Happy Birthday Vincent :-) Some favoured moments...
Vincent, I wish you all the luck in the world :-)
Vincent Kartheiser turns 29 today and I decided to use his birthday to remember my favoured scenes of his movies and TV Shows. Of course this list is personal, not the slightest impartial and it's meant to be that way :-)
Herzlichen Glückwunsch zum Geburtstag, Vincent! Ich wünsche Dir alles Liebe & Gute :-)
Vincent Kartheiser wird heute 29 Jahre alt und ich habe beschlossen, seinen Geburtstag zum Anlaß zu nehmen, mich an die Film- & TV-Szenen zu erinnern, die mir besonders gut gefallen haben. Natürlich ist diese Aufzählung persönlich und nicht mal ansatzweise objektiv. Es gibt diesen Artikel nur in englisch, auf deusch findet Ihr auf meiner Fanseite mehr Informationen und Filmbesprechungen.
The Unsaid
Where the journey began...
It was August 2001, when this movie was first shown in Germany at the Fantasy Film Festival - and I was the projectionist responsible for it. I remember watching it and for the first time I saw this young, to me totally unknown actor, who impressed me from the start. The audience expect at the beginning, that Vincent's character Thomas is a victim of some cruel event in the past and it took a while to figure, that he is the suspect instead. I especially remember the scene, were he's dating this nice girl and just seem to be a normal teenager, and than, in an instant, just snaps.
Vincent is brilliant in delivering violence and madness and he can play such a character in a way, that you still want to save him rather than seeing him caught and punished. The Unsaid won the Audience Award at the Marrakech International Film Festival in 2001.
Crime & Punishment in Suburbia
"Don't touch me unless you love me"
Vincent said during a BBC interview in 2003, that are more good teenage movies out there than you expect, and Crime & Punishment is definitely on of them. Vincent, who is the narrator of the story too, plays Vincent, a sensitive, intellectual outsider at his school, who is deeply in love with a beautiful female star in his class, but so far not have been noticed by her. As a passionate photographer, he stalks her and therefore he see things happen to her, things everybody else try superficially to ignore. When she finally falls from grace, he is the only person left who's truly be there for her.
The movie deals with a lot of heavy issues such as rape, vengeance & forgiveness, and the good thing is, that it doesn't try to find simple answers as so many American movies do. When the female hero and her boyfriend finally kill her nemesis, she didn't "rides into the sunset" afterwards, holding hands with him, she - and even more, he - rather have to deal with the consequences, not only because of the legal, but the emotionally outcomes too.
This is certainly one of my all-time-favourite-Vincent-movies and I can definitely recommend the soundtrack. Crime & Punishment didn't win any awards; it just had a couple of nominations, i.e. at the Sundance Festival the Grand Jury Prize. Well you can't have everything :-)
Angel
"I always had a thing for older women" :-)
There is a lot to say about the TV show Angel and Vincent's Connor in particular and it's all been said and done quite a while ago. One of my favoured Vincent stories is, that I almost stopped watching Angel for a couple of reasons during season 3 and the I only kept going, because a friend of mine (who was a few episodes ahead of me) told me, that Connor would be back as a teenager - and that he would be brilliant. The funny thing is, that she didn't know that I was watching Vincent's work at that time and I for some reason didn't noticed, that he was in a TV show :-)
So I stayed and I didn't regret it. I liked the "idea" of Connor, although I didn't always liked how he was written. There was a time during season 4 when I had the feeling, that the writers were uncertain, how to deal with the character, and I still give Vincent credit how he delivered his lines, despite the fact, that they don't always made sense, considering what happened the episode(s) before. I even liked the whole Cordelia/Connor relationship, because for me it stands exemplary for what all Joss Whedon shows are about: to break the characters, explore their dark sides and throw them "over the next cliff", just to find out, how they deal with it, even when it means, that the audience's expectations (including mine) don't necessarily get fulfilled. This is one thing you learn as a Joss Whedon Fan very soon: to not take yourself to seriously, if you can't handle that, you better find yourself some nice, happy soap :-) And I'm really tired of watching American movies where the 40 year old male hero gets the 20 year old girl, so I always enjoy when I have a chance to watch something different :-)))
At the end I can say, I made my peace with season 4, especially with last 3 episodes, which are just brilliant and I liked the way, Connor was brought back in season 5. "The Origin" was certainly worth waiting for it that long and it propitiate me after all the things I didn't enjoyed so much in the past. Kelly A. Manners & Terrence O'Hara , I love you for that one :-)). And of course, Angel won some awards too: in 2004 the Saturn Award for Best Network Television Series, after being nominated 2003 (and 2005)
Dandelion
"Sometimes I think, love is something we create to make us feel better"
Dandelion delivers its story without many dialogues and focuses more on emotions and impressions. Not everything is explained, so the audience has the chance to make up their own mind about the character's motivation. This gives us the opportunity to project our own experiences at the them and it leads - at least me - to the interesting situation, that this movie always leaves me in a different mood, which depends very much on my personal feelings I had that day.
I showed Dandelion over the years to most of my co-workers at the movie theater, and when I already had a bad day, it could made me really depressed, because I focused on the sad love story. On good days, it's longing for life could made me just happy and excited and at on one of this typically, German, rainy days, it became my "summer" movie, wishing I could just lay in the sun as Vincent's character Mason, allowing my thoughts to drift away....
Dandelion is a movie about people who stopped communicating with each other and the consequences of it. It's cinematography is extraordinary and the cast amazing. It won 3 awards for best movie and for its cinematography at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival and the RiverRun International Film Festival in 2004.
Killing Zelda Sparks
"I'm gonna kill her with my words"
Killing Zelda Sparks is a bloody, black comedy, which is just fun to watch - if you like this particular genre what I do; hey, I'm the Fantasy Film Festival girl, remember? So I watched it with my co-workers form the FFF and we all loved it - although Vincent was right: the wig IS bad - but anyway, you don't have to be a Fan of him to enjoy the movie. After watching it, I'm always sitting there with a big, fat smile at my face. The chemistry between Vincent and Geoffrey Arend is brilliant, most of the dialogues are just fabulous and witty, although at some point in the middle the editing isn't that good and you can tell, that the filmmakers are not that experienced.
I have so many favoured scenes that I hardly know where to start. I love it, when Vincent's Graig goes mad, he is so funny to watch, when his face turns red, he's barely able to speak any more and you wait the whole time for him to explode - and then it doesn't happen! And when it happens, you remember immediately why Vincent is so believable as a psycho.
And be careful: there are twists which take part in the 2nd part of the movie, so I can only recommend NOT to read too much about it and just watch it, you will be surprised. And because of that, seeing it the 2nd time is even better ;-)
Killing Zelda Sparks won the Heineken Red Star Award at the San Diego Film Festival in 2007.
Mad Men
"It's just a bachelor party, dear"
Mad Men is the show for which Vincent finally received his very own award as Breakthrough Star of the Year. Although the first season has 13 episodes, one of my favoured moments still is a scene from the pilot, where he talk to his fiancée at the phone while having fun with his co-workers in the his office. This scene delivers basically everything you need to know about his character Pete: He's funny, charming, caring, lying, cheating & ambitious all in the same moment. Pete is all grey-shaded and Vincent told me, that it will stay that way :-) The episode, which focuses most on his character, is 1.04 New Amsterdam, in which the audience can find out more about his background and the demons he's fighting.
Mad Men basically won every award this year a show can possibly win, including a Golden Globe as best TV Drama and another one for the best male lead. Let's hope that this helps the show to continue, because the ratings aren't that good. Again, Vincent seems to be part of a project which delights the film reviewers more that the common audience.