De Niro v. Hoffman: Battle of the Best

As my family is wont to do, this past weekend we got into a discussion about who the greater actor is, Dustin Hoffman or Robert De Niro. My parents were adamant that Hoffman is superior, while my brother and I were steadfast that you’ve gotta go with Bob, end of story. My argument essentially boiled down to two main factors: De Niro’s peak was better than Hoffman’s, and his longevity (before schlock like “Rocky and Bullwinkle”) surpassed Hoffman’s.

One of my favorite baseball writers, Jay Jaffe, developed a score system called JAWS. Very simply (perhaps inelegantly) put, JAWS looks at a baseball player’s career WAR (Wins Above Replacement), as well as his peak seven seasons. What Jaffe is interested in is the player’s total career, as well as the standout seasons that made the player great. While I’m not a statistician or well-versed in sabermetrics, I’m going to (very loosely) apply his methodology to, again, show, that De Niro surpasses Hoffman. Now, I know that some people may choose Rotten Tomatoes scores, Oscar nominations, and the like to award “points” to each actor, and deduct said “points” for box-office flops or just bad performances. This is my blog. I’m not coming up with a fancy system. I’m just coming up with proof to show I’m right, by comparing the two actors’ IMDB resumes. Without further ado, De Niro v. Hoffman

Another day, another sequel (UK Office Edition)

Reports have surfaced that there will now be a standalone film sequel to the UK version of The Office. The movie will show Ricky Gervais’s character fifteen years after he’s left Slough, and will be a sort of “where are they now?”

While I’m sure Mr. Gervais can wring some humour out of more David Brent, the question is do we want to see it? For my money, this ending was pitch-perfect:

Seth Meyers had Ricky Gervais on his show recently, and even complimented him on ending “The Office” perfectly. So why go back to the well, other than a cash grab? Is there really more story to tell?

Parenthetically, I found the American version to be lacking in quality as soon as Jim and Pam got together. Three seasons of build-up led to a fantastic moment:

But the last few seasons had diminishing returns, in part because the tension between Jim and Pam was gone…until they shoe-horned in unnecessary drama for the last season.

So, now what? Will we see Tim and Dawn having issues? Will Gareth be a featured player? Or will this sequel be 90 minutes of David Brent? None of these sound particularly intriguing to me (Ed. Note: Yes, I know he has revived the David Brent character before. Short, Youtube-only videos don’t seem to be the same thing as a full-blown movie, or even another TV special, at least in my opinion). This may warrant a longer post down the road, but I wish I could call a moratorium on sequels, at least for a little while. While some sequels can outdo the original (Empire Strikes Back, Godfather Part II, X-2 – gosh, who ever puts those three movies together in a sentence?), they are exceptions proving the rule.

Of course, the irony of all of this is that David Brent never, ever, ever knew when to leave well enough alone. I loved the UK version’s awkward and cringe-worthy humor. I just don’t want to be cringing in a movie theater, wishing they had followed the advice of some other famous Brits and simply let it be.