Still, I found it a little strange to find where James Tolkan kept turning up in my viewings over the past few days.
To catch you up, if you don't recognize this photo, James Tolkan played the principal, Mr. Strickland, in one of my all-time favorites, Back to the Future, as well as its two sequels. He worked quite a bit back then, also appearing in such films as The Amityville Horror, WarGames, Turk 182!, Top Gun and Dick Tracy. At first I thought I hadn't seen him in a film in ages, but I only saw Amityville Horror for the first time a few Halloweens ago, and the great Prince of the City only a few years before that. Those are older movies, but he was also in Bone Tomahawk, though he would have been about 85 and I'm almost certain I didn't recognize him.
It was a joy to see him in Masters of the Universe on Friday night, probably one of the only real joys in that movie. I watched that for some forehead-smacking cheezeball filmmaking, but outside of the astonishingly wooden and lifeless performance of Dolph Lundgren, it wasn't really "so bad it's good." It was mostly just lame and forgettable.
But James Tolkan was there to inject some life, and some humor, into the proceedings. He plays a detective, which is not a far cry from his gruff Mr. Strickland persona. I still found it strange to see him because I was not expecting it, though as I said, I was quite delighted by it. He's a bit of comic relief, always muttering disbelievingly as he finds himself involved in scenarios involving laser guns, muscly men with swords, and dimension hopping. Then again, I don't really know who I was expecting to see in this movie -- certainly not Courteney Cox.
But I wouldn't be writing this post if he hadn't shown up for the second time in four nights as I watched the Woody Allen film Love and Death on Monday night. No, I'm not suddenly re-appraising this #metoo pariah of my own accord. Rather, this film came up as my monthly selection in Flickchart Friends Favorites Fiesta, and I haven't missed a randomly assigned, er, assignment in that series yet. And hey, I did laugh quite a bit.
And there, about two thirds of the way through, was James Tolkan again, playing a decidedly less expected role than he did in the He-Man movie. Would Tolkan be your choice to portray Napoleon? Me neither. But he was Woody Allen's choice, and when you put the famous Napoleonic bicorne hat on him, he does look a lot like the man:
That also makes it the second film I've seen in the last three months where someone plays Napoleon, as I watched Time Bandits (for the tenth time or so) in the wake of Ian Holm's death back in June.
Oh, and Tolkan is pretty funny in this too.
One other quick thought on Love and Death. If you haven't seen it, the film is kind of halfway between a parody of Russian novels and the films of Ingmar Bergman, and if they didn't come out in the same year, it would also seem like a bit of a Barry Lyndon parody. But it felt especially timely to watch it now, as my wife and I are just finishing off the (so far) only existing season of The Great, the mischievous comedy about Catherine the Great. Both properties are comedies set in late 18th century/early 19th century Russia, and both feature the possible coup of a leader.
So, as usual, timely coincidences all over the place in my viewings.
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