Hunger’s Weighty Issue

Robert De Niro went one way in Raging Bull. Matt Damon went the other way in Courage Under Fire. Tom Hanks went both ways in Cast Away. For decades now, actors have been fattening up or thinning down for movie roles. For every Renee Zellweger (Bridget Jones’s Diary), there’s a Christian Bale (The Machinist). For every George Clooney (Syriana), there’s Jeremy Davies (Rescue Dawn).

That’s why I wasn’t shocked by the conclusion of Steve McQueen’s Hunger, which includes ghastly images of a sickly looking Michael Fassbender as Bobby Sands, the IRA activist who died of starvation in 1981 after 66 days on hunger strike. Still, I was troubled by the almost sexual ogling of Fassbender’s emaciated frame over the film’s final act, and I remain troubled today.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Fassbender lost 40 pounds for the role by “living on nuts and berries for 10 weeks.” That’s 40 pounds off a guy who didn’t have an ounce to lose in the first place. The result is unsettling, to say the least, though not to McQueen. “That’s the job,” the director told the Times. “The film is called Hunger. It’s not a vanity trip. It’s an essential necessity for the film. The guy (Sands) didn’t eat in order to be heard. It’s work. He’s a professional actor.”

On that last point, we agree: Fassbender is a professional actor. But is starving one’s self to replicate starving “acting,” or is that “doing”? I’d say the latter. True enough, Fassbender’s weight loss was inspired by history; in that respect his starvation wasn’t a “vanity trip,” nor was it some kind of flippant artistic choice, as in Clooney’s rather unnecessary filling-out for Syriana. But was it “an essential necessity”? Mere months after Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett were aged and de-aged digitally for The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button, I’d say no. Sure, Hunger lacked the budget of David Fincher’s Oscar-luring epic, but McQueen wasn’t without options; good old fashioned makeup effects would have worked, too.

Regardless of the method (or the Method, for that matter), McQueen’s best decision would have been to suggest starvation without actually replicating it. In other words, he should have asked Fassbender to, you know, act. Not only would this have been the more humane choice, I’m not alone in thinking that it would have been more dramatically effective, too. As Peter Rainer of The Christian Science Monitor puts it in his review: “In the end, it is not Bobby Sands but Michael Fassbender we are looking at, and this realization takes us out of the movie.” Indeed, that’s true. The horror I felt at the end of Hunger wasn’t for Sands, who believed he was fighting a life-or-death cause; it was for Fassbender, who was starring in an ultimately trivial movie.

Of course, Fassbender is an adult who can make his own decisions about how he treats his body. On an individual human rights level, I support that. But I’m saddened at the thought of any actor feeling compelled to take such measures in order to land a part. If McQueen views Fassbender’s weight loss as “an essential necessity,” it’s safe to assume that Fassbender wouldn’t have gotten the role without agreeing to fast. At that point, one could argue that Sands had considerably greater control over his decision to starve himslf than Fassbender did. That’s disturbing. What’s even more troubling is the sense that such weight games are becoming somewhat commonplace, despite the primitiveness of the stunt. And, effective or not, that’s what Fassbender’s weight loss is – a stunt.

Speaking of stunts, near the end of Tarsem’s The Fall, there’s a terrific montage of death-defying stunts from the silent film era. Death-defying when they worked, that is; simply deadly when they didn’t. No filmmaker today would ask a stuntman to take the unharnessed risks of those latter day acrobats, so why, with all that we know about human health, digital effects and makeup, are we unnecessarily turning our actors into silent era stuntmen? As Rainer suggests, “filmmakers don’t often give enough credit to the imaginations of their audiences.” Or maybe it’s the filmmakers and actors whose imaginations are limited.

Top 10 Favorite Characters

There’s a new meme taking the blogosphere by storm, and I’ve been tagged by Cooler pal Fox of Tractor Facts to participate. The charge? To name my 10 favorite movie characters of all time. That’s characters, take note. Not performances. As meme originator Squish puts it: “Hamlet, Sherlock Holmes or Bond may be your favorite filmic sight on screen but you may hate the Mel Gibsons, Basil Rathbones or George Lazenbys who've played them.”

