PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN, KING OF THE UNCOOL

Before Super Bowl XLVIII turned out to be not so super, there was already a considerably gloomy cloud hanging over anyone that appreciates the power of art on Sunday. The actor Philip Seymour Hoffman was found dead, at 46, of an apparent heroin overdose in his Greenwich Village office. It's with performers like Hoffman, who seemed to repel the very existence of the term "typecast", that you not only realize you took his gargantuan talent for granted, but that you didn't even recognize him as a fellow member of your own species. When an actor delivers paramount material time after time, again and again, we tend to slice through everything else that makes him/her a real person (flaws, hobbies, interests) until they're automatons built for one function, performance. That they're powered down at the end of the shooting day. So, to hear that a giant of his form, a master of his craft, fell in such an unmighty way, shatters the lie we all tell ourselves: that famous people only exist to us as we project them to exist. That is to say what I briefly "knew" about his personal life: devoted father and partner, artistic director for local theater, a regular New Yorker, doesn't seem to be attributes of the same guy that left this world with a needle in his arm.

Pointless inquiries arise: How did a guy like Hoffman know heroin dealers? Heroin was his drug of choice? Heroin?? There's nothing to be done now, but it's difficult not to ponder how his commitment to diving deep into a character's painful world didn't have an impact on his real emotional state. How it was a release for him, but left him so drained that a crutch seemed more and more appealing, even necessary. It's been written by people who knew him that he was unbearably hard on himself, researching and experimenting endlessly on his subject. That effort yielded astonishing results. Greatness just came with the package, it wasn't that you were disappointed when he wasn't great, because it never happened. Perhaps the spoils we received watching him and the mountainous standards we held for him felt invisible because he put all of it on his back. That the output of the art was always more important than the endurance needed to maintain the illusion of effortlessness. That generosity seeped through the screen.

I can't speak for his heralded stage work or Capote or Happiness or Before The Devil Knows You're Dead, but from what I have seen of his work, I can comfortably estimate that he was one of the most innately talented working screen actors, Daniel Day-Lewis and Joaquin Phoenix, and maybe Leonardo DiCaprio, are the other ones in his weight class. To say he had no vanity as a performer would be nonviable, because he didn't have a lot of vanity to flaunt. He was rotund, had a giant head, freckled skin that looked dried out by the sun, thin lips that stretched too far across his face, and a receding flop of hair that was chameleonic in its shades of fire-red, yellow, and white. His amorphous shape seemed to coincide with his flexibility as contributor to an entire puzzle, assuming whatever form was needed to fit. Often he would be a small piece, a one-and-done scene stealer, but his screen time in those pictures was disparate from the burn he sizzled in your memory. I think of his prah-per speaking Brandt nervously chuckling as The Dude gazes foggily at the Little Lebowski Urban Achievers portrait in The Big Lebowski, the spoiled silver-spooner Freddie calling out Ripley on his peeping in The Talented Mr. Ripley, the delusional former child star or anarchic villain of otherwise forgettable blockbusters Along Came Polly and Mission Impossible III, and his high-minded rock critic Lester Bangs in Almost Famous. His "uncool" speech in that film has been diluted by people who throw that quote around too much, and ironically, but not surprisingly, have never felt uncool themselves. But it speaks to Hoffman's delivery of those lines, he made being an unsocial, polarizing, loudmouth critic seem like a sympathetic, misunderstood intellectual. He made the uncool cool. You sense that Paul Thomas Anderson, who had Hoffman in five of his films, not only admired him but craved his inspiration on set to get his own creative juices flowing. Hoffman repeated lines in all of Anderson's movies ("fun, Fun, Fun!", "I'm a fucking idiot", "SHUT SHUT SHUT SHUT", "Say your name, say it again, say it again"), and those mantras seem now like Hoffman revving his engine, warming up his acting muscles, accelerating into higher and higher RPMs. A big theme of Anderson's films is family, and Hoffman was almost always the one you'd respond to like a family member. You want to send Scotty a mixtape of break-up songs when he gets rejected by Dirk in Boogie Nights, you want to set his saintly Phil Parma from Magnolia up on a date, you want to party with his obnoxious craps player from Hard Eight for a night like an estranged cousin and then not see him again for a couple years. In light of his death and the correlation of his stringent work ethic of giving everything to a performance, I suspect two of his lead roles in Synecdoche, New York and The Master will have the longest legs when looking back on his career years from now because they both are about the suffering that comes with being the creator of something, and I suspect people will not be able to watch them the same way now. Synecdoche reveals the endlessness of the process, how even when something's finished, the artist is never fully satisfied. The Master hits really close to home because it dives into how hard it is to keep up an act when you no longer believe the truth of it, and why substances (in the film, Joaquin Phoenix's paint thinner cocktail) are so dangerous because they make the job so much easier. Although the latter is one of the most gigantic, magnetizing performances of the past ten years, Hoffman seemed okay with being overshadowed by others in the ensemble. Two of the most underrated performances of recent times were Hoffman's in Moneyball and The Ides of March. Other performances were more celebrated in those films, but Hoffman's collaborative gift had a sizable effect on elevating his costars to the podium of public debate. It's no shock that this selflessness was why he was so adorned by his peers.

