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DiCaprio and Cameron Diaz lapsing in and out if Irish accents in GANGS OF NEW YORK. When Daniel Dey Lewis or the supporting cast was on screen, it was an incredible ride. When the other two had to carry it, it was pulling teeth. To add some comedy, Diaz was already about a dozen years older than the character she was suppossed to be playing.
Sorry for the Keeanu Reeves fans chiming in, but they guy sucks. As someone noted, he is good at playing an idiot, and nothing more. Could barely get into the first MATRIX because of his terrible "acting" (..."and I give you the finger), and the second was such an awful film all around that I never attempted the third.
Tom Cruise in anything. This four foot tall, brick stupid, manifestly gay, middle-aged man-child is NOT a natural leading man, and surely no action hero. I have no doubt, none whatsoever, that I could beat him in a fair fight. What he did for whom to become an action star, I am not speculating.
Everyone made a big deal about Nicholas Cage in LEAVING LOSS VEGAS. He absolutely did NOT do a good portrayal of a drunk, but just a spaz, which is what he is. Look at the cover of any Cage movie, and you see that he has one emotion and one emotion only: confused.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cometclear
Gee, I was going to take my pick of John Wayne performances in any number of John Ford or Howard Hawks movies.
I'd also nominate Bob Dylan's performance as "Alias" in the criminally underrated Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid by Sam Peckinpah.
But did you ever see James Taylor and Dennis Wilson in TWO LANE BLACKTOP? not bad. Then again, they didn't have to talk much.
In Dylan's defense, Peckinpah was a notorious coke-head who did not give a lot of direction to his players.
Last edited by cachibatches; 09-25-2017 at 12:18 AM..
Robert Sean Leonard in Much Ado About Nothing. I cringe every time I see him try to cry at Hero's "death". His performance was almost unbelievably bad in the whole movie, imo, but that was the worst. (Skip to 4:15.)
Great film. Kevin Smith can write dialogue. I'm not really criticizing the actors because Smith just cast his friends. And given the nature of the film, such shortcomings are part of its charm. Still, the acting is almost universally atrocious.
John Wayne's "The Alamo" was an offense against history, but inaccuracies and political messages aside, it was a well made, entertaining film. But then there was Chill Wills eating every chunk of scenery in sight as the fictional character "Beekeeper." For reasons beyond my understanding, the movie's backers launched one of the pioneering publicity blitzs on Wills' behalf and he received an Oscar nomination for the role. He was actually horrible, every time he appeared on screen the flow of the movie ground to a halt while Wills spat out a load of corny crap.
He didn't win, Peter Ustinov won for Spartacus, one of my all time favorite performances.
I just watched this film for the first time last week.
Beyond text books in secondary school, I knew little about the Alamo. So I went into the film expecting it to be a bad film. And from what I have read, it is not so great in terms of history. But it was a very entertaining film with high production values.
I agree completely about Chill Wills. There are a few films where I have actually enjoyed Wills' performances, and the key to me was that if he understated his performances, he was quite good. But in many films, like "The Alamo", he was unrestrained, and nothing but a big buffoon.
It was not until the 1950's that Hollywood finally began to catch on to the difference between stage acting, which requires projecting to the last row in the theater, and film acting which since the performers are thirty feet tall and have their voices amplified, requires more realistic behavior.
Consequently, actors in the '30's and '40's were still employing stagecraft, still gesticulating as though films did not yet have sound. Bad news would inevitably cause heads to fly back and hands to clutch chests, sudden grief was portrayed by looking skyward with a hand to the forehead.
We still have the debris from that era lying about. Have you noticed that in films and tv people still faint dead away as a reaction to something shocking? How many times have you seen that happen in real life? It was that need for a dramatic illustration of the emotional reaction that motivated the fainting on stage and in silent flicks...and we haven't quite extinguished that legacy.
I can't take the over-the-top acting in "Gone With The Wind" and "The Bad Seed." Since I seem to be alone in this thinking, I'll take it to mean it's me and not them.
That is just a sign of the times---
They all "over acted"
I don't know if that was a holdover from the silent films since so many of the actors popular in the 40-50s were not acting in silent films...
Someone said that Katherine Hepburn was a very natural actress -- but while I thought she improved as she aged some of her early films are almost painful to watch because of her tonality and breathyness...
She was good with props though and that helped create a "real world" sense of place
It was interesting to watch the mini-series of Davis and Crawford--Susan Sarandon and Jeffica Lange were very good at capturing the "brava" characteristics of the real actresses...
Robert Sean Leonard in Much Ado About Nothing. I cringe every time I see him try to cry at Hero's "death". His performance was almost unbelievably bad in the whole movie, imo, but that was the worst. (Skip to 4:15.)
However, I think he definitely redeemed himself in House, M.D.! (And, man, did he age well -- or at least until just recently!)
Yes--
Think in House he just was himself...
If he had done that and connected with his character in Much Ado, since the character was very similar to his real age, then he likely could have done ok...
He was always so earnest...
And actor with three names seems to be...
Another vote for Keanu Reeves, this time in Point Break.
One of my guilty pleasure movies. Patrick Swayze of all people acts rings around him and carries the film.
He is actually adequate until the last third or so when he has to get really crazed about stopping Bodie.
Three of us within my family...all men....all Boomers...one beginning of the boom, one middle, and one late middle....we are three VERY different people....but one thing that we have in common is that Point Break is a guilty pleasure movie for all three of us. One native to Southern California, but all three of us have lived there at various points in our lives.
One of my guilty pleasure movies. Patrick Swayze of all people acts rings around him and carries the film.
Swayze was not a bad actor. He just said yes to a whole lot of movies where he should have said no.
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