I was going to make a list of ten movie people I'm a fan of, but when I started writing I realised that the finished article would be uncomfortably long. I decided to stop a little less than halfway through, and see if people like it before writing more. I may make this a continuing sub-series here at Imamobi.
I'm trying to focus on people who aren't exactly household names. Bruce Willis is definitely awesome, and a great actor too, but I think he's gotten enough lauds without my humble blog joining in on the choir too.
Without further ado, I give you...
People in the movie industry I'm a fan of, part 1:
 |
| If eyebrows could kill... |
Live-action roles: Total Recall (Richter), Scanners (Darryl Revok), Starship Troopers (Lieutenant Rasczak), Highlander II: The Quickening (General Katana)
Voice roles: Splinter Cell (Sam Fisher), Superman: the Animated Series and Justice League (Darkseid)
Michael Ironside was born to play villains. His distinctive, vicious-looking face and his deep, growly voice make him perfect for any director's B-actor needs. In Scanners, his character uses telepathy to blow up another man's head five minutes into the movie. That's pretty much all you need to know, but I'm going to keep going anyhow.
Aside from his villain roles, Ironside has played military officers in like fifty films. Check out his filmography on IMDB some time, and you'll see at least half his characters have names along the lines of General Badass or Lieutenant Mofo. Heck, he was in both Terminator Salvation and X-Men: First Class as a random navy officer with no personality, just because by this poiny Hollywood knows him as "that guy who looks really authorative in a uniform".
The dude's a decent actor too, aside from his general awesomeness. Watch Scanners some time, and check out how convincing his rage at being compared to his father is.
Quote of choice: I am many things, Kal-El, but here... I am God.
David Cronenberg - Director and writer
 |
| His appearance fits his filmography. |
And speaking of Scanners! David Cronenberg. The undisputed master of body horror in cinema. That scene where Michael Ironside blows up a man's head? That was my first impression of The Terror of Toronto. I was something like ten when I saw that film. Good times.
Cronenberg's 70s and 80s production is a testament to two things: he knows creepy, and he wants to share creepy with you. The Fly is all about making Jeff Goldblum even uglier than he normally is. The effects for that movie are still phenomenal today, and the resraint shown in utilising them is damn near ingenius.
When he isn't doing something that involves a person physically becoming a monster, Cronenberg does a break by making a movie about someone becoming a monster in their mind. Dead Ringers and Spider are great psychological thrillers and character studies, and the lead performances by Jeremy Irons and Ralph Fiennes respectively are damn near perfect.
Nowadays Cronenberg has moved to a more artsy medium, starting with Spider. I've yet to check out most of his 2000s production, but I'm sure to get to it when I've got the time.
While checking the wikipedia article for Cronenberg during the writing of this article, I discovered that he was at one point directing a sequel to Total Recall. I bet it would have starred Michael Ironside as an armless zombie-Richter with psychic powers.
Jeremy Irons - Film, TV, stage and voice actor
Voice roles: The Lion King (Scar)
So yeah, once again I find myself mentioning the next item on the list in the previous entry. Jeremy Irons' portrayal of the identical Mantle twins in Cronenberg's Dead Ringers was insanely good. Not only do the fantastic special effects make it hard to remember that Irons doesn't have a real-life dobbelgänger, but he plays them as fundamentally different people in a very convincing way. A big point of the film is that Elliot and Beverly sometimes switch places and act as each other, and Irons manages to play Elliot who's playing Beverly, and vice versa, without it being obvious or too unnoticeable.
Most people of my generation will know Irons as Scar from The Liong King, though. Such irony in casting a Shakespearean actor in a cartoon adaptation of Hamlet. Aside from being a honestly good dramatic actor, he makes a helluva good hammy villain. Scar is such a complete and utter drama queen, and belongs to that list of classic villains. I don't have much to say about that particular role, but I do have on Die Hard With a Vengeance.
Die Hard 3 (or as I like to call it: Jeremy Irons acts like the smarmiest, most self-satisfied asshole Brit ever for two hours) is my personal favourite in the franchise. Aside from Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson having great chemistry with each other, Jeremy Irons plays one of the best villains ever as Simon Gruber. Die Hard 1 started the craze with intelligent, suave villains, but in my opinion Die Hard 3 perfected it. Simon perfectly balances the elements of being really smart and manipulative, but too sure of himself and underestimating of his enemies. Charismatic, but evil.
I'm seriously considering checking out the fairly recent TV series The Borgias, where Jeremy Irons plays the freaking pope.
Quote of choice: Go back to your room and never... NEVER come back until I call you!
Keith David - Actor and voice actor
 |
| Nice suit. |
Voice roles: Gargoyles (Goliath, Thailog), Coraline (the cat), The Princess and the Frog (Dr. Facilier), Dissidia: Final Fantasy (Chaos), Mass Effect (Captain Anderson)
The man with the second-deepest voice I've ever heard (number one on that regard may yet feature in a future installment of this listing), Keith David sounds like the most badass motherfucker you've ever heard. He mostly works as a voice actor in video games and cartoons nowadays, but being in two John Carpenter movies definitely qualifies him as a Hollywood personality worth knowing of.
They Live! is a movie which is only really memorable for two things. One is the hilarious, adlibbed catch phrase "I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass... and I'm all out of bubblegum." The other is a scene where the main hero (Roddy Piper), wants his friend Frank (Keith David), to put on a special pair of sunglasses. Frank doesn't want to put them on, so the two end up fighting. The original script called for a brawl of one to two minutes, but Piper and David coreographed five minutes of fighting on their own and acted it out. The scene that ended up in the film is insanely hilarious due to its many fake endings and completely unnecessary premise. These two guys are beating the shit out of each other, never giving up, because they disagree about whether Frank should try the sunglasses or not.
David's most notable voice role was his starring role in Disney's animted series Gargoyles (one of my favourite children's cartoons ever, despite the fact that I first heard of it when I was eighteen), which gained a huge cult following and made him a nerd cult icon. For a guy in his fifties, he seems to be a real sport about a bunch of sweaty teenagers worshipping him for voicing a blue adonis, since he has attended Gargoyles conventions and mingled with the fans.
My favourite role by David is definitely in The Princess and the Frog, though. Not only does he play a slimy, conniving witch doctor really well, but he sings "Friends on the Other Side", one of the best villain songs out there. The short featurette Disney released shows how David's physical performance while recording was used for his character's facial moves. They totally copied the gap between his teeth too.
Yeah, he can sing. Can he ever sing!
Quote of choice: "There are several sacred things in this world that you don't ever mess with. One of them happens to be another man's fries. Now you remember that, and you'll live a long and healthy life."
--
Leave a comment, tell me what you thought of the experimentation. I rather liked writing it, and I'll add more people to my list if I get positive feedback.
No comments:
Post a Comment