Steve Martin Love

[dave from knoxville]

We spend most of our time focusing on cutting edge current guys; how do you feel about Steve Martin? I threw this together a few minutes ago as a request from my blog. I cover, nay, CRAVE, your opinions. The blog is mostly about assessing film actors careers, so this glosses over a lot of the other stuff he's known for. Have I left out a great role? Any too high? Just curious; you're smart people. Most of it's self-explanatory, but the "neighborhood" is sort of like our recent FOT Myers-Briggs assessments; those are the actors whose achievement in their film career seems closest to his.

You know what he looks like. He's a lot like a more motivated Bill
 Murray, writing books, screenplays, screen stories (he's responsible
 for the Don Cheadle spy film Traitor, something that surprised me
 greatly.) Also like Murray, there's that feeling that he longs to be
 taken more seriously. Well, OK, there used to be that feeling.
 Outside of Shopgirl, his last decade's been a disaster of crappy
 lowest-common denominator probably-shoulda-just-been-on-tv-first
 crap. You gotta forgive him, though, when you consider those 25
 previous years. He seems to produce something of massive artistic
 significance every 8 years or so; maybe his masterpiece is still in
 him. Of course, given his record, it's ridiculous that I am
 suggesting that he owes us anything more. Still, he needs to lean
 towards "smart"; for too many years he's been settling for "dumb but
 profitable". How much cash do you need?

Ten best roles: 10) Bowfinger 9) Shopgirl The Jerk 7) Dead Men
Don't Wear Plaid 6) Planes Trains and Automobiles 5) Dirty Rotten
 Scoundrels 4) LA Story 3) Pennies from Heaven 2) All of Me 1) Roxanne

Percentile rating: 99.3

Peak Period: 1981 - 1987

Neighborhood: Nicolas Cage, Julie Christie, Sean Connery, Johnny
 Depp, Richard Dreyfuss, Tony Leung Chiu-Wei

[yesno]

I love Steve Martin.  I used to think he appeared in so many crappy movies to fund his art collection habit, but some comments he made during the filming of Pink Panther 2 and his children's banjo songs convinced me that, in fact, he just has bad taste in some areas.  Who cares, though.  I don't have to watch those movies.

Pure Drivel is one of the funniest books I've ever read. Also, I think his comedy albums are still very funny, including The Steve Martin Brothers.

Steve Martin inspired me to learn how to juggle.

[nec13]

Nothing at all wrong with Steve Martin. I've always liked him. So what if he's acted in a few bad films? What good actor hasn't?

[Bryan]

Dave, I think your assessment is right on target. I saw his play, Picasso at the Lapin Agile (I think that's the title), and it was pretty awful. I'm also not a big fan of his New Yorker stuff. BUT he did demonstrate his genius at being funny for a long time.

The Single Guy isn't on your list. I liked that one.

Can I assume that the neighbourhood stuff is generated by a mathematical formula? If so, what numbers are they based on?

[nec13]

Does anyone else besides me like Leap of Faith?

[dave from knoxville]

Dave, I think your assessment is right on target. I saw his play, Picasso at the Lapin Agile (I think that's the title), and it was pretty awful. I'm also not a big fan of his New Yorker stuff. BUT he did demonstrate his genius at being funny for a long time.

The Single Guy isn't on your list. I liked that one.

Can I assume that the neighbourhood stuff is generated by a mathematical formula? If so, what numbers are they based on?

The Single Guy was actually number 11. Each actor gets points for each film they appear on, based on a combination of the quality of the film, and their prominence in it. His raw score's 405; the other six people were all within 2.5 points of that. The theoretical maximum is 500, and historically, Bogart or Cary Grant might get close, but the current max for currently working actors is Robert DeNiro, with 460.

[buffcoat]

Jonathan Silverman?

[JonFromMaplewood]

Not everyone's cup of tea, but I thoroughly enjoyed "The Man With Two Brains."  Then again, I was a teenager when I saw it. To this day, when I am at a loss for a name, I say Anne Uhhhhhmalmuhayyy.

[JonFromMaplewood]

Oh, and I agree with YesNo, the comedy albums are great.  The comedy half of "The Steve Martin Brothers" is amazing.

[crumbum]

I'm glad you included Pennies from Heaven at #3. That's a great and often-forgotten movie.

...the current max for currently working actors is Robert DeNiro, with 460.

I'm surprised by this -- to my mind DeNiro done very little of real value in nearly twenty years. He almost never stars in a true stinker but most of his stuff post-Goodfellas is increasingly middle of the road and he seems to have no range these days. I would think that would drag his score down a lot.

Admittedly though, I can't think of anyone else with a forty-year career who's done better.

[nec13]

Dave, if you were to take into account working and non-working actors, where would John Cazale rank? Although, he was only in five films while he was alive, they were all nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards.

Filmography:

The Godfather (1972)
The Conversation (1974)
The Godfather Part II (1974)
Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
The Deer Hunter (1978)

Apologies for sidetracking.

[dave from knoxville]

Dave, if you were to take into account working and non-working actors, where would John Cazale rank? Although, he was only in five films while he was alive, they were all nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards.

Filmography:

The Godfather (1972)
The Conversation (1974)
The Godfather Part II (1974)
Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
The Deer Hunter (1978)

Apologies for sidetracking.

While Cazale's films (and performances) were great, he would not score very highly under this method because his parts were mostly minor, third-billed or usually lower. I can run the numbers, but you might think less of me. Same goes for James Dean.

[dave from knoxville]

John Cazale

Best roles in order: 5) The Godfather Part II 4) The Godfather 3) The Conversation 2) Dog Day Afternoon 1) The Deer Hunter

Percentile rating: 68.52; you can't assume that his career would continue on the same trajectory, but if it had, he would be a 99.10

Peak Period: His whole career, 1972 - 1978

Neighborhood: Damian Alcazar, Juliet Aubrey, Dylan Baker, Maurice Benichou, Jim Carter, Margaret Colin













And as long as I am at it, here's DeNiro's legendary select filmography

Ten best roles: 10) A Bronx Tale 9) Midnight Run The King of Comedy 7) Mad Dog and Glory 6) The Deer Hunter 5) Raging Bull 4) Goodfellas 3) Once Upon a Time in America 2) Mean Streets 1) Taxi Driver

Percentile rating: 100

Peak Period: 1976 - 1984

Neighborhood: Woody Allen, Catherine Deneuve, Robert Duvall, Clint Eastwood, Gene Hackman, Dustin Hoffman

[Steve of Bloomington]

I love Steve Martin.  I used to think he appeared in so many crappy movies to fund his art collection habit, but some comments he made during the filming of Pink Panther 2 and his children's banjo songs convinced me that, in fact, he just has bad taste in some areas.  Who cares, though.  I don't have to watch those movies.

Pure Drivel is one of the funniest books I've ever read. Also, I think his comedy albums are still very funny, including The Steve Martin Brothers.

Steve Martin inspired me to learn how to juggle.

I also juggle. Actually that's my big Bill Hicks peeve, he was always down on the jugglers. Having skills is bad or something. Doing something you like that's fun is bad.

As for Steve Martin I liked him in the 70s (I was a kid) and liked what he did with his stand-up even though the arrow thru the head looks all ridiculous now. I liked the movies 'The Jerk' and 'All Of Me' and a couple other movies on Dave's list.

Also liked 'Cruel Shoes', but I liked Woody Allen's books better.

[nec13]

Spot on, Dave. I'm also glad to see Mean Streets ranked so on your list. That's probably one of my two or three favorite movies ever and DeNiro is just fantastic in it.