me checking it out over and over again, discovering the nuance of what he does well in particular scenes.  What I will say here is that what Ethan Hawke did, and what I feel was so impressive to me about what he accomplished was his ability not to overstate understatement. In a role like this it’s easy to lose oneself in quiet verisimilitude, but Hawke gives a very impassioned performance, while remaining quiet and mostly still almost the entirety of the movie. This is important because his character is a metaphorical active volcano. We must sense that something is going on the inside, sense the rage, while barely being aware of it all aesthetically. Again, complex emotions are the most difficult for any actor to relay on screen, and the fact that you or I relate to this character so much is not just an idea of the fact that we all understand that feeling of losing faith in various things, not just in religion and our conception of God but in people, systems, and so on, but also that Ethan was able to reach an almost otherworldly sense of hyper realism. To the point that I began to arrive at a place where I felt like I was watching something beyond even a documentary, rather than a performed reality. That doesn't happen very often, even in other great roles that Ethan Hawke has performed, like Boyhood for instance. I’m always aware of the performance aspect and that's not always a negative thing, merely that there's always something when a person disappears so far into that world, into that connection into that place, where they become almost indistinguishable from who it is that they are , a performance of being.

Viola Davis Widows

Viola Davis in “Widows” is powerful, she's funny, she’s callous, she’s heartbroken, and intelligent, but the part that interest me is the way she plays this characters grief under fire. As Veronica the new widow of Henry Rawlings, she's unraveling steadily, but she's holding onto the spool tight, trying to stop the momentum. Davis is special playing the quiet storm, the person who tries to hold up in the face of terrible circumstance. Its there in “The Help” or in “Fences”, or even “Doubt.” The difference here is she gets to let this quality reside in power. Its like she's funneling Aibileen Clark from “The Help” through Amanda Waller in “Suicide Squad”. You feel it in every gesture, word, and every movement. That many times she is just trying to hold on while giving the air of consistency, while reminding everyone that she is not to be played with and she will not go down easily. Her Breakdown as she tries to fix herself in the mirror, or in a pivotal scene during a visit to Elizabeth Debicki’s character’s house, where Debicki gives her character the opening to feel what she really feels, in their numerous meetings as she hands down orders, and its rarely one or the other emotively , its frequently all. This is one of the few performances where I feel I don't know that any other actress would have sufficed, the character tailor-made to the skill-set that Viola Davis embodies so well, and whenever the meeting of character and actor seems fated a great performance is never far behind.

The Trio of The Favourite

Although this movie is riddled with spirited performances like that of Nicholas hoult, the movie belongs to its Trio of actresses Olivia Colman, Rachel Weisz, and Emma Stone. The film is my vote for the best ensemble of actors this year, and if I was listing my favorite actors this year I'd have to consider the trio at or near the very top.  What these actresses do in this film is nothing short of olympian. Its full on no holds barred commitment. Present when Olivia Colman tells the young boy to close his eyes, in Rachel Weisz’s “I won’t stop kicking you until youre dead” showdown with Emma Stone, and in Emma Stone’s wildly funny and spot-on snort as her only retort to Rachel Weisz. It's in there body work, the interesting risks they're take, all memorable and integral because they act as signpost that tell us exactly who these characters are, and where they are in terms of evolution and power dynamics in each scene.   As close to perfect as any acting performance can be, it was on display by these three actors work in the movie. I can not detect a false beat a wrong note throughout the entirety of this film. Olivia Coleman Queen Anne is a storm in the winds of her own windy temperament, and Colman tosses her about like ship at sea, splashing down on upon unsuspecting sailors trying to navigate her ire, capsizing at a Royal meeting. Everything from Rachel Weiss is posture and presentation. Her manicured cadence feels true to a character who conditioned herself to react and act in a certain way so as to protect themselves. Emma Stone does what Anna Kendrick did except for on a higher frequency, weaponizing her best comedic instinct into a performance full of duality, emotional range and the ridiculous, like her dastardly cry after she takes her own abuse. The Trio’s work in ‘The Favourite” is not just some of the best work i've seen this year, it is some of the best work i've seen in this decade.

Tom Waits The ballad of buster Scruggs

Tom Waits performance in the Coen Brother’s latest “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs” may be the truest performance on this list. Especially as it pertains to isolation, to loneliness, and what it might feel like. The far away glare, his body language, and how he carries himself, world wary, bent but not broken, a life full of both tragedy and love. I could write a story about who this person is based completely upon the clues Tom waits gives us about this man without barely a word, a recognizable word that comes forth from his mouth. The point when I knew I was sold on how great a performance I was witness to, was when he would speak to himself. I've seen a lot of actors try and perform talking to oneself , ( and I mean perform it) in order to show the audience at this person is slightly off kilter that they are losing some bit of themselves and it is based in a narrow ableist idea of what that looks like. You can see some of it in even Brad Pitt's performance in “12 monkeys” (Which I actually think was one of his better performances) but there is still the air of performance in it. A realization of what I am doing here so I need to gesture out this idea of speaking to myself and what it might sound like to speak to myself, what it might be like to be to speak to myself to create an authenticity to myself. It's very hard as a person, as an actor to give oneself the appearance that you are talking to yourself in a genuine way. You really have to find something, you really have to find an anchor to hang otherwise it's noticeable in varying degrees, varying levels on the spectrum, but nonetheless noticeable that this is what you're doing. Waits on the other hand performs it less for the audience, more for him, which is what talking to ones self should feel like. Waits brings such an air truth that it was barely noticeable at all, if at all, that this was a performance, it felt as real as him talking to someone right next to him, it felt like wind, like air, like truth.

Toni Collette Hereditary

Toni Collette’s work in this film is an all-time great feat of acting. It’s the best performance this year period for me. The Levels, the transitions from one emotion to the next, the complexity, its truly a marvel. Pay attention to her reactions, especially those in the now infamous dinner table scene, or the instantaneous shock that sets in once she tells her son “she never wanted him”, or the progression of the body language in the gym scene, the way each facial expression, each accompanying gesture explicitly relates to a complicated emotion. Her character Annie, does not want to be there, she does not want to talk, but she needs to talk, it almost erupts out of her, she cannot help herself, and Collette’s body reverberates, and it reiterates that to us. It’s a performance so lived in, so organic, so natural, it borders on seeming like possession. It is a cavalcade of unique choices, and expressions singular to Toni Collette, the kind that usually make for the rare occurrence where a role finds the one actor meant exactly for it same as Viola. All Toni Collette did in this film was create in Annie Graham, one of the great women in horror, and one of the greatest horror performances ever. It’s a performance dipping in genius, and mastery, and it is for me THE performance of 2018.

Sam Elliott A Star is Born

Sam Elliott is a national treasure in my eyes. He has always been one of my favorite actors out there, especially as pertains to character actors. Elliott definitely belongs to that group of character actor where in general it is thought they are playing upon some aspect of, some version of themselves. That statement has always been a gross oversimplification but it is not necessarily all wrong. Every actor to some degree brings some portion of who they are to a role. We don't magically transform into someone else, we take who we are and funnel it through our imagination twisting and conforming it into something that can be recognized as the other through a number of techniques. Actors like Elliott just have more recognizable traits and qualities so that in the process it always seems to be as simple as “They’re just playing themselves. Nevertheless, there is a verifiable, undeniable, magnetism to what Sam Elliot does on screen. The low growl, the knowing glare, the drawl, and the steady cadence that I don't think it's possible to pull off by very many actors not named Sam Elliott. He is the type of actor everything he says just sounds ike its worth listening to, so that if he were to say “You know a door only opens when you turn the knob” you’d be like “Wow Sam you’re so wise”. There is some part of us actors that recognizes that it becomes our job to give the audience what they want of us, not what we don't want them to see about us,and a great deal of actors who do character work learn to perform their character. Sam Elliott feels like a man who is always willing to just give us exactly who he is, unafraid to stand straight and tall in front of that camera and proclaimed this is who I am, take it or leave it. In “A Star is Born”, Elliott steals the show because once again it's one of those cases where a character seems so tailor made for a certain actor that it's uncanny, but also it's a case of Elliot doing something more than even i've seen him do in previous films of his. He starts to give us things that may even be beyond him, things that I think come with age, whereas I felt like before he was always willing to give a straight up version of who he is, I feel like the difference here now is that he evolved, and he gave that to us. Once again, it takes the best of what Sam Elliot does puts him in the best situation to allow him to give us something we haven't seen before, something that up to date is new to us. And then allow us to watch the fireworks. With no shade to the performances of Bradley Cooper and Gaga.

Glenn Close The Wife

This image from this scene captures all that is so magnificent about Glenn Close’s Performance in “The Wife”. If in my mind there is any significant competition for Toni Collette, it is Glenn. Close walks a wonderfully fine line between high flying grandiosity and grounded veracity. Again this was another performance that was vital to the plot, if Close over plays her hand the plot is revealed, or we are at least very much so on the trail. If she under plays it the reveal may seem unearned, and ridiculous. Close plays it just right, and through her uncanny ability to convey a bevy of emotions in just one look, (think the ending of Dangerous Liaisons) she sets up the film, and the arc of her character in a way that informs the audience that something is amiss but only that. Close builds on her characters tendencies throughout the movie, burning the rope just a little bit as she sheds through each layer of her tether to the composure, and the nuance of her hurt and shame. Its a gorgeous bright, big, bold, sure, and genius performance reminding anyone watching of Glenn’s undeniable brilliance.

