The Screengrab : wild at heart

Screengrab Flashback, 1987: Crispin Glover, Kicking Against the Prick

Phil Nugent — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 22:00:00 GMT

As our heroic Oscar show live-bloggers pointed out, the Academy Awards broadcast did clear up one pressing question: more than a week after Joaquin Phoenix's bizarre, bearded appearance on the David Letterman show, it's still open season on the actor turned rapper. This is kind of s shame, if only because James Wolcott seems to have been proven right in his speculation that all the slack-jawed fascination Phoenix inspired in his few minutes on Dave's couch has come at the price of a lack of serious attention and box office for the movie he was ostensibly promoting, Two Lovers, his latest collaboration with writer-director James Gray. Still unanswered, though, is the question of whether Phoenix is genuinely flaking out publicly (or worse), or if, as has been suggested, he's engaged in some Andy Kaufman-style prank or long-term Borat-type project. Though for some of us watching, the appearance summoned up not thoughts of either Sacha Baron Cohen or Latka's creator but Crispin Glover. If that's the role model that Phoenix meant to invoke, he's a rare bird indeed.

Glover's turn in the spotlight came in the summer of 1987, when he was supposed to be promoting Tim Hunter's River's Edge, the tragic-teen melodrama in which he had his biggest movie role to date. (Up to that time, he was best known for having played Michael J. Fox's father in Back to the Future.) Glover's freakish, hand-waving performance in River's Edge garnered mixed reviews at best, and it helped create a climate in which the still relatively little-known actor was widely perceived as something of an oddball. Even so, his Letterman appearance exceeded even the most baroque expectations. Acting as if he were about to keel over from anthrax, Glover boogied out onstage in thrift-shop clothing, platform shoes, and a fright wig, and began to frantically stammer about how the jackals in the media were writing about him as if he were some kind of weirdo. Apparently incited to demonstrate what a normal fellow he was by some girls in the audience who called out, "Nice shoes!", Glover made a muscle, invited his host to arm wrestle, then leaped up to demonstrate his ability to kick as high as the seated Letterman's head. He did in fact, kick very close to Letterman's head, which seemed to be the cue Dave was looking for to announce that their revels now were ended.

In those pre-Internet days, word of what had gone down spread rapidly across college campuses, in some cases with VCR-recorded evidence that was disseminated with what we used to call "tape trees." (And I wore an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time.) Word was slow to get out that Glover was playing a character, Rubin, who would eventually be the focus of a barely seen feature film, 1991's Rubin and Ed, co-starring Howard Hessman and directed by Trent Harris (The Beaver Trilogy). This explanation fails to explain how Glover thought anyone not privy to this information could have been expected to watch him unravel with anything other than open-mouthed bewilderment, or why he thought that the notoriously crankly control freak Letterman would be delighted to watch him melt down on his time and feel the draft from his oversized clodhoppers tickle the side of his face.

Coupled with his work in River's Edge, the Letterman show appearance cemented the direction of Glover's acting career, which is to say that it officially redefined him as an unvarying token of sheer weirdness. (His subsequent failure to appear in the sequel to Back to the Future, which he followed up by suing the filmmakers for violating his "image" by having the actor who replaced him made up to resemble him, also earned him the reputation of a weirdo who was hard to deal with.) By the time of his cameo in Wild at Heart, Glover was seen as the sort of person David Lynch shoehorns into a movie if he's afraid that it might not be strange enough. Although Glover's few opportunities to play a relatively normal person, in mostly small roles in such films as John Boorman's Where the Heart Is and What's Eating Gilbert Grape? have shown him to be a capable actor with a surprisingly sweet screen presence, his biggest roles and ripest paydays have been for flaunting his geek-show side in such films as Charlie's Angels, Bartleby, and Willard. (More recently, he reunited with the director of Back to the Future, Robert Zemeckis, to incarnate the title role in Beowulf.) A well-established young actor with a string of successes to his credit, Phoenix will not be so easily pigeonholed. At this point, most people would be relieved to hear that he's having a laugh, even if he did throw a labor of love movie under the bus in the procession, and after a shave, the industry would welcome him back with welcome if wary arms. But is he kidding? It's a dubious sort of joke that serves to turn you into a punchline for Ben Stiller's use. Stay tuned.

