Saturday, March 03, 2007

Take Heart, Eddie: Premiere Magazine's The 20 Worst Post-Oscar Career Choices

Screening on Saturday, March 03, 2007

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Blogger Fong Kok Hoong said...

Richard Attenborough

Thanks to Attenborough, we had to wait over 20 years for Dreamgirls. Why? After Attenborough beat out Steven Spielberg (E.T.), Sydney Pollack (Tootsie), Sidney Lumet (The Verdict), and Wolfgang Petersen (Das Boot) for his first Oscar as a director, for Ghandi, his next film was an ill-fated sequin-laced adaptation of A Chorus Line, starring a spandex clad Michael Douglas. In addition to burning that scary image into our memory, Attenborough's film also angered Chorus Line creator Michael Bennett, who passed away two years after the film came out. When David Geffen became the protector of Bennett's work, he went to great lengths to keep Bennett's other masterwork, Dreamgirls, from suffering the same fate. Even though Dreamgirls wasn't nominated for a Best Picture Oscar, we're still singing its praises, but no thanks to Attenborough, whose last directorial effort, the Pierce Brosnan drama Grey Owl, went direct to video in the U.S.

What about the future? Perhaps we're being a little bit too hard on him. He also went on to also make Oscar-bait biographies like Shadowlands and Chaplin, and we hope his latest, the World War II-themed romance Closing the Ring, is more in line with those films than his last love affair, the Sandra Bullock-Chris O'Donnell starrer In Love and War.


Roberto Benigni

To be fair, the Benigni boom of 1997 was thankfully short-lived and mostly the result of extensive campaigning by then Miramax chief Harvey Weinstein. Still, the Academy voted en masse for the comic Italian in the Best Actor category for Life Is Beautiful, a sappy Holocaust comedy. When it came time for a follow-up, the 50-year-old chair-hopping actor-director did something unthinkable — he remade Pinocchio and cast himself in the lead. According to Benigni, Pinocchio was made at the suggestion of Italian auteur Federico Fellini, but the star's hopes of crossing over to American shores went down with the whale. His last film, The Tiger and the Snow, was released in four theaters in America at the end of 2006.

What about the future? Benigni hasn't ever needed help from the U.S. to become a globally beloved screen comedian, but his brief cameo in Jim Jarmusch's Coffee and Cigarettes was a nice reminder that a little bit of Benigni goes a long way.


Halle Berry

Only three years after collecting an Oscar for Monster's Ball, Halle Berry found herself walking the red carpet of the Razzie Awards where she accepted the award for Worst Actress of the Year for Catwoman. Although her classiness isn't in question — she did go to the Razzies ceremony and give a speech — her instincts in picking projects after winning an Oscar have resulted in less-than-stellar roles, including her part in the forgettable thriller Gothika.

What about the future? She'll finally show off her acting chops once again as a recent widow in the awards season drama Things We Lost in the Fire, costarring Benicio Del Toro, hopefully turning this cautionary tale into an inspirational one.
Adrien Brody
Brody had already been a fine character actor before smooching Halle Berry at the 2002 Oscars. So it wasn't surprising that following his Oscar win for The Pianist, he leapt at the chance to be part of an ensemble in M. Night Shyamalan's first film after Signs. Unfortunately, the role was a thinly written part as a mentally handicapped man in Shyamalan's The Village. Brody literally stumbled through that film, and through The Jacket, the dull psychological thriller that followed.

What about the future? With the well-received Hollywoodland under his belt and new films with directors Todd Haynes (the Bob Dylan biopic I'm Not There) and Wes Anderson (The Darjeeling Limited) on the way, Brody can't be written off.


Michael Cimino

There have been far worse films made after an Oscar win, but none more infamous than Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate, which he made right after winning Best Director and Best Picture for The Deer Hunter. The Robert De Niro drama gave Cimino the cache to make the ultra ambitious epic about the Johnson County War in 1890s Wyoming, but Gate earned only $3.5 million of its then-astronomical $44 million budget back. Though some critics have reconsidered their pans in recent years, Cimino has made forgettable thrillers such as Year of the Dragon, The Sicilian, and a remake of Desperate Hours in the ensuing years.

