Well, he's my favorite actor, and I just got done watching K-Pax...so I'm feeling moved to start a thread to honor the man himself...a great actor...Spacey rules...

Brilliant in American Beauty. I saw People: In the News featuring Spacey and he seems like a very down to earth guy.

I'm ashamed to say I haven't seen the Usual Suspects, I hear he's fantastic in that.

He's such a talented actor, his performance blew my mind in Se7en.

Spacey is great... Usual Suspects, American Beauty and Se7en are three great movies, and must own DVD's IMO(the right versions of course).

i thought swimming with sharks was awesome too.

and so was the ref.

those are among my favorite spacey films...and of course american beauty was just amazing.

and that movie he did with kate winslet was great to...the life and death of david gale.

he's done a lot of absolute classics: american beauty, se7en, la confidential, and the usual suspects. those alone make him one of the best actors today.

swimming with sharks was awesome, and i don't think many people have seen it...

i still haven't seen LA Confidential

Can someone explain to me what makes The Usual Suspects such a classic? Yes, it has a great cast and Kevin Spacey is spectacular, but other than that it's sort of a generic cop/crime film.

Let me guess, someone ruined the twist for you before you saw it?

No, I didn't know until it happened.

no, it's not, it's like the kind of movie that Martin Scorsese makes, like Goodfellas or Mean Streets, movies that are intentional efforts at creating what looks like "generic mob/neighborhood thug" films, but have an amazing amount of depth and insight, and (ideally) give the viewer more than just an excuse for killing 90 minutes of their Friday night.

The Usual Suspects did that too, sorry you didn't notice.

I didn't find Goodfellas generic at all.

This is great, Ledbetter! He and Liam Neeson are my very favorite actors of all time. Spacey is a genius of acting, as he demonstrates in every role. He doesn't just play a character, he literally becomes the character. From film to film and character to character, you don't applaud Spacey for acting so well as much as you are intrigued and overwhelmed by the character. When Kevin Spacey acts, you forget that he's an actor playing a part. For the two or so hours of the film, Kevin Spacey is no longer Kevin Spacey. He is Verbal, John Doe, or Lester.

"The Usual Suspects" is the one he gets recognized for more than any probably. He played Verbal as someone very fragile and harmed, yet he's still somewhat suave and cool. "LA Confidential" was a great film, and Spacey's character was my favorite. Speaking of suave... The first film that knocked me out with his performance after I'd seen it was "Seven," in which he plays John Doe, a meticulously creative and menacingly smart killer. He was chilling and intense to watch. The whole scene in the car where he was having a conversation with Somerset (Morgan Freeman) and Mills (Brad Pitt) was brilliant, because his acting was based purely on his voice and his tone in speech. There wasn't much action to worry about, because they were just sitting in the car, but he kept a straight face and delivered his points eloquently, but with the slightest tone of a madman. Then he plays a more typical man in "American Beauty," where he is hitting a mid-life crisis and receiving the reactions of his family from it. He made that movie for me. He's good at that.

I think every film he's done is great, and a lot of that is based on his performance. I applaud and respect him for his genius.

As for "The Usual Suspects," I got a lot from it as a crime thriller. I thought it was delivered in an interesting way, and it told a neat story. It wasn't just a crime thriller for the sake of being a crime thriller. It had a solid story to tell and a thoughtful way to tell it. The whole story led to the ending, that slam-bang finish. I think the ending actually made the entire film more eye-opening and gripping. It was great, great fun to watch.

I tried to do that without giving anything away, and I hope I didn't.

Good Lord. Stop. Whatever you are doing, stop right now and go rent this movie. I mean it.

I'll answer this in depth when I get a chance.

I can't wait.

j.

Don't worry too much about that. After you watch it, in three months, you won't remember anything about it (except for the ending)...

My mom's college roomate played the role of one of the patients in K-Pax, which, needless to say, was cool as hell.

True.