Michael B. Jordan, Acting and Black Masculinity in Leading Men.

I think it's vital, especially in this era and this time, we discuss acting potential, capabilities and craftsmanship with the kind of nuance it deserves. The declining nature of the stranglehold various schools of acting had on up and coming actors has led to a more relaxed interpretation of good work that I think allows for a more ingratiating idea of what entails a good actor. This in turn has led to some very good revisitations of careers that were unfairly maligned for years due to the intended and unintended effects of the various bourgeoisie schools of thought that had up this point dominated the field. As usual when one style or paradigm shifts to give way to another balance is rarely ever achieved and there tends to be a throwing out of the proverbial baby with the bath water. In this case that “baby” is method and craft, as the erosion of the mystique around actors has led to some dubious claims about what acting is, the conflation of various descriptors, ( Movie Star, Character actor, Leading man woman) and ill-suited comparisons. Today actor Michael B Jordan has become a sort of focal point of the best and worst of what has come forth out of this interesting vortex. In a NYT article from earlier this week film critic Aisha Harris posits that Michael B Jordan is “More than a Movie Star”. It’s a great article that I highly recommend reading before this to gain some context, Harris properly identifies Jordan’s potential, some of his strengths, and his skill-set, but whereas Harris seeks to counter the idea that Michael B. Jordan can’t act (an absurd conceit) or that he is merely a movie star. Here I’m more interested in identifying what he may lack that lies at the source of what causes people to say such a thing, and explain why I disagree with the notion that Jordan, based purely on merits of acting - is anywhere in the vicinity of Denzel, Leo (whom Harris lists him as in the realm of) , but closer to Tom Cruise and most certainly Will Smith (Also listed) and how he can improve.

Michael B. Jordan has always been an actor to me, a natural actor, a born actor. I think anyone saying Jordan can't act is giving in to a lazy (usually uninformed) interpretation of Michael’s weak points, or of the places where he struggles. I also think it's a bit - not as lazy as the previous statement, but still a bit lazy to claim that he is in the same vein as Denzel Washington or Leonardo DiCaprio. There is a major distinction to be made here that while Washington and DiCaprio are lead actors, they are also lead actors with very strong character actor sensibilities. They know what is expected of them from the audience, of what sells, of what they do well, and to some extent chart their starry-like careers based upon that. However, they are also always willing to surprise, embarrass themselves, and shock. They tend to like doing “films for themselves” a trait character actors are more prone to carrying than leading men. Most importantly, there's an instinct there. To make the kinds of choices steeped in vulnerability as Miss Harris described. What differentiates and separates those two especially (in my opinion even Cruise by quite a large margin) and Will Smith, and Jordan is the level of vulnerability. Vulnerability is not just showing a soft side, although that's the thing that tends to be most associated with vulnerability, (especially as it pertains to men) it's also about being willing to embarrass oneself. Being willing to truly look bad, detestable, repulsive, cruel, and not have it anywhere in the vicinity of cool, because the funny thing is,..that's how you end up with a really cool scene. Leonardo’s sad ugly cry in the basketball diaries, his pitiful moans of despair, and desperation speak to a level of vulnerability we have never seen Michael B. Jordan even attempt do.  The goofy, old man dance Denzel Washington performs in the kitchen in “Fences” is an act that reaches a level of embarrassing that I believe it would be Jordan’s instinct to protect himself from. This is not about talent level, and is in no way singular to Jordan. I think as actors, as male actors, and especially as black male actors ( I cannot speak for other male actors of color, but I would assume certain similarities) - it is instinctual to protect our self and our image on the stage and in front of the cameras. This is true to varying levels of all genders, and races, but black male actors I run into always seem to be hyper aware of our representation thus far in Hollywood, and addition to the socialization and conditioning common in all men that leaves us adamant in our insistence on vulnerability as a sign of weakness. This double portion of repression in my mind is partially what leads to black mens obsession with “cool” and ironically what helps keep us shackled to an idea of self that goes beyond the stereotypical norms set by white patriarchal supremacy. This instinct to protect the image goes beyond what the script allows, as a man, as a black man, as well as as an actor, this is about imagination, choices and willingness. These choices this willingness, the emotional intelligence is partially why when you want to find fhe best actors doing both mamy times it’s black women. Ruby Dee, Diahann Carroll, Marlene Clark, Viola, and Angela are just a few examples of the kind of black women who exuded movie star presence and charisma while still presenting a core value for pushing their own boundaries and limitations. You see it in not only their choices of roles, but in performances. Its in Diahann playing a single mother with Children, when black men mightve said the equivalent would've been like playing a stereotype. It’s Viola's “snot" the most genuinely authentic and ego free decisions we’ve seen on screen. Keeping in mind that our choices are usually guided by our willingness to engage in whatever alternatives are present in the choice. In the context of on-screen black male acting, an example can be found in a comparison between the energy and emotion present in both the “King Kong” scene in “Training Day”, and the “Is this your King” scene in “Black Panther” because the conditions and the set-up are similar. They both involve a face off that takes place in front of an audience that includes a rhetorical question rooted in feelings of anger, betrayal and indignation, but pay attention to the difference in expression between the two actors.

Black Panther - Fall of the King T'Challa - MOVIE CLIP (4K HD). Black Panther is a 2018 American superhero film based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name. Produced by Marvel Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, it is the eighteenth film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU).

What you will notice in MBJ, is an unwillingness to go very far from his body. Whether with his arms or neck, he never strays too far. His movement is restrained, therefore so too is his emotion. As actors we are often taught that if you are having trouble conjuring up an emotion simply engage in a movement that will help you produce said emotion. Many times our mind will follow our body as much as the opposite is true. This has its basis in the Stanislavski Technique, but can be found whether or not you've studied that particular method. My point, in pointing all of this out is to show that Jordan seems to afraid to let go, to explore the fullness of his body and it shows up in more than just this role. Now compare that to Denzel in “Training Day”…

Uploaded by EinsteinGames on 2014-02-10.

Denzel’s performance is based upon a very similar emotion in a very similar scene, but is much less restricted, much less safe. If it were a drawing it would resemble DaVinci’s “Vitruvian Man” while Jordan’s would be a stick figure. This is not just indicative of age and career length, its indicative of training, and more importantly a willingness to overshoot the mark in order to find the range. After all, Daniel Kaluuya is two years Jordan’s junior and his scenes in both a gym and a bowling alley in “Widows” show off a very similar willingness to do something no one expects, to explore the borders of his range.

Although it's a funny thing, I maintain that having any expression or line you've delivered appear in the form of the increasingly popular gif is a testament that you've given something that really has caught on and become sort of legend in the annuls of the minds of the audience. Most actors have some form of a gif, but very few gifs that reach the level of popularity, frequency of use, or number that Denzel, DiCaprio , or any actor of any gender enjoy. From Denzel’s single tear in “Glory,” to DiCaprio biting his knuckles in lust in “Wolf of Wall Street” these gifs are indicative of an audience’s conscious/unconscious recognition of the power of an interesting choice in acting. Jordan on the other hand has next to no gifs not made up of something he has done off camera, something physical, or an expression of vulnerability. Michael’s now nearly ubiquitous “ is this your king?!” line in Black Panther is an occasion where what Michael B. Jordan does best, what he wants to do best - is met, complimented, and hugged by what the script desired of him.  But to paraphrase what Aisha Harris states in her piece, Jordan has a tendency to under throw the script. I want to be clear about my stance on Michael be Jordan; before I go any further. He has immense talent as an actor, the kind most of us dream of. I think he's one of the rawest, most gifted actors we have out. I think the potential he has as actor to quite literally turn on the flames and light the screen up has ben on display multiple times. BUT, in order to move beyond that realm of movie star and into not just Oscar territory (which is quite possible to enter even without pushing such boundaries), but that territory that makes the industry and the audience give you that sort of respect as being a craftsman beyond charisma, magnetism, and hard work - you're going to have to do roles that puts you squarely outside of that. Michael still has plenty of time to do that, and more than enough talent to implement it with interest, but again, I just find it incomplete to not investigate where it is these gripes and proclamations come from. Where they have the hint of truth; in order to find answers to things like the British invasion of American roles because of a general (and I think somewhat fair from my experience) sentiment that our actors don’t really bring it because they don’t have the training.

