Apropos of my desire for Phillip Seymour Hoffman to play Steve Bannon from beyond the grave, reader J writes:
Your blog post got me thinking – What if I could use CGI to cast a dead actor or actress for a role in a previously released film? Which dead actor or actress would I choose and which role would I select? If there’s a lull in the Trump feeding frenzy, would you consider a thread asking readers to offer up their suggestions?
His pick will be hard to top:
After some deliberation, this is what I dreamt up:
I’d create a new version of The Godfather Part II in which I’d cast Jimmy Stewart in the role of Senator Pat Geary.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
Holy shit – the Geary thing is brilliant.
For a twist, I’ve talked about remaking Casablanca with Vince Vaughn and Sarah Silverman.
Comic genius, it would be.
D58826
There was a time, not so long ago, that we all had a good laugh at the names of the various leaders of N. Korea – Dear Leader, etc. Funny names for funny fools.
Now the world looks at the US and sees the same funny name for a not so funny fool of a leader.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
PS – it is nearly 80 on my back porch. Drinking bourbon nekkid with the dog, looking at the woods. Temps are going to drop 40 degrees in the next 4 hours.
Doug!
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
I like it.
Baud
@D58826: The difference is that millions of us Americans are joining in. We’re not North Korea yet.
Central Planning
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: you’re nekkid, or the bourbon?
ETA: Either one is good
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
Interesting fact, along the lines of the original post – my former assistant had been Philip Seymour Hoffman’s personal assistant. Nice girl, but kind of clueless.
Hal
Reince doesn’t want to hold hands with Bannon.
https://twitter.com/KJAlvarado124/status/834847832112758789
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Central Planning:
A bit of ice. It is Michter’s – one drinks it neat or with the tiniest bit of flavonoid releasing water, and I like it just slightly cooled.
I love my premium bourbons.
Gretchen
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: make hay while the sun shines.
Shell
All three?
kindness
Way out of our tiime frame but I’d use Chaplin’s The Little General and CGI Trump into Charlie’s role.
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Messing with Casa Blanca is sacrilege!
Central Planning
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Mrs CP and I have started sipping tequila neat. Besides the fact it’s delicious, I think we are drinking less which means fewer calories. Casa Nobles Anejo is our current favorite…
bystander
In the interests of bad casting, I always wanted to see Bette Midler in a Jeanette MacDonald biopic. But I can’t figure out Nelson Eddy.
SiubhanDuinne
@Hal:
I think it was Esquire (not Charlie Pierce) who pointed out that Bannon was wearing a black t-shirt, two black collared shirts, and a black blazer, none of which looked either clean or pressed.
Yes, here it is: http://www.esquire.com/style/mens-fashion/news/a53393/steve-bannons-shirts-two-collars/
Villago Delenda Est
How about Tom Hanks as Senator Pat Geary? Seeing as Hanks is the contemporary equivalent of “everyman” Jimmy Stewart?
Gretchen
I live in Kansas City, where an idiot shot two Indian guys since he thought they were Middle Eastern, because brown. My daughter is planning to come home for my birthday and bring her boyfriend, who was born on Staten Island. American, right? No, his parents are from India, and he’s brown. He thought he ought to meet her family before asking her to marry him. Now, he’s not sure he wants to come to KC and be seen out and about with a white girl. I’m afraid I thought the same thing when I heard about this. I’m sick and ashamed that this is the start of this new phase of my family.
Central Planning
And I think Garrison Keillor could play Bannon in any movie since PSH isn’t available
Shell
I think that description applies to Bannon himself.
Baud
@Gretchen: Congrats to your daughter. I hope it all works out.
efgoldman
@kindness:
Hmm. Imagine if you CGI’d the original choice for Rick, Guy named Reagan :::retch:::
@bystander:
Young Wayne Newton? Re-animated Pat Boone?
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Central Planning:
I’m a reposado fan when it comes to tequila – something about the wood aging barrels over the long haul for anejo disagrees with me (I know – give me a nice whiskey or rum aged in oak and I’m a hog in slop, go figure).
efgoldman
@Central Planning:
As could any male middle- or high school Western Civ teacher.
trollhattan
@Gretchen:
Suppose you can be heartened a wee bit by the dude who jumped the gunman (undone by a too-big clip…er…magazine). He was having none of that shit.