OK. Easy task, right? Or incredibly difficult. I’m still not sure. There are a number of ways to approach this. The first thing I did was to attempt to look beyond performances. For example, Terry Malloy in On The Waterfront is a favorite character of mine, but he’s made interesting in large part because of the brilliance of Marlon Brando. Put a lesser actor in that role and Terry is just a meathead working the docks, not a cinema treasure. Thus, Terry is out. In his place I tried to pick characters I thought were written or implemented in such a way that they were can’t-miss. That said, you don’t get to be a top-10 cherished character without being powered by tremendous acting (of some kind), and I’m sure some great-on-paper characters have been overlooked entirely or forgotten too quickly due to lackluster performances. So you can never completely remove the performance aspect, but I tried. To a point.

I also excluded characters based real people and characters I thought were established in print before they became creatures of the movie screen. Then I really concentrated on the word “favorite” (not “best”) and went with my gut. I scribbled down about 16 names and cut it to 10.

Give me another hour, I could give you an entirely different list. But, for better or worse ...

My 10 favorite characters in the movies (today, at least) ...


Max (Sunset Boulevard, 1950)
You’re thinking I picked the wrong character, right? I hear you. Norma Desmond is a classic character, no doubt. But do you know what’s more interesting than a monkey-loving suicidal forgotten silent film star with delusions of grandeur? It’s a guy who used to be her director and her husband who now lives with her as her butler and is dedicated to her happiness. That’s Max. (Quote: “If madam will pardon me, the shadow over the left eye is not quite balanced.”)



Scottie Ferguson (Vertigo, 1958)
Homeboy falls in love with a woman, witnesses her fall to her death, finds a woman who looks like her and then painstakingly recreates this woman to look like the now dead woman he was in love with. Need I say more? Didn’t think so. (Quote: “Judy, please, it can’t matter to you.”)



Mrs. Robinson (The Graduate, 1967)
Anne Bancroft’s performance here is one of the greatest of all time. There’s not a stone of Mrs. Robinson’s psyche that goes unturned. That said, even on paper the character is fascinating: a grown woman and mother who seduces her friends' son while trying to run from the misery of her shattered dreams. Forty years later, female characters this well-imagined are still hard to find. (Quote: “Would you like me to seduce you?”)



Thomas Crown (The Thomas Crown Affair, 1968)
This isn’t my favorite Steve McQueen performance, but it has to be his most compelling role. Thomas Crown is a rich dude who plays polo, beds women and, oh yeah, orchestrates bank robberies for the pure fun of it. Brilliant! I think somewhere between McQueen’s performance and Pierce Brosnan’s take on the character from the 1999 remake is the best Thomas Crown. If a third version of this film gets made, I’ll watch. (Quote: “Let’s play something else.”)



Percy Garris (Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid, 1969)
Ah, Percy. He spends his days in the most out-of-the-way place in all of Bolivia and doesn’t bat an eye when two Americans show up looking for work. He spits tobacco, he sings, he answers his own questions. Strother Martin provides a colorful scene-stealing performance, but Percy was always going to upstage Butch and Sundance in their limited time together on screen. (Quote: “Morons. I’ve got morons on my team.”)



Darth Vader (Star Wars, 1977)
Why? Because he’s the ultimate figure of evil, and I’m from the Star Wars generation. To me, Darth Vader will always be the gold standard of cinema villains. (Quote: “I find your lack of faith disturbing.”)



John McClane (Die Hard, 1988)
OK, so this one owes a lot to the performance of Bruce Willis. A lot. But, like I said above, I discounted the acting only up to a point. That said, dated though the 1980s dialogue is, John McClane’s lines have swagger even on the printed page. (Quote: “Yippee-ki-yay!”)



Catherine Tramell (Basic Instinct, 1992)
Let’s see: She writes books, fucks men, fucks with cops and kills guys … with an ice pick. Did I mention she doesn’t wear underwear? (Quote: “Have you ever fucked on cocaine, Nick? It’s nice.”)



