Richard Grieco: Hot 'n' Cool

Did you miss me last night?

Don't worry--I haven't abandoned my post.  You didn't hear from me last night because when I'm usually blogging, I was doing my homework. By which I mean, I was reading this (so you don't have to):

As far as I've been able to find thus far, this is the only book ever published about Richard. It was rushed out in the summer of 1990, when Booker was on the air and If Looks Could Kill was a speculative possibility for the future.  In addition to being wildly outdated, it's pretty bad.  So bad that I kind of want to write a better one.  Don't laugh--it wouldn't be my first book.

Assuming that the information in this book is accurate (and that is a big assumption given the way these books are produced), I did learn a few interesting things, a few things that made me say, "Awww" and a few things that made me wonder what went wrong in the couple of years following Booker and publication of this book.

I'll share a few.

Interesting tidbits:

• Richard apparently started getting fan mail at 21 Jump Street after a commercial aired introducing him--before he'd ever appeared on the show.
• According to the book, Grieco's fan letters during his single season on 21 Jump Street far outnumbered those received by Johnny Depp.

Things that made me say, "Awww":

• During Booker, Richard says he had a list of about 35 fans facing serious crises like cancer whom he called once a month to check in and ask how they were doing.
• He hired his mom to answer his fan mail, but asked her to pull out letters from teenagers writing to him about their problems in case he might be able to help.

Things that made me kind of sad:

• Grieco was already in his mid-twenties when this book was written and claimed that he didn't drink and had "never done any drugs".  But in the late nineties, he admitted to entering rehab.  Clearly, something slipped seriously off track in the relatively few intervening years.
• He talked about turning down multiple scripts because he "took his acting seriously" and would never do movies like Attack of the Killer Tomatoes vs. the Green Squash because he "just didn't believe in them."  Looking at some of the movies he ultimately appeared in, I find myself wondering whether he expected more from them in the draft stages or was simply so eager to work that his standards had fallen dramatically.

I'm taking it all with a grain of salt, given what I know about the mill that creates this kind of book.  Most of it, though, I want to be true.  The whole picture painted made Grieco seem much more likeable than I'd ever anticipated.

Can Richard Grieco Act? Part 2b

Since I started the great Quest to Figure Out Whether Richard Grieco Can Act, I've watched:

Mobsters (1991)
Tomcat: Dangerous Desires (1993)
It Was Him or Us (1995)
Against the Law (1997)
Captive (1998)
A Night at the Roxbury (1998)
Blackheart (1998)
The Apostate (2000)
Final Payback (2001)
Sexual Predator (2002)
Dead Easy (2004)

That's 11 movies spanning 13 years, in addition to 21 Jump Street and Booker, so you'd think it would be enough to draw some conclusions from.  And mostly, I think that my conclusion is akin to what a reader said in a comment recently--he's not a bad actor, but he's not "masterclass", either. In a lot of Grieco's movies, I don't notice his acting one way or the other, and I think that's how most movies are.  On rare occasion, someone will be so good that it will jump out at you; more often, if you notice the acting it's because it's awful and takes you out of the story.  For the most part, I think if an actor is doing his job, his acting isn't making an impression on you--you're thinking about the story.  That's how most of Grieco's performances have been for me so far.

But here's why, after a couple of seasons of television and 11 movies, I'm not quite ready to commit.  First, some of these movies were bad.  And some of them just didn't seem like good vehicles from which to judge.  Here's a quick rundown:

In Mobsters, I thought Grieco was pretty good and he got decent reviews, but his part was relatively small. Tomcat: Dangerous Desires was (no exaggeration) one of the worst movies I've ever seen from a writing, direction, acting and production standpoint.  That Grieco was considerably better than his co-stars wasn't enough to bring the performance up to "good."

I've already talked at some length about It Was Him or Us, in which I found Grieco quite convincing.  Against the Law was a weird movie and, again,  not otherwise staffed with a lot of talent.  From there, we hit a good streak:  I thought Captive, Blackheart, The Apostate and Final Payback and Dead Easy were all decent. They're all movies I would probably have watched if I weren't studying Richard Grieco, and probably would have come away saying, "That wasn't bad."  I skipped over A Night at the Roxbury because Grieco was playing himself, and although he created a stylized version of himself for the film, it wasn't entirely acting. 