DVD Digest for November 18, 2008

Paul Clark — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 15:00:00 GMT

This week, some of summer’s biggest hits arrive in stores in time for the holiday shopping season, along with a handful of choice classics.

DVD of the week: With all the care Pixar devotes to creating their theatrical releases, it’s amazing that they have any time left for their DVDs. However, Pixar’s DVD editions are almost invariably first-rate, and this week’s release of WALL-E would appear to be no exception. We begin, of course, with the razor-sharp transfer of the movie itself, which comes directly from the digital master, making it arguably crisper than could be found in the theatre. But that’s only the beginning, with two animated shorts (one seen in theatres, the other a DVD original), featurettes on the film’s sound design, visual design, music, character design, and more. Finally, there are a number of features on WALL-E that take viewers into the world of the film, including a documentary about the movie’s robotic cast, and short films about the nefarious “Buy N Large” corporation from its inception to their Earth Exit plan, and beyond. Needless to say, WALL-E is an ideal DVD for kids, but it’s also a must-have even if you don’t have a family to buy for this holiday season.

Other recent releases coming to DVD this week: Ben Stiller’s Hollywood action satire Tropic Thunder (Paramount, also Blu-Ray); America Ferrara, Amber Tamblyn and friends in The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 (Warner, also Blu-Ray); and a quartet of acclaimed indie films- Werner Herzog’s Encounters at the End of the World (Image); the documentary Gonzo: The Life and Work of Hunter S. Thompson (Magnolia); Harmony Korine’s Mister Lonely (Genius); and Audrey Tautou in Priceless (First Look).

On the classics front, the big release this week is David Lynch: The Lime Green Box Set (Absurda), which includes the new-to-DVD Industrial Symphony No. 1, plus the remastered Eraserhead, a Lynch-approved 5.1-surround version of Blue Velvet, The Elephant Man, Wild at Heart, The Short Films of David Lynch, Dumbland, along with new extras for Elephant Man and Wild at Heart, the Eraserhead soundtrack, and a “Mystery Disc” full of exclusive Lynch goodies. Or if you’re looking for something a little more “classical”, pick up the new Criterion editions of Martin Ritt’s masterful adaptation of the John le Carre novel, The Spy Who Came In From the Cold, or the French swashbuckler Fanfan la Tulipe. Also worth mentioning is the release of Fred Schepisi’s long-unavailable classic of Australian cinema, The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (Ryko Distribution).

In a slow week for TV on DVD, the most noteworthy title is Bones Season 3 (Fox).

Finally, this week presents the most definitive argument that Blu-Ray has really arrived, with a plethora of mostly crappy Blu-Ray only releases. The exceptions are Curtis Hanson’s pretty-good Eminem vehicle 8 Mile (Universal) and the Neil Gaiman-scripted Mirrormask (Sony). But other than that, it’s looking pretty dire, with the Martin Lawrence double feature of Blue Streak (Sony) and National Security (Sony), Guy Ritchie’s Revolver (Sony), and Richard Kelly’s Southland Tales (Sony), which if nothing else remains the most definitive cinematic statement about the ongoing war over teen horniness. I’m for decriminalization, by the way.

Set Your DVR!: November 10 - 17, 2008

Hayden Childs — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 16:00:00 GMT

Mon, Nov 10:

2:45/3:45 pm: Becket on TCM. As I wrote last week, decent Oscar bait from 1964.

3/4 pm: The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years on IFC. Awwright! Hello, Cleveland.

