Bad Actors With Oscars?

[Armie3]

Okay so I guess I don't take the Oscars too seriously, so this is just for fun (no offence, guys!) - but who has an Oscar despite being not very good?

I would put forth the following :
 

Halle Berry (she was better than usual that one time, which fooled them into thinking she was extra-ordinary, but really she was just better than they had been expecting).

Reese Witherspoon (she's not a bad actress, don't get me wrong, but she is not in Oscar league - she plays a variation on the same character all the time and she was nothing like the real June).

Natalie Portman (okay, hear me out, she looks very serious but again she is so wooden and samey and her air of intelligence just fooled the Academy into thinking she had talent).

Cuba Gooding Junior (he is good at that one role he plays and has a nice smile, but that's about it).

Jennifer Lawrence (okay so she doesn't really belong here but her getting the Oscar over Emmanuelle Riva was a crime, let's be real).

______________________

 

Who else would you guys add? Mine are all recent, so what about looking back over the olden days? Don't give me Marisa Tomei either, because she did absoltutely deserve that Oscar for My Cousin Vinny, people who say otherwise are just trying to sound smart because My Cousin Vinny was a comedy and they can't get their heads around that fact.

 

Thanks guys!

[Armie3]

I'm so sorry for posting this so many times, I have a very sensitive clicker!

[dramamama611]

It's ALL just a matter of opinion, so what difference does it make?   The award is supposed to be for a particular performance, not their overall talent, so it's FINE that their body of work doesn't stand up to the award all the time.  Getting nominated in the first place has just as much to do with the ROLE as it does the performance.

 

 

[Armie3]

Like I said, this was just for fun! It makes no difference, I'm just trying to converse. :)

I do think that their body of work does come into play when the winner is decided, so I disagree...like, for example Halle Berry, she had been so bad so often that when Monster's Ball came along all she had to do was be semi-decent for people to be like "wow, I never knew she could do that!"- whereas people who are consistently good like Laura Linney or whoever are always overlooked because their excellence is so routine that becomes overlooked.

Am I making sense?

[dramamama611]

I understand what you are saying, I just don't agree with you.  Is "consistently good" a reason for an award?  I don't think so.

 

And if you are looking for discussion, don't close people off by telling them what opinions they can or can't have/express.  (Tomeii)

[Armie3]

Right, but I would say "consistently good" is a better reason to give somebody an Oscar than "better than you usually are", or even prosthetics and a fat suit which worked for Gary Oldman this year.

Well...seeing as this thread is not going so well (I'm sorry if I got your back up), I may as well throw in this bomb...Daniel Day Lewis. 

Three Oscars? Uh-huh. Total groupthink. I can never forget that it is crazy Dan up there over-doing it the same way he always does. Like Laurence Olivier said, "try acting, my boy!".

 The emperor has no clothes!

[dramamama611]

You didn't get my back up -- I thought you wanted conversation, but if all you want to do is bash actors who you don't like, then never mind.

[Armie3]

Tough crowd.

[Huss417]

How is this a "tough crowd" so far only one person playing along. And dramamama response was pretty concise.

Enjoy the summer break.

[artscallion]

I was always baffled by Louise Fletcher's win for Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. I found her performance unbearably stiff and flat. Yet most seem to disagree since she took home most of the awards that year. Her follow up turn in The Exorcist II didn't help her in my eyes.

[UncleCharlie]

Armie3 said: "Tough crowd."

Or alternatively, your idea of fun is our idea of yet another idiotic thread full of childish comments by yet another person butthurt cause actors/actresses they don't like or respect won awards so let's delegitimize their Oscar and bash them. What FUN!!! 

[SNAFU]

I have come to believe, that like the Tonys, Best Actors and Actors and all the rest are determined by which film the Oscar can generate the most money from for the producers.

 

[ScottyDoesn'tKnow2]

artscallion said: "I was always baffled by Louise Fletcher's win for Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. I found her performance unbearably stiff and flat. Yet most seem to disagree since she took home most of the awards that year. Her follow up turn in The Exorcist II didn't help her in my eyes."

