(Pubicly) Overly Pretentious Actors

[m***@yahoo.com]

There's a thread here about the worst movie you ever sat all the way
through. For me it was easy--Bowfinger. I kept sitting there in 1999
like some slackjawed idiot waiting for this critical hit to make me
laugh ONCE. ONCE.

I realize Steve Martin and Claire Danes belong on ramcf. I posted here
because I wanted to ask exactly how and when this pompous windbag
Martin got so much cache that anything he's associated with is an
automatic "oeuvre."

[Vinny Badabing]

Pompous is just a part of his persona. But even if it weren't, the guy
can write, act, sing, dance, juggle, do standup, and play the banjo.

It's a rule in showbiz; If you can do three of those things well,
you're allowed a little pomposity.

So, I'd cut him a break.

~Vinny

[Loretty]

Post by m***@yahoo.com
There's a thread here about the worst movie you ever sat all the way
through. For me it was easy--Bowfinger. I kept sitting there in 1999
like some slackjawed idiot waiting for this critical hit to make me
laugh ONCE. ONCE.
I realize Steve Martin and Claire Danes belong on ramcf. I posted here
because I wanted to ask exactly how and when this pompous windbag
Martin got so much cache that anything he's associated with is an
automatic "oeuvre."

Oh, I like this movie. "I must get my ummmmmm-----brrelllll----aaaaa."

[tomcervo]

"I realize Steve Martin and Claire Danes belong on ramcf. I posted
here
because I wanted to ask exactly how and when this pompous windbag
Martin got so much cache that anything he's associated with is an
automatic "oeuvre."

Ever see him live?
He's f*cking funny. Him, alone on a stage, in front of a live crowd--no
edits, no cuts. It's not pretentious if you can do it.

[Joe McC]

Thrice nay....Martin has made his bones too many times - guy is funnnneee.

You'd do better to focus on the story told many years ago by a journalist
from Empire magazine in the UK about the arrangements for a interview
with a well known English actor:

Actor's PA: "He's awfully shy, you know - doesn't like any attention or
fuss"

Journo: "We could meet somewhere genteel & private if he'd prefer"

Actor's PA: " OK, book a suite at the Savoy & meet him in the main lobby
around 3pm? But please - keep it all low key? He'd be
mortified if there were cameras or attention drawn to
him"

Savoy 3pm: Enter Jeremy Irons in jodhpurs, garish smoking jacket and
wide brim fedora, posing at length in the middle of
the
lobby, legs apart and arms akimbo.

Joe

[m***@yahoo.com]

Post by Joe McC
You'd do better to focus on the story told many years ago by a journalist
from Empire magazine in the UK about the arrangements for a interview

[SNIP]

Post by Joe McC
Savoy 3pm: Enter Jeremy Irons in jodhpurs, garish smoking jacket and
wide brim fedora, posing at length in the middle of
the
lobby, legs apart and arms akimbo.

There's a subcategory of publicly overly pretentious actors: possibly
psychopathic overly pretentious actors. DeadRingers, Damage, Reversal
of Fortune, etc.: when a dude repeatedly chooses psychopathic roles,
well, the actor doesn't fall far from the tree. John Malkovich, James
Spader, and even Christopher Walken fit this category.

But then there's just plain pompous windbags, and ever since All of Me,
which had ONE comic scene, I haven't been even mildly entertained by
Martin. I liked The Spanish Prisoner because it was the 90's and you
had to like *something* if you wanted to survive that decade, but it
seems starring in a David Mamet movie in the 90's qualified you for
membership in the Pompous Windbag Club, 'cause after The Spanish
Prisoner, he made the piece of shit Bowfinger.

[Vinny Badabing]

Post by m***@yahoo.com
and even Christopher Walken fit this category

"I've got a fever and the only prescription is more cowbell!"

Sorry, I've got to disagree again. Christopher Walken is very funny,
and a helluva hoofer.

Post by m***@yahoo.com
and ever since All of Me, which had ONE comic scene...

Wrong again. ALL OF ME has a LOT of comic scenes. (Back in bowl! is my
favorite)

Post by m***@yahoo.com
when a dude repeatedly chooses psychopathic roles, well, the actor doesn't fall far from the tree

Boris Karloff? Vincent Price? Christopher Lee?

Wow, I don't agree with anything you say!

~Vinny

[m***@yahoo.com]

Post by Vinny Badabing
Boris Karloff? Vincent Price? Christopher Lee?
Wow, I don't agree with anything you say!

Naw, they weren't psychopaths, they just played in a type of film we're
too sophisticated for these days, and I don't think they cultivated an
image in real life as badasses, or at least badasses of the type you
think of when you hear the name Malkovich. He's a sick son of a bitch.

[Vinny Badabing]

Malkovich is bizarre, to be sure. He's pro-death penalty and has
threatened to kill a Member of Paliament. To be fair, actors like
Charlton Heston, Marlon Brando, and Frank Sinatra have all exhibited
equally strange behavior.

