Some baffling movie data
Oscar nominee Paul Giamatti!
2-time Oscar nominee Miranda Richardson!
Oscar winner Rachel Weisz!
Oscar winner Kathy Bates!
2-time Oscar winner Kevin Spacey!
The film: “Fred Claus”
* * * * *
Oscar winner Nicolas Cage!
Oscar winner Jon Voight!
Oscar winner Helen Mirren!
Oscar nominee Harvey Keitel!
4-time Oscar nominee Ed Harris!
The film: “National Treasure: Book of Secrets”
November 7th, 2007 at 4:21 am
The Oscar is really solid milk chocolate beneath that gold foil covering, don’t ya know?
November 7th, 2007 at 5:36 am
I was going to trot out my axiom that “All British actors are whores” but most of the people on your list are not British. (By the way–most British actors take great PRIDE in their whoredom–saying that it allows them to work on stage or in small, independent films.) Anyhow, my all-time favourite bit of casting has to be “Oscar winner Dame Judi Dench” as Aereon in The Chronicles of Riddick.
November 7th, 2007 at 7:06 am
When I was in high school, we were required to do something like 45 hours of community service before we could get our diplomas (concerns like what service has to do with school and is it really service if we are getting paid in diplomas aside). Maybe they have to do the same thing. Maybe one of the requirements for getting an Oscar is a certain number of hours of service, fulfillable by making crap movies or something.
The reason Giamatti, Richardson, Keitel, and Harris hadn’t won in the past was that they said they wouldn’t do the service. Now, they are trying to make a good faith showing to earn that elusive candy bar.
November 7th, 2007 at 8:24 am
Seems like this is the rule, not the exception — oscar winners are bound to make dumb, cheesy, or simply bad movies after their win. Oscar is a cruel, cruel mistress. Mistresser. Mister. Oscar’s a cruel mister.
I wonder if there’s some law involving the proportion of emotional weight behind a given win, and the suckiness of the follow-up movie. Like Halle Berry’s win for Best Actress, and wow, she’s the first Black woman to win one, and wow, and neat, and amazing, and oops, Catwoman.
November 7th, 2007 at 9:58 am
This is pretty much par for Cage and Voight these days. They left legitimacy behind years ago to pursue careers in cheesy trash.
November 7th, 2007 at 10:22 am
Fred Claus is being shoved down our throats more than any movie in recent history…at least it feels that way. It’s like they’re determined to make us go see it no matter how bad it is. And I’m suspecting it’s really, really bad. The previews are cringe-inducing.
November 7th, 2007 at 10:32 am
To Steve S: Oscar winner Cuba Gooding Jr. in Daddy Day Camp/Norbit/Love Boat/Radio/Chill Factor/A Murder of Crows/Pearl Harbor/Rat Race/Snow Dogs?
November 7th, 2007 at 10:43 am
Don’t want to rain on anyone’s parade, but Berry won the Oscar for finally being naked. She isn’t a good actress, at all.
November 7th, 2007 at 10:58 am
I don’t know what I think of Berry’s acting, but I’d like to echo Greg’s sentiments. Ditto Gwyneth Paltrow, though I do like to watch her. How come they keep denying Kate Winslet, eh? I guess she needs to do some really horrible movie now.
November 7th, 2007 at 11:10 am
I think it’s all about the money and residuals. Will these two movies make a lot of money? Yes. Will the actors be compensated for it? Yes.
November 7th, 2007 at 11:24 am
Berry and Paltrow got Oscars for trying really hard not to be pretty in a movie. See also Julia Roberts (white trash in Erin Brochovich), Nicole Kidman (a fake nosed Virginia Woolf), and Charlize Theron (as an ugly lesbian serial killer). Even Hillary Swank could fit the rule for pretending to be a boy in Boys Don’t Cry. Somebody ought to cast a really ugly woman, make her really pretty, and see if the reverse is true.
November 7th, 2007 at 1:01 pm
Being nominated for an Oscar or winning one or even being in a movie with any Oscar buzz is the exception, not the rule for all actors. The rest they do for cash and to keep their name out there. Winning is usually a fluke, the right combination of events coming together.
They were all in dopey movies before they won and will continue to be in them afterwards. A statue’s not going to stop that. Remember, Giamatti was always ‘that guy - what’s his name’ in all his movies like Planet of the Apes until he won. Voight will appear in any movie he’s asked to. Acting like these people are above this stuff is laughable. Maybe your disgust is really that with all these stars, why isn’t the end product better than this?
November 7th, 2007 at 3:32 pm
Point well-taken, Cincinnatus, except Paul Giamatti has NOT (yet) won and Oscar…it just goes to show that “winning” acting awards is more a luck of the draw than anything, given that Jennifer Hudson and Roberto Benigni have Academy Awards, unlike Cary Grant and Glenn Close (to name just two)…BTW, am I the only one who thinks Fred Claus won’t be nearly as dreadful as Lions for Lambs, which has its share of Oscar nominees/winners?
November 7th, 2007 at 5:18 pm
My bad. Change that to “until he was nominated.”
November 7th, 2007 at 8:46 pm
In response to Holly, what about ‘Bee Movie’? I don’t know if it was promoted for as long as ‘Fred Claus’ has been, but the hype for it has been utterly shameless.