Not a member? Sign up now
November 11, 2009
Some years ago, driven to the brink of doleful and giddy insanity after copious Zimas and VHS viewings of Say Anything, my best friend and I decided it would be a good idea for the school system to offer, along with its standard curriculum in Human Growth and Development (our clumsy, fundamentalist Christian-friendly term for Sex Ed), a class geared toward our male classmates, instructing them in one subject: how to be like John Cusack.
"They'd teach them how to express their feelings, how to be sincere and loving," I said. "You know. How to be men. Good men."
"It wouldn't have to be required," my friend agreed. "It could be an elective. But when they all see how much pussy those guys are getting, they'll all want to take it."
Needless to say, our school board didn't go for this idea, perhaps worrying that if it was implemented, the teen pregnancy rates in Omaha would skyrocket to rural Mississippi levels. But they were wrong, because John Cusack would always use a condom if you wanted, and never pressure you into doing anything you weren't ready for. John Cusack was perfect, or rather, perfectly imperfect. He was obsessively romantic without being creepy, smart without being pompous, handsome, but not intimidatingly so. The kind of guy who might sit beside you in study hall, unnoticed, scribbling Smiths lyrics in ballpoint pen on the manila dividers of his Mead five-subject notebook, until one day you locked eyes and you realized that you loved him.
But then something happened. I didn't know this then, but John Cusack's appeal — his oversized trenchcoat, the eyes like two smears of day-old mascara, the raspy voice of an over-caffeinated cartoon fox — was never going to age well. I saw him a couple of years ago, loping down University Place in an NYPD baseball cap which topped a face that looked suspiciously like it was wearing base. And he stopped making movies, or rather, started making only the kind of movies that you make for money. And I'd fallen in love with him in the early '90s, before we knew money mattered. That was a long time ago. Now I'm older, and I've started to have recurring sexual dreams about Jack Donaghy — not even Alec Baldwin, but Jack Donaghy. I no longer want someone who loves me enough to stand outside my bedroom window with a boombox in the middle of the night, but someone who loves me enough to let me watch the Real Housewives when the Yankees are on. Someone who pays the Time-Warner bill on time and doesn't give me a well-intentioned lecture on global poverty when I feel like I need a $900 handbag.
And I guess John Cusack doesn't want to be that sweet, well-intentioned, self-improving guy anymore, or he wouldn't be starring in a we-are-all-doomed-paranoia-fest like this week's 2012. Because the old John Cusack didn't think mankind's destruction was inevitable. The old John Cusack was the kind of guy who, when he grew up, was going to (sweetly, well-intentionedly) break through the soulless murk of the Reagan years towards something tender and real. If he was cynical, or grouchy, it was for sake of self-preservation, not because he was trying to keep up with some preening nihilist shithead like Bill Maher on late-night cable television. The old John Cusack believed in things. And we believed him.
But none of this is really John Cusack's fault. It's not his fault that his current existence reminds us how much our teenage selves would hate the people we've become. For better or for worse (and mostly for the worse) we all grow up. But there's one thing that no matter how I try I can't erase from my mind. One insistent, unignorable thing that seems to indicate that the old John Cusack was perhaps not all I thought he was.
John Cusack, however indirectly, is responsible for Jeremy Piven.
I can forgive him for getting old. I can forgive him for Runaway Jury. I can forgive him for Must Love Dogs. I can even forgive him for Con Air. And while I love him, just like I love all the men who sweetly broke my heart, I can't, I just can't, quite forgive him for that.
Commentarium (31 Comments)
I used to love Nic Cage. Now he appears to be something of an asshole..
a right wing assholw.
What happened to Cusack was he got pissed with Ralph Nader. Now he don't look so hip.
The last movie I saw him in was a sad story about a man whose wife had died.
I wish he was one of those Zen types, but the thing today is the family man who loves his steak and potatoes.
What's happening with Joan. Isn't that his sister. I kind of like her.
Kind of a young guy, John, who looks like he's trying to appear all grown up.
I'm not so young.
I remember in junior high school, when John Cusack was the only guy that the boys could be into without worrying about being made fun of. But that was old John Cusack, "High Fidelity" John Cusack. Oh, nostalgia.
I do think that the author is right to point out that this nostalgia may not be with John Cusack himself, or his career choices, but rather just nostalgia for our own youths...
i can't forgive him for con air. ugh.
I don't care, I still love him :-) but I will not see that 2012 movie
Why do you say that Cage is right-wing Eddie?
Personally I was always a "Better off Dead" kid. I saw a screening of it last year with the director "Savage" Steve Holland, who told the audience that on the set of their next collaboration "One Crazy Summer," Cusack complained to him b/c he thought "BOD" was not the type of movie he expected it to be.
Then co-star Curtis Armstrong put Cusack's lack of humor into perspective when he asked, "What kind of movie did he think we were making?"
