A NOTE ABOUT NAOMI


a day late, but not a darrow short.

If I'd read this before last night, I would have included it as one of my Friday Afternoon Notes. But the lines were so good and so true that I didn't want to wait until next week -- when, for reasons that will soon become clear, I may not have time for a Notes column -- to share it. I made essentially the same point in last week's Notes, but I didn't do it as neatly or as succinctly as L.A. Weekly film critic F.X. Feeney:

Naomi Watts doesn't merely create her own character. She creates Kong, in the amphitheater of her eyes, purely by the strength of her reactions. You try sustaining notes of contagious terror and tenderness while interacting for months on end with a blank green wall.



The second sentence says it all. In that observation -- in that amphitheater, in those eyes -- lies the key not only to the power and brilliance of her performance, but to the power and beauty of the film.

Posted: Sat - January 7, 2006 at 08:28 PM          

©