What about the future? Cimino's career in Hollywood seems to have ended with the little-seen 1996 Woody Harrleson thriller The Sunchaser, but the years have been kind to Cimino's admirable run in the '70s and early '80s of Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, The Deer Hunter, and Heaven's Gate.


Faye Dunaway

Without Faye Dunaway's Best Actress Oscar for 1976's Network, the chimpanzee comedy Dunston Checks In would have no award-winning pedigree, and the reality TV series The Starlet would have no award-winning judge. Her career path had been lined with illustrious films: Bonnie and Clyde, Little Big Man, Chinatown, and Three Days of the Condor. But after grabbing gold for Network, Dunaway made a series of middling commercials choices (serial killer thrillers The Eyes of Laura Mars and The First Deadly Sin) and the infamous Joan Crawford bio Mommie Dearest, from which her career never quite recovered.

What about the future? Although her choices have been eccentric, Dunaway still makes the occasional appearance in edgy films like Roger Avary's Rules of Attraction and James Gray's The Yards.


Sally Field

No one can dispute Field's dramatic chops when she has the right role to chew on. But her post-Oscar decision-making has been spotty. Field followed up her first Best Actress win (for 1979's Norma Rae) with the crassly unnecessary sequels Beyond the Poseidon Adventure and Smokey and the Bandit II. But she rebuilt some credibility with the journalism drama Absence of Malice before winning Best Actress Oscar number two for Places in the Heart, in 1985. Then, Field starred in lighter movies like the Michael Caine comedy Surrender, for which very few audiences did. She performed superbly in the ensembles of Steel Magnolias, Soapdish, and Forrest Gump, but eventually she went back to where her career began — in television.

What about the future? TV has changed considerably since the mid-1960s when, Field first starred on Gidget. Her current role on ABC's drama Brothers and Sisters is allowing Field to do some of the best work of her career. Amazingly, she was a last-minute addition to the show.


Louise Fletcher

Fletcher's piercing gaze served her admirably as the malicious Nurse Ratched in 1975's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and the Academy awarded her a well-deserved Best Actress statuette. The transition to horror films was a natural move, but unfortunately she began her post-Oscar career with the shlocky The Exorcist II: The Heretic and went on to forgettable genre films like Mamma Dracula, Brainstorm, and Strange Invaders. It's certainly not Fletcher's fault that she was typecast as the personification of evil after playing Nurse Ratched, but she does have the distinction of having one of the least impressive post-Oscar resumes.

What about the future? Fletcher has never stopped working, which has made the 72-year-old a hot commodity for guest spots on TV shows like ER and Joan of Arcadia.


Brenda Fricker

Fricker was a victim of the Best Supporting Oscar curse, which often places its winner in the precarious position of trying to use Oscar clout to make the the jump to lead roles, or, like Fricker, using the Oscar to bag as many roles as you can while your name recognition is high. That's the only reasonable explanation for why she was a bag lady in Home Alone 2 only three years after her win for My Left Foot. Although she would later be cast over and over again as an Irish maternal figure (So I Married an Axe Murderer, Veronica Guerin) Fricker hasn't landed a part as juicy as the mother she played to Daniel Day Lewis.

What about the future? Consistency isn't the issue for Fricker. Timing is. She's only one well-written role away from reminding people why she's an Oscar winner.


Cuba Gooding Jr.

With his Jerry Maguire character's ultra-quotable catchphrase, "Show me the money," and an exceptionally enthusiastic acceptance speech for his Best Supporting Actor award, Cuba Gooding Jr. followed his alter ego Rod Tidwell's advice all the way to such lamentable movies as Chill Factor and Snow Dogs, and maybe the Worst Film Ever Starring an Oscar Winner — Boat Trip. Gooding Jr. told the New York Times, "I thought people wanted me to make them laugh. But I was wrong on so many levels. I try to take all my energy and bravado and take it into comedy, and that's when I'm terrible."