George Spiggott
Steve Bannon as Baron Vladimir Harkonnen in Dune http://statcdn.fandango.com/MPX/image/NBCU_Fandango/583/499/Dune_9375.jpg
pacem appellant
Dead actor: Christopher Reeves
Role in previously released films: Superman/Clark Kent in Man of Steel (2013) and Batman v Superman (2016)
HinTN
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: You or the bourbon?
ETA I see @Central Planning: beat me to it. I’m on my back porch with a cat on my lap. It’s all good.
danielx
@Hal:
Well, one can’t really blame him.
Robert Sneddon
I’d like to see the Marx Brothers in Casablanca, giving the Nazis wedgies and generally fooling around while Bogie and Bacall do the stage front stuff.
ThresherK
@bystander: As was said when Jeanette MacDonald appeared on radio with Charlie McCarthy, “It’s okay, she knows how to play against a block of wood.”
The late Edward Herrmann as Steve Bannon. Maybe they can do one of those things like that pic about Dylan and have multiples.
Brent
50 shades
Grey–Pee Wee Herman
Grey’s mother–Dame Edna
danielx
@D58826:
What, they don’t care for the douche rocket-in-chief?
frosty
“Atlantic City” one of my favorites. Good tune if you’re feeling a little too upbeat.
bystander
@efgoldman:
Both would certainly qualify as bad casting.
Jake Gyllenhal seems to be a hit in Sunday in the Park, not the most likely Seurat.
germy
@Robert Sneddon: Well, you can watch them in “A Night In Casablanca”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBCCS3guxOY
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@SiubhanDuinne:
Bannon looks like he’d stink of old body odor, Doritos and crap beer, halitosis, and an unscrupulously-wiped backside.
And that’s on a good day.
Turgidson
@pacem appellant:
How about we let Christopher Reeve play Superman in Man of Steel but just nuke Batman v. Superman from orbit and pretend it never existed.
germy
@West of the Rockies (been a while): He tried getting fresh with Reince at CPAC, but Reince wasn’t having it. Have you see the clip?
Tokyokie
Tom Laughlin, when he made his awful remake of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, offered the part of the corrupt senator to Jimmy Stewart, who turned it down flat. E.G. Marshall wound up playing the part instead. But what’s the matter with G.D. Spradlin as Pat Geary? He was a one-time lawyer for Phillips, made a fortune as an independent oilman, and dabbled in briefly in Oklahoma/Democratic politics before deciding to hell with it and going into acting. So he brought an insight from his life experiences into the character that a more classically trained would likely lack. Spradlin was a hell of an actor. Just recall how he lingers over the final word in Apocalypse Now, when he says “[Kurtz’s] methods have become unsound.”
evodevo
@George Spiggott: Yes. This. I thought about Trump, but he’s not really EVIL enough ….
Central Planning
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: casa noble makes a single barrel anejo which is quite tasty too. The trick is to get good quality tequila, just like bourbon
Feebog
Word is that Bannon changed from a suit and tie into his right wing cos-play double dress shirt costume.
germy
Who could play Trump in the movie? I’m thinking Jon Voight, but he’d probably refuse if the screenplay wasn’t respectful enough…
crawdad
Peter Lorre as Yoda
crawdad
Lena Dunham as Jabba the Hutt
SFAW
@efgoldman:
H: “My father is rolling over in his grave!”
P: “Your father is not dead!”
H: “This will kill him!”
debbie
@bystander:
Bette Midler would be great in a Busby Berkley musical.
SFAW
I’d like to see the ghost of PSH play Il Commendatore to Bannonazi’s Don Giovanni. But have it be real, not staged.
ETA: And have Margaret Hamilton do a cameo: “And your little dog, Priebus, as well!”
germy
Dcrefugee
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: I do love me some Michter’s…
Baud
@germy:
I hate it when reporters complain about what the media is reporting.
Especially the NYT, which is garbage.
hovercraft
@germy:
Chris Farley.
scav
@germy: Well, if the dead are being cast, why not characters from other movies? Jabba Desilijic Tiure in a blond hairpiece would be quite the sight and capture an essential characteristic. And I’m sure one of his cousins could do the shirtless Putin with aplomb.
efgoldman
@SFAW:
Bannonazi has a dog named Priebus?