For Michael B. Jordan to join the ranks of the actors that Miss Harris speaks about in her profile. He's going to have to give a little bit more of himself than he has given thus far. Same goes for other actors in his ilk and future actors. We are going to have the step firmly outside of the realm of what we’re clearly so comfortable doing with no tether to coolness, and the limiting assurance of a prototypical form of black masculinity. Make a decision to be something, to do something that breaks apart and reconstructs the persona we may have worked so hard to build because as of right now it's clear not just in someone like Michael B. Jordan’s choices of roles overall, but in his acting choices from within those choices that he is very concerned about the presentation of Michael. I didn't need an interview in the New York Times with him stating this very sentiment to tell me that. It was made clear in almost every scene in the bulk of Jordan’s career thus far. As an actor, Michael tends to act with his body and not in the way that some actors are taught to use it as sort of an instrument, but in a way that makes it clear just how very aware of his body he is. I don’t mean body as in the aesthetic look of it, but rather in that spacial sense.   Movie star, character, actor and anywhere in between, the job is the same - you live in service of the role. Nothing else should be nearly as important to you. When you start to place other things outside above that, it becomes evident to the audience, whether they can articulate it or not.  For instance, all the things we can remember from Heath Ledgers performance of the Joker in Christopher Nolan’s crime masterpiece “The Dark Knight” have to do with the choices he made. Choices that register even if we are not fully aware of it. They are each tiny pieces of a puzzle that begins to form, providing us with a full picture of this character- from idiosyncrasies to cadence, gait, motivation, objectives, and personality which were made with body and mind in perfect collaboration, and clearly in service of the character he was playing, not in service of his own ideas for his career in as far as what he wants people to understand about him or to think about him. The licking of the corners of his mouth allude to the scarring. Dramatic pauses like when he replies “I’m not…no I’m not” after Gambol calls him crazy allude to his sensitivity to the subject, or his tendency toward the dramatic, as does his numerous bits of gesturing. It is not the roles or the difference in them that goads people into jumping off the cliffs of nuance to make such oafish proclamations about MBJ. It’s partially that they’re ignorant, and partially that they recognize that the roles are equally tasty, but the actors aren’t equally game.

Rip :( #Heath Ledger

I don’t mean to imply that Jordan simply cynically calculates his every acting move based upon what he thinks is best for his audience and career. I mean to suggest that it is quite possible that his hyper-attention to his image in Hollywood permeates his conscious to the point even his subconscious decisions as an actor can be affected by this marching order of sorts. Now I would be remiss not to point out the fact that Michael B. Jordan is an African-American and that Heath Ledger is white because obviously as an African American, considering our legacy on film there continues to be verifiable reasons as to why we as actors would seek to protect the presentation of our images. From Portier, to Washington, Will Smith and now Jordan, we've heard this similar refrain about the manner of representation available to black men and how important it has become to us over time to have agency over this presentation. Historically African American men were portrayed as pimps, hustlers, criminals, deadbeat fathers, and other such derivative portrayals, but in what I think has become an over correction on our part in combination with the continued legacy of homophobia, transphobia, and distorted manhood borrowed from white patriarchal standards with the black community. Over the past few years Black American male leading actors have been for lack of better words homogenous in their portrayal of masculinity. They have left little room for the kind of sensibilities that lead to more interesting characters as far as I am concerned. The fact is when you think of the actors doing the most interesting work right now, the ones who really show an a-typical vulnerability in their work of a kind that really challenges standards of black masculinity rather than uphold them, that is being done by men willing to explore their feminine side with curiosity, and candor, Chiwitel Ejiofor, David Oyewelo, Mahershala Ali, LaKeith Stanfield, Yahya Mateen, Jeffrey Wright, Michael K Williams, and Daniel Kaluuya. Many of the names just mentioned are not household names, even less are actually leading men. A significant portion of the blame here is still due to Hollywood and its institutionalized racism, patronization, and myopia about what plays to audiences. They’ve long understood that leading men don’t need square chins, and rock hard bodies. The era of Hoffman, Nicholson, Voight, Pacino, and DeNiro ushered out the prevailing theory. With male actors of color, they run in extremes between fetishizing, and desexualizing us, while also dehumanizing us; rendering us a cinematic monolith. So then we are rarely afforded the wide range of opportunities and choice given to so many white male actors. Yet, it is not as simple as saying “well, African American actors don’t get the roles.” If one explores the roles our actors have gotten it’s not hard to see how uninterested these men not named Denzel, Morgan, Forrest, Cheadle and the aforementioned are in exploring their feminine energy in any meaningful and committed way. Sensitivity, empathy, and gentleness; are rarely invoked in characters like “Ghost” in TV’s “Power” in ways that explore what we men are traditionally taught are attributes of weakness. Let me tell you something it is very hard to be an actor of any salt if you are unwilling to go there. Not for Cary Grant, James Cagney, Mel Gibson, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Daniel Day Lewis, or Don Cheadle. For an example of the considerable effect this could have on a performance watch the atypical femininity Chiwitel brings to his warrior-assassin “Operative” in “Serenity”, or his soft-spoken slow-to-anger Ju-Jitsu instructor in Redbelt, never mind his Kinky Boots which is what put Ejiofor on the map.

Universal Pictures Barry Mendel Productions

Everything that is interesting about Ejiofor’s work in the scene above comes from the way he taps into typically feminine traits for his warrior operative. The gentleness in his inflection and cadence, the empathy he shows his victims. It’s interesting because the acts , the murder, the fighting, the interrogation typically involve masculine energy. Some of this is inherent in the role, but much of it is just what Ejiofor thinks to bring to the role. Each generation of leading black men from Poitier, James Earl Jones, and Glynn Turman, to Denzel and the class of men that came with him ( Freeman, Whitaker, etc) has passed the torch onto the next with a little bit more freedom and range to explore blackness and masculinity. Whomever the next generation of leading black men are, need to let loose of these ideas about what the world thinks of us and merely aim to represent ourselves in the truest manner of what we know to be true about who it is we are. To let go of that white man that seems to take up residence in our minds that has us moving from one direction to the other, trying to make sure we don't fall somewhere within the vicinity of misappropriated ideas about our blackness or our manhood.  Of course, that means just stop it with conversations that circle the parameter of homophobic and transphobic ideas about manhood. To understand you can be gay and still be a man and still be strong. That there is strength in traits a lot of men consider to be weak like vulnerability. Real vulnerability not the kind most men have decided is safe enough to display. The direction an interview with actor Michael K. Williams took on the (frequently problematic show) The Breakfast Club is evidence that there are not a lot of black male actors willing to do roles like this, most likely because they refuse to cross those invisible lines of masculinity.

Actor Michael K. Williams stops by The Breakfast Club to discuss his struggles early in his career, the complexities of playing Omar, how he got the scar on his face and much more. #BreakfastClub

Many people point out the single tear in “Glory” as Denzel’s definitive crying moment. It works as both a feat of indelible servitude to a character and what's going on in that exact moment. His character “Trip” is not interested and giving his superiors the satisfaction of seeing him break. It takes every bit of whatever power he has remaining, whatever agency he has left over his own body to say “If there's anything I have power over, I have power over this, and I will not let you see me break.”  At the same time, it falls very neatly and squarely within the realm of the way many black men, and men in general; like to see their masculinity. Men are not allowed to cry and the act itself coming from a man, especially in a way that is deemed unbecoming of a man, is repulsive. So it doesn't surprise me that very few people bring up Denzel Washington's crying scene in “The Hurricane” or in “Malcolm X.” In both films, when the character is forced into solitary confinement, they break. Left in the shadows, with only themselves, trying to stand tall, with no one watching, eventually they give in to the darkness and begin to moan. It is the exact opposite of the traits Denzel built himself on up until this point. It is UGLY, undignified, sad and pathetic. They are each scenes that I'll never forget, because of that level of vulnerability and I think both firmly put Denzel Washington on the level, that goes well beyond the limited term of movie star. It showed those kinds of sensibilities normally associated with the actor’s actor, and not the actor that treats his endeavor as an enterprise (though clearly Denzel does both). If you want to ask for the equivalent of Michael Fassbender amongst African American males, I think you would find it hard. If you were to ask for the Philip Seymour Hoffman of African American males, I think you'd find it hard to find any such thing. Not just an exact comparison, - because nobody is exactly anyone else - but just someone that firmly has a career within their realm. So wouldn't it be nice if a black man with the clout of Michael B. Jordan tore down some of these walls, these limitations placed upon us and sought more than just to become “winners”, but to become everything in between? I quote bell hooks from her book “We real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity”…

““Black males who refuse categorization are rare, for the price of visibility in the contemporary world of white supremacy is that black identity be defined in relation to the stereotype whether by embodying it or seeking to be other than it…Negative stereotypes about the nature of black masculinity continue to overdetermine the identities black males are allowed to fashion for themselves.” ”

I want to make it clear that Michael B. Jordan has the talent to do this. The absolute ability to match Denzel and many of our other actors star power and pure acting instincts. To be willing to give into them he has to some degree let go of the importance of “winning” as he called it.   Winning is too limited a term, too limiting a space, with too limiting a definition to provide anything interesting worth exploring for the actor with any consistency or regularity. When Jordan does this, when he aims for something higher in both his choice of role, and choices within a role, I believe many of those same detractors that say that he can't act, will disappear. As a matter-of-fact, they will become his most ardent defenders in this very same way, with the very same energy. If he but takes that power and focuses that energy and light into the darkness of vulnerability, that's where he will find some of those things Miss Harris speaks on in her New York Times article. Until then, when I think of Michael B. Jordan’s talent, skill, and career to this point, I'm reminded of a scene in the anime version of Street Fighter (by far the best version of Street Fighter) where M. Bison is watching a split screen video display of Ken and Ryu’s technique, form, and abilities as they fight against their enemies. When his top scientist points out that both Ryu and Ken are equal in potential, M Bison replies “That does not mean they are equal in capability”, and I think that's a very important distinction.

