Top Ten Canadian Characters

While I may be physically back from Canada, my mind wishes I was still there. Maybe it was the kind generosity that all Canadians tend to have, or perhaps it was from all the sugar in Tim Horton donuts, but Canada is just a great country. So it is to my surprise that there are very few Canadian creations in the media, despite the majority of Hollywood seemingly hailing from the Great North. But there are some fine ones out there, so grab your poutine and Neil Young records, here's the top ten Canadian characters.

Acting Losing Streaks

Don't watch it. I'm warning you.

It has taken me awhile, but I think I found the secret to good blog posting. If you are too lazy to write yourself, steal from someone else. Welcome to the internet.

The nice folks at Uproxx put together a list of actors who have had at least five bad movies after winning an Oscar. Not that winning an Oscar equals a good movie. But yeah... yeah. I don't have much more to say. So here's the list.

10. Nicole Kidman = 5. Won for The Hours in 2002. Flops from 2007 to 2009, Invasion, Golden Compass, Margot at the Wedding, Australia, Nine.
Remember, Australia and Nine were hyped to hell and back for the award shows. I think only nine people saw Nine, and only the population of Australia saw Australia. That's 18 people all together.

9. Joe Pesci = 5. Won for Goodfellas in 1990. Flops from 1997 to 2010, 8 Heads in a Duffel Bag, Gone Fishin', Lethal Weapon 4, The Good Shephard, Love Ranch.
I loved Lethal Weapon 4. It gave the West Jet Li and it was a great send off to one of the best (now dead) sub-genres in film, the interracial buddy cop flick. It is also a million times better than Lethal Weapon 3.

8. Robert DeNiro = 5. Won for Godfather Part II in 1974 and Raging Bull in 1980. Flops from 2002 to 2005,  Showtime, City by the Sea, Analyze That, Meet the Fockers, Hide and Seek.
DeNiro was one of the greatest actors of all-time. But he should have retired a decade ago. I can only name two good films of his over the past ten years (Meet the Parents and The Score, maybe Stardust). Rocky & Bullwinkle and Little Fockers almost discredit his entire career single-handedly. And don't forget about Righteous Kill with Al Pacino. That was like watching your parents die for two straight hours.

7. Ben Affleck = 7. Won for Good Will Hunting in 1997. Flops from 2002 to 2006, The Third Wheel, Daredevil, Gigli, Paycheck, Jersey Girl, Surviving Christmas, Man About Town.
He only won for writing in Good Will Hunting, and he shared it on top of that. And according to reliable sources (aka that one Family Guy cut-away) Matt Damon did all the writing.

6. Marisa Tomei = 8. Won for My Cousin Vinny in 1992. Flops from 2001 to 2006, Someone Like You, Just a Kiss, The Guru, Anger Management, Alfie, Loverboy, Marilyn Hotchkiss' Ballroom Dancing and Charm School, The Factotum.
According to legend, she really didn't win for My Cousin Vinny, but the presenter was too drunk to read the card and just said the last name he remembered (come to think about it, Family Guy did a cut-away for that too). But that doesn't change the fact that she is the world's best looking woman over 40.

5. Julia Roberts = 9. Won for Erin Brockovich in 2000 (with noms for Pretty Woman and Steel Magnolias before that). Flops from 1990 to1996, Flatliners, Dying Young, Hook, Sleeping with the Enemy, The Pelican Brief, I Love Trouble, Ready to Wear, Something to Talk About, Mary Reilly.
I not sure what I'm more upset about: The list maker breaking their own rules for including movies before she won an Oscar, or for the list makers saying Hook is a bad movie.

4. Kevin Spacey = 9. Won for The Usual Suspects in 1995 and American Beauty in 1999. Flops from 1999 to 2006, Ordinary Decent Criminal, Pay It Forward, The Shipping News, K-Pax, Austin Powers: Goldmember, The United States of Leland, The Life of David Gale, Beyond the Sea, Edison.
Kevin Spacey is at his best when he plays a bad guy. And you can't count Austin Powers against him. His ten seconds of screen time were absolutely brilliant     

3. Helen Hunt = 10. Won for As Good As It Gets in 1997. Flops from 2000 to Current, Pay It Forward, What Women Want, Dr. T. and the Woman, The Curse of the Jade Scorpion, One Night at McCools, A Good Woman, Bobby, Then She Found Me, Every Day, Soul Surfer.
She also won four Emmys from 1996-99 in Mad About You. How many other TV actors have made this good of jump to the big screen?

2. Robin Williams = 13. Won for Good Will Hunting in 1997 (and was robbed for several other ones). Flops from 2004 to 2009, The Final Cut, Noel, House of D, The Night Listener, The Big White, Night at the Museum, The Night Listener, R.V., Everyone's Hero, Man of the Year, License to Wed, August Rush, Old Dogs.
Robin Williams is another multi-Emmy winner, both from stand-up routines. For being one of the funniest people alive, he has put out tons of painfully unfunny stuff. What's even harder to believe is the movie that broke his losing streak was World's Greatest Dad, an insanely dark comedy about his dead son that was directed by Bobcat Goldthwait of all people.

