We all have actors we love, but sometimes they let us down. Our favorite actor will take a job for money and phone it in, or he/she will make choices that we just don't understand or might sometimes think the movie is something it isn't. So what's the worst movie starring your favorite actor?
Travolta has too many to choose from so I'll say Tom Hanks as Robert Langdon.
ReplyDeleteC'mon, both those movies are cheesetastically awesome. :P
DeleteI like the Robert Langdon movies. I haven't seen every Tom Hanks movie (e.g. "Turner & Hooch", "The Burbs", "Larry Crowne"), but "The Man With One Red Shoe" was pretty awful.
DeleteI also love Tom Hanks, but I do not love Larry Crowne
ReplyDeleteJames Earl Jones in City Limits. Yeesh, that thing is rough.
ReplyDeleteI love Ed Harris and I'll watch anything he does, so 2003 was a rough year for both of us. The Human Stain, Masked & Anonymous, and especially fucking Radio were all garbage movies on different levels. He elevates everything, but he really had to earn his paychecks that year.
ReplyDeleteNic Cage was my favorite actor for the longest time, but then all he did was crap. So it's hard to pick just one. My least favorite might be Windtalkers, but I know he's been is worse movies (like Trespass).
ReplyDeleteDaniel Day Lewis might actually be my favorite now, and usually he's pretty dependable, but I thought Nine was just awful. It's definitely not my type of movie, but even his performance seemed kinda mailed in. Other than that I love the rest of his movies, although I have never seen The Age of Innocence.
It's really hard for me to name my least favorite James Stewart movie. Thanks to JB's advice, I avoided "The Greatest Show on Earth". I haven't seen "Airport '77". So my pick is "Take Her, She's Mine", a very dated comedy that basically pokes fun at how uncool and incredibly stalkerish Stewart's character is. James Stewart was a very good comedic actor, but a broad sex comedy just wasn't his style.
ReplyDeleteI went for living actor, but if I were going to expand it to deceased, James Stewart would be it for me, too. I'm just not well-versed enough in the entirety of his filmography to pick a worst movie, though. The same goes for Gregory Peck and Phillip Seymour Hoffman, whose work I also love.
DeleteGoing with an actor still alive, I would say Denzel Washington's worst movie is "Virtuosity".
DeleteMy favorite actor who is currently working, I think, has come to be Brad Pitt. Especially as of late, he's in a lot of things I think range from interesting to great. I almost feel like I haven't seen enough of his filmography, though, to choose a least favorite movie of his. I've never seen Cool World, but it's probably Cool World.
ReplyDeleteI hate to be the guy who says Daniel Day-Lewis is their favorite actor, but his There Will Be Blood performance is as close to perfect as I've ever seen. Unfortunately, he followed it up with Nine. Which, ugh.
ReplyDeleteI'll also give a second place to Christian bale, who consistently makes excellent choices. But this doesn't explain Terminator Salvation...
Maybe not my favorite, but somewhere on the list;
ReplyDeleteSean Connery - Zardoz
The Astronaut's Wife starring Johnny Depp and Charlize Theron. Cool special effects, but the film has a pretty weak concept and direction.
ReplyDeleteI'm going preemptive as I can't find a really bad movie in Kurt Russell's filmography. The Art of the Steal looks abominable.
ReplyDeleteHe did Disney movies when he was young, which I remember watching as a kid. The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes comes to mind. It satisfies The Kurt Russell Rule as long as the viewer is under the age of ten.
DeleteRoslyn Russel was great in Mame, but then she did Mrs Pollifax Spy--yikes!
ReplyDeleteWhere did you find that? I am often lamenting that we need more Roz Russell films on DVD. There are quite a few good ones that I can't find anywhere that I saw on youtube ages ago. I really wish they would release a Rosalind Russell DVD box set so I could have a few of those.
DeleteHarrison Ford's worst movie... um... Firewall? All of his bad movies are really forgettable.
ReplyDeleteI guess I'll go with Indy 4, even though I don't think it's bad for the same reasons everybody else thinks it's bad.
I think the better question is when was the last time Ford was in a good movie? I enjoyed his performance in 42, but the movie was kinda tame. You could make an honest case that The Fugitive was his last very good movie, and he's only been in a bunch of "okay" projects since then (Clear and Present Danger, K-19, Firewall, Cowboys & Aliens, Ender's Game). Nothing really all that special special in twentysome years.
DeleteI could argue that the guy really only had two good roles. (and was only good in those roles)
DeleteI thought Ford was good in Ender's Game. I dunno.
DeleteI think K-19: The Widowmaker is really good. Better than Bigelow's The Hurt Locker. But man oh man, was Firewall awful.
DeleteThe films themselves are fine or good, but Ford is nearly always one dimensional. Gruff and angry, that's all he really plays anymore.
DeleteIs everyone forgetting Hollywood Homicide? I know I did. Except for the fact that I hated it.
DeleteIt's unfortunate Ford has taken a role in The Expendables, I always thought he was above those guy in a way, but I guess these days it's all about the paycheck (ask Bruce Willis).
DeleteWhile I think I have never seen him phone it in I would have to give it to Gary Oldman in the recent The Unborn. Generally I love anything that he does, but in that movie he doesnt seem to know what the hell he is doing and it doesnt help that the film is a complete mess anyway with a terrible cast and blah direction (sorry David S Goyer), only positive thing I can say is Odette Annable is pretty hot.
ReplyDeleteWilliam H. Macy: Marmaduke.
ReplyDeleteI'm a big Rachel Weisz fan, which is kind of awkward in that I only actually like a handful of her movies. She does lots of arty stuff that doesn't interest me much (Agora, The Constant Gardener, The Fountain - thanks, I'm not much interested in seeing her being depressed and/or dying over and over again - and then she'll turn around do something mainstream but totally lame (Constantine, The Bourne Redundancy, Oz: The Phantom Menace).
ReplyDeleteOf her filmography, I guess The Mummy Returns and Dream House would probably be the lowest points (not counting her voice work in Eragon), and I have a feeling I'd loathe The Brothers Bloom if I actually sat through it - hipster twaddle at its smuggest.
But hey, check out my supercut of some her work here. :)
I love The Brothers Bloom, which doesn't mean you will. But there you are.
DeleteI also love Rachel Weisz! I will go check out that link. I am with Patrick on The brothers bloom. I got myself a small collection of Rachel Weisz films when I was younger but most of those were videos (I found a land girls video which was hard) but my least favourite would be Fred Claus. She isn't even in it that long, which I think is a problem as I like that character, if only she was in a much better movie as that character.
DeleteI'm still not 100% sure on how I feel about American Hustle (I feel like I may have been tricked into loving it), I realized when I watched it that Christian Bale is pretty much my favourite actor and, though it gets some forgiveness from me just being part of a franchise I love, Terminator: Salvation is his worst.
ReplyDelete