Greetings from Planet Glenn

Greetings earthlings, we here on the planet Glenn Close prime have been monitoring you for quite some time. As such we have become irritated, unnerved, perturbed, and vexed at the manner in which you have treated our benevolent and supremely talented Queen Glenn whom we beamed down to your planet on a donkey in a manger so that acting may have eternal life. Yet, over the years we have watched time and time again as you looked over her in favor of *ahem…Lesser talents (Okay Not really, but certainly lesser works). We pondered; had your feeble two-hemisphered brains (HA! pathetic, Glenn has 6!!) escaped that horse paddock you call a head when you gave the gold plated G.I. Joe that we scientifically knew to be hers to someone else?! Our High Priestess made the otherworldly work of making a very lame character fly in “The Natural” look like flicking on a light switch and you gave it to a woman named Peggy? Had the regrettably last bit of sense you own left you suddenly for more greener pastures in regal creatures like …Badgers, and Manatees?? Is that why you gave 1989’s Oscar to some Jodie creature after we specifically armed our Queen with eye lasers, two more vertebrae to increase her posture levels to “Bitch I wish you would” and some of our finest threads to make exactly this kind of embarrassing loss impossible!!! We are here to let you know that we have just about had it with your ignorant, petulant, pathetic attempts at trying to prove your own superiority in acting - something Glenn clearly invented!.

BUT…we Glenn Closians are merciful bunch if nothing else, and though a great deal of us had decided that we should beam Glenn’s long suffering ass right back up to our planet and shoot one ginormous side-eye ray right down that receding hair line you call the polar ice caps, thereby rapidly running doomsday clock you already started on your planet…*breathe…Our better Michelle Pfeiffer's, (one of our other higher forms of intelligence) decided against it. So in short you have now been given one more chance to rectify this very serious dishonor against our very existence, our family , and our Shaolin Temple ( which we also invented). This year when the Oscars are unveiled, we forbid anyone other than Glenn to win. Not Toni (Though we really do think her work is actually equal to Glenns’ we admit this) not Viola, and damn sure not Gaga. Not Gloria, Gladys, not Glenn Oaks, or Shady Glen, or GlennGary/GlennRoss, just Glenn Close for her measured, engrossing, perfect portrait of restraint, resentment, and long suffering (similar to her Oscar treatment) in this year’s “The Wife” got dammit. If our very simple demand is not met, just know it will be the very last thing you see…. after the Best Picture is revealed, and the Vanity Fair after party, but definitely after that. ….NOW we ask you are we not merciful?……

Even in Death Bernardo Bertolucci Denies me Form.

Eulogizing Bernardo Bertolucci is I think an A-typically difficult endeavor.  Discussing even his unique filmography seems to escape any singular context or understanding of what he means to me both in and outside of the art he produced.  What does come easy to me is that Bertolucci and his art definitely existed at the higher end of the spectrum artist. By that I mean I would consider Bertolucci the predominant stereotype of what a artist tends to look and sound like in my head.  And his filmography, as well as his biography, is full of those traits that I most readily align with artistic behaviors. Contrarianism, somewhat tortured, sadistic and masochistic, aloof, stubborn, temperamental, and idealistic, but that the great bulk of these traits don’t really apply to Bertolucci himself as much as they seem to match what one would imagine the man who makes films like he did would. What’s interesting is I have very little affinity for his body of work as a whole, but the man looms so largely in my head for what I enjoy about his work . I think I enjoyed “The Dreamers” most, “The Last Emperor” (though the most problematic film not named “Last Tango in Paris”) is also his most readily accessible and typically satisfying, but the rest of his filmography “The Conformist” (A film so non conformist that it took me seven tries to actually finish it) were of the type of constitution that I had/have little to no interest in ever revisiting them.  The Conformist, and it's ideas, themes and motifs so scrambled in my own head, so parted and distorted from frequently departing and then revisiting the film, from stepping outside of the headspace created, and then climbing back into it abruptly, that I don't think anything worthwhile would come out of a review of that film from me.  “Last Tango in Paris” is a microcosm that becomes the macrocosm of what I think about Bertolucci the man and the artist. It's a wonderful dream like experience of Paris, and a unnerving authoritarian expression of raw desire and unbridled lust seems almost alien in its understanding of romance and connection. It's ethereally gorgeous and somewhat dream-like to the point of idealism,  and yet as cynical and brutal in its depiction of it as something like Derek Cianfrance’s “Blue Valentine”. What we now know took place on that set as told to us by the actress Mariah Schneider makes any eulogy of Bertolucci that doesn't include that very fateful day incomplete, and I think, serves as a warning of the dangers of something as authoritarian as the “Autuer Theory”. The idea of which gives a sense of infallibility to something/someone inherently fallible…men. We cannot give such authority over to men because men are gonna men. The completeness of the lack of empathy involved to place ones vision over the safety of an actor. To conspire to ambush an actress into an act of simulated rape thus committing actual rape is to break every rule intended to create bonds of trust between people who have lent their power over to you. Taking this bit of real life horror and looking at the rest of Bertolucci’s films what I find, what I feel (cliché as it may sound) is that often times the same things that make us great are the same things that make us terrible. And great and terrible are incidentally the two words I most commonly associate with Bertolucci.

COSBY was never it for me, that was Eddie Murphy.

In recent times there has been a lot of conversation surrounding Bill Cosby and his legacy.  See a recent episode of “The grapevine” (Currentlyon YouTube) and the extremely interesting discourse around the recent conviction of the creator and star of one of television’s landmark sitcoms. While I'm not going to sit here and retroactively deny the impact of Cosby’s game changing sitcom during the 80s, I do want to say that Cosby was never as big, as impactful, as influential to me as some would suggest, and it didnt take long for me to actively dislike him. The guy that some ardently defend as “black America’s Dad” was for me just Bill Cosby. To be quite honest I didn't feel like anyone was my ‘Dad” from film and television, there were just TV/film Dad's I got and ones I didn't, but I did have a very very cool older brother; Eddie Murphy. Starting in the early 70’s Cosby (whether as a consequence of the projects he pitched and/or attached himself to, or because it was his intention all along) began to position himself as a teacher of sorts. Many of the projects he hitched himself to were rightfully image conscious. Ever since D.W. Griffith’s vile depiction of the antebellum south blazed onto screens in the earliest days of Hollywood, black people had endured and chaffed under a conceptualization of blackness in white imaginations. The trajectory, and nature of Cosby’s projects suggest he sought to do his part to remedy and rectify this. The trajectory of tone suggest that he began to take seriously his unofficial role as America’s father, especially black America’s. As patriarch of the indelible “Huxtable” family, Cosby was there every week trying to topple harmful stereotypes of the black family and erect in their place positive images that could and would stand the test of time. The Cosby show was regularly funny, often times hilarious, well acted for the most part, and did a fantastic job of introducing us (especially the younger generation) to the greats that came before them and us. Cosby the patriarch on television and in real life was always talking at us, but rarely to us, and as I grew up with Cosby his messaging often fell on def ears. The show was a black version of leave it to beaver - rarely leaving the confines of its brownstone neighborhood, and upper middle class sensibilities. The lessons to be learned were as trite as a Saturday morning after school special and while great writing and Cosby’s incredibly brilliant sense of humor kept the show from becoming irrelevant - in the era that saw the burgeoning popularity of Hip Hop, Cosby’s “Get off my Lawn” act, and his overcorrection in response to white folk made him seem just what he was,….old-and out of touch. Meanwhile Eddie Murphy’s youthful exuberance, prolific profanity, and no f****’s - given attitude made him cat nip to a child of the era of MTV. Murphy's run during the 80's until about 1992, with a small gap in between 90’ and 92’ is near unprecedented for anyone, but especially for a black man. No one loomed larger for me during that time, or to this day. Alnost every routine from Delirious, and Raw, (Note the homophobia is the one extremely cringe portion of Murphy's comedy and I’m extremely glad he apologized) and every possible quote from anyone of his huge blockbuster films were omnipresent around my neighborhood. If you were a black male and you were funny, chances were you were drawing a Murphy comparison at school or in company in those days. The differences between the two, and thusly our growing contention with Cosby couldn’t have been more crystallized at the time than in this segment from Murphy’s record breaking stand up special “Raw”.

Eddie Murphy.

