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WHAT’S THEIR BEST FILM?: THE ACTORS EDITION 1
For the past 10 or so editions of “What’s Their Best Film?” I’ve featured various directors and the lists of their bodies of work so that you, dear readers, could give your honest opinion as to what you thought was their masterpiece, their crowning achievement as a filmmaker.
Now I want to switch things up a bit for this edition. Here I will list three actors and their collective bodies of work and I want your honest opinion as to what you think was their finest performance. It doesn’t have to be an Oscar winning performance; just the one that you consider to be their best. I will list each film in chronological order from oldest to newest and the role that was portrayed. I will not be listing voice work or TV series work. As usual I can’t wait to hear from you.
ROBERT DE NIRO
Encounter as The Nephew
Three Rooms in Manhattan as Client in Diner (Unaccredited)
Greetings as Jon Rubin
Sam’s Song as Sam Nicoletti
The Wedding Party as Cecil
Bloody Mama as Lloyd Barker
Hi, Mom! as Jon Rubin
Jennifer on My Mind as Mardigian
Born to Win as Danny
The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight as Mario
Bang the Drum Slowly as Bruce Pearson
Mean Streets as Johnny Boy
The Godfather: Part II as Vito Corleone
Taxi Driver as Travis Bickle
1900 as Alfredo Berlinghieri
The Last Tycoon as Monroe Stahr
New York, New York as Jimmy Doyle
The Deer Hunter as Micheal
Raging Bull as Jake La Motta
True Confessions as Father Des Spellacy
The King of Comedy as Rupert Pupkin
Once Upon a Time in America as David ‘Noodles’ Aaronson
Falling in Love as Frank Raftis
Brazil as Archibald ‘Harry’ Tuttle
The Mission as Rodrigo Mendoza
Angel Heart as Louis Cyphre
The Untouchables as Al Capone
Midnight Run as Jack Walsh
Stanley and Iris as Stanley Everett Cox
Jacknife as Joseph ‘Jacknife’ Megessey
We’re No Angels as Ned
Goodfellas as James Conway
Awakenings as Leonard Lowe
Guilty By Suspicion as David Merrill
Backdraft as Donald ‘Shadow’ Rimgale
Cape Fear as Max Cady
Mistress as Evan M. Wright
Night and the City as Harry Fabian
Mad Dog and Glory as Wayne ‘Mad Dog’ Dobie
This Boy’s Life as Dwight Hansen
A Bronx Tale as Lorenzo Anello
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein as The Creature
Les cent et une nuits de Simon Cinéma as Le mari de la star-fantasme en croisière
Casino as Sam ‘Ace’ Rothstein
Heat as Neil McCauley
The Fan as Gil Renard
Sleepers as Father Bobby
Marvin’s Room as Dr. Wally
Cop Land as Moe Tilden
Wag the Dog as Conrad Brean
Jackie Brown as Louis Gara
Great Expectations as Prisoner/Lustig
Ronin as Sam
Analyze This as Paul Vitti
Flawless as Walt Koontz
The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle as Fearless Leader
Men of Honor as Master Chief Billy Sunday
Meet the Parents as Jack Byrnes
15 Minutes as Detective Eddie Fleming
The Score as Nick Wells
Showtime as Det. Mitch Preston
City by the Sea as Vincent LaMarca
Analyze That as Paul Vitti
Godsend as Richard Wells
Meet the Fockers as Jack Byrnes
The Bridge of San Luis Rey as The Archbishop of Peru
Hide and Seek as David Callaway
The Good Shepherd as Bill Sullivan
Stardust as Captain Shakespeare
What Just Happened as Ben
Righteous Kill as Turk
Everybody’s Fine as Frank Goode
Machete as Senator John McLaughlin
Stone as Jack Mabry
Little Fockers as Jack Byrnes
The Ages of Love as Adrian
Limitless as Carl Van Loon
Killer Elite as Hunter
New Year’s Eve as Stan Harris
Red Lights as Simon Silver
Being Flynn as Jonathan Flynn
Freelancers as Joe Sarcone
Silver Linings Playbook as Pat Sr.
