#3 worst actor nomination thread

Richard Burton could be lazy and offhand, but he could act when he felt like it.

I think they were based on entire careers? Haven't read the book for decades, but as I recall it the authors felt Burton's overwrought theatrics were better suited to the stage than the screen. They were probably offended at his diffident attitude too. Tony Curtis, though, is a hero and they were WRONG to include him.

Had to look Vera Ralston up, she was a figure skater who acted in crappy mid-century melodramas. In her favour she told Hitler to fuck off, at least in her version of events.

@ darraghmac ah I’m sorry if it seemed that way! I love this discussion and it has informed many spirited irl discussions of “who is the worst”

And that is a beautiful-sad observation re Radcliffe

man I will never wanna watch a movie with some of you.

xp not at all ive enjoyed it all <3

we will not be entertaining talk of richard burton in any context

#3 is Tom Cruise

I enjoy his movies but it’s true, just as awfully giffable as Bloomps, personal life as depressing to acknowledge as Radcliffe

#4 btw is Christian Bale

an outrageous re-entry tbh

Fgti…I love you but you’d try the patience of a saint you know

Cruise not even remotely a contender for the following reasons:

1) Magnolia: I can’t find whatever post I made about why this was such a great film but tl;dr Cruise is a big part of it. It definitely hits different knowing more about him offscreen in 2023 than it did in 1999 (or 2002 when I first saw it on TV). Anyway he is the perfect actor to give Frank TJ Mackey that touch of glittering menace barely papering over a broken child; his breakdown at his dad’s bedside has stuck with me through the years. And it passes the “internal life test” quite easily; he regresses from being this absolute monster to being an absolute shell in doublequick time and it’s electric imo.

2) Also, Collateral. He should always play villains!

Someone else can argue Bale, I don’t give a fuck about him tbh

cruise charisma alone is movie star disqualifier, hes also played light comedy paperthin mean guys too well forever to get into this mix, before you get into the exceptions above

cruise on the oprah couch and all that i can see why hed get into your head but we are itt looking at the nominees high points and saying if they can do that- even once, briefly- then imo theyre not in contention

bale?

star wars bit in that dragon caper, out

bale playing rich white arrongance is an interesting study tho

memes dont really save his turn in american psycho but that whole effort is tonally weird

if his career average was the same performance in shaft then hed be a worthy nominee here

his wayne is boring but, crucially imo, his playing brattish wayne is a lot of fun

He is if anything too invested in his roles, impossible to imagine Bloom thinking "For this role I will lose four and a half stone do anything other than turn up, sit in makeup and costuming, and say the lines"

Radcliffe these days does at least seem to be having fun in his roles (based on the otherwise terrible Now You See It 2 and The Lost City)

Bale was good in The Prestige!

Every dog...

That’s the point though. The-bar-is-Bloom has no such effort to point to

(Bah, I should have rewritten that as The Lost City and the otherwise terrible Now You See It 2, TLC is pretty good as a modern Romancing the Stone)

Cruise has ubiquity on his side, and is inarguably a good producer (latter day MI films), but in even his best movies (Minority Report) he is a master class in terrible acting; the bar is Bloom and Cruise does not reach that bar but seems to me to be a solid sit-next-to, especially if variety is the goal, otherwise we could just yawn and say “Cameron Diaz” and be done with it

Magnolia is the worst movie and Cruise is perennially overrated in it

i did want to bring up keira again bc i really liked her in the joe wright pride and prejudice when i finally saw that recently (though, like the ppl who gave bloom
a career, i sometimes mistake “ability to act” with “being so so so pretty”)

xp I regret introducing you to Luca and Tania.

we are getting into something here and i am for it

cruise in magnolia is imo terrifically overrated in a terrifically overrated but interesting to bring in cameron diaz because i give you knight and day, a fun little mission impossible interlude movie that they are both charming in their lanes at

the idea that radcliffe might break out from behind his own eyes is an inteiguing one and whilst troubling also perhaps shows hope for us all

i defy anyone to misunderstand that post taken entire and at the same time i will not defend the individual sentence structures

