 |
| Breathing out of the wrong eyelid |
--Chris Reeder, "Top 5 Ways I Judge People," Daily Affirmations with Chris Reeder (2013)
So, now I'm quoting myself? My future self? Posts I haven't written yet? How very end of Back to the Future. Where we're going, we don't need roads. Or plutonium either. Well, say what you will about bloggers. This one just gave you a glimpse into the future. I'd like to see Hyperbole and a Half pull that off. You're welcome.
You know, I could never act. If by "act" you mean something other than standing on stage or in front of a camera and clearly recite a line when cued. I mean, I can do that, but not much else. Which, now that I think about it, would put me light years ahead of Keanu Reeves. So I take it back. I could totally act. But anyway, I've got one thing over TONS of guys who make bazillions in the cinema...I can throw a ball properly. I could run to first. I could swing a bat, catch a football, shoot a free throw. In other words, just like millions of American boys and girls, I could do something on camera or stage that lots of he-man macho action stars cannot. Without looking like a goldfish out of its bowl flopping on your floor. Or Bieber.
What the hell, man? Doesn't everyone learn how to do this stuff in PE class? Isn't there some law that schools have to teach kids how to throw a ball? But watching a lot of movies these last few years, I'm not so sure. A lot of these guys look like they learned how to act at Julliard. A lot of them also looked like that's where they learned how to play ball. Oy.
A performance, whether a movie or on stage, requires the audience to make a certain suspension of disbelief. Intellectually, we know that Luke Skywalker didn't really have a light saber battle with Darth Vader. That Sylvester Stallone and Carl Weathers weren't really boxing. The cops aren't really shooting the bad guys at the end. Tom Cruise and Kelly McGillis weren't really having sex. (Yeah, we really knew that one; those two made Will and Grace look like a smokin' hot couple). But they act well enough and the scenery, props, costumes, and so forth look sufficiently real that we can set that fact aside and enjoy the performance. So if its a movie about a race car driver, using a few real race cars makes the movie more believable and the acting more realistic. If its a World War Two movie, making it in Europe or somewhere that looks like Europe generally beats making it in the Hollywood hills. See what I mean?
That same suspension of disbelief idea applies to the actors and the acting as well. Neil Patrick Harris could probably act the hell out if it, but he ain't gonna be the next James Bond. Laura Linney's in everything, I know, but she's not starring in A Raisin In the Sun anytime soon. Jason Alexander's not playing the President of the United States. Its just too jarring. They can deliver the lines and make the right gestures, but your mind just can't set aside the fact that that's not at all believable. Its the same problem I have watching nearly any movie about a trial. I can never get past the fact that the actions occurring in the movie trial could never occur in a real trial. I assume doctors and police officers have similar reactions to crime shows and medical dramas.
This applies not only to the actor's general personality, but his or her body control and movement. A wooden, laconic actor who just stands there and recites the lines (like they mostly did before Brando), just never can bridge the gap to make you think that character is a real person doing real things. Cough!! [Kevin Costner] Cough!!
And nowhere does physicality become more an issue than in movies about athletes or other stories where the physical scenes dominate the plot. John Wayne could ride the hell out of a horse and make you believe he was really a cowboy. Kirk Douglas seemed like he was a gladiator in Spartacus. Errol Flynn could really wield a sword and make you think he was a pirate. DeNiro, who of course was a great actor (before he cashed in, signed "Meet the Fockers"), absolutely looked like a boxer in Raging Bull. Newman absolutely was a pool hustler in The Hustler. The second greatest action scene in movie history is the chariot race in Ben Hur (first is D-Day in Saving Private Ryan, obvs). Charlton Heston performed nearly every second of his character's scenes. Had he not, had it been some chopped up, close frame sequence, that central part of the movie would have fallen flat. Now days, I suppose they could have used CGI or a bunch of close-up and cut away shots to achieve a similar effect, but nothing tops the actor really performing the actions the script describes.