Selfishly, the first thought that crept into my mind Sunday was "Man, no more great Hoffman performances." Someone who does not conform to the movie-star life cycle, which he didn't, also can't be applicable to any age limit for expiration of watchability. As brilliant as he was, I'm surely not the only one to think the best was still to come from him. Still, the sadness I, and many others feel, about what could have been is entangled with tremendous gratitude of what he did leave us, and what he left us is magic. He mattered. And his art will never stop mattering.

-Rex

REX'S TOP 10 FIILMS OF 2013

I LISTED MY TOP 10 BRIEFLY IN MY OSCAR POST. I'LL DIG A LITTLE DEEPER INTO EACH ONE NOW. THE LIST:

Honorable Mention:
The Place Beyond The Pines, Mud, This Is The End, The Bling Ring, Pacific Rim, The Conjuring, Lee Daniels' The Butler, Star Trek Into Darkness, Much Ado About Nothing, Short Term 12, Prisoners, Rush, Enough Said, The Counselor, All Is Lost, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, Upstream Color

High Honorable Mention:
16. Stories We Tell
15. Blue Jasmine
14. Captain Phillips
13. Nebraska
12. Frances Ha
11. Drinking Buddies

10. The Spectacular Now- While most of us are glad that the high school days are long gone, it is one of the easiest periods in life to romanticize about: little to no responsibility and the wild college days are still ahead. It's also often a checking point which you refer back to with regret or, at least, curiosity: "If I had done that one thing differently, my life might look like this instead, I might be this person instead...". The Spectacular Now examines the denial of graduation for one teenager who genuinely loves high school or at least this time in his life and the people in it. Miles Teller's, in a star-making turn reminiscent in look and spirit of John Cusack in Say Anything, character revels in being the life of the party, and living in the moment, not giving a damn about the future. He's in danger of being the guy who goes nowhere and will wonder where ten years went, until he starts seeing a tender, innocent bookworm (Shailene Woodley), and starts to realize that being "the man" won't matter when all his worshippers move on to bigger and better things. Teller's charisma, and his chemistry with Woodley, carry the story, and the naturalistic feel for high school life and first "love" will most certainly return some nostalgic feelings about that spectacular then.

