And if Nolan can get a good performance out of Pacino and Williams in the same film that is a good director. Personally I don’t know many directors who can get a performance out of Williams, it seems they rely on him to do what he has done in the past.

I think you are absolutely right about the camera direction being what forced Pacino to give those performances. the man seems to think he is on stage with his screaming and gesticulating at times. I mean we get it, Italians talk with their hands and are loud, OK!

I will look for the post I was bad about backing up my archives but maybe I can find it somewhere. That is the price of hosting through a server that isn’t in your house. Although it was my own dumb fault, and I could have probably fixed it but I would have no idea where to start. It was on e of those “Oops I deleted a file and don’t know where from or even what it was.” I lost 5 sites in a flash. oh well live and learn. I have the data just need to spend time working on what went wrong.

I’m sorry your archives are gone, but I would love it if you could find your review of The Prestige. You had a great line in there to the effect that Nolan is a painter and his brushes are actors. It made me think about him in a new way because I just figured his M.O. was to hire seasoned actors whom he could trust and didn’t need to direct.

But now that I think about it he may be the only man in twenty years to have coaxed a boderline-subtle performance from Al Pacino. I can’t stand by that because I haven’t seen it in five years or so, but I remember Pacino remarking on the DVD that Nolan stuck a camera right in his face for a phone-call scene, which sounds to me like Nolan’s way of overcompensating for Pacino’s tendencies and telling him, don’t worry, you don’t have to act for the back row in this scene.