That was actually the year Ellen Burstyn wanted the Academy to not have a Best Actress award as a protest for the types of roles Hollywood was giving women. I still remember watching a bunch of 1970s films for a class about ten years ago and all of them had a female character getting slapped, punched, manhandled, etc. It got to a point where a few of my classmates (of various age groups of generations) had to comment on it.

[RippedMan]

I see what you're saying about being "consistently good." I feel the same way about, say, Kerry Butler. Always good, but then, does that leave room for people to say "THIS! This is the reason she needs this awkward..." 

But I disagree with you about Jennifer Lawerence. I don't think she should have one for that particular performance, as I didn't really get why it was so praised, but I think her body of work is great. She brought some real caliber to The Hunger Games and acted her ass off in those films. And has shown a nice range. 

The rest I'd agree with. Although, I really did dig Black Swan. 

[Solipsist234]

Guys, you can tell the OP has horrible taste when he says that Marisa Tomei deserved that Oscar for My Cousin Vinny. Instead of this ridiculous farce of a thread, let's start talking about actors that deserve Oscars but haven't won (for example: Jessica Chastain, Michelle Williams, Jake Gyllenhaal, Jonah Hill, Patrick Stewart, etc.)

[Solipsist234]

Also, what the hell does the OP have against Natalie Portman's bravura, beautifully psychotic performance in Black Swan? Her giving that performance took balls and actual ballet training, ya know! I mean, Leo finally got his Oscar for eating bison liver in The Revenant, but Portman is the problem here??? I don't think so!

[UncleCharlie]

Solipsist234 said: "Guys, you can tell the OP has horrible taste when he says that Marisa Tomei deserved that Oscar for My Cousin Vinny. Instead of this ridiculous farce of a thread, let's start talking about actors that deserve Oscars but haven't won (for example: Jessica Chastain, Michelle Williams, Jake Gyllenhaal, Jonah Hill, Patrick Stewart, etc.)"

How about we do neither. Whining about people who should have won and didn't is just as much of a mindless, pointless waste of time as whining about people who did win and shouldn't have. "Deserved" is the most overused word on this board and threads about people who were clearly entitled to something but were wrongly denied it by the Tony/Oscar/Emmy/Grammy voters are just so incredibly tiresome.

[Armie3]

If you find them so tiresome, how about you just stay out of them? Could you do that?

[UncleCharlie]

Armie3 said: "If you find them so tiresome, how about you just stay out of them? Could you do that?"

I could, but I'd rather suggest people start more intelligent, thoughtful threads than the usual pissing and moaning cause their personal favorite "wuz robbed". Could you do that?

[Armie3]

Be the change you want to see.

Perhaps you could point me to all the intelligent & thoughtful threads that you have started recently, and I will be sure to show them the same courtesy you have shown mine?

Is this the part where you respond by skewering me with your superior wit? What fun!

[Armie3]

I think maybe Louise Fletcher got swept up in the glow of the movie as a whole - wasn't that the last year that the same movie won "the big 5"? Sure, she's not bad, but like dramamama says sometimes it's the role itself that wins the award.

The "consistently good" thing can work in favor of actors too, though...like Julianne Moore. Does anybody really care about Still, Alice...no, it was just her turn. 

[UncleCharlie]

Armie3 said: "Be the change you want to see.

Perhaps you could point me to all the intelligent & thoughtful threads that you have started recently, and I will be sure to show them the same courtesy you have shown mine?

Is this the part where you respond by skewering me with your superior wit? What fun!"