I watched a bit of one of the X-Men movies in a hotel the other night, and now I'm wondering: does Halle Berry have a beats-the-bar performance? not seen her whole oeuvre though

Keira Knightley is a real test of the bar as is portman i think

ive seen emilia thingy in stuff since and

im only human, shes so cute

the bar is wonky

we must also always keep in mind that ben barnes has come.back from the very depths of early career bloomishness to very capably and with no small style play orrible villains

can we see bloom managing that i submit we cannot

cruise's inability to likewise show any depth raises a challenge to the bar one level above the bar

(i also think hes no better that peevish ethan hunt in the likewise overdated collateral fwiw and his turn in tropic thunder is as cringe as the rest of tropic thunder)

https://i.imgur.com/KUzzC1J.jpg

edge of tomorrow was probably the last time I enjoyed cruise as an actor

I don't look for things like "depth" in performers like Cruise -- I want a good time. He delivered in the last Top Gun. It's when he's effortful, even when purportedly giving us a good time, that I hide under the bed.

i love tom cruise and think he clears the bar in plenty of things that aren't even getting mentioned here. risky business????

another example: he is the only person making the script of jack reacher work by being the perfect total dick

i love tom cruise in all of those things as ye will all know from the threads on those things

the bar above the bar is how good is an actor at doing one character well tom cruise is a strong strong strong performer at that bar but even in jerry maguire he is that guy as a sports agent instead of a pilot or a secret agent or a lawyer

outside of playing that guy he is below the bar every time

harrison ford and a million other great movie actors perform strongly qt that bar im not in any way hating

fair enough, he does mostly have One Performance

I watched a bit of one of the X-Men movies in a hotel the other night, and now I'm wondering: does Halle Berry have a beats-the-bar performance? not seen her whole oeuvre though

― rob, Saturday, 30 December 2023 15:23 (twenty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

shes fine in swordfish, bond and that awful awful movie about an asylum with rdj

certainly shes bad, now i havent seen monsters ball tbf

and terrible 'actors' with good presence dont qualify, harrison ford most certainly aint it

― Qanondorf (darraghmac), Tuesday, 2 February 2021 14:35 (two years ago) bookmarkflaglink

i think we've set out that stall basically

She's lousy in Monster's Ball, especially in the sex scenes.

ah ok, I haven't seen Swordfish or Gothika and remember zero about Die Another Day in general

MB def not in the plus column though, Alfred otm

If an actor has a comfort zone they can easily fall into and deliver the goods every time our, they can't contend for this thread. Actually think actors like this frequently get too little credit compared to their more celebrated contemporaries, whose eclecticism and ability to be "versatile" means you hardly see their true, comfortable self. Which isn't to say actors who deal in the latter aren't quite frequently amazing, obv.

I watched Monsters Ball twice, the second time with a guy I was crushing on; he liked the movie, I went limp, I saw him one more time.

omar otm

Bloom qualifies because even his two major franchise roles feel like desperate effort. Everyone discusses "a diversion" but for me it's all about the delivery of "a red sun rises...blood has been spilt this night"....stopping and delivering the line and you can practically see his brain counting down to the mark when he's supposed to resume running.

Has Denise Richards come under discussion? On my phone cannot ctrl-F

Xp to gyac, you’d feel doubly so if you were aware what a terror I’ve become over on Fragrantica

i think we set out that the performer is question should have had a comparable career but we can relax that one

it does feel that allowing in actor/models is a bit of a cheat tho?

edge of tomorrow was probably the last time I enjoyed cruise as an actor

Keira Knightley is a real test of the bar as is portman i think

rogue nation or maverick prob his best movies and id not have said he was any different (or his being him) was a bigger or smaller part of any of them (id stress not a criticism of edge of tomorrow which was super until it had to end)

i raised portman/knightley as a pair (and rightley so) earlier in thread i hid nothing

portman does all of her acting with her (googles) upper molars

hence her perfect casting in May December.

nancy myers perfectly casts furniture and soft furnishings by the same token