Tag Archives: Kevin Kline

May 4, 2020 · 1:21 pm

The Set of 400: #88 – My Favorite Animated Pillory

Today! Because I had a little trouble with the fireplace –

The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996)

Directed by Gary Trousdale (x2) and Kirk Wise (x2)

Starring Tom Hulce, Demi Moore (x3), Kevin Kline (x4), Tony Jay (x2), Jason Alexander, Charles Kimbrough (x2), Mary Wickes (x2), Paul Kandel, David Ogden Stiers (x3), Bill Fagerbakke, Jane Withers, Frank Welker (x3)

There are certainly cooler, rarer, and better posters for this movie than the one I used above, but I wanted to emphasize how the movie was marketed. This, an animated Hunchback of Notre Dame – with all the molten lead battles, deformity shaming, uncontrollable lust, eternal damnation, and murder – had McDonald’s Happy Meal toys. I mean, they understood the subject matter, but they were still Disney, so they forged ahead the only way they knew how!

Not pictured: guards burning to death, implements of public torture

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Tagged as Charles Kimbrough, Demi Moore, Disney, Favorite Movies Ever, Jason Alexander, Kevin Kline, Mary Wickes, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Tom Hulce, Tony Jay

October 7, 2019 · 1:15 pm

The Set of 400: #238 – My Favorite Steamroller

Today! Because apes don’t read philosophy –

A Fish Called Wanda (1988)

Directed by Charles Crichton

Starring John Cleese (x2), Jamie Lee Curtis (x2), Kevin Kline (x3), Michael Palin (x2), Maria Aitken, Tom Georgeson, Patricia Hayes, Stephen Fry

You could make a case for a number of the Pythons having the best post-Python career – Eric Idle has worked consistently and to great effect in movies and TV, Palin has done extensive documentary work around the globe, Terry Gilliam is a world class director with a number of great films under his belt, but for my money the winner is Cleese, for two big reasons: 1) Fawlty Towers (okay, made sort of in the midst of Monty Python films in the ’70s) and 2) his writing, uncredited co-directing, and starring in this, an amazing hybrid of British and American styles of humor. This discounts his terrific cameo turn in The Great Muppet Caper, which I suppose is third.

“I thought you said the pets were dead.”

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October 1, 2019 · 1:11 pm

The Set of 400: #242 – My Favorite Music Hall Drunk

Today! Because the tramp can’t talk. The minute he talks, he’s dead –

Chaplin (1992)

Directed by Richard Attenborough

Starring Robert Downey Jr. (x6), Paul Rhys, Geraldine Chaplin, Anthony Hopkins (x4), Kevin Kline (x2), Moira Kelly (x2), Dan Aykroyd (x4), Marisa Tomei (x2), Penelope Ann Miller, John Thaw, Kevin Dunn (x2), Diane Lane, Milla Jovovich (x2), James Woods, Nancy Travis, Matthew Cottle, David Duchovny, John Standing (x3), Maria Pitillo, Deborah Moore

Ah, 1992! Apparently the heyday of my movie watching! The eighth entry from the year of Bill Clinton’s first presidential campaign, Chaplin had a good hand in stretching my film interests back into the silent era. Now, as we’ve gone over in this space recently, it’s not like this list is teeming with dialogue-free cinema, however, without Chaplin there’s a good chance that none whatsoever would appear. Charlie Chaplin is a gateway into the entire era for most casual film goers, right? Silent comedy, by and large, looks ridiculous now, but at least it’s accessible. People like broad, physical comedy up to the present day, so silents can still be enjoyable, so long as you put aside your prejudice against this form of moviemaking. Don’t lie! Silents are hard, sometimes! One of the only instances where I fell asleep in a movie theater was catching the 1916 Sherlock Holmes starring William Gillette at the Chicago Film Festival a few years back. I was too tired going in! Plus, while there may have been no spoken words, the theater was still plenty loud from the reverberating snores! Everyone I went with fell asleep too! 100% true story. Sorry, Mr. Gillette!

This dude discovering a gun in his hand could only sustain us for so long!

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Tagged as Anthony Hopkins, Chaplin, Charlie Chaplin, Dan Aykroyd, David Duchovny, Diane Lane, Douglas Fairbanks, Favorite Movies Ever, Geraldine Chaplin, James Woods, Kevin Dunn, Kevin Kline, Mack Sennett, Marisa Tomei, Mary Pickford, Milla Jovovich, Moira Kelly, Nancy Travis, Paul Rhys, Penelope Ann Miller, Richard Attenborough, Robert Downey Jr.

September 6, 2019 · 1:15 pm

The Set of 400: #259 – My Favorite Un-Decapitation

Today! Because she has more lines than I do and she’s a goddamn mute!

Soapdish (1991)

Directed by Michael Hoffman

Starring Sally Field, Kevin Kline, Whoopi Goldberg (x3), Elisabeth Shue (x2), Robert Downey Jr. (x5), Cathy Moriarty, Teri Hatcher, Kathy Najimy, Garry Marshall (x2), Carrie Fisher, Costas Mandylor, Sheila Kelley, Ben Stein (x2), Willie Garson (x4), Leeza Gibbons, John Tesh

Another staple of early ’90s HBO, Soapdish isn’t the sort of film 12-year-old Joe routinely watched in those days, but it is a movie I routinely saw, given that I can still quote nearly the entire film. Like, I must’ve seen this movie multiple dozens of times. As I’ve mentioned before, this is a sub-genre I really gravitate to – movies about entertainment – so what if it’s about soap operas? The cast is incredible – six Oscar nominees, not to mention future Lois Lane Teri Hatcher, once and future Princess Leia Carrie Fisher, and a great TV exec precursor role to his TV exec role on Murphy Brown, former TV exec Garry Marshall.