Sam in ‘Benny & Joon’ Johnny Depp and Mary Stuart Masterson lit up the screen in ‘Benny & Joon.’ (Snap/Shutterstock) It also teamed him with leading lady Winona Ryder, who was one of Johnny’s most famous romances. The dark fairytale about an artificial man with scissors for hands is often considered one of Johnny’s best performances. Johnny played the eponymous role in Tim Burton’s 1990 classic Edward Scissorhands. Edward Scissorhands Winona Ryder and Johnny Depp starred in ‘Edward Scissorhands.’ (20thCentFox/Courtesy Everett Collection) The show’s plot consisted of young-looking cops going undercover to investigate crimes in high schools and other teen hangouts. Johnny became a household name by playing the brooding, sexy cop Tom Hanson in the Fox police procedural from 1987 to 1990. While it was Johnny’s first big picture in Hollywood, audiences couldn’t take their eyes of the handsome actor even if they didn’t know him by name yet. In 1984, Johnny scared his soon-to-be legion of fans with his turn as doomed boyfriend Glan Lantz in Wes Craven’s iconic horror film A Nightmare on Elm Street. I think I hear Keira shout “Prepare to broadside!” at one point, but she could be asking for a wine list for all I can tell.Glen Lantz in ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’ Johnny’s first big role was in ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street.’ (New Line Cinema/Courtesy Everett Collection) There’s plenty of shouting, too, much of bellowed into squalling winds and driving rain as pirate ships battling East India Trading Company frigates. A lot of it is confusing, conflicting and often ill-explained. I’d be hard pushed, frankly, to relate much in the way of plot detail to you. George Lucas and Steven Spielberg realised their audience cared only for Indiana himself, so each successive sequel simply booted Indy on five years and introduced a new quest and a fresh supporting cast. It goes on, all the way down to Captain Barbossa’s comedy monkey, all with different missions, quests, desires and allegiances.Ī lesson could have been learned from the Indiana Jones movies. Here’s Orlando Bloom‘s Will Turner trying to save his dad, here’s lantern-jawed Keira Knightley‘s Elizabeth Swann elected Pirate King, there’s Geoffrey Rush’s brilliant Captain Barbossa out to regain control of the Black Pearl, Cap’n Jack out for immortality. It’s exhaustive, trying to keep up with the various doings of this heaving multitude of characters. There’s tiers and tiers of supporting characters who the writers appear to think are worth their own narrative arcs. The mistake the screenwriters make is that we care particularly about anyone in these movies apart from Jack Sparrow. It’s big on spectacle, and rather little else - and, after a while, even the spectacle begins to wane. It’s part of the wider problem with Pirates: it doesn’t know when to stop. It’s a brilliant little anecdote, but did we really need to see Keef, all done up here with crucifixes in his hair, all manner of eldritch rings on his fingers, and bad voodoo gleaming in his eyes? It spoils the fun rather sometimes an idea is best just left as that. One of the great nuggets we gleaned from Depp, when on promotional duty for the first Pirates movie, was that he’d based Jack’s character on Keef. It’s not exactly one of the great movie debuts, though it’s kinda fun. I’m reminded of a great moment in The Sopranos once, when Michael Imperioli’s Christopher quoted a line from Bruce Springsteen’s “Born To Run” at fellow New Jersey Mobster Silvio Dante, played by The Boss’ guitarist Steve Van Zandt.Īnyway, Keith growls rather magnificently through his appearance, giving a good account of a slightly elderly, if no less deadly lion, who could take your arm off without too much by way of effort. In fact, Keith’s most substantial line of dialogue is as self-referential as it gets: “It’s not about living forever, Jackie boy, it’s about living with yourself forever.” Johnny Depp’s Captain Jack Sparrow is a fictional character based on a real person – Keith Richards – who now himself appears in the movie as a fictional character. There’s something very metatextual about all this.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |