I did not look after the current reboot of “The Exorcist” and did not like what they did with the legacy character of Chris McNeil, poor little Regan McNeil’s mom from the unique 1973 movie, however I cherished seeing Burstyn, now 91, seizing the film by the throat for the temporary time she was onscreen. Ian McShane, beloved from TV’s “Lovejoy” and “Deadwood” in addition to “Horny Beast” and the John Wick motion pictures and different crime movies, simply did a star flip in “American Star” that was fully in contrast to the avuncular but menacing characters he has usually performed up to now quarter century, holding the display screen with a quiet stillness you’d count on from someone like Clint Eastwood, who, because it seems, is 93 and engaged on his newest and supposedly ultimate movie, the authorized thriller “Juror No. 2.” (Do you imagine he’ll cease directing after this? I do not, and why ought to he? He is additionally mentioned a number of instances during the last couple many years that he was carried out appearing, solely to behave once more.)
Extra off-the-beaten-path, one in all my favourite character actors is Invoice Cobbs, who turned a kind of “Oh, I do know that man!” actors forty years in the past and continues to be within the recreation. You would possibly bear in mind him from “The Hudsucker Proxy,” “Demolition Man,” “The Sopranos,” “ER” or any of the greater than 100 display screen credit he is racked up. He is 89 and has been averaging two main credit a 12 months throughout his eighth decade, together with “Brokers of S.H.I.E.L.D.” and “Block Get together.” I hoped I may embody M. Emmett Walsh on this piece, however, sadly, he died this month on the tender age of 88, after amassing greater than 200 movie and TV credit relationship again to the late Sixties, and his ultimate efficiency might be seen in a 2024 movie, the Mario van Peebles western “Outlaw Posse.”
Denzel Washington just isn’t but in that age vary, however he is getting there (he turns 70 in December of this 12 months), and it has been a pleasure to see him proceed to knock assignments out of the park and into the following time zone, in function after function, at the same time as he is aged out of matinee idol elements. He had his first profitable ongoing franchise in his sixties, “The Equalizer,” overseen by Antoine Fuqua, the filmmaker of “Coaching Day,” which bought him his first Oscar as a lead actor, and whereas I will not vouch for any of the movies as nice artwork, they’re very satisfying as purple meat for the reptile mind, they usually work so nicely as a result of Washington is a superb display screen actor who can recommend a number of contradictory and overlapping ideas and emotions with out saying a phrase. He’ll have an excellent autumnal profession, and I would not be shocked if he did a number of the finest work of his life when he is pushing 80 and even 90. He was one of many all-time nice display screen Macbeths in Joel Coen’s current “The Tragedy of Macbeth,” reverse Frances McDormand, with three Oscars for lead actress, and who is 66 herself and also will, I’m certain, completely crush it when she enters her grand previous girl section, as Helen Mirren (78) and Judi Dench (89) have carried out.
