Posted on 02/04/2005 6:16:56 AM PST by pissant
10. Barbara Stanwyck. Why was she ever given any roles? She was always unpleasant to watch.
9. Ernest Borgnine. Another one who almost always played an unpleasant character. EXCEPTION: As the voice of "Mermaid Man" on Spongebob Squarepants. His best role.
8. Charlton Heston. Wooden, dull, ponderous.
7. Jack Nicholson. Just a walking self-parody. Hasn't had a good part since Chinatown.
6. Al Pacino. Not really a bad actor, but directors allow him far too much leeway and he just chews up the scenery and spits out pap. Scarface: Laughably horrible or horribly laughable? Scent of a Woman: "Hooah" is the sound of someone vomiting as he watches this one.
5. Marlon Brando. His only good role was as Vito Corleone; everything else was self-absorbed, pretentious crap.
4. Robert De Niro. Plays the same character over and over, just doesn't realize it. Last good role was Vito Corleone... hmmm.
3. Julia Roberts. She's not actually a bad actress, but pretty she ain't! She is one of the homeliest women in Hollywood. BEST ROLE: Alice Sutton in Conspiracy Theory.
2. Jack Lemmon. Used to be first on my list. I am still agog when this guy is spoken of so highly. If you were watching a Jack Lemmon movie, you could be sure at least one character (his) would be supremely annoying and unfunny, especially in his incredibly depressing so-called "comedies". Just want to heave a brick through the screen anytime he's on it. EXCEPTION: His role as Jack Godell in China Syndrome was the best part of the movie.
1. Johnny Depp. Why does anyone hire this guy? This rat-faced little creep couldn't act himself out of a restaurant that just served him a deep-fried kitten with a fly on it. As for his part in Chocolat, he was obviously only in it to provide the de rigueur American presence so it could play in the U.S.A. Almost ANYONE else would have been better in the part. A cardboard cutout (not even necessarily life-size) would have been at least as good. Was his ludicrous slurring in Pirates of the Caribbean supposed to be an "accent"? BEST ROLE: Mort Rainey in "Secret Window". Not a great movie, and terrible hairdo, but he wasn't actually too bad in this one.
In that case, it's definitely worth your time.
He was supposed to be the action hero of the series, but I kept getting the impression he could have been beaten up by Tinky Winky. Heck, I didn't believe he was aroused in the love scenes with Counselor Troi, how bad an acting is that?
All in all, I believe he gets a 10 on the Brett Favre "There's Something About Mary" acting scale. They could have replaced him with Glen Campbell, and gotten better emoting. And remember, in "True Grit", Campbell couldn't even be dead convincingly.
I liked him in Nightmare on Elm Street, but only because he was horribly murdered in it.
"Nicolas Cage and Kevin Costner missed the cut? This list stinks!"
Agreed ... one more ... Keanu Reeves.
Liquified, if I recall correctly.
What do Nicolas Cage and Harrison Ford have in common? They both had hit movies that were made as vehicles for them, but were stolen by the far superior acting of their supporting actors.
Guesses as to the two movies?
Correct. Made Fargo look tame.
Cage - Fast Times @ Ridgemont
Ford - American Grafitti
What's my grade?
Look, ALL 'acting' is overrated. Most of these people do nothing more than 'be themselves' for the camera. Their look and their personality either fits a role or it doesn't. Jack Nicholson is among the worst. All he does is carry his same presence, same voice and speech patterns from movie to movie, with little variance. Audiences just happen to find his personality entertaining, so he's a 'great actor'. In fact, he does little acting at all.
I'll give you a C, mainly because I'm thinking of movies made for them when they were already stars -- John Malkovich and Steve Buscemi stealing Con Air from Cage and Tommy Lee Jones stealing The Fugitive from Ford ("Fine. Go get a cane pole, catch the fish that ate him."). Jones was so good in The Fugitive that they gave him another movie in that role, US Marshals.
Didn't Whoopi Goldberg get an Oscar for playing the medium in "Ghost"? I think she was nominated, anyway.
Harrison Ford: Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade was stolen by Sean Connery?
And on an irrelevant side note, I think Cage's performance in "Valley Girl" deserves some kind of mention....
Last Crusade, another excellent steal. Right on Con Air.
I think a lot of actors fit into this category, and Jack is one of them.... Perhaps Tom Hanks is too, always plays the good guy versus Jack's bad guy. I still like them both.
But I've been trying to think of actors where this is not true. A true actor who can become any role or any persona, and who's true personality is invisible in their roles... The three I can think of are ~Dustin Hoffman~ ~Robin Williams~ ~Ian McKellen~
*************
I hated that movie. What a disappointment.
One time I was working in the kitchen while my kids played one of her videos so I was unable to see her. I then realized that she can't act. She has a monotone. Every line sounded just like the one before it. No emotion, just memorization. It must be the dippy looks and contortions of her mis-shaped mouth that intrigues audiences because it sure isn't anything that's auditory.
So yes, Jack Lemmon was annoying, but 1) for some roles an annoying guy is needed and 2) a lot of our impression of him now has to do with the era in which he lived. The late 50s and early 60s weren't Hollywood's Golden Age, and Lemmon was a part of that era and helped define it for us.
And yes, you could see Brando's or DiNiro's work as more or less repetitions of the same themes and mannerisms. Actors do get cast as types, and lately DiNiro has been playing a caricature of his earlier work, as Brando did, intentionally or unintentionally in his later films.
But a workmanlike performance is always worthwhile -- the film in which an actor rises a bit above the type or fulfills it to a T, or adapts it, or plays with it without completely shattering it -- and this Latuque probably isn't the best person to appreciate those performances.
No way on Borgnine, one of my all-time favorites is "Marty"...
Most of these people have a couple of good performances that redeem a lot of crap. Stanwyck in "Double Indemnity" and a few others (there's one early one where she basically plays Aimee Semple McPherson that's pretty good, too.) Borgnine: "Marty," "The Wild Bunch" and "Bad Day at Black Rock." Pacino: "Godfather". Lemmon: Several, but I think "The Apartment" is one of the greatest movies of all time. Nicholson: "Chinatown." Heston: Well, he's in a bunch of guilty-pleasure movies I loved as a kid ("Omega Man"), and he's no great shakes in the best movie he was ever in, "Kiss of Evil." But I'd cite "The Naked Jungle" as my fave performance. Julia Roberts...Uh, exception that proves the rule. But she's not NEARLY as bad an actress as Andie McDowell (and even she's been okay in a couple of roles that call for her to be stiff, cold, and unemotional). Brando, yeah, I'd have to say that he was overrated, but he was the first of the method actors and his influence is as massive as his ultimate girth. Plus, of course, "Godfather." Depp, I have to confess, I find myself liking more and more, although I never saw "Chocolat." I'm looking forward to seeing him as Willie Wonka in the Tim Burton version of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," which promises to be a lot closer to the nasty edge of the book that that sickly sweet Gene Wilder version.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.