July 8, 2018

Kirk Douglas, The Bad and the Beautiful


If there's one thing I've deduced from the few Kirk Douglas performances I've watched so far, it's that he's quite good at playing a dick. In quick succession, Douglas delivered a pompous boxer in Champion, a pompous reporter in Ace in the Hole, and a hard ass detective in Detective Story who's technically a good guy but kind of pompous in the sense that he's riddled with toxic masculinity. As they say, if it ain't broke, don't fix it - and thus we're here to witness Douglas' third rendering of an ambitious tool who backstabs his way to the top, this time in the form of a Hollywood producer.

July 1, 2018

José Ferrer, Moulin Rouge


Bravado was what made José Ferrer's performance in Cyrano de Bergerac so compelling to me, but not a lick of it is to be found in Moulin Rouge. However, the body disfigurement - and therefore, Oscar-baity "grotesqueness," if you will - is still there, this time child-sized legs on a grown man instead of an aggressively large nose.