A-List: Respectable Actors and Actresses
Who Need Career Help

By Josh Spiegel

July 22, 2009

When you think of me, please forget Bewitched, The Invasion and Australia.

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In some ways, it's kind of hard to be an actor deserving and worthy of audience respect. Sure, acting isn't the hardest of jobs, but becoming a movie star, someone who millions of people love and look up to, and maintaining a career worthy of stardom isn't so easy. There are, of course, rare cases of people who manage to stay popular despite less-than-worthy movies. For example, let's look at Angelina Jolie (I'll wait the appropriate amount of time for those of you who'd like to take that instruction literally). She is one of the most well-known, oft-recognized people in the entire world, and some of her most popular movies are the Lara Croft series. Shakespeare, it's not. Still, she and Brad Pitt, the most beautiful Hollywood couple...ever, perhaps, are huge stars. They can apparently do no wrong.

Not so many actors are as lucky as Brangelina, though. There are some actors, one of whom is such an egregious offender of being in terrible movies that this list is named in memorial of his career, who just do not know when to stop working. Sure, everyone's not as rich as Brad Pitt, but there is something to be said for a bit of dignity. How can an actor like...yes, Nicolas Cage get away with being a voice in the guinea pig action movie known as G-Force? How? How is this possible? I know he was Ghost Rider, he was in the remake of The Wicker Man, and all the other painful credits, but G-Force? Really?




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In case, then, that you haven't guessed it, this A-List is not only about actors who need help in their careers to stop making unspeakably bad movies, but it excludes the immensely checkered life of Nicolas Cage, Academy Award winner (and now, starring next to Tracy Morgan's voice). This list is in honor of him, because he's the worst example of any actor who ever did a movie simply for a paycheck. Again, this list is not about those actors who make one or two mistakes over their careers for the big bucks (The lead guinea pig in G-Force is voiced by Sam Rockwell, a brilliant actor who rarely steps wrong — speaking of, if you'd like a Rockwell fix this month, watch Moon, not G-Force); the list focuses on the true offenders. So, let's revel in the pain of these actors' choices.

Al Pacino

Oh boy. Or, in his words, OH BOY! Watching Al Pacino work these days is among the most painful things a person can force themselves to go through. Here is the actor who was once Michael Corleone. Here is the actor who faced off with Robert De Niro in Heat. Here is the star of 88 Minutes? Pacino still has the ability to ensnare audiences in his grasp, easily; for a recent example, check out the underrated 2002 crime drama Insomnia, where Pacino faces off against Robin Williams, of all people, keeping a quiet amount of calm (it's also worth checking out because of its director, future Batman helmer Christopher Nolan). Still, the Al Pacino that most people know these days is best personified in one of the climactic scenes in 1997's The Devil's Advocate.


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