Tues, Nov 11:

6:55/7:55 am: Solaris on IFC (repeat at 2:40/3:40 pm). As I mentioned in our utopia/dystopia list from last week, Tarkovsky's Solaris is a stunning, somber look at alienation. This is a slow one, but it pays off in spades.

11 pm/12 am: The Thin Red Line on IFC (repeat on 11/12 at 4/5 am). Also a little slow. Also pays off in spades. Terrence Malick's take on the war movie falls somewhere between nature film and meditation on the soul.

Wed, Nov 12:

8/9 pm: Wild at Heart on IFC (repeat on 11/13 at 12:30/1:30 am). My least favorite Lynch. I don't even know why I'm recommending this.

Thurs, Nov 13:

12:30/1:30 am: Blow-Up on TCM. Antonioni's meditation the lens and the horror of other people, all in Swinging London. Not my favorite of his movies, but it's essential for movie geeks.

1/2 am: Vanishing Point on FMC. Cool cars & existential crises!

2:30/3:30 am: Quartet on TCM. Four stories by W. Somerset Maugham, as introduced by the man himself.

5/6 am: Isle of the Dead on CHILLER (repeat on 11/14 at 2/3 am). I'm tired of recommending Val Lewton-produced horror flicks. But this is a good one.

8:45/9:45 am: Amarcord on IFC (repeat at 2:20/3:20 pm and on 11/14 at 4:50/5:50 am). Fellini making the most Felliniesque movie of his career.

11:45 am/12:45 pm: The Shop Around The Corner on TCM. Date movies don't get better than this. True, the execrable You've Got Mail is based on this, but Lubitsch's movie has a wildly beating heart, which neither Meg Ryan nor AOL can claim.

Fri, Nov 14:

3/4 pm: Rear Window on TCM. Everybody loves Hitchcock. I've been avoiding recommending his movies, because a) there's always a Hitchcock movie playing on TV somewhere and b) even the bad ones are good, so why bother recommending them? But Rear Window is so great that I just wanted to mention that it's going to be on.

5/6 pm: The Thomas Crown Affair on TCM. Q: Would I enjoy watching Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway doing mostly nothing for 2 hours? A: The Thomas Crown Affair.

Sat, Nov 15:

1/2 am: Suspiria on TCM. Dario Argento's greatest movie.

2:45/3:45 am: The Haunting on TCM. As always, the Robert Wise movie, not the terrible remake.

7/8 am: Three Outlaw Samurai on IFC. Pretty good samurai movie.

7/8 pm: Paths of Glory on TCM. Kubrick's classic anti-war movie, starring Kirk Douglas as a man who is OUTRAGED that the military might be run by incompetent boobs. The actors who aren't chewing scenery might just tear your heart out.

Sun, Nov 16:

7/8 am: The Seventh Seal on IFC. The source of the famous Swedish aphorism "Never play chess with Death unless you are Dr. Stephen T. Colbert, DFA."

10:15/11:15 am: Bright Young Things on IFC (repeat at 4:15/5:15 pm and on 11/17 at 3:55/4:55 am). Stephen Fry's adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's "Vile Bodies." Funny AND bitter!

Mon, Nov 17:

1/2 am: Diabolique on TCM. One of my favorite suspense movies. The dread that permeates it never lets up until the heart-stopping finale.

6/7 pm: Restoration on IFC. Honestly, I can barely remember this movie, but I seem to recall that Robert Downey, Jr. killed in it.

8:30/9:30 pm: The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939) on TCM. The Charles Laughton version.

10:15/11:15 pm: The New World on IFC (repeat on 11/18 at 2:45/3:45 am). Just recently wrote about this one, too. Over-wrote, you might even say. Still, this is one of the best films of the last decade.

Set Your DVR!: November 3 - 10, 2008

Hayden Childs — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 16:00:00 GMT

Whew! I'm happy that the Halloween season is over! I watched a ton of great movies, but I have horror fatigue. Let's see what the next week has to offer. There's some world-class movies on TV this week!

