Ryan Gosling - Half Nelson #2: Who's Your Generation's Budding Brando? (Minor Spoilers) - Page 4

palegreen · 12-14-2006, 09:22 AM

Half Nelson and Ryan were completely snubbed by the Golden Globes. I can't believe it!

-Bianca- · 12-14-2006, 08:59 PM

I'm so ~~annoyed~~ pissed by this. DiCaprio shouldn't have been nom'ed twice in the same cat.

**heaven85** · 12-14-2006, 10:15 PM

I can't believe either!!!!!

I'm so mad.

-Bianca- · 12-15-2006, 04:54 PM

It's doubtful he'll get an Oscar nom now, IMO.

Quote:

Half Nelson. Directed by Ryan Fleck, the movie succeeds beyond its modest intentions thanks to remarkably honest, subtle performances by Ryan Gosling and Shareeka Epps. The story of a drug-addicted inner-city schoolteacher who befriends an "at-risk" young girl. The movie avoids every pitfall inherent in the genre to create a moving story about human connection.

Carina Chocano, Film*Critic - BEST OF 2006 | FILM - Los Angeles Times - calendarlive.com

-Bianca- · 12-18-2006, 08:26 PM

Quote:

AP Reviewers Pick Their Top 2006 Films
Monday December 18, 2006 7:16 PM
AP Photo LA510
By The Associated Press

[...]

3. ``Half Nelson'' - Its inner-city setting could have inspired an overly feel-good film, but director Ryan Fleck and co-writer Anna Boden present the material with a bracing realism that keeps it raw and grounded. Ryan Gosling is mesmerizing as a charismatic junior-high teacher by day and a crack addict by night whose separate lives begin bleeding dangerously into each other. Shareeka Epps is astonishingly assured as the student who provides an unexpected path toward redemption.

AP Reviewers Pick Their Top 2006 Films | News | Guardian Unlimited Film

-Bianca- · 12-19-2006, 10:52 PM

Ryan's up for Best Actor as voted by the Chicago Film Critics.

Quote:

1. Half Nelson
The year's best movie has a plot that seems guaranteed to spin into cliche, as junior high teacher/crack addict Dan Dunne (Ryan Gosling) forms a friendship with one of his students (Shareeka Epps) after she catches him getting high. But Ryan Gosling is so steady and marvelous as Dunne--and "Half Nelson" is so precise in deconstructing his floundering soul--that the movie becomes the most unusual of educational dramas: an honest, shattering and ultimately uplifting film that doesn't get within 100 miles of formula. Covering the different modes of change and the pressure of opposing influences, the film's last moment is the most perfectly tuned, hopeful finale in ages.

Metromix. Fast-Paised favorites of 2006

Edit: The HN thread is my triple-posting oyster.

**heaven85** · 12-19-2006, 11:34 PM

Oh Bianca. No worries. THat happens to me too sometimes.

for Ryan.

-Bianca- · 12-20-2006, 03:33 PM

Quote:

Like The History Boys, this indie drama reconceived and reinvigorated the inspirational-teacher genre, both by centering on a profoundly flawed protagonist and by exploring the philosophical issues behind what gets taught and what education ultimately means. In a performance that echoes his career-defining turn as a Jewish neo-Nazi in The Believer, Ryan Gosling delivers another stunning turn as an increasingly burnt-out idealist of a teacher whose efforts to save a student from a paternalistic drug dealer are compromised by his own spiraling addiction to crack.

The Year In Film 2006 | The A.V. Club

Quote:

In Half Nelson, Ryan Gosling imbues a crack-addicted junior high teacher with a special sense of entitlement, justified by what he feels are his uncanny powers of pedagoguery.

Nashville Scene - The (Dearly) Departed

**heaven85** · 12-22-2006, 01:13 AM

Yeah!!! Still loving all the reviews.

-Bianca- · 12-23-2006, 10:03 PM

Quote:

8. Half Nelson -- If you'd asked me before I saw Half Nelson to name ten actors who might unexpectedly knock my socks off, it's unlikely that Ryan Gosling would have made the list. Whoever would have thought he had it in him to turn in the groundbreaking performance he gives as the idealistic, white, liberal, teacher-turned-crack addict in this film? Newcomer Shareeka Epps is an equally powerful counterweight as Gosling's student who knows his secret; the real key to this film, though, is how director Ryan Fleck and co-writer Anna Boden bypass the after-school-special potential of their film's core idea, and instead bring us a brilliantly faceted script that explores the relationships between social class and student and teacher in a completely original way. Expect to see more from Gosling, Epps, Fleck and Boden in the future; the critical response to this film is the stuff of which indie filmmaker sugarplum dreams are made.

Kim Voynar's Ten Best Films of 2006 - Cinematical

Quote:

"HALF NELSON" Two fine performances, from Ryan Gosling and Shareeka Epps, and a meditation on the failure of liberal idealism disguised as a chronicle of addiction.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/24/mo...tml?ref=movies

**heaven85** · 12-24-2006, 02:53 AM

Thanks for posting.

-Bianca- · 12-24-2006, 11:21 PM

Quote:

4. Half Nelson
As a caring public school teacher rapidly anesthetizing himself into a kind of half-death with crack cocaine, Ryan Gosling gives a performance of shattering intensity. Yet he never appears to be performing; neither does tough, dignified young Shareeka Epps as the student who's got her teacher's number. And that's the power of filmmaker Ryan Fleck's sad/hopeful, hauntingly open-ended study in the rise and fall of middle-class social idealism. Unlike a conservative educator with a traditional lesson plan, the filmmaker absolutely refuses to draw a neat conclusion. For which his honest, deep, personal movie deserves a term grade of A.

The Departed | movies : ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY

**heaven85** · 12-25-2006, 08:59 PM

Cool. Thanks for posting

-Bianca- · 12-25-2006, 09:26 PM

Quote:

3. "Half Nelson" — Its inner-city setting could have inspired an overly feel-good film, but director Ryan Fleck and co-writer Anna Boden present the material with a bracing realism that keeps it raw and grounded. Ryan Gosling is mesmerizing as a charismatic junior-high teacher by day and a crack addict by night whose separate lives begin bleeding dangerously into each other. Shareeka Epps is astonishingly assured as the student who provides an unexpected path toward redemption.

SouthCoastToday.com - Top Stories - TOP 10 FILMS - December 25, 2006

Quote:

7. Half Nelson: Ryan Gosling gives the best lead-actor performance this year as a committed, inventive middle-school history teacher who also has a pretty serious coke problem. As good as he is, Shareeka Epps, as his sad-eyed student and unlikely friend, also cements herself as the current breakout star.

Top 10 movies: Great directors return to form, and improve upon career highs: SouthFlorida.com

Quote:

Best work not over-hyped: Ryan Gosling in "Half Nelson,"

APP.COM - CHARMING STARS HAD A BAD '06 | Asbury Park Press Online

**heaven85** · 12-26-2006, 11:49 PM

That's nice.


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