Saturday, January 23, 2010   Wow! Mike turned John and Kali and
I onto a great film tonight: Edward G, Robinson's "Two Seconds
(excerpt above)." If you liked Peter Lorre in "Stranger on the
Third Floor," Lugosi in "The Raven," or John's favorite Kirk
Douglas and Robert Ryan films, then you'll love Two Seconds.
After seeing the film I marvel that so many animation producers
could be so clueless about what the real revolution in animation
consists of....acting, or more specifically: stylized acting.
Sometimes I think that animation is better suited for acting
than live action because our industry can deliver the kind of
funny, caricatured movement and expressions that really drive
home an emotion, something live action can only dream about.
While I'm on the subject of live action acting I should mention
Orson Welles' performance in another film I saw recently:
"Prince of Foxes." Welles isn't funny like the actors mentioned
above, but he does play a convincing Cesare Borgia. How did he
do it? What did he do th