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There is a long history in theater of the "one man show," in which a single performer must hold the attention of the audience for the entire runtime. Sometimes they play more than one character, sometimes they play just one character, but they are always the focus. Over the years, cinema has created its own version of the one man show, where only one actor appears onscreen for the majority of the runtime. Occasionally we might hear someone offscreen or in voiceover or get a quick flashback with other actors, but for the vast majority of the movie, we're stuck looking at just one face. That takes some serious skill to pull off, no matter how good-looking the face might be. 

Here I've collected and ranked 10 of the best films featuring only one actor, ranging across the years and several different genres. I did not include comedy specials like Bo...

Poland’s American Film Festival is continuing to bet on U.S. independent films, ignoring the Hollywood blockbusters and bigger budget auteur films from the mini-majors.

“The fest selects a very precise type of project – they are real independent films, not in that Independent Spirit Award, less-than-$40 million sense,” says director and producer Rob Rice.

“The people that come with them have a kind of shorthand with each other. We are all up against the same things and we are all trying to trick the industry into mistaking our films for ‘real movies.’”

“There are always lots of interesting things happening in American independent cinema. It’s enough to mention three alumni of [fest’s industry sidebar] U.S. in Progress: Anu Valia (“We Strangers”), India Donaldson (“Good One”) and Sarah Friedland. These are great examples of new female voices speaking about female experiences, and keeping things intimate and personal,” says artistic director Ula Śniegowska.

The premise of "Air Force One" — President James Marshall (Harrison Ford) foils terrorists who hijack his plane, John McClane-style — requires national unity. The film calls for you to root for the president and only works if the majority of the audience (i.e. the U.S. population) sees their president as an unimpeachable good guy (pun intended). That is simply not the reality of America of 2024. "Air Force One" screenwriter Andrew Marlowe spoke to Syfy recently about why, to use the cliché, the film couldn't be made today.

"When we were doing it, the presidency and that position was not as politically charged as it is today. And so, I think that there are specific challenges about doing it in the contemporary climate that we would have to figure out."

Marlowe adds he'd only be interested in a follow-up if it reflected the world as is now: "Are we saying something new?...

Josh Olson shares his top 10 movies from his favorite movie year, 1992, with Joe Dante.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990)

Star Wars (1977)

Glengarry Glen Ross (1992)

After Dark, My Sweet (1990)

The Last Of The Mohicans (1992)

Thief (1981) – Josh Olson’s trailer commentary

Manhunter (1986) – Josh Olson’s trailer commentary

The Last Of The Mohicans (1936)

The Player (1992) – Allan Arkush’s trailer commentary, Glenn Erickson’s Criterion Blu-ray review

Popeye (1980)

Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull’s History Lesson (1976) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review

Quintet (1979)

​HealtH (1980)

Come Back To the Five And Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (1982)

Secret Honor (1984)

The Graduate (1967) – Neil Labute’s trailer commentary, Glenn Erickson’s Criterion Blu-ray review

Touch Of Evil (1958) – Howard Rodman’s trailer commentary, Randy Fuller’s wine pairings, Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review

Dead Alive a.k.a. Braindead (1992) – Mike Mendez’s trailer commentary

Meet The Feebles (1989) – Mike Mendez’s...

The legendary punk god joins us to talk about movies he finds unforgettable. Special appearance by his cat, Moon Unit.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Tapeheads (1988)

Rock ‘n’ Roll High School (1979) – Eli Roth’s trailer commentary

A Face In The Crowd (1957) – Josh Olson’s trailer commentary, Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review

Meet John Doe (1941)

Bob Roberts (1992)

Bachelor Party (1984)

Dangerously Close (1986)

Videodrome (1983) – Mick Garris’s trailer commentary

F/X (1986)

Hot Rods To Hell (1967)

Riot On Sunset Strip (1967)

While The City Sleeps (1956) – Glenn Erickson’s trailer commentary

Leaving Las Vegas (1995)

It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) – John Landis’s trailer commentary

Spider-Man (2002)

The Killing (1956) – Michael Lehmann’s trailer commentary

Serpent’s Egg (1977)

The Thin Man (1934)

Meet Nero Wolfe (1936)

The Hidden Eye (1945)

Eyes In The Night (1942)

Sudden Impact (1983) – Alan Spencer’s trailer commentary

Red Dawn (1984)

Warlock (1989)

The Dead Zone (1983) – Mick Garris’s trailer commentary

Secret Honor (1984)

The Player (1992) – Allan Arkush’s trailer commentary,...

