10 must-see John Travolta performances

‘Pulp Fiction’
I love that this film gave Travolta’s career the kiss of life it needed. There is no amount of torture in modern warfare equivalent to the “Look Who’s Talking” movies and we can thank Quentin Tarantino for seeing a brother in need and throwing him a lifeline. What’s great about Travolta’s performance here is that he goes full circle, picking up the loose ends of Vinnie Barbarino and Tony Manero and fusing them together into something even dumber and more profane than their original manifestations allowed. He was made comfortable enough with his past to revisit it and update it for a new audience. And because the wheels of Hollywood destiny usually spin in predictable patterns, his second shot at stardom led to self-indulgent stuff like…

‘Phenomenon’ and ‘Battlefield Earth’
I live in Los Angeles, where we have streets named after L. Ron Hubbard, where the Scientology building on Hollywood Boulevard has one of the most beautifully designed neon signs in the city. Next to that building, every December, there’s a “Winter Wonderland” display put up by the church. And it’s a lot of fun. If you go the UCLA book fair, there are people there who will let you touch an E-Meter just for kicks. I know the Scientologists get a lot of folks bent out of shape, but to me that religion is just another colorful thread in the fabric of life here in Southern California. I’m not a part of it, but I have no beef.

I especially have no beef with Travolta’s involvement in it or with his two most Scientological movies. “Phenomenon” is a supernatural drama about special healing powers that plays like “The Cross and The Switchblade” for people who’ve read “Dianetics” instead of the Bible. And “Battlefield Earth” is one of the all-time, hands-down craziest things you will ever witness. It allows Travolta to give himself over fully in a wild-eyed Bette Davis-wrestles-with-Pee-Wee Herman impersonation while dressed as the Predator. Some musical numbers would have kicked it up “Grease”-level magic.

‘Primary Colors’
After “Pulp Fiction” but before “Battlefield Earth,” he tried on a different type of alien costume: Bill Clinton’s. As a Clinton-like politician, Travolta is funny, rueful and biting. It was a reminder that Tarantino hadn’t just fluked him back into a compelling performance and that occasionally he could be directed without a lot of backtalk. He was capable all along. But when you’re down in Hollywood, you can stay down for a long time. People forget that you’re able. Just ask Mickey Rourke.

‘Hairspray’
His third body-modification performance. The donuts it took to plump him up to Clinton’s big-and-tall status needed lots of prosthetic help for his role as Edna Turnblad. And if you watch him sing and dance his way through this movie, it’s clear that being allowed to hide — as an alien or a jovially chubby president or an even more jovially chubby woman, bizarre attempts at a Baltimore accent notwithstanding — frees Travolta. He shakes off his anxious self-awareness and tendencies toward strident weirdness in the more conventional thrillers he seems to wind up in, and allows himself to get loose and experience joy. It doesn’t matter if it’s in the service of his religion or of a bouncy, retro, racial-integration-comedy-as-gay-rights-metaphor musical, he seems happiest when he’s hidden under tons of makeup. Here’s to more of that.

Dave White is the film critic for Movies.com and the author of “Exile in Guyville.” Find him at www.imdavewhite.com.

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