A-List: The Early Days
By Jason Dean
August 25, 2004
BoxOfficeProphets.com

Clearly, no one this happy could be shopping at Wal-Mart.
This week’s A-list is another of the lower-case type and is just a list of movies. There is no ranking implied and to some extent, ranking is not really applicable to the topic. Have you ever been looking through the 500 cable channels and run across some little seen movie and have that moment of realization? “Hey, I didn’t know that ______ was in this movie!” This week’s list is a small offering of movies that were done early in a now recognizable star’s career.

Trial and Error - Charlize Theron

Between her splashy debut in 2 Days in the Valley and her hinting at possible greatness to follow in The Devil’s Advocate, Charlize Theron was in a comedy called Trial and Error. For the sake of completeness, she was also in That Thing You Do as the drummer’s original girlfriend who opts for her dentist over the drummer. That Thing You Do loses out for the fact that more people saw the movie and the role was smaller. Back to the topic, after The Devil’s Advocate, I was a confirmed fan of Charlize Theron to the point of being a completionist. It turns out that at that point, all it took was a trip to the video store. Trial and Error is no masterpiece, but I’ve definitely seen worse in the name of being a fan. The movie stars Jeff Daniels as a lawyer sent to small town to defend a client. Michael Richards is his best friend actor who ends up playing Jeff Daniels lawyer in court. Uh, and hilarity ensues? Daniels tries to coach Richards and ends crashing through ceiling tiles, Richards randomly uses legal term flash cards. However, along the way Jeff Daniels does end up falling for the local girl, as portrayed by Charlize Theron.

Empire Records - Liv Tyler, Renee Zellweger, Anthony LaPaglia, Rory Cochrane

Perhaps CBS gained more from this cast than big screen Hollywood, but LaPaglia had a solid big screen career before settling into to his weekly appearances on Without a Trace. And yes, the skinny dude portraying Lucas (fight the man!) is indeed the same guy who would fill out and eventually wind up on CSI: Miami. Anyway, I love this movie and was one of the few who was looking forward to the Remix: Special Fan Edition DVD. (I have these nagging feeling that Les Winan mocked this release and if he didn’t, I’m sure he would have and it would have been worthy of any type of comment). Some of my site mates have discounted the movie as an effort to sell soundtracks, but seeing as how I didn’t discover it until well after the movie was released, I found it an entertaining story of one day in the life of a small record store and its staff. That one day includes having a B+ list pop star doing an in-store appearance, the staff holding a funeral, a fundraiser to save the store from going corporate, aprons worn as dresses by the staff slut (Renee!), and the good girl exposed as not being perfect (Liv).

Dazed and Confused - Matthew McConaughey, Ben Affleck, Joey Lauren Adams, Milla Jovovich

Speaking of skinny Rory Cochrane, perhaps you’ve seen him as one of the stoner high schoolers in Richard Linklater’s classic. Maybe that's a tenuous transition at best, but perhaps not since most lists are seemingly random. Dazed and Confused opens at typical high school set in the mid '70s with all of the trappings of the era. Since it's a Linklater film, what we actually get is a fun night out/coming-of-age movie complete with beer parties, hazings, and overage dudes still hanging around the school (“Love those redheads,” as only Matthew can drawl it).

Swedish Sex Game/Anita: Swedish Nymphet - Stellan Skarsgard

And for something completely different, I polled the staff on this topic and Chris Hyde chipped with the suggestion of Swedish Sex Game/Anita: Swedish Nymphet. Ummm, what? Turns out he was serious:

Stellan Skarsgard has built a nice cinema career for himself in recent films as varied as Deep Blue Sea, Dogville and Exorcist: The Beginning. But few megaplex attendees today realize that back in the '70s, the actor kicked off his career by starring in some Nordic sexploitation fare with titillating titles like Swedish Sex Games and Anita: Swedish Nymphet. Luckily, for interested viewers, the cult DVD company Synapse has snapped up the rights to this latter vehicle in which Skarsgard teams up with famous sex kitten Christina Lindberg so soon enough fans in North America will get to see his early appearances in all their, um, glory

Reality Bites - Janeane Garofalo, Ben Stiller, Steve Zahn

Yes, I've selected yet another Winona Ryder movie, but Reality Bites was kind of the inspiration for this column and really does perfectly fit the topic. The film provided Ben Stiller with his first directing job and one of his early starring roles. For Garofalo and Zahn, the film gave them their first major roles. Granted, they haven’t received a great deal of roles worthy of their talents, but both of them are very good in my book. I was initially disappointed by the movie but have grown to enjoy it quite a bit. However, as time has passed, I keep seeing comparisons between Reality Bites and Singles. Reality Bites has Winona, but I’m not stupid nor quite that blind a fan boy as I fail to see how anyone can make this comparison. Singles is clearly the better movie. Cameron Crowe vs. Ben Stiller behind the camera? The rest of the match-ups pretty much go the same way.