Winston “The Wolf” Wolfe (Pulp Fiction, 1994)
With all due respect to Harvey Keitel, here’s a character so well written that even Nicolas Cage couldn’t screw it up. No other character in cinema history casually jots notes like: “One body. No head.” No other character would show up at a suburban home that’s hiding a bloody corpse and introduce himself with the professional dullness of an electrician. No one else would kill time during bloody-body clean-up by talking about oak furniture. The Wolf is a can’t-miss character. (Quote: “Now when it comes to upholstery, it don’t need to be spick and span. You don’t need to eat off it. Just give it a good once over.”)



Captain Jack Sparrow (The Pirates Of The Caribbean: The Curse Of The Black Pearl, 2003)
Captain Jack's greatness is all due to Johnny Depp’s Pepe Le Pew meets Keith Richards portrayal, right? Well, sort of. Depp makes him classic, sure, but this is a pirate with black teeth who thinks he can bed any woman. He’s a pirate who makes his entrance on a tiny sinking boat who thinks he can take control of any ship at sea. And, well, he’s a pirate. Gotta like that, right? I do, and it's my list. (Quote: “Commandeer. We’re going to commandeer that ship. Nautical term.”)

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Oh, almost forgot: I tag Hokahey, Craig, MovieMan0283, FilmDr and Daniel Getahun, and anyone else who wants to play along in the comments or at your own blog.

20 Favorite Film Femmes (Right Now)

I just had to get in on the 20 all-time favorite actresses meme that originated at The Film Experience. Trouble was, narrowing an all-time list proved to be too difficult. So instead I cheated and decided to name my favorite actresses working right now. That means no Grace Kelly, obviously. It also means that someone like Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio doesn’t make the list either, because it’s been too long since she’s delivered a performance worth getting excited about.

So here’s a list of actresses who get me excited to go to the theater right now. Favorite performances listed in parenthesis.


Amy Adams (Junebug)
Having not yet seen Doubt, which arrived in town today, Adams is still more promise than proven. But Junebug alone is reason enough to be excited for what’s to come.

Cate Blanchett (Notes On A Scandal)
In the parenthesis above, I could have put “Just About Everything.”

Helena Bonham Carter (Conversations With Other Women)
See Blanchett comments. Ditto.

Rose Byrne (Sunshine)
Sleeper pick! Byrne’s most robust work is in the otherwise mediocre Wicker Park. But in a tiny role in Sunshine I can’t take my eyes off her. I’m convinced she has a classic performance in her. It’s only a matter of time.

Eva Green (Casino Royale)
Think The Dreamers is memorable? Green is unforgettable in Casino Royale. The strength of Quantum Of Solace is the way Vesper’s spirit hangs in the shadows, serving as Bond’s Rosebud. We never see Vesper, sadly, but she’s always there.

Anne Hathaway (Rachel Getting Married)
An accomplished career already, and her best days are ahead. Versatile. Fearless.

Diane Lane (Unfaithful)
Her Unfaithful performance is one of my all-time favorites. Oh, and she’s sexy as hell!

Q’orianka Kilcher (The New World)
Yep, she makes the list on the strength of one performance – a performance that happens to be another of my all-time favorites. When Kilcher finally shows up in another film, I’m there.

Julianne Moore (Boogie Nights)
Even when she’s just average, she’s fantastic. Tremendous range!

Samantha Morton (In America)
Perhaps my favorite actress working today. She’s the highlight of Synecdoche, New York, and her Mary Stuart was the best part of Elizabeth: The Golden Age (take that, Cate!). Not to be overlooked? Code 46.

Michelle Pfieffer (Dangerous Liaisons)
If not for the magic she generated in Stardust, one of my all-time darlings wouldn’t have made the cut. But her Catwoman in Batman Returns remains one of the sexiest cinema creations ever. And then there’s Dangerous Liaisons, The Age Of Innocence …

Natalie Portman (Beautiful Girls)
She’s been turning in memorable performances all her life. I’m not sure she’ll ever get a better part than in Beautiful Girls, but I’m hopeful that her best work is ahead. Best performance no one ever talks about? Cold Mountain.

Susan Sarandon (Bull Durham)
She’s still got it.

