even worse is finding oneself relating to bad top 40 songs. This is similar to but worse than my habit of getting emotional at bad television.
Examples!
Matt Damon mancrush: intact! Can we stop pretending that Angelina Jolie is pretty and good at acting?
Heathen.
Can we stop pretending that Angelina Jolie is pretty
She is hott, not pretty. There is a difference.
and good at acting
Irrelevant, because she is hott.
We can stop pretending that she's good at acting, though.
I won't open myself to more of your scorn, Tim.
Who's been pretending she's good at acting?
Jolie looks odd to me, and I think that it's because here colors (hair, eyes, skin) don't match right. Somehow she looks unhealthy.
But would I do her? Yes! And I have the sexual power of .20 younger men!
I won't open myself to more of your scorn, Tim.
Doood! I ask because I'm the same way. Bonding!
And Jolie can absolutely act. Hackers, anyone? It's just that sometimes she chooses not to.
Hackers is setting the bar a little low, isn't it?
I can't think of that many stars that I think can really act. I'm not even sure how to judge something like that. DeNiro. Nicholson. Though not so much anymore. Streep. Norton. Maybe the Blanchett and maybe Winslet. But everyone else plays some version of themselves. Jolie can meet that standard. It's just harder to judge, because she's so attractive that reality distorts around her. So all versions of herself are going to seem a little surreal. Which is to say, "Don't hate her because she's beautiful."
into the heartland
Are there, like, cows and shit?
cows and shit
Where there are cows...
I can't think of that many stars that I think can really act.
Johnny Depp.
14: Winger, though I don't know if she counts as a star. The larger point stands: Jolie represents what we should all hope we, as a species, are evolving towards.
Jolie represents what we should all hope we, as a species, are evolving towards.
Hell no.
The part about most actors playing some version of themselves has been a feature of our national culture for a long time. Constance Rourke's American Humor, written in the 'twenties, takes it back to the early nineteenth century. It describes a lot of movie stars, and many whom it doesn't are British.
even worse is finding oneself relating to bad top 40 songs. This is similar to but worse than my habit of getting emotional at bad television.
example: "Lips Of An Angel"
angelina jolie can't act, exactly, but she has tremendous personal charisma over and above her hottness. she's like a force of nature and it's idiotic to cast her in roles that require her to be anything but an ass-kicking femme fatale. and duh she's not pretty. she is incredibly, astoundingly hott in a peculiar rapacious/sex-with-teh-crazies-is-great way.
I always thought of Jolie as being freakishly exaggerated--if she had one more cup side or an ounce more fat (or silicone) in her lips, she'd be ugly. As it is, I don't really think she's pretty (at all) or *that* hot. I prefer more modest beauties.
19: I agree with most of that, though I think she has a broader range than you're allowing. She's pretty clearly trapped by her beauty, though, I feel a certain amount of compassion towards her on that ground.
Who thinks she'll make a good Dagny Taggart?
I can't think of that many stars that I think can really act.
I don't know if she can act (I'm not sure I know what it means to act well), but 19 pretty much gets it right. You're revealing the depths of your bourgeoisosity, Labs, by thinking that what she is/is not is "pretty."
I can't think of that many stars that I think can really act.
Oh, I'd say there are tons. Just off the top of my head: Hoffmans, Philip Seymour and Dustin. Gary Oldman. Jennifer Connelly. Halle Berry (cf. Monster's Ball). Charlize Theron (cf. Monster). Forrest Whitaker. Jamie Foxx, astonishingly enough. No shortage at all.
There are also actors who get by on playing slightly-inflected versions of their own compelling selves (Denzel Washington, Morgan Freeman, Jack Nicholson, Jodie Foster, Sigourney Weaver etc). Usually these people are a pleasure to watch even if they're acting in out-and-out turkeys. Is Jolie one of them? I don't think so.
Hey, Labs. I've booked tickets for both of us to bourgeoisty, where we can live among our own kind.
How could I forget Foster?!!! I feel such shame. Real actor.
