Teach me about Acting vs. Hammy Acting (Frost/Nixon --- SPOILERS)

[UTUSN]

I'm not a movie appreciator. A decade can go by without my stepping inside a theater. Part of my problem with movies is that I have a high threshold of disbelief---I canNOT get INto any movie where giant lizards (or insert whatever beast here) are chasing an attractive couple, or where an attractive couple haven't convinced me that their intense concern about (insert WHATEVER here) is justified compared to, say, real life human inhumanity.

I'm not a Ron HOWARD fan. His subjects are "neh" to me --Apollo 13, Coocoon, Da Vinci Code. And his saying that he actually VOTED for NIXON didn't help here.

Now because of the politics and having been glued to the Watergate hearings and my hating NIXON, I was moderately drawn.

SPOILERS COMMENCE: The biggest initial surprises for me were to see the (in)famous names like Swifty LAZAR and Diane SAWYER being portrayed. The financial cravenness of the debate deal for Swifty and Tricky. But SAWYER is SO rehabilitated now, Mrs Mike NICHOLS (who, IMDb says, tried to do this movie himself), being SO smarmy and debatably sympathetic now, that I was surprised that the minor/cardboard impersonation was that of what we Tricky-haters thought of her at the beginning of her career, that she was a NIXON robot. In this movie, her non-speaking background role was more like a zombie---being happy-faced to Tricky and registering disappointment when he screwed up.

That said, with LANGELLA, give me an Acting Appreciation short course here. Tricky himself always had an EDGE even when he was other things, such as pompous and pathetic. LANGELLA's Tricky is just too HAMMY!1 What am I missing?!1 Plus, what am I supposed to feel, since my detestation of Tricky will be (my) life long, as much as for Shrub and Poppy. Tricky is just NOT TRAGIC, he's PATHETIC!1 So, when LANGELLA gets to the hammy poor-Tricky part, it's just NOT THERE.

As for the dude playing FROST, well, The Queen was recently on t.v. (I wouldn't have seen it otherwise), and this dude played Tony BLAIR, and is his acting supposed to be restrained, or is he just a lightweight playing lightweight dudes?!1 I acknowledge that these actors' subtlety might be going WAY over my own LIGHTWEIGHT head. Plus, did the real FROST really not get down to studying hard until the last interview? Talk about deadline-fatigue or whatever you call it when you wait to the last minute.

I thought it amusing that "cheeseburger" might be an attempt at "rosebud," although it wasn't the last word. I am perfectly willing to be educated and excoriated on this topic, if not many others!1