Kristin Scott Thomas (The English Patient)
I’ve Loved You So Long is a reminder of great talent that I hadn’t begun to forget. Must see her more!

Tilda Swinton (The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe)
An actress we’re starting to see more of here in the States, to my great delight.

Audrey Tautou (Amelie)
She makes me grin like a garden gnome.

Uma Thurman (Kill Bill: Volume 1 and 2)
Maybe the most underrated actress working today. The physicality of the Kill Bill films tends to overshadow the memory of her emotional vulnerability.

Rachel Weisz (My Blueberry Nights)
She’s enchanting in The Fountain. She’s heartbreakingly tragic in My Blueberry Nights.

Kate Winslet (Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind)
Has she ever turned in a poor performance?

Robin Wright Penn (Unbreakable)
Lucky to be on this list, per the Mastrantonio rule. But she actually made me consider seeing Beowulf. That’s saying a lot!

So, Cooler readers, let’s see some favorite actress lists – all-time or of-the-moment. Who did I overlook?

Paul Newman: 1925-2008

If the most revered performer of anti-heroes in American cinema history was Marlon Brando, second on the list – and not by much – was Paul Newman. Brando drew us to his bad-boy personas by offsetting despicableness with heartbreaking vulnerability. For Newman, however, the counterbalance was something else: charm. With his stunning blue eyes and innate sweetness, Newman was unfailingly likeable, despite some of his most famous characters’ best attempts to convince us otherwise. Now, sadly, Newman follows Brando somewhere else: to the list of the departed. Newman died yesterday after a well-known but very private battle with cancer, his modesty in his final days consistent with the dignity that was one of his trademarks.

To think that we can separate what we know of the man off-screen from the character on the big screen is foolish, in any situation. A troubled actor (Mel Gibson, say) can ride through hard times off-camera thanks to the goodwill generated by his likeable cinematic portrayals. Likewise, an actor’s real-life image has a way of informing our instincts about their characters. Newman, who may not have had a single enemy other than Richard Nixon, brought genuine warmth with him to the screen whether he wanted to or not. It was because of all the attention paid to his beauty that Newman began seeking out unwholesome onscreen characters in the first place.

For my money, Newman’s best performance (and I admit there are many I haven’t seen) comes in 1963’s Hud, which earned him an Oscar nomination. The titular role provides him with arguably the most vile character of his career (“The man with the barbed wire soul,” the movie’s tagline assessed), and yet we’re still drawn to him. When a drunken Hud tries to force himself on Alma (an outstanding Patricia Neal), we experience her feelings of betrayal because, like Alma, we didn’t think Hud capable of such a thing, despite evidence to the contrary. Newman’s good-natured spirit is what makes Hud’s actions so revolting, and also what allows us to believe in his remorse after the fact.

As for my favorite Newman film, that has to be Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid, one of the many pictures in which he played opposite Robert Redford. No disrespect to Joanne Woodward, Newman’s wife of 50 years who acted with her husband in four films, it was Redford who was Newman’s natural onscreen other-half – the Ginger Rogers to his Fred Astaire. In their 1969 pairing, Newman is perfectly cast as Butch, the stick-up artist with such an inherent authoritativeness to him that even Sundance is surprised when Butch finally admits late in the film that he’s never shot and killed anyone before.

Newman and Redford were friends off-screen, too. In the onslaught of tributes that we’re sure to see in the next hours and days, keep your eye out for an interview in which Newman, a notorious prankster, details some gift-swapping foolishness involving his pal Redford. I don’t remember who conducted the interview or how the story goes, only that it involves a car (a Porsche, I believe) that the two friends managed to send back and forth to one another – though not always in the same condition they received it. What I’ll never forget is the twinkle in Newman’s eye when he tells the story. You didn’t need to read accounts of Newman’s extensive philanthropic efforts to feel the warmth of his heart.

