I didn't get to see MWSTG, Horrible bosses looked, sounded, and has been widely reported to be awful. Never even heard of the other. So maybe Spacey's turned aroundaxlryder said:Right, but Men Who Stare at Goats, Horrible Bosses and Margin Call are all very recent films, and Spacey turned out pretty good performances is those. John Cusack has also recently played in a few good movies, 1408, Hot Tub Time machine, Joe Strummer and I think The Raven is grossly underrated. It's not great, but it's deserves a better average score than what it got. More to the point, even their "bad" performances are really just okay. They're not Kristen Steward or Megan Fox bad. I think the exceptions might be War inc. and Father of Invention, which really were extremely shitty movies, but that's just one film for each of them and I mostly blame the script and screenplay for Father of Invention.8-Bit_Jack said:Thats the thing: the worst actor working today.axlryder said:Kevin Spacey and John Cusack? Harsh. John Cusack is a weird one though. He's practically never won a significant award, but he's played leading man in a lot of good films. I think it's because, unlike Labeouf or Worthington, he doesn't really get in the movie's way. He has a decent on screen presence and can carry emotional tension well, but doesn't really steal the scenes that he's in. I liked 1408 and Grosse Point Blank (his performances included) way too much to call him a bad actor though.8-Bit_Jack said:That is all he needs to playHardkorSB said:Vin Diesel?
I mean, the guy can only play 1 character - Vin Diesel.
Also, he can actually act. But no one pays him if he does. Fo realzies
I'm gonna go with... John Cusack, or that guy who hasn't actually acted in any film he's been paid to act in since American Beauty. The dad.
Fuck that guy
Kevin Spacey has played in a lot of mediocre movies recently, but I think he's proved his acting chops too many times to really be called bad. Besides, I think it's obvious he can still act when you compares his performances in films like Margin Call, Men Who Stare at Goats and Horrible Bosses, IMO.
He WAS good. Even Cusack has made good films. But now, they make the WORST actors... Lebouf at least is TRYING. Spacey and cusack have consistently turned out worse performances than "bad" actors, and did it by not giving a fuck. This makes them all the worse in my opinion
Also, and I should have made this more clear in the OP, I wasn't necessarily just referring to the actor's recent films, more so just trying to avoid people bringing up really old actors. I meant for people to take into account the entire filmography, but I also said the criteria is yours to determine so basing your judgement off more recent films is fair either way.
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/horrible_bosses/8-Bit_Jack said:I didn't get to see MWSTG, Horrible bosses looked, sounded, and has been widely reported to be awful. Never even heard of the other. So maybe Spacey's turned aroundaxlryder said:Right, but Men Who Stare at Goats, Horrible Bosses and Margin Call are all very recent films, and Spacey turned out pretty good performances is those. John Cusack has also recently played in a few good movies, 1408, Hot Tub Time machine, Joe Strummer and I think The Raven is grossly underrated. It's not great, but it's deserves a better average score than what it got. More to the point, even their "bad" performances are really just okay. They're not Kristen Steward or Megan Fox bad. I think the exceptions might be War inc. and Father of Invention, which really were extremely shitty movies, but that's just one film for each of them and I mostly blame the script and screenplay for Father of Invention.8-Bit_Jack said:Thats the thing: the worst actor working today.axlryder said:Kevin Spacey and John Cusack? Harsh. John Cusack is a weird one though. He's practically never won a significant award, but he's played leading man in a lot of good films. I think it's because, unlike Labeouf or Worthington, he doesn't really get in the movie's way. He has a decent on screen presence and can carry emotional tension well, but doesn't really steal the scenes that he's in. I liked 1408 and Grosse Point Blank (his performances included) way too much to call him a bad actor though.8-Bit_Jack said:That is all he needs to playHardkorSB said:Vin Diesel?
I mean, the guy can only play 1 character - Vin Diesel.
