By far the best work of a screen actor's life

Johnny Drama in Viking Quest

My namesake in take your pick: Karate Kid, Just One of the Guys or Back to School

 

The Cruise call is of interest, in that Stone was recently quoted to the effect that he's sorry he picked Cruise for the role.

 

Straithairn was also in the great Matewan, another John Sayles movie.

Sayles has a group of actors -- some of whom have appeared in total shit -- who always shine in his films.

 

Totally with you on Crowe.

 

Sirs, Madames,

Lee Marvin, The Killers (64)
Ron Reagan, ditto
Michael J Pollard, Bonnie and Clyde
F Murray Abraham, Amadeus
Warren Oates, In the Heat of the Night (Sam)
Diana Scarwid, Inside Moves (truly transcendent performance)
Charlotte Rampling, The Verdict
Ed Harris, William Hurt, (as much as I love them in a lot of things) The History of Violence
Nick Nolte, Dog Soldiers aka Who'll Stop the Rain

YHS, etc

 

Good stuff.... but I'll take Ed Harris as Krantz in Apollo 13 in half a heartbeat over the History of Violence.

 

John Turturro, Miller's Crossing.

Also, Gabriel Byrne in Ghost Ship.

Fuck that. I meant Miller's Crossing.

And Kevin Spacey has been shit since The Usual Suspects, when he was so very good. But hell, that movie even made the fat Baldwin kid awesome. (It would have been Benecio Del Toro's best, too, except he did Traffic, and Byrne's best except that he did, well, you know.)

 

American Beauty is a snowjob movie. I really liked it when I sat watching it, but after, when you pull it apart, and you get past that goddamn plastic bag in the wind bullshit, it's a pretty hateful little movie.

But I loved Road to Perdition, so what do I know?

 

I agree, but Spacey HAS gone Carlos Baerga on us.

 

For me, it's Wilford Brimley as Assistant U.S. Attorney General James A. Wells in "Absence of Malice," especially if you have a category for stealing the movie. Say these quotes and hear his Quaker Oats voice and tell me I'm wrong.



"Tell you what we're gonna do: We're gonna sit right here and talk about it. Now, if you get tired of talking here, Mr. Marshal Elving Patrick there will hand you one of them subpeenies he's got stuck down in his pocket, and we'll go downstairs and talk in front of the grand jury.

"Elliot? Jim?

"Fine. All right, Elving, hand whichever one of these fellas you like a subpeeny and we'll go on downstairs and talk in front of the grand jury."




District Attorney James A. Quinn: "Gallagher's a government witness."
Wells: "Wonderful thing, a subpeeny."




Wells: "You had a leak? You call what's goin' on around here a leak? Boy, the last time there was a leak like this, Noah built hisself a boat."




Wells: "Now, we'll talk all day if you want to, but come sundown, there's gonna be two things true that ain't true now. One is that the United States Department of Justice is goin' to know what in the good Christ -- e'scuse me, Angie -- is goin' on around here. And the other's I'm gonna have somebody's ass in muh briefcase."




Wells: "What'd you figure you'd do after government service, Elliott?"
Elliott Rosen: "I'm not quitting."
Wells: "You ain't no Presidential appointee, Elliott. One that hired you is me. You got thirty days."




Wells: "We can't have people go around leaking stuff for their own reasons. It ain't legal. And worse than that, by God, it ain't right."

 

James Gammon in Major League

 

I wonder if that's because it essentially ruined his relationship with Charlie Sheen. According to Sheen after Platoon and Wall Street Stone kept telling Sheen he was going to be his DeNiro and they were going to make awesome movies together forever. Then Sheen hears that he cast Cruise in Born on the Fourth of July and was very upset.