The Underrated, The Overrated:Part 1
A flawless, heart-rending performance
Who are some underrated actors? Don Cheadle? Alec Baldwin? Patricia Arquette? Bill Pullman? Underrated movies? Jumanji? Garden State? Closer?
What about overrated actors? Nicolas Cage? Keanu Reeves? Melanie Griffith? Overrated movies? Star Wars? Rambo? Finding Nemo?
Here’s my take. Note that when I say overrated or underrated I mean both underrated or overrated by critics or fans–that is, perhaps overrated by critics and/or overrated by fans or vice versa.
1. Ryan Gosling: maybe not especially underrated, he was nominated for an Oscar, but this guy is mostly identified with the romantic film The Notebook in which he was good but not nearly as good as he has been in some of his other films. Check out Half-Nelson, Fracture, and Stay.
2. Ryan Reynolds: he isn’t really known as a brilliant or even a good actor. Some probably know him only because he’s married to Scarlett Johannson. But he acts with a rare passion and competency. His roles aren’t limited to action movies or romantic comedies. Look for him to shine in the future, playing dynamically complex characters in a broad range of films.
3. Maria Bello: I wouldn’t be surprised if you don’t know the name. She was the bar manager in Coyote Ugly, if you
Intrepidly captures her character's essence.
remember that movie. She is versatile and has a presence on the screen that few possess. I wouldn’t be surprised if she one day wins an Oscar. For now, she’ll continue putting forth poignantly emotional and sincere performances. Check her out in A History of Violence and The Cooler.
Overrated Actors:
1. Viggo Mortensen: many will vehemently disagree but I haven’t been really impressed with any of his performances. Especially when one considers how much he’s praised by critics. For me, his performances come off flat and lackluster, though the movies he stars in are quite good.
2. Bruce Willis: he may or may not be overrated. I don’t think movie critics think the world of him but some fans do. His movies have always been entertaining but not because of him. He’s an example of an actor who acts in blockbuster movies but does not try any more complex roles. The Sixth Sense was a small, and unimpressive, digression from this pattern.
3. Nicolas Cage: Name a good Nicolas Cage movie? Maybe you can name a few. But how many movies has this guy played essentially the same character recycled? He follows the same pattern Willis has followed to and while in stardom. Cage has recently been on a tear,
Willis unsuccessfully exploring a new kind of role.
acting in several action thrillers in the past few years–three in 2009 alone. They all aren’t very good. One movie he does actually act in is Adaptation. Cage has ability, I will give him that. More ability than most actors. But he doesn’t seem to test or even use it often. Leaving Los Vegas was Cage at his best.
Top Actors and Actresses
The man.
Who are you favorite actors? Why? I’m into the newer movies so I don’t have much of an opinion about older actors. I love Brando though. Man had talent but it didn’t come easy. The complicated thing here is are they your favorite actors because you like them or because you think they’re the most talented, or both? Even if we love a certain actor, I think we can put that aside when he or she gives a terrible performance. For example, Al Pacino in the execrable 88. Here is my scoring rubric:
Have any other ideas for what should go on the scoring sheet? Well, based on those, these are some of the best to me:
1. Leonardo Dicaprio—has played many different characters, all of them very difficult. Digs deep with every role and
Becomes his character on the deepest levels.
brings something uncanny to every movie. You’ll never see him do a movie like Men in Black. He acts with passion and brings something ingenious to his characters. Dicaprio never gives a lame performance and one has to admire when an actor puts heart and soul into what he’s doing and the result is brilliance.
2. Denzel Washington–best of the best. Intense, dynamic, conquers every role. Denzel brings fire and genius to the movies he chooses to partake in. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Denzel Washington movie that wasn’t very good. He’s got unparalleled talent. Just try telling me a bad Denzel movie. Tell me one you didn’t like. That’s what I thought. He reaches a level of control, competency, and depth when acting that I don’t think any other actor can equal.