Also, he can actually act. But no one pays him if he does. Fo realzies
I'm gonna go with... John Cusack, or that guy who hasn't actually acted in any film he's been paid to act in since American Beauty. The dad.
Fuck that guy
Kevin Spacey has played in a lot of mediocre movies recently, but I think he's proved his acting chops too many times to really be called bad. Besides, I think it's obvious he can still act when you compares his performances in films like Margin Call, Men Who Stare at Goats and Horrible Bosses, IMO.
He WAS good. Even Cusack has made good films. But now, they make the WORST actors... Lebouf at least is TRYING. Spacey and cusack have consistently turned out worse performances than "bad" actors, and did it by not giving a fuck. This makes them all the worse in my opinion
Also, and I should have made this more clear in the OP, I wasn't necessarily just referring to the actor's recent films, more so just trying to avoid people bringing up really old actors. I meant for people to take into account the entire filmography, but I also said the criteria is yours to determine so basing your judgement off more recent films is fair either way.
But every Cusack movie you've listed was just terrible.
I am taking their tracklist into account, that's WHY they rate worse for me than Vampire Woodgirl and sweaty, well-used whore. Stewart and fox have never made a good film, nor performed well. Spacey and Cusack HAVE made good films, and done well in them, and have since made awful movies with worse performances than other, newer actors and actresses. So, today, they are WORSE than the others, because they will DISAPPOINT. Go into any film with Megan Fox. You can't be disappointed, because you know it will suck. You can only be disappointed she didn't get her tits out (Jennifer's Body made money because of this possibility), and not by the film or performance itself
Not that you were going just on this one performance, but I don't think it's fair to use The Happening as a benchmark for, well, anything. That movie was so bad, it dragged down everything and everyone involved in it. Even John Leguizamo, who is a quality character actor, floundered in a role in which he seemed to be required to have no character at all. You know, kind of like the way Lucas directs everybody he works with.Atmos Duality said:-Marky Mark
His hilariously dull, stupid performance in The Happening nearly set acting back 10 years, and everything I've seen of him since has been bland, mediocre garbage. And now they want him to make MORE movies? ACTION movies? WHY?! There should be no instance, no single moment on God's Green Earth that should make me PINE for more Steven Seagal.
But this Jason Statham wannabe has somehow done it.
True. The Happening would have been a trainwreck without Marky Mark.TheSchaef said:Not that you were going just on this one performance, but I don't think it's fair to use The Happening as a benchmark for, well, anything. That movie was so bad, it dragged down everything and everyone involved in it. Even John Leguizamo, who is a quality character actor, floundered in a role in which he seemed to be required to have no character at all. You know, kind of like the way Lucas directs everybody he works with.
Widely reported by people I KNOW, who share my tastes, to be awful. I've also seen 30 minutes of it, and thought it sucked.axlryder said:http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/horrible_bosses/8-Bit_Jack said:I didn't get to see MWSTG, Horrible bosses looked, sounded, and has been widely reported to be awful. Never even heard of the other. So maybe Spacey's turned aroundaxlryder said:Right, but Men Who Stare at Goats, Horrible Bosses and Margin Call are all very recent films, and Spacey turned out pretty good performances is those. John Cusack has also recently played in a few good movies, 1408, Hot Tub Time machine, Joe Strummer and I think The Raven is grossly underrated. It's not great, but it's deserves a better average score than what it got. More to the point, even their "bad" performances are really just okay. They're not Kristen Steward or Megan Fox bad. I think the exceptions might be War inc. and Father of Invention, which really were extremely shitty movies, but that's just one film for each of them and I mostly blame the script and screenplay for Father of Invention.8-Bit_Jack said:Thats the thing: the worst actor working today.axlryder said:Kevin Spacey and John Cusack? Harsh. John Cusack is a weird one though. He's practically never won a significant award, but he's played leading man in a lot of good films. I think it's because, unlike Labeouf or Worthington, he doesn't really get in the movie's way. He has a decent on screen presence and can carry emotional tension well, but doesn't really steal the scenes that he's in. I liked 1408 and Grosse Point Blank (his performances included) way too much to call him a bad actor though.8-Bit_Jack said:That is all he needs to playHardkorSB said:Vin Diesel?
