"I canna give 'er much more, Captain..."

I think I'm getting movie overload. I usually watch one or two of the movies Tivo has recorded from my actor wishlists each weekend, but Tivo caught a bunch all at the same time, so I've been "stuffing my face" on movies the last week or two. Now I've got a tummy ache.

Okay. I recently watched Death In Holy Orders on PBS, starring Martin Shaw, (another British actor) and WOW! I found myself completely drawn in by his performance, he's such a good actor. First time I've ever seen him in anything, so I do a bit of research on him, turns out he's an extremely well regarded actor in England, mostly TV and theatre.

Finally got to see all of Prick Up Your Ears starring Gary Oldman and Alfred Molina. Molina's performance in this movie was incredible. He became Kenneth Halliwell to the point that I was shocked to see Molina's name in the credits, I'd forgotten that's why I had started watching in the first place. (And now that I think about it, the same thing happened when I watched Frida, he was just Diego Rivera.)

I've seen Kathy Baker in a few movies where she had larger roles: Things You Can Tell Just By Looking At Her -- she played a sweet, lonely single mother. (I actually haven't seen the whole movie, Tivo stopped recording it after 2 hours, but the movie wasn't done yet, I don't know how much I've missed.); Lush Life -- this was a supporting role, she played a jazz musician's (Jeff Goldblum) wife. In both of these movies, she did a good job, but somehow, I'm not finding myself drawn in by her performances in the same way as I have been by Alfred Molina, Martin Shaw, et al.

Anne Heche: I've seen her in two movies so far, Auggie Rose and The Third Miracle. I've discovered why I like watching her so much: She's always so connected and in the moment of the scene. She almost never takes her eyes off her scene partner. She is listening every moment, watching and reacting to her partner every moment.

I've seen several John Larroquette movies and TV shows as well: I saw one of the several episodes of The Practice he's done. He did such a good job with his character, Larroquette in turns had me feeling sympathetic for his character, and then literally shivering because he was so creepy. I saw a TV movie Convicted that he did a good job in considering it was an 80's film and melodramatic. And I saw McBride: The Doctor Is Out, Really Out which was fun to watch, intentionally corny, and all of the actors did an excellent job of playing the corniness as straight and honest and without corn as possible. And last but not least, saw a couple of episodes of The John Larroquette Show.

I also randomly watched a movie called The Edge, starring Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin, and a really huge and scary looking kodiak bear. And this is probably the most obvious statement ever, but Hopkins was incredible in this movie. As always.