AND, I don't really find him to be pretentious. He's not a "poser", I
think he really does like reading Shakespeare and touring the French
countryside. Pretentious people do it just to brag. Malkovich isn't in
that category.

~Vinny

[m***@yahoo.com]

Post by Vinny Badabing
Malkovich is bizarre, to be sure. He's pro-death penalty and has
threatened to kill a Member of Paliament. To be fair, actors like
Charlton Heston, Marlon Brando, and Frank Sinatra have all exhibited
equally strange behavior.
AND, I don't really find him to be pretentious. He's not a "poser", I
think he really does like reading Shakespeare and touring the French
countryside. Pretentious people do it just to brag. Malkovich isn't in
that category.

Don't you think most of the older actors you've mentioned (Heston,
Sinatra, and the guys from the horror genre) have been weird or
saturnine or bullying in a stagey way? The contemporary actors I'm
talking about seem to actively want either a negative public image or a
publicly pretentious image, or both, whereas the older guys seemed to
act in antisocial ways more as a reaction to their celebrity rather
than to cultivate absolute indifference to the audiences who have made
them rich.

I disagree about your definition pretentious, Vinny. Even in Malkovich
and his ilk read Shakespeare and tour the French countryside because
they're sincerely interested in "culture"--well, see, that's my
definition of pretentious--if you do this kind of thing exclusively.
Hell, I love the French countryside too. I despise Shakespeare with
every bone and piece of marrow, but I don't mind a John Donne poem now
and again. My point is, Can you see that asshole Malkovich or Johnny
Depp or Steve Martin sitting down and renting (what's the latest Great
Unwashed DVD releases) Skeleton Key? Do you think they do *anything*
in public that isn't premeditated to enhance their above-it-allness?

I sure as heck don't.

[Peter Meilinger]

Post by Vinny Badabing

Post by m***@yahoo.com
and even Christopher Walken fit this category

"I've got a fever and the only prescription is more cowbell!"
Sorry, I've got to disagree again. Christopher Walken is very funny,
and a helluva hoofer.

And given some of the roles he's taken, there's no way he takes
himself too seriously.

Pete

[m***@yahoo.com]

Post by Peter Meilinger
And given some of the roles he's taken, there's no way he takes
himself too seriously.

I'd agree with you guys if Walken didn't start to shed this image as
questions about Natalie Wood's death persisted and grew throughout the
80's. I don't expect a gentleman to go public with painful secrets,
but I don't think there would have been anything wrong with him
confirming or denying, however tacitly, that they all were doing drugs
on that boat that night, or that he did--or didn't--goad Robert Wagner.
He could implicate himself in a way that wouldn't necessarily hurt the
reputations either of Wood or of Wagner.

Every time I see him be "just folks" on an interview show, I think of
Wood's death. Death by drowning is one of the worst kinds of violent
deaths I can imagine.

[Dave in Toronto]

mutefan

Post by m***@yahoo.com
Every time I see him be "just folks" on an interview show, I think of
Wood's death. Death by drowning is one of the worst kinds of violent
deaths I can imagine.

Actually as deaths go I've heard it's quite pleasant. People who have
almost drowned but have been rescued in the nick of time usually
describe reaching a sort of euphoria.

Dennis Hopper was on the Dave Letterman show talking about "Rebel
Without a Cause" and it's cast members. When he told how Natalie had
dyed by "falling off a boat" he started to laugh - "I can see you're
stll cut up by that" said Letterman drily.

I don't know whether that makes Hopper supremely honest,sick or just
plain weird.

Dave in Toronto.

[m***@yahoo.com]

Post by Dave in Toronto
Actually as deaths go I've heard it's quite pleasant. People who have
almost drowned but have been rescued in the nick of time usually
describe reaching a sort of euphoria.
Dennis Hopper was on the Dave Letterman show talking about "Rebel
Without a Cause" and it's cast members. When he told how Natalie had
dyed by "falling off a boat" he started to laugh - "I can see you're
stll cut up by that" said Letterman drily.
I don't know whether that makes Hopper supremely honest,sick or just
plain weird.

Surely Hopper did this in pre "E-Ring" days? This interview wasn't
recent (not that E-Ring will be around long anyway)?

As for drowning, which I nearly accomplished too, well I suppose you
have to have been there to know what it's like.

[Stephen Grossman]

In article <dl15u3$8nc$***@news3.bu.edu>, Peter Meilinger <***@bu.edu> wrote:

Christopher Walken is very funny,

The Continental, on SNL, is very funny.

but he is a tad weird

[Stephen Cooke]

Post by Vinny Badabing
Christopher Walken is very funny,
The Continental, on SNL, is very funny.
but he is a tad weird

I've got Next Stop, Greenwich Village sitting here, one of his earliest
roles. I'm curious to see it...

swac
Nice Shelley Winters turn too, so I gather.