3. Halle Berry—Beautiful, fearless, and singularly brings art to her work. She’s taken on some of the toughest roles I’ve seen. She’s not afraid to challenge herself emotionally and temperamently when doing a movie. If you thought Monster’s Ball was brilliant, wait until you see her in The Things We Lost in the Fire. Berry deserved another Oscar for that heart-renching performance. She’s also got some of best range of any actor or actress out there. Check her out in Introducing Dorothy Dandridge. Some might argue Berry is not one of the best out there. But she is. She sets herself apart from the rest by how she reaches beyond the character to the human being in the her roles.
Brave versatility
Violence in movies…
Hey, all.
A very pleasant place to raise the kids.
I saw Watchmen over the weekend and thought it was a pretty violent movie but not especially violent. If you want to see extreme violence, watch The Departed, Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003), The Silence of the Lambs, Saw, or Pan’s Labyrinth. All great movies but horrible violence. In one scene in The Departed, three straight guys get their heads shot off. In the Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003), after sawing off a guy’s leg, Scarface hoists him onto a hook and lets the dying man hang on it before he stuffs a bunch of salt into the remaining stump of his leg and ties a power towel around it to keep the salt stuck in the wound.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre remains the scariest movie I’ve ever seen. That movie bothered me long after I’d watched it. It was really, in the worst sense of the word, sadistic. The silhouette of the dilapidated house against the smoky sky, abandoned to its owners’ devices in the most remote and haunted area one could imagine. I will provide a link so the brave and curious ones can understand what I mean. Warning: do not click this link if you can’t stomach blood and gore. I still don’t get, however, how a 270 pound man, swinging a chainsaw catches a seemingly healthy 25 year old.
Pan's Labyrinth, a violent and spiritual parable.
Is there such thing as too much violence in a movie? Does the rating really mean much? I watched my first R-rated movie when I was 8. I’m going to continue using The Texas Chainsaw Massacre because it was shocking to me. Is that level of violence necessary? The answer I usually get is that if it’s a scary movie, the point is to scare and the movie should be able to be as violent as it wants. Sometimes, in the case of movies that are especially violent but not scary movies per se, the level of violence is meant to depict real life situations and real life can unfortunately be very violent.
I know there’s been discussion over violence in the movies and whether it gets to be too much and how it should be viewed and rated. Think about it. Do you really think that the violence some films contain has the capacity to affect people on a
One psychiatrist you don't want to talk to.
psychological level and make them do violent things? I don’t buy it. I say it can’t be violent enough. If you pay to watch or just sit down and watch a rated-R movie, that means you’d better be willing to watch any degree of violence the film has. If you’re not willing to do that, don’t watch the movie. If we start censoring movies because of angry parents and such then where do you draw the line and how do you objectively censor them without taking away from_ the experience the movies offer for those who are willing to watch them regardless of the violence? I’m not a fan of censoring anything. Movies are a form of art, I believe. Film needs to be as real as possible to affect us as deeply as any other form of art. If you censor it, you’re unfairly limiting the vision of those involved in making the movies. It’s comparable to banning books because of pornographic content.
As Eminem said:
Andrew
Scary Movies…
Few things are as fun as watching a scary film in theaters.
Scary movies. Scary? Really scary? If so, are they worth the scare? Any of them Oscar-worthy? Does that even matter? Probably not. Everyone goes to see scary movies to get creeped out, see some cool horror scenes, or for the sheer entertainment it provides. It’s hard to be critical of a scary film. The question is do they deserve the same caliber of review, praise or scathe, as films of other genres? I don’t think they do. Most of the horror flix I’ve seen have been overly bloody and violent. That’s speaking in generalities but the point remains: is not the purpose of a scary film to scare or to shock?
Here’s a list of some of my favorite scary movies and the ones which were the scariest to me:
1. Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)
I’ll blog more about this at another time.
AB
Do Good Books Make Good Movies?
A great novel...a great film? Oh, I'm not sure.
