I caught you a delicious bass...

John Cusack is my hero. Or at least, a lot of the characters he plays are the kinds of people I think should be my hero. Lloyd Dobbler, for example, is one of the best movie characters ever because he was so much like me. I would really like to be like Roy Dillon in the Grifters, and as well like Martin Blank in Gross Pointe Blank, and like Rob Gordon in High Fidelity.

He was also in lots of movies like Eight Men Out and Broadcast News and Tapeheads and Being John Malkovich that were really great. He was in some mediocre movies that became good when he was in them, like Con Air and Runaway Jury. He was in Bullets Over Broadway, where he got to be the Woody Allen part that Woody realized he was just too damn old to play (for once). Lots of old movies - old as in "when I was a kid" - have him, like Sixteen Candles, Grandview USA (C Thomas Howell & Jamie Lee Curtis making out on a demo derby car!), The Sure Thing, and the best teen movie EVER, Better Off Dead.

What can I say - I love his work and his characters. I have, however, always been a bit cautious around the sappier end of the spectrum - like for example I never saw America's Sweethearts. My hatred of Julia Roberts far outweighs my admiration of Mr. Cusack. Here's where it gets interesting. Last Friday we were at the video store looking for something crappy that we could put on and not have to bother paying attention to. We rented "Must Love Dogs" with him and Diane Laine.

This movie was SO bad...it was a huge pile of dogshit! How big was it? It was big it had little turds orbiting around it! Should I have expected something better? Perhaps not. But it takes something extra special to get me to shut off a movie. Usually I will just fall asleep in the middle of it and not bother going back to see what I missed. With this steaming heap I couldn't even bare to waste the electricity that it took to run the computer on which we were viewing it.

What posseses a guy with seemingly impeccable taste to make such a crappy movie? I can't hold it against him because I have been thrilled with almost all of his work - ever - but it really begs the question as to why he would do this.

If I were a famous actor I think I would have 2 bank accounts. Into one I would put all the money from my good films, and used it for regular living expenses. You know, car payments, groceries, smokes, the Visa bill, and so on. Into the other I would put all the money I made from shitty movies like Must Love Dogs (and presumably America's Sweethearts). The money in that account would only be used for special things like home renovations and expensive vacations. That way I could justify my appearances in those substandard pieces of crap with very tangible results ("I had to make out with Horseface Roberts to get this deck built, but the view of the ocean really makes me think it was worth it" "I had to put everything I believe in aside and pretend that a movie about internet dating was a good idea for a couple of months, but the 6 weeks I spent cycling around Cuba sure was worth it.")

# posted by Pedro @ 12:56 PM