Late-era Travolta insanity

Like what happened to this dude

https://i.ibb.co/MRqPNP5/Gotti-movie-poster.jpg

https://i.ibb.co/1RGp9Mt/Speed-Kills-poster.jpg

https://i.ibb.co/tz5Mzjt/Trading-Paint-poster.jpg

https://i.ibb.co/kHqSD7v/The-Poison-Rose-poster.jpg

https://i.ibb.co/w7HztRD/The-Fanatic-release-poster.jpg

https://i.ibb.co/2SJCqFS/Paradise-City-poster.png

https://i.ibb.co/mbhYCHV/Mob-Land-poster.png

Five of these are 0% on Rotten Tomatoes, several direct to video.

I have only seen one of them, which I documented here: thread of being buzzed and watching Travolta's The Fanatic

It was not only one of the worst movies I've ever seen, it was also offensive.

Like dude was great in Hairspray in 2007, and many of his other 21st century bad movies were more middling than terrible, but what caused him to want to make the worst movies ever?

Anybody seen any of these? Anybody wanna do a watch project on some of these shitfests?

The Fanatic is a 2019 American psychological thriller film directed and co-written by Fred Durst.

Ah so now we know what John did it all for

There's a scene where the lead character puts on Limp Bizkit in the car

and then sticks a cookie up his ass

my parents picked I AM WRATH for a movie night a few years ago. incredibly bad though memorable i guess in that i vividly recall the scene where he got a back tattoo that said “I AM WRATH”

lol see that's what I associate w/ his movies now, big, ridiculous on-the-nose moments like that.

the weirdest thing is it's not like he's the best thing about a piece of shit anymore, it's like he forgot how to act, completely.

They shouldn’t have filmed that but the director told them to keep:

He throws a bible across the room, which opens to the passage in Jeremiah 6:11, "I am filled with the wrath of the Lord."

brb i’m gonna get a ridiculously large back tattoo that says I AM WRATH, just to let everyone know what i’m all
about

Wait did he actually get the tattoo from the guy then kill him

travolta has been likeable hes has been cool but i dunno has he ever been able to act tbh

Bad take, Saturday Night Fever & Pulp Fiction are incredible performances

i think you're just dazzled by teeth/hips

note iirc i *defended* him against nomination on the worst actor thread tbf but taken as a whole hes bad

a man driven insane by his inability to deal with baldness imo, once you accept that it all flows from there

agree with gyac that he's great in pulp fiction and fever but are we really going to litigate the whole 'being a movie star has little-to-nothing to do with being able to act' again

he's also incredible in face/off obv

taken as a whole

has he ever been able

asked and answered your honor, goalposts are thataway

Not to Debbie Downer a fun thread but his career appears to have tanked around the time his son died. AFAICT Old Dogs was his last starring role in a studio flick, which was released that same year.

Incredible in Blow Out too.

Maybe he just likes to keep workin’!? He sure can’t need the money?

taken as a whole

has he ever been able

asked and answered your honor, goalposts are thataway

― vashti funyuns (sic), Friday, 6 October 2023 09:07 (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

this is fair if the object was not to have any fun

those payoffs for alleged sexual harassment hairpieces don’t pay for themselves xp

agree with gyac that he's great in pulp fiction and fever but are we really going to litigate the whole 'being a movie star has little-to-nothing to do with being able to act' again

“Michael” is some weird sh1

Did Battlefield Earth kill his career?

Tarantino to the rescue again lol
https://www.worldofreel.com/blog/2023/9/18/hqqcxgbqsvkzy7nzrwpgyaftb2s1k5

To think he could have his "Christopher Plummer in Beginners" role at this point if he could just embrace his true self

That was Hairspray.

I think it did start to turn around again after his son died. I also totally forgot that his wife/partner died in 2020.

He's basically just on the same easy paycheck route that Bruce Willis was on (before his untimely retirement).

All fans of trash must check out Gotti. It's directed by Kevin Connolly (aka "E" from Entourage), had a key role in the debacle that was MoviePass, has many baffling music cues, and the now legendary scene where Stacy Keach names all the five boroughs in New York.
Take 30 seconds to watch the opening to make up your mind:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3TsZO7otSs

I saw some "Fanatic" clips once and frankly it was even more weird and crazy and bad than I expected. Like, here's Travolta accidentally channeling Bobcat Goldthwait:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXqP_pWX730

i dont remember kelly preston having died

Oh Gotti looks good! will watch

Travolta is good in Get Shorty (he holds his own against Gene Hackman), though the movie is not as good as I remembered it being 25 years ago.