What about the future? The actor has since tried to correct course with indies like the cop drama Dirty and the poorly received Shadowboxer. But he's also slid further down cred mountain with a supporting role in Eddie Murphy's Norbit, so we just hope it's not too late.


Louis Gossett Jr.

Jaws 3-D set the tone for the long, long string of generic action movies that Gossett would make in the wake of his Best Supporting Actor award for playing Gunnery Sergeant Foley in 1982's An Officer and a Gentleman. Following his win, Gossett partnered with now-irrelevant '80s heavy-hitters like Chuck Norris (Firewalker) and Jim Belushi (The Principal), and took the lead in the patriotic but putrid Iron Eagle franchise.

What about the future? Gossett pops up occasionally on TV (Stargate SG-1) and in video games (Half-Life 2). And thanks to Tyler Perry, we recently saw Gossett in a big-screen drama again with Daddy's Little Girls.


Helen Hunt

The title As Good As It Gets might've been prophetic for Hunt, who parlayed her wit and charm on TV's Mad About You into a similarly self-effacing role in the 1997 James L. Brooks dramedy. But after taking home the Best Actress Oscar for it, the actress made four films that all hit theaters simultaneously — Pay It Forward, Robert Altman's Dr. T and the Women, Cast Away, and What Women Want. Her role in Cast Away was decent if small, but the other three films were ultimately forgettable. Since then, she has starred in only four films, and none have won her anywhere near the acclaim of As Good As It Gets.

What about the future? Hunt can still take her time and pick projects that really appeal to her. She'll make her feature directorial debut with Then She Found Me, a romantic drama in which she stars alongside Colin Firth, Matthew Broderick, and Bette Midler.


Gwyneth Paltrow

Paltrow won the Best Actress Oscar for her role as the Bard's muse in 1998's Shakespeare in Love, but in the years since then she has made some award grabs that just haven't connected. There was Neil LaBute's Possession, Anthony Minghella's The Talented Mr. Ripley, and then her turn as poet Sylvia Plath in Sylvia. She also had a number of less ambitious films (the depressing romance Bounce and flight attendant flop View From the Top) that also underwhelmed audiences.

What about the future? Paltrow has found luck, post-Oscar, with ensemble films. She was very good in The Royal Tenenbaums, The Anniversary Party, and Infamous. The decidedly non-Oscarcentric Iron Man is up next for her. But seriously, how could you not be excited to see her acting opposite Robert Downey Jr. and Terrence Howard?


Sydney Pollack

Either Out of Africa was the peak of Pollack's career or he's just been waiting a few decades to match its excellence. After a brilliant run of hits including The Electric Horseman, Absence of Malice, and Tootsie, Pollack finally found Oscar gold with 1985's Out of Africa. He'd been nominated for Tootsie and They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, but it was Africa that gave him Best Director and Best Picture wins. Pollack's first post-Oscar effort, Havana, was another epic romance with Africa star Robert Redford, and was the kind of prestige project that looked like it would burnish his credentials. Instead, the film flopped. Pollack had a hit the next time around, casting Tom Cruise in an adaptation of John Grisham's The Firm, but his record since then has been spotty: a miscast remake of Sabrina, a really random Random Hearts, and the underperforming thriller The Interpreter. Oh, and now, he's doing commercials for Cingular.

What about the future? Pollack has been acting and producing more lately than directing, but he recently took a break from narrative films to make the acclaimed documentary Sketches of Frank Gehry.


Susan Sarandon


Just over a decade ago, it was nearly unthinkable that Sarandon would follow her turn as Sister Helen Prejean in Dead Man Walking with a series of grieving and/or eccentric moms in bland films like The Banger Sisters and Stepmom. Hollywood has never been kind to older women, but Sarandon has been left behind her contemporaries, Annette Bening and Meryl Streep, in picking choice roles.

What about the future? Sarandon is still usually the best thing about every movie she's in (example: Elizabethtown) and she does have some promising projects on her plate, including the likely awards contender In the Valley of Elah.


