The other day it occurred to me that despite having posted on a blog called ‘CINEMARANT!” for over two months, there’s one thing I haven’t done yet: rant! I think we need a little anger, some vitriol, a touch of spite, and a dash of pithiness. So, now I want to do something a bit different. I’m not going to review a film, nor recommend one. I’m going to provide you with a list. A list of the…
I can already hear you say “Hold on, I thought this was going to be fun and flimsy, not boring.” Watch me turn air into gold, bitch:
I want to preface this by saying that these actors are not necessarily actors that I hate, though I do hate quite a few of them. It’s simply a compilation of thespians who cannot thesp, entertainers that don’t emote, and characters with no charisma. These people have two settings, cold and stone-cold. They do nothing for me. In fact sometimes I imagine that a slab of wood could act the part better than they could. Yet each and every one of them is inexplicably successful. Alright, I feel the juices of fury flowing, here we go:
This mans career came and went like a fart in the wind. Whoa! There it went, did you see it?
If you did I’m so sorry, cause this guy is tranquilizing. You may remember him as Robin, Batman’s gay leather-clad sidekick, from the two worst Batman movies. Believe it or not Batman Forever and Batman & Robin would turn out to be the highlights of his career, ouch.
What’s the best thing I can say about the third and fourth Batman movies. Eh, they’re colourful? That’s more than I can say for Chris O’Donnell, who for the life of him cannot convey feelings. In Batman Forever his entire family is slaughtered before his eyes. Did that make Robin sad? I don’t know, I can’t tell. O’Donnell’s face doesn’t move enough for me to discern anything.
Regardless, after these climactic masterpieces it was off to the mountains for Chris, as he entered into Vertical Limit.
Oooo a mountaineering film, is it good? Yeah, it’s ok. There’s this one terrible bit in it though. It’s the part where they point the camera at Chris O’Donnell. The man is climbing a lethal mountain to find his dying sister and this is the best he can do:
Good God, look at him. Look at those eyes. You feel like you’re staring at a swirling spiral, or watching a swinging pendulum. You are feeling sleeeeepyyy…
I don’t get the deal with Benicio Del Toro. I don’t despise him, but I’ve never been a fan either. I certainly have never been mesmerised by his acting skills. His face is strange too, like he’s doing the worlds most strenuous James Dean impression. Give it up man, you don’t always have to stare into the sun.
As if his flat expressionless gob wasn’t enough, his voice is also droning. Monotone doesn’t even begin to describe it.
I wonder how many of you will actually recognise this man. He’s somewhat obscure, but he played a very big part in a much talked about film back in 2004. I’ll give you a clue:
That’s right, he played Jesus in Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ. Now, I actually like Passion of the Christ as a movie. Politically and factually it’s dodgy as hell, but I have to say that Caviezel’s performance was decent.
So I assumed he’d be a tour-de-force in his next few roles. Oh, how wrong I was. The next role I saw him in was as the American terrorist Carroll Oerstadt in Deja Vu. Terrorist? Who’s idea was that? The man was as stoic as humanly possible. Aren’t terrorists meant to be upset about something? He looked to bored. He murdered people, blew up civilians, fought a time-traveling Denzel Washington, was arrested, and eventually killed. …and he did it all with this face.
I want to like Steve Carell. He just doesn’t make it easy for me. He gives us one terrible comedy after another, complete with a supposedly “funny” performance that makes me want to declare humour dead and buried for all time. Get Smart, The 40 Year Old Virgin, Bewitched, Date Night, the list just goes on and on. I was so pleasantly surprise to see him play a three dimensional character in Little Miss Sunshine, but then he went and ruined it with Evan Almighty. He’s just not a funny man, and not at all exciting. You can tell he’s trying to be, he just so rarely hits the note. Most of the time he just comes off as desperate.
This guy is an action star. Why? Aren’t action stars at least meant to be interesting, or seem tough and spontaneous? Jason Statham in none of these things. For one thing, his head looks like one of those easter-island statues. Are they exhilarating? Not really.
