...your future looks quite bright to me
 

After a minute of thinking, I found it nearly impossible to come up with a title to accurately portray the contents of this thread.

I watched the movie Breaking Away for the first time the other day. The movie stars a young Dennis Quaid, young Daniel Stern, and young lead Dennis Christopher. I thought the movie was great, and aside from the interesting sporting aspect, came across as a genuinely solid coming-of-age tale.

About halfway through the movie I started wondering "who is this actor?" (referring to the lead, Dennis Christopher). His performance was excellent: funny, touching, awkward... everything it was supposed to be. I starting wondering how someone who had probably burst onto the scene so strongly was an absolute nobody to me. I then checked him out on
IMDB.com and was further amazed by his absolute lack of career credits. I mean, I wasn't the only one who thought he was good; he was nominated and won a few awards for being "best newcomer" or something similar, and was the star of a film that won an Oscar for best screenplay (amongst other nominations). How could someone with such a seemingly bright future turn out to be such a "bust" (for lack of better term)?


If anyone wants to comment on that movie in particular, feel free, but i'm also interested in hearing anyone else's tales of bewilderment or confusion.

What musicians/actors/writers/athletes/etc. do you recall as being seemingly on the path to glory, only to never see it materialize?

Terrance Trent Darby
Steve Avery

Dan Majkowski

Bryan Fogarty

Jerome Walton
Pat Listach
Bob Hamelin

Men At Work
Tracy Chapman

To a degree - Ken Griffey, JR. 4-5 years ago you could argue that he might go after Aaron's home run record. Now he is just a player.

Dennis's Bio

He'd did a ton of TV and written quite a bit.

TroyF

Tracy Chapman was in town a few weeks ago and I wouldn't call her a "what could have been". She never wanted to become a star and always prefered small gigs. She just got lucky with a couple of songs.

Rico Suave

Breaking Away was filmed in my hometown. One of my favorite bars, Nick's English Hut, gets some play in that movie.

Dola.

I'm a cutter, by the way.

King's X
Jellyfish
David Ryan Harris (Follow For Now, Brand New Immortals)
Dan Reed Network
Days of the New

Charlie Hudson
Bruce Ruffin
Juan Samuel
Tommy Greene

I love Breaking Away. I must have seen it 10 times. I love the end with the father's frozen look after he hears his son speak in french. Priceless!!

I was going to say Brian Bosworth, but then his stellar acting career never would have materialized if his football prospects hadn't gone down the toilet...

Once again, right on the money my friend :)

There was a band from Montreal called Tribes of March. They had a CD out called "Freefall..." in 1995. Could have been good, got stuck in the Quebec Market I guess...

FM

Crap, I missed that one the first time I red your post. Another good one. Didn't the original members reform some other band that is currently playing on the radio?

And the singer tried to get something going last year...

FM

Tobias?

How about Michelle Johnson, the "hot" girl from the movie Blame it on Rio? Who knew that the eventual star would be her bookish friend, Demi Moore?

The girl from Can't By Me Love? She was super hot.

Agree there Quick, I just bour the tape of blame it on rio a couple of weeks ago because I loved that movie when I was younger. She was hot, and I forgot all about Demi in that movie. Shocked me when I watched it again that it was her. I would have never that Demi would be the future star of the two.

FrogMan -

I think the band you are thinkin of is Tantric. They were fairly popular with their two songs "Breakdown" and "Astounded". Not sure which members of DotN are in there, but pretty sure thats who you're thinkin of....

-zums

Warren G - Regulate is quite possibly the greatest rap song ever.

House of Pain - Jump Around was impossible to top.

Lou Diamond Phillips - How Young Guns and La Bamba didn't make him reach superstardom is beyond me.

Cole Hauser - Was great in Good Will Hunting despite saying nothing. Great in Dazed and Confused.

Casey Affleck - sadly, the more talented Affleck hasn't broken big yet.

What about his brother Don?

"My boy's wicked sma't."

{checks hand}

Lenny = white
Carl = black

Of Mice and Men?

Homer. Simpson, that is.

I know what happened.

Heroin. Hooked up daily. From the lead singer of Three Dog Night. And that was all it took.

Three Dog Night are silly.

Heroin.

Yeah, that's the one. All the band members are in there except the singer who's sort of a nutcase...

FM

Yeah, it's Tantric. Travis Meeks fired them all when they just wanted to be a basic acoustic grunge band (as represented on the first DotN CD), but when he wanted to do more with the band and they didn't, he canned them all. And of course, they come back with a new singer, rip off the DotN sound, and enjoy far more popularity than the original, more talented guy they ripped off. Some of his work on the Red album is astounding, especially the interludes between a few of the songs, complete with an orchestra and opera singers, etc. The last song, Dancing With the Wind, is awesome.

Meeks IS crazy, though. He's back to work on the new DotN album, Purple, after spending some time in rehab from a crystal meth addiction. If you like him and don't want to ruin your thoughts of him, then try to stay away from any interviews he's done. I've read a couple from the past year or so that are truly frightening. I'm hoping it was the drugs, but if not...all I can say is, often there's a fine line between genius and insanity, and he's living proof of that.