I suspect Matt Damon's wife floats in water.
20: pdf23ds is willing to settle.
John Emerson's onto something in 7. Jolie's beauty marks her off, on the screen and in life. Her features are all so distinguished, they separate from one another on her face, like galaxies in expanding timespace. And her coloring seems harsh and irradiated. She's not unlike an Edward Hopper painting. But hot damn, if she isn't concentrated sex.
I wonder if 'Smasher saw this picture while he was in Miami?
16 gets it exactly right, but I'm just as fascinated by the way Jolie changed herself (or her image) from the blood drinking, sibling-groping crazy goth girl of 10 years ago into someone who seems to be half Princess Diana and half Lara Croft.
It would be a shame if this nose were real, because it looks so fake-perfect.
Just off the top of my head: Hoffmans, Philip Seymour and Dustin. Gary Oldman. Jennifer Connelly. Halle Berry (cf. Monster's Ball). Charlize Theron (cf. Monster). Forrest Whitaker. Jamie Foxx, astonishingly enough. No shortage at all.
Disagree with all of those, except Hoffman. Haven't seen enough P. Seymour to judge. I particularly disagree about Foxx, but that may be just because I still haven't been able to get the taste of Dreamgirls out of my mouth.
The list of titles in the link in 23 is masterful.
The availability of surgical beauty will surely lead to a connoisseurship of those fine flaws that nature's hand leaves behind with more subtlety than man's could ever master—the jardin that makes the emerald what it is.
37: Dude, that stuff may work on undergraduates, but you're going to have to work harder than that to get laid in graduate school.
29.--Do you think those are real? They might be.
36: The Boobs of Hazzard 2. Thank God they made a sequel, after the unsatisfying ending of the original.
SCMT went to the wrong department^W graduate school
I haven't seen Monster's Ball, but Berry is so very abysmal in everything else that whatever appearance of good acting she may have in it must be a fluke, or CGI, or the world's most masterful editing, or a twin sister, or something.
33: Foxx earns it for Ray alone (which was actually kind of a crap film, but anyone who says that's not good acting just doesn't know what acting is). His work in Collateral was pretty great, too.
With Connelly, Berry and Theron I may be giving too much credit based on single films. (Or a couple of films in Connelly's case, Requiem and House of Sand and Fog). Time will tell. And I understand why Oldman annoys some people, though I love the guy.
Whitaker, though? What's wrong with Whitaker? Why do you hate America?
Good-looking stars who can act: Sidney Poitier.
44.--You're being ironic here, right?
42: Monster's Ball is quite different from anything else she's been in. Plus, it features the most raw, OMG the actors are actually fucking the hell out of each other sex scene I've ever seen in a non-X/NC-17-rated film.
44: largely, yes. But that dress is horrible.
Monster's Ball is quite different from anything else she's been in.
Understood, but I still refuse to believe that any good performance there can be credited to actual acting ability on her part. She's simply too awful.
50: Well, she was good in Monster's Ball (and not just in the infamous sex scene), but then I look back on other not-so-classic performances in Catwoman and the X-Men films and I have to admit I'm probably wrong about her on the whole.
43: Ray was good, but then you try to watch Miami Vice and you think that perhaps Foxx is only good at mimicry, or he was directed well, or something.
Someone has to bring up Christian Bale in any discussion about great acting. Anyone impressed with DeNiro's weight fluctuation in Raging Bull must see the Machinist.
Apparently, I continue to be the only person on Earth who thought Jolie was really good in Mr. & Mrs. Smith? I don't know why I get such a kick out of that movie, but I do.
Speaking of movies, did anyone else watch 'The Nativity Story'? It sorta sucked, but I thought it was cool that the suicide bomber from Paradise Now -- the one that actually went off (Said) -- played a Jew in the movie. Also, Mary was delicious.
Okay, if it's me *and* SCMT, then we're right and everyone else is wrong.
