I remember quite clearly when "Bad Neil Baxter" was shown on screen for the first time. But, How could I forget that moment? (Since it was at that exact very instant, I practically burst out laughing). The reason for such an unusual reactionwas the fact that I had already held a preconcieved notion about the face who played him... Having seen the actor in a previous comedic movie had implanted an image of what the performer himself could do. But, no matter how hard I tired, I could not remove this pre-concieved notion from my head.
To be specific, the actor who plays "Bad Neil Baxter" also satrred as one of the main roles in a 90s comedy by the name of Office Space. Although not a mega-hit the first weeks of its release (in fact, it waas barely able to recoup its production costs!), the movie became a cult classic within the years that followed. The actor in question, Gary Michael Cole, plays Bill Lumbergh, the main antagonist in the movie. He is the ultimate charicature of the sort of "everyboss" - the kind of jerk that hard-working Americans have the pleasure of dealing with every single day they wake up and go to work in their little cubicles.
In the context of the movie, Bill Lumbergh is the Vice-Presisdent of the software company Initech (the company that they all work for). Essentially, Lumbergh is the ultimate manifestation of the impersonal and oppressive corporate business practices of today. The deeper philosophical meaning of what the character represent is eloquently sumed up in a GQ Men Style.com's review of the movie. The editors are quoted as saying, "The guy who stops by your desk and says, "Mmm, yeah, I'm going to have to go ahead and ask you to come in on Sunday," is now an integral part of the soul-crushing corporte culture Lumbergh was created to satirize in the first place."
But surely, a Corporate-America office bully cannot possibly strike the same amount of fear into the hearts of men that a malicious serial killer should....
Here is short a video capturing the essence of the character known as Bill Lumbergh with a short mashup of a few of his wildly-popular saying & catchphrases ;-)
But sadly enough, I'm afraid that to me & a vast majority of people who've ever seen Office Space (there's quite a lot of them), Gary Cole will forever be the guy who played Bill Lumbergh in Office Space...
Just a heads up, in your last paragraph you called him Gary Coleman. You may want to fix that.
ReplyDeleteAlso yea, whenever I saw Gary Cole in this movie, I was thinking of Lumbergh. I guess that is the downside of creating a popular character. It's like automatically associating Peter Falk with Columbo or Samuel L Jackson as the over-the-top shouting black guy from everything. What is even more impressive is when you can see these kind of actors in something else, and their performance is so good you forget about their famous character. It shows they do have ability outside of that one character.
I always think of him in this role because it is so "iconic" but because I have seen him in several other things, I can take him beyond just this character and because of that I can take him seriously in other roles that he has.
ReplyDeleteYou're right Nick, it's only gonna be simply "Gary Cole" from now on!
ReplyDeleteBut do you really think his performance in "A Simple Man" was that amazing that it made you completely forget about the character that his face is forever known for? I certainly didn't! But maybe it has something to do with the fact that Gary Cole's presence in this film did not deliver a truly ground-breaking performance outside of being the evil villian at the very final scenes of the movie...
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ReplyDeleteOh no I didn't mean to imply that his performance in A Simple Plan was fantastic, or good by any means. I was just saying that it's impressive when OTHER actors do it haha. I should've specified. Although, he did make me forget about Lumbergh in Talladega Nights. He was hilarious in that movie.
ReplyDeleteTopic: Actors who have transcended either a particular role or a type of role. Sean Connery's experience with James Bond is, perhaps the most well-known example. He ran away from the role only to return, first for a huge payoff, and then, much later, just for the fun of it. One actor who managed to overcome both is Robin Williams. He was known almost exclusively for his role as the joke telling alien in the 70's sitcom, Mork and Mindy, not one minute of which did I ever watch. He went on to star in a bunch of comedic roles in movies, bu then overcame the comic label to play a lunatic killer in more than one film. The class can, perhaps, cite other examples.
ReplyDeleteTo Nick:
ReplyDeleteOkay dude, I'm glad that we're finally on the same page about what you said about Gary Cole's acting performance in this movie. I was like, "Really Nick?" And you being the aspiring film critic that you are (not to mention the fact that the number of movies you have watched critically is vastly superior to my own), I thought that there was something I missed in Cole's performance in this movie...
Glad we've finally cleared up that issue! hahaha
To Bennett & others:
ReplyDeleteOnce agian, you've been able to eloquently sumarize an entire discussion in a short sentence or two - "Topic: Actors who have transcended either a particular role or a type of role."
I think that elaborating on this topic would generate quite an interesting conversation in class - especially with everyone mentioning how each of their favorite actors trancended the stereotype placed upon them after a stint in a particulary well-known and/or "cult-classic" film.
P.S. - Please don't do this discussion tomorrow since I probably won't able to be in school that day ;-)
Its always nice to share a feeling with my favorite Belorussian. Seeing as we discussed this at length already, it would be redundant to post anything further, other than the "funny looking guy" from Fargo shares similar sentiment with me because of his frequent appearances in Adam Sandler movies.
ReplyDelete