I close this remembrance with some images from the film that gave Newman arguably his most famous character, Cool Hand Luke, and from Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid. The former film, you might recall, ends with George Kennedy’s Drag recounting his final moments with Luke. It’s a description that takes on deeper meaning as we say goodbye to the actor, the race car enthusiast, the humanitarian and the legend who played him. Here's Drag:

“He was smiling. That’s right. You know, that Luke smile of his. He had it on his face right to the very end. Hell, if they didn’t know it ‘fore, they could tell right then they weren’t ever gonna beat him. That old Luke smile. Oh, Luke. He was some boy. Cool Hand Luke. Hell, he’s a natural born world shaker.”

Diane Lane Naked

I can’t remember what tipped me off. What I do remember is that the first time I saw the trailer for Nights In Rodanthe, I figured out much earlier than I should have that the film is based on a novel by Nicholas Sparks. As in, long before horses go galloping down a white-sanded beach, and well before a single character cries and even before Richard Gere puts on his Poignant Face. Which means I had it pegged in about 5 seconds. I’m not sure what it was that triggered me, but the stench of Sparks’ goopy sentimentality announced itself from around the corner like a garbage truck on a humid summer day. Yick.

Like Righteous Kill last week, Nights In Rodanthe is a movie I won’t be seeing. Not opening weekend. Not ever. My aversion in this case isn’t to the Sparks-inspired material (though I can’t say it helps) but to seeing Gere opposite Diane Lane. Again. This is the third time the actors have shared the screen together, and it’s one time too many. Only six years ago, almost two decades removed from their first pairing in The Cotton Club, Lane and Gere starred in Unfaithful, the Adrian Lyne-directed meditation on love, passion, fidelity and ethics, with some Hitchcockian (and I’m not using that term lazily) flare on the side. And it’s with that film that our lasting impression of the Gere-Lane pairing should stay.

Though Gere’s singing and dancing as Chicago’s Billy Flynn drew him raves, Unfaithful provided him with one of his finest performances of at least the last 15 years – the American Gigolo proving refreshingly vulnerable in the sweaters of Ed Sumner, the working dad who excels in the office but is clumsy with the home video camera. Watching Gere’s Ed clean up the mess at the apartment of Paul Martel (Olivier Martinez) is to see him become the quintessential Hitchcockian everyman. It’s one of the few times in recent memory that Gere has shed the Poignant Face for anything else, adopting in its place the terrified expression of a child who has done wrong. It works.

Alas, Gere’s performance in Unfaithful is hardly remembered because Lane’s performance is so unforgettable. Simply put, she carries the film in what must be the most versatile and visceral performance of her career. Her Connie Sumner is a woman at war with herself, stuck between infatuation and dedication, struggling to determine the direction in which her heart leads and whether she has the courage to follow it. Notable, of course, are Unfaithful’s vital sex scenes, in which Lane is without clothes. Devastating, though, is the scene when Connie rides home on the train after her first tryst with Paul, where we see her overcome with conflicting emotions that wash across her face like waves. In an altogether dynamic performance, it's in that scene that Lane is truly naked – entirely without armor.

The following images are a tribute to better days*
























* Note: In the film itself, we alternate between the images above and those chronicling Connie’s first tryst. In the interest of brevity, I left out the images of Lane in bed (sorry, fellas), even though her performance demonstrates a similar gravity and range: terrified, invigorated, ashamed, exhilarated. Having said that, take note that you needn’t actually see Connie in bed with Paul to know how the first episode went and how she feels about it. Ten minutes of exposition couldn’t accomplish what Lane conveys above.

Too Brassy: Alec Baldwin

At one point in Ian Parker’s sympathetic yet pointed feature on Alec Baldwin, for the September 8 issue of The New Yorker, the popular actor laments his lack of headliner parts in big-ticket films. Recalling Leonardo DiCaprio’s portrayal of Howard Hughes in The Aviator, the Martin Scorsese-directed biopic in which he costarred, Baldwin remarks: “To be Leo! To have a huge role like that! To play the role that is the fizz in the drink, you know what I mean? You are the movie! I wish I could play the lead role in one movie, one great movie.”