Mira Sorvino

Woody Allen has a knack for putting actresses in a position to win the Best Supporting Actress category — even Jennifer Tilly was nominated under his watch. Sorvino won in 1996 for her high-pitched hooker in Mighty Aphrodite and then rushed headlong into a series of films where she was utterly miscast. From Chow Yun-Fat's American action debut The Replacement Killers to the tepid Val Kilmer romance At First Sight, Sorvino hasn't again shown the charm that won her an Oscar — save for Romy and Michele's High School Reunion, which not surprisingly has become a cult hit. In recent years, she has languished in TV movies like Human Trafficking or direct-to-video fare like the Mariah Carey comedy WiseGirls.

What about the future? Sorvino works best in comedies, but she may finally have a chance at crossing over with the upcoming drama Reservation Road, a film from Hotel Rwanda director Terry George, in which she'll share the screen with Mark Ruffalo and Joaquin Phoenix.


Kevin Spacey

Have you heard of Ordinary Decent Criminal? Nope, neither had we. The direct-to-video bomb has the dubious distinction of being Spacey's follow-up to his Best Actor win for 1999's American Beauty (he took home a Supporting Actor Oscar four years earlier for The Usual Suspects). After Criminal, Spacey made a series of Oscar-bait projects that were more gratuitous than grand, including Pay It Forward, K-Pax, and Beyond the Sea.

What about the future? The fact that he's the artistic director of London's Old Vic theater and has had meaty roles in big-budget films like Superman Returns is a good start. If Spacey can lay off The Life of David Gales and do more fun flicks like Fred Claus and the upcoming 21, we think he can regain his Beauty cred.


Hilary Swank

After her Best Actress win for 1999's transgender-themed Boys Don't Cry, Swank made the turgid, not coincidentally ultra-feminine period piece The Affair of the Necklace. Then she headed straight down the tubes into The Core, an embarrassingly shoddy disaster flick. Swank came out swinging in 2005 though, scoring a second Best Actress win for Clint Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby.

What about the future? Though it was a Hollywood cliché, the warmly received Freedom Writers featured Swank in her element as a tough but emotionally vulnerable teacher out to inspire inner-city kids.


Marisa Tomei

Plenty of people have joked that Tomei's Best Supporting Actress win for My Cousin Vinny was some kind of gross voting error, but her second nomination in the same category, many years later, for In the Bedroom proved she was no fluke. When Tomei pulled off one of the biggest upsets in Oscar history (beating out heavy-hitters Miranda Richardson, Joan Plowright, Vanessa Redgrave, and Judy Davis), it set her up for a career as a leading lady that she just couldn't live up to. Tomei faded fast with starring roles in vacuous 1990s duds like the baboon heart-tugger Untamed Heart and the unfunny romantic comedy Only You.

What about the future? Although audiences most recently saw Tomei in the dubious John Travolta comedy Wild Hogs, she seems to be working a "one for the studios and one for herself" policy that has made amends for her post-Oscar stumble from grace, doing films like last year's Charles Bukowski-inspired Factotum.


Robin Williams

Williams picked up his Best Supporting Actor Oscar for 1997's Good Will Hunting, but what happened after is one of the great tragedies of post-Oscar careerdom. Two words. Patch Adams. The treacly doctor dramedy has been the butt of many bad-movie jokes. Now relegated to direct-to-video flicks like The Final Cut when he's not doing bread-and-butter shtick in broad comedies like RV, the incredibly sharp Williams seems to have been mostly defanged by his Oscar fortunes. He's had a number of roles in questionable melodramas like Bicentennial Man and What Dreams May Come but seems to earn praise only in films where he plays a psycho — One Hour Photo, Insomnia.

What about the future? Williams had a nice supporting turn in Night at the Museum, and the upcoming August Rush, a fantasy film in the vein of The Adventures of Baron von Munchausen, is more than a little bit intriguing.

Saturday, March 03, 2007 9:24:00 AM

 

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