I thought it would be a great idea to continue our 'Ask Critic' corner that pengin had started. This week in Entertainment Weekly the question posed was... "Has there been a movie role so heinous that the actor would be paying for it for years to come?" I believe it was Lisa Schwartzbaum who replied by giving Faye Dunaway and her infamous Mommie Dearest role as the definitive answer.
Having not seen that movie, I can't say it to be true or not (I thought the movie was supposedly a camp classic, but perhaps not). Either way, I was eager to hear what you guys may think of it as well as any other crimes against acting you may recall. Obviously there is terrible acting in nearly every flick, but was there a role that a renowned actor just completely missed the mark on and they have yet to be washed of their sins? One example I can think of is Sean Connery and the horrendous League of Extrodinary Gentlemen, a movie so bad both its lead and its director have yet to return to film-making. I even heard a rumor that Connery was thinking of returning to Bond in order to jump-start his career.
Having not seen that movie, I can't say it to be true or not (I thought the movie was supposedly a camp classic, but perhaps not). Either way, I was eager to hear what you guys may think of it as well as any other crimes against acting you may recall. Obviously there is terrible acting in nearly every flick, but was there a role that a renowned actor just completely missed the mark on and they have yet to be washed of their sins? One example I can think of is Sean Connery and the horrendous League of Extrodinary Gentlemen, a movie so bad both its lead and its director have yet to return to film-making. I even heard a rumor that Connery was thinking of returning to Bond in order to jump-start his career.
3 comments:
Hmm...excellent choice going with LXG...just awful. I also agree with Schwartzbaum to a degree. Dunaway was ruined by that role...never had another decent one in her career. But, it ended up being so iconic, that it has made her sort of legendary.
My vote would have to go to C. Thomas Howell for Soul Man. Between ET, The Outsiders, and (the forever-awesome) Red Dawn, Howell had established what looked to be a promising career. Then he did Soul Man. That was 21 years ago. Since then...he's done Gettysburg, the literally painful Gods and Generals, and the almost as painful Hidalgo. So...yeah. I'd say he paid pretty well for the whole black-face thing.
Well there's always the dismal classic "Manos: Hands of Fate" a movie that I can't even watch to make fun of, over half the cast committed suicide. There's no "Trying out for Bond" to jump start their careers. Dead.
I think Michael Keaton fits the description. Personally, I wish the guy would have a "zeppelin landed on his head" but the man was doing extremely well at one point. He was Batman, the man was Beetlejuice, he was in Jackie Brown. He did a couple of romantic comedies (Speechless and Multiplicity) that are probably on every middle aged housewives Netflix list. Then Jack Frost happened and I never saw him again until White Noise. Let's not talk about either.
Just off the top of my head there are a bunch of films that fit in this category.
The first tier are those that had huge bombs that could have crippled their careers but they eventually rebounded. Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman in Ishtar, Eddie Murphy's gigantic bust The Adventures of Pluto Nash, and to a degree Kevin Costner has recovered from the double dip of Waterworld and The Postman to at least recapture smaller parts like Rumor Has It... and The Upside of Anger. Another example of this would be Governor Arnold's Last Action Hero.
I think it's much harder actually for a director to recover, and that brings on tier two. Guy Ritchie destroyed any goodwill from Lock, Stock and Snatch with Swept Away. Since then? He's only done Revolver, a crappy rehash of his former crime material.
Then we have Martin Brest, who once upon a time directed Beverly Hills Cop and Midnight Run back-to-back, only to have Gigli effectively end his career. Barry Sonnenfeld suffered dramatically for Wild Wild West and is still stuck making crappy films like RV... he did Get Shorty dammit!
But the two most notorious disasters have to be Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate which succeeded only in destroying The Deer Hunter director's career. And, well, Cutthroat Island, which while directed by a hack (Renny Harlin) still managed to shut down an entire subgenre of Pirate movies until Disney hit it big with their theme park movie.
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