Cellars of IMDb: An Ode to Ethan Embry
Welcome to what may become the latest weekly feature to hit the front page of your beloved Lemon Party. Let me first assure you that Ethan Embry is really cool, and that we'll be totally talking all about him in just a little bit. You see I just want to lay out some explanatory exposition first. We haven't had a whole lot of content recently, so I've been working on concepts that are templated and reusable while (hopefully) not the sorts of things that become stale quickly. The best of those concepts was IMDb-hopping/celebrity BJs. No these are not actual blow jobs, and it's questionable as to whether or not most of the stars profiled in our new Friday feature really qualify as "celebrities." We're going to be dealing, for the most part, with people and movies that have slipped under the radar for most people. I'll talk about how cool each person is and discuss some of his or her work.

If the person is not cool at all in any way whatsoever I will makes up things that are cool about that person.

Once I don't feel like writing anymore I will stop and give some sort of closing and come back exactly one week later with another performer in the final entry of the previous Friday's piece. In that manner we'll surf our way across IMDb, perhaps eventually returning to Ethan Embry, our first somewhat less famous famous person. We're placing this on Friday because I will be watching at least one movie listed in the actor's IMDb filmography not previously detailed in that week's Cellars of IMDb.* Once I've seen the film in question I shall update the Friday entry, so you'll just have to come back several times over the course of the weekend to see if we've got any new content up yet.

Enough boring shit, let's masturbate to the one and only Ethan Embry!


Isn't he ever so pretty?



And look, now he's all smoldery! Burn baby, burn.



For more totally hot pictures of Ethan Embry check out http://www.freepgs.com/ethanonline. Now that we're clear on the essentials, let us take a look at the filmography of this underappreciated young star. We'll work backwards because backwards is the new forwards. Most recently the distinguished Mr. Embry has been doing nothing. Zero movies out in 2005 and none currently in production. He's just 26 years old though, and I don't expect to see him retiring any time soon, though he has already seen more of Hollywood than most even dream of. It's safe to say he's just on a bit of a break.

Recent filmography consists primarily of minor, supporting, largely forgettable roles in a number of motion pictures some major blockbusters, some less so, including Timeline, Harold and Kumar go to White Castle, and Sweet Home Alabama. Generally the size of his parts have been had a directly inverse relationship to the popularity of the movie. Which is to say that only cheap and dirty movies seem willing to tap him for leads anymore.

It wasn't always like that though.

In fact it wasn't entirely like that at the time. He played Detective Frank Smith on the acclaimed "updated edition" of Dragnet.



Or at least it was critically acclaimed, but ABC didn't even air the entire first season. The next year three of the missing five episodes did, however, show up on USA.

That tends to happen to television shows starring young master Embry.
"Work with Me" - cancelled
Life on Liberty Street - never made it past the pilot stage.

He's been in one other TV show. One show in which he was the lead, the top-billed, hell he even got to play two characters. The show was called "FreakyLinks".



You probably haven't heard of it. Or if you have, it was probably during Peter Griffin's litany of Fox shows picked up and subsequently cancelled between Family Guy's cancellation and its miraculous resurrection. "FreakyLinks" was another product of the team that put together the Blair Witch Project, and was certainly a natural evolution of the that movie. "FreakyLinks" also employed handheld cameras in a Blair Witch style, but managed to somehow weave those elements seamlessly with standard footage. The show was about the exploits of one Derek Barnes (Embry), an enterprising lad who takes over the his brother's (also Embry) website after the brother's apparent suicide. The website, Freakylinks.com obviously, was dedicated to tracking all sorts of occult and supernatural tidbits, so Embry and his cohorts are constantly investigating all manner of strange and scary happenings. The show was accompanied by an official website (luckily the producers preserved this particular relic, if not at its original location). "FreakyLinks" was thrilling, and scary, and funny, and witty at times, though it was somewhat youth-oriented. It quickly developed a rabid fandom. Freaky Links went off the air after nine episodes. Two more eventually surfaced.

No more tears for "FreakyLinks." Now we move on to Embry's greatest celluloid successes.



There he is, starring in Can't Hardly Wait. There he is so sweet and innocent and naive. You may sigh now. If you wish.



Well before that brief flirtation with teenage comedy Embry had turned in his two best-noted performances, both in roes of starry-eyed innocence, much like Can't Hardly Wait.

In 1995 he was just seventeen years old, but he managed to pull the part of Mark in the almost completely forgotten Empire Records.



Every character in the film demands the viewer's undivided love and attention, and all the actors steal scenes back and forth from each other. Mark is one of the best though. This gleeful if rather stupid character introduces every viewer to the instantly unforgettable band GWAR. I cannot begin to imagine to hope to countenance providing a clear and concise explanation of the phenomenon that is GWAR, but I will say that this film does a pretty solid job of it. In summation:



The next year Ethan had changed his last name from Randall to Embry (his grandfather's last name) and was appearing in Tom Hanks' 1996 That Thing You Do!**



Yet again we see Embry as a lovably dim chipmunk, and we love every fucking minute of it. Embry's character, the band's bassist and an aspiring marine, is infinitely more adorable than his repeat costar, the really quite boring Liv Tyler. Maybe she just gets typecast into boring parts, but she really does have a knack for being boring on screen. Embry's character, despite his sizable role, does not get a name. A dig at the common conception of the anonymity and replaceability of bassists, his character is never named. In the credits he is listed as "TB Player," one of the best names in all of music history simply for being attached to the inimitable Ethan Embry.



That's all for this week and for this week's Cellars of IMDb. Join me next week when we take a look at one of Ethan Embry's That Thing You Do! costars. And now, a picture of poor Ethan's receding hairline.




And remember the guiding light, lest we forget the glory that be Lemon Party.
Because your blog sucks.

*Not every week, but most weeks. Definitely most weeks. I promise.

**Random Aside: The title song and recurring theme of the movie, the aptly-titled "That Thing You Do," was penned by a man named Adam Schlessinger, whose band would release its self-titled debut, Fountains of Wayne, the next year.
- posted by Odovaucer @ 11:57 PM