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AL PACINO
Me, Natalie as Tony
The Panic in Needle Park as Bobby
The Godfather as Michael Corleone
Scarecrow as Francis Lionel ‘Lion’ Delbuchi
Serpico as Frank Serpico
The Godfather: Part II as Michael Corleone
Dog Day Afternoon as Sonny Wortzik
Bobby Deerfield as Bobby
…And Justice For All. as Arthur Kirkland
Cruising as Steve Burns
Author! Author! as Ivan Travalian
Scarface as Tony Montana
Revolution as Tom Dobb
Sea of Love as Det. Frank Keller
The Local Stigmatic as Graham
Dick Tracy as Big Boy Caprice
The Godfather: Part III as Don Michael Corleone
Frankie and Johnny as Johnny
Glengarry Glen Ross as Ricky Roma
Scent of a Woman as Lieutenant Colonel Frank Slade
Carlito’s Way As Carlito ‘Charlie’ Brigante
Two Bits as Grandpa
Heat as Lt. Vincent Hanna
City Hall as Mayor John Pappas
Donnie Brasco as Benjamin ‘Lefty’ Ruggiero
The Devil’s Advocate as John Milton
The Insider as Lowell Bergman
Any Given Sunday as Tony D’Amato
Chinese Coffee as Harry Levine
People I Know as Eli Wurman
Insomnia as Will Dormer
S1m0ne as Viktor Taransky
The Recruit as Walter Burke
Gigli as Starkman
The Merchant of Venice as Shylock
Two for the Money as Walter
88 Minutes as Jack Gramm
Ocean’s Thirteen as Willy Bank
Righteous Kill as Rooster
You Don’t Know Jack (TV Movie) as Jack Kevorkian
The Son of No One as Detective Charles Stanford
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CHRISTOPHER WALKEN
Barefoot in Athens (TV Movie) as Lamprocles
The Three Musketeers (TV Movie) as Felton
Me and My Brother
Cleopatra as Boy
The Anderson Tapes as The Kid
The Happiness Cage (aka The Mind Snatchers) as Private James H, Reese
Valley Forge (TV Movie) as The Hessian
Next Stop, Greenwich Village as Robert Fulmer
The Sentinel as Detective Rizzo
Annie Hall as Duane Hall
Roseland as Russel (The Hustle)
Shoot the Sun Down as Mr. Rainbow
The Deer Hunter as Nick
Last Embrace as Eckart
Heaven’s Gate as Nathan D. Champion
The Dogs of War as Jamie Shannon
Pennies From Heaven as Tom
Brainstorm as Michael Brace
The Dead Zone as Johnny Smith
A View to a Kill as Max Zorin
At Close Range as Brad Whitewood, Sr.
Witness in the War Zone (aka Deadline) as Don Stevens
The Milagro Beanfield War as Kyril Montana
Biloxi Blues as Sgt. Toomey
Puss in Boots as Puss
Homeboy as Wesley Pendergrass
Communion as Whitley Strieber
King of New York as Frank White
The Comfort of Strangers as Robert
Sarah, Plain and Tall (TV Movie) as Jacob Witting
McBain as Robert McBain
All-American Murder as P.J. Decker
Mistress as Warren Zell
Batman Returns as Max Shreck
Le Grand Pardon II as Pasco Meisner
Skylark (TV Movie) as Jacob Witting
Scam (TV Movie) as Jack Shanks
True Romance as Vincenzo Coccotti
Wayne’s World 2 as Bobby Cahn
A Business Affair as Vanni Corso
Pulp Fiction as Captain Koontz
The Addiction as Peina
The Prophecy as Gabriel
Wild Side as Bruno Buckingham
Search and Destroy as Kim Ulander
Things to Do in Denver When You’re Dead as The Man With the Plan
Nick of Time as Mr. Smith
Celluloid
Basquiat as The Interviewer
The Funeral as Ray
Last Man Standing as Hickey
Touch as Bill Hill
Excess Baggage as Ray
Suicide Kings as Carlo Bartolucci/Charlie Barret
Mousehunt as Caeser, the Exterminator
The Prophecy II as Gabriel
Illuminata as Bevalaqua
New Rose Hotel as Fox
Trance as Uncle Bill Ferriter
Blast From the Past as Calvin
Vendetta (TV Movie) as James Houston
Sleepy Hollow as Hessian Horseman
Sarah, Plain and Tall: Winter’s End (TV Movie) as Jacob Witting
Kiss Toledo Goodbye as Max
The Prophecy 3: The Ascent as Gabriel
The Opportunists as Victor ‘Vic’ Kelly
Scotland, PA. as Lt. McDuff
Joe Dirt as Clem
America’s Sweethearts as Hal Weidmann
The Affair of the Necklace as Count Cagliostro
The Country Bears as Reed Thimple
Undertaking Betty as Frank Featherbed
Catch Me If You Can as Frank Abagnale
Caesar (TV Movie) as Marcus Portius Cato
Kangaroo Jack as Salvatore ‘Sal’ Maggio
Gigli as Det. Stanley Jacobellis
The Rundown as Hatcher
Man on Fire as Rayburn
Envy as J-Man
The Stepford Wives as Mike Wellington
Around the Bend as Turner Lair
Wedding Crashers as Secretary Cleary
Romance and Cigarettes as Cousin Bo
Domino as Mark Heiss
Click as Morty
Fade to Black as Brewster
Man of the Year as Jack Menken
Hairspray as Wilbur Turnblad
Balls of Fury as Feng
$5 a Day as Nat Parker
The Maiden Heist as Roger Barlow
Life’s a Beach as Roy Callahan
Kill the Irishman as Shondor Birns
The Legend of Harrow Woods as Raven
Dark Horse as Jackie
Seven Psychopaths as Hans
A Late Quartet as Peter Mitchell
As an added bonus, ladies and gentlemen I present to you the dance stylings of Mr. Christopher Walken
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TAXI DRIVER: An appreciation for God’s Lonely Man
TAXI DRIVER: An appreciation for God‘s LonelyMan
