Philip Seymour Hoffman c/d?

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apologies for my ingnorance on this topic, how much is a bag of heroin? does 1 bag = 1 dose?

Spaghetti Sauce Shampoo (Moodles), Monday, 3 February 2014 17:16 (ten years ago) link

Had his partner kicked him out of their house recently? He was staying in a nearby apartment.

Jersey Al (Albert R. Broccoli), Monday, 3 February 2014 17:17 (ten years ago) link

I think they'd split in recent months, yes.

Johnny Fever, Monday, 3 February 2014 17:25 (ten years ago) link

:(
it's nosy of me to wonder but i wonder why

we slowly invented brains (La Lechera), Monday, 3 February 2014 17:25 (ten years ago) link

i really want to stop letting this bum me out so bad too but it just keeps lurking there around the corners of my mind. i feel really sad for him and all of the people who loved him.

we slowly invented brains (La Lechera), Monday, 3 February 2014 17:37 (ten years ago) link

"I have no inside information whatsoever but allow me to confidently explain how Hoffman's life could have been saved." (paraphrasing)

http://ideas.time.com/2014/02/02/how-philip-seymour-hoffman-could-have-been-saved/

What is wrong with songs? Absolutely nothing. Songs are great. (DL), Monday, 3 February 2014 17:38 (ten years ago) link

i really want to stop letting this bum me out so bad too but it just keeps lurking there around the corners of my mind. i feel really sad for him and all of the people who loved him.

every word of this 2nded

the "Weird Al" Yankovic of country music (stevie), Monday, 3 February 2014 17:46 (ten years ago) link

xp yea that was totally wrongheaded to frame that story around hoffman. david sheff has researched and written extensively about addiction but it's kind of lame to use this very recent death of someone who has no personal connection to the author as the hook for the story.

marcos, Monday, 3 February 2014 17:57 (ten years ago) link

apologies for my ingnorance on this topic, how much is a bag of heroin? does 1 bag = 1 dose?

it depends on how big a habit you have going but most people start out at a bag a day. if you are up to needing 2 bags to get high you are going to hurt pretty bad when you stop. if you have 50 bags in your apartment -- I never knew any users who would have that kind of supply on hand, that's way out of my league. but most users don't have enough cash to buy as much as they'd like to have handy.

Nathaniel at The FilmExp:

The Atlantic has a piece on PSH's talent that fascinated me. It's very well written but its thesis is EXACTLY the opposite about how I always felt about him as an actor, claiming that his greatest gift was understatement. I think he almost never understated anything... which is why he thrills people so much in big moments but also why I did not like his performance in Doubt at all (way too bold when that role needs exceptional restraint to cloud the issues, hence the title) and why my three favorite performances of his I consider very atypical because they have these lovely quiet non red-faced & screaming layers and subtle details. But it's a really good read.

http://thefilmexperience.net/blog/2014/2/2/links.html

I'd seen Doubt on B'way, and once they cast PSH as the priest in the film, I thought the title shd've been changed to Guilty.

images of war violence and historical smoking (Dr Morbius), Monday, 3 February 2014 18:41 (ten years ago) link

Very moving piece by Lester Bangs' friend and colleague Jaan Uhelszki:

http://www.spin.com/articles/philip-seymour-hoffman-lester-bangs-almost-famous/

Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Monday, 3 February 2014 18:46 (ten years ago) link

The other problem with The Atlantic: Magnolia filled with "great performances."

Bryan Fairy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 3 February 2014 18:48 (ten years ago) link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnON-J8HHaE

^^ first movie i saw him in and loved the shit out of the character

when i get hungry i still say "food" the way he says "food" in this stupid movie even though nobody knows wtf i'm doing

i have the new brutal HOOS if you want it (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Monday, 3 February 2014 18:52 (ten years ago) link

(xpost) I think PSH is great. It's his thread, but I'd also add John C. Reilly, Melinda Dillon, the kid, Tom Cruise (I think so, anyway), Henry Gibson, maybe a couple more. Julianne Moore...acquired taste. Hoffman or Reilly head the list.

clemenza, Monday, 3 February 2014 18:55 (ten years ago) link

I just added a post about that character last week in imdb trivia

pplains, Monday, 3 February 2014 18:56 (ten years ago) link

Magnolia is, like all PTA films til the last two, pretentious bilge with insufficient compensating perks, but I'll overlook praise for it as long as other ppl are claiming that Before the Devil Knows You're Dead has something to offer.