Thus far, he’s right, he hasn’t. Sure, Baldwin has starred in movies. And he’s made huge impressions in movies. But almost never at the same time. He was Jack Ryan in The Hunt For Red October but was dwarfed by Sean Connery. He costarred with Antony Hopkins in The Edge but was less memorable than a grizzly bear. He had perhaps his most tailor-made leading part in Malice, but the movie wasn’t worth anything beyond his performance, and not many people saw it. Meantime, Baldwin has just one scene in Glengarry Glen Ross and is unforgettable. His performance in The Cooler (no relation) was recognized with an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor, yet the film was largely overlooked. When Baldwin is big, the movie is small. When the movie is big, Baldwin’s role is small.

The pattern is obvious, but prior to reading Parker’s well-written article – the rare Hollywood profile that doesn’t begin with the author mentioning the restaurant he’s sitting in and the outfit the celeb is wearing – I hadn’t picked up on it. Baldwin has been a star for so long that it’s easy to assume there must have been a string of hits somewhere in the past (ala Michael Douglas, for example). But, no. Given Baldwin’s string of solid supporting performances in The Last Shot, The Aviator and The Departed, and now his scene-stealing part on the critically acclaimed TV sitcom 30 Rock, Baldwin is arguably at the peak of his career. Yet his comments to Parker reveal how disappointed Baldwin is with his view atop this somewhat modest summit.

Of course, it should be noted that whining appears to be part of Baldwin’s nature. Fear, on the other hand, is not. Remembering his father, Baldwin says: “My father wasn’t a violent or mean-spirited person, but he was a very strict disciplinarian in school and he knew that some of these kids only understood one thing … The older I got, I learned to behave as he did, which was not to be afraid of anybody. And I’m not afraid of anybody. Wherever I go, I don’t have a drop of fear in my whole body. Never. Never.”

For Baldwin the actor, that’s a problem. In parts big and small, there’s an unmistakable Baldwin-ness to all of his characters. Jack Nicholson has developed a famous (and frequently irksome) Jack-ness in his performances, but as recently as 2002’s About Schmidt he showed himself capable of stepping out of it. Baldwin always seems to have the brass balls of his Glengarry Glen Ross persona. It’s hard to tell where the actor ends and the character begins. Meanwhile, to think of DiCaprio in The Aviator is to remember the scene where the obsessive-compulsive and germ-phobic Hughes finds himself trapped in a restaurant restroom, unable to touch the door handle. When DiCaprio stares at the handle, he looks like a man in prison. If Baldwin were to do it, you might expect the doorknob to explode under the power of his intense gaze.

This is what I was thinking as I read Parker’s article. And then, to my surprise, Baldwin reveals that he sees his unwavering intensity as a problem, too:

“Do you want to know the truth?” Baldwin said to me not long ago. “I don’t think I really have a talent for movie acting. I’m not bad at it, but I don’t think I really have a talent for it.” He described the film actor’s need to project strength and weakness simultaneously. “Nicholson’s my idol this way. Pacino. There’s a mix you have to have where the character is vulnerable, the character is up against it, but there’s still a glimmer of resourcefulness in his eye—you look at him and the character is telegraphing to you this is not going to last very long. ‘I’m down’—Randle McMurphy, Serpico, whatever it is—‘but it’s not going to last, I’m still going to figure my way out of this.’” In contrast, he referred to Orson Welles. “Welles was a powerful actor, but he wasn’t always a great actor,” Baldwin said, with, perhaps, a faint nod to his own career. “Even when Welles was lost, he was arrogant.”

Baldwin’s self-awareness in this regard is refreshing. And the more I saw his personality revealed by Parker, the more I began to wonder if his narrow onscreen dynamism might be the result of something more than a lack of fear. Perhaps, just perhaps, the man – opinionated, arrogant, thoughtful, brash, sulking, pompous, etc. – is too complex to hide behind the façade of a character. Gene Siskel’s favorite tool for evaluating a film – cited frequently by Roger Ebert – was to ask himself whether the movie was as interesting as a documentary of the same actors having lunch. When it comes to Baldwin, it’s as if he’s still waiting for the role more complicated and compelling than he is. Baldwin isn’t someone I’d like to have lunch with, but he sure makes a fascinating subject from afar.

Not-Thin To Win?