What do so many of you have against people who are more "movie star" than "actor." I mean, sure you want people like Hoffman or Depp or Winslett for your character-y small roles, but sometimes you just want a movie star. And Jolie, like say Hanks or Washington or Bogart can carry a movie and be fun to watch for 90+ minutes. That's nothing to scoff at, even from someone who doesn't have much range.
53: Perhaps not by itself, but it is a commonly referred to reason why DeNiro was great in Raging Bull. Christian Bale was great in that movie for other reasons also, but his commitment to the character, evidenced by the amount of weight he lost, was remarkable.
Hanks or Washington or Bogart? Dios mio. Tom Hanks is a blight upon the earth.
character-y small large roles
Tom Hanks is a blight upon the earth.
Right on.
63, 61 : sure, but not on the scale of tom cruise
I'll bet Peter Scolari really resents him.
You picture him seething in a basement papered with photos of Hanks torn out of magazines. Soon, he'll be up in a water tower with a rifle.
And Jolie . . . can carry a movie and be fun to watch for 90+ minutes.
Just haven't seen her do it, really, that's the thing. (And I'm troubled by the grave and gathering danger of this new Axis of Mr. & Mrs. Smith.)
I'm reasonably convinced Scarlett Johanson could carry a movie in entertaining fashion. Or maybe Keira Knightley or Natalie Portman, though I've only ever seen the former in stinkers thus far. I'd like Beyonce could do it. Jolie, though? Nah. Closest she's come was Girl, Interrupted, and even that wasn't all that impressive.
68: I guess I'm mostly thinking of Mr. and Mrs. Smith. I haven't seen Jolie in much else. And that was one of the best fun escapist hollywood movies I've seen in a while.
Scarlett Johanson is definitely another person I'm very willing to watch despite lack of range.
Scarlett Johanson is definitely another person I'm very willing to watch despite lack of range.
So much good commenting work trashed so needlessly.
Wait a minute, I don't like Tom Hanks either, people, but he can definitely act. He's got to be at or near the top of the Hollywood list on this skill. Do we need to have an argument over the meaning of this word?
He can act, but his eyes are disappearing rapidly.
Tom Hanks can't act. From the early days of the blog...
he can definitely act
... like Tom Hanks.
He's got to be at or near the top of the Hollywood list on this skill.
I agree that he is capable of acting, but he generally seems inclined to do something else, these days. And one of the best actors in film? Naw.
I don't get the counterarguments. What does it mean to act "like Tom Hanks"? He's played a lot of very, very different characters.
Four comments? What a different place.
He's played a lot of very, very different characters.
But they *all* looked just like him.
--No, more generously, I'm not sure how much the aversion is to Hanks, & how much to the kinds of movies he typically appears in. 50-50, perhaps.
Mr. & Mrs. Smith was too amoral to be a good movie. Scarlett Johansson was great in both Ghost World and Lost In Translation but she seems to only be able to play characters as sullen, which was not effective in Scoop or The Man Who Wasn't There. (then again, nothing was effective in Scoop). Jennifer Aniston seems to have a similar inability to give different characters different personalities, making Friends With Money a frustrating experience. The only actress who manages to combine looking too beautiful to be a real person with somehow being convincing in her roles is Maria Bello. Usually when I get a crush on a fictional woman in a movie it is largely because she has short hair, making it difficult to sustain the crush if I see the actress with long hair. I am a horrible person for not italicizing all these movie titles.
Agree with #74, at least as regards old Tom Hanks.
Apparantly we do need to have an argument over the meaning of the word "act", because I quite seriously have no idea what you people are talking about.
Mr. & Mrs. Smith was too amoral to be a good movie.
???? You mean like The Wild Bunch?
I think what they are talking about is to be a good actor you have to act as if you are on stage, which to me means overacting. Kind of like Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs -- I could never take that character seriously.
Mr. & Mrs. Smith was too amoral to be a good movie.
????????????????????
Well yes, if you reject the entire premise of the film, then I can see why you wouldn't like it.
OTOH, I like dark humor. Like the scene where they're trading "how many" ... amoral, but priceless.
