I like Sean Young in some of the things she has done…
But in two of my favorite movies: Blade Runner and Ace Ventura, she was awful.
Exactly.
Tarantino has several little scenes in that sequence, and his interaction with Jules and Vincent is completely different from the way he interacts with Winston Wolf. Jules doesn’t frighten him at all; two blood-soaked gangsters show up and he’s clearly just pissed at them. In the face of Winston Wolf, he’s visibly dominated, but he acts it correctly - just the right tilt in his voice, slightly different mannerisms. He plays the part quite well. Everyone remembers the “did you notice a sign on my front lawn” speech, but his scene with Harvey Keitel is excellent acting on both sides.
In any event, it’s a small part; even if he did blow it big time, it’s kind of smooshed by performances like Glen Campbell in True Grit, since he’s in a lot of the movie.
Not his fault, they hired a Irish dialog coach. He laughs about it to this day.
Two excellent choices, particularly Campbell.
I’m going to throw in Brandon DeWilde from Shane. Among the best Westerns ever, and there’s this whiny kid running all through it.
Perhaps the OP might consider eliminating child actors from nominations. There have been tons of kids being nothing but annoyances in really good movies. Jurassic Park comes to mind.
He was perfect in O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Jessica Alba in Sin City. Hell, Jessica Alba in anything. Fantastic Four might have had a chance without her.
Well, he was an adult in Hud. Was clearly overshadowed by the other 3 main stars: Newman, Douglas and Neal. Maybe some of the secondary players were worst.
Reminder regarding Pulp Fiction: This movie had Kathy Griffin in it. Small role but definitely the worst performer. “Who?” “Him!”
The first one that comes to mind is John C. Reilly in Magnolia. Love that movie, but man he was way out of his element. I do like him in dumb comedies like Step Brothers.
Brendan Fraser, whom I don’t dislike, probably has one of the worst filmographies ever. But apparently he’s good at playing a student because With Honors and School Ties were a couple really good movies in which he was actually pretty great.
“Gran Torino” is considered by many to be a great movie.
My problem is that Asian kid {Tau?} that Clint takes under his wing and mentors. I mean, his acting is so bad that even though I still watch the movie, I skip the parts that have Tau in it.
Seriously? All the role demanded was that she look sexy, and she surely did.
Performance By The Worst Overall Actor/Actress In a Great Movie, Given Their Entire Body of Work, But In This Movie He/She Was Not As Terrible As They Usually Are
Melanie Griffith in “Nobody’s Fool”, one of Paul Newman’s greatest roles and a truly excellent film. And she was not bad in it, given her acting in the past.
Jennifer Tilly, one of the truly worst actors of our (or any) time, did a credible job in Woody Allen’s Bullets Over Broadway, a pretty decent movie with an otherwise killer cast. She (and we) are much better off now that she’s playing poker for a living.
My gripe with Hulce in Amadeus was his pathetic “conducting”. I’m quite sure Mozart could do more in front of an orchestra than just randomly wave his arms about.
ETA: Re: Jennifer Tilly. Love her sister, hate her.
The only argument against it is that Breakfast at Tiffany’s isn’t that great a movie, which personally, as someone who read the book first, I found it disappointing. I recognize that it’s extremely popular. I actually think Audrey Hepburn was a terrible Holly Golightly, but I also realize that no one who hasn’t read the book agrees. And people who read the book, but saw the movie first, still tend to like the movie.
Kathy Griffin is not a good actress. She is a great stand-up comic, but she really can’t act.
I liked Matthew Broderick in Glory, if for no other reason that the reminder that prior to WWI, military commanders in battle were often very young men, because it was mostly about social standing and college, and less about experience.
What he was terrible in was The Music Man, which was proof that no matter how great a show is, it’s still possible to screw it up. I have seen high school performances of The Music Man that were better than the remake with Broderick.
y’all have danced with this, but no one has said it: Keanu Reeves in “The Matrix”. I really like the movie. He stinks.
Buscemi is in Pulp Fiction, he’s the waiter.
… which is *still * better acting by far than “Oh, is it raining? I didn’t notice” from 4WaaF. And than “He has a laaat of positive qualities” or whatever the hell that appalling line in the interview is in GC. We’re talking teak here, not willow.
Fake sexy, not like the girls from Old Town.
True on both counts.
Not bad in the Producers remake, which was no where near as funny as the original- but better music.
I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before, but there’s a film from 1939 called Only Angels Have Wings. It’s brilliant. It’s about the lives of freighter pilots, which were pretty dicey in 1939. It stars Cary Grant and Jean Arthur. It co-stars one of the greatest actors from the silent film era, Richard Barthelmess. He frequently starred across Lillian Gish in DW Griffith movies. He received one of the few Oscar nominations for silent film performance.
He is really wooden in this movie, and I don’t get why, unless someone told him “Don’t be a silent film actor: don’t use your face and body, just your voice.” His voice is very good, and his line delivery is convincing, but they might as well have a log in his place, and this is a guy who used to do his own stunts because the job “stuntman” hadn’t been invented. His face and body were amazing in his silent movies: he really does deserve his reputation.
Or maybe he really just wanted to be retired. He made just three more films, and then quit, even though he was just in his forties and would live another 20+ years. I do know he joined the Navy during WWII, but I don’t think he was wounded-- he just retired after the war, and didn’t work in entertainment again, not even TV.
This is the movie that tried to replace Robert Duvall with George Hamilton and hoped we wouldn’t notice.
There’s another thread where a guy is trying to find the name of a movie where people were hiding from Nazis, and it reminded me of a joke germane to this thread:
A woman playing the title role in a production of The Diary of Anne Frank was such a terrible actress that when the Nazis showed up, the audience yelled, “She’s under the bed!”