The next President of the United States is still in doubt, but thankfully there are some things we can count on. Hilary Swank’s third Oscar win for Best Actress, for example. Swank, the Academy Award winner for Boys Don’t Cry and Million Dollar Baby, isn’t hyped to be a contender in this year’s race, but recently she signed on to a project that’s almost certain to provide her with another golden statuette – the film adaptation of Mireille Guiliano’s French Women Don’t Get Fat. True, the movie is still in development, and thus not a single frame of footage has been shot, but at this point it looks as if the only thing standing between Swank and Katharine Hepburn’s doorstep are a few boxes of Krispy Kremes.

Confused? According to reports first generated by E! Online, Swank is planning to gain 20 to 30 pounds for her performance in French Women in an effort to look, well, more American, I suppose. Whether the added weight will simply add some curve to her “alarmingly thin frame” or actually make her appear fat remains to be seen. But what’s been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt is that every trip Swank makes to Cold Stone from now until shooting begins only enhances her chances of taking home Best Actress gold.

See, physical transformation plays big in Hollywood, especially where women are concerned. Of the past 10 Best Actress Oscars, only two have gone to actresses for roles that allowed them to look nearly as sexy onscreen as they can appear off: Julia Roberts in Erin Brockovich and Reese Witherspoon in Walk The Line. The other eight have gone to actresses who muted their beauty and/or made other significant physical transformations: Gwyneth Paltrow in Shakespeare In Love (wears a mustache); Swank in Boys Don’t Cry (morphs Teena Brandon into Brandon Teena); Halle Berry in Monster’s Ball (sheds her Revlon); Nicole Kidman in The Hours (adds Virginia Woolf’s shnozz); Charlize Theron in Monster (two words: Aileen Wuornos); Swank in Million Dollar Baby (bulked up into a boxer’s body); Helen Mirren in The Queen (two more words: Queen Elizabeth); and Marion Cotillard in La Vie en Rose (her aging Edith Piaf looks like the ghastly vision of Large Marge in Pee Wee’s Big Adventure).

The above list isn’t meant to outright discount or otherwise diminish any specific performances. It’s meant to point out a trend. Since 2000, the Oscar for Best Actress has gone to the performer who – in comparison to her fellow nominees – most altered her physical appearance every time but once: Witherspoon’s win against Felicity Huffman’s performance in Transamerica. (The only other year it’s debatable is when Berry’s haggard look trumped Renee Zellweger’s plump personification of Bridget Jones.)

Which brings us to today’s Question For Which There Isn’t One Correct Answer: What’s the best way to measure great acting? Transformation, no doubt, is a key component, as it’s essential that we lose sight of the actor and believe in the character in front of us. But in many of the above cases, the most remarkable transformation was a product of excellence in the makeup trailer, not in front of the camera. Then again, it would be unfair to dismiss the responsibility of the actress to fill out her appearance. Acted poorly, Kidman’s credibility in The Hours is hindered by the Virginia Woolf proboscis instead of helped, for example.

Thus we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that those aforementioned winning performances have something else in common: an unusual complexity of character (actresses so often being unfortunately reduced to scenery). Still, when an actress is awarded for a relatively unglamorous portrayal, it’s difficult to keep from wondering if it’s the performance that’s being honored or if in actuality what’s being rewarded is the daring of the actress in shedding the very thing that Hollywood most appreciates: external beauty.

That news of Swank’s forthcoming weight gain should bring this hardly-original debate to the surface right now is serendipitous, because from here it’s only a tiny hop to the biting commentary of Tropic Thunder’s controversial Simple Jack construct, which has also been on my mind. Though that film explicitly mocks actors who play handicapped characters in an effort to get some awards-season recognition, Tropic Thunder perhaps also implicitly mocks any of us who reward such overly affected performances with equally over-the-top praise.

Which brings me to these questions: Sean Penn’s performance in I Am Sam is often considered repugnant, but not Tom Hanks’ turn in Forrest Gump. Why? Daniel Day-Lewis’ performance in My Left Foot is considered one of the best of all time, yet Dustin Hoffman’s Oscar-winning turn in Rain Man is now often met with disdain. Why? If the previous statements are true, is the fault actually found in Penn or Hoffman’s performances? Or did Hanks and Day-Lewis simply have more respectable (and more respectful) material to work with?