Mon, Nov 3:

10:30/11:30 am: The Man From Laramie on TCM. Anthony Mann Western with James Stewart. Not the best Mann Western, but it’ll do.

4:15/5:15 pm: I Am David on IFC. Paul “Freaks & Geeks” Feig directs a completely unfunny and somewhat mawkish film about a boy who escapes a Stalinist concentration camp and learns to love. Feig is awesome, but this movie is not. Consider this a warning.

7/8 pm: True Stories on VH1CL. David Byrne’s labor of love, a deliberately quirky look at America from one of its deliberately quirky pop culture figures.

8/9 pm: Me and You and Everyone We Know on IFC (repeat 11/4 at 12/1 am). Miranda July is cute and a little alienating. John Hawkes learned from Deadwood the fine art of saying everything he has to say with his eyebrows. Somehow, despite the nearly lethal levels of kookiness, July has made a movie with an enormous amount of heart.

Tues, Nov 4:

UPDATED!

9:05/10:05 am: The F Word on IFC (repeat at 4:05/5:05 pm). Catch the Screengrab's own Andrew Osborne as the character mysteriously named "Andrew!" Thanks to Scott Von D for the hat tip.

10:30/11:30 am: Grand Theft Parsons on IFC (repeat at 5:30/6:30 pm and on 11/5 at 4:55/5:55 am). Not a great movie, but it's about the untimely demise of Gram Parsons and what happened thereafter.

7/8 pm Decision at Sundown on TCM. Budd Boetticher and Randolph Scott in a taut little no-budget Western. Not the best of their collaborations, but it's decent.

Wed, Nov 5:

9/10 am: The Straight Story on FX. David Lynch's G-rated film about an aging man who travels via lawnmower to make amends with his long-estranged brother. It's utterly fantastic.

11:30 am/12:30 pm: Burden of Dream on IFC. Les Blank's documentary about Werner Herzog's maddening attempts to make Fitzcarraldo. This is the rare film where the making-of documentary is better than the fiction. If you haven't seen it, this is essential viewing. You will reach the other side in greater awe of Herzog, nature, Kinski, madness, and the folly of human ambition.

12:30/1:30 pm: The Blue Gardenia on TCM. A scalding film noir by Fritz Lang.

8/9 pm: 24 Hour Party People on IFC (repeat on 11/6 at 12/1 am). Some of the Factory Records bands are stunning, and some (The Happy Mondays in particular) are dull and overrated. But Tony Wilson was mesmerizing, and Michael Winterbottom's postmodern bio makes the case for his greatness.

10/11 pm: The Filth and the Fury on IFC (repeat on 11/6 at 2/3 am). If you're curious about the Sex Pistols, this is the definitive documentary.

Thurs, Nov 6:

1:45/2:45 pm: The Awful Truth on TCM. Pretty much the greatest screwball comedy.

5:05/6:05 pm: Ride with the Devil on IFC (repeat on 11/7 at 4:40/5:40 am). Ang Lee's odd Civil War drama where everybody's on the wrong side of history.

Fri, Nov 7:

8/9 am: Heavenly Creatures on LOGO. Before the Lord of the Rings, Peter Jackson directed this movie about the intensity of fantasy in a teenage friendship and the lengths to which two girls actually went (this is based on a true story) to keep themselves together.

Sat, Nov 8:

12:15/1:15 am: La Jetee on TCM. This is the best movie I've recommended yet, and it's only 28 minutes long. I recommend watching it twice in a row, then waiting two weeks and watching it again. See what you remember about it. Watch Vertigo again in the meantime.

1/2 am: The Trip on TCM. This is, like, whoa. And then you'll be all what? And then, man, like, you know, then, you'll get it. And you'll be all really? But you'll know.

7/8 am: Sanshiro Sugata II on IFC. Kurosawa's third film, the sequel to his first. The climactic scene is scarred pretty badly, but Kurosawa's eye is as sharp as ever.

