I've got my usual case of the Friday lazies, so let's get right into it!
I asked what actor was in the 1980 version of Flash Gordon ("Flash! Ahhhhhhhhhh!"), The Exorcist (as regular readers know, my favorite horror movie), and Strange Brew, the 1983 feature-length Bob and Doug Mackenzie movie. (Another '80s cultural touchstone–what's with me and the Decade of Mullets this week? Must be mid-winter cabin-fever blahs causing me to regress to my teens.)
First on the scene with the correct answer was Donna–she snags the homemade construction-paper medal. In second was Moviegoer123, followed by Marian. Congrats everyone!
Still don't know who the actor is? Then just sit back and let your cursor do the walking over the Inviso-Text below!
Yes indeed, it was Swedish-born actor Max von Sydow, appearing this weekend in Shutter Island.
Sydow is one of those great older actors who film lovers of different generations know from different types of roles. The 80-year-old actor began making movies in Sweden in 1949 and eventually became world-famous for his work with Ingmar Bergman in such classics as The Seventh Seal (where he famously played chess with Death) and Wild Strawberries. His first major English-speaking role was as Jesus in 1965's The Greatest Story Ever Told, and upped his American profile in 1973 playing Father Merrin, the older priest who tries to cast out the demon in The Exorcist.
Perhaps because of that horror role, after that von Sydow seemed to gravitate toward genre parts in Hollywood films, most notably (and campily) as Ming the Merciless in the post-Star Wars Flash Gordon remake. (He also played the king in Conan the Barbarian.) From there on out, blockbuster Hollywood usually cast von Sydow as the villain, thanks to his slithery, seductive Scandinavian charms. He was Blofeld in the "non-canononical" Bond film, Never Say Never Again and the voice of Vigo in Ghostbusters II. (Consider yourselves lucky I didn't slip that clue in there!) And um, Ice Pirates–another title I considered using as a clue, but decided it was just too mean.
Sure, von Sydow still did solid dramatic work in films like Woody Allen's Hannah and Her Sisters, Snow Falling on Cedars, and the Danish film Pelle the Conqueror (for which he received his only Oscar nomination). But more often if he wasn't playing a bad guy in things like Needful Things he was playing a doctor or scientist in a sci-fi film like Dune, Dreamscape, or most notably, Minority Report.
But perhaps his oddest career choice was appearing in Strange Brew as an evil brewmeister. Those of you who are under a certain age or have had your memories of the '80s nicely wiped away with electro-shock therapy may not recall the huge Great White North craze of the early decade, when everyone ran around saying "take off, you hoser!" ad nauseam. There was even an album (back before widespread VHS, when comedy albums with a few token songs were much more popular, as one of the only ways to repeatedly hear your favorite comedy routines.)
What makes Strange Brew even stranger is that it's actually intended by co-writers and directors Dave Thomas and Rick Moranis to be a re-telling of Hamlet. Only in a Canadian brewery. Called Elsinore. Trust me, I'm not making this up. Go watch it again for yourself!
Posted on February 19, 2010 at 4:02 pm
Yay, I finally got to second place on this thing! The other few times I was in third.
And not to forget…congratulations to Donna and Marian!