Great Movies Almost Ruined By A Single Performance (1 Viewer)

[Sultanofcinema]

While I agree there are “weak” performances, or very small performances (Ingrid Bergman #3, the woman from Network), I don’t agree that Al Pacino’s performance was “weak”. It’s not easy to play a blind person.

I also don’t agree that the academy is 95% wrong. But they aren’t ALWAYS right.

There are major snubs - High Noon, Raging Bull, Mr. Smith goes to DC, Ten Commandments, Shawshank.

But they do get it right - Casablanca, GwtW, Ben-Hur, Godfathers.

I understand why they kick certain films, many times it’s a product of the era: Mrs. Miniver, Best Years, Greatest Show, Broadway Melody.

But to say they are almost always wrong… I don’t agree.

Imo

The issue for me with Al Pacino in Scent Of A Woman was a common movie complaint. It was an abomination remake of an excellent foreign film. Hollywood ALWAYS either changes the story or Americanizes excellent foreign films (dumbing them down). NO ONE in that School at the end of that film is going to allow Al's character to address those students the way he did. I remember saying out loud in the theater, Are you kidding me?! And I felt the same way about And Justice For all. It was laughable. I love Pacino, always agreed in the debate over Pacino/ Hoffman (who's the better actor?) that Pacino towers above Hoffman.

 

[Tino]

Absolutely - the Academy gets it wrong about 95% of the time at best.

You mean they get it RIGHT 95% of the time.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

You mean they get it RIGHT 95% of the time.

I'd say neither. 95% right is too high, 95% wrong is too low.

With BP, I'd say they bat maybe .200, though. And that number might be too high.

 

[AlanP]

Margaret in gypsy... Lord help the censors, but in all seriousness I do think she would have been good. I always liked the relationship between wood and Russell on screen since in real life woods mother was very similar.

But, Wood wasn't a singer, and Ann was. It seems like I read somewhere that they wanted Elvis for the lead in "West Side Story"

 

[AlanP]

Matthew Broderick in the alternate version of THE MUSIC MAN was completely miscast. Professor Harold Hill is a con man. Mathew is a kind, pleasant, wouldn't-hurt-anyone person.

Never liked the film.....either versions.

 

[Tino]

With BP, I'd say they bat maybe .200, though. And that number might be too high.

So in your opinion the Academy gets the BP wrong 80% of the time? C’mon.

 

[Noel Aguirre]

Rita Moreno in Spielberg’s West Side Story (which I don’t particularly think is a great movie but apparently many do and it has a 91% Rotten Tomatoes rating). She basically “acted” like an 80year old Googie Gomez from The Ritz. She butchers “Somewhere” with that same Googie accent and why she’s singing it God only knows.

 

[Noel Aguirre]

I watched Scent Of A Woman once- didn’t care for it. Pacino was better in other films, yet he won his Oscar for this one, much like Paul Newman won his one Oscar for a performance in a mediocre film (The Color Of Money), and he was better in other films.

I only remember those 2 guys on In Living Color’s Men on Films saying about Scent of a Woman- “Hated It!”

 

[Colin Jacobson]

So in your opinion the Academy gets the BP wrong 80% of the time? C’mon.

Without crunching the numbers... yeah, probably.

100s of movies come out every year. "Getting it right" - meaning I agree the Oscar went to the actual best movie of the year - even 20% of the time seems high.

Now if we were to discuss batting average for nominated movies, I might think they "got it right" more than 20% of the time.

But if we draw from the entire pool of movies released every year, it's probably lower than 20%.

 

[Sultanofcinema]

But, Wood wasn't a singer, and Ann was. It seems like I read somewhere that they wanted Elvis for the lead in "West Side Story"

They did want Elvis for West Side Story but Parker told Elvis Oscars don't bring in money and the film would have taken the amount of time that Parker could get 3-4 "fluff" films out of the King. Streisand also wanted Elvis for A Star Is Born and Parker wanted an enormous amount of money, so she couldn't afford him. This would have been movie history monumental even if the film hadn't been that great.

 

[Garysb]

I am not certain where this thread is going to go and how many films and performances we can come up with...