First films of important directors usually feel like warm-ups, but not so this suspenseful story of ‘twilight’ people living in and around casinos. Paul Thomas Anderson writes and directs in a style that guarantees our full attention at all times. Philip Baker Hall, John C. Reilly, Gwyneth Paltrow and Samuel L. Jackson assay riveting main characters, with Philip Seymour Hoffman in for a brief turn at the crap tables. It’s all behavior and relationship detail — are we reading each individual correctly? Are we going to learn more about them? When the surprises come, the story takes shape in its own unique way.

Hard Eight

Blu-ray

Viavision [Imprint] 14

1996 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 102 min. / Street Date October 28, 2020 / Sydney / Available from ViaVision

Starring: Philip Baker Hall, John C. Reilly, Gwyneth Paltrow, Samuel L. Jackson, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Melora Walters.

Cinematography: Robert Elswit

Film Editor: Barbara Tulliver

Original Music: Jon Brion, Michael Penn

Produced by Robert Jones,...

Legendary theatrical director George C. Wolfe launched his screen career with adaptations of plays for PBS series like “Great Performances” and “American Playhouse,” and he brings that same politely reverential energy to August Wilson’s “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.” But even if this version never shakes off its stage roots, it does act as a stately jewel box that houses an extraordinary ensemble of performances.

Viola Davis and the late Chadwick Boseman get the meatiest roles here — and make the most of absolutely every second they’re on camera — but this Netflix feature is just as much a showcase for the talents of the always-brilliant Colman Domingo and the legendary Glynn Turman. Wolfe not only guides his top-flight cast to greatness, but he also keeps the plays themes of art vs. commerce and representation vs. exploitation front and center.

It’s 1927 Chicago, and legendary blues singer Ma Rainey (Davis) and...

The Democratic primary for Governor of New York is on Thursday, September 13. Based on polls, it appears that incumbent Governor Andrew Cuomo will prevail and run for his third term despite the populist wave and attention around his primary opponent, actress Cynthia Nixon. Nixon, a longtime public-school and education activist, has never been in elected office, and her acting background has been characterized as both a blessing and curse with regard to her visibility and viability as a candidate. Her iconic role as Miranda Hobbes in the television program Sex & the City can be what Cuomo voters point to in not taking her seriously, in addition to her inexperience; meanwhile, Nixon’s campaign created apparel in the “I’m a Miranda Collection,” which includes t-shirts and tote bags with the slogans “I’m a Miranda and I’m voting for Cynthia.” Nixon’s campaign has played a delicate balancing act...

Robert Altman builds his films like dystopian prisons, convincing his residents they have the run of the place while working to ensure they can’t escape. When he actually buckles down for a psychological thriller (3 Women) or locked-room drama (Come Back to the Five and Dime, Secret Honor), any departure from the comedic tone we usually expect from him is balanced by a psychological continuity. His films consistently show that you can never really run away from your problems, and you’re inevitably due to return to them.

That Cold Day in the Park opens in a city so generic, I took the English-accented cast at face value and assumed we were somewhere in the U.K. Here, in a well-appointed apartment, lives Frances (Sandy Dennis), so entombed in the memory of her deceased parents that all her friends (and would-be suitors) are twice her age. She entertains them and...

Here are a handful of links that I think are worth reading today, for discerning Criterion Collection fan.

Articles

Over on his Criterion Reflections blog, David has just posted his review of Mikio Naruse’s Scattered Clouds:

Since a couple years have passed between my last viewing of a Naruse film (1964’s Yearning, back in 2013, though not reviewed anywhere), I was thus quite eager to sit down and take in Scattered Clouds, available on Criterion’s Hulu channel (and only there, as no version of it on disc is anywhere to be found for the Region 1 market, anyway.)

