An actor may be considered, by the rest of the world, to be a brilliant and moving artist. But for some reason, every time you see him or her in a film, it’s like fingernails on a blackboard.
Here are the three that have that effect on me:
Jennifer Connelly - Yikes!
Cate Blanchett - I’ve never believed her for more than two nanoseconds
Sean Penn - All his characters have one thing in common - they could all use a good, hard beating.
Who among the critic’s darlings gives you the willies?
Shia LaBeouf, I can’t stand that kid. I used to hate Leo, but Departed made me change my opinion. I can’t see the Sean Penn hate. Granted he use to just be Madonna’s crazy BF, but I think he’s legit as far as acting goes. The Wahlbergs made a noteworthy transition as well IMO.
I vote for Kirsten Dunst. I didn’t love her before Spiderman, but I absolutely deplored the whiny, spineless character she played in those movies, and now I can’t think of anything else when I see her in a film.
Not because of the latter’s choice of faith or the former’s treatment of hotel personnel. They just don’t do it for me.
Cruise, IMO, is an overrated no-talent hack. The first and so far the only time I enjoyed a movie he was in was COLLATERAL and I think that was due more to Jamie Foxx.
Russell Crowe…I don’t know. Something about his face that rubs the wrong way with me. Oh, I’m sure GLADIATOR kicked all sorts of asses but I won’t be buying/renting any dvds of this guy anytime soon.
Technically three of the five brothers have acted as a career.
You may remember Donnie Wahlberg as being the “Bad boy” member of New Kids On The Block. His younger brother mark, was best known as “Markie Mark” of “Feel the Vibrations” fame. They both act, and I can’t bring myself to say anything negative about their acting skills. I think that they are both talented actors. Robert Wahlberg, I have no idea about.
I enjoyed their movies for awhile. I actually think they are both pretty funny guys. However, once they both signed contracts to be in every single new movie they became unwatchable to me.
(I’m actually expecting to see them digitally inserted into older films any day now.)
Will Ferrell- I think he’s one of the least funny men on the planet. He’s an obnoxious imbecile in everything.
Jude Law- he’s pretty to look at and has some talent, but there’s just something about me that irrationally dislikes him. He seems like he’d be utterly vapid and obnoxious and it makes his characters seem the same way.
Ben Affleck- a friend of mine described him brilliantly when she said he looks and acts like a former frat-boy date-rapist.
Owen Wilson- sad to hear about his problems, but I can’t stand his acting (or lack of) and “I’m a bad ass, but loveable” twist on every role. (And are he and Ben Stiller engaged in Vermont or something?)
Jessica Lange- I know she’s won an Oscar but the Empress is butt-nekkid. She confuses modulating her voice with acting.
I feel the same way about Stiller. He has some genuine comedic and acting talent, no doubt, but I’m sick of his one-trick-pony lovable-loser type character. I was disgusted by his butchery of the character of Starsky in the awful Starsky and Hutch remake - in the original, Starsky was always the real hardass of the two, the one who was genuinely a tough as nails motherfucker. The ridiculous movie turned him into another cookie-cutter Stiller Nebbish.
Any/all of them. I just can’t make myself care about people hired for their looks pretending to be someone else, using a script written by someone else, financed by “moguls” and spoonfed to the idiotic masses, who apparently have nothing better to do than go “ooh, shiny!”.