Top 10 #2: Top 10 Actors That I Can't Remember The Name Of, But Then When I See Their Faces I Go "Oh Yeah, I Know Them"

I knew this list would be tricky. How do I list the actors whose names I can't remember, when by definition I can't remember their names? Luckily I must be some kind of genius, because I've done it. Take that, logical paradox!

I had some strict conditions for this list: they had to be actors whose identities I honestly didn't know, but whose faces I definitely knew. I also wanted to avoid the big-time character actors whom I know well enough to almost remember the names of, like the great J. T. Walsh or Jeffrey Jones. So! The latest of my Top 10 Top 10 Lists That Don't Really Deserve To Be Top 10 Lists:

It's

The Top 10 Actors That I Can't Remember The Name Of, But Then When I See Their Faces I Go "Oh Yeah, I Know Them"!*

10. Harris Yulin

I almost never watch TV crime shows, but this guy has been a judge a bunch of times, hasn't he? Or maybe I'm just thinking of Ghostbusters II. (Loved that movie.)

9. Juliet Stevenson

Oh man, how the hell do I know her? She's so familiar, but I have no idea.

8. Donal Logue

Oh yeah, it's that slightly-chubby-supporting-actor guy. Man, he's been in a ton of things.

7. Mickey Jones

Yeah, that guy! The guy who won't shave his big scraggly beard, so he always gets cast as "old biker" and "guy with beard"! That's a niche and a half.

Also, he was the drummer on Bob Dylan's 1966 world tour after Levon Helm quit. (True!)

6. Cara Seymour

It's really hard to find a distinctively recognisable image of her face, but I know who she is when I see her – and according to IMDb, she's had supporting roles in a ton of films that I've liked. Red Riding, Hotel Rwanda, Birth, Adaptation, American Psycho, Dancer In The Dark ...

With great credits like that, you'd think I would remember her name by now, huh?

5. Clancy Brown

Yeah, this guy! He was in Carnivale, and he had a small part on Lost, and he was in Starship Troopers? And some other things? And also he looks a bit like that other guy, the one who played that alien guy on The X-Files.

4. Jane Adams

You remember, she was in that creepy-but-very-good Happiness film? I can almost remember her name, but not quite. And she always seems to be in things with that other guy.

3. Marshall Bell

You remember this guy? He's been in a whole bunch of things: gym teacher in Nightmare On Elm Street II, deformed freak in Total Recall. Bunch of tv shows, too. Ring any bells?

2. Hope Davis

I am absolutely on the verge of remembering her name in the future. She's charismatic as hell. (Also: what did you think of Synecdoche, New York?)

1. Joey Slotnick

Oh, man. This guy. This poor guy. I feel like I've seen this guy playing a geeky "Loser Guy" in movies and on tv forever. I feel like I should be feeling sorry for him, and I don't even know who he is, let alone why. (Though, maybe I'm getting him slightly confused with somebody else who looks a bit like him?)

Man. How odd.

*PS: I know it would be better to say "actors that I can't remember the names of" rather than "name of", but for humour's sake that entire sentence is a clumsy and inelegant construction in the first place, so get off my back, grammar pedants! Settle down! :)

--the Editorial Thoapsl

Graped In The Face

Q. What's the difference between pinot noir and merlot?
A. Nothing, suckers.

So yeah, you remember how that movie Sideways did so well? It was a fine film: Paul Giamatti drinks a whole lot of Californian wine, rants about how pinot noir is so great and merlot is so terrible.

Mmm. Grapes.

Most people who saw Sideways immediately decided that, yes, indeed:

1. pinot noir is brilliant

2. all other wines – especially merlot – are really just fermented hackjuice

There was thus an instant craze in the market for pinot wine, and a corresponding crash in demand for the less respectable grapes (like merlot and shiraz). So: a group of French wine merchants decided to scam the American market by repackaging 13.5 MILLION LITRES of their excess merlot and shiraz wine as pinot noir, instead.

A couple of years later, French auditors became suspicious of some unusually cheap "pinot" grape transactions; a few days ago, a French court unravelled the scam and found a cartel of Carcassonne wine merchants guilty of fraud.

Mugshot!

In the meantime, how many American wine drinkers had figured out that they weren't actually drinking pinot noir? Here is a picture of them all:

Aw, it was only 13.5 million litres . . .

Tuesday Tact Tract

Human relationships can be difficult. Here, Marvex The Super Robot has trouble responding to a compliment.

What might be a more appropriate, tactful response?

A. Thank you, Clara. You are the most wonderful man I know.

B. I reject your statement. You are incorrect.

C. *wistful smile*

D. I like your hair. I like your hair.

E. [other]

(Discuss with colleagues.)

• • • • •

Appropriate behaviour is, in fact, quite simple. When responding to compliments, you should always stare deep into the closest eyes and think of the Three Eees:

Embarrassment

Effusivity

dEfensiveness

And always remember: Tact, Tact, Tact. It's just that simple.

--the Tactful Thoapsl

(is having an odd day today)

It's Not The Plants

THE HAPPENING

So, I saw The Happening the other day – it had gotten such weird and conflicting reviews that I figured I had to see it for myself. Hey, The Village got terrible reviews, and I liked it anyway; unlike (apparently) most other people who saw the film and were pissed off because the "twist" was crap, I didn't mind because I thought the twist was obvious on purpose, it wasn't supposed to be a shocking twist. The twist wasn't the point of the film, it was just... never mind, I'm getting distracted and I don't really care anymore. Anyhow, The Happening was flawed in a lot of ways, but I thought that some aspects of it were really quite neat. I was thinking of writing something about it, but then I found the general thrust of my thoughts were already expressed wonderfully in here*:

"you've got to admire Shyamalan's amazing ability to whip out a perfectly-constructed horror/scifi plot without actually ever having any kind of monster or coherent threat. We get all the classic "scary monster" moments in this movie — people staring at stuff with horrified looks on their faces, distant screams, long tension-mounting shots in creepy houses — and yet at the moment when we expect to look into the face of The Big Bad there's literally nothing. No Cloverfield with its throbbing, toothy face, no disfigured bad guy with a bag of poison. Just beautiful fields of trees and grasses moving gently in the breeze.

There's a kind of true brilliance to The Happening at these moments. It's as if Shyamalan, a smart guy if nothing else, is trying to show us that at the heart of every monster movie there really lurks nothing at all. Just an empty field that you can fill with whatever terrifies you most."

That's the part of the film that I enjoyed the most; if you've got the time & money to spend on two hours of Shyamalan, the film is possibly worth it just for this aspect. It's wonderful, if you're willing to look for your cinematic satisfaction in some intriguing metafiction. Rather than in the fiction itself.

(Yes, I'm using the word "metafiction". Sometimes it just can't be helped).

--the Cinematic Thoapsl

*ps: the rest of the post containing the above quote is basically all about the film's (alleged) covert promotion of "Intelligent Design". I wasn't reminded about ID in particular when I was watching the film, but I was struck by the rather unscientific rhetoric of the science-teacher protagonist (Marky Mark) in his introductory scene, quote: "acts of nature we'll never understand". Interesting perspective, hmm, coming from a science teacher? Insert joke here about the failures of the US public education system.

On the other hand, of course all kinds of bullshit masquerades as "science" in movies. I usually hope it's either creative license for the sake of an easier story, or else that it's only the usual ignorance (ie: unfortunate, but not essentially malignant). It's certainly bad stuff. However, wilful misrepresentation by anti-scientific ideologues is a lot worse. Scary and sad.