← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Hugh Lincoln
Thread ID: 9474 | Posts: 11 | Started: 2003-09-02
2003-09-02 21:29 | User Profile
Anyone agree?
2003-09-02 23:23 | User Profile
Well, I always enjoy him. In fact, I even like impressionists doing Chris Walken.
And it has to count for something that he's one of the very few guest hosts of SNL who makes that show bearable. Gotta love "The Continental" - have a glass of shomponya!
2003-09-03 00:24 | User Profile
Spot on, Il Ragno.
Walken is cool because he isn't trying to be cool. Yeah, he plays up some of his "Walkenisms" these days, but he doesn't really give a damn about the trappings that so many other celebs obsess over.
2003-09-03 06:35 | User Profile
Walken is best in oddities. He played Detective McDuff in an fast-food version of MacBeth called Scotland PA. It was set in the 70s with hippies instead of witches, etc, played for very strange laughs. This sort of thing is addicting.
The thing I like most about Christopher Walken is that Woody Allen hired him for one of his interminable movies, and then fired him a week or so into the production because Walken couldn't get with the program. You can tell a lot about a guy's integrity with this sort of thing. Being fired by a jerk is a badge of honor.
2003-09-03 17:48 | User Profile
Did anybody else enjoy Walken's protrayl of Cato in the recent TNT tv movie "Caesar"? I personally thought it was pretty good!
2003-09-03 19:15 | User Profile
Christpher Walken's performance in "The Dead Zone" made the movie-if you can find it at the store buy it and watch his character: this ludicrous movie works because of him. Another winner is "Brainstorm" with Natalie Wood, her last film before she died. Christopher Walken's performance again makes this lame movie sing. :lol:
2003-09-04 00:20 | User Profile
How ironic -- I just saw "Scotland, PA." a few days ago.
Walken is good, and cool. But his facial expressions never vary.
He was really good in "Biloxi Blues."
2003-09-04 05:50 | User Profile
He was excellent in The Dogs of War.
2003-09-04 18:01 | User Profile
Yes to Dogs of War.
He was also good in The Deer Hunter, which was actually a better movie than I expected.
However, the piece de resistance of his acting career, for me, was the one-on-one scene with him and Dennis Hopper in True Romance, an otherwise mediocre movie (though Brad Pitt as the stoner roomate and the portrayal of Jewish movie people were good).
2003-11-17 08:50 | User Profile
IMHO:
Christopher Walken's "greatness" (as an actor) resides in the fact that he can take the worst sort of cinematic dialogue and elevate to the level of sounding as though it is great screen writing.
I.e., Walken can take any sort of part and make it his own; hence it "rings true."
"Prophesy 3" in which he plays the role of the Arch-Angel Gabriel is my case in point.
2003-11-17 17:25 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Ragnar]Walken is best in oddities. He played Detective McDuff in an fast-food version of MacBeth called Scotland PA. It was set in the 70s with hippies instead of witches, etc, played for very strange laughs. This sort of thing is addicting.
The thing I like most about Christopher Walken is that Woody Allen hired him for one of his interminable movies, and then fired him a week or so into the production because Walken couldn't get with the program. You can tell a lot about a guy's integrity with this sort of thing. Being fired by a jerk is a badge of honor.[/QUOTE]
Walken did appear in an early Allen movie, [I]Annie Hall [/I] and was brilliant as Annie's psychotic brother who tells Woody he wants to kill himself. There's a great scene where he's driving Woody and Annie home in the pouring rain and Woody is expecting to die at any moment.