Sixteen Candles – 1984

Although not officially his first film, Sixteen Candles is when most people got their first glimpse of John Cusack, although that glimpse has apparently been overlooked by Google images, which has no trace of photographic evidence of his role in the film, unsurprisingly and unfortunately. Cusack was very infrequently pictured as the second (although the ranking could change, I suppose, depending on which nerd you’re more inclined to) nerd in a group of three led by Anthony Michael Hall. His role in the film is most popularly immortalized through the elicitation of thoughts such as this; “that guy is much cuter than not only the two other nerds, but also the romantic interest of the film; why does he have such a bit part” and this “I hope that the nerds come back soon so I can see that guy again”. It is perhaps the prevalence of these notions that allowed him to land the leading role in The Sure Thing, and quite subsequently, Better Off Dead…

Better Off Dead… – 1985

You could say that this film is immature, and you’d be right. You could say it’s childish and absurd, and you would also be right. Alternatively, you could say that it’s wonderfully executed and equally hilarious, and you would be, consistently, right on the money. Better Off Dead… isn’t exactly what one picks out from John Cusack’s résumé if they want to see a film of artistic merit; it’s what they pick if they want to watch a good teen comedy, because that’s essentially what it amounts to. Sure, the notion that an Asian teenager speaks like an ESPN announcer while his brother drag races Lane is ludicrous, but it’s also genius. The kids absolutely love school and learning? Dancing hamburgers? Paperboys adamant about their wages? It really doesn’t get much better.  People will probably insist that this movie is a waste of space from here until doomsday, but it achieved two very important things; a) it was funny, and b) it had John Cusack. If you combine those two elements, you can never really go wrong. That is if you have an abundance of both.

Say Anything… – 1989

I’m sure one of my dear friends will clasp her heart in an attempt to suppress an attack as I say this, (as she has done many a time before) but I really don’t think Say Anything… is that great. I mean, yeah the jukebox thing is clever, and if a guy did that to me I would commend him for being well versed in 80’s pop culture, but in the context of the film it isn’t even really that remarkable. I saw that image before I saw the actual movie, and I was expecting it to be the climax of the film, the moment that wins her back, the shiver-inducing, aw(e)-inspiring instance of glory, and it just sort of fell flat where it was actually placed. The humor is there, but in small doses, which makes the entirety of the film reliant on the romance and the surprisingly elaborate (and unexpected, in my case) plot concerning Lloyd Dobler’s girlfriend’s father. I went into Say Anything… expecting a charming John Cusack romantic comedy inclined toward drama, and it isn’t bad that they deviated from that, but the overarching storyline wasn’t that remarkable. Dobler and Cusack were entertaining, but then what’s new. Fast forward a few years.

Grosse Pointe Blank – 1997

Put in John Cusack as an amiable hitman, sprinkle in Minnie Driver being adorable, add humor to taste and you have Grosse Pointe Blank, a comedy about love, murder and new beginnings, with a vaguely deceptive DVD cover (I mean, it gives you the ‘romantic comedy’ part, but it doesn’t really clue you in on the fact that he’s actually a hitman). Cusack delivers, as he always does, a humorous and loveable character who just, you know, happens to kill people for a living. In fact, he’s so likeable and generally relatable (he sees a shrink, he’s tormented that his old house has been torn down and replaced by a convenience store) that it’s somewhat of a shock to see him be violent, and also pretty effective and almost neat in a strange way. His interaction with Driver is an added plus as they seem to play off of each other very well, and some of the best scenes in the film take place between his character, Marin, and his psychiatrist, played by Alan Arkin. The script put him in both familiar and unfamiliar territory, I think, and it paid off well; it certainly showed that whatever John Cusack has (if you can define it), he kept and could still put it out there effectively.

Anastasia – 1997

He was one of the best parts. Just throwing that out there.

High Fideliy – 2000

Oh, High Fidelity; one of Cusack’s best movies, one of the best movies in general – High Fidelity is a winner on a number of different levels; the Cusack factor, the Jack Black factor, the music factor, the humor factor. Just compress all of these things together, add a shitload of wit and some inventive fourth-wall-breaking and you have the quintessential film for humor-inclined individuals of teen age and up. I’ll admit that I get a bit disinterested after Laura’s father’s funeral (if I remember correctly, that is), but the movie in its entirety is very good. The dialogue and direction is funny and engaging, the acting is superb (as one would expect out of a Cusack film), and it addresses all of the nonsense of romance, the relevance of music and the general confusion of day to day life in interesting and immersing ways. The tagline states it in a similar way: “A comedy about fear of commitment, hating your job, falling in love and other pop favorites.” And, of course, it’s one of the films closest to the hearts of Cusack lovers.

The Contract – 2006

And then we come closer to present day. John Cusack has six films lined up that I am quite certain will be much better, but still, I must mourn a bit the conception of this movie that is so wholly unremarkable despite all it has going for it, which is essentially the presence of Morgan Freeman and our man, John Cusack. This pairing, in any other instance, would’ve made me elated. In fact, it was for this reason that I decided to watch the film, only to deeply regret it and fall asleep about two thirds of the way through. It’s so uninteresting and commonplace that it’s remarkable. There’s no redeeming feature of this movie, and that’s saying something considerable when two very established and well loved actors are playing the main characters. Just think of the most stereotypical, pointless suspense/thriller that you can, and it probably parallels The Contract completely, plot point by plot point. Cusack and Freeman almost even seem to realize this; they just sort of look tired and disinterested, hoping that it’ll end so that they can make a movie that they actually enjoy. It’s somewhat disconcerting, especially because just a year prior Must Love Dogs came out, and I don’t want to pass judgment on something I haven’t seen, but it didn’t look much more than your garden variety romantic comedy.

1408 – 2007

Not particularly bad, but not particularly good, 1408 suffers mostly from the fact that it isn’t really that frightening and the ‘twists’ aren’t particularly twisty. Anyone will tell you that John Cusack does a fantastic job; his deliveries are appropriately funny and appropriately dramatic respectively, and he carries the weight of the film on his shoulders almost entirely, but doesn’t buckle under it. There’s also a great line that Samuel Jackson gives about “1408” being “an evil fucking room”. Maybe it’s in his contract that he has to say ‘fuck’ at least once in all of his films. Anyway, I’ll admit I jumped, but that really doesn’t mean anything because I’m scared or can be scared by literally any horror movie I see. I’m sure the creatures in The Descent weren’t really that scary, but I couldn’t tell you for certain, because I had my eyes closed for almost half of the movie. The fact that I wasn’t doing that in 1408 is probably indicative of the fact that it was really that frightening. The impact that his daughter’s death had on him probably would’ve been more compelling had the effects of the room been more disturbing, which seems silly to say, but the film as a whole probably would’ve benefited from an increase in the scare department.