artist of the month

I have always loved watching character actors do their work.

There have been a couple of artists I’ve had in mind since the inception of the Artist of the Month program here at Widescreen Warrior. Most of them are people who work behind the camera, with a body of work too valuable to ignore. Yet, many of them have careers that I’ve only had a passing familiarity with. At the top of that list is Woody Allen.

From acting blood, Jeff Bridges was literally born to be in Hollywood. With father Lloyd Bridges encouraging his children to all get into the family business, Jeff experienced the highs and lows of acting, the drugs and the pay, that come with the movie making business. Through his family he was put into acting in movies before he even knew he wanted to be an actor.

Comedy duos seem to be just that: duos. Rarely does one or both of the members of the duo break off and have success without the other half. When most people hear the name Walter Matthau they immediately think of his partner Jack Lemmon, largely in part due to the ten films they did together. However, Matthau and Lemmon both had very successful careers apart.

Barbara Hershey is one of those names that is easy to overlook these days. As an actress, she has faded in and out of public consciousness, winning acclaim for some of her roles, but finding herself labeled and typecast for portions of her career.

Getting his start in 1966 at just age 19, where he appeared on an episode of “Gidget” and “Bewitched,” and working his way up the following year for a bit part in The Graduate, Richard Dreyfuss seems to have never not known professional acting as his career.

We frequently have let current events help dictate who we choose for Artist of the Month, so selecting an artist in February, which has become popularly known as “Black History Month” seems like a no brainer. Narrowing the scope down, however, was a bit more difficult.

The readers have spoken and our artist of the month for December is James Cameron, the director behind notable science fiction contributions like Aliens, Terminator, and (with luck), the upcoming Avatar.

Twenty years ago we fell in love with Lloyd Dobbler as he held his boom box over his head and professed his love in song to the tune of “In Your Eyes” by Peter Gabriel. Two decades have passed and John Cusack still is making memorable performances across many genres.

When we selected Alfred Hitchcock as our artist of the month, it was hard to whittle down a total of eight movies to focus on from his body of work. Let’s be honest - everyone is going to have their favorite Hitchcock film and no matter what, someone’s going to be disappointed at what we left out. So we decided to give our readers a say in what movies we selected for the month.