I have been thinking about a film that I only saw once, thought it was absolutely terrific, but ultimately due to a single performance, I am not in a hurry to ever watch it again.

That movie would be BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S

Mickey Rooney ruins that film with his role as Mr. Yunioshi. It's not just over-the-top bad, but it's so offensive by today's standards that I feel sorry that the performance exists on film, let alone a film of this caliber.

I am just wondering if there are any other great films out there that are almost ruined by a single performance. This was the only one I could come up with off the top of my head.

I am assuming the Mickey Rooney performance is offensive because it is a caricature of a Japanese man more so than a white man playing a native from Japan. though both are terrible. If a Japanese actor played the part I believe it would also be offensive as a caricature. The character's purpose is comic relief and is not meant to be a real person and it hasn't aged well. In 1961, the same year as "Breakfast At Tiffany's, Alec Guinness played a Japanese man in the film "A Majority of One" That may be considered offensive today but at the time this casting may have been done because Hollywood didn't want to show an interracial love story played by people of different races which offended some people at the time. Guinness was playing a serious role. Yellow face was used as late as the late 1970's including Peter Sellers playing a parody of Charlie Chan in "Murder By Death"

 

[Worth]

...Yellow face was used as late as the late 1970's including Peter Sellers playing a parody of Charlie Chan in "Murder By Death"

How about most of the cast of Cloud Atlas from 2012?

 

[dpippel]

How about most of the cast of Cloud Atlas from 2012?

I'd say that it doesn't meet the criteria of this thread. Cloud Atlas is NOT a great movie, and it's not ruined by a single performance.

 

[Mikael Soderholm]

Cloud Atlas is fantastic! And seriously unappreciated. Tom Hanks' favorite.
Absolutely brilliant, and way above the Matrix stuff the siblings did before. And I won't even mention Jupiter Ascending.

Don't knock it, especially not for one single performance ruining it, it s a brilliant ensemble movie with numerous fantastic performances.

So there

 

[dpippel]

Cloud Atlas is fantastic! And seriously unappreciated. Tom Hanks' favorite.
Absolutely brilliant, and way above the Matrix stuff the siblings did before. And I won't even mention Jupiter Ascending.

Don't knock it, especially not for one single performance ruining it, it s a brilliant ensemble movie with numerous fantastic performances.

So there

Next, you'll be telling us that you like Jupiter Ascending...

 

[Mikael Soderholm]

Wasn't sure whether you were mocking me or not with the laughing smiley, but now I know

But I stand by my point, Cloud Atlas is great, despite what you all say.
I seriously don't understand the, not hate, but unappreciation. People seem to like not to like it despite the greatness.
It is a long complicated story even as a book, quite well transformed to film.
7,4 on IMDB
And, as I said, Tom Hank's favorite of his own movies.
And not a single bad performance I can recall.

Not at all like Jupiter Descending. But we're digressing, aren't we?

 

[Polbroth]

Can't believe this hasn't come up...

Shemp in just about any Three Stooges short.

It's not just that he had impossibly large clown shoes to fill, but that he was objectively awful.

 

[Worth]

Cloud Atlas is fantastic! And seriously unappreciated. Tom Hanks' favorite.
Absolutely brilliant, and way above the Matrix stuff the siblings did before. And I won't even mention Jupiter Ascending.

Don't knock it, especially not for one single performance ruining it, it s a brilliant ensemble movie with numerous fantastic performances.

So there

I wasn’t criticizing either the film or the performances as such, just stating that it’s a fairly recent example of “yellowface.”

 

[Mikael Soderholm]

I wasn’t criticizing either the film or the performances as such, just stating that it’s a fairly recent example of “yellowface.”

It is, and not only that, most actors in Cloud Atlas play several characters, many of different gender, age and/or ethnicity than the actor.
Quite interesting casting, in fact.

 

[Glenn C.]

Can't believe this hasn't come up...

Shemp in just about any Three Stooges short.

It's not just that he had impossibly large clown shoes to fill, but that he was objectively awful.

You do understand that Shemp was the comedic star of the original Three Stooges and left for a solo career. He was replaced by Moe and Shemp's younger brother Jerome/Curley? He came back after Jerome's illness.