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Actor Hot Streaks
We haven’t really posted any articles in awhile, with the return of regular, weekly podcast episodes, but I just saw a movie recently and thought of something interesting. It seems to me like a few actors per decade put out a string of consecutive good performances. These are what I’d like to call an “actor hot streak.” During this time, it seems that an actor can do no wrong. Here are 3 of my favorite hot streaks, beginning with the one that sparked this article:
3. Christian Bale
Christian Bale has officially become the newest entry in that category with memorable performances starting with The Machinest. People make claims that he takes himself too seriously, but I disagree, I think he’s a chameleon and with performances in Rescue Dawn and Harsh Times, I think he’s shown that he can be a very dynamic actor. As we all know, Bale jumped into a whole new stratosphere of acting with American Psycho but right after did a string of decent-at-best films that didn’t really showcase his talent: Shaft, Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Reign of Fire, and the Matrix-wannabe Equilibrium. With The Machinest and Bale’s startling physical transformation, he got on the path to become today’s most promising actor.
The Streak:
- The Machinest
- Harsh Times (very under-rated movie, please go check it out)
- Batman Begins
- The New World (which I never saw but gained critical acclaim)
- Rescue Dawn
- The Prestige
- 3:10 To Yuma
Where the Streak Will End:
Bale is coming up in the Bob Dylan-approved biography I’m Not There where he will be one of six actors (including actress Cate Blanchett) who will each portray a different side of Dylan. He’s got The Dark Knight coming up next year, which is a comic book sequel, so if he doesn’t show us something new as Batman/Bruce Wayne like he did with Begins he could take some slack. He’s currently attached to star in a movie called Killing Pablo, which is about the assassination of Colombian gangster Pablo Escobar (who hopefully will not be portrayed by Entourage’s Adrien Grenier, AKA “an actor who will not be appearing on this list”). So of these movies, I’d say the dark horse is Killing Pablo, which if released after Tom Cruise’s Hitler-assassination-themed film Valkyrie could have a been-there, done-that feel to it.
2. Russell Crowe
Russell Crowe co-starred in 3:10 To Yuma with Christian Bale, but I don’t include that in the actor’s hot streak. No, Crowe has been pretty quiet in the past couple years and people have a “fuck that guy” attitude about him now after the “this phone meets your face” incident a couple years ago. But we can’t let that over-shadow the fact that in the late 90’s this guy had a streak of films that will be hard to top.
The Streak:
- L. A. Confidential
- Mystery, Alaska (one of the better sports movies I’ve seen)
- The Insider
- Gladiator
- A Beautiful Mind
- Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
- Cinderella Man
Where the Streak Ended:
I may have cheated with this one, because Crowe’s movie Proof of Life bombed and I heard nothing but shit about it and that was released in 2000 right after Gladiator. But even when a basketball player shoots 7-of-8 from downtown, they still consider that a hot streak. Crowe’s streak ended with last year’s A Good Year where he played a bitch who takes over a vineyard. Crowe was good in 3:10 To Yuma as well, but was completely over-shadowed by Christian Bale.
1. Leonardo DiCaprio
I was so pissed off when the Academy nominated Leonardo DiCaprio for Blood Diamond last year. Not because he wasn’t good, but he would’ve had a much better shot at winning the award if they had put him up for his balls-to-the-wall performance in The Departed, instead. DiCaprio, like Christian Bale, is one of those enigmas–a child actor who grew up to be an honest to God real actor. Now, he’s put out some shit mixed in with the impressive roles, but I’ve never faulted a movie for sucking because DiCaprio didn’t give it his all. He’s one of those guys that makes interesting decisions and stars in gutsy movies like This Boy’s Life, The Basketball Diaries and Total Eclipse. These were especially risky movies considering how young DiCaprio was when he played such complex characters. He’s just fun to watch, even when he’s cast in a bad movie, like The Quick and the Dead (co-starring pre-hot streak Russell Crowe).
The Streak (#1):
- What’s Eating Gilbert Grape
- The Basketball Diaries
- Romeo + Juliet (a movie Baz Luhrmann tried to ruin with his acid-trip directing style)
- Marvin’s Room (an often overlooked drama with Meryl Streep that’s worth checking out)
- Titanic
Where Streak #1 Ended:
The Man in the Iron Mask. What a shit-fuck of a movie. After Titanic, DiCaprio had a couple hang-ups like a cameo in Woody Allen’s Celebrity where he played a variation of himself and The Beach directed by Trainspotting’s Danny Boyle who could not decide what kind of movie he wanted to make, thus ended up with a movie that has a video game sequence in it.
