Oh, man you are evil. Can I be your friend?
My vote goes to Adrian Pasdar. After Near Dark and Profit I thought He could have really gone somewhere, but instead bupkis. His most recent role? Skeet Machine Salesman in Secondhand Lions. It’s just sad.
I would also add Parker Posey, also of Blade: Trinity. She never seems to land any rolls other than screeching she-bitch.
Reynolds was freakin hillarious in that movie though.
Thought I’d mention Carol Kane as well, she seemed to hover around household-name sorta recognition there for a while (Annie Hall, The Muppet Movie, tv series Taxi), then kept working but produced nothing really remarkable that I can recall, other than that bit in The Princess Bride with Crystal.
What a cutie!
Heck, she was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar for Hester Street.
Karen Allen - She was ‘Boone’ in Animal House, and had a big breakout performance as Marion in Raiders of the Lost Ark. She also co-starred in ‘Starman’ with Jeff Bridges, then she fell completely off the map.
Speaking of Allens… Nancy Allen. Starring roles in ‘Blowout’, ‘Dressed to Kill’, ‘Robocop’, and a good supporting part in ‘Carrie’. Then she vanished, making movies like, ‘Children of the Corn 666: Isaac’s Return’.
Thanks to Desperate Housewives, four actresses are out of the running for this category.
Diane Franklin from Last American Virgin.
Thinking about this one, I believe Bruce deliberately went for something different. He is, after all, not just a B-movie actor. He’s THE B-movie actor. And while he may turn up on the occaisional Sci-Fi Chanel special, he does get to do things like Bubba Ho-Tep, The Adventures of Brisco County Junior, cameos out the wazoo, etc.
If he had gone for the normal Hollywood career, he might have made more money. But more likely, he would have been pretty forgettable.
Sorvino, who I loved in Might Aphrodite (that voice!) for which she won the Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role, has continued to work, but has not come close to producing any similarly appreciated work since, and was in a Lifetime movie this week.
Also a real cutie!
Fonda, who I found remarkable in Single White Female and Jackie Brown among other roles, has been working mostly in TV lately.
I’d just remind everyone that promising acting careers often don’t stall – they get stalled. It’s not what you’ve done – it’s what you’ve done lately. And you only have to piss off a producer once, or get passed up for a plum role twice or three times.
It’s not their choice necessarily, and it says nothing about their talent, personality, looks or – ironically enough – their public appeal. It’s mostly about their fitness to survive in a tough, subjective top-down business.
Interestingly, Furlong did Crow 4, which a pal of mine who’s a major Brandon Lee fan says is the next best to the original. I’d recommend it.
Kari Wuhrer: Yeah, I know she mainly did skimpy-clothes movies, but she was actually pretty good.
I also nominate Treat Williams. Always liked him.
Lorenzo Lamas! Just Kidding.
Ray Liotta: He’s doen a lot of straight to video stuff after a strong beginning.
I know that.
That would be why I wrote “She’s been back for quit a while now, but not on television.”
She stalled for a number of years during her cancer recovery.
Thoughts on those already mentioned.
Judge Reinhold This one baffles me. His string of credits includes hit after hit until right after Beverly Hills Cop II. Looking over the available evidence, it’s funny you mention Hanks, because “Big” was one of the last of about 17 “Freaky Friday” variants that came out in 1988, where an adult had to pretend to be inhabited by a child. “Big” did $50,000,000 and Reinhold’s version, “Vice Versa” only did $13,000,000. Apparently that’s enough to derail one’s career for nearly two decades. Barring some conscious decision on his part, of course.
Phoebe Cates All Phoebe Cates fans should watch “The Anniversary Party”. Jennifer Jason Leigh, Alan Cumming, Phoebe Cates, and Kevin Kline all play actors who are pretty much themselves. They assess their own and each others’ lives with a certain brutal honesty that must be admired. It’s a bit jarring for people familiar with their careers to see JJL get stung by comments that she’s been phoning it in for years, and to see Phoebe Cates break down and curse the day she gave up career for family.
Paul Le Mat, who was also the young hot rodder who chauffered around an infant Mackenzie Phillips in “American Grafitti”. I can’t imagine why he’s not a major star.
I feel the same about Adam Baldwin (no relation to Alec) who was “My Bodyguard”. He’s been working steadily for years, and seems to have resurfaced in “Firefly”, but he should have been much bigger before now, IMO.
Paul Rudd and Christian Bale were just featured in major blockbuster films this summer. Look for the turnaround in their careers by 2008, at the latest. Bale, who also killed in last year’s “The Machinist” has been building slowly for years, but if the delay was necessary to generate a gem like “Velvet Goldmine”, it was worth the wait. And he’s only 31.
Sam Stone, God love ya, once again we agree in Cafe Society in ways we can only dream of in Great Debates. I’ve regarded the fortunes of both Allens to be great Hollywood tragedies. The inside scoop is that Karen Allen derailed herself during “Raiders of the Lost Ark”, by, in the words of film critic Michael Gebert,“fighting Steven Spielberg every step of the way to provide the only liberated female in any of his films.” Nancy Allen seems to have suffered from a string of bad sequels: Poltergeist III and the two Robocop sequels
Are you kidding me?
Is it even close to autobiographical? Good Og, I’m otw to the nearest Netflix. :mad:
He has just been introduced on Desperate Housewives - so there is hope yet
To a point. However, I read his autobiography, and it seemed like he had tried to go A-list, but just couldn’t break through. Rather than taking boring roles and hoping for the best, he took leading roles in B-work.
Raoul Bova, the extremely dishy Italian actor whose breakout role for English-speaking audiences was as Diane Lane’s lover in Under the Tuscan Sun. Unfortunately for his American fans, he’s done a string of Italian productions, including TV work, though punctuated by his forgettable role as human fodder in AVP: Alien Vs. Predator. He’s currently in an American TV show slated to air in 2006 (What About Brian) – but, considering the fate of the majority of TV shows, that’s not a particularly promising development.
She also suffered from getting divorced. Most of her major roles were in movies directed by her husband Brian de Palma. After their divorce in 1984, she only had one more big role (in Robocop in 1987).
My two favorites from the 80’s, early 90’s seem to have run up against some kind of wall. Christian Slater was HUGE after Heathers but after a few other movies, you just don’t see him in good parts. And Val Kilmer too. Although I think his might have been a more self-determined choice. He shows up in really edgy, out-of-the-mainstream stuff like Wonderland and The Salton Sea.