RIP Robin Williams

yeah, i don't think he was a failure as an entertainer. he just made a lot of horrible movies and a lot of the stuff he did didn't play to his strengths. like carson says, anyone could have played those straight man/dead poet roles.

To say that no one else could have played the teacher in DPS isn't a defense of that movie. I think by that point he'd become an Ovitz-fueled commodity around whom "Robin Williams vehicles" were being produced

kevin kline could have done dead poets.

he kinda did in In and Out!

maybe if you combine robin williams and whoopi goldberg into one person you have some competition for 90s tom hanks

Kline's energy would have been cruel and almost psycho, which, yeah, might have made a more satisfying movie aesthetically but not what the screenwriters and producers wanted.

Whoopi's nineties hits are Ghost and Sister Act.

RW got to explore the full range of his talent in more projects for larger audiences and more money than most performers could even dream of. And the flipside of staying that busy for that long is that it can't all be great and you're not going to stay cool for very long. We can hem and haw about some hypothetical perfect role missing from his filmography, but it seems like he got to do everything he could do, the kind of career you just wonder if Belushi or whoever could've had and didn't so we get to idealize and lionize those other guys more.

i thought she was everywhere. she gives me a robin williams vibe for some reason. xp

otm xpost

whoopi had a ton of movies but only one truly huge leading role in the 90s

his Harvey Milk would've been intriguing, tho he seemed way too goyish

His white-hot standup period featured a few too easy lisping-swish laughs, so I wonder if he purposefully went for the Cage aux Folles remake after the H Milk movie fell through (if my chronology is right).

What are these few films in the can we have yet to see? I know one of them is an xmas movie, but I don't know about the others. Starring roles? Cameos?

whoopi and robin were arguably equals if you were a kid looking for pg to pg-13 comedies at blockbuster in the 90s

(that is, took a gay role maybe a little out of guilt -- based in SF for much of his adult life, I think he was kind of consciously a homophile) xxxp

The sheriff's office is providing details now. He was discovered by his personal assistant.

yeah like I said yesterday Williams seemed one of the few stars of his magnitude immune to gay panic and able to spoof himself

XPS I remember it kind of being a big deal when Goldberg had a vehicle (Theodore Rex maybe) that went DIRECT TO VHS and how the mighty had fallen.

whoopi and robin were arguably equals if you were a kid looking for pg to pg-13 comedies at blockbuster in the 90s

― da croupier, Tuesday, August 12, 2014 12:25 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ha, me to a t

xp to me Oh good, one of them is another sequel to Night at the Museum. I love his Teddy Roosevelt.

Herb Caen in the SF Chronicle, 1995:

THE IRREPRESSIBLE one: In the April issue of the gay magazine, OUT, Greg Louganis says on the subject of a possible new mate: "This is extremely quirky, but I think Robin Williams is extremely sexy. He's intelligent. He's got a quick wit. Funny. Hairy chest. I do like that" . . . Louganis, the Olympic diving champ whose new book, "Breaking the Surface," is the No. 1 nonfiction best-seller in the country, was at A Different Light bookstore on Castro Tuesday evening. Some 2,000 people showed up -- including Robin Williams, who ran to the head of the line, hugged the AIDS-diagnosed Louganis and teased, "Here I am, your dream lover!" Then he scampered off without buying a book.

Thankfully, at this point, it's like seeing a really bad apartment that I know I never ever have to live in again, but recalling with perfect clarity the absolute hell of living there and feeling complete sympathy/sorrow for someone who apparently never made it out.

This...this is an absolutely perfect description.

It might be strange to see an ep of M&M now where he says "Let me take that back" and does the backwards-talking thing, and the audience goes nuts. Actors weren't doing that on sitcoms then. Manic comedy on TV had been mostly stupid for a decade-plus, after the decline of the Sid Caesar generation, and he seemed to bring high-energy zaniness back to respectability. (The political and lit references were not the kind of thing you'd have gotten from Jerry Lewis in the '60s.)

http://www.vulture.com/2014/08/what-it-was-like-to-do-improv-with-robin-williams.html

"Mork & Mindy: In Mork We Trust (#1.21)" (1979)

Orson: The report, Mork.

Mork: This week I discovered a terrible disease called loneliness.

Orson: Do many people on Earth suffer from this disease?

Mork: Oh yes sir, and how they suffer. One man I know suffers so much he has to take a medication called bourbon, even that doesn't help very much because then he can hear paint dry.

Orson: Does bed rest help?

Mork: No because I've heard that sleeping alone is part of the problem. You see, Orson, loneliness is a disease of the spirit. People who have it think that no one cares about them.

Orson: Do you have any idea why?

Mork: Yes sir you can count on me. You see, when children are young, they're told not to talk to strangers. When they go to school, they're told not to talk to the person next to them. Finally when they're very old, they're told not to talk to themselves, who's left?

