May

14

Great Guardian Piece: What Goes Up…

May 14, 2007 |

A fun read at Guardian Unlimited on how some actors’ careers self-destruct after a few bad roles, while others seem impervious… picks out a number of fun flix that deserve to make the bad-flick hall of fame…

There is a common misconception among laymen that a once luminous movie star’s decline can be traced to a particularly dreadful motion picture. Schadenfreude buffs, who revel in the misfortunes of the freshly humbled mighty, will swear up and down that Kevin Costner stopped being a major star immediately upon the release of Waterworld in 1995, but this is not true. After the debacle of Waterworld, a ridiculously expensive but by no means unwatchable vanity project, Costner directed and starred in both Wyatt Earp and The Postman, a pair of nightmarishly awful, ridiculously expensive films that were completely unwatchable…

I admire this piece, actually, for reaching for the obvious highbrow (well, middle-highbrow) analogy with another decline and fall:

Bear in mind that even though the Roman empire finally collapsed for good in 476AD, it had been in the process of disintegrating ever since the Vandals sacked the Eternal City in 410. It was never a question of “if”. It was only a question of “when”.

There is an obvious metaphorical link between the deposing of the last Roman emperor, Romulus Augustus, in 476 and the release of Gigli in 2003. While it is true that Ben Affleck’s official collapse as a movie star… was written in stone after the stupendously awful Jersey Girl and Gigli were released a few years back, the process of career atrophy had already begun with his jarring performance as a blind and somewhat silly superhero in Daredevil.

Gotta love someone who can tie up crap culture and classical history. Alas, this article from the UK also seems to obliquely gesture towards a career that wound down last week: Tony Blair’s. It would be easy to say that his career’s downward arc began when he hitched his wagon behind the horse’s ass currently fading fast in Washington, DC. But for now we will leave history to judge that.

The bigger question: Follow the analogy back– look to another empire that Has the United States as a whole jumped the shark? If so, when and how?

  • The re-election of George W. Bush? 
  • The Iraq invasion?
  • September 11, 2001?
  • The Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision placing Bush II on the throne?
  • Could you take it back to the election of Ronald Reagan?

It may be possible to trace it back even further– to some profound characterological (or constitutional?) flaw, some hole in the national soul. But… that would be work for more than one man. 

 


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