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Best performance by a bad actor?


Reed

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Not sure if Gywneth Paltrow is bad as much as really one dimensional. There's stuff she's been decent in (Iron Man, Se7en), but she has no real range. Her having an Oscar is way worse than Marisa Tomei having one.

 

And I'd throw in Courtney Love for The People vs. Larry Flynnt. I've seen her in other things and she's been fairly mediocre. But I think her real-life attitude and experiences obviously helped her a great deal in that movie and she managed to pretty much steal the show.

 

Even if you're playing a warped version of yourself, it still counts, right?

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Which is a shame since she's pretty great in My Cousin Vinny and has done good work since.

 

But, yeah, Paltrow winning for Shakespeare in Love is still totally absurd to me. The power of a Harvey Weinstien Oscar campaign, I guess. 

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There are people who feel Marisa Tomei doesn't deserve an Oscar?

For "My Cousin Vinny"? I think she was considered a longshot to win it  but I think it was the one movie most people had at least seen that year. I think of the actresses that got nominated that year the only one I had seen besides "My Cousin Vinny" was "Howard's End"

 

James

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Arch Hall Jr in The Sadist. Not exactly a brilliant performance but he is genuinely creepy in it. Actually a decent little film if you can track it down.

 

The Sadist is a great movie (and almost a great film) and Arch Hall Jr is terrific in it. Blew me away when I first saw it.

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Cage is so amazing in Leaving Las Vegas.

 

I wasn't thinking at all of Leaving Las Vegas, but, yeah, I thought he was great in a lot of films during the 90's - Leaving Las Vegas, the Rock. Raising Arizona, Moonstruck, etc.  From the late 80's - late 90's, I thought he was consistently good, frequently great, and showed a lot of range,  At some point after Con Air, he seemed to start parodying himself, and the last few years. he's mostly been in dreck and mailed it in.  If I had to sum his career post-2000 in one sentence, "IRS wants money" might be apropos. 

 

Honestly, until I looked at his filmography a couple minutes ago, I forgot how many good movies he was in 20+ years ago.  He seems to have driven his career into a ditch.  Is he hard to work with?  Too many personal problems?

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I actually think that Kristen Stewart is pretty good in both Panic Room and The Runaways. I'd have to re-watch Cold Creek Manor to see how she went.

 

I think that people look at Twilight (and her public persona) and forget that she actually has some talent. She just got caught in the honey pot of suck that is Twilight. Can't blame her for getting paid I guess.

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Cage is so amazing in Leaving Las Vegas.

I wasn't thinking at all of Leaving Las Vegas, but, yeah, I thought he was great in a lot of films during the 90's - Leaving Las Vegas, the Rock. Raising Arizona, Moonstruck, etc. From the late 80's - late 90's, I thought he was consistently good, frequently great, and showed a lot of range, At some point after Con Air, he seemed to start parodying himself, and the last few years. he's mostly been in dreck and mailed it in. If I had to sum his career post-2000 in one sentence, "IRS wants money" might be apropos.

Honestly, until I looked at his filmography a couple minutes ago, I forgot how many good movies he was in 20+ years ago. He seems to have driven his career into a ditch. Is he hard to work with? Too many personal problems?

He's millions in debt from bad investments and IIRC his manager embezzled money from him. So now he takes pretty much any script that comes by.

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He's millions in debt from bad investments and IIRC his manager embezzled money from him. So now he takes pretty much any script that comes by.

 

It goes beyond bad investments.  That, I could sympathize with to a point.  Cage was all about excess.  Countless cars, 10-12 homes (including a castle, IIRC), a couple of islands, mechanics and decorators on 24-hour call, dinosaur skulls. He gets into an argument with Lisa Marie Presley while on his yacht, and her $65,000 engagement ring somehow goes overboard.  That's bad enough, but then Cage makes it worse by hiring scuba divers to look for it.  He used to own a zoo full of exotic pets, including some albino King Cobras.  The only thing that has made money for Cage was selling his comic book collection for a couple of million (he had Action Comics #1, the lucky bastard).

 

Cage's money problems go well past stock market mishaps and a shady mananger.

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Really? Terrence Howard is a bad actor? Holy shit, I've been deceived all this time. 

 

People are confusing being a bad actor with being in a lot of shitty movies.

 

Seriously!  

 

This thread went off the rails when Nicolas Cage came up.  I'm not sure there are many actors whose name would come up in a 'Good Actors' thread who have a performance that could touch Cage performances in 'The Weather Man', 'Bringing Out the Dead' and 'Raising Arizona' and those aren't even in Nicolas Cage's Top 3 performances ever.

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