I recently watched Brideshead Revisted, a novel written by Evelyn Waugh. Waugh wrote that the novel “deals with what is theologically termed ‘the operation of Grace’, that is to say, the unmerited and unilateral act of love by which God continually calls souls to Himself”. The book and film focus on the outdated values and beliefs of the aristocratic English Marchmain family.
The novel was good and the movie was, I thought, very good. The problem some might have with the latter was that it didn’t do much or, said another way, it didn’t say enough. It was a long movie but, overall, not much happened. The scenes were fragile glimpses meant to encompass the sacred and profane memories of Charles Ryder–the novel’s protagonist. However, this was the way in which the book was written and it is a literary technique modernists often used. I respect that the director stayed in tune and true to the nature of the novel but I can see people walking away wondering what it all meant and, if there were deeper meaning, was it worth understanding and did the film do enough to evidence it.
Does brilliance on the page translate into brilliance on the screen?
The discussion is do good or even excellent books translate into good or even excellent movies? I think of Mystic River, a novel by Dennis Lehane, and winner of a few awards (among them a few Oscars), The Great Gatsby, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, etc.
I don’t have a definitive answer but I’ll post again tonight and talk a little more about it. For now, mull it over.
Is that the truth, Carl?
"No one's chasing you this time"--Dicaprio with the real Frank Abagnale Jr.
Have you ever seen Catch Me If You Can? Leonardo Dicaprio plays the most successful conman/impostor in the history of the United States, Frank Abagnale Jr. Do yourself a favor: go out to the rental store and rent it, or go on to NetFlix and get it, or find it on youtube as I did. Dicaprio is excellent, encompassing not only Abagnale’s smooth tense confidence but also the unfortunate effects his parent’s divorce had on him. Tom Hanks plays Carl Hanratty, the FBI agent who pursues and eventually catches Abagnale. Christopher Walken gives a stellar portrayal of Abagnale’s tired and dejected father.
I was surprised when the movie ended. I’ll ruin the surprise but most people know the backstory before they watch the movie. Abagnale’s singular expertise and knowledge of checks and fraud were noticed by the FBI. They brought him in after he had served fewer than five years of his sentence and he worked for the FBI detecting fraud and scam artists until his parole was up.
Abagnale had a hard time finding a job:
After his release Abagnale tried several jobs, including cook, grocer and movie projectionist, but he was fired from most of these upon having his criminal career discovered via background checks and not informing his employers that he was a former convict. Finding them unsatisfying, he approached a bank with an offer. He explained to the bank what he had done, and offered to speak to the bank’s staff and show various tricks that “paperhangers” use to defraud banks. His offer included the clause that stated if they did not find his speech helpful, they would owe him nothing; otherwise, they would only owe him $500, with an agreement that they would provide his name to other banks. The banks were impressed by the results, and he began a legitimate life as a security consultant.
Catch him if you can...
He has continued to work with and assist the FBI throughout his life ad even had a small part in Catch Me If You Can as one of the officers who arrested Abagnale. So there you have it. Abagnale tricked the world, impersonated an attorney, doctor, pilot, and a teaching assistant. At about the halfway point in the movie Hanratty tells Abagnale’s mother that he owed the government $1.5 million. And despite all the laws he broke and turmoil he caused, he didn’t even spend five years behind bars. I’m not petitioning for him to be put back in prison. I admire his intelligence and his cleverness. But it’s worthy of discussion. Could this happen today?
Abagnale said he did what he did because at the time he needed a lot of money. In the film, though, his motivation is his father. Abagnale was affected by his father’s plight. Dicaprio portrays a kid, just 16 when he was committing these crimes, desperately hoping he can bring his family back together and”get back” all the money the government had supposedly taken from his father. You can’t help but sympathize with Abagnale as the movie progresses. After all, he’s just a heartbroken kid, right?
When Hanratty asks him how he cheated on the Louisianna bar exam, Abagnale responds: “I studied for two weeks and passed.”
GUP 