I’m with SpartanDC – normally, their personalities, personal life, or politics wouldn’t influence me. However, there’s a line. Mel Gibson is thepretty much the only one I can think of who’s crossed it but is still making movies.
Tony Danza is my personal nemesis.
I don’t care how funny Charlie Sheen is, I won’t watch 2 1/2 mens, or even let it air in my house, even the commercials for it get muted or switched.
Alec Baldwin used to piss me off, but I’ve mellowed…
Oh, the Baldwin brothers. All four of them just creep me out, and I don’t know why.
There are certain actors I just have a hard time looking at, nothing to do with their talent. William Macy, John C. Reilly, and Phillip Seymour Hoffman. Rene Zellwegger and any of a number of bleached blond spray-tanned fake-boobed stick insects on TV and in movies. It just pains me to look at them.
I would have to say it’s my personal feelings about certain concepts behind shows that turns me off. I am morally repelled by anything to do with the mafia, porn and prostitution, and tired old romantic comedies where the couple meets cute/hates each other/hooks up at the end. Nothing to do with how good a story it is, I just don’t think there’s anything attractive about the heinous monsters in The Godfather, Horsey McNeigh-Neigh yukking it up in the fairytale Pretty Woman, and I loathe and avoid rom-coms like the bubonic plague. It hardly matters if Reese Witherspoon, Julia Roberts, or Jennifer Anniston is the star since I just refuse to waste two hours of my life watching La Perfecta with truckloads of looks and money pretend to be a harried career gal who just can’t find a man.
[QUOTEThe only actor I can think of that I refuse to go to any movie he’s in is Adam Sandler.
I can’t stand Jim Carrey either.[/QUOTE]
Are you my clone?
Helena Bonham Carter is a dick…and I always think I’ll avoid stuff she’s in… but I really don’t. I thought she was quite good in The King’s Speech.
Not generally, no - there are actors I don’t like so much and actors I love, but it doesn’t generally keep me from seeing things I want to see. The big stuff matters to me, though - I won’t give Roman Polanski any money, and I guess Mel Gibson’s on the list too.
How do you know Paltrow is lifeless? What exactly do you mean by that, anyway?
She doesn’t do it for me either - she’s just there, like a placeholder or something. I’ve liked quite a few of her movies, but never really because of her. She’s like Julia Roberts.
Assuming you are speaking of Paltrow, what you wrote is a criticism of her performance. I took Canvas Shoes to be commenting on her personality.
I rather like her myself.
I don’t mean she literally IS lifeless, she seems like a nice enough person from what I’ve seen in interviews, I mean how she comes across in the characters she plays and in photos etc. In everything I’ve seen her in, she always has this demeanor that is very either depressed looking or stoned looking (though I’m reasonably sure she doesn’t take drugs). It’s probably meant to be this well-bred, classy thing, but it just looks very lifeless to me. There just aren’t any levels to it. She always seems to have this one “well-bred” half smile look in photos and on the red carpet and such as well. She’s very “still”. Some people seem to just vibrate life even when they’re standing still for a photo-op, she’s just not one of them. She’s like a painting, very pretty, perfect body, but seems empty.
The remake to Dial M for Murder, " A Perfect Murder" is one example. The strange (but intriguing) Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow was another, she just was NOT Polly, Polly should have been a lively, vivacious, bursting with life type character. Instead she was this pallid tightly controlled, lady-like at all costs kind of person. Even while she was running away from city destroying giant robots, she was just the same as she’d been while discussing her article with her boss in the story.
Sliding Doors is another that comes to mind, kind of a neat story line, but she was just very bland and “every hair perfectly in place” throughout the entire thing.
I admit to letting my personal feelings color whether or not I’ll see a particular performance. It stems from years and years of working in retail in Los Angeles. Once I got a particular feeling about someone, it was very difficult to get past it. It is based on face to face interactions though, not stories or political ideals, or even arrest history. It’s based on how they interacted with me specifically.
To this day I will NEVER see anything with Hillary Stank? Skank? Swank! That’s it. She was horrible to me on more than one occasion. I’m aware that she’s apparently a brilliant actress and that I am missing out on some fantastic movies, but her face makes me stabby. I wish her a lack of success and will never spend one dime supporting her enterprises, even indirectly.
On the other end of the spectrum, had absolutely wonderful experiences with Ben Affleck and will support anything he does (even, embarrassingly, Gigli). I think he’s a great guy and wish him all the success in the world. Will do whatever teeny tiny bit I can to help it.
I know watching the early “Naked Gun” movies aren’t the same for me since that whole OJ mess. I think that it’s comedy makes the discomfort even worse.
In general, I try not to let real life intrude on fantasy, and vise versa. It’s not a good idea either way.
If I had let my feelings about a guy who meets with dictators affect me watching them act, I would have never loved Milk.
I’ve let an actor’s role affect the way I feel about him, and it affects whether I watch films he’s in. I love Denzel Washington. I think he’s an amazing actor. I would still tell you that I love Denzel Washington.
But I watched Training Day, and I found his character so repugnant and upsetting and wholly evil that I can’t watch anything else he’s in. I didn’t get up from watching *Training Day * and decide never to watch another Denzel film. But I just … can’t. Unless I’ve seen it before. I can watch Glory, because I know what he’s going to do.
I am aware that this does not make a great deal of sense. But you asked.
No, I tend not to let it bother me. Example: I hate Tom Cruise with a passion. But A Few Good Men remains one of my favorite movies.
Really? Really?
I have only seen Gweneth Paltrow in two movies (Se7en and The Royal Tenenbaums) which were both over 10 years ago. I didn’t think too much of her acting, but I thought that she personally seemed OK on the few times I saw her on talk shows or other interviews.
I recently saw her on a PBS series called “Spain-On The Road Again” which was a travel and cooking show shot on location in Spain. I have to say while Ms. Paltrow tried hard to portray herself as down-to-Earth and just another gal next door, I got the distinct impression that she is actually quite a little diva when the camera is off and in reality is just another semi-talented star who is very impressed with herself.
Scientologists are nuckin’ futs, but I never shunned a movie just because Cruise or Travolta was in it. I would even have rented Battlefield Earth, if not warned away by near-unanimous public opinion that it is the worst thing in the history of things.
I can’t stand Tom Cruise, but I liked “The Last Samauri” a lot. Of course, having lots of pretty horses and kickass weapons helped, but it wasn’t a bad movie on its own.