Reed Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 Well, Darth Maul is obviously the first one that springs to mind. We were talking about this in the official thread: The guy is so amazing, he takes up the whole movie a few notches. Also, Kathryn in Cruel Intentions seems far too interesting and fun for what is, essentially, a generic '90s teen movie. And: Hector in Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones stands out because he's truly the only protagonist in this franchise that ever had a modicum of common sense and reacted like you or me would do. He didn't want to explore to the scary apartment. He wanted to avoid all this supernatural stuff. But, when it comes down to it: Yes, to save his friend, he will recruit gang members, with guns, to take these evil witches on. And what do you know: They managed to fuck the coven up more than anyone else ever has. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Comedian Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 I guess Raul Julia and Chris Klein in their respective Street Fighter movies is the first thing that springs to mind. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jingus Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 Grumble grumble I had ideas YEARS ago about someone hiring inner-city gang members as mercenaries to fight supernatural monsters grumble grumble. First one that springs to mind for me is Clone Ripley in Alien Resurrection. It's like she's been teleported in from some different, better Alien movie than the rest of the overwrought garbage that she's sharing the screen with. The parody of the Enchanted princess in the otherwise miserably terrible Disaster Movie. The actress really sells lines of dialogue like "That was more fun than having sex with a camel!", which one might think would be completely impossible, but somehow she did it. Neve Campbell's character in The Craft. Yeah I know that Fairuza Balk is the obvious pick, but she gets a way more melodramatic and show-offy part to play with. Neve is improbably cast in the role of a shy unpopular ugly chick; there's no fucking way that Neve Freakin' Campbell would ever be seen that way by any human being ever, but I thought she actually pulled it off with one of those "DeNiro as a wallflower" type of performances where the actor seems to shrink half a foot shorter. Evil Superman in Superman III. The rest of the film is mostly crap, even Richard Pryor seems to have no idea what the hell he's doing there, but Christopher Reeve did a shockingly good job of portraying the evil-twin version of his iconic character. Louis Gosset Jr in Jaws 3-D. No specific reason, we all know how LouGoss somehow manages to keep his dignity in even the most wretchedly awful films. He's never less than completely believable even while being attacked by the fakest-looking shark in the entire Jaws franchise. Honestly he's got at least a dozen or two movies which could probably fit here. Jeffrey Jones in Howard the Duck. At least he TRIED, goddammit. Jim Duggan in Pro Wrestlers vs Zombies. Yes, seriously. EDIT: I guess Raul Julia and Chris Klein in their respective Street Fighter movies is the first thing that springs to mind.Of course I'll spot you Julia, but Klein? He seemed to be laboring under the misconception that he's playing the David Caruso part. (And it doesn't help that his interpretation of Charlie Nash does precisely zero street fighting, is definitely not Guile's friend, and who is certainly never killed by Bison.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Fowler Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 Weaver in Resurrection is a great pick. She's as good as she's ever been in the midst of a rolling disaster of a film. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
odessasteps Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 Grace Jones in a View to a Kill. The movie might not be bad enough, but tim roth in Rob Roy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Unholy Dragon Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 Hey now. I like Cruel Intentions a lot. Ryan Phillipe, Selma Blair, and Sarah Michelle Gellar all kill it in that movie. Not a character, but the antagonists in They deserve a better movie. Great concept. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HumanChessgame Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 I thought the characters in Resurrection were pretty good as a whole. The misfit crew collection of that one ship were all interesting in their own right and you had Brad Douriff at his creepy best. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reed Posted February 21, 2016 Author Share Posted February 21, 2016 Hey now. I like Cruel Intentions a lot. Ryan Phillipe, Selma Blair, and Sarah Michelle Gellar all kill it in that movie. Not a character, but the antagonists in They deserve a better movie. Great concept. Making them all high school kids was a mistake ,IMO. A bunch of 17 year olds are going to act like this? Really? Be so sophisticated and pretentious and mature? 21-22 year old college students could have worked, though, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Comedian Posted February 22, 2016 Share Posted February 22, 2016 Got another two...the professor and the deaf Amish guy save Diary Of The Dead from being completely terrible... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sydneybrown Posted February 22, 2016 Share Posted February 22, 2016 Phillip Baker Hall's only scene in Larry David's Sour Grapes is the ONLY reason to see Sour Grapes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
username Posted February 22, 2016 Share Posted February 22, 2016 I kinda want to say Daniel Day Lewis in There Will Be Blood should qualify, but I feel like I'm gonna get yelled at for suggesting that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.T. Posted February 22, 2016 Share Posted February 22, 2016 Yeah, the people saying that only Weaver was awesome in an otherwise horrible A:R movie are forgetting all about Brad Douriff chewing on scenery in his sadistic best, Ron Perlman being a total dick and then there was my man Michael Wincott. And how could you not love Winona Ryder? In hindsight, you have to admire the scene where she's getting drunk with Perlman and Gary Dourdan because SHE'S AN ANDROID AND SHE IS TOTALLY FAKING IT~! You know it is a crap movie when your interest in watching it dwindles after every crewman death. Once you figure out that Earth is now the armpit of human civilization, you wonder why the survivors are trying so hard to keep the xenomorphs from taking over. I guess my picks would be Charlize Theron in The Devil's Advocate, Morgan Freeman in Street Smart (he got an Oscar nom for a movie that was otherwise a piece of shit) or James Woods in The Specialist. