1) Mark Ruffalo. The country's finest actor. About to face the biggest acting challenge of his life in The Avengers as the third Hulk in less than ten years, sharing screen time with the otherwise talented Chris Evans -- now stripped of every human characteristic to play the jingoistic cardboard cut out Captain America -- and tabloid queen Scarlett Johansson.
2) Terrence Howard. Onscreen he projects a sheen of stillness with turbulence peeking out beneath that adds the complexity to his performance. So far only The Brave One, Hustle & Flow and Crash have given him the space (and screen time) to really demonstrate his full range.
3) Tom Hardy. The British actor that can do the distance. Talent and a tidy package. The Dark Knight Rises may finally bring him the American acclaim he's been owed since RockNRolla.
4) Mark Wahlberg. If Ruffalo brings to mind Brando, Wahlberg calls up Spencer Tracy. He was a body before he was famous for anything else but, starting with Penny Marshall's Renaissance Man, he let the world know there was a great deal more.
5) Jack Nicholson. An American original who created a new film archetype. Not enough films with him in the last decade which was the screen's loss.
We'll even take store credit to get rid of them . . .
1) George Clooney. Cosmetic work at the end of 2008 gave Clooney's face a weird, stretched out look. Maybe he was hoping a new look would trick ticket buyers? If so, they were smarter than he is and have continued to avoid all his leading roles of the last ten years. As a face in the crowd on the Oceans, he can pretend he's a star in a way his bit part in the Spy Kids series doesn't allow. But as he gets more stilted on the big screen than Troy Donahue, maybe it's time for Clooney to start considering returning to TV? The last time he surprised onscreen was Team America.
2) Matthew Broderick. The roly-poly banty rooster is a suicide bomber when it comes to films. As a romantic lead, he's destroyed Addicted To Love and The Stepford Wives. He also managed to break Jim Carey's comedy streak by co-starring in Carey's first significant bomb (The Cable Guy). More than any other number peformer, Broderick as a co-lead means movie goers ask, "What else is playing?"
3) Orlando Bloom. In 1998, Bloom kicked off his film career playing a rentboy in Wilde. He's pretty much delivered the same performance ever since. When surrounded with talent (the Lord of the Rings films, the Pirate films), he can be part of a hit. When asked to carry a film, he is 100% bomb, whether putting Cameron Crowe's thriving directing career on life support (Elizabethtown) or bringing down a multi-million dollar project (The Three Musketeers), Bloom is 100% bomb.
4) Brad Pitt. The male starlet. And every joke ever (wrongly) told about Marilyn Monroe, the bombshell who wants to be seen as an actor. When he tries to act, things get bad, really, really bad (Seven Years In Tibet) or worse than bad (Meet Joe Black). To date, he's only come across on screen four times -- in supporting roles in Thelma & Louise and 12 Monkeys and in lead roles in Fight Club and Mr. & Mrs. Smith. The four roles required no deep thinking, merely kinetic energy and harnessing of Pitt's sex appeal. Use the looks while they're still there.
5) John C. Reilly. For over fifty films, John C. Reilly has given the exact same performance proving he is consistent if also one-note. In the last ten years alone, he's made 26 feature films. Unless and until Deliverance is remade and their casting the Ned Beatty role, Reilly should take a long, long break.
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