Not Elias Koteas
Here's this. To say this has been a topic of some conversation among my friends and I would be an understatement.
The thing is, it took us forever to figure out who Meloni was. I struggle with his name to this day. Because Elias Koteas found his way into my generation's collective heart the moment he showed up onscreen in a certain film in 1990 that, at the time, became the highest-grossing independent film ever made.
"The class is Pain 101. Your instructor's Casey Jones."
So in my mind, and the minds of many others, there was only Koteas, and when Meloni came on our radar ('round about Bound, I would reckon), it took me half the movie to realize that this wasn't my precious Koteas. I finally sorted out Meloni's identity in college, but until that time (and still sometimes nowadays), he was known as Not Elias Koteas, even though I hadn't seen Koteas in a single film since. (He was, it turns out, off making movies with Canadian directors like Atom Egoyan and David Cronenberg. Movies I would not think of watching until much later in life. OK, granted, I saw The Thin Red Line, and Koteas had a big part in that, and his presence was about the only thing in that film to bring me joy.) Meanwhile, Meloni started showing up more and more, in enjoyable films like Wet Hot American Summer or more recently Harold and Kumar. Meanwhile, Koteas hasn't done anything I've seen. So it seems that Meloni is indeed here to stay. But Koteas will always have my heart.
"Hey, didn't they use this place in The Grapes of Wrath?"
The thing is, it took us forever to figure out who Meloni was. I struggle with his name to this day. Because Elias Koteas found his way into my generation's collective heart the moment he showed up onscreen in a certain film in 1990 that, at the time, became the highest-grossing independent film ever made.
"The class is Pain 101. Your instructor's Casey Jones."
So in my mind, and the minds of many others, there was only Koteas, and when Meloni came on our radar ('round about Bound, I would reckon), it took me half the movie to realize that this wasn't my precious Koteas. I finally sorted out Meloni's identity in college, but until that time (and still sometimes nowadays), he was known as Not Elias Koteas, even though I hadn't seen Koteas in a single film since. (He was, it turns out, off making movies with Canadian directors like Atom Egoyan and David Cronenberg. Movies I would not think of watching until much later in life. OK, granted, I saw The Thin Red Line, and Koteas had a big part in that, and his presence was about the only thing in that film to bring me joy.) Meanwhile, Meloni started showing up more and more, in enjoyable films like Wet Hot American Summer or more recently Harold and Kumar. Meanwhile, Koteas hasn't done anything I've seen. So it seems that Meloni is indeed here to stay. But Koteas will always have my heart.
"Hey, didn't they use this place in The Grapes of Wrath?"
posted by Jeff at 8:24 AM
2 Comments:
Regarding Koteas's "disappearance" over the course of the 90's, I guess I can understand overlooking "Gattaca," "The Prophecy," and "Cyborg 2." I mean, we joke about those movies a lot, but not CONSTANTLY. (And I'm not going to make you admit to having seen Paul Hogan's "Almost an Angel.")
But "Fallen"? "FALLEN"?! You quoted that movie for eight years straight!
Fallen is funny because when we saw that preview there was much confusion for a long time about whether that was Koteas or Not Koteas (since Bound had come out a year or two before). And for the longest time, including when I actually saw the film, I was convinced it was Meloni. But no, it's Koteas.
The only film I've seen of the ones you've listed is actually "Almost an Angel" that I saw in the theaters and don't remember a lick of.
But yeah, totally thought it was Meloni in Fallen. "What does Azazel mean?"
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