Tag Archives: Alec Baldwin

Megalomaniacs on Film: The Great Eight

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It’s been a harrowing four years to say the least, hopefully the end of which is tolled tonight, a good time to remember that Trump is neither the first nor the last of megalomaniacs. Indeed, this archetype is popular in film, as exhibited in My Great Eight Megalomaniacs:

8. Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg), The Social Network (2010) “Look, a guy who builds a nice chair doesn’t owe money to everyone who has ever built a chair, okay? They came to me with an idea, I had a better one.”

7. Idi Amin (Forest Whittaker), The Last King of Scotland (2006) “You dare try to poison me? After everything I gave you? I am Idi Amin! President-for-life and ruler of Uganda. I am the father of Africa.”

6. Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando), Apocalypse Now (1979) “You have no right to call me a murderer. You have a right to kill me. You have a right to do that… but you have no right to judge me. It’s impossible for words to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what horror means.”

5. Charles Foster Kane (Orson Welles), Citizen Kane (1941) “Don’t worry about me, Gettys! Don’t worry about me! I’m Charles Foster Kane! I’m no cheap, crooked politician, trying to save himself from the consequences of his crimes!”

4. Blake (Alec Baldwin), Glengarry Glen Ross (1992) “That watch costs more than your car. I made $970,000 last year. How much’d you make? You see, pal, that’s who I am, and you’re nothing.”

3. Professor Marvel (Frank Morgan), The Wizard of Oz (1939) “Back where I come from there are men who do nothing all day but good deeds. They are called phila… er, phila… er, yes, er, Good Deed Doers.”

2. Dr. Strangelove (Peter Sellers), How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) “Of course, the whole point of a Doomsday machine is lost if you keep it a secret! Why didn’t you tell the world?”

1. Don Lope de Aguirre (Klaus Kinski), Aguirre Wrath of God (1972) “If, I, Aguirre, want the birds to drop dead from the trees the birds will drop dead from the trees. I am the Wrath of God! The earth I walk upon sees me and quakes! But whoever follows me and the river, will win untold riches.”

The Assembled Parties

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We went on a brief theater rampage recently, seeing Nora Ephron’s Lucky Guy, Lyle Kesler’s Orphans and Richard Greenberg’s The Assembled Parties. The Assembled PartiesSamuel J. Friedman TheatreWhile there is something to be said for witnessing the likes of Alec Baldwin (Orphans) and Tom Hanks (Lucky Guy) on stage, hanksthose plays paled in comparison to the staging of Greenberg’s work, a drama that delivers interesting characters, sharp dialogue and a sprawling, rotating New York apartment. The piece centers on those who play the stock market, reupholster chairs at exorbitant cost and attend law school to delay life decisions, people who judge and glibly self-reflect, and yet are endearing in some aspect. Screenshot (54)The play asks much, answers little and lacks a coherent beginning and end…indeed is much like modern-day life. Interestingly enough, the play had to be recently edited after the Boston Marathon bombing, due to a reference made to a Harvard student making a bomb for extra-credit, an image that certainly matches the tenor of the work and our times.