The great Christoph Waltz, Two-Time Academy Award winner, shows some of his inimitable what-have-you.
Category: Actors
The 1999 Horror/Cult film Ravenous is a most unusual moving picture, even for one detailing the Wendigo exploits of certain individuals. Many comedic elements continue to pop up, often on the heels of a truly frightening passage. The musical score, by Damon Albarn and Michael Nyman, adds a very great deal to the proceedings. This singular cinematic endeavour starred Robert Carlyle, Guy Pearce, and Jeffrey Jones, with Carlyle in particular standing out. His Colqhoun/Ives character is both the slippery eel and the fulcrum of the film.
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The Tom Noonan.
The great (and quirky) character actor Tom Noonan, in 2 of his finest performances: in Wolfen; and in The X-Files episode Paper Hearts. There might be some Robocop 2 activities, as well. Perhaps also a jot of 1986’s Manhunter. Ok, 4 of his finest.
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The Wolfen.
The 1981 horror/conservationist film Wolfen, based on the novel by Whitley Strieber, stars Albert Finney, Edward James Olmos, Gregory Hines, and Tom Noonan. All give first-rate performances, with the quirky character actor Noonan in particular providing a can’t-take-eyes-off-of-him turn as Ferguson. A movie with a switch in the hero and antagonist roles, bestowing an atypical, noteworthy moral compass upon it.
The great William Marshall, with his stentorian delivery, and dignified/exalted bearing, brings much to the table in these two films. Thalmus Rasulala, Pam Grier, and Don Mitchell also excel, Rasulala in 1972’s Blacula, and the latter two in Scream, Blacula, Scream, from 1973.
Marshall was a Shakespearean actor, who portrayed the lead character in various productions of Othello to great effect. A formidable 6’5″ with a deep basso profundo register, Marshall carried with him a dignity and a regal demeanor. In a review, Harold Hobson of the London Sunday Times praised Marshall’s portrayal as “the best Othello of our time.”
{Revised with Full Intensity 7/6/2019}
Amazing how Marlon B could so casually convey supreme menace from situations which are hardly synonymous with same.
Sheer, unnerving menace…from the confines of a bubble bath.
Unreal hand speed and devastating power with either hand, whilst bestowing epithets and disposing of tables.
And, of course, his iconic performance in The Godfather.
The truly great Marlon Brando, appearing here in The Missouri Breaks, One-Eyed Jacks, Apocalypse Now, The Godfather, Free Money, and The Island of Dr. Moreau. One of the supreme practitioners of his art, ever to stride across the earth.
{Note: Massively Revised 7/8/2019}
Gary Oldman, in a titanically twisted, iconic, canonical, epoch-defining performance, portrays psychopathic, corrupt DEA agent Norman Stansfield in the film Léon, The Professional. Stansfield really gets down to some serious malevolent weirdness in the above video scene with would-be DEA agent-slayer Mathilda (Natalie Portman). He calmly interrogates the young lady in ways that would bamboozle, unnerve, and intimidate anyone in human history. Throughout, the crazed but {mostly} composed DEA agent manages to be one moment menacing, the next pleasantly conversational. Stansfield presents an enigmatic, occasionally humorous, malevolent-ly inclined figure. Quite unforgettable.
In The Fifth Element, Lost in Space, and True Romance, he displays the ability to simply do anything he wants as an actor. All 3 roles are quasi-humorous/sinister, but in entirely different ways. Masterful.
Mark Rudolph portrays the great Orson Welles in the above videos; the audio is an authentic tape of a Welles commercial rehearsal, however. Andy Kaufman *is* Andy Kaufman in the subsequent clips, which revolve around the comic performance artist’s involvement with wrestler Jerry Lawler.
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The Mr. Cannon.
**The seemingly invincible Nielsen, and even the record-settingly acerbic Roy Scheider, succumb, in the end, to the resolute Detective.**
The indomitable, dogged, yet supremely courteous Frank Cannon (William Conrad) is unlikely to swerve, even momentarily, from his pursuit of the truth.
See also our Rockford Files post.
Crucial, unforgettable scenes & images from 3 iconic episodes: Death Wish on Tantalus Mountain; You Don’t Have to You Don’t Have To Kill To Get Rich…But It Helps; and the “Tin Idol”-oriented Rest in Peace, Somebody.
{NOTE: Revised 7/6/2019.}
Bideodromage 