Forgive me for not showing courtesy to a thread with such pearls of wisdom as "Natalie Portman (okay, hear me out, she looks very serious but again she is so wooden and samey and her air of intelligence just fooled the Academy into thinking she had talent)." or "Halle Berry (she was better than usual that one time, which fooled them into thinking she was extra-ordinary, but really she was just better than they had been expecting)." Any wit at all would be an improvement over your childish "analysis" of why certain actors won Oscars. You've had quite a first day here... and I don't mean that in a good way though I have to admit, your continued assertion that Oscar voters who've spent entire careers in the film industry are so easily fooled but you are way too smart to fall for it and you alone see the truth, is really quite entertaining.

[RippedMan]

I'm glad Leo won so he will stop churning out these Oscar Bait movies. 

Jessica Chastain gave one of the WORST performances I've seen in a Broadway play. Just awful. Terrible, terrible line readings. So, I'm not a fan. 

[broadway86]

The first and only name that comes to mind, Jennifer Hudson.

Her vocal performance as 'Effie' was astonishing, and her renditions of each song are thrilling. But her line readings and facial expressions bordered on amateurish.

[ScottyDoesn'tKnow2]

Armie3 said: "I think maybe Louise Fletcher got swept up in the glow of the movie as a whole - wasn't that thelast year that the same movie won "the big 5"? Sure, she's not bad, but like dramamama says sometimes it's the role itself that wins the award.

The "consistently good" thing can work in favor of actors too, though...like Julianne Moore. Does anybody really care about Still, Alice...no, it was just her turn."

Only three films have won "the Big 5": It Happened One Night (1934); One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975); and The Silence of the Lambs (1991).

To go back to the OP, I don't think Natalie Portman is a bad actress at all. However, I do think she's limited in that she's only really good in certain types of roles. Black Swan really took all of her strengths and blasted them through the screen. I think her Oscar was absolutely deserved and she gave one of the best screen performances in the last few decades. I don't think she's right for every role (or even most roles), but she really hit it out of the park with that performance to the point where I can't call her a bad actress.

I also think Julianne Moore in Still Alice is incredibly underrated. I think the subject matter and the way the film looks makes people think of it as a lesser film or a lesser performance than it actually is. To me, compared to the other nominees, including Internet favorite Rosamund Pike, she clearly did give the best performance that year. I just think the overdue narrative took over and has made people prejudiced against the film and performance.

I find Jennifer Lawrence sort of dead behind the eyes and tends to give shallow performances where she has a big emotional outburst or crying scene but she doesn't really do anything great in-between that. However, I think her craft is improving and I do recognize her raw potential. I also think she was excellent in Winter's Bone.

Jessica Chastain should have been second to Emmanuelle Riva the year Lawrence won the Oscar for Silver Linings Playbook, IMO. I actually wouldn't even nominated Lawrence for SLP as I think there were five actresses who were better than her and I'm not even including actual nominee Wallis from a movie I love Beasts of the Southern Wild as I don't think Wallis deserved an Oscar nomination for that either but she did deserve the good notices she received. However, I've sort of have down on my opinion on Chastain. I don't know if it's the roles she's been offered since Zero Dark Thirty or what but they have been variations of the same thing and way too serious and humorless where I don't think she gets to breathe as an actress. I need Chastain to surprise me again, but I wonder if she too is limited. It'd be a shame because I really did love her when she first came on the scene and found her refreshing.

Speaking of good/great film actresses who aren't great on stage since someone mentioned Chastain, I remember Julianne Moore also not doing well on stage either in her play. I remember seeing a clip of it and thinking how bad her line deliveries were. Didn't Bette Davis also receive some middling to bad reviews for her stage performances? I wonder how Joan Crawford (an actress who many think is inferior to Davis) would have been on stage. How's Meryl Streep on stage? I can see her being only ok just given how she performs on film. They really do rely on different strengths and not all actors can do both well.

Conversely, some who one would not think would do well on the stage but actually did probably surprised people. I know many don't think Audrey Hepburn is the best actress based on her film performances where her persona and pure genuineness and glow overtook every thing, but she's the Hepburn with both an Oscar and Tony (and excellent reviews for her first Broadway play Gigi) and not four-time Oscar winner and noted actress Katharine who did her fair share of stage productions.