As I may have mentioned a time or three, Haley Joel Osment has a movie coming out in September entitled Secondhand Lions. Now, a while back, Jack Batty and I clashed a bit over HJO’s acting abilities. Said I, “Let’s you and I check back after his voice changes and see if either of us has changed our opinion.” Well, this is an interview, with only a mini-trailer at the end, but FWIW, the voice has definitely changed. 
Cool, I wondered what the hell happened to HJO, haven’t seen him in any films for a long time. I still think he got cheated out of an Oscar for A.I. – hell, he didn’t even get nominated.
I saw a trailer for the new film–it co-stars Robert Duvall & Michael Caine (they’re HJO’s uncles). Hard to tell yet, but it could be quite fun. We’ll see. At least nice to say that the kid isn’t taking crap assignments just to keep working.
Bit of a hijack, but one thing I noticed about the trailer: it seemed to be set in the 1950s, maybe early sixties (the cars, style of dress, Duvall and McCain’s characters are rumored to be retired bank robbers from the '30s). But at one point, you see them in a biplane, blowing past a cop with a radar gun. Did they have those in the 50s?
Ah, well… your question in itself describes the very crux of the movie.
Actually, he had a few crap movies to get out of the way before this: The Country Bears, Hunchback of Notre Dame 2, and Jungle Book 2, but because of the way animation and animatronics works, he recorded the voiceovers something like two years before they were released. Then he had to promote them, and everyone had a good laugh at how different he sounded. But now that he’s discharged his obligations, he can get down to some real work!
GuanoLad: What do you mean by that? It does take place in the '50s, except for the bookends with HJO’s character as an adult.
The idea behind the story is that the two Uncles tell tall tales about themselves, and in the end you’re not sure if they were true or not. So things like anachronisms are part of the mystery.
Oh. Okay then!
I think the gist of our disagreement is that I saw his performance in Pay it Forward as weak.
Unfortunately I’m still a dial up dork so I’ll have to wait for them to start running the trailer on TV before I can comment on this one.
Hey, I hope he kicks ass in it.
Well, I hope you’ll be pleasantly surprised!
Now that I’ve seen the movie, I can clear this up. The scene with the radar gun takes place in the present day, so to speak, when HJO’s character is an adult and the uncles are old old. So no anachronism, no mystery.
How’s the movie, though?
My draw is primarily Michael Caine, but a review would be good.
I want to see this movie for Caine and Duvall, but I have to admit, hearing interviews with HJO on the radio makes me wonder if the room is filled with helium. The boy has definately entered the awkward stage.
FWIW, Ebert gives it three stars
suntimes.com/output/ebert1/wkp-news-lions19f.html
Thanks, norinew. Actually, I’ve already done a circuit of the Official Reviews. I was looking more for personal opinions from real people…you know what I mean? That kind of thing.
You must be hearing clips from the movie, or old reviews. All the interviews I’ve seen recently have shown that he is well past the awkward stage. Check the link in the OP, frex.
frex? hah?
Frex = For example.
Anyway, now that I have time to expound on this…
I’ve been checking the reviews of this movie, and there is a lot of criticism of HJO’s performance. I tend to think that the critics are judging his performance against portrayals of typical pubescent-male characters. Generally, such characters appear only in strictly teenybopper movies, which get glossed over by critics with no particular attention to any one actor, or they appear in comedies or suspense movies.
In comedies, a male character that age can usually be described by his personality flaw. “Punk”, “Spoiled Brat”, “Doofus”, or whatever. This is played broadly, for laughs, for 75% of the film, and then usually he’s given that one chance to man up, which he does, and then drops every other characteristic and becomes conservative. In suspense movies, such a character would probably be static: he would start out creepy or violent or sullen, and then stay that way until he gets killed.
This movie is neither of these, though. I thought Walter was an excellent character, both as written and as played. He starts out withdrawn, but more wary than resentful: he’s too beat-down to be sullen. He’s just pathetic enough to make you feel bad for him, but not so much so that you want to smack him. (Well, I didn’t…) The growth of his character depends on his interaction with the two men, which comes off well. There’s a scene where the three of them, without actually saying the words, agree that “From now on, it’s gonna be just us men!”
Walter doesn’t get one big dramatic scene where he leaps from boy to man; it’s a matter of his being given a lot of small chances and being guided through a subtle change. I honestly don’t know what that one review who called HJO’s performance “wooden” was looking for. Nobody can radiate “happy” like he does. And check his last scene. The character has clearly matured, and it’s been built up to gradually enough to be believeable.