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Afilado, I said "young actors." For goodness' sake. But I am happy

to carry it further to "all."
"Brothers" I didn't feel was great, but very good. An actor has a persona, a natural aura and earthiness, which are possessed in different measures. Hollywood has taken to promoting boyish actors. It's a fact. From Tom Cruise forward, strong, powerful leading men just don't seem to appear. Nicholas Cage is the exception, but Nic is ironic in most of his roles.
We must disagree about Thomsen. He is in the "less is more" Scandinavian emotional tradition, like Max von Sydow. I don't feel shifting eyes nervously, inventing facial movements, squinting, and the other common tricks of American film actors particularly are interesting. Most Europeans eschew such exaggerations.
Anyhow, I don't think "Brothers" or "Open Hearts" are classic cinema or "Best of Decade" but I do think they're both very good, that the performances are magnificent, and that Bier should be rated a tad higher than you think because of her subject matter: it's harder to deal with topics NO one likes to think about; there is a built-in hostility to having someone make us look at such brutality, cruelty which is visited in "common" life as opposed to the rather unbelievable stuff that happens in the horror, thriller genres.
There also is the vast chasm of melodrama which Bier must side-step, no mean accomplishment.
In the end, we can't agree very much. Robert Downey, Jr., Johnny Depp, Clooney, Pitt all have personalities which they cannot transcend for their roles, i.e. they aren't good enough actors. To take one rather extreme example of an American actor with a larger-than-life personality that could: Marlon Brando. He had the character actor's ability to leave himself behind.


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