9:30/10:30 am: Picnic at Hanging Rock on IFC (repeat at 4:15/5:15 pm and on 11/9 at 4/5 am). Peter Weir's second feature film, this is an existential horror film. Several girls and a teacher disappear on an outing to Hanging Rock. One girl turns up mysteriously days later. The disparity between the proper Victorian British and the great untamed Australian Outback serves to heighten the oddness of this movie.

Sun, Nov 9:

7/8 am: Amarcord on IFC. The most felliniesque of Fellini films. One of his last major films. I have never thought it was as good as 8 1/2, but it still packs a punch.

9:05/10:05 am: Umberto D on IFC. De Sica's neorealist classic about an old man cast aside by society. Prepare for tears and a greater awareness of the plight of the elderly. You'll never be able to name a dog "Flike."

9:15/10:15 am: The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek on TCM. What a conundrum! Umberto D and The Miracle of Morgan's Creek playing at the same time! This is a fantastic, censor-baiting Preston Sturges comedy. Eddie Bracken may not be the greatest male lead ever, but the jokes come hard and fast.

1:15/2:15 pm: The Cars That Ate Paris on IFC. Peter Weir's first feature film. I've never seen it, but it's bound to be interesting.

8/9 pm: Wild at Heart on IFC (repeat on 11/10 at 2/3 am). This may be David Lynch's worst film. Or maybe it's the one with Sting. Hard to say, but there's still something worthwhile in each.

Mon, Nov 10:

8:20/9:20 am: The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years on IFC (repeat at 3/4 pm). Don't let too many years pass without watching Ozzy make breakfast.

2:45/3:45 pm: Becket on TCM. It's Oscar-bait, sure, but not a bad movie.

Peggy Sue Got Served: Turner Apolgizes to Cage for Dog-Napping Allegation

Phil Nugent — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 16:30:00 GMT

Nicolas Cage and Kathleen Turner have kissed and made up, which, granted, isn't as hot a mental image as it might have been some years ago. You might expect that two people who starred opposite each other in Peggy Sue Got Married would have the same kind of hard-won, mutual devotion that guys have in movies after they've seen combat together, but Turner enraged Cage with her memoir, Send Yourself Roses: My Life, Love and Leading Roles, in which she claimed that, during the shooting of the Coppola misfire, he was arrested twice for driving drunk and also got into trouble with the law "for stealing a Chihuahua." Cage, who in the words of his lawyer Simon Smith "has never been arrested for drink driving, dog theft or anything else," filed suit against Turner in Britian, famous for its plaintiff-friendly libel laws, after an excerpt from her book appeared in the Daily Mail. Smith added that, "As an actor who stars in many family-friendly films"--apparently the star of Wild at Heart, Leaving Las Vegas, and Face/Off is under the impression that he's Dean Jones--"and who has a young child and teenager of his own, Mr Cage was understandably upset at having been wrongly depicted as condoning that sort of reckless, dangerous and criminal behaviour."

Now, in order to make amends, Turner's publisher will insert a correction and an apology into future copies of the book, and Headline and Associated Newspapers, which publishes the Daily Mail, will run an apology and purge the offending piece from their website. All of which goes to show you that you never know what will tick people off. Let it be recorded that while Nicolas Cage freely admits to having done some strange things in his time, he absolutely will not stand for people alleging that he runs around stealing Chihuahuas! He's been able to buy his own Chihuahuas for years now.

