Pinsent Forever

I've yet to meet a single person who hasn't thought that Gordon Pinsent is just about one of the best things to ever come out of Newfoundland. He's 76 years old and he's one of those guys you wish you could clone or find something to de-age him about 30 years. Sort of like with Sean Connery, Clint Eastwood and Morgan Freeman. I can watch them forever. It'll be tragic when the day comes where I can't see new stuff from them anymore.



I know Pinsent's not planning on going anywhere anytime soon. And I love that even after that fainting spell at the Toronto Film Festival he has no plans to slow down or give up working. Good on him.

But here are the two best things I've read about that incident. First there is this story from the CBC relaying how embarrassed he was about it, which would ordinarily be enough. But he's also dismayed because it took away some of the attention from Sarah Polley's big night and her film, which he was helping to promote.

See, class guy.

Then there's this bit, which I found interesting. In the Toronto Star there is an article about the movie Pinsent stars in – Away From Her. Aside from the fact that it's expected to win a few awards at the film festival, Pinsent and his co-star Julie Christie are being "touted as possible Oscar nominees for their performances."

Speculating on Oscar nominations in September is a mug's game for the most part. The only thing that's determined about the Oscars in September is that movies the studios thought were contenders normally flame out and die (see, I suspect, All the King's Men starring Sean Penn, which is getting terrible early review). And the last time Pinsent was in a movie with "Oscar Buzz" was The Shipping News, which as you may recall, didn't meet with a whole lot of critical or financial success.

But hell, Pinsent was the best thing in The Shipping News and I wrote at the time that he deserved an Oscar nod for supporting actor. Foolish in retrospect, maybe. But I thought he was a lot of fun.

Obviously I haven't see Away From Her yet, and while the subject material – a man fighting to hold onto his wife of 40 years who is suffering Alzheimer's disease – doesn't sound like the kind of thing I normally rush out to the cinemas to see, I home it comes to Iqaluit.

And I hope to see Pinsent walking down the red carpet come Oscar night...