zwolanerd

Last week’s post was on one of my favorite movie years and it prompted this entry. 1972 was the year I was born, so I’m roughly the same age as these people.

Rather than put them in “favorite order,” I’m going to leave them in birth order, because I don’t want Mr. Johnson to feel the pressure of always being on the top of my lists. I will instead list my favorite thing that each person has done.

January 11: Amanda Peet – While I did like her character on the few episodes of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip that I saw, my favorite thing she’s done was her guest starring bit on Seinfeld. But that hardly counts because it was one episode and it’s only my favorite because it’s Seinfeld, so I’ll go ahead and pick The Whole 9 Yards, which I mostly liked because Bruce Willis and Matthew Perry were so much fun in it.  I haven’t yet seen The Way Way Back, but I’m expecting to like that one, so this might change.

April 17: Jennifer Garner – This will give you some idea on how out of the loop I am: I’ve never seen Alias, the thing she is most famous for. I liked 13 Going on 30, but really only because of the Thriller dance sequence. My two favorites of hers are Juno and Daredevil, and I’m going to go with Daredevil even though I’m supposed to hate that movie.  I didn’t!  And I really liked her in it — which is why the follow-up Elektra was such a disappointment to me. I had very high hopes for it, but, man, it was very very not good.

May 2: Dwayne Johnson – We’ve already covered this! I’m still sticking with The Other Guys, but, really, I could just say “all of them” here and we’d have an understanding. He is only four days older than me.  This is all kinds of crazy to me.

July 29: Wil Wheaton – Star Trek: The Next Generation, and I’m not even kidding. Listen, when the show was on originally, I believed the hype and followed the crowd and booed Wesley like everyone else.  When I went back and watched the series last year, though, I not only didn’t hate Wesley, I kind of liked him. I’m sure some of that is because Wil has become a geek icon of sorts and I’m projecting that backwards, but Alexander (Worf’s son) was a way more irritating child on that series.

August 12: Rebecca Gayheart – Right now you’re saying, “Who?” (unless you were a big 90210 fan, apparently) I’m including her for one reason: Dead Like Me. I was surprised to be reminded that she was only on the show for five episodes, because it seems her part was much bigger.  Ah, well. I love that show so she gets a nod here.

August 15: Ben Affleck – Okay, now don’t hate me, but I’m tempted to go with Daredevil here again!  Sure, I’m supposed to pick Good Will Hunting, and it was fine, but I like some of his other stuff so much more. His part of the movie Hollywoodland was fantastic (even though the non-Affleck parts bored me almost to tears), and the fellow has turned out to be a good director. i’ll give the nod here to The Town, even though I really want to say Daredevil, just so you’ll have a little amount of respect left for me.

August 30: Cameron Diaz – The Mask, and I don’t even have to think about it. Her first movie was her best movie for me, even though she’s done a lot of other really good things (Shrek and Being John Malkovich, for instance).

September 28: Gwyneth Paltrow – Early contenders are the Iron Man series and Se7en, but I have to go with The Royal Tenenbaums here.  That isn’t just my favorite movie of hers, it’s probably a Top 20 All-Time for me.

November 6: Rebecca Romijn – She’s great as Mystique in the X-men movies, but I’d feel weird giving the award to a naked blue woman. I’m going to go with The Punisher, because even though that movie had some severe problems (Miami? Really?), there were many good things about it. Tom Jane and Ms. Romjin were two of those good things.

December 29: Jude Law – Jude is a hard guy to pin down.  For lists like these, when I think of an actor I’ll usually get an immediate film or role in my head and then I’ll go look at their history to see if there’s anything I’m forgetting. The only two things that sprang to mind for me here are A.I. and the Sherlock Holmes movies, and I don’t want to let either of those be it, so I looked it up. And see, I had completely forgotten he was in Gattaca. Great movie, so it gets the mention here.

Thank you, fellow 1972ers. Nice work all around.

Written by: Mark