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jingus Posted February 22, 2016 Share Posted February 22, 2016 Oh, most of Resurrection's performances would've been fine... in a completely different movie. It was simply the exact wrong tone for an Alien film, which always need to be as grounded and grim as possible; this one was all campy and wacky and larger-than-life cartoony. Part 4's characters are so goddamned broad and goofy that they make the overacted apocalyptic zealots of part 3 look downright restrained and nuanced in comparison. No matter how hard the actors were trying to make things work, they still had some bad lines and some dreadful direction which was sabotaging them at all times. And I like Winonda Ryder's acting a lot more than most people, but just compare her selling "I'm an android!" to Holm or Henriksen in the older movies to see what I mean. There were some really lame performances from really good performers; like, Dan Hedeya clearly had no idea what the hell he should be doing in his part. Weaver never fell into any of those traps. You could catch most of the others Acting~! at different parts (I fucking love Ron Perlman, but he's hardly a Daniel Day Lewis sort of chameleon who completely convinces you of the realism of his every role) but Sigourney seemed like she avoided that and was working on some different, higher plateau of ability. Even when enacting the most ridiculous bullshit (the basketball scene comes to mind), she commits to it so fucking hard that her part of the bullshit works. There's no ironic distance between her and the material, no winking at the audience, no contemptuous feeling of a superstar who's showing off by overperforming in a role which is beneath their talent (which is what I definitely got from Dourif during some of his scenes). She just took it 100% seriously and then charged forward and never looked back. The only other person in the movie who I thought even came close to that was poor Leland Orser as the anonymous doomed infected dude, and even he was camping it up during the parts where he's mugging while going into an epileptic fit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.T. Posted February 22, 2016 Share Posted February 22, 2016 And I like Winonda Ryder's acting a lot more than most people, but just compare her selling "I'm an android!" to Holm or Henriksen in the older movies to see what I mean. When compared to Ian Holm, Winona's "No really, I am not an android!" sell is grade school play level. She pals around with the crew enough to throw you off a little, but crazy androids are such a running theme in the Alien movies that you expect that reveal to happen sooner or later and she's the painfully obvious candidate once the dying starts. Henriksen's android role really benefits from Ian Holm being king sized in Alien because all of the tension centers around whether or not Henirksen will go batshit insane. The thing to marvel at with Henriksen in Aliens is how he seems to be more human than the humans. Dan Hedeya clearly had no idea what the hell he should be doing in his part. Hedeya thought he was still playing the police captain in Running Scared. He even had the same fucking vocal inflections. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Fowler Posted February 22, 2016 Share Posted February 22, 2016 The scene where she finds the previous failed clones... Weaver is just fucking amazing there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JLowe Posted February 22, 2016 Share Posted February 22, 2016 Samuel L. Jackson as Gator Purify in Jungle Fever. Not a truly bad movie, but not very good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StuntmanCrowley Posted February 22, 2016 Share Posted February 22, 2016 Tim Roth as the Emil Blonsky in The Incredible Hulk. Hated that flick, but thought he nailed it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.T. Posted February 22, 2016 Share Posted February 22, 2016 Tim Roth as the Emil Blonsky in The Incredible Hulk. Hated that flick, but thought he nailed it. Tim Roth was also far too good for the Planet Of The Apes reboot abortion. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StuntmanCrowley Posted February 22, 2016 Share Posted February 22, 2016 Lance Henriksen in Stone Cold "It's at times like these I remember my fathers last words....DONT SON THAT GUN IS LOADED!" 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.H. Posted February 22, 2016 Share Posted February 22, 2016 I think Jimmy Smits was AMAZING as Julio Gonzales in Running Scared. When I think of Jimmy Smits his characters always stand out as guys who try to do the right thing. Him playing an unrepentant drug kingpin in a movie where I'm supposed to believe Billy Crystal and Gregory Hines could be action stars asys far more about Smits as an actor han it does about the studio execs who cast the rest of the movie (though it does have Dan Hedeya and Joe Pantaliano) James Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.T. Posted February 22, 2016 Share Posted February 22, 2016 Yeah it was jarring to see Smits play such a believable douchebag villain after sitting through all of those eps of LA Law with him being painfully squeaky clean. I didn't pick him in that role for this thread because Running Scared is NOT a bad movie. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Control Posted February 22, 2016 Share Posted February 22, 2016 Well KISS KISS BANG BANG is a pretty good film, but Gay Perry should basically have a James Bond-esque film series of his own. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.T. Posted February 22, 2016 Share Posted February 22, 2016 Well KISS KISS BANG BANG is a pretty good film, but Gay Perry should basically have a James Bond-esque film series of his own. There needs to be a THE GAY PERRY FILES detective series on Netflix as soon as humanly possible. And yeah, did not pick Gay Perry (Val Kilmer) because Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is NOT a bad movie. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reed Posted February 22, 2016 Author Share Posted February 22, 2016 Another one: Bill Murray in Lost in Translation. Charlotte is not that interesting, let's be honest. The guy's problems are not anything new ("I'm a rich guy having a mid-life crisis!").The movie is, in general, rather dull and boring and is only saved by a cool ending. But Harris is just so desolate and desperate...you can't help but feel bad for him. When you've been a success, made millions, been famous...and you realize it means fuck all because, ultimately, you're still miserable and getting drunk by yourself in Tokyo bars. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EVA Posted February 22, 2016 Share Posted February 22, 2016 Herkermer Homolka in CONGO. And, by extension, Delroy Lindo's character. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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