Orson: Are you saying Earthlings make each other lonely?

Mork: No sir I'm saying just the opposite. They make themeslves lonely, they're so busy looking out for number one that there's not enough room for two.

Orson: It's too bad everybody down there can't get together and find a cure.

Mork: Here's the paradox sir because if they did get together, they wouldn't need one.

Thinking about GWH, all his sessions with Damon aside, I think my favorite scene of Williams's is when he's in the bar with Stellan Skarsgaard and has to explain to him just exactly what's what with Will and his friends.

Glenn Kenny on Moscow on the Hudson:

It’s a lovely, loose, unselfconscious, limb-swinging performance so uninhibited, who can forget the sight of him, hairy as a bear from pretty much the neck down, lounging in that big tub with Maria Conchita Alonso? What amazes about his best screen-acting is the combination of discipline—he was Juilliard-trained, after all—and an exhilarating sense of him being present in every moment, ready for anything, always prepared to improvise the most alive response to his environment.

http://www.vanityfair.com/vf-hollywood/2014/08/robin-williams-obituary

I have a store credit at used dvd store near work...gonna swing by at lunchtime & see if I can pick up the Fisher King, or Garp, or Moscow on the Hudson.

glad this EW roundup of his lesser known films stans for The Best of Times and Club Paradise; the latter was a staple of late eighties cable

and a thousand xxposts by now but BLAM thank you so much for sharing those thoughts, and idk...i hope it gets better? xo

It has. And thanks.

some of his star vehicles seem oop on dvd?

The Fisher King is on Sony Movies later. I haven't seen it in years either.

Fisher King is on netflix too i think?

http://www.vulture.com/2014/08/what-it-was-like-to-do-improv-with-robin-williams.html

― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, August 12, 2014 12:40 PM (36 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is amazing, damn

The sad parts are confusing, and we talk about the Beastie Boys during them.

It's interesting to compare RW's reaction to improv-audience idiot suggesting "Flubber" to, say, Lou Reed stalking out when the local bakery is playing "Sunday Morning."

David Edelstein suggests that for a best-of we intersperse bits of talk show appearances with clips from "Popeye, The Survivors, The Best of Times, Seize the Day, Moscow on the Hudson, Cadillac Man, The Fisher King, Insomnia, The Birdcage, his appearance in Homicide: Life on the Street, and even Good Will Hunting (and a bit of his voice in Aladdin, of course)."

the only recent-ish things of his I'd seen were the episode of Law & Order: SVU that he did (inspired by the same case that inspired the movie Compliance)

wha

did he play the caller?

even Good Will Hunting

It's uncool to say you like that movie now?

well it isn't very good so

need Smoochy and Garp xxxxp

Can't for the life of me remember the small part in Dead Again, which I generally found terrible.

GWH always seemed like a mundane fairytale, made by a good director.

even Good Will Hunting

It's uncool to say you like that movie now?

― everyday sheeple (Michael B),

it's not your fault

man I still haven't seen Garp! Should I? It seems like boring eighties Oscar bait.

At least GWH isn't responsible for "You're the man now, dog!"

man I still haven't seen Garp! Should I? It seems like boring eighties Oscar bait.

dude waht you should totally see this movie

apparently he did a "Firing Line" spoof too:

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/385253/our-robin-williams-tim-cavanaugh

"stonewall_61" ain't having it:

Stonewall_61 • 2 hours ago
Okay, I wasn't going to say anything, but with all of this wall-to-wall praise of Williams, I can keep quiet no longer.

Mork and Mindy was a stupid show that had been spun off from another stupid show that had in turn been spun off from a show that started well but ended very badly.

After that, some of Williams' stand-up comedy could be quite good. But then he spent the entire 80's decade taking cheap shots at Ronald Reagan. Long, drawn out diatribes that could last 20 minutes or more, characterizing Reagan as an old, senile, incompetent buffoon who slept all of the time.

Then he made a whole string of incredibly stupid movies that were nearly indistinguishable from each other, in most of which he wore clown shoes.

Then toward the end, he did a respectable job in a few serious roles.

Robin, I am sorry you had such a rough time of it, and that you felt you had to off yourself. That is very sad. I hope you found happiness in a better place, even though my religion tells me that is very unlikely considering you committed suicide. But I cannot say that I will miss you all that much. If there is any Karma in the universe, you will spend eternity having to listen to Ronald Reagan repeating all of his speeches while he wears clown shoes. RIP

haven't seen Garp in maybe 20 years, but God knows it's better than the book. Also deservedly kicked Close and Lithgow into a higher realm.

(Glenn Close was also at that Met gig... Williams shouted "hi Mom" to her before an encore.)

the Reagan stuff did wear after a while, but "Disney's last wish: Make a president" had a beauty to it

that WFB, Jr. impression is good

you should totally totally see garp