Now, let’s play a game I invented called “The Statham Variation Compilation”, here it is:
What have we learnt from this? That two things remain constant:
I really do hate this guy. He’s violent, angry, arrogant, has no sense of humour about himself, and worst of all he’s so boring. Give him any line and he’ll translate it into “grunt grunt grunt grunt grunt”, and I’m not just saying that because he has a band called 30 Odd Foot of Grunts. Yawn! He loves playing rough over-the-hill characters, except he’s not believable. He’s better suited for stuff like Romper Stomper, cause he’s a dick.
In 2010 he played a terrible version of Robin Hood in a terrible version of Robin Hood. He also supplied the character with a terrible accent that one BBC reporter decided to ask him about. Big mistake! You don’t questions Russell Crowe’s “English” accent. He’ll huff and he’s puff and he’ll walk out of your interview.
A lot of you may be agreeing, saying that “Yeah, Adam Sandler isn’t funny anymore”. No, that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying he was never funny. He has a face that looks like Pacman and a personality to match. His voice is soft and trembling, like my grandmother. Except, I don’t want to see my grandmother in a ‘comedy film’, so the same goes for this guy. He has one truly good movie and that’s Punch-Drunk Love. If you haven’t seen it, do. It’s remarkable. Not just the film itself, but the fact that Paul Thomas Anderson got Adam Sandler to not be terrible. Aside from this one miracle, he always plays the same part; an oppressed ridiculed boyish man who periodically attacks people. Where’s that Academy Award? Somebody find it!
Seriously, why does he assault people so much? Is it supposed to be funny or is it just making up for the tedious jelly-heap that constitutes his soul? I guess we’ll never know.
See that girl on the right? That’s Portia Doubleday. See that thing on the left? That’s an explosion. Don’t pay attention to the thing in the middle, cause it isn’t worth your time. I, on the other hand, have a few words I need to share about this man.
He is by far the most stale human being working in movies today. Ok, no, that was unfair hyperbole. He isn’t the most stale cause he’s only number 2 on the list. I so desperately want him to be number 1 though. Oh jesus, seeing him on screen hurts. It physically hurts me! I’d rather watch a snail cross the Arabian desert than anything with him in it. Ok, again, hyperbole. I did think Scott Pilgrim vs. The World was ok, but that was because of everything except him.
He always plays the same part; the timid, twitchy twerp. Not only is that hard to say seven times in a row, it’s also been done a long time ago by Woody Allen. It’s largely unoriginal and hugely annoying. SOMEONE GET HIM OFF MY TELEVISION SCREEN NOW!
This brings us to the overdue conclusion of an overstretched countdown. Thank you all for hanging in there till the end. You’re troopers. You’re legends. But let’s face it, you don’t really have anything better to do right now. You’re pretty boring yourself. Come to think of it, so am I. That’s ok though. I’m a self-acknowledged hypocrite. With nine of my fingers missing I’d still use the last one to point at the guy with none. Such is life.
The man I’m about to show you is so lame, so stodgy, so vacuous, nigh so unfrumsticating that I had to make up a word at the end there just to describe how little he inspires me. He is the human equivalent of herpes; common, irritating, pervasive, but not even vexing enough to grab your attention.
I don’t think I can stress this point any more…
Ooh-la-la. Ladies, do you want this man at your bed side tonight? I do. It would help me sleep.
Why does this man have a career? No no seriously. It’s one of the big questions for me. Just like “what’s the meaning of life?”, “what happens after you die?”, or “what came before the big bang?”.
Sam fucking Worthington is an accomplished actor? Now I know there’s no God. Either that or the one we have has a twisted sense of humour. This useless mass of protoplasm never changes a cunting thing! His hair, his style, his acting, and worst of all his accent, never budges. He can play an American with an Australian accent, an Englishman with an Australian accent, and of course his speciality is an Australian with an Australian accent. Cue the confetti!
He has two things going for him at the moment, that’s the Clash of the Titans Trilogy and the Avatar Trilogy. After that he’s done. D-O-N-E done.
Ok, that’s it. I know it was a long read, but believe me it was a long write too.
Hope you agree with my choices, in which case: Thank you.
If you don’t: Fuck you, but you’re welcome to air your grievances in the comments.
Cinema Rant 
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