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Ill let you visualize that for a beat.
The image is both funny and grim.
Maybe he could even have out-crawled that posse.
But when his high-wire emotional arc suits the movie, there are few who can touch him.
Phoenix lets Callahans inner compass point due south, toward the abyss.
Theres an AA slogan that goes, Dont just sit there.
Thats what Phoenix shows Callahan doing and thats what Phoenix does, too.
Udo Kier is doing … something from the planet of Udo Kier.
But gradually you’re able to sense the intelligence that shaped his performance.
Donnie is a rich boy, so entitlement would be second nature.
Van Sant maintains an improvisatory spirit, too.
And sometimes Van Sant even animates those cartoons.
(NB: Callahan had as many haters as admirers.
In his work, he depicts feminists as overbearing and lesbians as terrifying.
But he found his own nature terrifying, too.
He was a bad boy to the end.)
Everyone else is wonderful, from the top of the cast list to the bottom.
Jack Black is Dexter, the wild-man alcoholic who led Callahan off the precipice.
Hes predictably Jack Blackish (gonzo) in his first sequence.
In a Q&A after the Sundance world premiere, Van Sant was modest and generous.
Beth Ditto didnt want to surrender the microphone: She thought maybe shed never act in a movie again.
(A number of audience members called out, Yes!
Phoenix was a no-show, prompting Hill to text him from the stage.
I kind of liked that he blew it off.