Robert De Niro as Travis Bickle
Jodie Foster as Iris
Albert Brooks as Tom
Harvey Keitel (l) as Sport
Leonard Harris as Charles Palantine
Peter Boyle (c) as Wizard
Cybill Shepherd as Betsy
This is a question for my blogger friends. Why do you write a blog? What is that drives you to put words onto the brightness of your computer screen? I know why I do it. I do it because I want to feel as if I am a part of something that is bigger than me. I admit that I get a little rush when I read a favorable comment or when someone likes a review I’ve written. I feel good when I check my page view count for the day and I’ve had a few hundred visitors. That means that all the times that I have sat alone in a dark room watching movie after movie has not been in vain. When I sit at my computer racking my brain for the right words to say I know that someone, somewhere will read what I have written and will appreciate it in some way or another. I am alone as I sit and type, but I am not lonely.
In Taxi Driver, Travis Bickle is always alone. Even in scenes where he is surrounded by other people, he is ultimately and painfully alone. In the scene in the diner with his co-workers he is off to one side of the table, slightly separate from the rest. Again, in the diner, this time with Iris, the young prostitute that he feels a need to save, he is still alone. Why? Because his ideas, his way of thinking is so out of tune with hers that they are two people on separate sides of a desert island; always knowing that the other exists, but never making that connection.
The saddest and most heart wrenching scene in the film comes when Travis, after taking Betsy to a pornographic movie on their first date together, is on the phone in a lonely hallway pleading with her to give him another chance. As we listen the camera pans away from him. We don’t know whether to console him or put him down like a dog to ease his misery. Travis is so far out of touch with the rest of the world. He is never alone, yet he is lonely; and he is alone and he is lonely. By its own design, the job of a taxi driver is one of the loneliest jobs on the planet. A cabbie is continually in a situation where he is with people and yet they are all rank strangers to him. For the brief time that they are in his cab, they are a part of Travis’ world, but at no point in time is he ever a part of theirs. Travis Bickle truly is God’s Lonely Man.
Again, I will ask you; why do you do what you do?
TRIVIA
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CHRONICLE
CHRONICLE-United States/United Kingdom-2012
Dane DeHaan as Andrew Detmer
Alex Russell as Matt Garetty
Michael B. Jordan as Steve Montgomery
This question is for my older readers, the ones that have graduated high school. How many times have you found yourself thinking about what you would do differently if you could do high school all over again? Maybe you were bullied and would like to put your foot so far up that bully’s ass he could tell you what size shoe you’re wearing. Maybe a parent(s) gave you grief about every little thing. Would you change that? Was there a special girl? Were you a popular kid or a complete social misfit? For me high school was an ordeal, not an experience. I wasn’t very popular, I was bullied and yes, my parents, especially my dad, gave me grief. So while I was watching Chronicle, the latest cinema verité/found footage thriller about three teenagers who acquire telekinetic powers, I found myself sympathizing with Andrew Detmer. Here is an angry young man that uses his powers as a weapon; striking out in anger at the bullies at school and an alcoholic, abusive dad at home. Andrew is Travis Bickle‘s unchecked anger combined with Magneto’s self-righteous and arrogant rage. He feels that the world has taken a shit all over him and that we all need to pay. Even though he is clearly the villain of the film I found myself pitying him. When I was younger I did the things he did to fight what I felt were injustices against me. I shut myself away from the world, retreating into a world of my own. I was an angry young man, and despite the fact that my wife and my friends tell me that I’m a kind and decent human being, I know that anger is still there.
What I found most interesting about the film was that after it was over I listened to people as they were walking out of the theater. They talked about which character they would be like if they had the powers that they were given. There were a few Steve’s, a few Matt’s; but mostly the majority was Andrew. What that tells me is that there are a whole lot of angry people in this world. That thought is more disturbing than any scene in the film itself.
NO TRIVIA AT THIS TIME
½
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