ROBERT DOWNEY, JR. in IRON MAN & TROPIC THUNDER (2008)
Like Jason Voorhees and Freddy Krueger, the seemingly indestructible Robert Downey, Jr. has pretty much been coming back from the dead again and again (sometimes literally) since the beginning of his career...and, frankly, I got tired of rooting for him sometime around the first Bush administration. For one thing, I never really thought he was all that talented: in movies from Less Than Zero to Natural Born Killers, he just seemed to keep recycling the same fast-talking hipster schtick that John Cusack did at least as well, if not better (and with far less off-screen drama). To my way of thinking, if an actor’s extracurricular lunacy eclipses their onscreen work, they either belong on Celebrity Rehab with Gary Busey and Corey Haim, or their performances had better reach Klaus Kinski levels of riveting, can’t-look-away intensity, but Downey seemed to be forever slumming, demanding endless sympathy for his problems and respect for his craft while never bothering to really try all that hard (except for the occasions, like Chaplin, when he tried too hard). And yet, for all that, whenever Downey managed to connect with a well-written part in his range (like the legal clerk in True Believer, the editor in Wonder Boys or the crime reporter in Zodiac), he’d generally knock it out of the park and make me like him again, pretty much against my will. Thus, in spite of everything, I was happy for Downey’s latest one-two punch career revival in a pair of films that knew precisely how to use (and reward) the actor’s self-deprecating, hard-won personal and professional maturity (while gently goosing all those skeletons in his closet): two redemption songs, one about an aging party boy who finally grows up and takes responsibility for his life and another about a talented but pretentious actor who learns the difference between real life and movies. Perfect. Now, seriously, Bob...don’t fuck it up again, ‘cuz you’ve been on borrowed time for way too long already.
MARLENE DIETRICH in DESTRY RIDES AGAIN (1939)
In her seven collaborations with Josef von Sternberg from 1930-35, Marlene Dietrich embodied illicit foreign sexuality, allowing von Sternberg to go crazy visually in ways that probably wouldn't have been popularly acceptable with a less magnetic presence to anchor his increasingly baroque and unpopular ideas. Having gone too far, finally, Paramount fired von Sternberg, and both he and Dietrich went into professional tailspins. 1937's Knight Without Armour flopped, even with the British spelling tweaked for American release. It was 1939's seemingly low-rent Destry Rides Again that rehabilitated Dietrich. Now a small Western town's bar wench, Dietrich still embodies palpable, illicit allure: "You know that he would rather be cheated by me than married to you" she tells a staid biddy in the clip above. Shanghai Lily could've said that and had it taken at face value. The new, earthier Dietrich has to get in a cat-fight over it, though. Her new persona proved liberating, and Dietrich went on to more eclectic (if less iconic) turns in films like 1948's A Foreign Affair.
KATHARINE HEPBURN in THE PHILADELPHIA STORY (1940)
Katharine Hepburn also got the "box office poison" tag, but she was fighting a harder battle — her no-nonsense, non-traditionally-feminine persona raised hackles from the beginning. A series of (now beloved) flops like Bringing Up Baby led to rehabilitation starting on the stage; conquering Broadway with The Philadelphia Story, she (along with ex-lover Howard Hughes!) purchased the rights and brought them back to MGM. A hit was born, but Hepburn begins the film with an almost painful forced apology, getting shoved in the face onto the ground by Cary Grant in an opening almost unthinkable in a modern comedy.
JOHN HOWARD DAVIES from OLIVER TWIST (1948) to MONTY PYTHON, FAWLTY TOWERS & MR. BEAN (PRODUCER)
One of the legions of children plucked out of obscurity, then promptly plunked back in, Davies appeared in a few more unremarkable films after Oliver Twist (in which, ironically, he had less memorable screen time than anyone else), but later found himself a TV director and producer for some of the most beloved staples of British TV comedy: Monthy Python, Fawlty Towers and (touchier) Mr. Bean all wound up on his resume. (He also fired Benny Hill, which might have earned him some people's eternal gratitude.) No idea if the clip above is one of his episodes, but it's especially timely in light of Frost/Nixon warping people's memories about what, exactly, David Frost has accomplished with his life and exactly how seriously he should (or should not) be taken.
GREGG ARAKI AND JOSEPH-GORDON LEVITT, MYSTERIOUS SKIN (2004)
Two recent abortive comebacks can be traced to the exemplary Mysterious Skin. After a decade+ of callow provocations, Araki's series of increasingly-obscurely-distributed landmarks of New Queer Cinema (or whatever they were supposed to be) came to a halt with the freakishly mature Skin. Along for the ride was Joseph-Gordon Levitt, who hardly needed to prove himself (his comic timing on 3rd Rock From The Sun was as exemplary as the show was mediocre and he was well-received in little-seen films like Manic), but nevertheless delivered a knock-out performance as a small-town gay hustler turned big-city witness to AIDS' '90s arrival. In the scene agove, he and his BFFs course through a small town, blasting Araki's favorite alt-rockin' tunes; unlike a similar scene in the dreadful The Doom Generation, though, they don't just sit there and talk about what The Smiths meant to them, but live out the synthesis of memory and music on-screen. And since then? Araki made the underseen Smiley Face; Gordon-Levitt made the excellent Brick and then disappeared into crap like Shadowboxer. And something tells me his turn in the upcoming G.I. Joe movie isn't going to help anything.
Click Here For Part One, Two, Three, & Four
Contributors: Andrew Osborne, Vadim Rizov