Movies about athletes or that involve athletic events really put a premium on finding performers who can actually do the movements their characters perform. Yet, time after time, Hollywood casts actors in these roles that simply cannot master their characters' athletic movements. Which totally ruins the movie. If I'm going to invest two hours and a small fortune to watch a movie about a baseball player, said player should at least be able to swing a bat as well as I can. Otherwise it just screams "FAKE!!" and what's the fun of that?
So, these people below really owe us our collective ticket price back. Their pansy, slip shod, two left feet athletic performances reached unparalleled heights of putrescence in these movies. Its almost like you wonder how they make it out to their car every morning they're so atrociously uncoordinated.
5. Michael J. Fox in Teen Wolf. Hmm, a movie about a high school kid who plays basketball and becomes a wolf. No problem! Hire a guy 5'3" guy who the girls will think is cute. Just because you're short doesn't mean you can't ball. The NBA has seen plenty of "undersized" stars. So its not so much his height as his complete and utter lack of game. I've seen three year olds whose mothers hand them the ball to play Pop A Shot at Dave and Busters who have better skillz. My friends' sweet little girl Nina, all of 10 years old, could totally have posted up MJFox in that movie and dunk on foolz. Nice casting. Oh, and nice touch having the fat kid who played Francis in Pee Wee's Big Adventure playing on the same team. Guess he had to have something to do once he got rid of PW's bike. What, they couldn't get Screech to play power forward?
4. John Goodman in The Babe. This was just...not good. Goodman is a gifted, versatile actor who's given many compelling performances. But this was just embarrassing. Basically he looks like a natural right handed hitter trying to hit left handed. And not very well. He twisted his entire body and swung from his arms, clearly going over the top of the ball. I've seen kids whacking piñatas with greater authority. At least it didn't detract from the movie. Uh, as far as I know, 'cause I had to watch paint dry that day.
3. Tom Cruise in War of the Worlds. Not really about an athlete, but he has to throw a baseball. And holy crap, is that ever horrific? That kid who he's throwing with could barely hide his embarrassment. Tom's couch dancing on Oprah thought that was shameful.
2. Tom Cruise running...in every movie he ever made. I know, I know, we're all wrong about, you know...that. But good Lord man. If you run like the FTD floral delivery guy, you should probably take more roles where you sit behind a desk. Or wear underwear and lip synch to Bob Seger. Kind of like how Brando did in Streetcar....
1. Tim Robbins in Bull Durham. The Olivier's Hamlet of bad athletic performances. Robbins, as you know, plays Eppy Calvin "Nook" LaLoosh, a pitching phenom with a million dollar arm and a 10 cent head. Yet, Robbins absolutely cannot throw a ball, much less look even remotely like a professional athlete. His "windup" resembles an epileptic seizure, or Marty's interpretive dance in The Big Lebowski. He scrunches his face like Kermit the Frog watching a cock fight, he looks behind himself as if he were Luis Tiant (which, he was not), his legs and arms are on two totally different schedules, and his arm motion looks more like he's a bowler in cricket than a baseball pitcher. Definitely NOT the way to announce your presence with authority. I guess in some ways its a little unfair to criticize him. He's playing against Costner, who though generally a wooden actor, plays baseball far better than he acts. He handles the non-baseball scenes quite well, nailing the idiotic, self-absorbed, unjustifiably proud pro athlete character. And, Tim Robbins has given several outstanding acting performances in highly acclaimed movies. But...he wasn't balling out in those movies. Kind of like he's not doing that in Bull Durham either. The rose goes in front, big guy.
Honorable Mention: how could I leave out the Top Gun volleyball scene? Its not that they lack any acting or athletic ability. Its just that if I wanted to watch gay porn, I'd have just gone to the SXSW Film Festival. Playing With the Boys indeed. "El cine es la lengua universal."
NEXT-Top 5 Willy Wonka characters. And I mean the 1971 Gene Wilder movie, not the source book or the Johnny Depp playing Michael Jackson remake. "I want an Oompa Loompa NOW!!!!!"
No comments:
Post a Comment