The Streak (#2):
- Gangs of New York
- Catch Me If You Can
- The Aviator
- The Departed
- Blood Diamond
Where Streak #2 Will End:
It’s hard to say. He’s got Sam Mendes’ Revolutionary Road with Kate Winslet coming out next year and The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt in 2009, which could be a shaky bio-movie. My guess, though, is that after his upcoming Inconvenient Truth-wannabe, The 11th Hour, is released people will start getting sick of DiCaprio, and we’ll see him get ripped on via “South Park” within the year.
Well, Hanks arguably should be on this list with his fantastic 90’s record (not including Big which was in 1988)–wins for Philadelphia and Forrest Gump, nominations for Saving Private Ryan and Cast Away. He turned in solid vocal performances in the Toy Story movies, cutesy performances with Meg Ryan in three separate, but watchable, movies (Joe Vs. the Volcano, Sleepless in Seattle, and You’ve Got Mail) and appeared in Oscar-bait movies for which he did not receive a nod (notably The Green Mile and Apollo 13). But the reason he’s not on here is because he phoned in Road to Perdition, showed that he could annoy me in The Terminal and The Ladykillers, and proved that he could actually be MIS-CAST in The Da Vinci Code.
Another case could be made for Paul Giamatti. He’s really been impressing me the last few years with American Splendor, Sideways, Cinderella Man, and even proved he could improve hopelessly shitty movies like Lady in the Water and The Illusionist (which featured another over-rated actor that could’ve appeared on this list in 2001–Edward Norton). So make of this list what you will. It would’ve been hard to put classical actors like Katherine Hepburn and Jimmy Stewart, because they worked back when there was a studio backlot system that churned out hundreds of movies every year, so there was bound to be some crap. The reverse can be said for an actor like Daniel Day Lewis who, though great, does too few movies that he becomes culturally irrelevant.
Discussion
20 comments for “Actor Hot Streaks”
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You SO have it for Christian Bale. It’s unbearable. PS: The Beach rules, so did the Man in the Iron Mask. You are dead wrong about those two. The second streak is his only streak not when stupid ass Titanic and Romeo and Juliet came out. Come on Dude! YOU BLEW IT THERE!
Oh my god. I just finished the article and you say that Tom Hanks was annoying in The Terminal? He’s such a lovable guy in that role. How could you be annoyed!? And everyone bags on the Da Vinci code, but it wasn’t as bad as everyone made it out to be. I’m sick and tired of critics jumping on the band wagon about how that movie was effing terrible. It wasn’t all that bad. He may have been a miscast in that role, for some reason I pictured someone more… professor like? Think Harrison Ford in the Indiana Jones age, if he hadn’t done Indiana Jones…
Danny Boyle is an incredible director but the Beach is a royal steaming turd.
I submit:
1) Matt Damon (You will see an acting Oscar in his hands within the next few years)
Streak - Syriana
The Departed
The Good Shepherd
Ocean’s Thirteen
Bourne Ultimatum (easily one of the best movies I’ve seen this year)
2) Clive Owen
Streak - Closer
Sin City
Inside Man (fucking awesome)
Children of Men
Shoot em Up
Forget about Derailed and the Pink Panther cameo. I’m sure he just wanted to hang out with Aniston and Beyonce.
Honorable mentions:
Casey Affleck - Soon to cast a huge f-ing shadow on brother Ben.
Ryan Gosling - Doing a movie with a “Real” doll? That takes real balls.
Tommy Lee Jones - Check out “The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada”. You won’t be disappointed.
Fuck if I can think of one woman who’s on a streak. Hollywood sucks.
Where did I say Da Vinci Code was a bad movie? I think it’s pretty lukewarm and just not very interesting. But you even agree that Hanks was mis-cast, therefore strengthening my argument. This is not about the movies, this is about the performances, and I thought DiCaprio was bad in Man in the Iron Mask, but that may be because I generally don’t like dual-roles in movies.
Haha. I can tell my current Bale crush is annoying you, and I’ll try to turn it down, the guy is just good, and right now he’s peaking and I like to see it when an actor can do no wrong (although they all inevitably will).
I want to see what Adam has to say about all this.
I too have an obsessive anticipation of what Bale will do next to step up the bar for commitment to roles. Bale has really helped me get an idea of the line between good acting/bad acting, before I just gauged it on whether I liked the movie or not.
I will agree slightly with Tim and slightly with Josh on Leo’s streaks: The Man in the Iron Mask and The Beach were not bombs and probably not streak killers, but sandwiched in between Josh’s 2 lists of movies … I can see Josh’s point.
