Category: Starring Debuts
-
Starring debuts #19: Joe Spinell in Maniac (1980)
Tag(s):
Author:
Read more: Starring debuts #19: Joe Spinell in Maniac (1980)Joe Spinell was a hemophiliac who bled to death in 1989 in his early fifties. Throughout his 17-year film career, he overwhelmingly played bit parts, but had an extraordinary knack for picking the right projects. We’re talking the first two Godfather and Rocky movies, as well as Taxi Driver, Sorcerer, and Cruising. Pretty good, huh?…
-
Starring debuts #17: Gene Wilder in The Producers (1967)
Tag(s):
Author:
Read more: Starring debuts #17: Gene Wilder in The Producers (1967)Comedians often suck when they try their luck on the big screen. They might be established stand-ups able to sell out 3,000-seater venues or a much-loved part of Saturday Night Live, but something invariably starts to stink during their feature-length stuff. To be fair, it’s very difficult for any performer to make consistently funny flicks.…
-
Starring debuts #16: Aaron Eckhart in In the Company of Men (1997)
Tag(s):
Author:
Read more: Starring debuts #16: Aaron Eckhart in In the Company of Men (1997)Perhaps the key scene in Neil LaBute’s caustic debut is the one in which business exec Chad (Eckhart) gets a junior colleague to expose himself. It’s during this brief humiliation that we grasp Company’s true interest: the increasingly unpleasant methods Chad will use to clamber over other men in the workplace. A fair chunk of…
-
Starring debuts #15: Ralph Macchio in The Karate Kid (1984)
Tag(s):
Author:
Read more: Starring debuts #15: Ralph Macchio in The Karate Kid (1984)There are wish fulfillment movies and then there’s the fucking Karate Kid. Macchio plays Daniel LaRusso, a wholesome, 17-year-old kid who’s arrived in LA with his upbeat mom. A five-strong gang of bullies, who’ve been taught ‘no mercy’ by their evil karate teacher, zero in. Well, big deal. Daniel still gets the buxom, high-class girl…
-
Starring Debuts #14: Emily Lloyd in Wish You Were Here (1987)
Tag(s):
Author:
Read more: Starring Debuts #14: Emily Lloyd in Wish You Were Here (1987)That arch wit Morrissey obviously knows a thing or two about holidaying in dismal seaside towns. Just listen to the brilliant Everyday is Like Sunday in which he dreamily yearns for such places to be bombed: This is the coastal town that they forgot to close down. Armageddon, come Armageddon! Come, Armageddon, come! Everyday is…
-
Starring debuts #13: Dolph Lundgren in Rocky IV (1985)
Tag(s):
Author:
Read more: Starring debuts #13: Dolph Lundgren in Rocky IV (1985)Look, I’m not gay. Yes, I love The Wizard of Oz and did once find myself in a gay nightclub via a drunken youthful mistake, but don’t go trying to give me all that lady doth protest too much shit. I’m not gay. All right? Saying that, I must confess to a sneaking admiration for…
-
Starring debuts #12: Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate (1967)
Tag(s):
Author:
Read more: Starring debuts #12: Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate (1967)There’s a scene in The Graduate where Benjamin Braddock (Hoffman) is lying supine on a hotel bed while Mrs. Robinson (Bancroft), the sophisticated older woman who’s introduced him to the mysteries of sex, sits alongside clad in a black bra slowly unbuttoning his white shirt and running her hands over his smooth chest. Accompanied by…
-
Staring Debuts #11:Jeffrey Combs in Re-Animator (1985)
Tag(s):
Author:
Read more: Staring Debuts #11:Jeffrey Combs in Re-Animator (1985)It’s apt that Herbert West (Combs) resembles both Harry Potter and Scottish necrophile Dennis Nilsen. His small stature and precocious schoolboy looks suggest he’s harmless, enabling him to obscure a deep-rooted fascination with corpses while committing murder if necessary. It’s a plum role, all right, and Combs seizes it with such memorable relish that he…
-
Starring debuts #10: Bo Derek in 10 (1979)
Tag(s):
Author:
Read more: Starring debuts #10: Bo Derek in 10 (1979)Bo Derek is actually rated a Spinal Tap-esque 11 in this successful sex comedy but that still might be underscoring her. She looks sensational here and it’s not hard to see why George Webber (Moore) gets hit by an Apollonian thunderbolt as he mundanely waits in his open top Roller at a Californian stop sign.…
-
Starring debuts #9: John Amplas in Martin (1978)
Tag(s):
Author:
Read more: Starring debuts #9: John Amplas in Martin (1978)Martin on the hunt with a syringe clamped between his teeth is one of the great sights of 70s horror. We know he’s a serial killer, but is he a vampire? As played by the superb Amplas, we never get a telling answer. The movie continually toys with conventions and expectations so that facts and…