I skipped over Sexual Predator because, frankly, I don't quite know what to do with it.  I saw a lot more people having sex--many of them not especially attractive--than I wanted to.  And the story was definitely edgy.  But it had that "down the rabbit hole" feel where someone makes one bad decision after another and things slide out of control, but you can kind of understand it. And Grieco was convincingly both seductive and enigmatic--no clear good guy or bad guy here.

But the primary reason that I'm undecided isn't any of that, and it isn't that there's so much I haven't seen.  It's a couple of episodes of old television shows.

A review I read suggested that The Apostate might have been the best performance of Grieco's career, but I don't think so. Though it defies reason, I think the best performances of Grieco's career may have come during 21 Jump Street and Booker.  Each of those series features a single episode in which Dennis Booker is, for lack of a better description, mentally disintegrating.  And in each of those episodes, Grieco's transformation is jarring and dramatic.

Had I watched those television shows in the 80s, those two episodes would have left me expecting great things from Grieco; even though I haven't seen that level of performance in any of the films I've picked and chosen, they gave me a different perspective on what he might be capable of.  So even at this point, I'm reserving judgment a bit, waiting to see whether a later role comes along that rivals those performances.

Seriously?

I mentioned before that I've been getting some pretty interesting search traffic to this blog, but today's new entry definitely takes the prize so far: "What kind of woman does Richard Grieco like?"

My initial reaction was to say something snarky.  I mean--and no offense to the person who asked Google this question, because I don't know anything about your attributes--if Google is your best source for this information then chances are it's not really relevant to you.

But I decided to be helpful instead.  Who knows?  Maybe it is you. And if not, you might as well know now, before you blow a bunch of money on a plane ticket to LA or Vegas or wherever the hell Grieco lives to try your luck.

So, here's what he told OK! Magazine a few years back: "I want a girl with a mind of her own, good sensibilities about her, she’s gotta be pretty hot,” he laughs. “Just a cool chick."

Just so you know what you're up against in the "pretty hot" assessment, Grieco has dated Christina Applegate, Yasmine Bleeth and French actress Adeline Blondieau.  Model Kimber Sissons is the mother of his teenage son.  And the most recent long-term relationship I can find listed was with Stephanie Niznik.

Upside if you want to think you might be in the running:  Grieco doesn't seem to have a strong "type" in terms of hair color or ethnicity or that type of thing.  As long as you'd make the cut for the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition, you might have a shot.

Upside in terms of general character assessment and taking him seriously as a person: all of the women I've seen him linked with appear to be close to his age.

Upcoming Richard Grieco Movies

I've written quite a bit about AE--at least, given the small amount of official information available about the film.  But that film just caught my attention because of the odd sprinkling of information about it and that camouflage-painted woman.  While I've been speculating about AE, I've been entirely ignoring two other upcoming films. 

One of them, A House is Not a Home, is slated for release some time this year and actually has a trailer.  You'll have to pay close attention to catch Grieco in this trailer; I don't think he's one of the good guys.  Here's the official synopsis:

A House Is Not A Home: Ben (Webb) and Linda Williams move the family into a dream home in a last ditch effort to save their troubled marriage. Despite the good intentions, they can't shake the feeling that they're being watched by something. Their unimaginable fears are realized when things inside the house take a supernatural and sinister turn. Ben and his family flee for their lives but it's too late. The house isn't finished with them trapping the family in its labyrinth. The Williams must come together as never before to fight for their family, their lives and escape.
 

One thing that interested me about this film is that Grieco is listed as a co-producer in the IMDB credits.  I'm not entirely sure what that means, but I hold out some hope that it bodes well for the relative quality of the movie compared with some past endeavors.

IMDB also shows Coachella Massacre in pre-production status with an undetermined release date.  Since this one is still classified as "in development," very little information is available.  IMDB isn't revealing anything and FestivalFocus doesn't seem to know anything.

The one source of information I've been able to find is Director Dan Frank's Twitter account.  He mentioned the film, which is apparently centered around the annual Coachella Music Festival, quite a bit back in the fall.  According to Frank's Tweets, Grieco will be playing the role of Danny Thorn who is "pretty bad ass." Frank said the role was perfect for Richard and he was excited to have him on board.