I got the feeling that Mr. & Mrs. Smith was an amoral movie. Much like Bad Boys II. This is different from a movie with amoral protagonists. However, I have no way to explain what I mean by this.
Anderson and I are meeting up later to kill one of the other commenters. A certain C****** N**. For kicks.
Hanks is esteemed precisely because he has a kind of blank, everyWASP quality about him. He's a sort of pomo Jimmy Stewart, playing not so much a character as a Type. If you like that sort of thing, he's perfectly fine.
A strong moral fiber isn't something I'm often looking for in a film I'd describe as "a fun escapist hollywood movie."
The Hanks thing isn't complicated. Did you read the post linked in 74? I assume, perhaps crazily, that a good actor should be able to conjure believable human emotions, and not just cartoonish imitations of them. Hanks fails this simple test.
While we're hating on actors, it is my considered opinion that Robert Redford has no range whatsoever.
I got the feeling that Mr. & Mrs. Smith was an amoral movie.
Au contraire. It was kind of sweet, like a guy version of a date movie. I get damp-eyed when Brad Pitt stands down in the kitchen fight & Angelina's telling him to point the gun back at her.
"The family that slays together, stays together." It all just depends on where your priorities are ...
pomo Jimmy Stewart
I read this as porno Jimmy Stewart, and now am stuck wondering who is the Jimmy Stewart of porn? Peter North?
Non-type Hanks movies: Road to Perdition, the Ladykillers, Forrest Gump (although everyone loves to hate it). He was brilliant in Philadelphia, and Apollo 13 and Saving Private Ryan would have been much worse without him.
88- a "Type"? What "Type", exactly? Really, I just don't understand what you're referring to. What "Type" is shared by the characters he played in: The Terminal, Road to Perdition, Saving Private Ryan, and Philidelphia?
Again, I'm not a big fan of him or his movies, but this is just silly talk.
Forrest Gump (although everyone loves to hate it).
For good reason.
You know who can act? Ed Harris, that's who.
I'm starting to think BEPea is Hanks' sockpuppet. I don't know if I buy the "type" argument, but the man just plain cannot act.
I thought Tom Hanks was good in that movie with the volleyball.
What "Type" is shared by the characters he played in: The Terminal, Road to Perdition, Saving Private Ryan, and Philidelphia?
The tough-but-loveable non-English-speaking gangster who is dying of AIDS, natch.
Well, Ogged has the answer to his "does anyone really believe Hanks is a good actor" question, anyway.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned this yet, but Tom Hanks really was pretty good in Bosom Buddies. But that's about it.
He was somewhere between adequate to passing in everything prior to Bonfire, or maybe Dragnet. Gump materially harmed this country.
Gump materially harmed this country.
No more than Cathy or Garfield, though.
A strong moral fiber isn't something I'm often looking for in a film I'd describe as "a fun escapist hollywood movie."
I have trouble seeing a movie as "fun escapist" if it involves lots of people dying for no good reason. On the other hand, this also hampers my enjoyment of just about every James Bond movie from Goldfinger through Die Another Day ("Dude, not all those henchmen are bad! They're just henchmen! They could just as easily be working for you if their lives had gone in a different direction!"), so maybe I'm just a soft-hearted old crybaby.
I was about to type out a defense of Hanks based on the movie Big, but common sense got the better of me.
What "Type", exactly?
I can't speak to the Terminal or Ladykillers, because I haven't seen them. But as far as Saving Private Ryan, Road to Perdition, Apollo 13 and Philadelphia go, in each of them he comes across (to me, anyway) as America's Joe Average plunked down in different what-if situations. What if Joe Average had to deal with being a gay man? Or storm the beach at Normandy? Or survive as a crackerjack hitman? Or face down impossible odds as an astronaut? Et cetera.
In a way, Forrest Gump is this phenomenon taken to the extreme, the Joe Average exaggerated into caricature. Gump is almost a version of Wagner's proto-fascist hero Siegfried, his supernatural virtue stemming from his complete lack of intellect.
