A-List:
Movie Characters Who Would Be Crazy in Real Life

By Josh Spiegel

March 18, 2010

Hello, sugar industry? I think you should hire me for your spokesperson.

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The Oscars are over. The movie world has once again gone back to the well of modest-to-weak performers at the box office. Frankly, until May 7th, when Iron Man 2 releases, there's very little worth going to see at the multiplexes, if the ads are anything near a hint (the sole exception is Hot Tub Time Machine). With the lull of spring kicking in, I figured that today's A-List would go back to the basics: the basics of me pointing out yet another cinematic trend that drives me up the proverbial wall. This week, I'll take a look at five movie characters who, if they were actually in the real world, would be committed so fast their heads would spin.

I'm talking about characters whose actions make sense only in the world of the movies they inhabit. If another writer was behind the script, if another director was behind the camera, if another actor was playing the role, these characters would be a lot weirder, a lot creepier, and a lot scarier than they are. I want to make clear: the characters I'm about to highlight are decidedly taken at face value in their respective roles. A handful of the characters are looked at oddly, but none of the films take them so seriously as to commit them into an insane asylum, which is exactly what would happen if these fictional people wound up in the real New York, or the real Los Angeles, or wherever else the films are set.




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So, what drives me crazy about this idea? Though I'm a fan of most of the movies I'm going to talk about in the A-List, rewatching them always gives me pause. If only the script had gone darker, things would be much different. In one case, the character is unintentionally frightening and nutty; unfortunately for us, so is his female lead, so no one ever actually realizes how insane they are. All of these characters, of course, end up achieving their respective goals; if they didn't, they'd be in a movie that dealt with their issues seriously. As it stands, all of the characters in this week's A-List get what they wanted (or are going to get what they want), but if they only pushed just a bit, they'd all be bonkers. On to the list!

Edward Cullen in Twilight

Yes, boys and girls, you can send your hate mail to me, but it's true. Let's pretend for a moment that vampires do exist. They don't (sorry), but let's say they do. First, I hate to break it to you, but Edward Cullen is not a vampire. The sun doesn't make vampires sweat profusely (whoops, sparkle - my bad); it burns them up instantly. Vampires don't have the ability to fly (whoops, run really fast - again, my bad); they have the ability to suck people's blood. Edward Cullen is not a vampire. Even going past that, he's as much an insane stalker as some bruiser type out of the Lifetime Channel movie of the week. Think, if you can (or choose to), to the first scene where Kristen Stewart's Bella Swan meets Robert Pattinson's Edward Cullen (and boy, am I sad I know those character names). In this scene, Cullen stares at Bella. Or, he looks like he's constipated.


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