‘Small Roles… Big Performances’ Blog-a-thon!

On By ruthIn Blog Events

Hello, hello!!

Summer is winding down as August comes to a close… but hey, there are still plenty of Autumn movies to look forward to! In fact, more smaller-budgeted but with more character-driven fares featuring ‘bigger’ performances are often released in the Fall/Winter months, though of course there’s always exceptions to such a rule.

Well, like I mentioned in my Movie Questionnaire post yesterday, I’ve been pondering about doing a blog-a-thon for a while. I have only done ONE blog-a-thon in my 3 years of blogging, that was the Gregory Peck birthday bash last April. Well this one it’s going to be entirely different. It’s sort of inspired by my almost 2-year-old post of seven talented actors who deserve more leading roles and also by Encore Entertainment‘s 90s Essential Performances Showdowns, but this time I’d like to shine the spotlight on performances by under-appreciated actors.

I think the title SMALL ROLES…. BIG PERFORMANCES is pretty self-explanatory but here’s what I have in mind:

  • Highlight a performance from an actor [classics or contemporary] in a supporting role or cameo, it can be as short as five-minutes, as long as that particular scene is memorable and/or makes an impression on you.
  • I’d ask that you choose a performance that was NOT nominated for major awards and as much as possible choose an actor that isn’t generally well-known, the more obscure the better!
  • You could choose to do a write-up of ONE or several (up to three to keep things from being too long) performances. It’s up to you how long you’d like it to be, I don’t want to restrict you if you are passionate about a particular scene, but I think 150 – 400 words is ideal. Write why you love that particular scene and how it’s touched you, be as specific as you’d like to be and you could even elaborate on the actor or share some trivia about the movie in relation to that performance.
  • I recommend using clips/photos/quotes as you see fit. I LOVE what Sati does with her weekly scene spotlight, but feel free to add your own spin to it 😀
  • Let me know in the comments or email me [address below] if you’d like to participate, and I will add your post link to the main blog-a-thon post here. If you don’t have a blog but would like to participate, you can email your write-up and I’ll create a post here along with submissions from FlixChatter’s contributors.
  • Deadline: I’m hoping to have the blog-a-thon post be up on Monday, October 1st so please email me your link to rtmaramis@yahoo[dot]com by Friday, September 28.

The idea of this blog-a-thon is to shine a spotlight on the ‘unsung heroes’ if you will, the overlooked performers who add so much richness/entertainment value to the film no matter how brief their appearance is, but yet they don’t get the credit they so deserve.

P.S. I haven’t had a chance to create banners for this blog-a-thon yet, I will let you know when those become available.

I hope you all would take part in this. Please help spread the word, the more the merrier!

80 thoughts on “‘Small Roles… Big Performances’ Blog-a-thon!”

      1. You probably have! He is probably most known as his role as cousin Eddie on sitcom “Grounded for Life” but has been in recent notable films like “The Departed,” “Pineapple Express” and “Superbad.” His roles were small but he delivered big time

        Reply

          1. Haha wow! You’ve managed to miss some popular films. Honestly he’s been one of my favorite actors for awhile, his comedic timing is insanely good but he can also bring the drama…thanks for the suggestion, I will try to do that asap

            Reply

      2. Kevin Corrigan was the male equivalent of Lili Taylor or Parker Posey of indie film in the 90’s/00’s. Probably the biggest movie he was in was Goodfellas as Ray Liotta’s brother in the wheelchair toward the end of the movie. He almost always plays a lowlife.

        Reply

  3. Just a suggestion as for submitting ideas, WordPress allows you to create a form. That might be useful for something like this.

    Here’s an idea for a notable small role–Bronson Pinchot in “Beverly Hills Cop.” His one scene stole the show.

    Reply

  6. Nice one Ruth. I have a page on my site called Memorable Performances that highlights some unsung pieces of work. I’ll take part in this too. It’s a great idea for a blogathon. 😉

    Reply

      1. Ahaha! You must be reading my mind. He was the first one to pop into my head. I might just go ahead with that, unless someone else comes to mind. There are so many to chose from and I love ‘smaller’ actors getting more publicity.

        Reply

            1. Specific performance. I’d like to see a specific example of how an underrated actor helps elevate a film no matter how brief/seemingly insignificant his/her role is.

              Reply

  8. Awesome, awesome idea for a blogathon ruth! I definetly have several in mind but I was actually going to launch new series “Performances I love” and feature this one which I will use for your blogathon as first, but hell, I can make a joined post, will let you know wen it’s up! 🙂

    Also thank you so much for the mention!

    Reply

    1. Oooh I look forward to your new series Sati, I’m sure it’ll be brilliant! This blogathon focuses specifically on not-so-well-known actors, so it limits the actors that people could pick.

      Reply

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  17. I have so much going on right now that I swore I wouldn’t do any more blogathons, and I’ve got one of my own Sept. 22-24…but this is such a great topic and I can think of a bunch of these right away…I sure am wavering…let me think about this.

    Reply

    1. Oh right, you have that What a Character blogathon. I hope that’s ok that this one happens a week after yours 🙂 I do hope you’d take part girl, especially since you have a few in mind already.

      Reply

    1. Sounds good Dave, looking forward to your picks (you can feature up to 3 performance). I’ll have a post of all FC contributors’ submission for the blogathon 🙂

      Reply

    1. I’m so glad to hear you’ll do it, Castor! I think Nick has signed up too, but maybe other AM staff might join in also? Ahah yeah, no those two won’t be eligible 😀

      Reply

  23. I’ve been thinking of something for this blogathon but still come up empty. I’m wondering if I have a crap memory when it comes to remembering performances!

    Reply

  27. As I sat here reading this, I kept thinking of a film that my daughter and I had watched a couple of nights ago. An actor (whose name is infuriatingly absent from my brain) stole the entire film. His performance could not have taken up more than a couple of minutes of screen time, yet, his was the stand out performance of the film.. My ‘long-winded’ diatribe here is my attempt at saying, “What a lovely idea!” 🙂

    Reply

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