9. Her- A brilliantly conceived vision of a near-future L.A. in which a lonely writer falls in love with his operating system, Spike Jonze's Her is touching, funny, and insightful about our own relationship with technology. One facet I particularly enjoyed was the look of L.A.: endless skyscrapers, speed-shuttles to the beach, serious over-population problems, how an entire indoor mall seems to have been built around the main character's apartment building entrance. Yet none of it is mentioned, the cityscape is just background noise, because as seen in one haunting sequence, the only progress we appreciate is happening in our phone screens. To paraphrase the famous gospel song, We've got our whole world in our hands. Another thing Jonze executes flawlessly is relational interactions between man and woman, whether it be a blind date or a brutal breakup. What Joaquin Phoenix and Rooney Mara exert during their marital dissolution flashback, without any sound, is scarily authentic. And what Olivia Wilde manages to show, not tell, us about her character's past dating life in only one disastrous scene is remarkable. Phoenix and Amy Adams flaunt their sensitive side beautifully, two damaged characters who couldn't be more different than the ones they played in The Master. This movie sticks with you because of how personal it feels, many estimate this is Jonze's answer to ex-wife Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation, another story involving a failing marriage. It is not as enjoyable a movie experience as others on this list because of the sad sack nature of Phoenix's character, but it should be endured for being a meticulously crafted artistic endeavor. The real discovery here is the invisible Scarlett Johanssen as the OS, Samantha. Yes, she's been one of the biggest movie stars for some time, but her moneymaker may not be her curves, it may be her sultry pipes.

8. The Act of Killing- Certainly one of the most searing documentaries I've ever seen, The Act of Killing delves into the evil that lawlessness breeds, and the emotional toil that plagues those who committed heinous crimes. Director Joshua Oppenheimer invites Anwar Congo, leader of a paramilitary organization in Sumatra in the 1960's, personally responsible for at least 1,000 deaths, to re-enact his killings in a film production. The elderly Congo coasts the streets merrily with his right-hand man, Herman Koto, boasting about strangling people with wire in a courtyard, and how they always got away with it. The scary thing is that Congo is not threatening, he's more jovial, a magnetic camera presence, and loves referencing American crime movies, many of which inspired their performances as themselves in the re-created film. But as the re-creations are being filmed, and Congo is forced to relive his crimes, you see a killer confronted with his sins for the first time. A scene at the end positions Congo in front of a TV to watch his scene as one of his former victims (pictured above), and his guilt-ridden response results in one of the most powerful scenes I saw last year. Oppenheimer is a director to watch, as his hallucinatory settings look like a Hollywood production, and coincide with Congo's real nightmares, which probably will haunt him for years to come.

7. Side Effects- My full review of Steven Soderbergh's icy, Hitchcockian sexual thriller can be found here.

6. American Hustle- David O. Russell gets the ol' gang back together for this loose adaptation of the 70's ABSCAM scandal. All-American girl Amy Adams bares a lot of cleavage and is riveting in her sexiest role yet. She has three or four scenes in the first half of the film that are jaw-dropping in their command and seductiveness. Her chemistry with Bradley Cooper's doofus FBI agent is scalding, and provides some priceless comedic payoffs. Cooper has never been better as a libidinal man-boy. Christian Bale as the neurotic frontman, Jennifer Lawrence as the unstable possessive housewife, and Jeremy Renner as the honorable mayor all are memorable. That is the gift of Russell, The Actor's Director, whose films have a very loose, improvisatory feel which provides for some preposterous dialogues that generate tremendous wacky energy. Some may say that the narrative goes wayward and that, by the end, they feel they just left a mess. I believe this is Russell's purpose, and I adore the mess. The only thing that bugged me was the Goodfellas-ripoff attempt with the narration, which he gives up on halfway through, and the quick Scorsese-like zoom-ins, which he attempted at inopportune moments or line readings, and frankly after seeing the actual Scorsese movie this year, just don't look as crisp as the real thing. Hustle is an acting showcase, and the different things he tried with the camera last year in Silver Linings Playbook had a much more substantial impact on that film's success. Nonetheless, this was one of the most fun watches last year. It hits its peak about halfway through at Studio 54, culminating in Adams' party-girl howl to a bathroom ceiling. The result is the most euphoric two minutes I spent in a theater in 2013.

