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

And don't forget Face/Off.

 

Or by the Real Estate King dude.

You're right, of course. When I called it hateful, I didn't mean the tone of it -- I liked that it was nasty. It was the arty, pretentious parts of it that didn't sit well after. You think it's poetry at the time, but then you realize after that it's just Alan Ball jerking off into his typewriter. Seriously, I wanted to pull that plastic bag over his head and suffocate the son of a bitch, after I realized I'd been had.

So, yeah, I would have liked the movie if it was straight up nasty, and like you say, if it didn't burp at the end. It just hung too perfectly, and that was supposed to be a messy set of lives we were watching fall apart.

 

Or if it had been all plastic bag shit, then it could have had that ending.

But you can't very well make a whole movie about upper middle class existence being the new opiate for the masses and then refuse to offend the middle class at the end.

But yeah, it was wonderful watching it. Then my friend and I kind of turned to each other in the car afterward and went, "What the fuck?"

 

I'm not denying that Travolta was good in both, but both of those movies were carried by the story. I think Primary Colors asked Travolta to do his best acting -- he had to create Bill Clinton in every respect -- the charisma where you genuinely like him from the moment you first meet him, the complete lack of willpower around donuts and women, the very real humanity and the guy who could be cold and calculating -- without lapsing into John Travolta doing an impression of Darrell Hammond doing an impression of Bill Clinton. And the entire movie hinged on Travolta's performance. Is Pulp Fiction a better movie than Primary Colors? Definitely. But it isn't the one where Travolta did his best work.

EDIT: I partially rescind my nomination of Travolta in Primary Colors, but not for Pulp or Shorty. You can make an equally good case that Travolta was asked to do many of the same things in Saturday Night Fever: in both cases, Travolta created a very real and memorable character that could have easily slid into caricature and his performance carried the movie. You can make good arguments for both movies, so he doesn't fit the bill for having a movie where he clearly peaked.

 

Val Kilmer -- Real Genius.

 

Actually, I think Val Kilmer in Tombstone better fits the category.

 

American Beauty was an awesome movie, and I will not argue this. Mena Suvari's performance in it would qualify. Others:
--Lou Diamond Phillips in Courage Under Fire.
--Geena Davis in League of Their Own.
--Madonna in Desperately Seeking Susan.
--Willem Dafoe in Platoon.
--Alicia Silverstone in Clueless.

 

exactly... I thought his Edward was better than his Ed.

 

Good one.

 

and Mandy... and Chris Sarandon.....

 

If the idea is to call David Strathairn a one-hit wonder, you don't know his career.
He's done a ton of excellent work, including Eight Men Out, Passion Fish and Day One.

 

Costner -- Tin Cup

The dead-solid-perfect role, for him.