The movie world is full of second generation actors. But it’s even more enticing to investigate sibling stars. Anyone ever hear of sibling rivalry?

Among the candidates:

Alec Baldwin, as noted, is the acknowledged alpha Baldwin brother. But he’s trying to soften his sometimes bombastic image. 30 Rock’s success welcomes him into even the most conservative “media rooms.” He’s also making jaunty appearances on Turner Classic Movies, co-hosting the weekly “essentials” series and recommending such mainstream faves as Ben-Hur and Funny Girl. Meanwhile, likable brother William has made a name for himself, while sibs Daniel and Stephen are largely in the background. When Stephen voted Republican in the last two elections, Alec said, “I’m glad Dad isn’t alive to see this.”

You gotta feel a little sorry for the Culkins. Poppa Bear Christopher Culkin has the rep of a ferocious stage father. Home Alone made Macaulay Culkin one of the most famous child stars in movie history. But that was 19 years ago, and Mac now has reason to be sad-eyed. The 28-year-old actor is far from an adult headliner. But brothers Kieran and Rory are winning raves for Lymelife.

Ben and Casey Affleck have established themselves in both indie and mainstream movies. What’s more, they seem to get along just fine. That’s not always the case. For example…

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There’s something provocative about movie stars falling in love while making a movie. What follows is a list of cuddly movie co-stars, some contemporary, some from days of yore.

You may wonder why Liam Neeson and Natasha Richardson or Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward or Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh didn’t make the list. It’s because Cupid struck them during the production of a stageplay, not a movie. After all, we aim for total accuracy.

And now, the list, beginning with some golden oldies:

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The new movie I Love You, Man takes bromance to extremes. Ladies’ man Paul Rudd is about to marry but discovers his lack of close buddies makes a Best Man impossible. He embarks on various “mandates” before settling on Jason Segel. But does his fiancee have any say on the subject?

Other big-screen “bromances” include:

Watchmen is just the latest example of how graphic novels, boasting visually rich stylistic touches, have proved irresistible to moviemakers.

Among the many:

The curse of the Oscar jinx started with poor Luise, who won two consecutive Best Actress trophies for playing wronged wives in 1936’s The Great Ziegfeld and 1937’s The Good Earth. By 1939, she was washed-up, moviegoers and critics having wearied of her ongoing parade of sad-eyed helpmates. One critic asserted that she registered so much self-pity that audience sympathy seemed superfluous.

But if Luise is forgotten, the Oscar Jinx rumor remains, the fear being that after winning the award, your best work is behind you. Some recent Oscar winners may be heading for the Rainer route.

Among the possibilities:

And in the name of Saint Valentine, don’t travel down Revolutionary Road. It was snubbed in the Oscar race, possibly because Academy voters found viciously unhappy marriages too close for comfort. Leo and Kate, as in DiCaprio and Winslet, snarl at each other for most of the movie, and there’s only one borderline happy couple in the film. Kathy Bates plays an aggressively cheerful realtor and Richard Easton plays her hard-of-hearing husband. He turns off his hearing aid whenever he gets tired of her babbling.

So you decide to cuddle up at home and slip in a DVD. Even then, show caution. Some Golden Oldies take a tarnished view of love. A few examples of films to watch in a spirit of perverse fun (depending on how perverse your sense of fun is) or to avoid completely:

]]> http://www.getlisty.com/bigcountryhomepage/anti-valentine-movies/feed/ 0 http://www.getlisty.com/bigcountryhomepage/top-black-actors/ http://www.getlisty.com/bigcountryhomepage/top-black-actors/#comments Mon, 19 Jan 2009 14:06:22 +0000 Philip Wuntch http://www.getlisty.com/?p=3148 Barack Obama’s inauguration represents how far African-Americans have traveled since the back-of-the-bus days. African-American actors also had a long and winding road to movie prominence.

Some examples:

Sidney Poitier got the transition off to a stunning start. He was the first African-American mega-star Oscar-winner, and virtually all of today’s black actors acknowledge the debt they owe him. In In the Heat of the Night, when he shouted, “They call me MISTER Tibbs!,” it was a voice heard ’round the world. At the time, he was criticized for playing too many saintly roles. In retrospect, that seems a necessary part of the transition.

Oprah Winfrey made her feature debut in Steven Spielberg’s 1985 version of The Color Purple — and who would’ve guessed that one day she’d be more powerful than he? In the Presidential campaign, some disapproved of her going public with her Obama endorsement. But silence on her part might have been misinterpreted as a lack of support.

Bill Cosby never enjoyed the same success on the big screen as he did on television. But his TV roles reflect the ascent of the African-American actor. In I Spy, he mostly served as sidekick to smug Robert Culp. He was to I Spy what Sammy Davis Jr. was to Sinatra’s Rat Pack. But in The Cosby Show, the Huxtables avoided racial stereotypes and won a warm place in America’s living rooms. Cosby was preceded by Diahann Carroll, whose TV sitcom Julia was similarly embraced for transcending racial cliches.

Will Smith still reigns as box-office king despite the disappointment of the recent Seven Pounds. He’s bigger with ticket-buyers than Cruise, Hanks, Pitt or Sandler. He knows how to play the game, and he plays it smoothly.

Richard Pryor gained wide acceptance as a major movie star and opened the gate for such later titans as Eddie Murphy. Pryor’s personal tragedy sometimes obscures the fact that his talent frequently elevated mediocre movie scripts.

Jennifer Hudson didn’t win the American Idol contest, but she won a more important trophy — the Oscar for Dreamgirls. She also won the public’s respect for her dignity during her recent family tragedy.

