Good Actors, Bad Movies
 

So I'm flipping channels the other night and stumbled across "Once Bitten", starring a young Jim Carrey. I knew that he was in this movie, but as I'm watching the credits, I see that Megan Mullalley (Karen from "Will and Grace") was also in this! I had no idea.

Anybody else know of really shitty movies that had cast members who went on to have solid (or spectacular) careers?

Yes. "Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation" starring Matthew McConaughey and Renee Zellweger.

There is the hole Tom Hanks in "Bachelor Party" situation...

Robert DeNiro in "Rocky and Bullwinkle."

Oh, and about half the cast of "Dick Tracy"

Michelle Pfeifer in "Grease 2"

Anthony Hopkins in Hearts in Atlantis. Another brutal adaptation of a good Stephen King novel...

Dola--

During the days of the studio system, almost all the big stars had to pay their dues doing B-class films. Basically, they had to rise above the crud they were in or be good enough to make it seem like it wasn't crud in order to 'graduate' to A-level work.

You can check the entries of almost any of the old time stars to verify it. Leonard Maltin's biography excerpts on them usually start with a listing of crap movies that they did before they had their breakthroughs.

D-mn JeeberD ruining my dola...

I think most of Johnny Depp's movies weren't ones I wasn't fond of. Sleepy Hollow comes to mind real quick.

Is Matthew McConaughey a good actor?
:eek:

Wait a sec, you think Jim Carrey is a good actor?!?!?!?!

Wow. Um. Wow.

No offense intended, I think he's probably one of the least talented people whose had success...

~tk

That wasn't the question.

i love bachelor party.

"Fast times in Ridgemont High" with Sean Penn and Jennifer Jason Leigh...

(Edit: forgot that Forrest Whitaker and Nicolas Cage was in it too)

There's George Clooney in "Return of the Killer Tomatoes", but then I'm partial to the Killer Tomatoes movies.

"Please pass the ketchup"

I'm speechless.

Not exactly the question(who went on to have good careers) but I feel the need to continue to point out how horrible this movie is, even with all the names:

http://imdb.com/title/tt0338459/

Antonio Banderas, Ricardo Montalban, Sylvester Stallone, Salma Hayek, Steve Buscemi, Bill Paxton, George Clooney, Elijah "Hey, that's Frodo" Wood

I was looking at the title of the thread. After re-reading the first post: "You are correct, sir!"

With that in mind:

Julia Roberts -- "Satisfaction"

James Spader -- the star of both "Tuff Turf" and "Gotcha!"

Susan Sarandon -- whose big break was the Brooke shields quasi-kiddie porn vehicle "Pretty Baby"

Gina Gershon -- "Showgirls"

Sharon Stone -- "Irreconcileable Differences"

Eddie Murphy -- "Best Defense"

Christian Slater -- "Gleaming the Cube"

And the one I really hate to list because I hate his flicks so bad that I avoid them like the plague:

Jean-Claude Van Damme -- "No Retreat, No Surrender"

"Gotcha!" was the shit. Loved that movie. Linda Fiorentino and Anthony Edwards were both in that as well.

Maybe this should just be a "dated 80's movies that I really like" thread. Anybody else remember "Cloak and Daggers"?

As Cam hints at above, Gotcha starred Anthony Edwayds. James Spader was not involved, something I am sure he points out on a regular basis.

I do-- of course.

"Jack Flack escapes!"

"Jack Flack always escapes..."

My favorite from that era has to be The Dark Crystal. I saw it again as a teenager and it was still disturbing. I have to check that out again...

Back on topic-- something I always do when I watch a moderately old (5 years or so) movie is watch the credits all the way through to see if I can pick out a famous person way down on the list.

I loved Gotcha! I was always a huge Anthony Edwards fan, Ironically, even that wasn't enough to make me watch ER.

He would have made a great Ross on Friends, if he had been about 5 years younger.

Sorry, I got my memory confused. Maybe it's because I have trouble remembering Anthony Edwards with hair. Even my memories of him in Revenge of the Nerds blend with my image of him in ER.