Not only is the bit a brilliant impression of Cosby, but it highlights Cosby’s hyper-concern with image and respectability, as well as our combined lack of appreciation for his tone- at least for those of us who were either young enough to feel his ire directed towards us, or outside the very narrow spectrum of black respectability politics. Murphy’s bit was spot-on, rebellious, and hilarious; and cemented his status as the coolest man on the planet pre-Denzel. Murphy was and is still the owner of several of the funniest scenes I've ever seen in my life. These particular scenes (unlike large portions of Murphy’s Stand-up and Cosby’s rhetoric) have lasted the test of time, the growth of my own personal taste, social awareness, and sense of humor. A lot of these scenes were based not just in farcical humor and irreverence, but in something very rooted in reality for the black experience in America. These experiences were transmitted in uproarious vignettes that spoke of the small interactions that black people experienced on a day-to-day basis.  Many times they were fantasies, like what it might be like to be us and have some modicum of a power differential in comparison to whites. It’s important to understand contextually what it was like in the 80’s to see a black soon to be ex-convict, using the propped up power of a badge to perform the same kind of textbook harassment on whites that many of us endured on a daily basis in our own neighborhoods and businesses. Even now as I recognize the fallacy of a black man with a badge as a resolution in a broken justice system, I still find the scene exhilarating. Maybe because it was such a specific fantasy, maybe due to nostalgia, maybe a bit of both.

Uploaded by TheREALJackael on 2014-04-20.

Then other times, these vignettes would just exist as frank, and earnest examples of certain dispositions local to our cultural blackness.  Like how we might respond to people disrespecting our home when we're having a party...

Trading Places is a 1983 American comedy film directed by John Landis, starring Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy. It tells the story of an upper-class commodities broker and a homeless street hustler whose lives cross paths when they are unknowingly made part of an elaborate bet.

Or recognizing code switching...

Daily uploads with thousands of clips on the way. SUBSCRIBE for a taste of the past! CLIP SUMMARY: The Second Team. Axel makes fun of how one cop speaks. ENTIRE PLAYLIST: http://bit.ly/1KwRlt0 ABOUT THE FILM: Axel Foley is a young, reckless Detroit police detective.

There are few times, wherein I go through a day where someone hasn't said something that will make me recall a quote, or a random line from one of Eddie Murphy's numerous hit films. In the spirit of giving people their roses while they're alive, I want to give Eddie Murphy his roses while he's still with us, to acknowledge (especially In the 80s) the size, and the magnitude of Murphy’s career. Which for me far overshadowed the one iconic TV show that Cosby delivered. This is not intended as a slight to the legacy of The Cosby Show, but just matter-of-fact for me in regards to Cosby the man, and a map for what I think is the most effective way of using ones platform to elevate your community. I think I ventured into standup based upon what I saw Murphy do; the whole way that I think about comedy, the way that I applied comedy was a direct result of watching Eddie Murphy growing up. The wry cleverness, the animated delivery, the appreciation for The Police's “Roxanne” (which is how I discovered The Police).  Much of the way I envision my acting career going is modeled after Eddie Murphy's career choices, the varied roles, the refusal to be boxed into any one type, and most of all, the utilization of his power to produce, and open a space to create his own personal black renaissance in film .

One of the clear differences between Murphy and Cosby philosophically was that while Cosby’s work was constantly cognizant, and preoccupied with what white people think, Murphy’s work seemed to come from a standpoint of “I don’t care”. Murphy like Pryor before him was upfront with his blackness, and wanted white people to know it, fully aware of what might be their response. I don’t know that Murphy was as provocative as Pryor could be, but free from the pressures of having to legitimize black dignity Murphy was far less likely to delegitimize existing segments of blackness because they existed in proximity to white people’s wild ironically unimaginative imagination. That particular obsession is what sanitized and sterilized Cosby’s work. It made it safe, kid friendly, but rarely profound; and nowhere near as threatening to the status-quo as some black folk (post conviction) would lead you to believe. Murphy was acutely aware of white people and subsequently of the effect their narrow characterization of African Americans, but rather than pushing back by purifying blackness, Murphy would call out those depictions directly, and caricaturize whiteness. Like in an SNL sketch where he identifies the troublesome depictions of black fatherhood with Lou Gossett Jr , or even in the legendary sketch “White Like Me” a hilarious but rather spot-on (even in its most ridiculous moments) portrayal of white privilege. …

In this short mockumentary, Eddie Murphy masquerades as a white man around New York City to explore existing racial inequalities. Aired 12/15/84 #SNL Subscribe to SNL: https://goo.gl/tUsXwM Get more SNL: http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live Full Episodes: http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-liv... Like SNL: https://www.facebook.com/snl Follow SNL: https://twitter.com/nbcsnl SNL Tumblr: http://nbcsnl.tumblr.com/ SNL Instagram: http://instagram.com/nbcsnl SNL Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/nbcsnl/

Murphy instead of engaging in depicting blackness in his own likeness, decided he would engage in the radical act of depicting all kinds of black people as they are, rather than admonishing them for it. At the height of Murphy’s powers within mainstream Hollywood Eddie would create and attach himself and others to the kind of projects that allowed us to see ourselves in genres and roles rarely if at all explored by African Americans before that time. From fantasy to romance, Kings and Queens, to Gangsters, Murphy would try his hand at just about anything while still maintaining and fighting for the presence of black people, and not just himself on American screens. Murphy was not content with being the token autonomous black man in white worlds. As soon as it became clear he could green light almost anything with his level of stardom and autonomy within Hollywood he made the incredibly brave move of leaving the whites behind. Almost as soon as he did Murphy ran into an all too familiar predicament that comes with asserting oneself in such a homogeneous industry. A very typical labeling ensued that had dogged people like Bette Davis, and fellow legend Richard Pryor before him…”difficult”.  It came from Director John Landis on the set of “Coming to America” and from a great deal of critics who began to gratuitously invoke language that suggested he was conceited, or egotistical, cocky, and unruly. From Paul Attanasio of the Washington Post’s review of The Golden child,

“The problem is that Murphy takes all this jabber personally -- he appears to think that he is the Chosen One. The entire movie is tailored to Murphy, sodden with a sense that his every remark is hilarious, that his every smoldering look will have ushers shuttling back and forth with salts of ammonia to revive the women expiring in the aisles. "The Golden Child" is edited to Murphy's sloppy improvisational rhythms, so we watch him stumbling with his lines, searching for laughs he never finds. And, along the lines of his stand-up routine, most of the humor consists of Murphy approaching various thugs, Tibetans and special-effects demons (created by Industrial Light & Magic) and offering to "break" what the delicate would call "the buttocks."

From Peter Travers review of “Boomerang” over at Rolling Stone Magazine,

For all the sex talk in Boomerang, there's very little nudity. The only thing naked is Murphy's vanity”.

Once more from the Washington Post this time from Hal Vinson,

"Harlem Nights," which Murphy starred in, wrote, directed and executive produced, may not waddle its way to box office infamy, but it deserves to. "Harlem Nights" is Murphy's folly. It's a vanity production if ever there was one, launched on behalf of a star with vast amounts of vanity to soothe. And it's hard to imagine a more wrong-headed, aggressively off-putting exercise in star ego”.

And finally maybe worst of all this one from Lawrence Cohn at Variety,

“Though set in contemporary Manhattan, the picture’s iconography is a fantasy world almost on the level of Philip Wylie’s “The Disappearance.” Redressing the traditional Hollywood formula, the white characters (instead of the blacks) are in menial positions for comic relief, e.g., a silly waitress, a bigoted clothing store clerk and muscular slaves pulling supermodel Grace Jones’ chariot.

Whites appear briefly in positions of power, in high-level executive meetings or as the comical French owners of Murphy’s firm, but they’re strictly absentee landlords.”

This is a problem how? It’s not the mere fact that these critics disliked his films , but that its so evident they dislike Murphy, and what it is he’s trying to accomplish. Being so concerned with the opinions of white folk Cosby should’ve been paying attention to how they reacted, because while I would hesitate to say that every time white folk laud black work it is because it doesn’t challenge them in any meaningful way, I don’t hesitate at all to say that many times when white folk hate black works it is because it challenges them in some meaningful way. Racism rooted in white America’s general disdain for blackness, and a not all that latent belief that they are doing black people favors whenever one of us ascends - made white people chafe. Murphy could do no wrong when he made pictures as the token black man, the proverbial “black fish-out of-water, but as soon as he stepped outside of that to build, imagine, and fill these worlds with black people it was an affront to white people’s fragile sensibilities. One has to consider that then and now there were few events as unapologetically black as a number of Murphy films during his run. The cadre of black actors that an Eddie Murphy film would provide opportunities to be reintroduced or introduced was and is something I don't know that i've ever seen before or since. Contrary to the common assertion made by his critics during this run, Murphy was a gracious actor. Providing space and ample room to breathe for his fellow actors. Which in turn led to a plethora of gut-busting scenes featuring Co-stars that would rival some of the things that Eddie Murphy had done himself.  Like this one from 1992’s “Boomerang”

Boomerang movie clips: http://j.mp/1uwJaLQ BUY THE MOVIE: http://j.mp/MpZtzB Don't miss the HOTTEST NEW TRAILERS: http://bit.ly/1u2y6pr CLIP DESCRIPTION: Marcus (Eddie Murphy) experiences the wrath of Strangé (Grace Jones) when he rejects her sexual proposition. FILM DESCRIPTION: Eddie Murphy plays Marcus Graham, a hotshot ad exec who's also an insatiable womanizer.

