Insomnia

[Rod Hagen]

We adore him when he's nuts and coked-out, and just want to hug him when he's experiencing a World-According-to-Garp melancholy, but will movie-goers go for Robin Williams as a villain? What do you think?

[+ Lucky]

You care about our opinion?

[Rod Hagen]

>You care about our opinion?

 

 

Dude, if you'd pay attention I often start threads about films, plays (TopDog/Underdog sucked), restaurants, and hotels. This is one of those.

[Guest bottomboykk]

I'm definitely intrigued by seeing Robin Williams in a role like this. I don't know if it will work or not. I respect RW enough as an actor to believe he can pull it off.

[Guest Thunderbuns]

>I'm definitely intrigued by seeing Robin Williams in a role

>like this. I don't know if it will work or not. I respect RW

>enough as an actor to believe he can pull it off.

 

Although I like RW, he's one of those actors who always seems to be playing himself, no matter what the role is (with a possible exception re Mrs. Doubtfire). His gestures, expressions and his way of saying words almost never vary.

 

Paul Newman was another with the same problem.

 

Thunderbuns

[Rod Hagen]

>Although I like RW, he's one of those actors who always

>seems to be playing himself, no matter what the role is

>(with a possible exception re Mrs. Doubtfire). His gestures,

>expressions and his way of saying words almost never vary.

 

Key word is "almost". Think of him in Garp, he was just so happy to be sad. But your right, he's almost always in manic-schtick.

[Will]

Narcissus, aka Robin Williams, was wonderful in GARP. But that was years ago, at the beginning of his career. I even rather liked him in HOOK.

 

However, in general, Robin Williams gives me hives. Especially after he developed his persona-in-the-mirror as the tweedy-younger-uncle type in DEAD POETS SOCIETY. From then on it was downhill. I almost threw up when he embraced the weeping Matt Damon in GOOD WILL HUNTING. Never, ever, again will I torture myself with a Robin Williams film!

 

How's that for a strong opinion?

[Guest RushNY]

so i take it you dont like him then hunh :7

I personally have loved some of his movies,Garp,Moscow,Good Morning Vietnam to name 3 but he also has made some real shit Club Paradise anyone ? but he is a good actor but he suffers from the same problem that Jim Carrey now does that people wont go and see him in a "straight" role and also he has made some strange career decisions lately going for non commercial parts in movies that will not be successful so the powers that be in Hollywood wont hink of him for certain roles,it comes down to the fact that someone like RW is not in vogue at the moment for whatever reason same thing goes for Bill Murray and Whoopi Goldberg from Oscar winner to Hollywood Square !!.

 

Personally i dont think the movie will be a hit doesnt mean though its a bad movie,i mean look at the Phantom Menace $400 million domestic box office and it stank like a plate of month old cheese.

[Guest Thunderbuns]

>so i take it you dont like him then hunh :7

 

I also don't think I'd like to see him without his clothes on x(

 

Thunderbuns

[Rod Hagen]

Will, you're right that he's become too fond of going over the top in both his Danny-Kay style antics and oh-so-blue "Wet Dreams May Come" sadness. But he is very skilled, a true dramatist, and so do we think, separate from all that he's done before, that he can be a convincing bad guy, or does he bring too much to the table to be able to distract us from Mork and Dead Poets?

 

This is only slightly indiscreet, but a client who works in Bay Area Health Care Facilities once told me that RH often spends Chritstmas in children wards in local hospitals. That's coool. And he kicked coke without rehab, that's also cool. But you gotta wonder why a man like him used coke in the first place, I like him.

[Guest Thunderbuns]

>This is only slightly indiscreet, but a client who works in

>Bay Area Health Care Facilities once told me that RH often

>spends Chritstmas in children wards in local hospitals.

 

Posing as what? A Roman Catholic priest?

 

I know - sick, sick, sick

 

Thunderbuns

[Guest RushNY]

>>so i take it you dont like him then hunh :7

>

>I also don't think I'd like to see him without his clothes

>on x(

>

>Thunderbuns

You wouldn't see much if anything we're talking WEREWOLF hairy !

[Houston Bonfires]

Big multiple dittos to everything Will just said.

 

I firmly grasp the Ipecac bottle.

 

H B

[Guest jeffOH]

If you're talking about Robin Williams in Death to Smoochie, I'd have to say pass on it. I saw it a couple of weeks ago and it was so-so.

 

JEFF

jeff4men@hotmail.com

[Rod Hagen]

>If you're talking about Robin Williams in Death to Smoochie,

>I'd have to say pass on it. I saw it a couple of weeks ago

>and it was so-so.

 

JEFF, see subject heading.

