{"id":24466,"date":"2017-02-27T15:26:30","date_gmt":"2017-02-27T20:26:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=24466"},"modified":"2017-02-27T15:26:30","modified_gmt":"2017-02-27T20:26:30","slug":"five-great-bill-paxton-1955-2017-performances","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2017\/02\/27\/five-great-bill-paxton-1955-2017-performances\/","title":{"rendered":"Five Great Bill Paxton (1955-2017) Performances"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Bill Paxton could play any character. He could play anyone, at any time, from anywhere. He was a cowboy in the old west, he was a soldier in the future fighting aliens, he was a tornado chaser, a leather clad vampire, a slimy car salesman, an obnoxious big brother, a dad burdened with the knowledge of demonic entities, a punk, et al. He could be anyone. I am one of the many kids who grew up watching Paxton give riveting performances on film, no matter how big or small the role was. Paxton was a man who could appear in any time period on film and you bought his performance and his place there.<\/p>\n

By all accounts, Paxton was a very nice and warm man who loved his fans, and treated everyone with immense respect. I was born in 1983, so I was old enough to remember a time where Paxton was in a lot of movies, and was a constant face on film. He\u2019d just pop up, and it was a pleasant surprise every single time. Paxton even helped invent a ton of imitators who would walk around screaming \u201cGame over man! Game over!\u201d over and over and over. It never got old.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Paxton was a marvelous performer, a man who gave his all from big roles in films like \u201cTwister\u201d to bit parts like \u201cTrue Lies,\u201d where he takes on a deceptively minor role that becomes one of the funniest bits in James Cameron\u2019s film. Everyone has a Bill Paxton role they love in particular. He dabbled in every single genre possible, and his death will leave another humongous hole in the film world. There will never be another Bill Paxton, again, and it stings to know he won\u2019t be there contributing to film anymore. He will, however, always live on in his performances. No matter how good or bad the movie he was in was, he always stood out and gave it his best.<\/p>\n

Rest in peace, Mr. Paxton. Thanks for the great work, the endless memories, and for offering us some of the greatest cinematic characters of all time.<\/p>\n

What are your favorite roles from Bill Paxton? Let us know in the comments!<\/em><\/p>\n

5. Weird Science (1985)
\n<\/strong>One of Paxton\u2019s earliest roles (and arguably one of his all time best) is in one of the eighties most infamous, playing Chet Donnelly, the meat head military buff who makes our protagonists lives miserable. His role here, along with being amusingly obnoxious, is also notable for being one of the most hilarious twists, as he\u2019s transformed in to a wart filled ugly talking turd for the entirety of the film. Paxton\u2019s turn in to the turd monster has arguably become more popular than the film as a whole. Even with some still great puppetry, Paxton\u2019s voice work shines through to the hilarious finale.<\/p>\n

4. Tombstone (1993)
\n<\/strong>As Morgan, Wyatt Earp\u2019s brother, he\u2019s thrust in to a horrible feud at Tombstone that begins taking lives and inflicting age old hatred between folks in the town. Despite Wyatt\u2019s best efforts to keep his little brother from entering in to a war with the Clantons, people do start getting killed, and he enters in to a job as the town sheriff with old friend Virgil. Paxton portrays Morgan as someone not quite as fierce as his brother who is hopelessly scared of what\u2019s unfolding, and eventually pays dearly in easily the most gut wrenching moment in the film. It\u2019s hard not to get misty when Paxton declares while dying \u201cRemember what I said about people seein’ a bright light before they die? It ain’t true. I can’t see a damn thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>3. Aliens (1986)
\n<\/strong>Cameron\u2019s \u201cAliens\u201d is filled with such a vast array of colorful meat heads you root for until the very end. Paxton is excellent as Hudson, a consistent complainer and tightly wound soldier who manages to spout memorable line after memorable line and he\u2019s thrust in to some of the best moments of any action film ever made. From his back and forths with Vasquez, becoming an inadvertent subject of Bishop\u2019s knife game, and the iconic \u201cGame over man! Game over!\u201d Paxton is just at his top here. Hudson is probably one of those people who thought being in the Marines would be all fun and shooting shit, and then they meet the xenomorphs.<\/p>\n

2. Near Dark (1987)
\n<\/strong>As Severen, Paxton was one of my very first memories of what vampires are. When \u201cNear Dark\u201d arrived in theaters I was four and remember watching it when it came to VHS. Paxton\u2019s performance as the vicious and horrific vampire Severen is out of this world, as he plays a monster in lust with blood who takes great joy in massacring a small bar filled with innocent patrons. With his leather jacket and spurs, Severen proceeds to destroy everyone in the place, giving special attention to the bar tender that he slashes with his spurs. Paxton as Severen is the definition of terror, and he has a good time playing this character.<\/p>\n

1. Frailty (2001)
\n<\/strong>One of the most underrated horror movies of the early aughts (and of all time), \u201cFrailty\u201d is a passion project or Paxton who directed and stars. Paxton is fantastic as a widowed father whose life is changed when he alerts his two sons that he received a vision from God, who is beckoning him to hunt demons. Said demons look like everyone else, and he\u2019s been instructed to use normal tools to find and murder them. This puts him at jeopardy with both of his sons, Fenton and Adam. While Adam is fascinated with their father\u2019s mission to find the demons, all of whom look like seemingly harmless people, older son Fenton doubts his father\u2019s sanity, which prompts him to begin taking action to convince his son that begins to get darker and more extreme. \u201cFrailty\u201d is a compelling and eerie mystery with wonderful performances all around, and a very tightly composed horror tale with two surprise twists that will likely satisfy horror fans alike. \u201cFrailty\u201d has sadly gone unnoticed for many years, but it\u2019s a stellar horror entry thanks to Paxton\u2019s top notch direction and ability to invoke mood and atmosphere.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bill Paxton could play any character. He could play anyone, at any time, from anywhere. He was a cowboy in the old west, he was a soldier in the future fighting aliens, he was a tornado chaser, a leather clad vampire, a slimy car salesman, an obnoxious big brother, a dad burdened with the knowledge […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[58,88,1599,495,526,555,906,922],"class_list":["post-24466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pcthugs","tag-action","tag-aliens","tag-bill-paxton","tag-in-memorium","tag-james-cameron","tag-john-hughes","tag-science-fiction","tag-sequel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24466"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24466\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24476,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24466\/revisions\/24476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}