hall's performance


how didnt he get an oscar nom?

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Movies that do a total box office of $3 million usually don't garner oscar nominations.


Nobody's looking for a puppeteer in today's wintry economic climate.

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I totally agree with you. I just watched this and he was mesmerizing.

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Yes he was outstanding. Loved the movie.

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I really liked this film, but I noticed that Sydney's expression and his voice didn't change much. His voice was sort of monotone and always a stoic facial expression.

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A lot of great performances get ignored by the Oscars really. But this is definitely Baker Hall's best performance in a Thomas Anderson film. He's the heart and soul of the film.A man burdened by guilt trying to do something good but it just getting him into trouble. John C. Reilly is also excellent.

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Right? There was not a false note. I’m not sure I have ever seen a better acting performance in any film in any year.

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Right? There was not a false note. I’m not sure I have ever seen a better acting performance in any film in any year.

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It was great work, and in some ways, it finally put Philip Baker Hall "on the map" after 20 years as a working actor on stage and screen(big and small),including one well-reviewed one-man show as Nixon in a filmed play called Secret Honor for Robert Altman in the 80's.

Philip Baker Hall died in the year I am posting this(2022) at the ripe old age of 90, so you can't say he didn't have a great long run. After Hard Eight and a couple of other Paul Thomas Anderson movies, Hall was launched as a character man of great success for the rest of his working life.

But I see "Hard Eight" as his true legacy. Hall is in PTA's Boogie Nights for one memorable scene (as an aged porn executive with Mafia ties and a very robust verbal appreciation of sex movies) , and in Magnolia for the entire movie. But Hall has to share Magnolia with a lot of other actors -- including Tom Cruise.

In "Hard Eight," its all ABOUT Hall and his character Sydney. It his movie, his story, and the other three actors - all fine -- are in service to this study of an older man with a great deal of gravitas and a great deal of regret.

i may be wrong, but I can't remember Philip Baker Hall ever being given the lead in a "regular movie" like he is here. Oh, he's the only person on screen (I think) in Secret Honor as Nixon...but that was rather a filmed play, a "novelty act one man show." In Hard Eight, Hall plays a man we can relate to.

PS. I know that most people know Philip Baker Hall as "The Library Cop" on Seinfeld, but that comedy part always seems rather to cheapen the "Phillip Baker Hall gravitas" for me. I prefer to remember him in Hard Eight.

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I really liked this film, but I noticed that Sydney's expression and his voice didn't change much. His voice was sort of monotone and always a stoic facial expression.

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Hall had a great deadpan voice, and a great hangdog expression(those bags under his eyes sold sadness AND tough experience)...but as this movie demonstrates, he knew how to MODULATE them, to bring things slightly up, or slightly down and -- sometimes -- how to actually explode in a certain amount of fierce anger when pushed too far.

For all of the "yelling actors" out there, I think audiences rather enjoy and relate to the "deadpan actor" who slowly brings us in and interests us by when he DOES change his tone or his expression. Philip Baker Hall knew how to do that.

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He also demonstrated surprising amounts of fear and desperation at certain points.

I love that the movie is listed here under PTA's preferred title.

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