Your opinions on actors and actresses

[quosimos]

Which actors and or actresses do you particularly like or dislike, what roles have you seen them perform in, notable performances, why do you like them, or dislike them, etc.?


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I saw George C. Scott in Patton recently and he was magnificent. I guess the character of Patton was a blessing. Scott convincingly unified a set of contradictory qualities into one character . And what was special was the way Scott carried the intensity seen in his performance of the egomaniacal, gungho and theatrical Patton into scenes which required him to be introspective, intimate and even hurt. He had a great voice and I liked the rhythm of his speech, the exaggerated way that he spoke. When he spoke I got a feeling in my gut. I really like speeches and rhetoric in film which is why I was attracted to Malcom X and Good Night and Good Luck.
Everything about Scott was perfect for the role.
I'm not sure why but it took me two viewings to appreciate his performance. Perhaps because it is an old movie and the styles of acting and direction were a little new to me.
I've also seen George Scott in Dr Strangelove in which he plays a similar character, although this time to comic effect.

Takeshi Kitano was very good as the lead character in Hana-bi. Amazingly, he also directed it, did the artwork for it and composed the music score to it (and it's very good). Takeshi spends most of his time behind sunglasses and hardly says a word. I think his minimalist acting was good in the context of the film rather than as a standalone performance.

[xenocrisis0153]

I think a lot of people have been paying more attention to the Famous Person Who You Want to Punch thread, but I'll give this one a kick-start.

The Good (Males):
I still like Will Smith and Bruce Willis films. The movies are interesting, they are both decent actors, and neither of them are full of themselves. I like Jim Carrey a lot too, but I think Adam Sandler is starting to fade as he's drifting away from the kinds of roles that made him big to begin with. Steve Carrell seems to be gaining fame and I've enjoyed him in the few movies I saw him in.

The Good (Females):
Believe it or not, I'm not much into the eye-candy. And as I've said time and time again, with the internet being the way it is today, celebrities' dirty laundry is way too easily waved for all the world to see, so it's hard to find respectable celebrities to "idolize" these days. Basically, if I haven't heard of them, they must be good cause it means they're staying out of trouble. Anyway, the good female actresses these days would have to be Keira Knightley, Anne Hathaway and Scarlette Johansen (though I know they're not spotlessly pure, but they're at least somewhat respectable relatively speaking). I do have to give an honorable mention to Katie Holmes because I think she's cute and a decent actress, but she's obviously insane/hypnotized for marrying Tom Cruise.

The Bad (Males):
Who makes me cringe? Well, he's not an "actor" but Kevin Federline... excuse me... K-Fed, is the King of the Douchebags. He's the Vanilla Ice of the new millennium and even though he knows it, he's still proud of it. I cannot stand Will Ferrel. He is such a hack and yet people think he's a god. He's a character actor and frankly not even that good. He's fine as a supporting actor but he cannot carry a movie (though his newest one coming out soon looks relatively interesting, forget the name of it... but then again, it's the movie that looks funny, not him). Anyway, I also despise Ben Stiller. He was okay in There's Something About Mary, though I did find him annoying. The other guy on my list of sucky male actors is Rob Schneider. He's disgusting, he's cheesy, he's crude and well... he sucks.

The Bad (Females):
Another pseudo-celeb tops my list of bad actresses: Paris Hilton. She has no talent (that's right teeny-boppers... rumors are that that's not even her real voice on those CDs you shelled out $14.99 for), she has no respect for her fellow humans (ditch any charity events this week, Paris?) and she's basically just full of herself. Her and Nicole Richie were made for eachother. Now they can go jump on the subway tracks together. Moving along... Lindsay Lohan is absolutely dispicable. I saw Mean Girls and thought she was very flat. You could tell that she just wanted to get things over with and then rush off set to the next party. I can't think of any others for now, but perhaps some other input from others will jog my memory.

Male/Female Special Category of Suckiness:
I needed a special place for TOM CRUISE cause he's frickin' wacky. His movies suck (I want my money back for War of the Worlds) and he acts like he owns the world. And apparently because of his fruitcake religion, he also owns time, space and the afterlife.
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