images of war violence and historical smoking (Dr Morbius), Monday, 3 February 2014 19:00 (ten years ago) link

he's so good in that

i have the new brutal HOOS if you want it (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Monday, 3 February 2014 19:07 (ten years ago) link

No one is. The extras are terrible in it.

images of war violence and historical smoking (Dr Morbius), Monday, 3 February 2014 19:10 (ten years ago) link

lol

i have the new brutal HOOS if you want it (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Monday, 3 February 2014 19:12 (ten years ago) link

Very moving piece by Lester Bangs' friend and colleague Jaan Uhelszki:

http://www.spin.com/articles/philip-seymour-hoffman-lester-bangs-almost-famous/

― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Monday, February 3, 2014 6:46 PM (26 minutes ago)

thanks for this -- an incredible read. gave me chills tbh.

(The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Monday, 3 February 2014 19:13 (ten years ago) link

clemenza otm about magnolia and yet it's still terrible

almost famous i will always like, and PSH is so great in it. i loved this part in the spin piece:

One of Lester's more annoying habits was that he always talked with food in his mouth — and one that I'd almost forgotten about. That is, until I saw the same behavior in Hoffman.

this has greyed things for me too. i keep thinking about his bouncy arms in lebowski. i didn't think that brody piece was very good.

But I didn't tell Cameron any of those things. I kept the list to stuff like personal hygiene, work ethos, favorite foods, or how when he was excited about something he was prone to grand, wild gestures, making big lavish circles in the air, or how he'd always pace when he talked on the phone. How he watched the soap opera All My Children religiously, owned a hermit crab named Spud, and that when things got bad, he used to say, "I could be selling shoes in El Cajon." But I never told anyone about how he used to talk with his mouth full.

"Lester"

Bryan Fairy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 3 February 2014 19:17 (ten years ago) link

but surely SOMEONE told him Bangs ate that way. PSH being quoted all over the place that acting is work, not magic.

images of war violence and historical smoking (Dr Morbius), Monday, 3 February 2014 19:17 (ten years ago) link

but yeah Before The Devil is disgraceful. I suppose Sidney Lumet didn't wanna die without leaving the world a final movie in which the actors shout all the time, at once, and senselessly.

Bryan Fairy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 3 February 2014 19:17 (ten years ago) link

sorry if i am repeating something already said on this (understandably) lengthy thread, but just wanted to note that my favourite PSH performance is his role as Jude Law's sharp-eyed friend in The Talented Mr Ripley. and RIP.

Ward Fowler, Monday, 3 February 2014 19:18 (ten years ago) link

i don't think it seems like magic is the thing! it seems like excellent intuitive work.

LB does seem like the kind of guy who would talk excitedly while eating.

(The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Monday, 3 February 2014 19:20 (ten years ago) link

A good performance we haven't mentioned much: The Savages.

Bryan Fairy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 3 February 2014 19:22 (ten years ago) link

mentioned by morbs and others in this thread: "owning mahowny" is really good. simple and minor, i guess. but he invests a lot of... something into a guy who is almost totally devoid of personality.

goole, Monday, 3 February 2014 19:29 (ten years ago) link

He was excellent as Bangs. The key was in not going for the cartoon gonzo Bangs; PSH portrays him as a thoughtful older brother. In the Greil Marcus interview on rockcritics.com, he had some pointed criticisms of the film, but he singled out Hoffman and Billy Crudup for praise--and I'm sure Marcus would have all over Hoffman if the character felt in any way false to his own memories of Bangs.

clemenza, Monday, 3 February 2014 19:30 (ten years ago) link

befor the devil is awesoem

socki (s1ocki), Monday, 3 February 2014 19:57 (ten years ago) link

That Edelstein PSH quote way up there gets to some of the heart of his craft:

When you hear about cutting-room fights, it almost always means the star thinks he or she is coming off as too unlikable and wants the director to ratchet up the vulnerability quotient. But Hoffman was arguing to make Capote less attractive—to make him, in fact, thoroughly reprehensible. He said he told Miller, “The way toward empathy is actually to be as hard as possible on this character.”