Agreed re: Better Off Dead, a truly timeless classic, much more entertaining minute by minute than Say Anything. All we remember from that movie is the one image. But what was that about Jeremy Piven, how exactly is Cusack responsible for ... that?
Grosse Pointe Blanke is too awesome. I don't think Piven is that bad, when he's playing off of John Cusack. Is it possible that both men need each other to help filter all the badness out and keep only the things you love about each actor?
So true, Joan will always be the Cusack with staying power!
John Cusack's career has been devoted to playing machismic geeks, even if his character in SAY ANYTHING was a sensitive machismic geek (THE GRIFTERS character likewise, in a somewhat different way).
still wuv him! i dont care what any of you say. people grow, people change, they cant stay cute adolescents forever..
As a young papergirl, I enjoyed Better Off Dead and John, but also identified with the paperboy who exclaimed "where's my $2? I want my $2!!"
i'm with you. i just love to dislike him
You have to be kidding me! Hate John Cusack? The greatest actor of his generation?!? Not a chance! He continues to do great films. High Fidelity and The Jack Bull were not all THAT long ago. So what if he does a couple "Hollywood blockbuster" money makers from time to time; he still does great work and gets some small films made that would not otherwise ever be produced. Every great actor has done some crap from time to time but I would be proud to have my name associated with Cusack's body of work. I think he has made some excellent choices.
Jeremy Piven is awesome. Entourage wouldn't be what it is without him. John Cusack is great because with every John Cusack you get a Jeremy Piven for free.
Wait, how is John indirectly responsible for Jeremy Piven?
Jeremy Piven is a better actor than John Cusack, who's only good if the script is excellent. (See "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" for a performance so bad I walked out.)
I had to detwitter him. His tweets were duller than his movies.
I think it comes down to the problem of confusing John Cusack with Lloyd Dobler. He's never gonna live up to that.
But I've purposefully got blinders on when it comes to his odd decision to do a movie like this. I'm plugging my ears, going "lalalala" and rewatching "Say Anything" "Runaway Jury" and "Must Love Dogs" Yeah, that's right, I love all three. Plus, actors I like have done Emmerich movies. I'll forgive...once.
Maybe John Cusack didn't change: you did.
i think you're confusing the personality of cusack's characters with cusack. you see, when he's doing those films, he's not actually being himself, he's acting as someone or something else. i hope, given your implied age, that by now you've learned to separate reality from fiction.
Actually, you could argue that Jeremy Piven is somewhat responsible for John Cusack, via his parents and the Piven Theatre Workshop where John got his first acting work. Jeremy Piven's parents are hugely respected in the Chicago theater world, and everyone just tries to maintain his fame is an error of the fates.
well, he just flamed me on twitter to an innocent, albeit dumb question asking for clarification on his position about an article he'd posted. he asked me if i was "stupid" then blocked me. it seems to me that anyone with that kind of intolerance isn't really wanting to work for solutions. he may talk a decent liberal political game, but when you get right down to it, he isn't willing to meet someone halfway if he misinterprets their intent. i'm disappointed in what seems to be a complete lack of character, willingness to understand mistakes and points of view and a contemptuous patronizing tone. anger is an energy, john cusack, but save it for the groups you're really mad at. not some person who is trying to get clarification on your position on something. i was curious if he was mean to everyone or just me tonight. did a search on "is john cusack an asshole" and found many many blogs saying that indeed, he is. i don't think he's an asshole, i think he doesn't have the education, experience and insight to engage in adult conversations. i feel sorry for him.
Yeah, it's a well known fact that John Cusack is an asshole. Even his tweets reiterate that fact.
Hopefully his career is about over.
The guy I used to love (well the characters he played)...from the geek in 16 candles to Lloyd Dobler in Say Anything, is long gone. He got involved in politics - not in a smart, thoughtful, I want to make the world a better place way. No, he turned into a far (even farther left than Sean Penn) left liberal whose rants about wanting to blow up or kill off the GOP en masse (I'm paraphrasing, I don't remember the exact line but you get the idea). His affiliation with moveon.org was a venue for him to spew his negativity. Conservative or Democrat, people's policital positions make no difference to me as long as they are open minded...John turned into a radical jerk. It's a shame, because now I don't even enjoy the reruns of his movies that I used to watch over and over again.
I work in the film industry and have known several people that have worked on set with Cusack and they have all said that he is an asshole to work with. Also Like the above poster said, there are countless articles online that reiterate this fact and anyone who reads his tweets can easily conclude he is an asshole.
Besides, John Cumsack has NEVER won a academy award, golden globe or an Oscar so it's safe to say that he makes shit films nowadays.
I would be willing to bet in less than 5 years his career will officially be over.
are you people sure about john cusack being an a...hole have, any of you meet and spent a long time with him to know that, we all can be jerks sometimes, nobody is perfect