Abraham, Martin, and John C. Reilly
God rest ye merry Luis Guzman
written by Emily on September 20, 2025

*Wes Anderson
Likes to work with: The Wilsons, Bill Murray, Seymour Cassel, Pagoda.
Pros: Gets brilliant performances out of the fucking Wilson brothers, single-handedly ushered in Bill Murray's crazy/beautiful Renaissance of the last eight or nine years.
Cons: Was probably the one who introduced Owen Wilson to Ben Stiller. Boo.

*Christopher Guest
Likes to work with: Fred Willard, Catherine O'Hara, Eugene Levy, Parker Posey, Jane Lynch, and the rest of Spinal Tap.
Pros: Any use of Fred Willard is good use of Fred Willard. This rule also applies to Bob Balaban. Every time I hear that God damned "Hollaback Girl" song the line "this shit is bananas" is processed in my head as "this shit is Bob Balaban."
Cons: It's the one that says Bad Motherfucker.

*Tim Burton
Likes to work with: Formerly: Lisa Marie. Currently: Helena Bonham Carter. Also Jeffrey Jones, Johnny Depp, of course, and Deep Roy, the happy little fellow that played Mr. Soggybottom in "Big Fish." Deep Roy would also make an awesome title for some "Seaquest:DSV"-related slash fic.
Pros: Keeps Depp busy with brilliant character pieces, and out of Roman Polanski movies about book dealing. Also, gave the world Lisa Marie as an alien.
Cons: I'm drawing a blank, really. I feel like there should be some condescending remark made about "Planet of the Apes" here but, really, he put a monkey face on the fucking Lincoln memorial. What's left to be said?

And then there's Paul Thomas Anderson. Good ol' P.T. A man creative enough to cast John C. Reily as a porn star, but self-indulgent enough to fill "Magnolia" with all his favorite character actors and still make room for a grossly overpaid Hollywood A-lister to take a masturbatory supporting role. Paul Thomas Anderson is the rare case of the stable working too well. He surrounded himself with all of the brilliant bit players he could find (the "Hey! It's THAT Guy"s, as Fametracker would put it), and gave them all material that was so good, they've broken out of their character niches and gone on to larger successes. And they've all managed to fuck larger success up royally.


And that's where our story begins.

Once upon a time there were five actors. Five actors whom everyone loved, but who weren't necessarily big stars. They didn't get their name above the title, but they got the acclaim from the people who were paying attention. When someone would mention one of their names, there was always someone close by to respond with, "Me too! I love that guy! I thought I was the only one!"

The first of these actors was named William. William was a small man, short in stature but affable in nature, and he had a knack for creating endearing characters that made the audience forget that he kind of looks like Hoggle from "Labyrinth" with a bushy mustache. William liked to play the every man. A normal looking guy who spent his onscreen time interacting with other normal-looking guys. He was always the more uptight normal looking guy, because he's short and kind of elfin and well, what do you do with a man who sounds like he came into the world ready to voice a cartoon character? You cast him as the high strung supporting character, probably just a few bad days in traffic away from completely losing his shit, but never losing his smile. William best displayed his knack for being kind of wacky but always lovable in "Fargo" and on "ER" and it looked for a brief moment like maybe the world would come to know and appreciate this tiny little ball of nice, with or without his 'stache.

Then little Willie met a man named Paul. Paul was a just a youngster, full of big ideas and youthful enthusiasm. Paul was making a movie about pornography, that wasn't actually pornography itself. Imagine that! Paul thought William would be just perfect for his dirty whore of a movie, he even had a character named (naturally) "Little Bill" that he wanted William to play.

William took the role. And it was good.

A strange thing seemed to happen to Williams career after his success in the porno film. His fame grew larger and larger, and so did his parts. No longer was he the guy who stood with all the other guys while the main guy talked in the foreground, no no. Now William was IN the foreground. But there was trouble. You see, these movies with their foregrounds, they weren't good movies. Instead of being really good in things that were already good, William became "that guy again" in ill-conceived remakes. Or movies about faux gay convincts/pageant directors. Or movies in which we the audience are asked to accept looking at his ass repeatedly.

Oh no, things aren't going so well for ol' William at all anymore. In fact, there's talk among the natives that he's filming a Choose Your Own Adventure movie about the Abominable Snowman. It's a sad fate indeed for our favorite little guy. But sometimes, when you walk through the woods at night, the wind whistles and you hear William screaming for the spirit of his once admirable career, and moaning that he only did "Cellular" as a paycheck movie.

But William's story is not the worst. Oh no, there are those who have suffered much worse a fate than poor Willie. One of them is named Phillip. The other is named John.

Phillip was a good man once. Rotund, but strong, able to tackle even the most demeaning "fat guy" roles with a certain panache. You could see it in his eyes that there was more to him, that he was a bird caged by Jan De Bont summer blockbusters, and his bird could sing.

