Acting Against Type

When Not Going ‘Full Retard’ Paid Off: Ten Critically Acclaimed Depictions of Mentally Challenged Characters

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The 2008 comedy Tropic Thunder highlights an inconvenient Hollywood truth: Oscar loves mental disabilities. In the film, Ben Stiller’s action hero character, Tugg Speedman, wishing to expand beyond his stereotype, attempts to court Oscar sympathies by playing a mentally challenged farmhand. It ends up being a critical failure. This is because, as Tugg’s co-star Robert […]

Genres

Westerns for Guys Who Don’t Like Westerns

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Yeah, I’ll admit it. I hate westerns. Oh, there are a small handful I truly enjoy, classics like John Ford’s The Searchers or revisionist Westerns like Unforgiven, but in general it’s hard for me to get enthused about dusty plains, cowboy hats and country music. But what if we consider the Western genre as one […]

Genres

The Sci-Fi Legacy of Charlton Heston

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Legendary actor Charlton Heston passed away April 5th, 2008 at the age of 84. He will be remembered fondly by many for portraying scores of epic, larger-than-life characters ranging from Judah Ben-Hur to Michaelangelo to John the Baptist to Moses, as well as countless nameless (and often shirtless) stoic paragons of heroism. However, I’ll always […]