I'm sure we'd all be excited about that, too, but Frank's Tweets about the film die out in the late fall, not long after he announced Grieco's participation. The last mention is in mid-November, when he responds to a question saying that he is still working on funding and "working out the cast for the budget he has."  It's not clear what that means for the project's future:  I can't tell whether Coachella is moving forward at all, whether there's any timetable in effect or whether the cast announcements from last October will hold in view of the funding issues.

I've inquired and will update if I learn anything more concrete.

Richard Grieco is Captain Sam Crowe in AE

At least, that's what the AE Facebook page is telling us.  So far as I can tell, that page remains the only source of official information about the film. There are some updates since I last checked, including some shots of editing work in progress.  We can hope that means it won't be too long before more information (or a release date/plan) is forthcoming.

For the moment, I know nothing about the story beyond what I've mentioned before; it's shot in jungle-like terrain in Costa Rica.  A new photo on the Facebook page shows Adrian Paul and the camouflage-painted woman I previously mentioned in the water in a "climactic scene". 

Here's Captain Sam (the military-like designation doesn't seem to explain his Dharma Initiative get-up):

Method in My Madness

You know that I started this blog because I was sick, off work and bored out of my mind.  While I had nothing to do, I spent a lot of time thinking about Richard Grieco naked watching old television shows on DVD.

But a funny thing happened.  In real life, I'm kind of a marketing guru, and I have a fair amount of experience in public relations and Internet marketing, so from time to time I took a look at the stats.  I was surprised when I started getting search traffic after less than two weeks, and even more surprised when I started getting daily traffic on Grieco's name without modifiers in under a month.

This made me curious about the celebrity realm, which I would have expected to be highly competitive.  So I started a blog about Matthew Perry, and another one about Mark Hamill. (Lynda Carter coming soon.)  And an ever crazier thing happened--traffic started arriving within just a couple of posts.

So here's what I'm thinking: perhaps, during my convalescence, I'll become an accidental celebrity blogger. Perhaps it will become a little sort of side business that I'll keep up when I go back to work  Perhaps you will all FORGET that I've watched Sexual Predator twice, even though I had to wait until my kid was asleep to do it because it's millimeters from porn.  Or, maybe you'll think, "Well, that's her job--rough though I'm sure it is."

And maybe, when we've all recast me in our minds as a woman with a plan, my daughter won't roll her eyes at me when a padded envelope arrives in the mail and say, "Will this be a Richard Grieco movie?"

Sound good? Okay, let's do that.

Here's a gratuitous screen cap from Final Payback just because I think it's pretty (and if you're reading this blog, you probably will, too.).  But remember:  this is strictly business.

10 Things You Should Know about Richard Grieco Movies

Since I set out on the quest to determine whether or not Richard Grieco can act, I've watched...well...several of his movies.  I haven't reached a definite conclusion on the initial question yet, but I have uncovered a few trends that I wanted to share. 

1. No matter what the movie seems to be about in the beginning or what kind of character Grieco plays, he will probably get shot. Often, he'll be as surprised by this as you are.

2. Usually, there will be a distraught woman standing by when he gets shot. More often than not, the shooter will be his lover, or hers. Or both.

3. Ice picks are disproportionately represented in Grieco's movies.

4. Richard seems to be under the impression that there's something sensual and sexy about taking a sharp, deadly weapon and running it slowly over a woman's body. I warn you about this because if you're not prepared, there's a better than even chance that he will--at least temporarily--make you think that, too.

It's not even an ice pick this time.

5. A tip for the men: If you're not being portrayed by Richard Grieco, "I kill people" is VERY unlikely to be a successful pick-up line.

6. All women, regardless of age or walk of life, wear lace demi-bras.

7. No matter what the context, there is always time (and a reason) to take off your shirt.

 

 

8. Grieco and his characters share clothes.  I guess this isn't really something you need to know about his movies, but I thought it was interesting.

 

 

 

9.  If Grieco is wearing glasses, that's your signal that he's playing an ordinary guy and we should not think of him as especially hot.  Pay no attention to the fact that he looks magificent in the glasses (which appear to be the same pair from film to film).

 

 

 

10.  It is always the woman's idea to videotape sex.