winstonlegthigh

Does anybody find this? It occurs to me that, after a certain point in cinema a lot of stars don't actually have any screen presence. They don't command attention. Most of the actors around today, even, relatively, some of the quite well known ones such as Al Pacino and Robert De Niro don't seem to have that thing that James Stewart or Robert Mitchum or Oliver Reed or Henry Fonda or Jimmy Cagney had where you were just WAITING for them to appear on screen. I dunno why this is. With a simple face value assessment, you could say that perhaps it has something to do with the desire of everyone to be the actors actor and not having a good understanding of their strengths and playing on that. Actors beforehand had this thing where, now, for instance, John Wayne couldn't act for shit but he had amazing presence and forged a place for himself in the history of cinema for better or worse (i say better) by having a distinct understanding of his capabilities and how to accentuate them and also his limitations and how to work around them. Everybody can't be Marlon Brando and they shouldn't try. James Dean, another example, if we're realistic, the jurys out on how good he actually would've turned out if he had've continued but, just on the basis of the three movies he made, he had this intense smouldering screen presence. Also, perhaps the old Studio/Star System and a lot of the post studio system thing had a thing where they cultivated personalities. There are very few real characters amongst actors anymore. People like Myrna Loy, Brando, Oliver Reed again or Tallulah Bankhead, Richard Harris, Steve McQueen, people that are just interesting in and of themselves. People like De Niro, for all their talents, seem like the most BAWWWWWWWW-RING people in the fuckin world, they seem to be such wet rags, no discernible personality at all...Pacino too, he could put an insomniac to sleep. Johnny Depp has a sort of understated screen presence i think. Why do you think this is the case nowadays? Or do you even think this is the case?

Shit, might as well be the first to start a topic. Any guitar players here? What do you play? Are you any good or are you as shit as me? Do you play in a band or just for your own amusement? What kinda guitar do you play?

(this is gonna be the dead-est thread ever )