Recently, the men of Barrelhouse asked for some feedback on who should be the next object of their Swayze-like obsession. Patrick Swayze was likable and had a great body. When he took his shirt off in Dirty Dancing, I was titillated. No matter how bad the movie (Roadhouse) or misguided (City of Joy) or bewildering (Father Hood), you still enjoyed Swayze’s presence and often times, his well-maintained mullet. Anyone who refuses to put baby in the corner is fine by me. Swayze is irreplaceable so why try? Lots of interesting ideas have been bandied about. I suggested Kurt Russell and later considered Eric Roberts but late last night, the answer came to me.

Ray Liotta.

What I love most about Ray Liotta is that he will act in anything. He’s been in big budget movies but is just as happy to lend his craft to straight to video epics. More often than not he plays creepy sociopaths or corrupt public officials. He is that guy and he plays that guy the same no matter who he shares the screen with or how he’s being directed. Ray Liotta is very good at acting with his eyes. His squint is formidable. He will squint you to death in a squint off.

I first began to enjoy Liotta’s talent Goodfellas which is better than the Godfather as far as gangster movies go. It was in Goodfellas, where he played a likable sociopath, I was introduced to his weird, nasally voice that sounds the same in every single movie. In the amazing movie Unlawful Entry Liotta played both a corrupt public official and a sociopath, terrorizing a yuppie couple played by Kurt Russell (hello) and Madeline Stowe.  In the years since, Liotta has starred in more fifty movies and TV series. He was particularly excellent in the short-lived Smith. I may have been the only person who saw (and loved) that CBS series where he played a thief running a crew. He was married to Virginia Madsen or as I like to call her, the High Priestess of Lifetime Movies. On ER once, Liotta was a very special guest and he had some really terrible liver disease because he was an asshole alcoholic and he bled out of his nose and eyes. I actually remember that. Way back in the 90s, he tried to stretch himself in Corrina, Corrina where he played a widower raising a young daughter (played by Tina Majorino who now appears in Big Love; not all child actors end up on VH-1!), in the segregated South. Whoopie Goldberg played the housekeeper and Magical Negro, helping the father and daughter cope with their grief and move on with their lives. Great movie. Liotta! No emotional range but still, there’s nothing he can’t do.

Also, he’s in good health so we could obsess over him, his past work, and future projects for a long time to come.

Join me, friends, in the crusade to make Ray Liotta the new Barrelhouse Swayze.