That, plus being able to play so many characters with different centers of gravity, physicality, all that. Funny how he's done so many movies that we're like..."Oh, wait, right, The Ides of March."

tbd (Eazy), Monday, 3 February 2014 19:59 (ten years ago) link

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/02/philip-seymour-hoffman-1967-2014/

Hoffman was a true body-actor. No doubt his athleticism and devotion to sports in his youth helped him toward the remarkable physical control he displays in all his performances. In an era when so many leading men and women seem unable to act at all below the neck, Hoffman’s gestures and stances sear themselves into your memory. I didn’t much care for Capote, but I still remember precise Hoffman postures. One was the too-constrained, too-still way he held himself in, with his large square head tilted uncomfortably back, in those repeated long-held shots of Truman Capote sitting alone in the small airplane to and from his jailhouse visits to the In Cold Blood killers who infatuated him.

(The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Monday, 3 February 2014 20:02 (ten years ago) link

lolmillennials i guess @ that whole thing being abt lebowski but it's otm about the moves he makes as that character: so conceptually broad and goofy, this terrified/enraptured toady, but built entirely of little things. near-absurd gestures like the the pantomime grief that article mentions on "mr. lebowski is in seclusion in the west wing" work cuz they seem legitimate as crisis versions of all the little motions he's making all the time. first lady of the nation, yes.

i always think of his weird at-attention stance when he's no longer part of one conversation

goole, Monday, 3 February 2014 20:27 (ten years ago) link

yeah i kinda winced at all the smug dismissals of the other movies but i thought it was dead-on for how unusually physical his talents were, whenever i think of PSH in a movie i can instantly recall a certain pose or a gesture, something no one else would've thought to do.

(The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Monday, 3 February 2014 20:29 (ten years ago) link

David Thomson has something up:

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/116447/philip-seymour-hoffman-dead-46

So Hoffman was on his way to becoming a supporting actor--

Was thinking about this too, how he was one of those people who won a Best Actor award but clearly wasn't going to slide easily into starring roles, unless it was something really offbeat like The Master or Synecdoche. (Of the two upcoming films, he seems to be the lead in one of them.) Like Hackman, he might have been more at home in the '70s. Or not--maybe he was exactly perfect for when he came along.

clemenza, Monday, 3 February 2014 21:43 (ten years ago) link

On his way to supporting actor...right after playing Willy Loman on Broadway for three-and-a-half months.

tbd (Eazy), Monday, 3 February 2014 22:27 (ten years ago) link

On a separate topic, it does sound like doing that show, with 8 performances per week, was exhausting.

tbd (Eazy), Monday, 3 February 2014 22:30 (ten years ago) link

wow, i can imagine. he had already started the show or was preparing for it?

we slowly invented brains (La Lechera), Monday, 3 February 2014 22:33 (ten years ago) link

p sure that "supporting actor" ref was to films. You didn't see Brian Dennehy playing a lot of movie leads in the late '90s when he did Salesman on B'way.

images of war violence and historical smoking (Dr Morbius), Monday, 3 February 2014 22:35 (ten years ago) link

Last thing I saw him in was early episode of Law and Order, he stood out since most of the others couldn't act that well. RIP

badg, Monday, 3 February 2014 22:39 (ten years ago) link

he already did death of a salesman

PSY talks The Nut Job (forksclovetofu), Monday, 3 February 2014 22:40 (ten years ago) link

He performed it in Spring 2012, with Mike Nichols directing. Not to overspeculate, but was thinking this was around the same, from what he said, he started taking painkillers.

Also thinking how Cobain always attributed his heroin use to fighting a chronic stomach ulcer,and how if there's something that takes away pain (physical, emotional) it sure it hard to push that thing away.

tbd (Eazy), Monday, 3 February 2014 22:41 (ten years ago) link

I see. That's why I asked. It makes sense. I started reading Barry Meier's Pain Killer last night because I guess I wanted to wallow in misery.

we slowly invented brains (La Lechera), Monday, 3 February 2014 22:49 (ten years ago) link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcTf7CO-hdA

polyphonic, Monday, 3 February 2014 22:50 (ten years ago) link

that minty flavor.

Hungry4Ass, Tuesday, 4 February 2014 00:14 (ten years ago) link

I just found out about this a few hours ago while I was at work. I was so shocked and saddened I had to leave my desk and go for a walk to clear my head. He was easily my favorite actor. The word gets thrown around a lot but I believe he was a true genius in his field.

Rod Steel (musicfanatic), Tuesday, 4 February 2014 00:21 (ten years ago) link


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