I'm not dissing Hanks, here: being effective as a cipher for Joe Average is a specific skill, and he's good at it. Whether you like what it's used for is a different story.
I think what they are talking about is to be a good actor you have to act as if you are on stage, which to me means overacting. Kind of like Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs -- I could never take that character seriously.
I think it's the opposite - that we are overrating the ability to be a chameleon and be virtually unrecognizable from role to role.
Ned, someday you and I are going to have to have a chat about genre.
106: But in these sort of movies, both the people doing the killing and the people doing the dying are about as substantial as comic characters. I'm not a big fan of the genre, but don't have any trouble disassociating this from realistic events.
111 should say `as average comic characters'.
who is the Jimmy Stewart of porn?
I'm not sure, but I think he may have a mustache.
Nice looking actresses don't have to act. They're just in the movie, preferably in skimpy outfits or none, so that guys have something to watch while their wives/ girl friends are engrossed in a sensitive story about relationships.
What would the world be like if movies had the same proportion of fat, homely, wimpy, and ugly people that there are in real life?
I'll tell you what it would be like -- it would be chaos. People would finally see reality as it is, and they wouldn't be able to handle it -- Roseanne Barr and Danny DeVito everywhere. They'd just curl up and die.
Adorno was far too optimistic.
People would finally see reality as it is, and they wouldn't be able to handle it -- Roseanne Barr and Danny DeVito everywhere. They'd just curl up and die.
Actually, I've survived my trips to Wal-Mart just fine.
So far, anyway.
I'll tell you what it would be like -- it would be chaos.
Or UK television, whichever.
Alameida gets it right in 19.
Gary Oldman overacts in almost everything he's in, but he does it with such glee I don't care.
Anderson -- yeah, but what if your fantasy life consisted of trips to Walmart? What if your pornography was Rosanne and Danny?
Or take some movie where you say, "You know, Scarlett isn't that bad an actress." Then imagine Rosanne acting equally well in the same movie. Would anyone go to it?
Emerson, sometimes I want to have your baby.
114: Nice looking actresses don't have to act.
Which is why Showgirls was a blockbuster.
With Scarlett it would have been. Also, the movie itself should have a script and supporting actors and actresses.
Anderson is occupying himself with his candid Rosanne photos as we speak.
121: Correction: Nice looking actors don't have to act if they are also in a well written role.
(Furthermore, good acting won't help a badly written role. In fact, Good writing + nice looking people --> good movie. Nice cinematography is a bonus, but not necessary.)
124: Well, maybe. Though I'm thinking: Julia Stiles as Ophelia in Hamlet vs. Kate Winslet as Ophelia in Hamlet, I'd rather be watching the one who can act. Even though Stiles is technically hotter.
Well, the theory really isn't about 9 vs. 10. It compares 9s and 10s with 6s and below.
Even though Stiles is technically hotter.
I'm a big Julia Stiles fan, but I'm going to ignore everything you say from now on.
And you know, everyone makes fun of Showgirls, but who hasn't seen it?
I haven't seen it. Can't say this thread is convincing me I should.
Ogged is just trying to out people, while occulting his own deepest cravings.
127: It's not an outrageous statement (though I don't know what "technically" in "technically hotter" means). They're both v. attractive, but gettable or near-gettable attractive. That the appeal.
Showgirls bombed because the Internet made porn readily available. Also, everyone really wanted to see Kelly naked, not the Jesse.
I saw it, ogged. You would love it. You should drop what you're doing and go out and rent it this instant.
I've seen it. Gina Gershon is the hot one; are Kelly/Jesse Saved by the Bell characters?
Of course you've seen it. What could I have been thinking?
; are Kelly/Jesse Saved by the Bell characters?
Jeebus Cripes. How are you not already in Guantanamo?
Tim meant, who doesn't like crisp, refreshing Montanagua?
The viceroy of Hungary, apparently.
though I don't know what "technically" in "technically hotter" means
It's a bit backwards. It's actually Winslet who's more classically / "technically" beautiful, but Stiles who is nevertheless hotter.
