HBO Films: Phil Spector Trailer

I'm no longer really a fan of Al Pacino's work in cinema. Everything up to and including Brian De Palma's Carlito's Way and I'm in, Carlito's Way especially, as I feel it is a modern crime masterpiece, a tear-jerking love story and it features outstanding performances by not only Mr. Pacino but Sean Penn as well. It is a shame though, that the Carlito Brigante character has slightly been ruined for me by the fact that it became Pacino's ONLY persona after that. Some have corrected me and said that Al put a slight mod on Carlito for Scent of a Woman and that is in fact the character he's been in EVERY movie since. Either way, it's wore out its welcome. The one exception to this is HBO's 2010 movie You Don't Know Jack where Pacino turned in a fantastic role performance as Jack Kevorkian. Honestly up to that point I didn't think I'd ever see another great Pacino performance again.

Now HBO is giving us the above - a film where Pacino portrays enigmatic looney tune Phil Spector, possibly the greatest record producer in human history (which he reminds up of in the trailer) and convicted murderer. I gotta say, I'm excited again. From what we see in this trailer I'm thinking we're not going to get another fine-tuned, wonderfully-nuanced performance out of Mr. Pacino, but honestly in this case I don't care. Spector fascinates the hell out of me, and to have someone who can get all HOO-HA bugfuck crazy at the drop of a hate playing him makes me even more excited (as long as we don't actually have to hear him yell Hoo-Ha that is). There's a documentary about Spector on my Netflix cue - it's been there for a few years and last I checked it still hadn't been released, so this will have to do for now. Besides, I've a feeling the whole story is probably so disturbing that it'll be good to break the ice with some larger-than-life fiction before getting into the real nooks and crannies of the story.

Wherever you fall in the Spector polarization, let's not forgot what he did give us, before he started taking things away from people.



Hot damn that's a fine song and one of my favorite recordings. Ever.