Anyone noticing Chris Cooper's movie choices lately?

Soon to be released films:
*Hurricane Mary, about a mother who fights the government to get her kids in public school.
*The Kingdom, about a group of government operatives struggling to solve a crime amidst culture clashes in Saudi Arabia

Already released:
*The Bourne films, about a government assassin rebelling against the government agency that trained him.
*Breach, about a double agent.
*Syriana, about the government's collaboration with the oil industry to abuse power in the Middle East
*Jarhead, about Marines in the Middle East struggling with cultural differences and their role in a foreign land.
*Silver City, about a brainless politician controlled by corporate interests running for governor.

choices.

Look back on his early career. He appeared in the pro-labor film "Matewan" (highly recommended) back in the early 1980s for director John Sayles (who I'd guess is pretty left/liberal from his films), who also directed "Silver City".

BTW, I also recommend watching Sayle's film "City of Hope" (which, unfortunately, does not have Cooper) for an interesting study of race relations, urban corruption, politics and society. Not perfect (it's a tad contrived/preachy in parts) but it beats the pants of of "Crash".

Fantastic acting, directing, writing

About a border town sheriff trying to solve a 40 year old murder that his hero father may have committed, while dealing with the cultural and racial tensions in the town. Absolutely the best movie about Texas ever made, down to the stunning last line of the film.

The homophobe who winds up... well, I won't give it away for those who haven't seen the film.

It's one of those films that I've never been in the mood for when it was available to me, and when I wanted to watch it I couldn't get to it.

Most of the media were focusing on Michael Moore's acceptance speech. But Chris Cooper also won earlier that night, and he stood there and made a powerful statement about peace.


Word is that Cooper was originally supposed to play the behind-the-scenes power broker in "Silver City", until his wife told the director that he would go around the house doing a dead-on impression of Bush, to amuse her ... so they asked him to play the politician instead.

Contrast his roles in Seabiscuit, Silver City, and Breach--he's as good as anyone in Hollywood, and better than most of them.

:-)

Thx. :-)

he played July Johnson in Lonesome Dove.

IIRC that wonderful 1989 miniseries was essentially Steve Buscemi's debut as well--at least I don't remember seeing either actor in anything memorable before that.