October 19th, 2005
The world is full of phonies, people and projects who are popular for no good reason, who've been elevated to power through privilege or aggressive publicists or the whims of fate. The success of the untalented and the mediocre can be a pretty depressing spectacle. So let's not worry about them for now. Instead, we're taking a moment to honor the underappreciated talents in our midst, those who never quite get the laurels they deserve while the Nicole Richies and Paul Walkers of the world land on magazine covers. The list begins with a man who got his one of his first big breaks acting opposite a chimpanzee, and who can currently be seen acting opposite a horse and Dakota Fanning in Dreamer.
Underrated working actor: Kurt Russell
Why? He's been in a lot of schlock, and he's never won a major acting award, but there are few more reliable presences in American movies; Russell shows such joy in acting that even his dourest characters spark to life. An avowed libertarian and libertine, Russell enters a movie frame and immediately becomes the most fascinating guy at the party.
The evidence: Russell's career is full of great performances, but it's a testament to his endurance that some of the best have come in the last half-decade: the well-meaning dirty cop in the underseen Dark Blue, the boyish superdad in the family charmer Sky High, and the determined, covertly embittered U.S. Olympic hockey coach in Miracle. Almost as impressive as Russell's onscreen performances are his exuberant DVD commentaries, where he reminisces with his filmmaking buddies and laughs like a hyena at his own shtick. Russell's boisterous comments on Used Cars and Big Trouble In Little China are classic.
Underrated badass: Elijah Wood
Why? Elijah Wood has the soft, sweet looks of a living teddy bear. He speaks with an accent that falls somewhere between Iowa and New Zealand. And there's at least one website (veryverygay.com) that exists solely to prove that he is very, very gay. Essentially, he doesn't seem like a badass. But, make no mistake, he is one––at least onscreen. After all, it was Wood, as the titular good son, who battled Macaulay Culkin on a cliff in The Good Son. And it was Wood who stole Jim Carrey's girlfriend, using Carrey's own words, in Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind. And it was Wood who punched like a girl, yet still managed to become a top hooligan in Green Street Hooligans. What does it all mean?
The evidence: He may not be the strongest, and at 5'6", he's definitely not the tallest, but there's got to be something, some dark impulse, lurking behind those huge, eerily unblinking eyes, right? Hollywood certainly thinks so: Elijah Wood's next role is the chest-slashing punk rocker Iggy Pop.
Underrated cartoon: King Of The Hill
Why? The Simpsons casts a long, chilly shadow, making it difficult for other animated series—particularly on Fox—to survive, much less shine. Fox has routinely shuffled King Of The Hill between time slots, eventually dumping it to the Sunday-evening graveyard. Nevertheless, the animated series about the Hill family in fictitious Arlen, Texas, has remained consistently good all the way to its 10th and final season. It'd be easy to take cheap shots at the conservative Hank and the goofy supporting cast, but the show's satire has enough heart to make its characters three-dimensional. As Hank said in an episode last season, "Dang it, I am sick and tired of everyone's asinine ideas about me. I'm not a redneck, and I'm not some Hollywood jerk. I'm something else entirely. I'm complicated."
The evidence: Just about any episode with Hank's father, Cotton, a domineering, sexist, racist World War II veteran without shins. In the fourth-season episode "Cotton's Plot," Cotton helps Peggy Hill (whom he refers to as "Hank's wife") recover from a skydiving accident. He talks about being a POW: "Tojo had me cooped up in a bamboo rat cage. There was nothing to eat except rats. So that's what I ate. After two weeks, I was down to my last rat. I let him live so I could eat his droppings. Called it ‘Jungle Rice.' Tasted fine. About September, I was finally thin enough to slip between the bamboo bars. I strangled the guard with a rope made of grated rat-tails and ran to safety."
Underrated talk show: Last Call With Carson Daly
Why? Drumming up support for former Total Request Live host and Tara Reid shagger Carson Daly makes windmill-slaying seem like a breeze, but his NBC talk show is far better than haters would have it. On at 1:35 a.m. ET (just after Conan), Last Call follows the chat-show format without making a forced act of pretending to be different. The main difference is Daly's humble, informed, legitimately interested approach to his guests. He knows what he's talking about—whether in the company of Jay-Z, Dennis Rodman, or David Cross—and he's becomingly self-effacing in deferring to the stars that people tune in for. He also books good music (Kings Of Convenience, Ying Yang Twins, Dizzee Rascal).
The evidence: The way Daly appeared genuinely thrilled to be watching his own show when magician David Blaine "ripped his heart out" in a stunt that left the studio audience gasping.
Underrated sitcom: It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia
Why? This fledgling FX sitcom follows the lives of four self-centered hipsters (Charlie Day, Glenn Howerton, Rob McElhenney, and Kaitlin Olson) who run a bar on a cool stretch of South Philadelphia. Though the premise sounds like a cross between Cheers and Friends, It's Always Sunny never resorts to Cheers' comedic ba-dum-pum rhythm, or the gooey sentimentality that plagued Friends. The characters on It's Always Sunny don't learn lessons, or grow closer, or worry about their relationships: they're too busy picking up girls at abortion rallies, or being disgusted by old people in nursing homes, or dating black co-eds to prove they're not racist. In fact, It's Always Sunny is the perfect anti-sitcom, from its laugh-track-free dialogue to its sharply twisted plotlines to its ironically cheery theme music.
The evidence: The fourth episode, "Charlie Has Cancer," cements the show's ability to mine serious issues (like, say, cancer) to genuinely funny ends. Upon learning that Charlie may have cancer, everyone, even Charlie, uses the information to suit their own agendas. The best line in the episode is delivered by Day, with a sarcastic eye-roll: "I found out I might have cancer, so, oooooh, scary."
Underrated guilty pleasure: The user comments and message boards at IMDB.com
Why? Why read reviews of films from people who might know what they're talking about when you can peruse uninformed, semi-literate opinions? The Internet Movie Database's user comments and message boards represent the apogee of the Internet's democratic possibilities, offering a public forum for everyone with a computer and an irresistible need to express themselves on why Father Of The Bride Part II is the finest film ever made, and/or why it demands a sequel. With their tortured logic, horrific abuse of the English language and rampant misspellings, the site's interactive areas are like the entertainment section of the world's biggest, sloppiest college newspaper.
The evidence: The commentary heralding Father Of The Bride Part II as the apex of cinematic art.
Underrated defunct band: The Feelies
Why? The Feelies emerged from the late-'70s New York/New Jersey underground-rock scene and lasted until the early-'90s implosion of college rock, and in its day, the band was respected enough to rank in the upper half of Rolling Stone's "100 Greatest Albums Of The '80s" (for its tribal, trance-y debut album Crazy Rhythms) and to score an appearance as the house band in Jonathan Demme's movie Something Wild. The Feelies' jangly, moody sound was a major influence on Yo La Tengo and R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck (who produced The Feelies' best record, 1985's supple The Good Earth). And yet today, The Feelies barely get mentioned when people trace the alt-rock timeline, and all four of the band's albums are out of print.
The evidence: Those hard-to-find LPs are worth paying eBay prices for—even the all-but-ignored, band-killing final album Time For A Witness. For a quicker dose of The Feelies, download the trailer for Noah Baumbach's The Squid And The Whale, which prominently features The Good Earth's "Let's Go" in the middle. Better yet, see the movie, where the song is used to symbolize how much cooler Anna Paquin is than the hero's Bryan Adams-loving girlfriend.
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