The 10 Best Cameos in Hollywood History: 1. Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glen Ross When making the transition from stage to screen, they created Baldwins character as a device to cut minutes and get to the central plot quicker. What they got was a briefly appearing character that became the films most singular performance from a cast that included Jack Lemmon, Alan Arkin, and Al Pacino. 2. George Harrison in The Life of Brian The most awkwardly funny cameo ever. Harrison shows up in a group scene. While everyone else in the scene is dressed in vaguely realistic gray and brown rags, he stands out in a red robe that looks like it was stolen from a kindergarten Christmas pageant. Hes in the scene for fifteen seconds, looking uncomfortable and out of place the whole time. Finally, he simply waves at the camera, says Ello, and walks off screen. 3. Buster Keaton in Sunset Boulevard As Norma Desmond plays cards with other washed up actors from the silent era, Buster Keaton stoically and conspicuously plays himself, lending both tragedy and heft to the joke. 4. Christopher Walken in Pulp Fiction Walken appears briefly as the vet who held a gold watch up his ass for two years in a Vietnamese POW camp to deliver it to a young Butch Coolidge. The scene works both as foreshadowing and a funny tip of the cap to The Deer Hunter. 5. Bill Murray in Zombieland A zombie apocalypse in which Bill Murray survives thanks to his theater makeup skills cant be all bad. 6. Julia Roberts and Bruce Willis in The Player Robert Altmans parody of the all-consuming cannibalism of Hollywood gets in its strongest punch with the uncredited appearance of two A-listers. 7. Kurt Vonnegut in Back to School Rodney Dangerfield demands results, and when Kurt Vonnegut fails to deliver a passing grade on his paper on Vonnegut, he gets shit-canned just like anyone else. 8. Martin Scorsese in Taxi Driver As the creepy passenger in the back seat of Travis Bickles taxi, the films director delivers not only a chilling performance, but provides the motivation for Bickle to buy a handgun, an important turning point in the film. 9. Alfred Hitchcock in Lifeboat Hitchcock was the master of director cameos, but this one was my favorite. Hitch lost over a hundred pounds during the shooting of Lifeboat, a fact he commemorated by placing himself in a newspaper weight loss ad. 10. Peter Cook in Princess Bride Cook was one of the funniest comedians to never really achieve the fame or status his talent warranted. Towards the end of his life, he mostly made his living from bit roles like these given to him by admirers in the film and television industries. Though not really indicative of his style of comedy, he still manages to deliver a funny and memorable performance as a priest with a speech impediment.
Posted on: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 20:14:04 +0000
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