Word: hollywoodized
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...movie really runs on Dennis Quaid's misanthropic conviction. He's one of those second-tier stars who has generally not been treated well by Hollywood. But whether he's called upon to play mulish, churlish or just to do some hard-charging action, we always sense an underlying decency in him - he has a good soldier quality that can be very appealing. In a way, his work is emblematic of the movie as a whole. There's nothing world shattering about Smart People. No one is ever going to call it a "must see" movie...
Then there's the work. Contrast Chan's and Li's homemade, our-pain-for-your-gain, almost literally death-defying feats with those of Hollywood action stars from the same generation. Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Chuck Norris--they all looked fit and muscular, and some had martial-arts backgrounds. But when it came time to do the heavy lifting, especially as they reached midcareer, the doubles were usually called...
...that these men lacked the guts to put themselves in danger but that they worked in a system in which that sort of bravado wasn't necessary or even allowed. Hong Kong saw action realism as a badge of honor; Hollywood was the fantasy factory. And its action-film stars were such valuable commodities, they had to be handled like preemies. The studios were breeding these men for 20-to-30-year careers. Let them perform their most daring stunts? Nah, we have people who do that...
...venture beyond the epic. He made plenty of Westerns, some important science-fiction films, a few comedies (for which he was constitutionally unsuited). And he was willing to fight for directors he believed in. He assured the financing of Touch of Evil, Orson Welles' most satisfying post-Citizen Kane Hollywood film, by agreeing to star in it. He also offered to give back part of his salary so Sam Peckinpah could finish Major Dundee as he'd planned. (The story goes that the producers took the money but didn't allow the extra shooting. Even if it's not true...
That stance earned him death threats in punk rock songs and, if not pariah status in Hollywood, then the image of a cranky grandpa. Which hardly flustered Heston; he'd been playing the righteous loner for too long to lose sleep from exile by the reigning Hollywood Left. ("Political correctness," he said in a 1999 speech at the Harvard Law School, "is tyranny with manners.") When Michael Moore came to the actor's home and confronted him, for the climactic scene of the 2002 pro-gun-control documentary Bowling for Columbine, Heston looked both gracious and stern, perplexed and frail...