Toni Collette and Emily Watson are two actors who are always fascinating to watch. Can’t say I’ve seen everything either has been in, and that’s a lot of pictures. But they are both very adaptable, can play glamorous or plain characters, and always do their best to disappear into a role, which may be why they get a lot of work, Collette especially.
My own film track record has been, I’ll cheerfully admit, spotty. My reputation for being “difficult” on-set hadn’t helped, but in my defense, some of these crew people make you want to tear your hair out, and noisily stomping off into your trailer is frankly the more polite option.
I challenge anyone to turn me to a bad film made by his boys, Charlie and Emilio. The missus and I watched Men At Work just the other night. Godawful 80s trope fest, but fun as hell.
Also, I’ll put up Colin Farrell and Ewan McGregor (and yes, even THOSE movies weren’t “bad”)
In the context of JCVD making me think of Arnold Schwarzenegger, I put all of your listed bad Schwarzenegger movies ahead of all the good JCVD movies in terms of objective quality. (Production value, acting, cinematography, etc…)
I get and kind of agree with the idea that Jean-Claude Van Damme movies are all mindless fun, and they’re pretty consistent in their quality, so if you like one you probably like them all. But even Arnold’s bad movies were better than the “JCVD line” (like the Mendoza line in baseball) plus Arnold has multiple legitimately good or possibly great ones in the mix.
Edit: Commando is a tough rewatch, or at least it was for me last time I caught a bit of it, maybe 10 years ago. That one might be below the JCVD line.
If you’re saying that A Cry in the Dark (1988) was one of the films that made Streep’s name, she had many major successes from a decade before, with Holocaust (1978), The Deer Hunter and Kramer vs Kramer (1979), and then in Sophie’s Choice (1982) and Out of Africa (1985). She had 5 Academy Award nominations and 2 wins by 1987.
My first thought was a non-actor like Quintin Tarantino, who inserts himself into his own movies, who doesn’t take a lead role (like his supporting roles in Pulp Fiction or Reservoir Dogs), but then I remembered Destiny Turns On the Radio, which was hideously awful.
And the “Adam Sandler rule” obviously disqualifies Al Pacino.
What about Mark Ruffalo? Even before his Marvel venture, he’d been in You Can Count On Me and The Kids Are Alright and Spotlight.
I didn’t say anything remotely resembling that. Perhaps you meant to quote someone else. If it’s not clear, I’m saying A Cry in the Dark is a joke, and I didn’t say anything else about Meryl Streep.