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Last week's Movie Quiz winners

"Come out, come out, wherever you are!" While it's not in the same league as "You talkin' to me?", Robert De Niro's taunt from the 1991 Martin Scorsese remake of Cape Fear would still be in his top five catchphrases. Likewise, his portrayal of Max Cady is one of his few later performances that come close to his best-known taxi-driving one-- in fact, one quiz-winning wag said that last week's picture clue even looked like "an episode of The Travis Bickle Show."

Based on the 1962 version starring Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum (both had cameos in this remake), it's a star-filled popcorn movie, if a pretty damned grim one. De Niro's character is an ex-con with a Bible's worth of tattoos (Mitchum's character says, "I don't know whether to look at him or read him") who stalks his former lawyer (Nick Nolte) for suppressing evidence that could have kept him out of prison. The cast is filled with fine actors doing interesting things-- I especially enjoyed Joe Don Baker drinking whiskey and Pepto-Bismol-- and the direction is, as you'd expect, inspired (even though the movie was a commercial project Scorsese had to be talked into doing).

But with all the talent on both sides on the camera, De Niro still rules.

Whether by filling a movie theater with cigar smoke or biting off Illeana Douglas' face, De Niro made the most of playing a murderous beast. "Ugliest character he ever played, bar none. I doubt there's a single still from that movie where that ugliness doesn't show through." "De Niro was genuinely horrifying in this role." "Super creepy!" Not all the quiz winners were that impressed, though: "De Niro is good but he still can't hold a candle to Mitchum." "Part of it for me is that De Niro, like Nicholson, can no longer get lost in a role-- they've both become actors playing their image."

And everybody seemed to dislike the thumb-sucking star who played Nolte and Jessica Lange's pot-smoking daughter. "What a cast of heavyweights ... and Juliette Lewis." "I loved the movie, but I just can’t stand her in any incarnation." "Does she ever not suck, no pun intended?" Ouch! (For what it's worth, the infamous scene above was completely ad-libbed by Lewis and De Niro in one take.)

Lots of winners this week, so congratulations and an acting lesson from Max to the following fine folks: John Seffl, Wayne Palmer, Song-Un Lee, Christina O'Sullivan, Isaac Kaufman, Jack Sparks, Mark Gisleson, Bob Redwing, Corey Anderson, Bill Hearne, Thomas Miller, Kenneth Gramer (who was an extra in the movie!), Michael Mattson, Denny Lynch, The Curmudgeon, Mary Mezzenga, Nick Rupar, Bill McLaughlin, Fred Lorence, Dean E. Carlson, Doug Smith, Shaun Faulkner, E. Yarber, Bill Kelly, Donald Greene, Nancy Louise Rutherford, Kevin Musolino, Stacy Sarette, and Vince Tuss. Wow! Your acting lesson will begin . . . right now!

Posted by Steve Monaco at January 28, 2008 12:31 AM

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