Denzel Washington is today’s Sidney Poitier, a handsome, talented actor at home in a variety of roles. He’s the only African-American to win Oscars in both supporting and lead actor categories, and his two Oscars reflect his range. He was a martyred soldier in Glory and a sneering, smirking and deadly corrupt cop in Training Day.

But almost every comic actor has a dark side, and the tears of a clown have been immortalized in verse, on stage and screen and in pop music. Among them:

Jim Carrey discussed his bouts of depression in a 60 Minutes interview in 2004. Chevy Chase also suffered similar despondent spells.

Bill Murray always has been candid in interviews — at least until studio reps tried to shut him up. When doing interviews for 1988’s Scrooged, he told reporters that the flop of his long-planned remake of The Razor’s Edge had left him with a nervous breakdown. When a Studio Type barked, “They want to hear about Scrooged, Bill!,” reporters urged Bill to just keep talking. Last year, he honestly said that the thought of his ongoing messy divorce was “devastating.”

Jackie Chan may be a lovable, chipper action/comic figure on screen. Off screen, he’s said in interviews that American schools are “soft” and he deplores the hour-long lunch breaks allowed in Hollywood moviemaking. He also travels with only two sets of underwear, personally washing at least one pair each night.

Phil Hartman attained tabloid immortality the hard way. On May 28, 1998, the onetime Saturday Night Live headliner was murdered by his wife, who committed suicide later the same morning.

Paul Reubens, a.k.a Pee-wee Herman, became tabloid fodder with his arrest for “lewd conduct” while watching the skin flick Nurse Nancy in a Florida porn theater. Pee-wee practically went bye-bye, but Reubens has stayed afloat in supporting roles under his own name. Pee-wee’s “little adventure” in Florida definitely cast dark shadows.

Dana Carvey shied away from show business for almost six years when, after the success of Wayne’s World, his subsequent films flopped. He reached the decision that he’s best as a stand-up comic and last year did an HBO comedy special.

Steve Martin has been successful in movies, but his stand-up comic routines had a freshness that few of his films have caught. He once expressed a fear that in a dozen years, he’d be making Father of the Bride, Part XII. His writing efforts reveal a sensitivity that his movies also rarely allow. Last year’s memoir, Born Standing Up, was a poignant reverie of his early stand-up years and of his painful relationship with his jealous father.

Comeback is a generic word, freely tossed around. To qualify for a comeback, an actor doesn’t need to have gone away. He just needs not to have been noticed.

Examples, both past and present:

Rourke is the real thing, with his tender, mesmerizing performance in The Wrestler definite Oscar-bait. The role of a has-been wrestler almost mirrors Rourke’s own status. Once a critic’s favorite, he’s made relatively few films in the last decade, with 2006’s Stormbreaker a critical and box-office dud. But he’s been navigating the comeback trail with great finesse, appearing on talk shows, apologizing for past excesses and even chatting up his pet Chihuahua.

Downey has never gone away. He was wry and witty in 2007’s Zodiac, but the film was not widely seen. His terrific turn in Iron Man helped make the comic book movie a Marvelous hit, and he followed it with inspired hilarity in Tropic Thunder. The one-time bad boy and substance abuser is now a Hollywood kingpin, to be seen in ‘09 as Sherlock Holmes, co-starring Jude Law and Rachel McAdams. One misstep, however: He started dissing The Dark Knight once the Batman epic surpassed Iron Man as the year’s biggest blockbuster.

Gwyneth Paltrow has announced that she wants to concentrate on her family and no longer cares about “carrying” a movie. So, after a slew of largely unseen artsy endeavors, Princess Gwyn made a wise career move by playing Pepper Potts in Iron Man. She was accessible, jolly and a regular salt-and-pepper gal who had strong chemistry with Downey. If Iron Man was a comeback for Downey, it was no less so for Paltrow.

Jim Carrey and Tom Cruise are hoping for holidays greetings.

Carrey’s last hit was 2005’s Fun With Dick and Jane, but it was a fleetingly popular film that few even remember. Otherwise, his recent starring vehicles have bombed. Yes Man, which borrows heavily from Carrey’s own Liar, Liar, opened nicely but below expectations. Carrey and Company are blaming its meek opening week on the weather.

Cruise’s alleged fall from grace has been widely documented. But his comic bit in Tropic Thunder won raves, including a Golden Globe supporting-actor nod, while his down-with-Hitler opus Valkyrie, opened Christmas Day with strong advance tracking but mixed reviews. Still, don’t count Cruise out. He knows how to play the game.

Sister Meryl is only one of many actresses who have donned the nun’s habit. Others range from the predictable (Deborah Kerr) to the outrageous (Joan Collins). Among them: Susan Sarandon won the 1995 Oscar for playing a modern real-life nun with progressive ideas in Dead Man Walking. She befriends convicted killer Sean Penn and remains at his side even when he walks the proverbial Last Mile. Terrific performance in a terrific film.

Jodie Foster was the fire-breathing nun who made The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys (2002) seem dangerous indeed. Despite Foster’s emphatic performance, the film received only a limited release.

Christopher Durang’s play Sister Mary Explains It All wasn’t even considered movie material but was made into a TV movie in 2001 with Diane Keaton as unsympathetic Sister Mary. Ironically, in 1987, Keaton had directed her first film, a documentary named Heaven, which explored various people’s views of the Sweet Hereafter.

What about Mrs. Robinson as a Mother Superior? Anne Bancroft, The Graduate’s suburban sexual aggressor, played a worldly Mother in 1985’s Agnes of God. She confesses that her former husband and their children never forgave her when she decided to enter a convent.

Vanessa Redgrave probably played the most ferocious nun of all in 1971’s The Devils. A hunchback, she had lust in her heart for priest Oliver Reed and engineers his downfall. When he’s (very graphically) burned at the stake, her joy is downright fiendish.