Or This one in Coming to America…

One of my favorite scenes from one of my favorite movies.

Or this one from Harlem Nights featuring Della Reese…

FLAVOR316 Classic Movie Clips & Comedy Central Presents: Get Ur Laugh On & Movie Moments. The Shawshank Redemption (Get Busy Living). Laughter is Da Best Medicine - A cheerful disposition is good for your health; gloom and doom leave you bone-tired.

What’s clear in all these scenes is we remember them for the actors, not for Eddie Murphy, even when he’s right there with them. This is not on par with the actions of someone who supposedly created or joined these projects to inflate his own ego. Watch the scenes and you won’t see an actor desperately trying to upstage, or steal the spotlight, you’ll see an actor giving ground to the forces of nature that many times were the performers across from him. James Earl Jones and Madge Sinclair, Eriq LaSalle,  Samuel L Jackson, Vanessa Bell-Calloway, John Amos,  Della Reese, Layla Rochon, Red Foxx,  Richard Pryor,  Arsenio Hall, Robin Harris, Grace Jones, Halle Berry,  John Witherspoon, Chris Rock,  Tisha Campbell-Martin, Robin Givens, Geoffrey Holder, Eartha Kitt,  Dave Chappelle, Jada Pinkett-Smith, David Alan Greer,  and Martin Lawrence. These are the actors who not only featured in, but stood out in what amounted to just four Murphy films. If you include 1999’s ‘Life” it grows exponentially. These were actors who received their start, or were thrust back into the spotlight for a new audience after some wonderful features in Murphy’s films. He wasn't the only one hiring large swaths of African Americans. Keenan-Ivory Wayans, Debbie Allen, Robert Townsend, and later Martin Lawrence were known to do the same things. However he was the only one with his level of power to do these things for other African Americans, without addendums, and restrictions on what kind of blackness could be displayed at that time.  This is the map of a career spent affirming blackness instead of trying to constrain it. A career spent trying to find ways to surprise himself while upending conventions. A career spent utilizing and being box office while refusing to be shackled by it. A career spent refusing the cramped space inside white folks imaginations. Comedy, romance, fantasy, action, and even musicals, there’s very few things Murphy’s career hasn’t given us. It was during that extremely special run in the 80’s when as a black man he was the biggest box office star in the world, using his name to make black people feel seen and represented - It was he that was THAT guy and until further notice…My guy.

My "New Hollywood": 15 Actors of color that Hollywood should start casting a lot more immediately.

With the onset of social media creating awareness,  the box office success of movies like Get Out,  Black Panther,  Crazy,  Rich,  Asians,  and Girls Trip Hollywood has been a buzz with talk of representation,  and diversity.  But as the doors of opportunity open ever so slightly,  and we engage in the conversations around casting and deserving actors I'd like to encourage diversity amongst even the diversity.  It isn't enough to cast actors of color if limited imagination,  and an increasingly narrow focus on branding and star making allows for the same 5 actors in any group to be casted over and over again as if on a marginalized merry go round.  And this doesn't just extend to casting directors.  Many times even amongst pop culture commentators,  and social media I see the same Michael B.  Jordan for this John Cho for that type casting.  A constricted bingo game with very few squares, limited chips,  and the same ol numbers being called out ad nauseam.  So I'd like to mention some names of a few (15 ) actors (There are many many more I could list but people have jobs)  I think are either due,  underrated,  or breakouts that deserve recognition I've seen near no one give them.

Choi min sik

The actor - of Oldboy fame -  has not only presence,  but physicality,  vulnerability,  and truth.  If the roles were there Sik would be a regular at Oscar ceremonies.  He can descend into madness, I mean stare right into it and come out of it without bringing with him the slightest sense he was ever playing at being there. He is one of the most gifted physical actors I've seen since Jim Carrey and Jackie Chan - both descendants of Buster Keaton and Chaplin.  His face is a map,  his brow the X that marks  the spot where his tension is focused and he never makes an uninteresting choice in my experience watching him.   I truly consider him one of the greatest actors alive. There is no excuse I can think of  not to cast this master thespian in a Villanueve,  Winding Refn,  Nolan,  or any other top tier director film,  his work speaks for and in itself.

Shoreh Aghdashloo

Aghdashloo is a storyteller.  Her magnificent voice carries the emotion,  her eyes tell the tale,  while her body language turns the page.  She can burn you down,  warm you up,  or freeze your attention.  She is a trained actor one can easily tell, but she is not stiff,  and she is more than willing to take acting risks, and bend the rules.  She is a scene thief,  a character actor,  and a star,  and the proof is in her role in House of Sand of Fog which may have techincally starred Jennifer Connelly,  and Ben Kingsley,  but was most certainly HER movie.  Her gravelly silk harp of a voice is as comforting as a warm wind on a cool day,  and she has a pension for understanding the importance of using the entirety of a set to an actor.  Watch her pour a glass of water,  or walk over to a chair,  look out a window,  or even clean a coffee table,  and give it the same intention as she would a scene partner.  This is craft,  this is work,  this is love,  this is acting.

Debbie Morgan

A veteran actor who made her name known in daytime television (a breeding ground for a lot of our greatest actors whether you want to believe it or not)  Morgan's performance in Kasi Lemmon's black Southern Gothic classic "Eve's Bayou" was a the astronomical birth of a star,  or at least it should've been.  Morgan has been criminally - and I don't use that word in a hyperbolic sense - slept on.  She has a well of shifting instincts,  sentiment as deep as Julianne Moore,  and the presence of Lena Horne.  In a pivotal and revealing scene in Eve's Bayou Morgan delivers a masterclass in monologue delivery. It is full of deliberate movement that never seems deliberate, gravitas, and heartbreaking sincerity.  It is lived in and mesmerizing. You go where she goes because you can tell she was on a journey of immense importance..to her as an actor, and to the film...I stan.. And you would too if Hollywood gave her half the chance.

Eve's Bayou movie clips: http://j.mp/1e6PYl0 BUY THE MOVIE: http://j.mp/1e6PYkS Don't miss the HOTTEST NEW TRAILERS: http://bit.ly/1u2y6pr CLIP DESCRIPTION: Mozelle (Debbi Morgan) recalls the deadly showdown that occurred between Hosea (Marcus Lyle Brown) and Maynard (Leonard L. Thomas). FILM DESCRIPTION: A young girl learns some difficult lessons about truth, love, and fidelity in this critically-acclaimed Southern gothic drama.

Alberto Ammann

So far I've only seen him in the three seasons of Netflix's high octane cocaine tale "Narcos" as Pacho Herrera.  But all he has done in that time is steal the spotlight from a lot of the more prominent figures in the show,  create a deliberate evolution of character and objectives from an actor's sense of instinct, and show a magnetism that usually comes standard with stardom.  Ammann possesses an innate ferocity, but he also has soft eyes and it makes for compelling viewing.  Anyone watching Narcos is made keenly aware of this.  Ammann has made Pacho - a cold blooded viscous killer of the highest order - relatable and sympathetic, loving and cruel all at the same time sometimes in the same scene.  The actor has the looks of a leading man,  plenty of charm,  and the skillset of a character actor which should give him an elasticity and longevity in Hollywood if they wake up... Cast him.

Adepero Oduye

Lupita Nyong'o's performance as "Patsy" got all the recognition and rightfully so,  but that shouldn't have caused Hollywood to forget the devastating and lingering ache of Adepero Oduye's performance as "Eliza" in Steve McQueen's antebellum epic "12 years a slave ". Like the movie itself it took what is a tired subject matter and opened up new chanels of humanity,  expression,  nuance, and frankness.  And that was after she had already wowed us with her performance in Dee Ree's " Pariah ".  Intelligence is not often spoken of in relation to acting, but it is vital to being great.  It informs decisions and choices for the narrative pathways of a character.  Watching Oduye's work it's clear she has it in spades.  Because of that I think Oduye could do a bevy of varied and game changing work in Hollywood,  especially as it pertains to the independent circuit,  and television.  Directors whose work gravitates towards the A24's of the world,  and HBO or Netflix,  should shape projects around this beautiful and talented woman,  the receipts will reward the decision as Dee Rees and Steve McQueen already know.

Zahn McClarnon

 Having seen Zahn McClarnon steal scenes in Fargo, Frontier,  and Westworld,  I think it's time Hollywood take notice of both his skills, and inherent likeability.  For comparison McClarnon gives me Fonda vibes of various members but especially Henry. He has that magic sort of steely intelligence rooted in hardened every man values.  That ability to stare a thousand yards into another person's soul,  or relay several different emotions in one seemingly similar look.  You want a new era grapes of wrath?  You doing a film about a cold blooded assassin who slowly either deteriorates or has a change of heart (Think "The American" with George Clooney), this is your guy.  I personally think "Wind River" the latest from writer Taylor Sheridan (of Sicario,  and Hell or High Water fame) would've been that much better had McClarnon starred rather than Jeremy Renner for a ton of reasons.  Culture just being the obvious.

