With a friend I was discussing the horror that is Uwe Boll’s Alone in the Dark, one of the worst movies I’ve ever had the pleasure of viewing, a movie where you ask, “What the f**k is Christian Slater doing here?” It is, so I argued, probably the low point of Tara Reid’s hardly stellar career.
His question: if Alone in the Dark is the *low point* … what is the high point of her career? Bunny Lebowski?
In short: yes.
Let us look at her acting career, and divide her credits between TV and movies (including straight to video and made-for-TV). Within each category they are listed chronologically, oldest to newest.
TV:
- Saved by the Bell: The New Class – “Squash It”
- California Dreams – “Graduation Day”
- G vs E – “Underworld”
- Quintuplets – “Teacher’s Pet”
- Scrubs (various episodes)
Movies:
- A Return to Salem’s Lot
- The Big Lebowski
- Girl
- I Woke Up Early the Day I Died
- Urban Lagend
- What We Did That Night
- Cruel Intentions
- Around the Fire
- American Pie
- Body Shots
- Dr T and the Women
- Just Visiting
- Josie and the Pussycats
- American Pie 2
- Van Wilder
- Devil’s Pond
- My Boss’s Daughter
- Knots
- Incubus
- Hitched
- Alone in the Dark
- The Crow: Wicked Prayer
- Silent Partner
- 7-10 Split
- If I Had Known I Was a Genius
- Clean Break
- Senior Skip Day
- Land of Canaan
The “high point” of her career, if it is to found in her film or TV work, is to be found here, and we only need to find the best in each category and compare them. I cannot say what her best TV appearance is, but Scrubs is probably the best of the TV shows she appeared in.
When it comes to movies — the last 3 of which are not yet in any sort of release — we have three main categories in which she acts: teen comedies, bad romantic comedies, and bad horror/thriller flicks. Plus the plain weird: Dr T and the Women? (and it’s an Altman movie?) Just Visiting? Cruel Intentions was an entertaining remake, but her role was small. Her role in Lebowski was small in terms of screen time, even less in terms of lines, but important enough in terms of plot, and it is, arguably, the best movie on the list.
Lebowski vs. Scrubs? I take the Dude, and proclaim that the high point of her career — her second movie, a decade after her first.
With another acquaintance I was discussing the upcoming movie Gray Matters, which stars Heather Graham. The trailer can be found on Apple’s website. To quote the plot synopsis: “They finish each other’s sentences, dance like Fred and Ginger, and share the same downtown loft—the perfect couple? Not exactly. Gray and Sam (Heather Graham and Tom Cavanagh), are a sister and brother so compatible and inseparable that people actually assume they are dating. Mortified, they both agree they must branch out and start searching for love.”
Heather Graham was also in Scrubs. Go figure.
Initially, Heather’s parents were supportive of her budding acting career. However, her parents were concerned that she should not appear in any movie featuring sex or nudity. Breaking away from that mold, Heather appeared fully nude in several scenes in her breakout role in Boogie Nights. Heather is currently estranged from her parents, who are still devout Catholics.
I missed the whole Austin Powers craze (and, thus, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me) and still haven’t seen Boogie Nights, so she was just a name without a face to me. At some point I saw From Hell, but that’s much more about Johnny Depp and Ian Holm. Then I saw the 2004 Omen-meets-Rosemary’s-Baby-lite flop Blessed, which is basically what comes to mind when I think of her. Plus, the fact that she’s from Milwaukee, which speaks for her, I guess.
From Hell also had Ian Richardson in it, and he died a day after Anna Nicole Smith … so there you go.
