Posted on 08/14/2014 9:04:35 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Everyone loved the Oscar-winning actor in Aladdin, Good Morning Vietnam, Good Will Hunting, Awakenings, Mrs. Doubtfire and Dead Poets Society, but some other great roles have received far too little attention in the wake of his shocking death.
10. Deconstructing Harry (1997)
Williams’ only Woody Allen film is essentially a series of sketches in which Allen works out his demons. Williams is in the film for only a few minutes but he makes them count in a brilliant bit part as Mel, a film actor whose life is such a blur that he has literally gone out of focus.
9. RV (2006)
At this stage of his career, Williams was tagged, not unfairly, as an actor given to mugging in broad comedies aimed at children, but in this family-vacation laffer he is far more restrained, largely content to be the put-upon dad holding himself in check as chaos erupts around him. The movie is far funnier than critics gave it credit for.
8. Happy Feet (2006)
Williams’ performance as the genie in Aladdin was groundbreaking, but he was almost as memorable playing both the nutty rockhopper penguin Lovelace and as Ramon, the chipper best friend who helps the protagonist, Mumble, find his voice.
7. Robots (2005)
In another brilliant sidekick role, Fender the oddball robot, Williams was able to use his freewheeling improvisational style in a hilarious animated adventure stuffed with jokes from start to finish.
6. Fathers’ Day (1997)
Williams plays a suicidal poet in one of the many comedies with dark undertones that characterized his career. Billy Crystal co-stars as one of two middle-aged friends on a road trip during which they will discover which of them is the father of a teen whose mom they both dated. The movie, seen as a failed attempt at commercial comedy, has moments of poignance and soul.
5. The Survivors (1983)
Williams teamed with Walter Matthau for what appeared to be a routine pairing of a curmudgeon and a manchild, but in fact this Michael Ritchie film was an early sign that Williams was attracted to dark satire. His character becomes an on-the-spot hero by showing unexpected resolve during a restaurant robbery but then turns into a paranoid survivalist freak who moves to a training camp in the woods. Williams manages to keep hold of the character’s winning childlike simplicity even as he becomes a dangerous crackpot.
4. World’s Greatest Dad (2009)
Doomed by its bland title and (perhaps) unfairly dismissed by its pedigree as the brainchild of writer-director Bobcat Goldthwait, who wore out his welcome as an annoying standup, this ultra-black comedy could only have received its full due if it had come from, say, the Coen Brothers. Williams plays a frustrated English teacher (a sort of parody of his Dead Poets Society hero) whose dim-witted son dies in an auto-erotic-asphyxiation accident. The dad makes his son a post-mortem hero by faking the boy’s journals and making him seem like a beautiful, sensitive soul who was taken from us far too early. The circumstances of Williams’ own death have blanketed this film in an extra layer of bleakness, though.
3. One Hour Photo (2002)
Williams is mesmerizing as a creepy photo developer who works in a discount store. He becomes obsessed with one happy family’s pictures and insinuates himself into their lives in an attempt to sow heartbreak and fear. The film was a modest hit at the time but has become neglected over the years.
2. Moscow on the Hudson (1984)
Highly acclaimed at the time — just a couple of years after Williams shed his Mork persona — this Paul Mazursky film quickly became dated, and is now all but forgotten. Williams plays a visiting Russian saxophone player who defects to America in the middle of Bloomingdale’s. Few films of the era were as forthright about the daily deprivations of life in the freedom-strangling USSR, and though the New York City his character becomes attached to was then near its nadir, through the eyes of Williams’ Vladimir we can see the exhilaration of a society where possibility is unlimited.
1. Insomnia (2002)
Al Pacino plays a detective sent from the mainland to investigate a crime linked to a mysterious thriller writer played by Williams in a bone-chilling performance. Williams was never more restrained, clinical or terrifying. This magnificent role would made any actor proud, but for Williams it was the capstone of his transformation from the amiably sharp-witted standup he was at the start of his career.
He was good in “Awakenings”....an excellent film based on a true story.
Personally I liked The Fisher King. Not everyone’s cup of tea but a brilliant performance by Williams
RE: Personally I liked The Fisher King. Not everyone’s cup of tea but a brilliant performance by Williams
He was nominated for an Oscar for that role. He didn’t win.
However, He won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for that role.
I took a date to see Deconstructing Harry and was treated to Woody Allen’s use of the c-word. The movie was awful and insulting. Afterward, I apologized to my date for my poor choice. Frankly, I don’t remember Williams in it at all.
Moscow on the Hudson is still an amazing movie and it was incredible to see “Mork from Ork” play such a serious role at the time.
Williams needed cocaine to get him thru many of.these roles.
Doubtfire was funny but much of his standup was crass...especially with whoopie and billy crystal.
The first time Robin was on the Tonight Show he did an improvisational dance of Fred Astaire stepping in dog poo. All the dance moves that were to scrape the poo off his shoe was hilarious; imagine his antics.
Carson was belly laughing. It was a great TV / Tonight moment!
RE: Williams needed cocaine to get him thru many of.these roles.
“Cocaine is God’s way of saying that you’re making too much money.” (Robin Williams)
Moscow on the Hudson was a great performance. I wasn’t really a Mork fan. His frenetic comedy act was something I never really got into. I always wished he would slow down just a bit. Steve Martin had that semi-frentic quality that allowed me time to appreciate everything. Robin may not have been Robin otherwise though. Who knows. But, in Moscow I came to see him as a really good dramatic actor.
His funniest stand-up act, which has some foul language, and can be found on YouTube is of a drunken Scotsman inventing golf.
I thought “What Dreams may come” was a brilliant movie.
Oddly enough, in the movie he went to hell seeking his wife who had committed suicide after his death.
Two more funny/silly movies with Robin were “Death to Smoochy” (with Edward Norton) and “Cadillac Man” (with Tim Robbins).
Agreed. Garp didn’t make the list either.
They call it freebasing. It’s not free, it costs you your house! It should be called homebasing!
Three signs you’re addicted to cocaine:
First of all, if you come home to your house and you have no furniture and your cat’s going “I’m outta here, prick!,” Warning!
Number two: If you have this dream where you’re doing cocaine in your sleep and you can’t fall asleep, and you wake up and you’re doing cocaine, BINGO!
Number three: if on your tax form it says, “$50,000 for snacks,” MAYDAY!
Although, for whatever reason, it was a box office bomb, Popeye is surprisingly good.
The irony.
” One Hour Photo “ was brilliant. Pretty darned scary, too!
In full agreement.
“9. RV (2006)
... The movie is far funnier than critics gave it credit for.”
Ugh, no it isn’t. I don’t think even Robin Williams himself would try to say this movie was good. It’s a rancid boil on the hind parts of comedy.
And any list of under-appreciated Williams films that doesn’t include “The Fisher King” near the top of the list is worthless.
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