Monday, March 30, 2020
Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Actor 2005
Heath Ledger: Brokeback Mountain
Philip Seymour Hoffman: Capote (winner)
David Straithairn: Good Night, and Good Luck.
Terrence Howard: Hustle & Flow
Joaquin Phoenix: Walk the Line
Friday, February 15, 2019
Monday, July 23, 2018
Monday, February 12, 2018
Sunday, February 2, 2014
Capote
When I woke up this morning, I had no plans to watch Capote. The reported death of Philip Seymour Hoffman earlier today forced my hand, though. His death is a damn tragedy and a waste of a tremendous talent. What better way to honor one of the great actors of this generation than to watch the film that earned him his Best Actor Oscar? And so, Capote, a film that I was planning on holding back and saving for a day when I needed a film I knew I really liked.
Like many a biopic, Capote doesn’t cover the full life of Truman Capote but instead focuses on what became the most significant event of his life: the investigation and writing of In Cold Blood, the first non-fiction novel. In Cold Blood is the story of the brutal murder of the Clutter family in rural Kansas on a night in November in 1959. I’ve read In Cold Blood. It’s a hell of a book, the sort of thing that anyone interested in really excellent writing should read. What Capote suggests is that the creation of the book was far more than simple.
