(This thing is cut a bit short this week. Feel free to play along at home. CPO the home game can be shipped to you directly for only 19.99 plus a 4.95 handling fee.)
Almost all film actors start out making B-movies. Most of them never move beyond these b-pictures and die sad, alone and penniless. A few of them find themselves in B-parts of A pictures (think Bruce Campbell). Fewer still turn out to be bonafide movie stars.
But just because somebody is the biggest star in the world doesn’t mean that they didn’t make a cheesy horror picture or five. Just two years before becoming a screen legend in The Maltese Falcon, Humphrey Bogart starred as the title character in The Return of Doctor X, a film about spooky blood experiments.
Let’s examine some of today’s big stars and check out some of the stuff they left of their résumés.
George Clooney
B-Movie Résumé:
Predator: The Concert – A grizzly bear attacks a rock festival. Co-starring are LouiseFletcher, Laura Dern, Charlie Sheen, and John Rhys-Davies as a mountain man.
Return to Horror High – This poor attempt at a horror-comedy features a fake movie within a movie and a mysterious serial killer. It also stars Marcia Brady classic and Alex Rocco.
Return of the Killer Tomatoes – ’nuff said.
Brad Pitt
B-Movie Résumé:
Cutting Class – This thing is a surprisingly watchable Dead Teenager Movie. Martin Mull and Roddy McDowell provide the comic relief.
Jennifer Aniston
B-Movie Résumé:
Leprechaun – I just assume that everybody knows this flick. Frankly, the most surprising thing is that it can be used as the measure of all other Jennifer Aniston movies. There are those which are better than Leprechaun (e.g. The Iron Giant, Office Space). There are those that are about as good as Leprechaun (e.g. The Break-up). Finally, there are those that make Leprechaun look like Citizen Kane (e.g. Derailed, The Good Girl).
Johnny Depp
B-Movie Résumé:
A Nightmare on Elm Street – Wes Craven credits his daughter with the casting of Johnny Depp as Glen in the original Freddy Kreuger flick. It would only take Depp 20 years to find commercial film success in that very expensive b-movie pirate trilogy.
Angelina Jolie
– B-Movie Résumé:
Cyborg 2 – This flick is from 1993 and, near as I can tell, Jolie plays some sort of sexy robot. The all-star cast features the under-appreciated Elias Koteas, Jack Palance, and Billy “always plays a psychopath” Drago.
Hackers – Effin’ Hackers. The director of Hackers went on to supply such films as K-Pax and The Skeleton Key. He needs to be stopped before he films again.
Russell Crowe
B-Movie Résumé:
Virtuosity – Crowe plays a serial killer pastiche who escapes from virtual reality. Denzel Washington is the cop who must stop him. Now, this thing was hyped like a proper movie, but, well: Virtual Reality Serial Killer.
Clint Eastwood
B-Movie Résumé:
Revenge of the Creature: Eastwood is uncredited as a lab technician in this sequel to The Creature from the Black Lagoon.
Tarantula: Eastwood is uncredited as “Jet Squadron Leader” in this giant spider flick.
Nicholas Cage
B-Movie Résumé:
Nic Cage, no matter how famous he gets, will never stop making b-movies.
