Dallas Buyer’s Club was a movie I thought I would like, wanted to like, and started off liking until it became a biopic that just started to bore me. This movie will get lots of recognition during awards season and, in many cases, deservingly so. The performances of Matthew McConaughey (Mud, Killer Joe) and especially Jared Leto (Requiem for a Dream, Girl Interrupted) are top-notch. I could see McConaughey getting a nod for best actor for portraying the real-life HIV-positive Ron Woodroof, even though I thought his performance in Mud was better (note, he might get a best-supporting actor nomination for that movie). Leto is a lock for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination. His performance as Rayon, a transsexual HIV-positive drug addict, named Rayon, is out of this world. The chemistry between the two main actors was top-notch. While Jennifer Garner (13 Going on 30, Juno) underwhelms as a local doctor whose specialty is working with patients infected with HIV or AIDS, Steve Zahn (Joy Ride, Rescue Dawn) is nearly unrecognizable (in a good way) as Ron’s brother and a local police officer. Jean-Marc Vallee did a pretty good job directing this movie. The cinematography is awesome. The movie takes place in 1985 Texas and feels like 1985 Texas. McConaughey is a cocaine-addicted womanizer who earns money as a small-time electrician, part-time rodeo rider, and small-time drug dealer. His lifestyle is reckless, and his body shows its wear and tear. He looks like he is about 30 pounds underweight the entire movie.
Continue reading Dallas Buyer’s Club (2013)
Category Archives: Steve Zahn
A Perfect Getaway (2009)
Before Timothy Olyphant (The Crazies, Dreamcatcher) was earning high praise for his role as US Marshall Raylan Givens in FX’s blockbuster television show Justified, he was making a name for himself in action/adventure movies, first in smaller character roles and then as a lead actor. Olyphant’s Givens on Justified is easily my favorite television character of the present time, distancing himself from Hugh Laurie’s Gregory House on House and Steve Carell’s Michal Scott on The Office.
Sunshine Cleaning (2008)
The opening scene of Christine Jeffs’ (Sylvia, Rain) 2008 Sunshine Cleaning shows a man purchasing a shotgun at a gun shop and proceeding to blow his head off by reaching into his pocket and pulling out a shell that he brought into the store. Steve Zahn (Rescue Dawn, Sahara) plays police detective Mac, who, when ending his investigation of the suicide, meets the crime scene cleanup crew and learns of the above-average wages that this profession brings. Rose Norkowski, played by a convincingly good Amy Adams (Doubt, The Fighter), is Mac’s mistress.