Don’t miss the Criterion Collection As Haiku blog’s latest entry, on Lonesome.

Jonathan Rosenbaum has republished his review of Whit Stillman’s Metropolitan on his blog, adding:

Even though this is favorable, I think I underestimated the achievement of this first feature; reseeing it a quarter of a century later,...

Today marks the 40th anniversary of the premiere of Robert Altman's Nashville. We're linking to some pieces at the Dissolve, where Nashville is the "Movie of the Week," and to the Nashville Scene, where Richard Douglas Lloyd considers the city's evolving relationship with the film and where Noel Murray recommends a few titles in the Altman series at the Belcourt: California Split and Thieves Like Us, both from 1974; 3 Women (1977), the "one must-see in the Altman 'dream-film' subgenre"; Secret Honor (1984), featuring Philip Baker Hall as Richard Nixon; and The Company (2003). » - David Hudson...

Today marks the 40th anniversary of the premiere of Robert Altman's Nashville. We're linking to some pieces at the Dissolve, where Nashville is the "Movie of the Week," and to the Nashville Scene, where Richard Douglas Lloyd considers the city's evolving relationship with the film and where Noel Murray recommends a few titles in the Altman series at the Belcourt: California Split and Thieves Like Us, both from 1974; 3 Women (1977), the "one must-see in the Altman 'dream-film' subgenre"; Secret Honor (1984), featuring Philip Baker Hall as Richard Nixon; and The Company (2003). » - David Hudson...

Most politics in film end up coded, oblique, and vague, and not without reason. The direct, didactic political message can be bracing, but more often than not it doesn’t seem to hold up for posterity very well; the specifics of time get forgotten. The major stories of politics each day end up as nothing more than footnotes the vast majority of the time. When you want your message to be appealing, powerful, and understandable for future generations, it often serves you poorly to be specific. Even as someone who is moderately well versed in American history, I found myself often lost watching Secret Honor, Robert Altman’s one actor movie of Richard Nixon’s private breakdown. The broad strokes made sense, and I was able to glean plenty from it (and Philip Baker Hall giving the performance of a lifetime helped things greatly), but the specifics are lost to the time it was made,...

The Post-1960S, Pre-Digital Age: Real-time One-offs, 1975-1998

British filmmaker John Byrum is responsible for the first (and in some ways only) real-time period film. Inserts (1975), set in the early 1930s, is about a Boy Wonder movie director (called Boy Wonder, played by Richard Dreyfuss fresh from American Graffiti (1973) and Jaws (1975)) now washed up before the age of 30, resigned to making porn because of Hollywood’s conversion to sound. Not only is Inserts scrupulously real-time (with the exception of the opening credits sequence, which offers glimpses of the stag film we’re about to see made) and period, but it’s rather long for such a film, just shy of two hours. To tell the entire story would be spoiling the fun, but the Boy Wonder deals with recalcitrant actresses, the problem of his own potency, career problems, death, sex, after-death and after-sex…and in the end, as...

The obvious viewing choice to commemorate today being the 40th anniversary of Richard M. Nixon’s resignation would probably be either Oliver Stone’s expansive, feverishly/ludicrously compelling Nixon or Robert Altman’s more compact but no less outlandish Secret Honor, a paranoid monologue barked by an increasingly intoxicated Philip Baker Hall. In a more ironic vein, you might turn to Nixon’s own viewing choices: he watched 528 movies during his time in office. An apt favorite might be Patton, which he viewed three times prior to initiating the bombing of Cambodia (he told David Frost the movie didn’t influence his decision), or his […]...

The obvious viewing choice to commemorate today being the 40th anniversary of Richard M. Nixon’s resignation would probably be either Oliver Stone’s expansive, feverishly/ludicrously compelling Nixon or Robert Altman’s more compact but no less outlandish Secret Honor, a paranoid monologue barked by an increasingly intoxicated Philip Baker Hall. In a more ironic vein, you might turn to Nixon’s own viewing choices: he watched 528 movies during his time in office. An apt favorite might be Patton, which he viewed three times prior to initiating the bombing of Cambodia (he told David Frost the movie didn’t influence his decision), or his […]...

