Nicky Katt Tagged Articles at Cinematical

I often come across news that makes me jump with excitement, and just as I go to whip up a post about it, I reconsider. Will anyone else feel the same joy upon reading that Joe Morton has been cast in a small prison indie? To many, he's nothing more than Miles Dyson from Terminator 2. Will anyone care about that cool, but unknown new actor that popped up on a few shows here or there? Or, does anyone else believe that Danny Huston in Clash of the Titans is much more alluring than Fiennes, Worthington, Neeson, and the rest?

Before I started writing about movies, my friends would dub me the expert because I would always pick out some face on the screen and do a little happy dance while the rest of the theater only oggled over the stars. But it wasn't so much knowing everyone and everything, but being drawn to the secondary actors, and remembering them from all of their other parts. While many seem to have bit-part blindness, these actors' faces would always stick in my mind.

I cheer the arrival of Nicky Katt in all of his blockbuster bit parts -- Sin City, Grindhouse, The Dark Knight, whilst wondering why he can't get better work (he's been on the scene since '77 for cripes sakes!). Lauren Ambrose was always recognizable, even before Six Feet Under, for her stints in Can't Hardly Wait and the insanity that is Psycho Beach Party.

Part of it is being ahead of the rush -- waiting patiently for that mainstream gig that will zip talents into superstardom. But for some it's the eternal wait -- seeing talent year after year, part after part, and knowing that the world-at-large will never swoon for them. Which actors and actresses, invisible to most of the world, do you love?

This latest cameo in The Dark Knight made be both happy and disappointed. You see, Nicky Katt is so much more than just the Stuka shtick. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, check out the clip above. Basically, it's the dude being super, extra talkative when most other people probably wouldn't. In Sin City, that meant blabbering on after getting an arrow right through your torso. In TDK, that means going on and on about how the high-speed chase just isn't good.

Yes, that super-talkative cop from the chase scene is none other than Nicky Katt, Stuka, the detective in The Brave One, the puss-filled guy in Planet Terror, the Carnoburger Cashier in The Doom Generation, and the marijuana-smoking Clint in Dazed and Confused.

I'm happy to see him wherever he pops up, but please -- Hollywood Powers that Be, don't relegate Katt to just over-talkative guys in the action. He's so much more than light-tongued typecasting!

With each picture since his 2000 debut George Washington, David Gordon Green has taken at least a small step backward. That gradual regression becomes a full-fledged precipitous decline with Snow Angels, a film in which the director (working from a novel by Stewart O'Nan) flails about in search of poetry, and comes up with only trivial stylistic flourishes that compound his story's overwrought faux-naturalism. Considering the lyrical grace of his heralded first feature, Green's devolution from one of American cinema's most promising talents to his current status as just another middling indie lightweight is tough to fathom. Yet with his latest, Green misses the mark in so many respects -- from a multi-strand plot devoid of insight, to performances that are generally overcooked, to a mise-en-scène that comes up largely empty in the department of inspired grace and beauty -- that it makes one wonder if his upcoming foray into director-for-hire work (with this summer's raunchy stoner comedy The Pineapple Express) isn't a shrewd attempt to escape his own increasingly faulty auteurist instincts.

After screening at Sundance last year, a trailer for Snow Angels has finally hit the net, which you can check out above. The latest from indie filmmaker David Gordon Green, Angels follows his small-town formula, but this time, with dueling stories of happiness and darkness. On the one hand, there's the burgeoning love story between Michael Angarano (the cutie from flicks like Almost Famous and Sky High) and Olivia Thirlby (who you might recognize as Juno's helpful best friend). On the other, there's a complicated familial story focusing on Kate Beckinsale, her estranged husband Sam Rockwell, and their young daughter. Making the whole deal even more tasty -- there's also the likes of Griffin Dunne, Amy Sedaris, and Nicky Katt.

If the trailer is any indication of the film, it should be a great cinematic experience. (But be warned: it does give a lot of detail into the film, as many trailers love to do.) However, if you need more of a reason to go see it, you can check out James Rocchi's glowing review from Sundance, as well as his interview with Green. On the flipside, you can check out Kevin Kelly's review, which was a bit less praising.

[via Empire]