Urgh. A very interesting film for the visual effects but otherwise not a very good one (which has nothing to do with Williams - I just thought that the plot took a backseat to the special effects).
I do agree that he does dark, twisted and/or bitter well; I remember his guest appearance on Homicide: Life on the Streets as the husband of a woman killed by a mugger, which I found deeply moving. He also had a small but darkly comic role in Dead Again which I recommend (a good film up to the last fifteen minutes when it gets predictable and sloppy).
Looking at the picture of Val Kilmer further upthread, am I the only who thought “Ignatius Reilly”?
also, the green mile (1999). i’m not a fan, really, but he clearly doesn’t qualify for this list. and for what it’s worth, i think road to perdition is one of the greatest films to come out of that decade. it’s a masterpiece
It’s already been pointed out upthread that Spacey is running the Old Vic. Hardly mediocrity. He’s currently starring in Richard III, directed by Sam Mendes.
Clint Eastwood is the obvious candidate. The man seems to go from strength to strength and has been a major star for 50 years.
Sean Connery. Big in the 60s. Worked steadily through the 70s. Made an absolutely huge comeback in the mid 80s with “Highlander” and basically made a new hit movie every 12 months until he retired.
Concur. That list seems mostly to be recent movies…big ones, sure, but almost no OLD big ones (with the possible exception of E.T.). I wonder how much of those big box office totals is due to today’s ever-increasing ticket prices and not just number of viewers. Imagine how much money E.T. in 3-D at $20 a pop would pile up.
I was going to dispute this given some of his later films (The Avengers, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) but looking at IMDB he’s always had a mix of great performances and dubious ones throughout his career (and Finding Forrester came between those two stinkers). I think he just went out on a duff note.
Admittedly, this is at best tangentially on-topic, but how about a mega star director who have fallen into mediocrity?
I was looking at Steven Spielberg’s imdb page and came to a startling realization: of the fifty movies he has directed, I have only seen five of them more than once - and the most recent on of those is from 1993: Jaws (1975), Close Encounters (1977), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), ET (1982), and Jurassic Park (1993).
In fact, the last good movie he directed was Pvt Ryan in 1998 - 13 years ago.
It is interesting to look at his filmography - I get the impression that he was very much working as an actor to make money - there was no fine art involved with him. I also get the impression that he didn’t much care what anyone else thought of his acting or his film choices.
Gotta disagree – Munich, The Terminal and Catch Me if You Can were good though not great movies. War of the Worlds, AI and *Minority Report *were very good movies.
IIRC, the story he tells in interviews is that he was offered the role of Magneto, and passed on it, because he didn’t really understand the story; and was offered the role of Gandalf, and passed on it, because he didn’t really understand the story; and was offered the role of Quatermain in LOXG, and still didn’t really understand the story but took it solely because he’ll be damned if he’ll watch Ian McKellen cash a third enormous paycheck he passed on.
In re Robin Williams: I thought he was good in *Jumanji *and The Bicentennial Man. In fact, I think he does better at the serious roles than the comedic roles.
Sir Laurence Olivier, one of the greatest actors ever, freely admitted toward the end of his life that he took any acting job offered, any at all, for money to leave his heirs. He was in a couple of notorious stinkers - Inchon and The Jazz Singer.
He can ham it up better than anyone. You want overacting, he is your man.
Nowadays, he just does stupid movies.
PS, I liked Joe vs the Volcano and Death to Smoochy was under rated too.
Fifth or sixth or whatever Nic Cage. He’s still a good actor, occasionally even flashes of a great one, but it seems that he will say yes to literally any script that lands in his mailbox. If I remember right he has some money problems, though, so maybe “at least he’s working” is the more optimistic view.