Phillip's problem was a bit different from Williams. You see, he too found his way into Paul's sinful porno movie, and even his follow up movie about frogs and. . . uh. . .

so anyway, Phillip too found himself in much higher demand than he was before Paul came along. But rather than lose his ability to take good roles, like William, Phillip found himself saddled with a curse that forced him to actually take EVERY role offered to him. He quickly became over exposed, but he couldn't stop. And the more movies he appeared in, the harder it was to remember why we'd enjoyed him in the first place. Sure, he still gave some great supporting performances, but he also made transgendered buddy cop stroke comedies with Robert DeNiro. We may have loved him as Lester Bangs, but we still had that image of him in our minds as the creepy phone sex guy from "Happiness." And if appearing in Paul Thomas Anderson movies is the kiss of death for a great character actor, appearing in Todd Solondz movies is just taking a ripe crap on your integrity as an actor, then talking about how cool and edgy the crap is. P.S. I hate Todd Solondz.

Phillip shared his curse with another of the actors, John. John was much like Phillip in that he'd been giving deceptively good performances in less than good movies for many years. But whereas Phillip always had an oddball, borderline kinky quality about him, John did not. If Phillip seemed like the button-down neighbor that's secretly harboring a leather fetish, John just seemed like the good-natured doofus neighbor that washes his car with no shirt on, making everyone uncomfortable. John too made his way onto P.T.'s Island of Misfit Character Actors, playing the aforementioned pornography star in the pornography movie. He then went on to give an even better performance in the movie about. . .um. . .cocks? Respect? Taming the. . . I don't know. Unfortunately John, like Phillip, just didn't know what to do with himself once everyone knew how good he was at playing the schlub, and devised a plan to become KING of the schlubs. Yes sir, he would play all the schlubs, whether they be southern schlubs with cheating wives, NORTHERN schlubs with cheating wives, or schlubs who are. . . not married, necessarily, but apparently having some healthy plumbing problems and are always remembering to be as schlubish as possible in all matters of existence.

In fairness to John, his ubiquitousness has not been and is not now even 1/3 as bothersome and William and Phillip's Series of Unfortunate Career Moves, but you have to assume that his greatest years are behind him when you think about his big stupid schlub face, and all you can hear is a slightly off-key rendition of "Mr. Cellophane" covering the sound of the Earth hurtling towards disaster.

But boys weren't the only ones affected by P.T. Anderson's hoodoo. Oh no. In fact, one of the best performances in the NAMELESS DIRTY MOVIE (and, subsequently, one of the bigger downfalls) was by a woman. A woman named Julianne. A beautiful talented woman. Some would describe her as a "fiery redhead." These are people who should have their writing licenses taken away, then mocked in public squares. Julianne's red hair dwarfed my mere existence. Anyway, Julianne had been, for years, what those in the know refer to as an "indie darling." She was always daring, mixing the occasional paycheck movie in with five or six "hey look at my crotch!" art house films, and one or two of those weird movies where like, Wallace Shawn films a play with no props or sets, and we're supposed to think it's very highbrow and reflective, and forget that we're looking at fucking Vizzini.

Julianne signed on to be a pornography star. And it was good.

However, after the movie found success, Julianne fell asleep under an absent-minded tree and, when she woke up, she'd forgotten her roots. She was no longer Julianne: queen of the twat shots, now she was Julianne: queen of the full page Revlon ad! No more weirdo movies about germ phobias. Nooooo. Now it's all poory thought out comedies, shitty adaptations, and Sprung From Oprah's Forehead Vagina Fodder. Who needs to take on character driven, emotionally satisfying roles when you can star in the sequel to a successful movie you weren't actually in eight and a half years too late!

Of the five intrepid actors, all of whom went into Paul's lab with promising careers, only one has emerged with talent and artistic integrity intact: my old friend Don.

I don't need to tell you about what he's done or is doing, because you know. And you love him. If you've ever watched a film with an artistic eye and managed to find some aspect about the process of bringing story to life on screen, you love Don. The man is made of brilliance. He gives us hope. For every Jurassic Park sequel from William, every bad Jack Black impression from Phillip, every schlubby schlub schlub schlub from John, and every cry me a fucking river from Julianne, there's still Don. Don puts his hand on our shoulder, gives us a wink and says, "hey guys it's okay, everything's going to be fine. I'm gonna go give an awards-worthy performance again, will you be okay here by yourself? Okay, cool. See ya." And then he's gone, off to do something touching and wonderful, leaving us with the feeling that maybe, just maybe, there's more than one guy (or gal) out there who can just stick to the formula. Make great films, or be great in the not-so-great ones. Let's just hope he never does another one of Paul's movies, or we might lose him for good too.

In all seriousness and fairness, I love P.T. Anderson's movies. And he can't honestly be blamed for being such a genius at casting, that he has single-handedly elevated the careers of like, every great character actor working today. Sure, he seems like an ass, and Fiona Apple had to stroke his head like a puppy when he didn't win the Oscar, but I can't blame him for "Patch Adams." Or "Laws of Attraction." I really can't. His stable failed him, he didn't fail his stable.



At least they're better than Paul W.S. Anderson's stable, which includes a computer that makes CGI and his own ability to masturbate.