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Oh my god I hate these people SO much.I wish they all would've OD'd at the end.
And Robert Downey Jr. is still playing this character 25 years later - Tropic Thunder and possibly Chaplin, which I haven't seen, aside - I am SO tired of being told he's a great actor.
That said, Edward Lachman shoots a fuckin' pretty movie, he does.
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18 comments:
Tell me you've seen Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.
I recently rewatched The Rules of Attraction. Ugh. Can somebody please remind me why Bret Easton Ellis was such a big deal back in the day?
And I agree that RDJ is way overrated--though he is not a bad actor.
Thank goodness. An Ellison-based movie you hate. I thought I was the only one.
My favorite thing about this movie will always be that Bangles song at the beginning.
Heather - I've seen KKBB and liked it (although I don't remember it very well at this point).
The thing with RDJ is, I don't mind his character - that is, the character he always plays. Sometimes I find it very amusing. But he's always the same, the same mannerisms, the same everything, and everybody hollers how he's a GREAT ACTOR every time he shits out the same performance, and it drives me batty.
Joe, I ran and downloaded the Bangles Greatest Hits album before the credits had even finished.
You should see Chaplin - I think it really is different enough from RDJ's usual to be worth your while.
Yeah I'd recommend you check out Chaplin too. As far as this movie goes, yeah the Bangles song is the best part of it. Apart from American Psycho all the film adaptations of Ellis novels have missed the mark, to put it mildly.
Question, how long ago was Chaplin? Besides the great novelty role in Tropic Thunder, this seems to be the only decent performance of RDJ that anyone can point to. He is painful to watch, Oprah voice over painful.
Chaplin was 1992.
Not his only decent performance. His "only" performance where he stretches past his usual RDJ persona.
Which, in my opinion, being a chamaleon isn't the only mark of a good actor. We've had dozens of great screen presences with almost zero range but who are incredibly entertaining/compelling in a wide number of movies. RDJ, for me, isn't a rangey actor, but he's an effective and entertaining one.
...But we've had this argument before.
He can be effective - I thought he put a great spin on his usual persona in Zodiac, for instance. But usually I just find his overwrought tics and worn-out mannerisms exhausting at this point. The world giggles when he bugs his eyes and pushes out his lips like a rascally scamp in Iron Man; I just want to shove him off a cliff. There are plenty of actors that I'll agree with you Joe that their personas that they've coasted on still maintain a semblance of interest. RDJ's has stopped seeming cute to me at this point.
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang was it for me. I said to myself, I said "Now, this is a funny movie, and this guy's funny in it, but if he plays any variation of this guy again, I'm done, yeah." Then, A Scanner Darkly shows up, and I'm fucking pissed.
What was I talking about?
Ahhh this movie. I love it because it reminds me of the end of my junior year in high school. And how excited I was to see it in the theater. I hate it because the characters of Julian, Blair, and Clay are so horribly pathetic that you end up having less than zero sympathy for them.
It's telling that the only person I root for the whole movie is Rip, James Spader's skeezy drug dealer.
But you're right - visually, this film is one of the most stunning of that decade.
HA I was totally on James Spader's side, DuchessKitty!
JA, Thank you SO much for being what seems like the only other person in the world who agrees that RDJ is a mediocre actor who plays the same character over and over. And I don't know about you, but I find him very unattractive.
We need to start a support group for us RDJ-allergic folk, Matthew! RDJAnon. My name is JA and I can't stand his fucking face!
The book is probably my favourite (having said that, I'm not much of a reader) but the movie was fucking dreadful. Soundtrack is amazing though. Apart from the compilation soundtrack (Bangles' "Hazy Shade of Winter" is my favourite) I also tracked down a bootleg copy of Thomas Newman's score, which is incredible.
I mentioned KKBB specifically because RDJ did play such a different character in that - it's my favorite of his roles. He's a lovable idiotic loser, and I totally fell for him in that. I do still enjoy his cocky, smary roles most of the time, but I think the guy is a great actor, from drama to comedy. Zodiac was another example of some great acting on his end (and all the other people in that)
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