The Ten Greatest Prosthetics in Movie History, Part 2

Peter Smith — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 21:00:00 GMT

Nicole Kidman's Nose in THE HOURS (2002)

Can a fake nose win an Oscar? Some might say it already did, when Nicole Kidman's turn as Virginia Woolf in The Hours was awarded the golden statue for Best Actress. We've got nothing against Kidman's performance in that film, but judging by the reams of press that her lightly reoriented schnozz got at the time, you'd think that it was the nose that was wearing Kidman, instead of the other way around. Of course, this was yet another award in a long series of Best Actress Oscars that went to Beautiful Women Doing Unglamorous Things — whether it was playing a tarted-up legal secretary (Julia Roberts in Erin Brockovich), having sex with Billy Bob Thornton (Halle Berry in Monster's Ball) or looking like a burn victim (Charlize Theron in Monster). Which is, really, the only way we can explain Kidman's decision to use such a subtle prosthetic in the first place; it's not like the American moviegoing public had any idea what Virginia Woolf looked like in the first place.

Jeff Goldblum's Jaw, Cheeks, Eyes, His Very Fucking Being, in THE FLY (1986)

Some of us were prohibited from watching more than two hours of TV a week as children. Luckily, some of us were also latch-key kids, so naturally, whenever no one was home, we gorged, often on both food and shlocky afternoon TV movies. And those of us who were unlucky enough to see The Fly at this time didn't quite grasp the extent of our mistake until it was too late. There you are, happily eating your delivery pizza, and in the middle of a big, meaty bite, you're confronted by the spectacle of one of Brundlefly's eyes falling off, like an egg yolk dripping into batter. You assume that's the most disgusting scene they're gonna throw at you. Again, big mistake. Jeff Goldblum's Brundlefly is possibly the single most hideous, repugnant creature ever seen on film — worse than the Alien mother, worse than any other close competitor. Every negative trait of Jeff Goldblum's physiognomy is brought into stark relief onto an insect face; when it decays, we dare you to keep eating. We certainly didn't.

Penelope Cruz's Ass, VOLVER (2006)

Since her Hollywood debut, Cruz has been the poster child for foreign-born performers who aren't half as compelling in English as they are in their native tongue. Which is why her reunion with Pedro Almodovar was a cause for celebration — not only would she be working in Spanish again, but she was collaborating with a filmmaker who always brought out the best in her. But strangely enough, much of the buzz around Penelope's role in 2006's Volver focused less on the performance than around the generous fake derrière she strapped on for the role. According to Almodovar, the padded rump was necessary for the character, an earthy, hard-working mother in the Anna Magnani tradition, and this makes sense, since Penelope Cruz is lovely, but talk about bun cakes — she ain't got 'em. But then a funny thing happened. Instead of drawing undue attention to Penelope's prodigious prosthetic posterior, the hype allowed moviegoers to grow accustomed to the sight of the suddenly callipygian Cruz, much in the same way Alejandro Amenabar leaked stills of a heavily made-up Javier Bardem to the Spanish press so the public would get used to his appearance in The Sea Inside. The gimmick paid off in the end, as Cruz's full-bodied (sorry) performance made the rockin' world go 'round, garnering her unprecedented critical praise and a rare (for a foreign-language performer) Best Actress Oscar nomination. In fact, after the success of Volver, the only question that remains for Penelope Cruz's career is: how can she leave this behind?

Vincent Gallo's Penis in THE BROWN BUNNY (2003)

When people actually got around to seeing Vincent Gallo's The Brown Bunny rather than just making fun of it (which isn't to say that they stopped making fun of it afterwards, or that many people actually got around to seeing it), the scene that generated the most buzz was what is delicately referred to as "the blowjob", where Gallo's lodge pole is climbed by Chloe Sevigny, for whom one has never felt more pity. The scene's verite qualities and (literally) naked emotional power are what most people talked about, although we think they were just grateful that something was actually happening in the movie after endless shots of Gallo driving aimlessly across country. Gallo, who tends to be pretty sensitive about things like this, has always claimed that the hog in question belongs to him; French director Claire Denis, on the contrary, claims that it is an artificial wang, and that, worse yet, it isn't even Vince's artificial wang — she says he stole it off the set of her 2001 film Trouble Every Day, in which he had a large part, but not that large part. In the absence of, er, concrete evidence from Gallo, we're going to go with Claire Denis' version of events; we figure that since she's not on record as hoping Roger Ebert gets cancer for giving one of her films a bad review, she's got the moral high ground.