TenguPhule
1984 in all its sick glory
I want to live long enough to see Wayne LaPierre’s head mounted on a spike. And then I’m going to wave at it, just like this. *wave*
SFAW
@efgoldman:
Yeah, his lap dog.
Or is it that I’ve completely misjudged things, and Reinhard is the one running the show?
And, by the way: I am ceaselessly amazed at your ability to come up with new color-based epithets for Shitgibbon. I doff my figurative cap to you.
SFAW
@TenguPhule:
You do babble-on sometimes
ETA: Is your comment what they call Mordant humor?
Roger Moore
@Robert Sneddon:
I would love to see a young Jim Carey in a Marx Brothers movie.
trollhattan
@Roger Moore:
You take that back RIGHT now!
Ian G.
Neither here nor there, but “Atlantic City” is Springsteen’s greatest song, bar none.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@TenguPhule:
Too anticlimactic. It’s more fun to think of him sobbing for mercy before a revolutionary tribunal as he is forced to answer questions as each major joint is shot, one at a time. Ankle, ankle, knee, knee, hip, hip…
ThresherK
@debbie: I don’t know if that’s a given.
She’s really a Mae West type, and Busby Berkeley didn’t really need “stars” like that. The Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler sorts weren’t singular talents, but great at being the archetypes that have lived on since Berkelel had a hand in popularizing the second wave of movie musicals.
“You’re going out there an understudy, but you’ve got to come back a star!”
Jeanette MacDonald at Paramount in the early ’30s was the most beguiling thing on two legs. I can see Midler tapping into that.
ThresherK
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: “What’ye gonna do, bleed on me?”
Turgidson
@germy:
Gee, she makes a good point. If only Maggie Haberman was in some sort of position to influence what was being covered. Such a pity that she’s just a journalist at the New York Times. What a pity.
TenguPhule
@SFAW: Hey, if he wants to live for the one, he can die for the one.
HeidiMom
To a Game of Thrones fan, the title of this thread sounds like a profession of faith by a not-very-bright Iron Islander. (Not that any of the Iron Islanders seem very bright, except for Yara.)
germy
@Baud: But her emails.
Downpuppy
Connie Willis wrote Remake in 1995 with this plot. Pretty good book.
Anyhow, you’d hope that if they were using dead actors, they’d at least come up with new movies, not Cannery Row with Henry Fonda & Marilyn Monroe.
John Revolta
I want to see Bert Lahr play Donald Trump.
efgoldman
@SFAW:
I have the “300 synonyms for orange” thesaurus page bookmarked.
Geeno
Much lower brow than most of you, but even when Spawn came out, I believed that Sam Kinnison should have been Clown.
misterpuff
@TenguPhule: You are Vir-ulent, Sir.
ThresherK
@John Revolta: As much as I love him in The Wizard of Oz, a little bit of Bert Lahr, in a leading role, doing his own schtick instead of being ridden hard by a strong director, goes a looooong way.
Just like Trump.
John Revolta
@ThresherK: Just like Trump
Exactly!
Anyway, Lahr was more than capable of other stuff. He did Beckett on Broadway, among other things.
TenguPhule
@misterpuff: I just want Wayne to know pain, to know fear, and then to die.
SFAW
@TenguPhule:
See, I’m thinking we can get Patrick McCormack to play Shitgibbon, so that Peter Jurasik can comment on Shitgibbon’s arrogance and stupidity all in the same package. (Which would come right after Shitgibbon says “I handled the Hil-gar.”)
ETA: Of course, Shitgibbon’s hair will look just like Londo’s, given a breeze from the right direction.
smintheus
I’d cast Robert Ryan in his smoking racist @ssh+le guise as the Wizard in The Wizard of Oz. Because Frank Morgan slapped a way too jolly facade on that deceitful con-man. “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain” would have a lot more bite these days if the man had been Robert Ryan.
SFAW
@smintheus:
“Bad Day at Black Rock”? Or was he like that in real life?
smintheus
@SFAW: No, I think Ryan was a liberal. But he sure played a mean racist summabitch.