I mean, the guy can only play 1 character - Vin Diesel.
Also, he can actually act. But no one pays him if he does. Fo realzies
I'm gonna go with... John Cusack, or that guy who hasn't actually acted in any film he's been paid to act in since American Beauty. The dad.
Fuck that guy
Kevin Spacey has played in a lot of mediocre movies recently, but I think he's proved his acting chops too many times to really be called bad. Besides, I think it's obvious he can still act when you compares his performances in films like Margin Call, Men Who Stare at Goats and Horrible Bosses, IMO.
He WAS good. Even Cusack has made good films. But now, they make the WORST actors... Lebouf at least is TRYING. Spacey and cusack have consistently turned out worse performances than "bad" actors, and did it by not giving a fuck. This makes them all the worse in my opinion
Also, and I should have made this more clear in the OP, I wasn't necessarily just referring to the actor's recent films, more so just trying to avoid people bringing up really old actors. I meant for people to take into account the entire filmography, but I also said the criteria is yours to determine so basing your judgement off more recent films is fair either way.
But every Cusack movie you've listed was just terrible.
I am taking their tracklist into account, that's WHY they rate worse for me than Vampire Woodgirl and sweaty, well-used whore. Stewart and fox have never made a good film, nor performed well. Spacey and Cusack HAVE made good films, and done well in them, and have since made awful movies with worse performances than other, newer actors and actresses. So, today, they are WORSE than the others, because they will DISAPPOINT. Go into any film with Megan Fox. You can't be disappointed, because you know it will suck. You can only be disappointed she didn't get her tits out (Jennifer's Body made money because of this possibility), and not by the film or performance itself
that's not widely reported to be horrible, sorry. I saw it, it was fine. Also, Margin Call got excellent reviews
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/margin_call/
1408 was not the least bit horrible. It was old fashioned, psychological horror in the style of Hitchcock. Admittedly, it didn't reach the same level as Hitchcock's best films and also didn't reach its potential, but it was still pretty damn good. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1408/ Again, good reviews. Also, again, I'd defend The Raven. It's not as bad as people say, and I think it's because many missed the point of the film. As for Hot Tub Time Machine, it was an homage to schlocky 80's comedy. It did its job. Also got solid critical reviews. I can see why you wouldn't like it (I didn't like it that much), but as far as comedy goes you can do much, much worse. My point is that they're not bad actors. To call them bad just because you're disappointed by them (even though they're not even making bad films, just some mediocre ones) doesn't seem fair. It's your opinion, of course, so I can't tell you you're wrong, but your reasoning just seems silly. For instance, I'm not suddenly going to say that Derick Rose is the worst there is if he starts missing some lay ups even though he's still playing way better than the actual bad players. That's doesn't make any sense.
I'm sure Lebeouf is a nice guy in real life, but every character he's played has made me want to punch him in the face.Daystar Clarion said:Nobody has said Shia Lebeouf yet?
Damn guys, I thought you were better than this...
