In Praise of Bill Nighy

Bill Nighy is one of those actors where you always end up saying "who was that?". he's given great performances in crappy movies-like in Underworld, where I thought he was the only good thing in it as the King of the vampires and I walked out thinking "who was that guy?". Or in Love Actually, where h e played the over-the-hill rocker trying to get the number one Christmas song. Or Pirates of the Caribbean, where he was Davey Jones. Yes, he's good in those crappy movies and made them better-but give him a great movie and a great part and he shines. And I don't know how he does it-he has very distinctive looks so he's hard to miss. He's quite tall, with a receding hairline and a strong face-and yet that face can be quite cruel, goofy and strongly intelligent in each movie.
I bring him up because I 'm in the process of watching State of Play, a British mini-series from 2003. I got it mainly because I saw that James Macavoy was in it (and he's very good as well) but the show really belongs to Nighy. he plays Cameron Foster, the Editor-in Chief of a large, respectable London newspaper. An MP's research assistant has dies by falling (or was she pushed?) under a Tube train-but who was the kid seen running up to her in the Tube station who stole her briefcase? And why was he found dead later the same day with drugs on (but in) his body? Cameron's reporters get interested in the story, the police get even more interested when one of their own dies trying to protect the only surviving witness who saw the attack on the dead kid and someone is clearly trying to orchestrate the whole thing-but who? (it turns out it might be an evil oil company in league with an evil lobbyist, which I think is a little cliche but it works). Nighy's part is not huge-the focus is more on the reporters and the hapless MP, but Nighy steals every scene he's in and he does it with ease. Whether he's telling the MP that he can go ahead and tell the tabloids that the lead reporter is sleeping with the MP's wife but "it will look like you're a politician with a secret to hide, which to be fair, Stephen, you are". And after telling the politician this, he mocks himself in the car for it. Or after listening to one of his employees telling of a gay sexual encounter with a man who claims to be in love with the dead, he tells him "I hope you realize this doesn't count towards a bonus". He's not only great, he's the best-dressed man in the whole show. The MP is schlumpy and gets progressively schlumpier. the reporters are FAR better dressed then any reporter I've ever met (maybe they dress better in London? Honestly, I thought all reporters dressed badly but not as badly as government employees). But Nighy wears an exceedingly well-cut suit, very nice shirt and modern glasses. I've never seen a newspaperman look this good, except for Ben Bradlee, the former editor of the Washington Post.
So those are my recommendations-there's a movie out there to fit any one's taste with Nighy in it-and I almost forgot to mention The Constant Gardener, the political thriller with Ralph Fiennes, in which Nighy plays...well, let's just say he's not very nice but as usual, he does it very well.

Not Yet

So the 2nd X-files movie has not only finished principal photography, I've actually seen a trailer for it. Yes, it was murky and confusing, of course it was. It wouldn't have been a trailer for the X-Files if it wasn't. But it so cool seeing Mulder and Scully in a scene that I'd never seen before-something brand-new. I said I'll beleive when I'm sitting in theater waiting for it to start but that day is not THAT far off.

Also, I read a terrific book-Special Topics in Calamity Physics. I loved it but the review will have to wait until later. Supernatural is on tonight as I've been watching Lost at its stupid new night, I haven't hardly any new episodes of Supernatural.
Lost, by the way, has also been great. It's shame the writer's strike destroyed their momentum, but I fully expect it to come back as good as it was when it left.