To PSH on his Birthday

It seems like an impossibly strange thing to say, but I actually think Philip Seymour Hoffman is underrated. He’s remembered for his recent Oscar work and whatnot but the man’s been acting sine the beginning of the nineties and has been a great number of critical smashes. True, he’s also been in some abysmal ones. Whilst flipping the channels last week Along Came Polly came on and I realised that he was in. I’d forgotten that, as well everything else about that awful film, I’d also forgotten that he was in Scent of a Woman in 1992. He’s become a bit ubiquitous recently, and I think that ubiquity has made people forget how good he is. Here’s a refresher.
       

Freddy Miles in The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999)

 

“Tommy. How's the peeping? Tommy, how's the peeping?”

Father Brenda Flynn in Doubt (2008)

“Doubt can be a bond as powerful and sustaining as certainty. When you are lost, you are not alone.”

     

Truman Capote in Capote (2005)

“Sometimes when I think of how good my book is going to be, I can't breathe.”

Jon Savage in The Savages (2007)

 

“We're not in therapy now- we're in real life.”

Andy Hanson in Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead (2007)

 

“Hank, you're so stupid!”

             

And he's done a lot of good work that I haven't even touched, I have a soft spot for his ridiculous hambone performance in Cold Mountain. He's got three features coming out this year - MoneyBall with Pitt, The Ides of March with Gosling and Clooney and A Late Quartet with Christopher Walken and Catherine Keener (who he was brilliant in Capote with). Maybe it'll be like 2007 where he'll give two great performances and one good one, and they'll nominate him for the least distinguished. So, I predict that he gets nominated for MoneyBall. What do you remember Hoffman for?