<\/a><\/p>\nSo the question becomes a sort of \u2018why now?\u2019 I have watched so many movies starring one or both of them \u2013 this is the part where the writer notes they romanced each other in Aaron Sorkin\u2019s West Wing training ground The American President \u2013 that it probably should have taken less than two decades to realize. Neither performer ever seemed truly uncool to me, but they didn\u2019t necessarily seem cool either. Time changed that, because time changes all.<\/p>\n
Reading the metaphorical tea leaves, it seems as though Bening is the one seen as the more interesting of the two, the one who will be embraced by my generation for longer*. Douglas is too old Hollywood; he\u2019s a legacy star who is so representative of the old world that he\u2019ll never be interesting to us millennials. Bening on the other hand is only old Hollywood adjacent: she\u2019s married to Warren Beatty, but to people of my age, Beatty has gone from Clyde Barrow to the guy with the envelope (and Bening was not present that evening for a cutaway during the chaos). She also simply seems like a thoroughly cool woman; I am confident that if given the chance to spend an hour with Douglas and Bening separately, I would find the old Hollywood questions I get to ask Douglas more interesting, but I would ultimately enjoy talking with Bening more.<\/p>\n
*Admittedly, it helps that Bening is fourteen years younger.<\/em><\/p>\nThere is a certain kind of appeal to an actor who is simply able to be present, one who never lets you down. Being comfortable in their pervasive talents can only come from years and years of avoiding your scorn; but by never becoming bad, these consistently wonderful performers never become properly recognized for their work. Take the aforementioned star of Danny Collins: Pacino\u2019s career features some performances I out and out dislike, so I\u2019m able to properly appreciate the ones where he succeeds. (It is here where I shall note that both Bening and Douglas have a plethora of bad movies on their filmographies, including some bad movies where they might give bad performances. The catch is they were always consistently good in the movies I actually saw them in. I\u2019m not going to see a late career Rob Reiner film, as such And So It Goes\u2026 remains uncritiqued and I remain unaffected. That said, I assume Michael Douglas was fantastic in it.) It is Bening and Douglas\u2019 persistent skill that ends up making them seem less obviously fantastic, even though they are obviously fantastic.<\/p>\n
It is certainly key to reiterate that each of these actors were prominent members of the ensemble cast filling up the never-ending string of movies I was watching throughout my youth. I generally consider the turn of the millennium as the most important period of filmmaking to building whoever the simulacrum\/person who is writing this piece became, and both Bening and Douglas were there constantly at that time. They were omnipresent, and even before I saw their work I knew they were both meant to be seen as important. Only after decades of existence have I begun to accept them as not only a part of my filmgoing life, but a part of my filmgoing life that only gets more and more valuable as years pass and I realize how interesting and important what they provide me with has been. Film has become more knowable, so the minute number of stars that remain to intrigue me become more important. Better it happen now, because one day they\u2019ll be gone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Alex writes a belated appreciation of Michael Douglas and Annette Bening.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5853,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[578,1374,614],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/themacguffinmen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5852"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/themacguffinmen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/themacguffinmen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/themacguffinmen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/themacguffinmen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5852"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/themacguffinmen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5852\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5859,"href":"http:\/\/themacguffinmen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5852\/revisions\/5859"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/themacguffinmen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/themacguffinmen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/themacguffinmen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/themacguffinmen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}