Le premier seigneur qui en mourut fut l'illustrissime et révérendissime évêque et vice-roi de Hongrie, en 1499, que Bartholomeo Montanagua, grand médecin de Padoue, ne put guérir.
("The first lord who died of [syphilis] was the most illustrious and reverend bishop and viceroy of Hungary, in 1499, whom B.M., great doctor of Padua, could not cure.")
Speaking of Winslet's undeniable hotness, what the hell is up with her being cast opposite Jack Black in the "not attractive but with personality couple" vis-a-vis Diaz/Law in whatever that recent film was called. Law:Black::Diaz:Winslet is completely ludicrous.
Every visit to the cinema leaves me, against all my vigilance, stupider and worse.
No more than Cathy or Garfield, though.
Bah. Get back to me after the Cathy-themed dating service opens and then you may have a point.
How are you not already in Guantanamo?
No one actually watched Saved by the Bell, did they?
143: I never did. Maybe we can share a cell.
I think it's supposed to be Law:Black::Winslet:Diaz, in that they're supposed to be wrongly but understandably paired at the beginning, but still, yes.
I thought it was ogged:apo::SCMT:Screech. I'm so confused.
but gettable or near-gettable attractive
On the one hand, this way of thinking of things seems very odd to me: they're hot but not too hot for you and therefore more hot? On the other: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, are you kidding?
Now I'm lower that Screech!? Oh, the humanity!
On the one hand, this way of thinking of things seems very odd to me: they're hot but not too hot for you and therefore more hot? On the other: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, are you kidding?
Means attractive but in a normal way, at least as presented on the screen. Think of 10 Things. There was no one in your high school who was that pretty or prettier? Bet there were a few people like that. IRL, maybe they're exceptionally attractive.
I think both of the women in question are extraordinarily, extremely, outrageously lovely, and anyone I met in real life -- especially high school -- who was that pretty would not have seemed more likely to deign to kiss me than, say, Angelina Jolie. Less so, rather.
But still, okay, I can understand the idea that they seem "gettable" in that they seem real rather than that kind of extra-glossy fictional-type prettiness you see in many movie stars.
150 - Frankly, I think your Dirty Sanchez video was uncalled for.
Kate Winslet is my fantasy Hollywood wife. It is totally absurd that she's married to a hack like Sam Mendes. American Beauty sends me into a blistering rage, but perhaps Sweet Kate was swayed by his accent.
I have just been given a stern talking-to and Ms. Winslet has been demoted to fantasy Hollywood girlfriend.
(It's so cute when they comment together.)
I read this as porno Jimmy Stewart,
Same here, Apo, and immediately had visions of him doing a six-foot-tall invisible rabbit, shouting "T-t-take it all, bitch! W-w-w-who's yer daddy?"
I would seek help, but I obviously can't talk to a therapist about it.
As for acting, Ossie Davis was the definitive JFK in "Bubba Ho-Tep."
Oh God. Harvey the Six-Foot Poke-ah.
No one actually watched Saved by the Bell, did they?
Oh, I did. Every morning, four years ago. It was on in the mornings when I was having breakfast and otherwise getting ready for work. I found it strangely compelling.
158 is disturbing.
Someone, in college, my roommates and I watched a surprising amount of Saved By The Bell, Boy Meets World, and Blossom. They are, indeed, strangely compelling. Self-evidently bad, and yet one watches.
158: A mental image I did not need. Crikey.
incredibly, astoundingly hott in a peculiar rapacious/sex-with-teh-crazies-is-great way
Every visit to the cinema leaves me, against all my vigilance, stupider and worse.
Well, a fat lot of good all that Kant and Goethe and Beethoven did when the shit came down, eh, Tedifer?
I flipped past Valley of the Dolls this morning and I thought of Unfogged: "Boobies, boobies, boobies. Nothing but boobies."
Anderson is occupying himself with his candid Rosanne photos as we speak.
Why have you been SPYING on me?????
