Thursday, March 14, 2013

Alfie (and Jasper) turn 80

Today is Michael Caine's 80th birthday. As Robbie Collin notes, Caine's career has definitely had its ups and downs in terms of quality, though the late 1960s were certainly a time when he established his iconic status.


But the film I had to think of immediately when I saw the article was a more recent one, the dystopian Children of Men (2006), in which Caine has a brief but important few appearances as 'Jasper', an old-school lefty and marijuana entrepreneur.


Happy Birthday, Sir Michael!

2 comments:

Geoff Coupe said...

Ah, gawd, Michael Caine is just mind-blowingly wonderful in Children of Men.

And he gives good chops in his cameos/character parts in Christopher Nolan's films as well.

Good stuff.

JCWood said...

There are so many good things about Children of Men that it's hard to pick which one to emphasise, but Caine's Jasper is definitely one of them.

When I watched the additional commentary material on the DVD and Slavoj Zizek described the character as essentially an incapable hippie and loser, I found my doubts about his (Zizek's) judgement confirmed.

And, yes, he's an excellent Alfred!