The video team here at HitFix constantly impresses me with not only the volume of work that they produce, but also the quality. We've gotten very lucky with the people we've hired, and they make any of our collaborations both easy and fun. Last week, they approached me about a new ongoing feature that they wanted to do, and tomorrow, we're going to shoot the first episode of "Ask Drew," which is exactly what it sounds like. I am constantly asked questions via e-mail and Twitter and in our comments section, and I feel like I never fully answer all of them, something that makes me feel terrible. I am grateful for each and every reader of the work we do here at HitFix, and if I can answer something, I try to. To that end, we are going to try something a little different here starting tomorrow. I want...

Robert Altman’s work of the 1980s saw him exploring new stylistic trends as he ventured to adapt popular plays. These works stand in stark contrast with his earlier films as they were often secluded to single locations, with Altman’s sprawling vision of America confined to either a small interior space or even tied to a single character. The richness of Altman’s best work - The Long Goodbye, McCabe and Mrs. Miller and Nashville - stands in stark contrast with this new period of work, their sprawling narratives and settings seeming just a memory amid the very claustrophobic locales of his play adaptations. This transition in style, though, was motivated partially through practical needs that also mirrored his occasional shifts to television. The biggest catalyst in these lower-budget productions was the financial and critical struggles of his most recent work at the time, notably Popeye and HealtH. HealtH,...

Amongst all the star cameos in Lee Daniels’s late-summer hit The Butler, one performance stands out as a particularly curious bit of stunt casting. John Cusack, with nary any make-up, a slight gruff in his voice, carrying that aura of meandering disinterest and slight condescension he’s fine-tuned for nearly a decade struts onto the screen as none other than Richard Milhous Nixon. Cusack’s turn as Nixon is both ingenuously lazy and charmingly surreal – no effort is made to convince the audience that the man onscreen is anybody but John Cusack (in contrast to Liev Schreiber’s Norbit-esque turn as Lbj), yet the continued reference toward Cusack as one of modern history’s most readily recognizable and continually invoked Commanders in Chief has a certain Dadaist charm to it, as if Daniels and Cusack were admitting playfully that this was simply yet another star turn and that Nixon was too large and imposing a historical...

Director Robert Altman.

Robert Altman: Eclectic Maverick

By

Alex Simon

Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in the April 1999 issue of Venice Magazine.

It's the Fall of 1977 and I'm a bored and rebellious ten year old in search of a new movie to occupy my underworked and creativity-starved brain, feeling far too mature for previous favorites Wily Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971) and Return of the Pink Panther (1975), and wanting something more up-to-date and edgy than Chaplin's City Lights (1931). I needed a movie to call my favorite that would be symbolic of my own new-found manhood (and something that would really piss off my parents and teachers). Mom and Dad were going out for the evening, leaving me with whatever unfortunate baby-sitter happened to need the $10 badly enough to play mother hen to an obnoxiously precocious only child like myself. I scanned the TV Guide for what...

The one-man show is not something that we get all too often in the cinematic medium, which is unfortunate; they can be an absolute thrill to watch. Actors are not only forced to give it their all, but great dialogue is allowed to take center stage. The best example of a one-man film that I can think of is Secret Honor, Robert Altman‘s fascinating stage adaptation that stars Philip Baker Hall as a shamed Nixon recording his memoirs. (It’s a Criterion title, too.)

Another one should be hitting theaters this year, Barrymore. Starring Christopher Plummer as the late John Barrymore, it focuses on the actor as he attempted to bring back his portrayal of Richard III, which he earned much acclaim for when he starred in the play in 1920. This never actually happened — it’s only used as a way of exploring the man. This may not actually a true one-man show,...

