I could go on forever with this, and there are some obvious choices, such as The Big Lebowski or Animal House or The Marx Brothers altogether, that I left out in order to highlight some lesser-known performances. Here they are:
9. Alan Arkin in Edward Scissorhands. Just about every expression on his face in this film is comedy gold, especially when he pours Edward a shot of whiskey and tells him it's lemonade, then checks to see if anyone's coming down the basement stairs.
8. John Ashton in Midnight Run. As poor Marvin Dorfler, who's always getting his ass kicked by Robert De Niro, then getting thrown back into the mix without knowing what's going on, Ashton steals the show with his profane delivery and disgruntled mumbling.
7. Rodney Dangerfield in Caddyshack. Dangerfield walks in and destroys the place in every scene he's in. He's a gross, despicable abomination in those plaid pants, and the way he roasts Ted Knight is unbearably funny. "Oh, this is the worst looking hat I ever saw. What, when you buy a hat like this, I bet you get a free bowl of soup. Looks good on you, though."
6. George C. Scott in Dr. Strangelove. Sure, he gets upstaged by Peter Sellers, and he doesn't get to say, "You can't fight in here, gentlemen, this is the War Room." But he is the most realistic and topical character, and I bet he's one of Dick Cheney's favorites. "We must not allow a mine shaft gap!"
5. Benicio Del Toro in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. I hope he is an extreme exaggeration of the man he is based on, because Del Toro's drug-munching, sex-addicted, lurching, bloated, morally-questionable attorney is so out there that I don't want to consider that anything he does in this movie ever really happened. I had a blurry second-generation VHS copy of this while I was in college, and when he accidently scatters the cocaine to the wind and intones, "Jesus, did you see what God just did to us, man?" I always had to rewind it at least 32 times.
4. Chevy Chase in National Lampoon's Vacation. I grew up watching this movie, and my dad did impersonations of Chase every time we took a vacation to Florida. It's really not a movie a kid should be watching, but I didn't know that. Clark W. Griswald is so maniacally obsessed with getting his family to Wally World, and Chase is so dedicated to his role, that every smirk, every bob of the head, every wide-eyed glare gets a laugh out of me.
3. Dan Aykroyd in Neighbors. Maybe I'm the only one that likes this movie. That's kind of obvious since it's not available on DVD, and nobody I speak to has ever seen it, but this is a one of a kind laugh riot, and one of the strangest black comedies I've ever seen. Belushi and Aykroyd are as funny here as in The Blues Brothers, especially Aykroyd, with his weird blonde hair and his weird blue eyes. The highlight of his performance is when he asks Belushi if he'd like to take a bite out of a pair of his daughter's edible panties. "They come in four flavor: Banana, peach, mint, and of course, cherry!"
2. Leslie Nielsen in The Naked Gun. Nielsen is one of the great comedy performers. I don't know how he keeps a straight face doing the things he does in this and in Airplane and in some of his other films. I've sat through the most awful dreck because of this man. He puts a smile on my face just walking on screen, and when it all comes together, as with The Naked Gun, he makes me laugh harder than any other actor possibly could.
1. Bill Murray in Ghostbusters. He must have broken a record for delivering the highest number of memorable one-liners in a single film. Almost everything he says is quotable, and he even spawned some unlikely catch phrases like, "Back off man, I'm a scientist," and "This chick is toast," that should seemingly have no place in everyday life. In fact, I spend most of my day trying to incorporate them. "I feel so funky." "We came, we saw, we kicked it's ass!" I can't stop! "Yes, it's true, this man has no dick."
Rest in peace, George.
1 comments:
My favorite Murray line from Ghostbusters is "Dogs and cats, living together!" sandwiched between "mass hysteria" and "human sacrifice."
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