Archive for the ‘Actors’ Category
February 18, 2022
From my 2/13/22 posting “On punctuation”:
Encountered recently in an interview, by writer I, of actor X, about X’s approach to their craft. The exchanges below are about punctuation, specifically in scripts; X reads other things, of course, but scripts are the central reading material of an actor’s life, the stuff they use to transform, through a collaboration with a director and other actors, into performances.
… punctuation can be a stumbling block, so they take it out. I’s note at this point:
This seems to be the master key to understanding X’s highly idiosyncratic line readings.
This is David Marchese interviewing the actor Christopher Walken in The New York Times Magazine, in print 2/13/22, p. 14.
Now, on Walken.
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Posted in Acting, Actors, Movies and tv, Punctuation | Leave a Comment »
February 17, 2022
Today’s Zippy strip has Griffy and Zippy inside the Boulevard Diner in Worcester MA while snow falls outside:
(#1) The two men exchange opinions about their two favorite things, which are definitely not raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens: Griffy’s (diners and snow) are more conventional, and are linked to their context; while Zippy’s (Vincent Price and sushi) are decidedly eccentric, and have no connection to the context or to each other
And now the time has come to speak of many things.
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Posted in Actors, Diners, Gender and sexuality, Homosexuality, Language and food, Linguistics in the comics, Masculinity, Music, Phallicity, Vaginality | 1 Comment »
February 13, 2022
Encountered recently in an interview, by writer I, of actor X, about X’s approach to their craft. The exchanges below are about punctuation, specifically in scripts; X reads other things, of course, but scripts are the central reading material of an actor’s life, the stuff they use to transform, through a collaboration with a director and other actors, into performances.
If you’ve read the interview, you’ll know who X is, but I’ll conceal their identity for the moment, to let their remarks on punctuation wash over you. It would be an interesting exercise to hear the views of the writers of those scripts and the directors of their performances.
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Posted in Acting, Actors, Punctuation | 3 Comments »
October 13, 2021
The story starts with an instance of semantically reversed impervious (to) — a converse use of a predicate adjective. From Anat Shenker-Osorio, the founder of ASO Communications, interviewed on 10/11 on MSNBC’s The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell. From the transcript:
… What we find in experiment after experiment is that when people have already cemented a world view, they in essence have a frame around what is occurring, then facts are simply impervious to it. They bounce off of it, right?
… And so it`s precisely as you said. If they have an existing story line about, quote, unquote, what Democrats do and how they behave, then facts are pretty much impervious to it.
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Posted in Actors, Argument structure, Clothing, Lexical semantics, Movies and tv, Names, Participant roles, Semantics, Syntax | Leave a Comment »
September 4, 2021
From the tv series NCIS, Season 14 Episode 6, “Shell Game”, an exchange between the NCIS-Agent characters Tim McGee (played by Sean Murray) and Nick Torres (played by Wilmer Valderrama, whose name I am forever telescoping into the portmanteau-like Wilderrama) that turns on joking with senses of the interrogative adverb how — in McGee’s question “How do you sleep at night”, intended to convey modal + means how ‘by what means is it possible?’; and Torres’s response “On my back. Naked.”, conveying truth-functional + state how ‘in what state?’.
(#1) Torres and McGee in the NCIS episode “Love Boat”, Season 14 Episode 4
Then I turn to WV the man, as a hunk with a wonderful smile (two things I post about on a fairly regular basis), and as a performer with a notable actorial persona.
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Posted in Actors, Ambiguity, Errors, Faces, Facial expression, Modality, Modification, Movies and tv, Portmanteaus, Semantics, Telescopings | 4 Comments »
January 28, 2021
Leachman, who died on the 26th at the age of 94, pretty much defined what it means to be a member of what I’ve called the Acting Corps, a bank of reliable actors with large numbers of acting credits (there’s a Page of links, on this blog here): her professional debut was in 1948 — I was 8 at the time — and she has nearly 300 credited roles on IMDb (a list that doesn’t cover all of her acting work).
Leachman in three of her roles: as Frau Blucher in Young Frankenstein; as Barbara June “Maw Maw” Thompson in Raising Hope; as the title character in the sitcom Phyllis (a spin-off of The Mary Tyler Moore Show)
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Posted in Actors, Movies and tv | 3 Comments »
October 25, 2020
Observed on the (regrettably short-lived) tv show Martial Law in recent reruns, the hard-working actor Louis Mandylor, playing a Los Angeles police detective Louis Malone, paired with the title character Sammo Law, a Chinese detective and martial artist (played by Sammo Hung). Notable as a prime member of what I’ve called the Acting Corps and also as an exemplar of amiable high masculinity.
Mandylor in a stock p.r. photo:
(#1)
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Posted in Actors, Masculinity, Movies and tv | 1 Comment »
September 30, 2020
Watching Charlie’s Angels S4 E10 “Angels on Skates” (from 11/21/79) this morning — there’s only so much news and commentary I can cope with in a day, so I retreat to lightweight stuff to keep my sanity — I caught a very familiar actor face, looking impossibly young. This turned out to be Chris Mulkey, whose name you might not know, but (if you’re American) whose face wil be extraordinarily familiar, because he’s appeared in an unbelievable number of tv series, and at the age of 72 is still at it.
A premier member of what I’ve called the Acting Corps, reliable, versatile, and hard-working actors who make the whole business work (there’s a Page on this blog on the Acting Corps).
Mulkey as Hank Jennings — Henry “Hank” Jennings, the criminal husband of Norma Jennings, a man who often acted as a henchman for several of Twin Peaks’ more shady citizens, such as Ben Horne and Josie Packard; photo from the Twin Peaks Wiki, from 1990-91
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Posted in Actors, Movies and tv | Leave a Comment »
August 28, 2020
Tim Evanson on Facebook today observed that Daniel Goddard (born 8/28/71) is now 49. Happy birthday, Daniel.
Goddard was the star of the the Beastmaster tv series, which has provided me with many cheap-pleasurable hours of viewing, in which his very attractive shirtlessness played a significant part (though his physical acting, his smiles, the excellent supporting cast, and the entertainingly preposterous plots were significant contributions).
(#1) The characters Tao (played by Jackson Raine) and Dar (Goddard): well, yes, Goddard’s admirable torso and arm muscles (not to mention his sweaty body and surprisingy erect nipples), but it’s also a depiction of supportive male friendship, and that’s important
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Posted in Actors, Movies and tv, Shirtlessness | 2 Comments »
