MICHAEL CAINE

There seems to be no thread dedicated exclusively to discussing Michael Caine. This should be remedied.

One of the all time great voices. Second only to Mitchum in his ability to make look absolutley bored and painfully cool with it. A smooth motherfucker in all aspects.

From 1964 to 1975, you've got Zulu, Alfie, The Italian Job, Get Carter, The Man Who Would Be King and the Harry Palmer movies. That's a pretty astonishing record of truly iconic roles.

Funeral In Berlin I think is a really underrated flick; love the Palmer persona, dorky glasses and all. I think that at its best it captures the sort of weary pessimism of Graham Greene's best spy novels - there is no clear sense that Harry is the good guy, and espionage is dirty, depressing business all around.

With his oft quoted work rate and can-do spirit when it comes to taking a paycheck, it's a wonder that - as far as I can tell - he never worked in italian genre cinema, even though he came up at pretty much the same time. Would have loved a Caine-led giallo or poliziotteschi. Heck, I'd even watch him in a spaghetti western (not a natural thing to imagine him in a cowboy outfit, but hey, it worked for Alain Delon!)

It's sort of a bummer that, with the advent of his old age, he's mainly cast these days as a wise voice of moral authority- even the roles Nolan gives him gravitate towards that area, though at least the Batman movies gave him an espionage background (which also makes it possible that Harry Palmer and Batman share a universe HAVE I BLOWN UR MIND.) Children Of Men, even though he plays a wise and moral character in that one too, comes closest to reminding me of the magnificent cad of yore, and proved he can still play mischievous quite well. Nothing against him being Wise British Dude every now and then, but I wish that aspect of his persona got more play these days.

Use this thread to discuss the work and wonder of CAINE.

To be fair, all Caine did was call Harris a drunk (not really the most controversial statement.) And both actors were well beyond their prime when the feud started up.

Not a fan of Michael Caine's recent cheerleading for David Cameron, or indeed Jon Stewart's doing a labour-bashing bit on The Daily Show when he came on.

So true. If you're gonna go for the paycheck, I'd much rather you be campy or OTT than dull.

I'm not about to let Caine's tory sympathies (which do seem to boil down to "don't let the same guys in charge too long") ruin Get Carter for me or anything but, ya know, they're fair enough game to talk about in a thread dedicated to him, I suppose.

Haha, yeah, he's so great at arrogance that it's a wonder he hasn't done more upper class roles - though I suppose he's equally great at streetwise swagger, too, so that might account for it. Zulu is amazing, one of my favourite movies to watch on Blu-Ray.

And I'd say The Italian Job is pretty show stopping, as a whole! Caine doesn't give a big dramatic performance (it's not that kind of movie), but there's so much to love - "you were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off"! The misleading italian love song at the begining! Noel Coward! The minis! The cliffhanger ending! Such a fun movie.

It's good. The extras ain't all that, though.

EDIT: Also, it's R2.

The saddest Michael Caine moment: in the Get Carter remake, when Sly delivers Carter's classic "you're a big man, but you're in bad shape" speech back to an aging Caine. stfu Sly!

But on a Caine/Stallone tip, I'll rep for Escape To Victory as a fun afternoon.