I have to admit, as I’m working my way through the DVDs, I really don’t like most of the characters on Sports Night. Everyone on that show thinks they’re so fucking smart and cute and clever, but it comes across like Seinfeld, only that they’re actually kinda nice to each other (sometimes) instead of being complete monsters. Dana (Felicity Huffman) is a self-absorbed flake and a twit, Jeremy (Joshua Malina) is a judgmental, bitter nerd, and Natalie (???) is a yappy Pomeranian in human form.
I don’t dislike the anchors Casey (Peter Krause) and Dan (Josh Charles) nearly as much, but they’re also too slick and pompous and convinced of their own perfection. They’re all obnoxious know-it-alls, and given the choice, I’d rather hang out with the bastards from Seinfeld, who would be mean and rude to my face, rather than act like the Get-Along Gang while I was around and snark on me behind my back.
They are all extremely unprofessional, on top of everything else. But at least the minor character Kim (Kayla Blake) is a real hottie.
Actually, I think Colin Baker was the victim of circumstances. Potentially he could have been an excellent Doctor if only he had been given some decent scripts to work with. The idea of a rude and selfish Doctor was interesting. Sadly every script he was given was diabolically awful, and his short reign stank.
Sylvester McCoy was just a bad idea from the start.
I actually thought Vivi comes off better in Little Altars Everwhere. In most of the book, the stories told by the kids portray a fun-loving, hilarious, doting mother. Then towards the end you see the horrible side. The Divine Secrets is much more “anti-Vivi” IMHO. But I admit it’s been awhile since I read the latter book.
But I agree 100% with you about Siddalee. In fact, I don’t sympathize with her or her brothers. Yes, their mother went beserko on their asses that one night and had a caustic tongue when she was drunk (which was often, true), but listening to them talk about her you’d think she was the worse mother ever. She was a piece of work, but still. Their lives were not particularly tragic. And Siddalee is a self-absorbed attention whore.
I usually find a way to sympathize with the protagonist of a story, but I initially had a hard time summoning up sympathy for Dolores Price in She’s Come Undone. She wasn’t a particularly lovable character. She eventually grew on me but it took time.
Although I did have sympathy for him, I admit that the protagonist in Ferrol Sam’s Run with the Horseman was irritating to me sometimes. I don’t have a violent bone in my body, but even I wanted to beat him up for being such a goody-two-shoes.
The main character in Garden State. Instead of facing his family and his fears, he runs away to California, but doesn’t get off the pills he’s on and ostensibly hates, and then whines about his lack of independence when the lack of independence is totally self-inflicted. Dude, grow. a. spine. Also, I am sick of these teen movies that focus on rich, overprivileged white teens who have it so rough. Give me someone with real problems. The only person I had sympathy for was the dead mother, for having to bear a kid like him and all that he did to her.
Also, the people in this movie talk like Californians, not New Jerseyans. As someone who pays attention to regional accents in movies and appreciates when they are done right, this pissed the hell out of me. Not really a characterization problem, but a problem nonetheless.
He’s a pill-popping sullen adulterer, she’s a whiny twit with a peppy stage personality I’d like to strangle her for, and there’s two hours of unrequited love between them. Gah! Talk about deserving each other.
Forgetting television for a minute, in the movies I couldn’t stand either of the two main male characters in “Sideways”. One is a self-centered snob who steals money from his mother and the other cheats on his in-one-week-to-be wife.
Morpheus from The Matrix. I loathed his every on-screen moment.
Practically any character in Spider-Man 2. Peter Parker in particular was a wussy doormat. And while I totally get that Doc Oc was a tortured villain, every time he’d carry on a monologue to his arms, I kept expecting him to end each sentence with 'Isn’t that right, Mr Hat?’, in the voice of Mr Garrison from South Park. (To be fair, it may have got better. I walked out about 2/3 into it.)
Also, I’m not entirely sure the character was meant to be sympathetic, but Elijah Price in *Unbreakable * (played by Samuel L Jackson) was so completely over-acted that I developed a reflex reaction of disgust, and hated-on-sight any other characters I saw Jackson play afterwards. :smack: (I eventually got over it… more or less… with The Incredibles, since he does do a great job of voicing Frozone.)
I would vote *Unbreakable * as one of the worst films ever. Okay, sure, it’s not as bad as Steve Martin’s version of Cheaper by the Dozen… but (along with Spider-man 2) it’s in the Top 5.