Oh Russell Crowe! Where have you gone?! You O.K. buddy? You feelin' alright? I mean, I know you are still here...but I don't see you.
What happened to this Russell?
What happened to this Russell?
Or this one?
Or even this one?
How about this one?
O.K. granted, these are all kind of the same damn face. BUT, one would argue that they are not all the same performance. Especially Virtuosity, where he's probably more smiley faced and crazy eyed than any other flick he's in. Also, his American accent in those last few above, is pretty damn good. My initial grading scale on accents in movies when I was younger, was if I didn't know the nationality of the actor after seeing the film. Russell is an example, I didn't know he was Australian. The other one that leaps to mind is Bob Hoskins, after seeing Who Framed Roger Rabbit. It wasn't until years later that I found out he was British. Curse my under developed ears!
Basically, what I'm getting at here is, he used to be a veritable bad-ass in the '90s. Now, this is not to say that he's not still good. He's just...different. I don't get the same vibe from him now as I did in the '90s. At first, I thought it was just my young mind playing with my now older mind here in the future. Telling me sweet lies from memories past, which it HAS done on more than one occasion. *(i.e. Full-fucking-House. Oh man, I may just have to write about this topic in general, but real quick: remember how "great" Full House was! How much you just "loved" that show! Yeah, go watch you're favorite episode from back in the day, right now...it's ok, I'll wait...uh-huh, see! See what I mean?!)* But, I have since watched all of the above movies and they still hold up! HE holds up!
Of course, right out of the 90s, he starts racking up Oscar cred, and wins one. *(For Gladiator bt-dubs, which is epically bad-ass and still fits into my '90s Crowe love because even though it came out in 2000, it was still technically shot in the '90s. Boom.)* But, save for Gladiator, for my money he seems to have lost a lot of his former gravitas entering the new millenium. He didn't really do anything for me in A Beautiful Mind (even though he got Oscar nom'd). Don't even get me started on Master and Commander...for the love of cripes. Skip ahead to the more recent Les Miserables...oh...oh dear...oh no...OH DEAR NO!
Which leads me to the question, "What the #%*! happened and where did '90s Russell Crowe go?!?" I miss him. Can he come back? Please? Pretty please with a rugby ball on top?
Basically, what I'm getting at here is, he used to be a veritable bad-ass in the '90s. Now, this is not to say that he's not still good. He's just...different. I don't get the same vibe from him now as I did in the '90s. At first, I thought it was just my young mind playing with my now older mind here in the future. Telling me sweet lies from memories past, which it HAS done on more than one occasion. *(i.e. Full-fucking-House. Oh man, I may just have to write about this topic in general, but real quick: remember how "great" Full House was! How much you just "loved" that show! Yeah, go watch you're favorite episode from back in the day, right now...it's ok, I'll wait...uh-huh, see! See what I mean?!)* But, I have since watched all of the above movies and they still hold up! HE holds up!
Of course, right out of the 90s, he starts racking up Oscar cred, and wins one. *(For Gladiator bt-dubs, which is epically bad-ass and still fits into my '90s Crowe love because even though it came out in 2000, it was still technically shot in the '90s. Boom.)* But, save for Gladiator, for my money he seems to have lost a lot of his former gravitas entering the new millenium. He didn't really do anything for me in A Beautiful Mind (even though he got Oscar nom'd). Don't even get me started on Master and Commander...for the love of cripes. Skip ahead to the more recent Les Miserables...oh...oh dear...oh no...OH DEAR NO!
Which leads me to the question, "What the #%*! happened and where did '90s Russell Crowe go?!?" I miss him. Can he come back? Please? Pretty please with a rugby ball on top?

And please, for the love of all that good and right in this world Russell,
don't ever do anything like this again ever!
don't ever do anything like this again ever!