But let’s get back to Swank. That she’s a two-time Academy Award winner (based on as many nominations) is hard to fathom, in part because – despite her hardware – she doesn’t appear to be coveted by moviegoers or moviemakers. Yet her victorious performances were hardly undeserving of acclaim: in Boys Don’t Cry she’s as emotionally convincing as physically so, and while her win for Million Dollar Baby was almost certainly boosted by a respect for the tremendous dedication required to build a boxer’s body, her acting was equally determined. You can debate her Oscar wins, but she’s a fine actress, certainly, with a long career left.

Then again, if the above prediction proves true and Swank becomes only the second three-time Best Actress winner (Hepburn won it four times), her Oscar collection will suggest a level of legendary excellence among her era that would be misleading. And that’s why I hope the only way Swank gets recognized for French Women Don’t Get Fat is if her acting carries more weight than her In-N-Out augmented hips.

Jack’s Wild Joker

At midnight tonight, The Dark Knight hits screens at theaters across the country. Finally. Buzz for Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins sequel has been considerable ever since photos of Heath Ledger’s Joker began pinging around cyberspace more than a year ago – long before the trailer was released – and it’s been at a fever pitch since Ledger’s death in January. Did the Joker role take such a toll on Ledger that it led to his drug overdose? Is his performance good enough to win him a posthumous Oscar? Is this the best comic book film of all time? People are already asking these questions and the movie technically isn’t out yet.

The paid critics have started to weigh in on such topics (not that I’ve read any reviews yet), but discussion of the film is just beginning. In the coming weeks you’re sure to read raves for Ledger and tributes. And some will suggest that the performance is a window to a tormented soul. And then others will criticize the picture and be accused of cluelessness, heartlessness, or of being contrarian just for the purpose of being contrarian (see: White, Armond). You know the drill. And so before this wave of Batmania overtakes us, I’d like to pause a moment to reflect on the previous portrayal of the Joker, by Jack Nicholson in Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman.

He’s a grinner, a lover and a sinner – and he sure does want to hurt someone. That might be the best way to describe Nicholson’s Joker. Or maybe it would be this word, which is lobbed at him during the film: crazy. Notice that villainous isn’t one of the first descriptors to come to mind. Nicholson’s Joker is a showman, an oddball, an evil clown. He’s the villain, sure, but only by default. And in Burton’s Batman the Joker’s sinister plot is a MacGuffin bigger than Gotham City. Batman isn’t about what the Joker will do. It’s about what the Joker is doing. Style is his substance.

To that end, Nicholson’s performance is brilliant – and no role, ever, has been better fit for the icon’s trademark (often grating) extreme Jackness. The genius of Burton’s film is that it dedicates more time to examining the twisted psyche of the Joker than it does to creating the legend of the hero. Which doesn’t mean that the Joker is ever really explained, because insanity can’t be defined. Watching the film again recently I noticed that a good percentage of the Joker’s dialogue is entirely nonsensical. Nicholson sells it so well that we hardly notice. The shabby writing feels almost clever.

Given the deluge of comic book movies in recent years, it’s becoming difficult to get excited about them. Superhero movies may have gotten bigger and flashier, but they haven’t gotten much better. For my money, the best superhero movie of the past decade is M Night Shyamalan’s genre twisting Unbreakable. A close second would be Bryan Singer’s Superman Returns, which checks off all the comic book tenants without confining itself to the mold. And third would be Batman Begins.

So there’s reason to believe that The Dark Knight might indeed live up to – or at least withstand – its massive hype. I hope Ledger’s performance is a triumph deserving of high praise. But if the acclaim comes, I also wish that folks will remember that falling in love with Ledger’s grittier, edgier Joker doesn’t have to mean spurning Nicholson’s zanier one. If nothing else, between Cesar Romero’s classic clown and Ledger’s monster, Jack’s Joker is the bridge.

I suspect that Ledger’s Joker might be the most wicked comic book villain I’ve ever seen. I hope it terrifies me. Still, there’s something to be said for a nemesis so perverse that the only appropriate response is to stare back at it like this: