Movie
King of winter movie season
The winter movie season is a time when treasures are often thrown away. It starts with an increasingly lavish feast of prestigious awards nominees and holiday films, but as January approaches and despite very low expectations (though there are exceptions) studios move scraps and leftovers into theaters.
King of winter movie season
The winter movie season is a time when treasures are often thrown away. It starts with an increasingly lavish feast of prestigious awards nominees and holiday films, but as January approaches and despite very low expectations (though there are exceptions) studios move scraps and leftovers into theaters. Exit. It takes a special kind of actor, perhaps one with “very special skills,” to successfully cover the scope of these films, and Liam Neeson has what it takes.
After 40 years of continuous work in the film industry, Neeson has won numerous awards and fans. He has been nominated for prestigious awards including the Oscar, BAFTA and Golden Globe, and was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II in 2000. Yet there’s not a whole lot that connects his films, other than his presence in them. He doesn’t restrict himself to any one genre or one type of character. He’s done superhero films, biopics, romantic comedies, gritty indies, period drama, and, especially in the wake of Taken, a fair amount of action thrillers. With so many of them having come out in the period between December and February, we’re anointing him the king of the weirdest time of the year at the multiplex.
Schindler’s List
Steven Spielberg’s holocaust epic Schindler’s List transformed Neeson from a character actor into a leading man of star quality. He had already given excellent performances in films like The Mission, Suspect, and Under Suspicion, not to mention the Sam Raimi-directed cult favorite Darkman, but his prominent role as Oskar Schindler took him to the next level. With an old-fashioned polish that recalled matinee idols of the 1940s he fit right into the black-and-white, industrial backdrop of World War II Krakow. The December release was timed as a bid for Academy Awards gold, and it worked. Schindler’s List won seven Oscars, including Best Picture, but Neeson had to settle for runner up to Tom Hanks, who won Best Actor for Philadelphia. It was the closest Neeson has come to a statue, but we’re not writing him off just yet. The film’s success would sustain him through the next few decades of his career, and allow him the freedom to pick and choose the roles he wanted to take on.
The Grey
One might wonder if at some point during the filming of The Grey, Liam Neeson regretted doing Taken and embarking on the action star phase. Without Taken, he might not have had to shivering in the freezing cold while starring in Joe Carnahan’s Iceman vs. Wolf thriller. But this is Neeson at his toughest, and his charm never diminishes as his character guides plane crash survivors into the Alaskan wilderness while deftly dodging wolves and the weather. The only thing they can’t escape is the existential fear that comes with mortality. This is his January movie that’s perfect to watch when you’re feeling hungover after weeks of holiday movies or enjoying Christmas.
A Monster Calls and Silence
No, that’s not a mistake. In December of 2016, two films featuring Liam Neeson came out on the same day. Well, sort of. Neeson only appears briefly as himself in A Monster Calls, in a photograph showing the grandfather of the central character, a boy named Conor who is struggling with his mother’s fatal illness. Neeson also provided the voice and motion capture for the monster in the title, a creature in the form of a yew tree who visits Conor and tells him stories. The film shared a U.S. release date with a very different film, Scorsese’s Silence, in which he once again casts Neeson in a supporting role that carries some weight. Here, he plays an apostate priest living in 17th century Japan. Neither of the films were commercially successful, but Neeson is effective in both of them. The fluke of timing is also a point in favor of the argument that he’s become a fixture of the season.
Cold Pursuit
If there’s one movie that cemented Neeson’s status as the Winter King, it’s Cold Pursuit. Originally titled Hard Powder, it is based on the 2014 Norwegian film and follows the same template as many of Neeson’s post-Taken era films. In other words, I fucked the wrong humble middle-aged man. In this one he’s a snowplow driver who goes on a killing spree to avenge the death of his son at the hands of a drug cartel. It’s a snowy showcase for Neeson’s talents and the wry sense of humor of director Hans Petter Moland (who also directed the Norwegian original), which elevate the story from the kind of by-the-numbers action flicks we’ve seen so many times by this point, from Neeson and others.
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