1. Cuba Gooding, Jr. = 16. Won for Jerry Maguire in 1996. Flops form 1999 to 2007, Murder of Crows, Instinct, Chill Factor, Men of Honor, Rat Race, Pearl Harbor, Snow Dogs, Boat Trip, The Fighting Temptations, Radio, Home on the Range, Shadowboxer, Dirty, Daddy Day Camp, What Love Is, Norbit.
While he did a great job of yelling "Show me the money!", that best supporting actor award had William H. Macy written all over it. But it was worth it for his mega hyper - possibly cocaine influenced - acceptance speech, which must have blacklisted him from Hollywood. However, anyone who accepts a role in a sequel to a cancerous Eddie Murphy movie deserves to be left in the dust.

The Ten Worst Movie Titles Ever

They say you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but I've never heard wrong with judging it by the title. A stupid title will turn off so many people, and sink your film before it ever sets sail.

For example, here I have The Midnight Meat Train, which is a great, serious horror movie directed by Ryuhei Kitamure (Versus, Metal Gear Solid cutscenes), based on the amazing short story by Clive Barker (Hellraiser), and starring a pre-Hangover Bradley Cooper and a psycho Vinnie Jones. You should all go see it, however, you could not have seen it in theaters because they could not release a movie called The Midnight Meat Train to a wide audience.

While that was a good movie, here's ten (mostly) not-so-great films with even stupider titles. I can't believe studios would ever ok some of these dumb names. I'm not including any intentional dumb titles (ie The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living And Became Mixed-Up Zombies), nor am I including any indy or guerilla or just plain horrible films (Manos: Hands of Fate). All of these were green-lit by a major studio without anyone thinking the title was idiotic.   

Top Ten X-Men Yet to Get The Film Treatment

Pictured: Two and a Half People on this List

Well X-Men First Class is pretty good. If you haven't seen it yet, just watch the previews. Every major scene is there. But man, even after five movies, they have barely scratched the surface as far as the available mutants go. So without further ado, here's ten of the best hundred or so characters who have yet to find the big screen.

The Top Ten Acting Jobs of Shaq

Good thing he isn't Dr. Shaqhatten

First off, my internet sucks and I couldn't get on yesterday.

Second, you may have heard the news that the biggest (quite literally) basketball star of the post-Jordan-in-his-prime era, Shaquille O'Neil, has called it a day. The 7'1, 325 lbs, 39-year-old all-star is retiring after 18 seasons and 28,596 points, good enough for fifth all time. He played for the Orlando Magic, the LA Lakers, and...wherever the hell he was at these last four years.

In addition to him retiring during the NBA Finals, two hockey players called it quits and an entire team moved countries during the Stanley Cup Finals. Can't these people wait a week or two till the off-season?

So you may be wondering why I bring this up on a movie blog. Well, Shaq was quite the star off the court too. He must have been in more films than any other athlete while they were still playing.  Now that he has some free time, maybe he can bless us with even more film appearances. We can only hope so. So here are the top ten acting roles by Shaquille O'Neil.

Happy 100th Birthday Vincent Price (And His 13 Best Roles)

May 27, 1911 - October 25, 1993

Friday will be the 100th anniversary -- or the Vincentennial if you will -- of the birth of one of Hollywood's most iconic actors, Vincent Price. Born in my hometown of St. Louis, Missouri, Price is a veteran actor of the stage, of TV, and course the big screen as his career spanned seven decades and 110 films. While he was in plenty of different types of movies, he will always be known as the master of horror -- especially with horror films involving a haunted house. His sinister and gothic voice set the mood perfectly. Even if some of you youngsters have never seen his films, you have for sure heard his voice, as that overshadowed his own character, and eventually became a marketing force.

There's not too much I can say that hasn't been already said about this legend. What I will give you are the Top Thirteen (because a sinister star needs a sinister number) Roles of Vincent Price.

The Top Ten Roles of Nicolas Cage

Nic Cage gets a bad rap. It seems too many kids today think he is a joke of an actor. That is as far away from the truth as you can possibly be. Yes, he has had some stinker roles, but that is bound to happen when you are in so many movies. There are a few reasons why he does so many films:

1) He is a major nerd. I mean he changed his name from Coppola (as in Francis Ford Coppola's nephew) to a comic book character's. So he wants to do movies like The Sorcerer's Apprentice and Season of the Witch, which most A-listers would avoid like the plague.
2) He got screwed over by taxes, agents, and wives. He has no money now, and besides selling off his life-long comic collection, he is doing as many movies as possible.
3) He won an Academy Award at a very young age and has plenty more critical acclaim. He is just having fun at this point.

People need to look past all the jokes made about Cage, and look at some of his better roles. If you do so then you'll see, and I'll even make a bold statement, Nic Cage is one of the best actors of our generation.   He has had a long, and steadily solid career. He is still able to put out Four Star films, something so many actors can not say 20+ years later. Roger Ebert says it best: "He is unafraid to crawl out on a limb, saw it off and remain suspended in air." Actually, I have no idea what the hell he is saying. So here's my Top Ten Roles of Nicolas Cage.

Osama bin Laden is DEAD!

Osama bin Laden is dead!!! Sure, it may be a year or two or ten too late, but we finally got him. We can all sleep well now knowing that terrorist is finished and peace will reign forever.

Maybe now that he is gone, Hollywood will feel safe to exploit him in films. So if that's the case, here's the top ten actors who should play Osama.