5. Gravity- We should all be grateful to director Alfonso Cuaron's patience, who imagined the film's concept years ago but had to wait until the technology was far enough along to start shooting. The work of art is one of the most transcendent cinema experiences I've ever had. Starting with a 13-minute long tracking shot that revolves and floats and dips with these astronauts repairing their ship as they orbit around Earth, I knew that this was unlike anything I'd ever seen. The end of that single sequence, with Sandra Bullock's character floating away into nothingness, is one of the most majestic images in all of science fiction cinema. George Clooney is his usual presidential self as the veteran astronaut, but this is Bullock's show. Her fear and lonesomeness is what much of the movie relies on, and Bullock's empathy makes her astronaut the latest in a long line of great action heroines. If you haven't seen it yet, then I urge you to find a theater it's playing, because a TV viewing will not do it justice. If ever there was a movie that demanded the biggest of screens, it's this one.

4. Inside Llewyn Davis- Surviving the wintry New York is brutal when you don't have a coat or a permanent residence. Such is the life of folk singer Llewyn Davis, resident couch surfer, who makes whatever he can scrap together from community baskets at coffee lounges where he plays. Llewyn's musical partner just recently killed himself, and now the sidekick has to find a way to survive as a solo man. Like many of the Coen Brothers' protagonists, Llewyn's downward spiral is the spine of the film. He isolates everyone he knows with his innate contempt for others who have any sort of success, his music is rejected time and again for major consideration, and when he eventually tries to get out of the business, he finds himself doomed to play in the Village forever. But Oscar Isaac, with his passionate singing and doggedly defeated eyes, keeps Llewyn in our good graces. The film's about how far you will push when it's clear that there's no longer a place for your artistry. The music is joyous, the look of the dimly lit 1960's Greenwich Village is magical, and the brilliant comedic pitch of the Coen Brothers is ever-present.

3. Spring Breakers- Bodies swaying side to side, middle fingers in the air, crotch grabbing, tit wiggling... these are the monsters that occupy the beaches of St. Petersburg, FL. The monsters are us. An apocalyptic wasteland, the wild, wild south. Director Harmony Korine's cautionary tale of youth and mainstream media is a fever dream of shocking images and chasing the impossible perfect escape fantasy that spring break vacation represents. Four college girls don't have enough money for the trip, so the three baddest ones rob a restaurant, and off they go on a bus down to St. Pete. There they trip, booze, and get lost in Skrillex music mindlessly with other scantily clad strangers. They talk about never leaving, how this place is special. Eventually they get busted, and get bailed out by aspiring rapper/criminal/gangster Alien, decked out in cornrows and gold teeth. James Franco as Alien has never delved deeper into a character, and he is both alluring in his boastfulness and repulsive in his outlook on life. His "Look at my shit" monologue is already carving out a cult corner as a tableau for materialistic delusion. In one of the most visually arresting sequences I've ever seen, the girls march out to Alien's backyard donning pink unicorn-embroidered balaclavas and toting big guns. Alien begins playing the sweet, simple Britney Spears melody "Everytime" on his piano, and the song keeps playing during a slow-mo montage of the masked crew robbing tourists at gunpoint. Korine is deliberate with this notion that the most seemingly innocent sources of entertainment intake can be a gateway to violent, nasty impulses. That's the fascinating thing about Alien, he didn't learn to talk or accessorize like a black rapper through his own tough upbringing or gang run-ins, he probably learned it through TRL. The film has a pace and feel and sound to it that is intoxicating. Between the endless guttural rapture of Skrillex and the neon dreamlike cinematography, it is a total hypnotic sensory intake. Korine has a special interest with his past films in the freaks, low-lifes, the despicable scum of the earth. Despite the painful oddities of his past miscreant creations, his genius as a filmmaker did shine through the scum from time to time. His motor has always been fueled by anarchy, and now that he's focused that gutter art on halfway-normal people with this outing, it feels like he's stopped hitting his head on the wall, and maybe is willing to accept commercial success.

