Vince Vaughn

I am a self proclaimed acting snob. I don't do it myself, but I appreciate great acting. To me, great acting is when an actor so becomes the role... you forget the person playing. A perfect example is Tom Hanks as Forrest Gump. A perfect example of what great acting is not would be David Caruso of CSI: Miami.

There are two types of acting that anger me the most. The first is overacting. For this, reference every single 80's movie... or any episode of CSI: Miami. I demand subtlety in a great actor; think John C Reilly, William H Macy, Phillip Seymour Hoffman... you get the idea.

The second kind of acting I dislike most is actors who play the same character every single role. Think Dennis Farina, Al Pachino, Gene Hackman. All fine actors, I guess... but they play the same guy every time. Who is out there taking chances with roles besides Kevin Bacon, Diedrich Bader, or Sean Penn? Too few.

I say that to say this, I love Vince Vaughn. I can't figure out why because he fits into the latter category. Dude plays the exact same guy in every movie. He character doesn't differ from being a professional hit man (Mr & Mrs Smith) to a lawyer, or whoever he was in Dodgeball. Note that this approach damn near killed Adam Sandler. We all love Happy Gillmore, but 5 movies later we started catching on. You can also reference Ben Stiller here.

Somehow Vaughn is impervious to this. His self absorbed narcissistic middle age asshole never gets old for me. When I am see a commercial for a movie on TV that features Vince Vaughn in any role... it immediately gets added to the Netflix list. Consider yourself lucky for this, because I don't really ever write about film. Why not? $10 a person? f that. I'll wait three months and get it at Best Buy for cheaper than it costs to take my wife. Of course, she doesn't quite see it that way. Maybe next week I will write about my life affirming experience at Cinema Grill.

until then, my cinematic undying wish remains a solitary one: Fast Times at Ridgemont High 2