I could have shortened that -
How to tell if you’re watching a bad Nicolas Cage Movie: Nicolas Cage is in the movie.
Hey now, he was great in Werewolf Women of the SS!
By “them” I mean “pretty pop princesses.” And they do keep giving them movie roles. Jessica Simpson was filming another film a few months ago.
While I’m speaking about attractive singers that shouldn’t have been handed movie roles, I reluctantly have to add:
*Elvis Presely
Preach it.
Someone mentioned Kim Basinger. So true. LA Confidential was a real shitty movie.
And of course Tom Cruise – Risky Business, Rain Man, A Few Good Men, Magnolia, Born On the Fourth of July, were all pure shit too.
With the possible exception of Steven Seagal-- though I found Executive Decision a tolerable thriller–I can think of good movies, often great movies, featuring any of the actors listed so far.
I put Tom Cruise on my list. And to be fair, I should have said "Anything after “Eyes Wide Shut.” (I didn’t see “Magnolia.”) That’s the time that he seemed to lose his golden touch for picking good movies. And maybe I’m harder on him because he SHOULD be making better movies because I believe he’s a good actor. Unfortunately “Mission Impossible IX” and the laughable “Last Samurai” are a far cry from his earlier body of work.
Name one with Pauli Shore.
I enjoyed “Pauly Shore is Dead.” But I don’t know if it’s considered a good movie.
Gotta give it points for having a great title.
I thought Mission Impossible 3 was a better-than-average popcorn action movie (and easily the best of the 3). Cruise was fine, although the movie was stolen by Philip Seymour Hoffman. Minority Report was, if a tad overambitious and 10% too weird-for-the-sake-of-being-weird, overall fascinating and enjoyable. And War of the Worlds is a movie that I think the SDMB in general vastly underrates. It had its flaws (in particular, the extreme deus ex machina nature of the defeat of the invaders, followed by the too-happy final ending), but it also had some incredibly gripping and mesmerizing moments, and Cruise was (I thought) actively good in it. The scenes where he’s just trying to be a dad to his kids in the midst of this incredibly incomprehensible disaster were totally believable. Dakota Fanning is certainly overexposed, but there’s a reason for it… she really can act.
I guess my point is that about none of those three movies would I say either “well, that would have been an extremely good movie, except that the terrible acting of Tom Cruise dragged it down”, or “that movie was exactly like every other Tom Cruise movie… you’ve seen one you’ve seen 'em all” (which, must as I hate to make broad statements of that sort, could certainly be directed towards your Rob Schneiders and David Spades*).
*Not to be confused with your Jim Carreys, Adam Sandlers, Will Ferrells and Ben Stillers, who, although they each have an obvious “style” of predictable commercially-successful comedy that they often make, have branched out and done truly different, and I’d say high quality, work. (ie Man in the Moon and The Truman Show; Punch Drunk Love and Spanglish; Stranger than Fiction; and Permanent Midnight and (arguably) Mystery Men.
Hey, waitaminnit! OFOTCN is anything but forgettable! (Though Lloyd’s contribution to it probably is.)
:o
I confess to liking Encino Man, if only for Brendan Fraser and Sean Astin.
Shoot me now, please.
*We had very nearly managed to erase all evidence of the one called Pauly Shore from Human consciousness when you came along and blew if for us.
We will begin again.
And you will pay for this.*
True. I think people are coming form the direction of “this movie will be guaranteed not to be liked by me”, instead of “this movie will be guaranteed to be terrible.” Whether or not you LIKE people like Tom Cruise, Mel Gibson, etc. that doesn’t change the fact that they’ve done some critically-acclaimed movies in their time, as opposed to critically reviled ones. Sure, I used to loathe Leo DiCaprio back when he was basically a pretty boy in every role (and I’m a hetero girl, for cryin’ out loud), but he’s done some great films since then, and has shown he has range, so he’s redeemed himself as far as I’m concerned.
And let’s not forget Taxi - the role of Reverend Jim was considered brilliant, and largely put him on the map.
I think it’s time we all tried a little harder 
Bringing up matinee fodder like Tara Reid and Pauly Shore is a good start. With actors like those, you generally tend to see them in movies made to harness their limited skills, and are thus lower on the totem pole. In addition to these fine thespians, I submit the following:
- Carrot Top…do I really need to elaborate?
- Ashton Kutcher…tried to do a serious role with The Butterfly Effect, which didn’t exactly do gangbusters. The rest of his resume is pretty bleak.
- Ice Cube…Anaconda, Friday, Are We There Yet, etc. The Barbershop movies were marginally good (in the same sense that most Adam Sandler films are), but that’s mostly not due to him.
- any WWE “wrestler”. Exhibit A: John Cena of The Marine fame. I’m still not sold on The Rock just yet.
- Jamie Kennedy and Tom Green…painfully unfunny dudes whose filmographies consist mainly of lowbrow comedies. If I want to see gross-out, frat-boy-style humor, I can think of better films with other actors.
Wasn’t it after his “early success” that he was nominated for a freakin’ Academy Award? I believe that particular movie has a pretty good reputation.
Oh, and another Christopher Lloyd classic: Clue. I cannot leave this thread without bringing up Clue. 
Edited to add: Maybe the reason why folks keep bringing up actors they don’t personally like is that, for them, that actor’s presence in a movie drags down the entire production irredeemably. Now, I can’t see how, based on some of these names, but it’s certainly possibl, maybe even understandable.
Anyone going to argue that Tor Johnson was ever in a movie that wasn’t a steaming pile of the best?
OK, that’s a great list people gave of actors and actresses they don’t like. Now, has anyone addressed the OP yet?
I especially like the Ben Kingsley one. WTF? I don’t think having his name in the credits brought down Searching for Bobby Fischer, Schindler’s List, Sneakers, Sexy Beast, Gandhi, House of Sand and Fog and a bunch of others…sure, he made some clunkers, but “actor whose mere name in the credits will pretty much guarantee a shitty movie”? So that’s the reason A.I. was so boring…
There are few names that *guarantee *a pile of crap. There are many whose name is a warning.
A few sure craptastic names:
Kirstie Alley
Andy Dick. (TV mainly, thank gawd)
Carrot Top.
Warning! Names include:
Tom Cruise (recent only)
Travolta (again, recent only)
and many others mentioned above. But they are only names that when seen should cause one to carefully rethink spending that $10 to see that film.
I knew this thing was going to devolve into “Actors I hate.”
As to the point of the thread, I was really going for the “certain character actors who appear in movies. They are not untalented, but their script choices are utter horseshit.”
Poster boy for this: Lance Henriksen.
Earlier in the thread, someone actually had the temerity to defend John Carradine. Good actor? I guess. But for every Stagecoach there were 20 Red Zone Cubas. Fuck John Carradine. He used his name to advertise utter shit.
I’m afraid you misread my post.
Assuming OFOTCN is, in this case, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, that’s on my list of Good Movies (any one of which would make up for all of his Forgettable Movies).