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2009’s Top 10 Repeat Offenders in Tony Gilroy and Tom Wilkinson
I still remember the range of emotions Tom Wilkinson tapped into for his lead perf in Todd Field's In the Bedroom -- and it's his pinch hitting stint in Michael Clayton that reminded cinephiles just has good the Brit thesp is. Tony Gilroy naturally found a spot for him in the corporate spy comedy Duplicity and when the cat and mouse game between Owen and Roberts felt contrived, we could count on the actor to indulge in his own game of charades. Loved the intro, slo-mo confrontation between Wilkinson and Paul Giamatti which I relate to those epic battles between mountain rams we find on the nature channel.
2009’s Top 10 Repeat Offenders in James Gray and Joaquin Phoenix
Gray placed Phoenix in a far more venerable role in their third time out. After The Yards (2000), We Own the Night (2007), the 2008 Cannes title that got release early 2009 Two Lovers saw Phoenix in his own Betty and Veronica dilemma.
2009’s Top 10 Repeat Offenders in Cristian Mungiu and Vlad Ivanov
It was Cristian Mungiu who first introduced us to the clinic cold Vlad Ivanov in 4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days -- perhaps the role that convinced other filmmakers to cast the Romanian actor in his expanded repertoire of other films (The Concert, Police, Adjective and The Whistleblower). The two paired together in Mungiu's Tales From the Golden Age - oddly, I'm not entirely sure if Mungiu actually directed the actor - as the portmanteau film doesn't specify who directed what or who directed The Legend of the Chicken Driver.
Habib Azar
In the end the hodgepodge of work actually serves us very well—I like to think that the tone of our movie is completely singular. Armless has this weird dry and dark humor that is unsettling and enticing at the same time; that tone is one of the more interesting and successful aspects of the movie.
Tracking Shot January 2010: The Descendants, Pariah and Cartel
Our very first feature of 2010, is an item which we begin at the top of every month. January's Tracking Shot makes up for a lack of production in December - and at the top of the productions that are beginning this month we find George Clooney toplining Alexander Payne's The Descendants for Fox Searchlight. Casting is still underway with this project - and I guess we'll be hearing more from it in the next couple of weeks.