Gwyneth Paltrow's Body in SHALLOW HAL (2001)

Hollywood's relationship with the overweight isn't exactly a history of sensitivity and kindness. Particularly where women are concerned, the mere suggestion of being a few pounds beyond anorexic means you're virtually unemployable; and in a city where people like Christina Ricci, Drew Barrymore and Britney Spears can be attacked in the press for being fat, roles for actual human women, let alone fat women, are few and far between. When the Farrelly brothers decided to make a movie about a shallow womanizer who falls in love with a 300-pound woman to prove that he can see 'inner beauty,' they had a casting decision to make: hire two people to play Rosemary Shanahan — one a beautiful, thin Hollywood blonde, to portray Hal's perception of her, and one a genuine 300-pound actress to portray the 'real' character — or just stick Gwyneth Paltrow in a fat suit? (It didn't help the whole unpleasant aftertaste of the movie that its male lead was Jack Black, an actor who gets romantic leads despite his own flabby physique; no actress with a body like Black's would ever nail down a leading-lady part.) Perhaps it's too much to expect anything like insight from filmmakers whose reputation is built on the gross-out comedy, but the fat suit is already a ethical minefield (representing, as it does, a sort of physical proof of Hollywood's allergy to hiring anyone genuinely overweight to appear in a prominent role) without filling it with an actress who probably weighed 110 pounds soaking wet when she was filming the role.

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

Willem Dafoe's Teeth in WILD AT HEART (1990)

The whole world seems to be rotting in David Lynch's nightmare road movie, and nowhere is this clearer than in the misbegotten mouth of white-trash villain Bobby Peru, played by Willem Dafoe in full-moon mode. Unholy, irredeemable, and defiantly unflossed, Bobby Peru is meant to be the ultimate dark void awaiting the young lovers at the end of their road to nowhere, and no Satanic movie character ever displayed a less welcoming smile. Perverse to the end, the still-smiling Bobby finally slides a shotgun beneath his chin and blows his own head off, after which the part of his body above the gum line must have felt a certain amount of relief.

Goldie Hawn's Fat in DEATH BECOMES HER (1992)

In this special-effects comedy, Goldie Hawn and Meryl Streep play lifelong rivals who achieve "undead" immortality and spend the rest of the movie blowing holes in each other, twisting each other's necks into pretzels, knocking their heads into their chest cavities, and generally behaving as if Chuck Jones were their stunt coordinator. But the most effective physical mutation in the picture may come when Hawn slips into an old-fashioned fat suit and layers of latex makeup to depict her character's depressive obesity after Streep has waltzed off with her fiancee. Nothing in the movie is funnier than Hawn's expression of malicious satisfaction, with her features sunk deep in the mass of her cream puff head, as she imagines raining destruction down on her gal pal. At the time, Hawn was forty-six years old and had spent a quarter of a century doing her damndest to hang onto the body and mannerisms of a teenage girl. Maybe she felt wickedly giddy at even pretending to have let herself go.

Dennis Hopper's False Leg in RIVER'S EDGE (1987)

Dennis Hopper, fresh from his comeback in Blue Velvet, lays claim to the being the counterculture's answer to Walter Brennan in this generation-gap study of alienated youth. John Heard made a good grab for the position in Cutter's Way, where he staggered around pretending to be one-legged and wore an eye patch to boot, but that was nothing compared to what you get when you equip Hopper with an artificial leg, an inflatable sex doll, and the name "Feck", and sit back to watch him rock. When Hopper, who deals dope to the local teenagers, sits down to remove his false leg, it symbolizes the loss of his own youthful innocence and the disconnect between the older characters and the young people, which is fed by their use of his own product. Or something like that. And did we mention that his character's name is Feck!?

— Paul Clark, Bilge Ebiri, Phil Nugent, Leonard Pierce, Vadim Rizov