June 24th, 2008
1. Alec Baldwin, Glengarry Glen Ross
Alec Baldwin's performance in Glengarry Glen Ross is the quintessential one-scene wonder. As an oily emissary from "downtown," Baldwin introduces a justly famous twist on the monthly sales contest for a contingent of sad-sack, Willy Loman-esque hucksters shilling dubious real-estate shares in Florida: First prize is a Cadillac El Dorado. Second prize is a set of steak knives. Third prize on down is, you're fired. Baldwin transforms one of David Mamet's most memorable monologues into a glorious symphony of verbal abuse, self-aggrandizement, shameless appeals to greed, and naked cruelty. He's capitalism's seething black heart, an economic hitman who enjoys his job way more than any non-sociopath should. Though he only appears in a single thundering, instantly iconic scene, he steals Glengarry Glen Ross from the lofty, Oscar-laden likes of Al Pacino, Jack Lemmon (in the role that inspired The Simpsons' Gil Gunderson), Ed Harris, Alan Arkin, Kevin Spacey, and Jonathan Pryce. Baldwin sinks his fangs into Mamet's brutally funny lines—added to the play especially for the movie—gleaning every last ounce of dick-swinging menace out of them.
2. Ray Charles, The Blues Brothers
Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi's 1980 musical is buoyed by a host of celebrity cameos from the likes of James Brown, Aretha Franklin, and Cab Calloway, who appears in several scenes as the Blues brothers' aged mentor. But none of them owns their cameo quite like Ray Charles, who not only provides a spirited version of "Shake A Tail Feather," but unlike Brown or Franklin, actually gets in some funny lines of his own. The soul legend immediately dominates his short scene as the cantankerous owner of the pawnshop Ray's Music Exchange. He's blind, but he has the uncanny ability to sense everything going on in his shop, and deals with a little kid who's about to shoplift a guitar with a sharp word and two pistol shots—"Breaks my heart, a boy that young going bad," he deadpans.
3. Pamela Anderson, Borat
True to form for a Sacha Baron Cohen movie, Pamela Anderson's cameo in Borat had many viewers scratching their heads over whether the satirical mockumentary actually ambushed Pamela Anderson at an autograph signing in a Virgin Megastore. Common sense suggests that if that had actually happened, America probably would have heard news reports about the Baywatch star being mysteriously abducted in a Kazakh-style "traditional marriage sack" long before the movie's release—or she would have unsuccessfully taken legal action against Cohen, like so many other of the film's incidental characters. Though the entire sequence is staged, it's impossible to tell from Anderson and Cohen's performances: She politely/uncomfortably declines his requests to get married, cusses him out for trying to seize her, and runs shrieking into the parking lot, never to be seen again.
4. Dean Stockwell, Blue Velvet
It takes skill to steal scenes from Dennis Hopper's terrifying Blue Velvet bad guy Frank Booth. But Dean Stockwell's quiet turn as Ben, a delicate pimp whose home looks like one of John Waters' nightmares, provides one of the movie's eeriest highlights. Meeting Ben is only one part of Kyle MacLachlan's nightmare initiation into the dark side of American suburbia. After watching the man Booth describes as "one suave fucker" deliver a spookily heartbreaking lip-sync to Roy Orbison's "In Dreams," Booth has little choice but to beat MacLachlan's character to a bloody pulp. Suave doesn't quite cover it.
5. Janeane Garofalo, The Cable Guy
The centerpiece of the Medieval Times sequence in Ben Stiller's flop-turned-minor-cult-film The Cable Guy is a brutal sword-and-mace battle and joust between Jim "I come here twice a week" Carrey's psychotic cable installer and Everymope Matthew Broderick. But the scene is stolen by the smartass line readings and withering sarcasm of Janeane Garofalo as "your serving wench Melinda," a wage serf whose sad lot in life entails explaining to customers that there are no utensils at Medieval Times because there were no utensils in the days of old, though that somehow doesn't prevent Garofalo from offering her guests refills of Pepsi. She's a slacker in ye olde time medieval garb. The clothes and Old English say "Meet me at the Renaissance Faire, my good lord," but the nose ring and eye-rolling Gen-X attitude say, "I would so rather be smoking a bowl and listening to The Clash."
6. David Letterman, Cabin Boy
David Letterman rarely leaves his late-night desk to act in movies, but he understandably made an exception for his former writers Chris Elliott and Adam Resnick, who co-wrote Cabin Boy. Letterman also essentially brings his late-night desk shtick to his brief, hilarious role as a crusty fishing-village sock-monkey salesman who dresses down Elliott's titular cabin boy Nathanial Mayweather. Mayweather is a character who easily invites derision, a snobby, spoiled, wig-wearing "fancy lad." Rather than call out any of the fancy lad's obvious shortcomings, Letterman instead rips on him with a series of bizarre quips, including "You remind me of my niece Sally, lovely girl: She's a dietician," "Gosh, what a sweet little outfit. Is it your little spring outfit?", and "Don't let them give you any of that flank-steak bullshit. Try the London broil: Yeah! Sure! Pamper yourself!" It's easy to imagine Letterman at his desk harassing bandleader Paul Shaffer with these lines, though especially his most memorable line from this scene: "Hey, would you like to buy a monkey?"
7. Billy Ray Cyrus, Mulholland Dr.
Yes, Billy Ray Cyrus is a cheeseball country singer with a bushy mullet. But his cameo in David Lynch's Mulholland Dr. is good for more than a cheap laugh. Yes, it's funny to see the "Achy Breaky Heart" singer play an amorous pool man sleeping with the wife of film director Justin Theroux. Cyrus already looks like he walked off the cover of a cheapie romance novel, and, c'mon, that mullet is unreal. But like all things Lynch, Cyrus's brief appearance manages to be simultaneously comic and dreamy, a representation of idealized, oversized all-American male sexuality that's silly, yet undeniably potent and even threatening when brought into "real life."
8. Ned Beatty, Network
Paddy Chayefsky and Sidney Lumet's potent, prophetic satire of television and the caustic nature of celebrity culture is dominated by Peter Finch's unforgettably wild-eyed performance as a news anchor whose descent into madness sparks a new hit show, as his rantings strike a chord with the viewing public. But while ratings are skyrocketing, Finch causes his bosses no small amount of discomfort with his propensity to utter uncomfortable truths about corporate power. Until, that is, he meets Ned Beatty, the chairman of the company that owns the network, who calmly strolls in, greets Finch affably, and leads him into the boardroom for a quick chat. Before Finch knows what's going on, Beatty has suddenly hit him with a speech about how corporations are "the primal forces of nature," delivered with the roaring thunder of an angry God on a mountaintop. He inspires Finch to preach a new evangel—not about democracy this time, but about the coming perfect world of "one vast and ecumenical holding company," featuring "all necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused." It's impossible to tell how much of the chairman's speech is truly felt and how much is cold, cynical manipulation of Finch's religious mania, but the barely five-minute scene was compelling enough to pick up an Oscar nomination for Beatty.
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