That’s what came to mind too. I don’t have enough familiarity with Mickey Rooney to know if it was a bad performance, or if he’s a bad actor.
He was teenage actor, a mega-star, huge Hollywood stud. As an adult he wasn’t much of anything. Growing up in the 60’s and 70’s I’d hear the stories of this man who bedded all of the hottest actresses of an earlier era, then see him appear on TV talk shows and he was a short balding pudgy old man. He was a box office draw as a teen idol, he was a competent actor, but never a great actor.
Bad casting, not his fault.
It was worse than bad casting. Almost any actor would have looked terrible in that role, because it was a terrible idea. If they had cast an Asian actor and made the role something other than a ridiculous stereotype it probably would have been OK.
I never was a big fan of Mickey Rooney; I tend to prefer fare a little darker than Andy Hardy. But he was alright in Erik the Viking. And yeah, the over-the-top character in Breakfast at Tiffany’s was awful.
Mickey Rooney was a very fine actor at times. He was also a complete and total zonked out jerk at other times. He was very volatile.
Note that he did get a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for The Black Stallion in 1980 at age 59. This was considered reasonable if a bit of a career nod.
Sugar Babies on Broadway was also considered quite good in that same era. Also a Tony nomination there.
He was sufficiently reliable and considered a decent actor to get many roles right up until the end. E.g., three Night at the Museum movies.
Plus he was also in Evil Roy Slade!
My wife says: The Lion In Winter is a fantastic movie, but Nigel Terrys sucks!
The Great Escape is a classic, but the Gestapo guys are a little cartoony.
I take exception with your missus: Nigel Terry is terrific, the character is a total putz and NT plays it perfectly.
Labyrinth is one of my favorite movies. It’s Jennifer Connelly’s breakout role. And oh, did David Bowie ever suck pond water in that movie.
I was thinking about saying this myself, and in almost exactly the same words.
I admit being amused by her indignant “Are you working in here while we’re in bed together?!” but I’m a sucker for dialog that is utterly nonsensical outside of its unusual context.
I think the ladies and a few of the men loved him for another reason :eek:
The one time that I remember my mother being excited about anything was when she came home from seeing Mickey Rooney on Broadway in “Sugar Babies” circa 1979. She was usually a level, calm woman but that night telling me and her mother about how great Rooney was on stage, she was absolutely beaming.
Ruth Warrick, who played the first wife Emily, said Welles treated Comingore very badly on the set. When Warrick asked why, Welles replied that she was going to end up in the gutter so she might as well get used to it.
12 Monkeys was where I saw that Pitt wasn’t just a pretty boy and could act. Still probably my favorite role of his. Or maybe A River Runs Through it.
I maintain the GF3 wasn’t nearly as bad as people say but suffers because it is compared to two of the greatest movies of all time. Coppola’s performance is so glaringly bad because she is plays against Andy Garcia who is the best part of the movie.
I didn’t think he was great but I didn’t mind him too much. The one that is wooden and annoying is Maria de Medeiros as Fabienne. Just awful.
You have to go a bit further than WWI. A lot of the commanders in WWII were quite young. They had to be with the rapid expansion of the military. In The Longest Day John Wayne was 55 and played LTC Benjamin Vandervoort. Vandervoort was 27 on D-Day. From Band of Brothers Maj Dick Winters commanded a battalion and was only 27 in 1945. By the end of the war many battalion and brigade commanders were in their late 20s early 30s. John Gavin was only 37 when he commanded the entire 82nd Airborne Division.
John Gavin maybe commanded Roman Legions in movies. James Gavin was the actual general.
It’s held back by Alan Moore , who writes very different and intriguing comics, which appeal to those jaded by mass comics. However, it’s a subset of a subset and that makes crappy movies. Every movie from a Alan Moore writing has been bad. Nor can Moore do anything really original…he takes other authors original ideas and pees all over them.
Dont get we wrong, his deconstructions can border on the brilliant. But that’s all they are- dark parodies.
Back of the line, pal!
Even though he was the lead, I would nominate Kevin Costner in Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves. I thought it was a great movie, but his performance was annoying as hell. The rest of the cast is great, but Costner isn’t.
Promethea? Tom Strong? V For Vendetta?
I thought Akerman was fine as Silk Spectre; it was Matthew Goode as Veidt that really annoyed me, although I’m not sure whether it was Goode himself or the fact that they made him vaguely creepy throughout that bothered me more.
V for Vendetta and Tom Strong are excellent writing. Promethea is a hodgepodge of Kabbala, Tarot and other myths stitched together - there are many excellent bits but also a lot of self-indulgent garbage (particularly at the end). And I’d argue that From Hell is basically “Jack the Ripper theories” + “Real and rumored Masonic practices” + “great swathes of Iain Sinclair’s work”.