So, Damian Lewis (an amazing British actor who came to America’s attention after Band of Brothers and Life) is in a stage play with Keira Knightley. He’s also a diplomat. When asked what he thought of Keira’s acting, he said:

Damian Lewis is positive that Keira Knightley will do a terrific job when she makes her debut on the West End stage.

…”She’s got quite a successful acting dad and playwright mum, so she can handle herself – Keira is fabulous, she’s an absolute sweetheart – she’s looking forward to it as well so we’re going to have fun,” he said.

1. Dude, that is MASTERFUL.

2. That is exactly how I feel about Keira Knightley, and many other actors of her ilk. People try the “But she seems so nice!” angle, and that’s hard to argue – Keira was in a domestic-violence awareness promo, she doesn’t stagger around drunk a lot, she seems nice. That doesn’t mean she can ACT, though! She is a bad actor! This is the profession she chose, and it’s sort of her duty to be good at it, you know? People don’t continue to hire shitty accountants.

(Liv Tyler is another one. She’s a very sweet person and a good citizen and everything, but girl cannot emote to SAVE her LIFE. And Natalie Portman, who sometimes shows promise but can easily go through three movies in a year without acting even once! Sean Penn, Al Pacino, Angelina Jolie…you know what, this list will end up being eight hundred people long. I’m stopping.)

ANYWAY, I feel the same way about some of the Game of Thrones cast (which is nearly finalized, and which I wrote up for Tor.com yesterday). Going down the names, which is like Awesome British Actor Camp Varsity, it’s like, “Yes! Check! Check! Awesome! Go! Great one!…wait, really?”

I like Lena Headey as Sarah Connor, I do. I just don’t know if she’s so hot in the period-piece arena. A lot of actors aren’t, and that’s fine, but sometimes an actor doesn’t know that until it’s too late and they’re like Ray Liotta in the Dungeon Siege movie, you know? That hurts everyone.

Well well, looks like Michael Fassbender is moving up in the world now that the new Tarantino movie is out!

(717%, people. Either that movie was much, much better than it looked, or he was not popular at ALL before this.)

You go, dude; I hope this makes up for being ousted from Wuthering Heights because of the unforgivable decay time has visited upon your dessicated corpse.

[Previous episodes of The Catherine Cookson Experience here.]

This week, the CCE delivers my biggest letdown so far: Ciaran Hinds and Amanda Root, stars of the Persuasion (best Austen adaptation ever), team up again!

And man, they suck.

Welcome to The Man Who Cried, which is about a good-looking dude (Ciaran Hinds: well cast, casting person) who keeps tripping and falling into ladies, which disgusts him, just disgusts him. Why won’t these women stop getting with him, damn? He spends four hours being emo about how he just wants to be Left Alone with some other woman than the one he’s with at the moment. (Doesn’t matter which woman he’s with; he wants a new one.)

Vital Stats:

Era: 1930s, just before WWII
Heroine: Ciaran Hinds.
Siblings that require looking-after: His ten-year-old kiddo.
Illegitimate (Self or sibling): He begets one! Nice job, Ciaran.
Asshole Father?: Yeah, Ciaran.
Romantic interest(s): Every woman on the planet.
Bairnsketballs: Yup…CIARAN.
Fistfights: Largely nonviolent, except for ladies lunging at Ciaran and attempting to climb him like a tree.
Assaults: See above. SIT DOWN, LADIES.

“Even the CREDITS are crying, you guys.”
Continue reading

Today at Tor.com, I talk about Moon, which I had hailed in previous posts there as my last best hope for some cerebral science fiction in the next eon.

For once, something did not disappoint!

It’s a movie that doesn’t tell you everything; it shows you as much as it can, and you decide what you want to take away from it. It sounds laissez-faire, but I was totally hooked from the first minute (and pay attention in the quiet first act – you’ll be rewarded later).

Oh, and bring a tissue; Clint Mansell did the score, and anyone who saw Requiem for a Dream knows what happens when you give that guy three minutes and some instruments. I might have cried. Twice. You can’t prove a thing.

Gillian Kearney was in The Tide of Life, and I liked her because:

1) She is a sweetie, and
2) She has leftover goodwill from being in The Forsyte Saga, where she was repeatedly whacked with the short end of the stick.

But she should just be lucky that she made very few bad decisions in that miniseries, which made her the only one.

When I saw The Forsyte Saga back in 2004, I wrote it up for Defenestration, because I was amazed that you could yell, “What a terrible plan!” at EVERY character you saw EVERY time ANYONE did something and it would ALWAYS be right. I saw it again last year, and seriously, it’s like a How Not To Do This of bad decision-making.

(Disclaimer: At the end of Forsyte Saga: To Let, I cried so hard I basically bruised a lung. So don’t think that just because I’m snarking means the miniseries isn’t good. It’s good; Damian Lewis and Amanda Root carry even the dull parts of the original series, and Damian Lewis pulls the entire second series basically by himself, and his performance is good. It’s really good. It’s so good it bruises your lungs when you sob like a nerd through the end credits.)