I also was annoyed by the Terminal … because I pictured myself as the role of the terminal manager, and I would kill that guy if he thought he was going to be loitering around in my facility. I think the screenwriters added a lot of “cute” into the script, and it made it very unbelievable for me. For example, our old man had a friend who was the defensive center for Notre Dame during the time “Rudy” was there … and said he was an annoying shit who no one liked.
But, I will point out the largest flaw in this whole article … Gary Oldman
The streak is a long one spanning over 10 years, and he is never really the lead man (mostly bad guys) … but he kicks ass!
JFK (1991) …. Lee Harvey Oswald - He was the only actor able to act and not just a storyteller
True Romance (1993) …. Drexl Spivey
The Professional (USA)- Craziest. bad. guy. ever.
Romeo Is Bleeding (1993) …. Jack Grimaldi - Bad Ass
The Fifth Element (1997) …. Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg - Charming bad guy who I had never seen the like of before
Air Force One (1997) …. Ivan Korshunov - Borderline sell-out, but a good counter to the HARRISON GLARE
Lost in Space (1998) …. Spider Smith - ok, this one pretty much busts my point, so lets ignore it
Harry Potter Movies …. Sirius Black - Pulled off the character for me, and aside from Severus … is the only character that really acts/looks like what I pictured from the book.
Batman Begins (2005) …. Jim Gordon - Nuff said
All in all, a good selection of characters and a phenomenal actor
GO RENT ROMEO IS BLEEDING
Two women just came to me. Maria Bello and Naomi Watts.
These two put out consistent great performances. Rent “The Cooler” now bitch and see what I’m talking about.
Gaseous–
Tommy Lee Jones was in “Man of the House”–that’s the kind of movie we like to call a streak-buster.
But yeah, Watts and Bello are solid, I forgot about them. Watts was really good in “We Don’t Live Here Anymore” with my hot-streak television actor Peter Krause.
From all the buzz, it sounds like Casey Affleck is going to surprise us all with “Jesse James” and I can’t wait.
The superb pick of Gary Oldman jogged my memory of another fine actor that commands the screen.
Oh shit, thinking of this dude just gave me another. This list could be endless, although
keeping a nearly flawless streak is tough.
For the older crowd you just can’t miss with Chris Cooper and David Strathairn. Check their IMDB resumes and I challenge you to point out a “streak-buster”.
Haha. After consulting Strathairn’s IMDB I see that he was in an episode of “Miami Vice” way back in the day. Awesome.
And Cooper, yeah, another good choice. Basically ever since Lone Star he’s done a ton of good movies. I always forget that he won for Adaptation, brought the quiet dignity that made Seabiscuit watchable, and really was one of the better parts of American Beauty. You know, I’m surprised none of our fly-by readers hasn’t brought up Spacey yet. His mid-late 90’s streak is another that is worth mentioning.
Yea Josh, Spacey. Fucking KPax was awesome.
/sarcasm
Gary Oldman is one of the best no doubt.
Bill you nailed that one, but you blew it on the Rudy Comment. There is no “center” on Defense. There’s Defensive ends and lineman and linebackers. Center is only on offense, and if you watch the movie you’ll notice alot of guys didn’t like Rudy cause he made them look bad. God damn I love that movie, you touched the stove on that one ya bitch!
He was probably a DT Tim, a lineman. In a 3-4, you could argue that the DT is the “defensive center” by placement alone.
Anyways, Bill, please come prepared when your going to throw around football lingo next time. You’re making Radde men look bad. Go play some Madden and learn the positions!
My bad, defensive end
How about Robin Williams … comedic genius
Cadillac Man (1990)
Hook (1991)
Nine Months (1995)
Jumanji (1995)
The Birdcage (1996)
Jack (1996)
Fathers’ Day (1997)
Bicentennial Man (1999)
Death to Smoochy (2002)
RV (2006)
Man of the Year (2006)
Night at the Museum (2006)
License to Wed (2007)
God dammit, Bill Radde.
Bill! WTF?
Fucking Hook was awesome, but Jumanji? Death to Smoochy? Night at the mother fucking Museum. I am outraged. Fuck it, Christopher Walken if we’re just going to start yelling names out of people who are in every movie that comes out.
Whoever posted under my fucking username… I’m going to go out on a limb and guess it was big gay Ron… will pay for this in blood.
Wild Hogs! Liotta hasn’t been this good since Goodfellas!
What do you mean Tim? What did they type under your username?
It was Ron, he typed the Ray Liotta comment because he has a crush on him because he is a “hamasexssssssssual”
Take that ron.
why can’t i see my ray liotta comment?
oh tim i might have put that in under your name, i believe i did it from your computer at some point while you were indisposed, aka drunk and watching strange days.
Hahaha.