Actors that could class up a snuff film

[Vermin Boy]

I love Lee's performance in "Rasputin: The Mad Monk." Bad movie, but Lee plays Rasputin as a complete badass, storming into town, drinking, sleeping with farmers' daughters, lopping off people's hands, and speaking every line as if it had three exclamation points and boldface. Gotta love it.

[raj]

I like Outland.  It was one of the first DVDs I bought.  Yes it is slow paced (a bit more so than High Noon) but I find it a refreshing alternative to big explosions in space.  Not to mention, you learn why you should not use a high powered rifle in a domed space colony.

[J.R.]

-James Woods. Had he not been in John Carpenter's Vampires it would have been a complete turkey. He couldn't save Scary Movie 2, but I blame that on the seven related writers.

[Flangepart]

Glad someone else mentioned Cushing and Lee. A great tag team matchup, no matter the cheese. Ditto Ian Holm, and i'd add Nichole Williamson. Great hammy voice. His line reads as Merlin were a ball.
....How about John Caradine? He fits the mode of the working B actor.
...."No script too silly, no story too bizzare. Eh, its a liveing."...can just hear that great voice now....

[John]

>Throw in Sean Connery as well, though his only "b-movie" role, IIRC, was in
>Zardoz.

 Umm, Highlander 2: The Sickening?

>I like Outland. It was one of the first DVDs I bought.

 I liked Outland too, but the technical goofs bugged me. It was supposed to be a realistic movie, but yet the gravity inside is normal Earth gravity while outside people can just go floating around.

[Dano]

Does Outland qualify as a B-movie?  Connery and Peter Boyle were pretty big names by that point, the effects were good (though unambitious), the script was well written, and it was critically acclaimed as I recall.  Don't know what the budget was, but I think that's the only measure by which it might have been a B-movie.  That and it seemed to be a sleeper in theaters and video stores.  I find a distressingly large number of people didn't see it and don't remember it.

[Jim]

George Kennedy.  


Really.

[raj]

John wrote:
>
> >Throw in Sean Connery as well, though his only "b-movie"
> role, IIRC, was in
> >Zardoz.
>
>  Umm, Highlander 2: The Sickening?

I'm still waiting to be given enough money to watch Highlander 2

> >I like Outland. It was one of the first DVDs I bought.
>
>  I liked Outland too, but the technical goofs bugged me. It
> was supposed to be a realistic movie, but yet the gravity
> inside is normal Earth gravity while outside people can just
> go floating around.
I thought (though I could be wrong) they had some anti-gravity thing, or else it was magnetic shoes & floors.  Usually I'll give a sf movie one of those things, such as artificial gravity or FTL ships.  The further removed from our time, the more leeway I'll grant the flimmakers.  Unless it's a completely silly movie such as Flash Gordon.  Then it's screw the science.

[Fearless Freep]

The further removed from our time, the more leeway I'll grant the flimmakers

That's what I didn't like about "Demolition Man".  The technology didn't bother me, but they did not allow nearly enough time for the social changes required in the movie.  The prison warden was born in 1969.  *I* was born in 1969.  For such radical changes in social norms would require at least several generations, but probably longer.

[Lee]

I like Outland to. But it has that b-movie feel to it.(Which is welcome)

[AndyC]

Yes. I was a little puzzled by some of the older cops being surprised by Phoenix. Only one of them appeared to be familiar with him. Chief George Earl calling Spartan a caveman was very puzzling too, since he had to be in his 50s. Doesn't quite add up.

The only thing I could come up with, in the way of excuses, is that the people in positions of authority are the people who, in the present, would be considered excessively PC. We do have them. The warden, being an employee of Dr. Cocteau, would probably also have to subscribe to the same ideology.

In truth, I think Demolotion Man was simply holding a mirror on society at the time it was made. I wouldn't put it in the same league as stories like Fahrenheit 451 or 1984 (the books, not the movies), but it similarly takes the trends the writer sees in the present day and presents a future in which they have continued and worsened.

Still, there was no reason Demolition Man couldn't have taken place 200 years in the future, except maybe that they wanted to keep the sci-fi element to a minimum, have the architect of the society still alive and well, and still have a few folks nostalgic for the good old days.

The early 90s was when we had that great PC backlash, which brought us movies like PCU, Falling Down and Demolition Man.

[BlackAngel]

Andy C said:

>I would name James Earl Jones, but I can't, off the top of my head  remember him in anything too cheesy.<

If it helps, he was in a bit role in the movie Meteor Man with Robert Townsend.

--------------------------------------------------------
From evey1 in NYC, c-ya

[John]

>I thought (though I could be wrong) they had some anti-gravity thing, or else it
>was magnetic shoes & floors.

 Maybe, but it still doesn't explain why everything outside is in slow motion, but inside everything seems normal. The only explanation I can come up with is that the filmmakers didn't have a lot of technical knowledge and just assumed that anything taking place in a vacuum on a moon should look like the spacewalk scenes we're all used to.

>>I would name James Earl Jones, but I can't, off the top of my head remember
>>him in anything too cheesy.<
>
>If it helps, he was in a bit role in the movie Meteor Man with Robert Townsend.

 Darn, how'd I miss this one?

 James Earl Jone in a cheesy movie? How about Conan?

[raj]

John wrote:
>
> >I thought (though I could be wrong) they had some
> anti-gravity thing, or else it
> >was magnetic shoes & floors.
>
>  Maybe, but it still doesn't explain why everything outside
> is in slow motion, but inside everything seems normal. The
> only explanation I can come up with is that the filmmakers
> didn't have a lot of technical knowledge and just assumed
> that anything taking place in a vacuum on a moon should look
> like the spacewalk scenes we're all used to.

Hmm, I'll have to watch it again this weekend.  I thought the outside stuff was slow because they were moving around in bulky space suits.

[John]

>Hmm, I'll have to watch it again this weekend. I thought the outside stuff was slow >because they were moving around in bulky space suits.

 Let me know when you do. In a realistic movie, things inside should behave just like things outside, but they don't.