Johnny Depp and Brad Pitt

    Johnny Depp and Brad Pitt are my two favorite actors right now.  They're in all kinds of awesome movies, usually playing the weirdest character.  And that may be why they haven't starred in a movie together, because neither would take a back seat to playing the most bonkers role available.

    Among the best of Pitt's movies are Seven, 12 Monkeys, Fight Club, Kalifornia, A River Runs Through It, and Seven Years In Tibet.  I think his best performance was in 12 Monkeys.  I've committed to memory the scene where he tells off Bruce Willis:  "You are a total nutcase, completely deranged!  Delusional!  Paranoid!  Your process is alllll fucked up, mwahaha.  Your information train is jammed man!  Do you know what the Army of the 12 Monkeys is?  It's a collection of space-case do-gooders saving rainforests.  I have nothing to do with those bozos anymore.  I quit being a rich kid fall guy for a bunch of ineffectual bananas!  So much for your grand plot, asshole.  My father has been warning people about the dangers of experimentation with DNA and viruses for years.  You've processed that information through addled-paranoid infrastructure, and lo and behold, a non-profit organization, becomes some sinister revolutionary cabal.  This man is complete batshit!  Ladies and gentlemen, do you realize where he thinks he comes from!?"  

    To be fair, I've memorized all his lines, but this rant stands out among the others.

    I wished he'd been a real person in Fight Club, even if it is just a movie.  When I found out he was just a figment of Ed Norton's imagination, it really let me down.  I'd been starting to look up to the guy, even though he was a power hungry jerk.  "The things you own end up owning you.... You're the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world... Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate to buy shit we don't need."  There are so many memorable quotes from him in that movie, it's ridiculous.

    In Seven Years In Tibet he plays a much more subdued character, but of all his movies I think it has the most to teach.  And it's the one that most pertains to my outlook on life.  Fight Club has its appeal, but I don't like the violence it preaches as a solution to modern living.  Same with 12 Monkeys: I may be a misanthrope, but even I would hate to see everyone die by a global virus.  We deserve a much more heinous verdict for our crimes... Just kidding.  Seven Years In Tibet offers peace when there isn't any to be found.  That's what my life's been about.

     Johnny Depp's movies are more artistic, with the same touch of madness.  Edward Scissorhands is wonderfully done- one of my favorites.  You won't find a more heartbreaking film.  It reaches the core of what being an outcast feels like.  First you're a freak, then if you're lucky, the thing that makes you a freak also makes you popular, but then it all comes crashing down when people get jealous.  It also proves that you don't need to have many lines to be a great actor.  Johnny Depp easily nailed the role of being a confused, shy hermit without having to tell us why.

    Ed Wood showed a different side of Johnny's abilities, a more animated, flighty alternative.  Don Juan De Marco and Dead Man were two journeys into madness that I could highly relate with.  Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas is my favorite of his- it's just a wild ride through the desert to the neon capital waiting at its end, with just as many awesome and powerful quotes as Fight Club:  "Let's get down to brass tacks, how much for the ape?... You people voted for Hubert Humphrey, and you killed Jesus!...We can't stop here, this is bat country!"  

    What an iconic American film.  It may not have much of a following right now, but I think it will be a cult classic in the years to come.