I certainly wouldn’t argue that Robin Givens wasn’t hot, but that Halle Barry doesn’t come even close to a plain jane role, so Eddie Murphy isn’t exactly showing any improvement in maturity in selecting Berry over Givens. I tend to think of Whoppie Goldberg in Berry’s role.
Heh. The UL for the Pirates 4 casting call is that they specifically required no plastic surgery and no fake boobs.
Hollywood logic, not real world logic, of course, as anyone who saw that movie could tell that even as pretty as Givens was (and still is), Berry was (and is) much prettier.
I’m afraid I can’t provide a cite so I’m only going by my foggy memory of what I remember reading about the movie before it came out. The original script was called “I Am Jane” and was to tell the Tarzan story from her feminist perspective. The finished product still gave Jane more screen time but severely altered the story to fit Mrs. Derek’s “talents” and put Tarzan’s name back in the title.
It’s still an interesting approach to the Tarzan story. However, the Burroughs family is notoriously touchy about treatments of Edgar’s most famous creation (as the Dereks found out when they made their craptastic version in 1981). If somebody like, for example, Alan Moore wanted to deconstruct the story, I would advise keeping him to keep his attorney on speed-dial.
Anyway, to keep this thread on topic, I’ve always thought Tom Hanks was only half-right for Road to Perdition. Bruce Willis would’ve been a lot more effective.
Okay, NOW I remember where I read it. It was in an Esquire article previewing the 1981 summer movie season. I also remember the article calling it “the most blatant vanity film project” of the year.
That was a blight, a stain, an abomination.
Way. Not to mention he pretty much sucked. That irritated the shit out of me, and it was very irritating that they made no adjustments for his age and weight at all. I think that was pure vanity. And since Henry VIII is probably the best known king in history, and his fat strawberry blondeness is well known, I can’t imagine what they were thinking. Lame.
Oh my god, you are so right. And nice to see the love for that movie, because it’s a great film. (A favorite moment: “I want to move!” - very interesting choice.)
Well, no. You’re supposed to believe he’s an average, actually pretty nice guy who got drafted into this shit war and had to handle being hooked up with Sean Penn, who was completely believable of course.
Allow me to second that request. Since this is one of my all time favorite films, and I think they were both amazing, absolutely amazing. And I find Lancaster’s performance downright perfect in every particular. I cannot imagine anyone else playing it.
Why? I loved it. I loved the choice of having the less attractive, rougher man be the more appealing one to her.
This still makes my blood boil. KATHY FUCKING BATES originated the role on stage. ARGH!!!
It did sort of work in Titanic, if you told yourself it had to do with how they were raised and all that - she’s upper class prim and proper, he’s a free spirited artist. But it did not work at all for me in Revolutionary Road. At this point in her career, Winslet has this all powerful screen presence that few can stand up to. Formerly a fantastic actress, she seems to overact quite often these days. And DiCaprio can’t match that, he doesn’t have the screen presence or appear to have the stature to balance her on screen. I don’t believe he’s a short guy, but he seems so small on screen compared to her in that movie. And watching the movie, it’s like the two of them were unaware the novel wasn’t set in the present day. Nothing about the two of them said 'mid ‘50s Connecticut’ to me. I had high hopes for the movie, but it was miscast and the acting was emotionless.
Okay, well, I was thinking that Lizzie was supposed to be much younger (Hepburn was in her late 40s), no older than late 20s at the outside. Lancaster was in his early 40s and while I suppose you could have a Starbuck who was younger than Lizzie, it seems wrong: he’s supposed to be the charming con man who’s been around the block a time or three. I’m not saying the performances were bad, although I just can’t buy Hepburn playing a timid woman any more than I can buy Barbra Streisand as a woman who is insecure about her looks (The Mirror Has Two Faces). I think an older Lizzie would have long since accepted the fact that she was not going to get married and would have made her peace with that and wouldn’t even look twice at some pretty-boy traveling salesman. Plus she would know better than to pin all her dreams on some dishonest huckster.
See also The Glass Menagerie and The Music Man.
One of my favorite movies is Victor/Victoria. It’s a scream from start to finish. The dialogue is snappy, the music is fantastic, and Robert Preston is a god. I also happen to adore Julie Andrews. But I can’t see her as sexy. Maybe it’s just too much of a departure from her normal screen personae…I don’t know. But I just couldn’t buy tough guy King Marchand (James Garner) falling for her while she’s in drag.
Even at the height of the draft, you weren’t just randomly drafted into the Marines - Marine recruiters picked the guys they wanted from the line of draftees.
That being said, I don’t really know why I get such a hangup on Michael J. Fox The Marine when I don’t bat an eyelid at Charlie Sheen in Platoon. I think it may have to do with his big scene, when he confronts Sean Penn (who just tried to frag him). He’s supposed to go all out at him with all the rage, despair and frustration in the world; but he comes out as a whiny brat to me, somehow. In spite of the fact I’m (naturally) rooting for him. shrug.
Poker is, for the most part, a young man’s game.
Oooh, good one.
“Inside Man” is a terrific film, very underrated, but Foster is shockingly poor. For such a great actress, she is just unremittingly terrible every moment she’s on screen.
Yeah, because in the real world a guy with a cute, baby-face perched atop a 5’5" could never be a bad-assed marine.
Another example of where Reality Is Unrealistic.
Stephen King once said something very telling about The Shining.
He said that, while Jack Nicholson is a fine actor, he was totally wrong for the role of Jack Torrance. The film is supposed to be about Torrance’s slow descent into madness, as the book was. But, from the moment that you see Nicholson on the screen, you can see that he’s nuts.
I’m inclined to agree with him.
!??!??!?!
Only recently, with the advent of the internet and the super high speed learning curve that it permits. Prior to that, it took a long time to get the experience to be good, and it was grownups that were kicking ass.
What the hell.
Ian McShane as Tai Lung.
Maybe I’ve watched too many episodes of Deadwood but his voice was distracting at best and just flat-out wrong at worst. Odd, because so many of the other voice actors in Kung Fu Panda were perfectly cast.
Tom Hanks wasn’t exactly the Sherman McCoy I pictured from the book; he was too nice and not quite as arrogant or powerful looking. I personally would have cast William Hurt in that role. But Hanks made it work, in a quirky way.
Bruce Willis, however, was horridly miscast. His character in the book was supposed to be a slovenly, pretentious, alcoholic British journalist who hated and looked down on everything about America and New York society specifically.
They also cast the schlubby Saul Rubinek as Assistant D.A. Kramer, a character who was much more featured in the book than in the movie; this character is described as muscular and physically imposing, and balding. In other words, a role that would have been perfect for…Bruce Willis.
You probably have a point about Hepburn’s age; that part in the stage play was played by Geraldine Page, who was 17 years younger than Hepburn. But by that standard, you could only object to Lancaster’s age compared to Hepburn; if the actress had been younger, his age was just right. And for all reasons already mentioned, he was nearly perfect for that role.
Roddy
Maybe so, but Jeffrey Dahmer had to be able to charm people into his apartment.