To celebrate the release of Danny Boyle’s 127 Hours on Blu-ray – an excellent film based on the true story of Aron Ralston and his struggle to escape entrapment in the American outback – Owf has been challenged to compile a list of the 10 best films that focus solely (or almost) on a single character. It’s not a common occurrence in cinema – I assume because a majority of viewers easily get bored with one character very quickly – but this technique has been attempted before, to varying degrees of success.

The benefits of having only one primary character is that the development of these protagonists can be much more in depth, ensuring that a stronger bond between audience and character can be forged. The downside though, is that you have to really like them and root for them wholeheartedly.

It’s an ambitious technique to attempt, but below are what we consider...

The recent flowering of one-actor set pieces join a tiny but diverse sub-genre exploring the sad gnaw of solitude

As the second film from the director of a low-budget sleeper hit now working with a large sum of money, Duncan Jones's Source Code has the perfect profile for a spirit-sapping let down, a CGI-laden kick in the shins. But in fact, the only small disappointment I felt about it was how its four leading actors represented a departure from the makeup of Jones's debut Moon – which apart from the occasional appearance from the likes of Matt Berry, was essentially a one-man show (that man the tireless Sam Rockwell).

Not that Jones has completely abandoned the single-character motif – amid Source Code's exploding trains and homages to The Manchurian Candidate, chunks of the story find a lone Jake Gyllenhaal hunched in a dingy airtight receptacle, that image at least providing...

There is a rather rare, very specific film subgenre that we rarely have a chance to discuss: Single-Actor Films Based on One-Man Stage Plays About Us Presidents. There is Secret Honor, for instance, in which Philip Baker Hall did a magnificent job as Richard Nixon for director Robert Altman. And there is Give 'Em Hell, Harry!, in which James Whitmore played Harry S Truman. Now the producers of that film, David Permut and Mark Travis, are assembling a stage play about Ronald Reagan, called The Lifeguard: Ronald Reagan and His Story. They've hired Robert Forster to play the one and only role, and he'll carry that forward into a screen version, too. Deadline [1] says that the producers "plan to follow the template they established with James Whitmore and Give 'Em Hell Harry," which means they'll do a touring stage show, and then film a version to release to theaters. Rehearsals...

Last summer, shortly after the beginning as a film critic with Pajiba, I published a ranking of the five film noirs of the classical age over the course of a week. Ever since, I've been contemplating doing a top five retrospective on neo-noir. Picking up the pieces of the project a few weeks ago, I tentatively listed a bunch of titles. However, unlike the classical ranking, I ran into some trouble thanks to a range of factors.

In a nutshell, there are two key reasons that make producing a ranking of neo-noir for Pajiba a difficult task. First and most significantly, neo-noir films have been produced for roughly fifty years now (the classical period ran only seventeen years), giving neo-noir a significant temporal advantage. To put this in a quantifiable context, IMDb lists 434 titles classified as film noir and over 1,500 as neo-noir. That's a huge amount of films to go...

Darren Aronofksy may be the world's most unpredictable auteur. He seems to jump across genres and styles and still manages to turn in some genius level work. Expect that trend to continue with his next picture, Jackie, a look at the life of Jackie Kennedy with Aronofsky's own wife, the lovely and talented Rachel Weisz in the title role.

The news breaks courtesy of Entertainment Weekly who report that the script for Jackie comes in on spec from newcomer Noah Oppenheim who balanced its writing on his off hours while acting as head of development at TV company called Reveille. 

Jackie sounds like a far more interesting film than its title suggests; rather than play as a spanning pop biopic of the former First Lady's life, the script is said to concentrate on the days following JFK's death when Kennedy's resolve helped the nation deal with one of its greatest tragedies.

The weather's crap, but there's a frickin' gay pride parade on DVD this week, with three high-profile queer-inclusive titles making their home video premiere.

Read on for more!

The documentary The Butch Factor explores masculinity among gay men, by interviewing rodeo riders, pro football veteran David Kopay and cops, asking questions about what it means to be a gay man, societal phobias about effeminacy and the stereotypes that continue to exist decades after the Stonewall riots. Gay men of all stripes should find plenty of fodder for discussion here.