You're still just throwing out your personal opinions without much criticism of the actual acting. I thought horrible bosses was okay. I've seen MUUUUCH worse films. I'm not going to argue the merits of it though, mainly because of the subjectivity of comedy. Same goes for hot tub time machine, while undoubtedly derivative (as is the majority of comedy), the premise was still amusing, the quality inoffensive and there was definitely as sense of meta awareness it carried that made it fairly watchable (assisted mostly by the film's intro). The Raven came off as more of a commentary on the genre than a straight faced film, so the premise itself took second fiddle to what the film was actually saying (in my mind), which made the film more watchable than just taking the whole thing at face value. Its problem was that it tried to be too many things, and ultimately failed at its superficial goals and belied the film's real meaning.8-Bit_Jack said:Widely reported by people I KNOW, who share my tastes, to be awful. I've also seen 30 minutes of it, and thought it sucked.axlryder said:http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/horrible_bosses/8-Bit_Jack said:I didn't get to see MWSTG, Horrible bosses looked, sounded, and has been widely reported to be awful. Never even heard of the other. So maybe Spacey's turned aroundaxlryder said:Right, but Men Who Stare at Goats, Horrible Bosses and Margin Call are all very recent films, and Spacey turned out pretty good performances is those. John Cusack has also recently played in a few good movies, 1408, Hot Tub Time machine, Joe Strummer and I think The Raven is grossly underrated. It's not great, but it's deserves a better average score than what it got. More to the point, even their "bad" performances are really just okay. They're not Kristen Steward or Megan Fox bad. I think the exceptions might be War inc. and Father of Invention, which really were extremely shitty movies, but that's just one film for each of them and I mostly blame the script and screenplay for Father of Invention.8-Bit_Jack said:Thats the thing: the worst actor working today.axlryder said:Kevin Spacey and John Cusack? Harsh. John Cusack is a weird one though. He's practically never won a significant award, but he's played leading man in a lot of good films. I think it's because, unlike Labeouf or Worthington, he doesn't really get in the movie's way. He has a decent on screen presence and can carry emotional tension well, but doesn't really steal the scenes that he's in. I liked 1408 and Grosse Point Blank (his performances included) way too much to call him a bad actor though.8-Bit_Jack said:That is all he needs to playHardkorSB said:Vin Diesel?in
I mean, the guy can only play 1 character - Vin Diesel.
Also, he can actually act. But no one pays him if he does. Fo realzies
I'm gonna go with... John Cusack, or that guy who hasn't actually acted in any film he's been paid to act in since American Beauty. The dad.
Fuck that guy
Kevin Spacey has played in a lot of mediocre movies recently, but I think he's proved his acting chops too many times to really be called bad. Besides, I think it's obvious he can still act when you compares his performances in films like Margin Call, Men Who Stare at Goats and Horrible Bosses, IMO.
He WAS good. Even Cusack has made good films. But now, they make the WORST actors... Lebouf at least is TRYING. Spacey and cusack have consistently turned out worse performances than "bad" actors, and did it by not giving a fuck. This makes them all the worse in my opinion
Also, and I should have made this more clear in the OP, I wasn't necessarily just referring to the actor's recent films, more so just trying to avoid people bringing up really old actors. I meant for people to take into account the entire filmography, but I also said the criteria is yours to determine so basing your judgement off more recent films is fair either way.
But every Cusack movie you've listed was just terrible.
I am taking their tracklist into account, that's WHY they rate worse for me than Vampire Woodgirl and sweaty, well-used whore. Stewart and fox have never made a good film, nor performed well. Spacey and Cusack HAVE made good films, and done well in them, and have since made awful movies with worse performances than other, newer actors and actresses. So, today, they are WORSE than the others, because they will DISAPPOINT. Go into any film with Megan Fox. You can't be disappointed, because you know it will suck. You can only be disappointed she didn't get her tits out (Jennifer's Body made money because of this possibility), and not by the film or performance itself
that's not widely reported to be horrible, sorry. I saw it, it was fine. Also, Margin Call got excellent reviews
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/margin_call/
1408 was not the least bit horrible. It was old fashioned, psychological horror in the style of Hitchcock. Admittedly, it didn't reach the same level as Hitchcock's best films and also didn't reach its potential, but it was still pretty damn good. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1408/ Again, good reviews. Also, again, I'd defend The Raven. It's not as bad as people say, and I think it's because many missed the point of the film. As for Hot Tub Time Machine, it was an homage to schlocky 80's comedy. It did its job. Also got solid critical reviews. I can see why you wouldn't like it (I didn't like it that much), but as far as comedy goes you can do much, much worse. My point is that they're not bad actors. To call them bad just because you're disappointed by them (even though they're not even making bad films, just some mediocre ones) doesn't seem fair. It's your opinion, of course, so I can't tell you you're wrong, but your reasoning just seems silly. For instance, I'm not suddenly going to say that Derick Rose is the worst there is if he starts missing some lay ups even though he's still playing way better than the actual bad players. That's doesn't make any sense.