[Rod Hagen]

JEFF, see subject heading. :*

[DaninWA]

I like Robin Williams and would like to see him in something other than a "manic" role.

 

Dan

 

P.S. I'd also like to see him in nothing at all. I like the "werewolf" look. }>

 

Dan

[Guest Joey Ciccone]

>Never, ever, again will I torture myself with a Robin Williams film!<

 

Not even if they make a Mork And Mindy movie?

[Rod Hagen]

But do we think he can be scary. I WANT him to be, I hope he can pull it off.

[FrancoDiSantisxxx]

Mr. Williams

 

I think truly gifted people, and I consider Robin Williams as a live comedic person to qualify, as with Jonathan Winters, derive their gifts from aspects of their personality which may frighten them or which they may feel the need to control. I think drugs, as with "normal" people, provide a safety valve, no matter how imaginary it may be.

[FrancoDiSantisxxx]

Scary

 

I think, as I indicated above, that he is a truly gifted and talented presence and can be a strong actor, given good direction and a good script. I believe, because he is allowed to ad lib and he believes that comedy can be interjected with suspense and drama, that he tends to bring many of his roles downward in quality and presentation.

 

I do not know who wrote the script or who is directing, but it could be good. I will more likely wait to see the New Yorker and New York Times reviews before going to a theater but then the last movie I saw and enjoyed was Donnie Darko.

[Rod Hagen]

RE: Scary

 

>I do not know who wrote the script or who is directing, but

>it could be good. I will more likely wait to see the New

>Yorker and New York Times reviews before going to

>a theater but then the last movie I saw and enjoyed was

>Donnie Darko.

 

I see everything UNLESS the NYTimes hated it. Por ejemplo this mornings NYTimes "Spidey" review was lukewarm, but AO Scott didn't DISLIKE it, so I'll go. If tne NYTimes doesn't like Insomnia, I won't see it.

 

I wrote a review of Donnie Darko here because it really affected me. What a film. Glad you liked it too.

[FrancoDiSantisxxx]

Music

 

Given your quoting taste, I would think you would have loved the music in particular, Rod.

 

I always thought he was singing "sad world" but those are the truly classic songs. I used to listen to She's Lost Control and Love Will Tear Us Apart all the time and material from that era, including Human Sexual Response and Nina Hagen, but now I can only bring myself to remember them on the one public station that plays punk rock on the weekend mornings, no new romantics and certainly no new wave, just anger and loud noise....

 

Songs are such great talismen and memory joggers.

 

I remember my frist trip to Los Angeles as an adult, we were driving down Olympic at 80 miles an hour heading from the West Side to this loft downtown pre-redevelopment and the station went from Smells Like Teen Spirit to the Tammy Wynette version of Justified And Ancient.

 

Would love to see you post some threads on music. I stick to NPR and KCRW now and only then in the car, which I avoid - the car not NPR - as much as possible.

[Guest Musclebearshare]

RE: Scary

 

>I see everything UNLESS the NYTimes hated it. Por ejemplo

>this mornings NYTimes "Spidey" review was lukewarm, but AO

>Scott didn't DISLIKE it, so I'll go. If tne NYTimes doesn't

>like Insomnia, I won't see it.

 

Really? I don't think the NY Times has had a top-notch film reviewer since Janet Maslin left, and it took her quite a while to develop into one. Scott's okay, but not someone I'd let keep me from something I might otherwise be inclined to see. Holden can be quite entertaining, and thoughtful sometimes. Mitchell's reviews are a waste of space. He's a nimble writer, but an ass-backwards critic. I rarely like his reviews on NPR either. I'm surprised you put so much stock in the Grey Lady's opinions. Just take a look at the homophobic Bosley Crowther's 10-Best lists from days gone by to see how wrong the Times has been over much of the last century.

 

As for Mr. Williams, in the abstract, yeah, I bet he can be scary, if he can curtail both his zany and sappy impulses long enough to turn in a genuine performance. Depends entirely on whether he can be reigned in. But I didn't even attempt Insomnia, since many other King novels had the opposite effect on me, so in this case I have no idea.

 

Michael

[Rod Hagen]

RE: Scary

 

>Really? I don't think the NY Times has had a top-notch film

>reviewer since Janet Maslin left,

 

Janet Maslin was brilliant. I miss her insight. I simply meant that I use the NYtimes reviews as a guideline, a very firm guideline. That means that if the LA Times likes something, but the NYtimes hates it, chances are I won't see it.

 

>Depends

>entirely on whether he can be reigned in. But I didn't even

>attempt Insomnia, since many other King novels had the

>opposite effect on me, so in this case I have no idea.

 

It didn't even occur to me that it's based on the unread dusty novel on my bookcase.