Lenny
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As the title and a minor logical leap suggests, I've spent my past week watching films starring Emma Stone (Spiderman, Zombieland, The Rocker, Superbad, Paper Man, The House Bunny, and Easy A). Turns out she's a very good actor, and the journey of discovered has led to me deciding to extend my experiment and watch a different actor each week. Hopefully this thread will persuade some of you to do the same!
tl;dr version - this last week, I watched seven Emma Stone films and discovered that, despite the best efforts of casting agents and generic teen comedy films, she is in possession of some serious acting chops. Try your own week of watching films by a specific actor, and I bet you'll find that some actors can do so much more than they're given credit for.
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It started on Monday, with me just watching a film, continued on Tuesday with just another film (because I'm back in a zombie phase), and then became my "Emma Stone Week" on Wednesday. The reason? Yes, Emma Stone is attractive, but that's not it. The reason was also not because my distance from College bars and drinking friends (soft drinks, mind) has left me bored. I wanted to see how good of an actor she really is, which has led me to my mission to verse myself in the films of as many actors as I can stomach.
I've got a fairly large, somewhat decent film collection, with a good number of films from the last four decades (2010s - 1980s), as well as some from even further back, but I can't say I'm particularly well-versed in cinema. Nor can I claim to know many actors that well. So I thought to myself, as I sat down to watch my third Emma Stone film of the week, that I would start experiment, and see how long I could keep it up.
The idea is to pick an actor (well-known, obscure, recent, past, young, old, whatever) and watch seven of their films, spread over a week. What makes it more fun is if you can pick a selection of films from different genres that showcases a wide range of the actor's abilities.
Emma Stone is still young, and hasn't appeared in many films, so whilst the choosing is easy (I tried to go for the ones where she played a largish part), it's hard to get a good variance. As you can see, I ended up with a Hollywood blockbuster, three teen comedies, a comedy/horror for a slightly older audience, a low-key comedy, and an independent drama(/comedy).
So what did I learn about Emma Stone? Well, she suits a lot of hair-colours, her voice is fantastic (and she can sing, too!). She also exhibits the potential for a surprising range.
If you think of Emma Stone, you probably think of her being a comedic actor, suited for the geeky-girl-next-door roles. To be fair, her roles suggest that you're not too wrong. Her characters are usually smart, funny, and the love interest. Although she plays school/college girl, bad-ass, and rock-chick very well, each character boils down to being the comedic geeky-girl-next-door. Although she is easily good enough to carry a film on her own (proving it with the excellent Easy A, which is better then it probably should be, really), people already criticise her for playing the same character, and state that she must be unable to do anything else. I think it's a shame, because it's not true.
(Coming up, by the way, is one of the reasons for "[Insert Actor] Week")
Paper Man is an indie drama about a failing writer (Jeff Daniels) who is forced by his wife to move to Long Island so he has a quiet place to work. There he meets an outcast (Our Em) with an abusive boyfriend. The two become friends, etc., etc. Jeff also has an imaginary friend called Captain Excellent, who has peroxide blond hair and wears a spandex superhero costume (it's an unwritten rule that every indie film must be quirky in some way).
Emma Stone's character is friendless, depressed, vulnerable, and has led a tragic life. What really knocked me back was that Stone totally nailed it. She tried playing the outcast in The Rocker and The House Bunny (which I hope to high heaven you never have to see - it's an awful film that even the wonderful Emma Stone can't save completely), but they weren’t believable. You think to yourself, "Why would someone as clever and attractive as [Insert Stone's Character] be an outcast?". Her performance in Paper Man really blew me away – I felt sorry for her, and actually wanted to protect her from the harshness of reality (being an unhealthy cynic, middle-aged before my time, this isn’t something I do). She actually sold the character to me. Sure, well-written characters help, but execution is 80% of any finished product. If the execution is bad, award-winning writing comes to nothing. I should say that he film as a whole is pretty good, too, although slightly uncomfortable in places, and kind of gloomy throughout (though there is the odd bit of quirk).
Having seen Paper Man, I really hope that Emma Stone gets the opportunity to do more serious films, because she is far too talented to be wasted on teen comedy and as two-dimensional love interests.
This is getting long enough to be submitted to Critiques, so I'll come to an end.
If you get the time, you should try out your own week of One Actor, Seven Days, Seven Films. If you don't have the luxury of seven free evenings (or can’t do late nights), then cut it down to five films, or three. Whatever you can manage, try to choose films where the actor gets a fair amount of screen time, and try to choose films that might not suit them (as much as I'm dreading "Jason Statham Week", I will be interested to see if I can find him in films that aren't action flicks). I think some actors will surprise you. Apart from Nicolas Cage. He's been in everything. Probably deserves a month.