Rinko Kikuchi

Like McClarnon,  and Aghdashloo on this list before her,  Rinko Kikuchi is a performer whose eyes form the centerpiece of a lot of her work. She may be the person on my list that deploys them with the most skill,  communicating a wide variety of unique combinations of complex feelings in a stare,  glance,  or averted look.  She can stand still,  move barely a muscle on her face and tell you everything you need to know.  She can snatch your soul, gut your heart or render you tearless, and she can do it with either her eyes or her concise use of her body.  After her hard to miss break out performance in  Iñarritu's Babel,  much of the American material she's appeared in has not been on par with her talent, but it's nonetheless shown off her range.  From rom- com,  to horror,  action,  and prestige drama this actress can do it all,  and appeals to a wider audience than I think most would give her credit for.

Lennie James

I first took note of Lennie in Guy Ritchie's kinetic gangster romp "Snatch" as Sol.  He was funny, in possession of some great timing,  and magnetism.   Sol in his hands was cool,  but moronic,  and it was James's patent earnestness that made you root for Sol despite his criminal and general ineptitude.  Later he appeared as a dirty cop in the short lived Mark Strong vehicle on AMC "Low Winter Sun".  The show wasn't much but James was impressive,  and it was a complete turn around from my first introduction to him.  But it is in the wildly popular AMC series The Walking Dead as Morgan where James has made a mark.  Morgan is a tragic character,  and James imbued him with a quiet dignity,  and a weighted sadness born of his trauma,  and survival instinct.  A madness rooted in an empathetic understanding of where Morgan had been.  And when Morgan climbed out of his pit of grief,  James provided a living breathing fire bathed in a distinctive honesty that propelled Morgan to a series fave.  Get Out could've used James,  as the Gardner maybe.  Tarantino could use James, his gift for monologues and language clear in both Snatch and TWD, or really anything with a clever comedic angle, or any number of character centric pieces.  James has an instictual moodiness that is ever present in his acting and when I think of the way old Hollywood made use of Joseph Cotton,  I think  "Lennie James could be that in this era".

Narges Rashidi

Under the Shadow was one of 2016's best kept secrets and Narges Rashidi had a lot to do with its hold on those of us who saw it.  It's a small movie with a limited focus so so much of the movies success depended upon her.  What Rashidi did was supply the under current of urgency and subtle defiance that acts as the bedrock for so much of the films underlying message and effectiveness.   She hung on to even the most minor of details,  allowed her terror to come both deliberately and suddenly,  and she had an intent focus,  that allowed and communicated her objectives without ham fisted telegraphs.  Desperation,  loneliness,  courage,  and fear,  dispensed throughout the film as if on a time release to create a relatable,  unforgettable portrait of motherhood,  bravery, and determination not unlike that of Essie Davis in "The Babadook".   It was a performance as immersive,  and gripping as the movie it was featured in,  and a break out performance that should earn her more attention than she has received thus far.

Colman Domingo

I may already be too late on Coleman,  as he has upcoming roles in Barry Jenkins " If Beale Street could talk" and “Assassination Nation” but as it stands he is a highly under-appreciated thespian.  Besides AMC's Fear the Walking Dead, ( Which I must admit I haven't watched)  I have not seen Domingo in much or for very long but I remember him and that says a lot.  Whether as Ralph Abernathy in Ava DuVernays Selma,  or as a Soldier far too enamored with the presence of the president,  and anchored by respectability in Spielberg's "Lincoln" or a concerned wrestling coach in  Olivia Newman's Netflix gem "First Match"...Domingo brings the kind of work that is rooted in professionalism - knowing your job and executing it with skillful precision - and god given talent.  Spike Lee,  DuVernay,  Spielberg,  and now Jenkins... Obviously some of our greatest directors see this man as an asset in some shape or form and I think it's a testament to his work,  maybe it's time Hollywood see it too,  and for some director out there to offer the actor - who has a Portier like assurance,  and awareness - something he can really sink his teeth into.

Veronica Falcón

It takes about five minutes to become fully engrossed with Veronica Falcón in the Alice Braga starrer "Queen of the South".  And though Braga presents her own case for being on this list as well, for my money Falcón is the main reason to watch USA's Scarface like gangster opera.  She gives her character Camila Vargas a lion like regality and much like that same lion a viscousness that is made all the more awe inspiring and impressive by how little she has to do to convey it.  It's a performance steeped in confidence,  intelligence,  and that rare "It" factor many of the actors on my list share.  Falcón can play rage,  compassion,  sincerity,  and sexy,  and play them to the hilt.  She has a built in sort of hinge that allows her to swing an emotional door in any direction she wants and audiences will want to open their doors to her almost immediately after watching a few scenes featuring her capable skill set.

Lee Byung-hun

A jawline from the Gods, chiseled abs,  a thousand yard stare,  and talent for potent but unbridled emotional release.  Korean actor Lee  Byung- hun should be Hollywood's dream come true,  but he has yet to break through to the states. This despite roles in big box office smash action films like G. I. Joe,  and The Magnificent Seven.  The american roles so far have been well beneath his level of talent but he makes the most of it. BUT it is in his work in Korea where you see the depth of his quality as a leading man.  Lee possesses the exact kind of tacit vulnerability,  and capability for visceral emotional outburst American audiences love in their action heroes,  but the sentimental heft to be much more and this was never on display more than in 2010's I Saw the Devil opposite another actor on this list Choi Min-sik.  He held his own with an actor of tremendous skill and gave us one of the most effective and memorable crying scenes of the past two decades.

Indira Varma

I first took note of Indira Varma when she played the estranged wife of Idris Elba's Luther in the titular show.  And the aptitude was on display immediately.  I would see her next as Ellaria Sand in season four of Game of Thrones.  What became evident in seeing both of these entirely different characters was Varmas range.  She went from long suffering,  but loving wife,  to scheming queen vixen,  from perpetually frightened (an emotion she is quite adept at),  to vengeful,  and domineering and she did it with an uncanny ease.  Varma has power and presence,  but she is also gifted at giving up that power to any complex combination of disappointment or fear,  as was the case in Luther, or to abject horror as she displayed in one of the most memorable scenes in GOT's run whew boy.. .

Irfan Khan

Warm, dignified, an intent listener,  and yet another actor who does a lot with his eyes, Irfan Khan is one of my acting heroes. His style is poetic, he tends to move in slow purposeful waves, theres an almost rhythmic cadence to his speech but he will go off beat and throw you off,  but his eyes are always on you. He gazes through you and into you and it's both unsettling and beautiful.   It never ceases to anger me that he's not everywhere, omnipresent in tinsel town.  An absolute craftsman of rareified air, he's more than adept at playing almost anything you ask of him.  Hero (The Namesake, Life of Pi)  Villain ( The Amazing Spiderman)  and everything in between (Jurassic World,  and Slumdog Millionaire).  While he has definitely seen more action in Hollywood than other actors on this list his roles have been far too limited and when they're not,  roles only someone of his ethnicity could play.  This should not be the case with an actor this great.  I recently learned that Khan was diagnosed with cancer and I couldn't be more crestfallen.  I pray for his quick recovery,  and that when he does it's to a Hollywood open to the idea of casting him in the light he deserves as one of the finest actors on the world.

Dominique Jackson

At least as on display in FX's pose there is a ferocity to Dominique Jackson as an actor.  Her opening scene in the show is the stuff of legend,  and it set the tone for the operatic, but skillfull nature of the rest of the show.  Many of the shows best scenes featured Jackson displaying heart,  betrayal,  narcissism,  or cruelty,  sometimes subtlely,  sometimes dramatically,  all the time with a first rate nuance,  and formidable assuredness.  There was a key difference in how Ekektra carried herself in and amongst her family,  and how she presented with her lover   and it was that body language that informed us that audience of the double mindedness of her existence, and allowed us to feel the importance of her own revolution.  Jackson - much like her character Elektra Abundance - knows she deserved to be there,  and she deserves to be in as much as she is willing and available to be in, and Hollywood has.  In truth I should just place the entire cast of Pose in here,  especially the trans actors because they especially were in such command of their individual skill sets as to rip asunder the idea that trans actors and any marginalized actors are any less talented,  deserving,  or capable of leading and carrying entire narratives as any other actor.  Along with the other actors on this list as Hollywood is awakening to the box office power of representation,  identity,  and blind casting in spaces where it is appropriate- these are just a few of the actors I feel are lost in conversations that too often are limited to off screen charisma,  social media presence,  and excessive visibility,  and not skill and work.  Their niches may very from Star,  to leading men and women to character actors,  but what they have in common is presence and well honed craftsmanship that will never go out of style,  and IF properly employed can carve out permanent spaces in the firmament of Hollywood's best and brightest.

After all this time maybe it's time we stop acting like Tom Cruise isn't really good at acting.

After watching the sheer insanity that was Mission Impossible: Fallout,  one thing kept running laps around my brain the entire time, and it wasn't any particular stunt, or action sequence (though they were nothing short of legendary)  no.   It was this....Tom Cruise may be one of the most underrated actors living.  Yes I said underrated. After over 30 years of making movies, a net worth of over 400 million dollars, and a procession of memorable films I still believe as an actor Cruise is underrated.