2. The Wolf of Wall Street- Martin Scorsese's operatic farce based on Jordan Belfort's life is a drug-fueled, adrenaline rush through the lives of Wall Street culture in the 1990's, and is also the funniest film of 2013. The work itself seems less important than what is "necessary" to complete the work: endless drugs, hookers, and obscene debauchery. This isn't a Wall Street office, it's a cave in the wilderness full of savages, pounding their chests, yelping tribal calls. Money and greed has turned them primitive. Leonardo DiCaprio's Belfort loves the idolatry his worker bees lay upon him, and his vulgar state-of-the-union pump-up rallies are a raucous vision of endless striving for immorality. DiCaprio, able to let go of his vanity like never before, unleashes a twisted, paranoid messiah that feels like discovering him again for the first time. Terence Winter's brilliant, over-the-top script permits Leo to leave nothing on the field, so to speak. Martin Scorsese, similarly, hasn't felt this vital and reckless in a long time, it's mind-blowing this is a film made by a 71 year old, but Scorsese is, still, not of this planet. Jonah Hill is terrific as Belfort's schlubby, loyal number two, and the newcomer knockout Margot Robbie proves very valuable in later scenes as Belfort's wife when Jordan hits rock bottom. The arguments that Wolf glorifies these guys, and that the filmmakers lack integrity for not showing what happened to the people that got ripped off are thunderously insipid to me. It's as if these critics have never seen a movie about people doing bad things that don't get punished as severely as they deserve to be. The argument I will listen to is that it's long... it is. But for every valley of conversations that drag on too long about midget throwing or teasing someone about their wife, there are sky-high mountains of immaculate writing, directing, editing, and acting. Jonah Hill tripping at the beach house, Jordan acting a fool on the plane to Switzerland, the work speeches, the boat confrontation with Kyle Chandler, the yacht in the storm, the brutal fight at home with the Mrs., and of course the Lemmon quaalude scene, as far as I'm concerned, on the Mt. Rushmore of all-time Scorsese scenes. At the end of the film, Jordan has lost his money, his family, his company, but the last shot reveals the essential component that made the other things attainable in the first place: disciples.

1. 12 Years A Slave- Steve McQueen's harrowing journey into one of the most shameful periods in U.S. history is haunting in its southern imagery and sadism. The true story follows Solomon Northup, a free black man from New York, who is kidnapped and sold into slavery in the south for a dozen years. It is far from an easy watch, and McQueen's relentlessness with the brutality and psychological warfare the slaves deal with everyday borders on excessive. But McQueen's stupendous long takes serve the material so well because it reinforces the idea that any pain and suffering endured is out of the victim's hands, Solomon will hang under a tree all day clinging to life until someone cuts him free. That is how real life is too, you can't just change to a different scene when faced with awkwardness, humiliation, agony. McQueen doesn't grant the audience any slack, and because of that, the whole film is an emotional sledgehammer, enriched by Hans Zimmer's somber violin score. Yet you never feel manipulated to feel an artificial way, the art of the filmmaking transposes all the culturally important ideas to the right places. It's an important watch not because it's the most punishing of films depicting slavery, but because it's one of the most realistic portrayals of human nature, which is that we are engineered to want to live, no matter how miserable our lives have become. Lupita Nyong'o is devastating as the perpetually tortured Patsey, and Michael Fassbender is a complicated, spiritually conflicted beast of a slave master, but it's Chiwetel Ejiofor's solemn and quietly dignified protagonist that makes the nightmare journey through the dozen years so worth it. Of course, since it's not called A Lifetime A Slave, Solomon returns to his family in the end, and the reunion, more or less, detonated my heart. I haven't felt that shell-shocked and overwhelmed walking out of a theater in a long time. It's ultimately a horror movie, but Solomon need not scream bloody murder, the fear and despair is all on display in those big, orbital eyes.

-Rex

@rexman2001