Speaking of Anthony Edwards, has anyone else seen "Mr. North"?

Same here. Especially 90's movies, since I lost touch with the "young" crowd at some point around 1994 and now have no clue who's popular until about 5 years after those "in the know" have discovered them.

Did I miss it or was there a Sean Connery and "Highlander 2" mention earlier?

This, as well as the DeNiro mention earlier, I don't think fit what Cam is getting at. I think he's looking for bad movies with someone who thereafter became famous. In the case of Highlander II and Rocky and Bullwinkle, I'm thinking Connery and DeNiro had already made pretty decent careers for themselves by the time those moveis were released.

Ah ok....I didn't actually read his post..I just responded to the thread's title. I guess I should start paying attention to what you guys actually type.

No problem, although if you are looking for bad Anthony Edwards movies, you could do much better than Gotcha. How about:

Anthony Edwards - Delta Heat.

James Spader - Storyville, Mannequin, Less than Zero.

Note that the last two also starred Andrew McCarthy, someone who made a lot of bad movies and went on to have a moderately unsuccessful career.

I'm not sure if this falls into what Cam wants... but when I saw The Faculty on TV a couple of weeks ago, I found myself noticing a lot of the faces. Not all of these people are good actors, but I found it weird how there were so many people I knew. :D

Josh Hartnett - a few other movies after this
Elijah Wood - Lord of the Rings
Salma Hayek - a number of movies
Famke Janssen - Jean Grey in X-Men
Usher Raymond - Musician
Robert Patrick - Terminator guy... although that was before this I think
Jon Stewart - The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

Also featuring semi-gratuitous nudity of the woman who beat the shit out of Chuck Finley. :)

Have you seen Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind yet? He's quite good...

What KSyrup said, but this immediately leaped to my mind too.

There was more of that in The Perils of Gwendoline in the Land of the Yik-Yak. And some in Witchboard too. And in some movie about a guy who had to live in a bubble-type room (with her pressed up against the glass, no less).

Ok, I liked redheads at an early age...

Ed Harris - Knightriders
Denzell Washington - Carbon Copy

Wasn't Tim Robbins the nerdy scientist in "Howard the Duck"?

Charlize Theron -- the remake of "Mighty Joe Young"

If we're going this route, how can you mention Connery and forget League of Extraordinary Gentleman?

From watching some USA yesterday, and speaking of seeing people that later go on to have careers, Marc Antony is in The Substitute. Although this is one of the movies I watch when I see it on for no discernible reason, I was shocked when I found out they made not one but two sequels - Back to School and Winner Takes All.

Hmm... I liked League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. It could have been better, but I didn't think it was that bad.

Connery, Uma Thurman, and Ralph Fiennes in the Avengers. Boy that movie sucked.

Everyone in Tim Burton's "Planet of the Apes."

Truly, one of the worst plotted movie scripts in film history... the Greeks could have learned a thing or two about "deus ex machina" writing from it...

They actually made THREE sequels to it. Even worse, Treat Williams was in all three of the sequels. I like Tom Berenger a lot, but he just didn't bring much unintentional comedy to the original Substitute movie (although Ernie Hudson did). Treat Williams, on the other hand, cranks up the UIC scale bigtime in the sequels! Highly recommended!

Ugh, I didn't like it at all...

Juan Lacas was a badass.

treat williams is the king of B motion pictures!

Sylvester Stallone: Before there was Rocky, there was Death Race 2000

Death Race 2000 is a classic film. It's all good.

How is that Ishtar hasn't been mentioned yet? Warren Beaty and Dustin Hoffman in one of the biggest flops in history.

Because it doesn't answer the original question. Cam is looking for bad movies with "stars before they were stars" in them. I think Ishtar was a couple of years removed from The Graduate (or even Tootsie).

Warren Beatty on the other hand...what's that f*ck ever done?

Shame on you.

(Or did you transpose the thread title? We're looking for good actors, and bad movies. Maybe you were confused?)

Go dig up Fast Times. He is one of Spicoli's buds and has long hair.

Annette Benning