Speaking of gay men in uniform, Robert Altman's Streamers—about Vietnam-bound soldiers, one of whom (Mitchell Lichtenstein) does everything but wear a big scarlet "H" on his chest—finally makes its DVD debut this week. It's one of Altman's filmed plays (coming after the gay-fave Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean and before the Nixon...

Robert Altman, the legendary director behind such modern classics as MASH, Nashville, The Player, and Gosford Park, died Monday night in Los Angeles; he was 81. The cause of death was not immediately disclosed, and a statement released Tuesday afternoon stated that Altman died from complications due to cancer; the news release also said that Altman had been in pre-production for a film he was slated to start shooting in February. When he was presented with an honorary Academy Award just last year, Altman revealed that he had been the recipient of a heart transplant within the past ten years, a fact he hadn't made public because he feared it would hinder his ability to get work. One of the most influential and well-respected directors of modern cinema, Altman's work was marked by a naturalistic approach that favored long, unbroken tracking shots and overlapping dialogue (as well as storylines), as well as improvisation, usually among a large ensemble cast. Though now regarded as one of the premier American filmmakers, Altman had a career that reached both popular and critical highs as well as lows, as he burst onto the scene in the early '70s with very acclaimed films, but had a string of commercial and critical failures as well. All told, he received five Oscar nominations for directing MASH, Nashville, The Player, Short Cuts and most recently Gosford Park. Other numerous awards include two Cannes Film Festival wins (for The Player and MASH), a Golden Globe (for Gosford Park) and an Emmy (for the TV series Tanner 88). Born in Kansas City, Altman attended Catholic schools as well as a military academy before enlisting in the Air Force in 1945. After being discharged, Altman tried his hand at acting and writing in both Los Angeles and New York before returning home to Kansas City, where he started making industrial films for the Calvin Company. After numerous false starts, Altman finally made the full move to Hollywood, and in 1957 directed his first theatrical film, The Delinquents. Though it didn't start him on the road to fame, the film was good enough to secure Altman work in television, particularly for Alfred Hitchcock and his Alfred Hitchcock Presents television series. In 1969, Altman was offered the script for MASH, which had been rejected by numerous other filmmakers. The movie, a black comedy set during the Korean War (and a thinly veiled attack on the then-raging Vietnam War), was a rousing commercial and critical success, scoring Oscar nominations for Best Picture and Director and, most famously, inspiring the successful TV sitcom, which took on a very different tone. His films after MASH included the revisionist western McCabe and Mrs. Miller and the updated California noir The Long Goodbye, but it was 1975's Nashville, a multi-layered film centered around the country music capital and the wildly divergent Americans who converged there, that would be his next major success, also receiving Oscar nominations for Best Picture and Director. After Nashville, Altman more often than not found himself on the opposite end of the spectrum, with films such as the acclaimed but sometimes puzzling 3 Women as well as the commercial flop A Wedding and, most notoriously, the Robin Williams version of Popeye, which was technically a hit but seen as an artistic failure. Altman worked constantly through the '80s - his films included Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, Streamers, Secret Honor, and Fool for Love - but it wasn't until the HBO series Tanner 88, about a fictional candidate's run for the presidency, that he found favor again. In the early '90s, the one-two punch of The Player (a biting Hollywood satire) and Short Cuts (based on the stories of Raymond Carver) put him back on the map, but he followed those with the less well-received Pret-a-Porter, The Gingerbread Man, and Cookie's Fortune. True to the ups-and-downs of his career, Altman was back on top with Gosford Park, a British-set ensemble film that combined comedy, drama and mystery, and marked his first Best Picture nominee since Nashville. His last films included a revisit to the world of Tanner 88 with Tanner on Tanner, and just this year, A Prairie Home Companion, based on the radio show by Garrison Keillor. Upon receiving his honorary Oscar last year, Altman appeared to be in fine health, but reportedly directed most of A Prairie Home Companion from a wheelchair, with the Altman-influenced director Paul Thomas Anderson on hand. Altman is survived by his third wife, Kathryn, their two sons, and a daughter and two other sons from two previous marriages. --Mark Englehart, IMDb staff...