 Of course there is all the weird Scientology stuff, which in an era where your star is heavily maintained by the cult of personality you build around yourself is well...earned.  But I'm not talking about Cruise's possibly waning Star power, I'm talking about Cruise as an actor.  I've sat in on far too many conversations dismissing Cruise as an actor (these are usually the same types who dismiss John Wayne as being himself..sorry dad I love you though! ). Most of us by now have heard of Anne Rice's reaction to Cruise's casting as Lestat,  and I definitely believe you could trace the root of that reaction in an ideology about what kind of an actor Tom Cruise is.  Google Tom Cruise and acting and you get this...

Or this by Christopher Hooten at the independent...

The last acknowledges both that there is a hatred for Tom Cruise's acting (again I think his off screen persona has some part to do with that)  and what I think is a common mistake in this conversation...prizing one characteristic of acting over another to the point you dismiss the importance of others. It reminds me of the scene in Gladiator (one of the few where you empathize with Commodus) when after being told he will not be emperor, he explains to his father Marcus Aurelius that though he did not possess any of "the four chief virtues" Aurelius wrote to him about,  he did have other virtues it seems his father outright dismissed or hated because they were not his.   We often do this, and as I have said before in conversation - "who and what we praise often tell us a lot more about ourselves than any objective idea of greatness".  As an actor and a lover of film and storytelling,  I feel Cruise's range,  (See Interview with a Vampire,  Magnolia,  Born on the fourth of July)  depth,  and craft are consistently underappreciated.   Intensity is the word I most associate with Tom Cruise. It's what embodies and encompasses his films, and his performances,  and unlike Mr.  Hooten at the Independent  I think it's very interesting if you're not placing acting in strict objective absolutes.  I would argue that both Cruise and Reeves -  who Mr Hooten calls "horrible" -could not possibly be around for thirty plus years and be uninteresting.  For Reeves I'd need to do another piece to argue what he brings to the screen, but thankfully Anjelica Bastien wrote THE PIECE on Keanu Reeves talents. As for Cruise,  the physicality,  radiancy,  and mentality he brings to every gesture, facial expression, and objective is ever present in his acting.  Energy is also a core tenant of acting it's importance stated in almost every method from Stanislavsky to Lessac. And Cruise understands, and very naturally harnesses his energy to convey to the camera any number of potent emotions.  It's there when he plays the piano and utters the lines  "Claudia you've been a very very naughty little girl"

Listen Louis... there's life in these old hands still... Warner Bros All Rights Reserved

It's there in his eyes alone as he tries desperately to fend off an emotional breakdown on stage...

Tom Cruise's awesome performance as Frank Mackey in Magnolia (1999), a film by Paul Thomas Anderson.

It's there in the many times Cruise gives himself over physically to the point he's literally seconds away from what could end in possibly horrific consequences that are caught right on camera like in this collateral scene...

Tom Cruise falls over a chair in the movie Collateral (2004)

Or in this scene where it's clear that his energy threw his balance off near the end,  nearly causing him to fall as he trashes the table.

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I don't think you could be as vulnerable as Cruise consistently makes himself physically, and have that leak out nowhere emotionally.  But more on that later.  The potency of the energy Cruise brings to any part of his acting extends even to the way he sells punches.  Outside of Jackie Chan and maybe the other underrated talent in Hollywood - Keanu Reeves - no one sells a punch like Cruise... pay attention to what Cruise is doing and when being hit,  what he adds to it,  how he captures how the shock of a throat punch registers not only to the face but to the entirety of the body ( especially nice, since both he and Cavil are hit there so that we get to see both in scene) in this clip from his latest Mission Impossible Fallout...

Ethan Hunt and his IMF team, along with some familiar allies, race against time after a mission gone wrong. ★Subscribe HERE and NOW ►https://goo.gl/jp9aW8 Release Date: July 27th, 2018 Cast: Simon Pegg, Tom Cruise, Henry Cavill ★Listen to our weekly podcast!

Now compare that to a scene in the Bond series with Daniel Craig, a magnificent actor himself.  But look how little he puts into taking the hits,  all of his energy is put into giving out punishment,  but the reactions to receiving it?...Not so much.  They aren't bad,  they're just not necessarily good or great either...

Uploaded by 5 Min Entertainment on 2017-06-25.

This could be editing but I have a feeling if Craig did something really fantastic it would be left in there to enhance the visceral nature of a fight that seems to be going for that very thing.  But Cruise's reactionary prowess ( a by-product of being a good listener as an actor) is one of a kind, and it's not only relegated to those of a physical nature. Cruise is vulnerable on camera in a way that vibrates off screen, no hes never been truly revelatory in that sphere, because there's always something he holds onto, some darkness abd light he keeps for himself, but even in that space he does reveal things about the men he plays, about their and maybe his worship at the altar of masculinity and the masks we wear in service, and he is not fake when he does.   One of my favorite scenes ever is representative of this ability.  It's in the wildly insane aquarium scene in the first mission impossible.  Starting from about the 1: 40 mark cruise has a great cascade of reactions to Kittridge (played by the great character actor Henry Czerny)  that range from "Wait a minute"  to surprise,  to incredulousness,  revelation,  and then finally anger.  It's a natural, organic,  purposefully deliberate progression that manages to rise as the mask melts perfectly along with Elfmans score matching Cruise  beat for beat until both explode simultaneously along with the actual events in the scene.

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  It's a wonderful case of collaboration,  and my case for why Cruise is a movie star that understands his craft as well as his brand.  There are actors who understand their brand but not their craft (The Rock,  Will Smith,  come to mind) and actors who understand their craft but not their brand (Idris Elba, Bryan Cranston) and then there is the rarest actors who know both (Meryl Streep, Denzel, Btad Pitt, Emily Blunt, Angela Bassett) and of course Cruise.  And when you have a brand most times you have a signature, and for Tom Cruise that's running.  A cinematic hallmark or signature of a Cruise film as much as a Spike Lee dolly shot,  or a Godard jump cut,  it's also again indicative of Cruise's singular focus and drive.  There's no half assing it in a Cruise scene and whatever he may not have in a natural ability to morph into characterizations,  or convey a seemingly endless myriad of emotional nuances he makes up for with the jolting intention he applies to any action be it great or small.  It's the reason why Cruise like Denzel (albeit  for different reasons)  doesn't really have what people might call a terrible movie.  He's always a joy to watch and has lasted this long because we always appreciate that kind of effort,  that love for what you do. In every Tom Cruise film you will find an actor who is dedicated to entertaining us and pushing himself,  and after almost 30 years of doing just that I think it's high time we stop hating and start congratulating.

George Sanders: Tiger, Tiger Burning Bright.

George Sanders...If I was to start counting down from the top of my most favorite on screen actors, I'm sure he'd end up in my top 20 somewhere.  For the better part of 40 years he worked in Hollywood -at his height sometimes unavoidable -  as one of the best if not the best character actor around.  He had preternatural presence, self awareness, a misanthropic wit, and a voice to die for.  As a kid,  it was his voice work as Shere Khan in Disney's the Jungle Book that stood out more than any other because it was so alarmingly polite and yet every word,  every enunciated vowel, spoke to a peril and an impending danger just beneath. Later on as I  began to study acting,  and the still underrated tactic of finding a - for lack of better word "spirit animal" - to encompass your performance, I put together that so much of Sanders work (especially as a villain)  bore a physical,  and spiritual resemblance to a tiger.  Sanders many times seemed to stalk his co stars Male or Female. He stared intently watched them, and then encroached upon their space.  His voice registered at a low growl, but his accent often purred.  He pounced unexpectedly often going for the jugular of whomever his current prey is at the moment with his razor sharp wit, or compressing cruelty,  holding the victims throat until they surrender.

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The broad stroke of Sanders career in my opinion was playing mostly nefarious characters who weaponized charm and manners. He was a poster boy for mannered vitriol.  If watching any one actor taught me that civility can be a bedazzled Iron Maiden it was George.  His threats were always mostly veiled, his smugness just beneath his congeniality,  he was entitled, strident, and he had a sexual energy that was unnerving,  uncomfortable, and captivating, which was part of what made him the silver screens foremost cad.  He was usually a society man on the outskirts of society.  A man with little to no scruples because he was contemptuous of society in general, but particularly of those better off than he.  Sadly these qualities did not seem to be born of invention with little or nothing to do with the actual man,  as Sanders had an atrocious record with women, often quoted leveling a similar brand of vitriol at the women in his life and to people in general as his characters did,  ditto for his contempt for society.  On his death bed after battling depression Sanders checked into a hotel and committed suicide,  leaving behind a letter that said

"Dear World,

I am leaving you because I am bored. I feel I have lived long enough. I am leaving you with your worries in this sweet cesspool.  Good luck."

And so went a miserable,  indignant, fierce, incomparable talent.  What Sanders left behind is a bevy of brazen,  cantankerous,  cock sure,  vile, and indelible,  characters.  From Jack Flavell, to Addison Dewitt, to Ffolliot, to Shere Khan. Roles that assured us the living of his immense talent,  and of the worser natures of men.