About the only bad thing I can say about him is that the music does get fairly monotonous, since every song is basically acoustic grunge. But I like the way he dresses it up with different influences, like on the Green album, he had some Middle Eastern stuff going on.

tim biacamotukathingamagigorsomethingorother
running back i thought had "super star" written all over him

terry glenn caught like 90 balls as a rookie and has been average at best since

MC Hammer
Truly a waste of musical genius

This name came up in another thread today, but she was smoking hot at 17, I was hoping she'd end up in Skinemax films or something:

Staci Keenan

Isn't that like saying "greatest root canal ever?"

its like saying the most close-minded person ever.

We get it, you don't enjoy rap music... now go back to you dog and beer Dwight.

Major Harris. He was the most exciting college football player I've ever seen, and he really never even got a shot in the NFL, and got hurt a lot in Canada (where he was doug flutie's back-up) and the Arena leagues where he was breaking records before he tore up his knee.
Reggie Rembert. Major's favorite target at WVU. 6'5'', great body control and a 4.3 40. This was in 1989-90 when those kinds of guys were a lot more rare. Was a top ten pick in the draft, by the Bengals, which more or less sealed his fate. Never made it. All kinds of alcohol problems and couldn't learn the offense.
Mr. Show with Bob and David. funniest sketch comedy show ever. it got cancelled and they made a movie that didn't get released. (it's now going straight to dvd.) They aren't total failures (David Cross is one of the most successful stand-up guys out there and Bob Odenkirk just directed an independent movie that is getting a lot of acclaim), but Mr. Show should be a million times more popular than SNL.
The State. This was my favorite tv show when I was a kid. It was on MTV, but then CBS bought the rights and never showed it, and because CBS had the rights "The State" could no longer work together, etc.
Ron Gant. My favorite baseball player (along with Glavine) for the braves in the early 90's. Never did much after the early 90's. I believe he broke his leg pretty badly at some point in there.
Bobby Bonilla. Never did anything after the pirates and Bonds.

Sorry I hit a nerve guy...please don't bust a cap in my ass.

so long as you don't get your shotgun and sic your huntin dog on me

Heh...no promises!

Back on topic...

Casper Van Dien. He is still young and the jury is still out, but after starring in Starship Troopers he hasn't had great success landing many big roles.

along the same lines...
Denise Richards. She could have done so many pornos by now. The jury's still out, but she needs to get going

How about Kevin Maas of the Yankees, man I thought he was gonna be a SUPERSTAR.

what's the name of that pitcher for the Cardinals that was fantastic then just flat out lost it? I forget. Struggling in the minors at the moment.

Rick A...?

Rick Mirer had a promising rookie year for the Seahawks, but either stagnated or regressed from there and never panned out - a real flop for the #2 pick in the draft.

The Stone Roses had a brilliant debut album, then dicked around for a long time before finally releasing their follow-up. It was a real good record, but by that time they'd wasted any momentum from their first album's success. A succession of problems on the following tour derailed them completely and they broke up. None of the former members has had much success since.

A few of those folks have done a number of different projects together. The most recent is Reno 911 on Comedy Central. I can't believe it took someone this long to come up with the concept, but it's a spoof of COPS. Very funny stuff.

Omg, Dawgfan!

The Stone Roses, to this day, are still my favorite band. Their debut is classic. They coulda, woulda, shoulda been what Oasis was, only 50X better.

There are still rumors or them reuniting, but I doubt it will happen. It's funny...or ironic, take your pick...but in one of their interviews Ian Brown speaks of the Rolling Stones staying on WAY too long and the quote is something like (and I paraphrase) "if we end up losing our dignity, it's all been a joke." Which is exactly what they did. They could have been one of the greatest, but they all blew it in cocaine and, ultimately, a lack of ambition.

Still...their debut is better than the drivel out there today...

-Craig

Drew Henson
Ron Dayne
Carson Palmer

New Radicals
Creative Negligence
Collapsis

Jason Lee (outstanding actor with great delivery, though he hasn't gotten the roles post Kevin Smith)

Oh, and if we're going with TV shows, then I'd have to say Late Line. Hilarious show, though NBC never really gave it a chance.

Was going to say Lee, who is one of my favorite actors (his 'crossroad' scene with Affleck in Chasing Amy is classic).

I gotta disagree on Lee.

He has had roles in at least four mainstream (non-Smith) movies in the past year in Vanilla Sky, Big Trouble, A Guy Thing, and Dreamcatcher. I would say he is in the prime of a very solid career, with tremendous upside.

Dola.... I forgot about Stealing Harvard, in which Lee starred. He is one busy man. :)

Looks like he is going to play the lead role in a new Fletch film sometime in 2004, as well.

I'd agree that Lee has tremendous upside, but isn't quite getting the roles his talent dictates. A Guy Thing was a decent movie and I bought it because Lee and Stiles were in it, but it wasn't a great movie. It couldn't decide whether it wanted to be a serious comedy or a movie that relyed on dick and fart jokes type jokes for humor. It therefore suceeded in neither and left it somewhat incomplete. A decent, but by no means great movie.