He's also good in Savages, though I don't expect anyone else has the necessary tolerance for late-period Oliver Stone to watch it.

Nathan Rabin has been doing a multi-year survey of every one of Travolta's films on his Happy Place if you really want to get into this.

Get Shorty is a terrible movie and I especially hate Travolta in it. It was a huge letdown after his performance in Pulp Fiction.

he looks like a puffy Adam Levine these days, when he's got the beard coming in.

i think Travolta was at one time a really good performer. SNF and Pulp Fiction are correctly noted as his best roles and actually good as far as acting, but i think Face/Off and Get Shorty aren't far off. i think where he went wrong was really buying into the notion that what everyone wanted from him was unironic swagger rather than him kind of being a dopey likable goof. Face/Off works with the swagger because he's channeling Nicolas Cage thru it, and Get Shorty kind of required it and Sonnenfeld had enough of a light touch to allow him to glide thru the movie effortlessly.

he made a lot of interesting choices in the late-'90s, not really successful, but he at least tried some things:

White Man's Burden
Mad City
She's So Lovely
A Civil Action
The Thin Red Line
Primary Colors

i think things took a turn post-Battlefield Earth. he just started coasting on playing those aforementioned swaggering badasses, both his good guys and bad guys were interchangeable in that way.

I liked him in Get Shorty -- a movie star's performance -- even when the film choices are the equivalent of an annoying uncle elbowing you and going GEDDIT GEDDIT?

its a much more limited movie than ppl would have one believe imo

the one about him becoming a genius in dungarees wasnt an awful performance

hes pretty good in look whos talking tbf

Get Shorty definitely is the least of the trio of good Leonard adaptations in the '90s, it went a bit too far over into Hollywood self-love comedy.

he does have a Nic Cage thing going on where sometimes he's so bad that he just steals every scene he's in. that OJ Simpson miniseries he did is a good example of that.

broken arrow suggests woo knows how to use him well

hes actively good in swordfish ofc

yes he was fab in broken arrow. that movie had really good sound iirc

The first line in The Fanatic is something like "Hurry up, I gotta poo"

Durst always thinking bout the chocolate starfish.

is he still a Hubbardist?

think so.

I really want to watch I Am Wrath now

Bad take, Saturday Night Fever & Pulp Fiction are incredible performances

Fuckin' Grease, too! Which, tbf, was a great ensemble.

He was arguably one of the best bubble boys ever in The Boy in the Plastic Bubble

His performance in BLOW OUT is stunning

Re: Get Shorty

Never understood the love for this, either. I don’t like Barry Sonnenfeld as a director apart from Addams Family Values

Dude has a jumbo jet and his own airport, that is a pretty high level of cash to keep up and runnin'. Bit more than having a garage full of old Chevy Novas etc.

Not to mention, he's got to pay to get to the next level of Xanadu.

I'm sure he's got investments.

I don’t think he has an airport. He might own a hangar at the Santa Monica Airport a la Jerry Seinfeld (who stores his Porsches there) and Bill Gates

https://www.traveller365.com/public/app_files/articles/37/675X570.jpg

https://www.traveller365.com/articles/ThisisJohnTravoltasimpressivehousewithaprivateairportUnbelievable

That is pretty f'n Batman to me.

Hold up, how does he take off? Does he drive his plane to a runway?

hed have made a good joker in a few different phases of his life

He wouldn’t have been as interesting as James Woods or Robin Williams

Face/Off would almost have worked as a batman vs joker one-off, right down to the casting. Just had to give them the costumes.

This is like Limp Bizkit's Taxi Driver

Hahahahahah omg Neanderthal

he does have a Nic Cage thing going on where sometimes he's so bad that he just steals every scene he's in. that OJ Simpson miniseries he did is a good example of that.

I thought he was great in that!

Hold up, how does he take off? Does he drive his plane to a runway?

The place where he lives has a 7550ft runway: https://jumbolair.com (there are a few private airport communities scattered around)

Taking of Pelham 123 remake = god-tier

Lol what are these movies

It makes sense when you see Steven Seagal just dedicate himself to VOD trash as thats his level but not Travolta