1408 WAS terrible. Every bit of it. And it DID reach its potential, because there is only so much potential to be had from something based on Stephen King did in five minutes to illustrate a point about writing formula.
Hot Tub Time Machine was not funny. Even once. When your movie is so cliche that I have literally seen every scene and joke play out in fucking cartoons, you fail to amuse me. It was not an homage, it was a reshoot.
I have not seen the raven. I have, however, seen commercials and trailers for it. Trailers that betray an idiotic premise and john cusack at his most miscast. And a fundamental logic flaw that negates the idiotic premise.
Your comparison is also not apt. Firstly, my position is that the two actors WERE performing more poorly than other, lower tier actors. Secondly, my assertion was that the prior quality of their work (again, more spacey then cusack) and the appalling LOW quality now make a movie that much LESS enjoyable. Your basketball player, on the other hand, cannot make a bad game WORSE because he fails to play well. The game is bad BECAUSE he plays poorly. Cusack and Spacey, on the other hand, can not only drag a good film down, but also make a bad film LOOK like it could be good, then fail to try to turn out a decent performance, so now you are let down AND watching a bad movie
Yeah, as bad as some of his movies have been, he's been in some really good ones as well. I, for another, really enjoyed Adaptation.Hatchet90 said:Also for those saying Nicholas Cage. The man was in Adaptation (where he's capable of playing two distinct twin personalities), Leaving Las Vegas (where he won an acting oscar), Moonstruck, Raising Arizona, Kick-Ass, Bad Lieutenant (a personal favorite), Matchstick Men, hell even Drive Angry was enjoyable at parts. Has the man been in some shitty movies? Hell yes he has, Ghost Rider, Knowing, and Next suck shit through a straw. But even at Nicolas Cage's worst (Wicker Man remake) the man is never boring, which means he can't possibly be the worst actor.
To put in my two cents about John Cusack... High Fidelity is by far one of my favorite movies of all time and the reason it was so good was because John Cusack was so incredibly believable in the role of Rob Gordon, and Jack Black being in the movie certainly didn't hurt either.You're still just throwing out your personal opinions of these films. I thought horrible bosses was okay. I've seen MUUUUCH worse films. I'm not going to argue the merits of it though, mainly because of the subjectivity of comedy. Same goes for hot tub time machine, while undoubtedly derivative, the premise was amusing and their was definitely as sense of meta awareness it carried that made it fairly watchable (assisted mostly by the films intro). The Raven came off as more of a commentary on the genre than a straight faced film, so the premise itself took second fiddle to what the film was actually saying (in my mind), which made the film more watchable than just taking the whole thing at face value. It's problem was that it tried to be too many things, and ultimately failed at its superficial goals and belied the films real meaning.
You say 1408 was terrible but that opinion is not reflected by the majority of professional critics. Most importantly, Cusack put in a believable performance and managed to create drama and intensity without hamming it up too much. His acting progressed through the story in a logical way (embodying the stages of grief just fine) and you are literally the only person I know who would put that performance on the same level as the worst of the worst. Whether or not the film itself is derived from a brief short story with other is irrelevant. It's like saying Will Smith is a shitty actor because I am Legend is a bastardization of the written source (though I don't think Cusack's performance is on the same level as Will's)
Of course your position still makes little logical sense, as you're taking the "objective" quality of a piece of work and saying it is somehow diminished by your own personal disappointment. I could just as easily saying that Derrick Rose playing "poorly" is all the more frustrating and disappointing because he showed so much promise and skill earlier. More importantly, even in the roles you claim are terrible, they still show a basic understanding of inflection/delivery, emotional tension, and character progression. The same can not be said of many other actors getting thrown around in this thread.