Word: thompson
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...films deserved to be considered alongside live-action ones. That's because animated features enjoy scant support from the largest branch of the 6,000 film-industry pros who select the Best Picture candidates every year: actors. "Actors tend to vote for live-action performances," says Variety columnist Anne Thompson. "Lord of the Rings got to Best Picture without any heavily praised performances, but that's very unusual...
...Vegas and the political campaign of 1972. These books had their moments, of course, but there was something hysterical about the expression of his loves and hates in them as well - and there is something winking and indulgent in the comments Gibney has collected from those who eye-witnessed Thompson at work during those years. He remained likable - and readable - but he was not really taken seriously by the people he was covering. He was well on his way to being a "character...
...Moreover, one suspects that the gonzo qualities of his work - not that anyone has ever defined what that term actually means - seem to be an expression of a nature grown increasingly addled by dope and drink. Like a lot of addicted people, Thompson often appeared to be rather sweet-souled, almost passive, when he was clear-minded. His rage came out when he was alone at the typewriter, pounding out copy against deadlines that he almost always missed. As is always the case in journalism, when he was against the gun, editors had two choices: run what Thompson wrote, however...
...Thompson had, in the pre-revolutionary culture of that period, plenty of company, ranging from the psychiatrist R.D. Laing to the media guru Marshall McLuhan. The more gnomic their pronouncements, the more they seemed to the impressionable to be deeply wise and romantic. It is during this time that fame became a major factor in Thompson's demise. The groupies gathered, the legend grew and, soon enough, the work suffered even more deeply. A nadir was reached in 1974 when he was assigned to cover "The Rumble in the Jungle" between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman. He chose to float...
...This seems to me a very sad story about an essentially minor figure. Thompson's was not a life to celebrate (and Gibney, to his credit, does not do so). But there is an implicit approval in this film that makes me uneasy. But then, irrationality always make me uneasy. All artists - and nominally, Thompson was an artist - need a touch of the lunatic about them. But only a touch. In the end they are obliged to produce. And they are obliged not to succumb to, or to excessively encourage, their own myths. Thanks in part to Thompson's example...