Tonight (Monday), I'm going to start "Daniel Craig Week" with Layer Cake. I'm going to see Skyfall on Wednesday with friends, and I am determined to make that the only Bond film I watch in the next seven days.
EDIT: You could also try this with [screenplay] writers, or directors.
tl;dr version - this last week, I watched seven Emma Stone films and discovered that, despite the best efforts of casting agents and generic teen comedy films, she is in possession of some serious acting chops. Try your own week of watching films by a specific actor, and I bet you'll find that some actors can do so much more than they're given credit for.
-----
It started on Monday, with me just watching a film, continued on Tuesday with just another film (because I'm back in a zombie phase), and then became my "Emma Stone Week" on Wednesday. The reason? Yes, Emma Stone is attractive, but that's not it. The reason was also not because my distance from College bars and drinking friends (soft drinks, mind) has left me bored. I wanted to see how good of an actor she really is, which has led me to my mission to verse myself in the films of as many actors as I can stomach.
I've got a fairly large, somewhat decent film collection, with a good number of films from the last four decades (2010s - 1980s), as well as some from even further back, but I can't say I'm particularly well-versed in cinema. Nor can I claim to know many actors that well. So I thought to myself, as I sat down to watch my third Emma Stone film of the week, that I would start experiment, and see how long I could keep it up.
The idea is to pick an actor (well-known, obscure, recent, past, young, old, whatever) and watch seven of their films, spread over a week. What makes it more fun is if you can pick a selection of films from different genres that showcases a wide range of the actor's abilities.
Emma Stone is still young, and hasn't appeared in many films, so whilst the choosing is easy (I tried to go for the ones where she played a largish part), it's hard to get a good variance. As you can see, I ended up with a Hollywood blockbuster, three teen comedies, a comedy/horror for a slightly older audience, a low-key comedy, and an independent drama(/comedy).
So what did I learn about Emma Stone? Well, she suits a lot of hair-colours, her voice is fantastic (and she can sing, too!). She also exhibits the potential for a surprising range.
If you think of Emma Stone, you probably think of her being a comedic actor, suited for the geeky-girl-next-door roles. To be fair, her roles suggest that you're not too wrong. Her characters are usually smart, funny, and the love interest. Although she plays school/college girl, bad-ass, and rock-chick very well, each character boils down to being the comedic geeky-girl-next-door. Although she is easily good enough to carry a film on her own (proving it with the excellent Easy A, which is better then it probably should be, really), people already criticise her for playing the same character, and state that she must be unable to do anything else. I think it's a shame, because it's not true.
(Coming up, by the way, is one of the reasons for "[Insert Actor] Week")
Paper Man is an indie drama about a failing writer (Jeff Daniels) who is forced by his wife to move to Long Island so he has a quiet place to work. There he meets an outcast (Our Em) with an abusive boyfriend. The two become friends, etc., etc. Jeff also has an imaginary friend called Captain Excellent, who has peroxide blond hair and wears a spandex superhero costume (it's an unwritten rule that every indie film must be quirky in some way).
Emma Stone's character is friendless, depressed, vulnerable, and has led a tragic life. What really knocked me back was that Stone totally nailed it. She tried playing the outcast in The Rocker and The House Bunny (which I hope to high heaven you never have to see - it's an awful film that even the wonderful Emma Stone can't save completely), but they weren’t believable. You think to yourself, "Why would someone as clever and attractive as [Insert Stone's Character] be an outcast?". Her performance in Paper Man really blew me away – I felt sorry for her, and actually wanted to protect her from the harshness of reality (being an unhealthy cynic, middle-aged before my time, this isn’t something I do). She actually sold the character to me. Sure, well-written characters help, but execution is 80% of any finished product. If the execution is bad, award-winning writing comes to nothing. I should say that he film as a whole is pretty good, too, although slightly uncomfortable in places, and kind of gloomy throughout (though there is the odd bit of quirk).
Having seen Paper Man, I really hope that Emma Stone gets the opportunity to do more serious films, because she is far too talented to be wasted on teen comedy and as two-dimensional love interests.
This is getting long enough to be submitted to Critiques, so I'll come to an end.
If you get the time, you should try out your own week of One Actor, Seven Days, Seven Films. If you don't have the luxury of seven free evenings (or can’t do late nights), then cut it down to five films, or three. Whatever you can manage, try to choose films where the actor gets a fair amount of screen time, and try to choose films that might not suit them (as much as I'm dreading "Jason Statham Week", I will be interested to see if I can find him in films that aren't action flicks). I think some actors will surprise you. Apart from Nicolas Cage. He's been in everything. Probably deserves a month.
Tonight (Monday), I'm going to start "Daniel Craig Week" with Layer Cake. I'm going to see Skyfall on Wednesday with friends, and I am determined to make that the only Bond film I watch in the next seven days.
EDIT: You could also try this with [screenplay] writers, or directors.
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