30. SHARON STONE ^ We’re thinking that she’s a lot more like her character in The Muse than she’s letting on. We love seeing her naked, but what’s she done for us lately, other than behaving strangely and having a “tiny” brain aneurysm? Time to get back to work and back to being naked, exploding brain or no!
31. JOHNNY DEPP ^ Johnny can be a terrific actor, but lately he’s been letting his hair and his cheekbones do all the work. We loved his bizarro cameos in Before Night Falls, but his preening appearance as Juliette Binoche’s Gypsy love interest in the execrable Chocolat brought to mind Mike Meyer’s “How to be a Handsome Man” SNL sketch. And what’s with his constant pronouncements about how great living in France is and how frightening America is? Sure crime and terrorist attacks in American are scary, but France has terrorists, women with body hair, crime, bad comedies, body odor and French people!
32. ADOLF HITLER ^ Sure, with over 12 million deaths (more if you start counting WWII), his body count still outdoes Osama bin Laden’s by a large amount, but what’s he done for us lately? Old Adolf’s stock as a movie villain is as low as the NASDAQ, and a likely musical remake of The Producers will bring us a gay Hitler. Not scary; not scary at all.
33. PETER HYAMS ^ Has been competing for thirty years with Arthur Hiller, Joel Shumacher, Chris Columbus and others, for the title of worst director in Hollywood. Now, he gets a hit, sort of, “re-imagining” (i.e., desecrating) Dumas with The Musketeer because, well, everything pretty much everything that’s out completely stinks but at least he’s got Tim Roth swordfighting. He hasn’t made a good movie since “Capricorn One” – well, that probably stank too, but we were only thirteen, so we thought those helicopters that kept shooting at the astronauts to prevent them from revealing the faked moon landing were really, really, neat. The director behind End of Days may have a shot at directing the “end of his career.”
34. ROBERT TOWNE ^ Once regarded by some as one of the best screenwriters of the last thirty years, Towne’s recent work has been a long, long way from “Chinatown,” or even “Tequila Sunrise.” His screenplays for both Mission: Impossible movies were clearly the worst things about them. These films made money despite their pitiful stories, not because of them. It was bad enough he committed sacrilege by making Jim Phelps a bad guy in the first “MI,” but his screenplay for the sequel was an unimaginative riff on Hitchcock’s “North by Northwest” and/or “Notorious.” (Did he choose his models alphabetically?) Some people liked his film “Without Limits” about runner Steve Prefontaine, but we can’t get past Billy Crudup’s LAPD-length mustache.
35. TONY DANZA ^ Actually, we have nothing new to say about Tony. It’s just important to frequently point out how obnoxious and talentless he is.
36. SYLVESTER STALLONE ^ (See “Tony Danza” above.) With his wife hawking “beauty” products on Home Shopping Network, you gotta wonder what the guy is thinking about his own long term plans. With his last few films bombing at the box office (Get Carter, Driven), and Hollywood’s demand for action movies on the wain, can he stage another comeback? At least he knows he can always call his brother Frank for grocery money.
37. BRUCE WILLIS ^ With the “Museum of Bruce Willis’s Hair Pieces” being a good 30 years off, we can look forward to a bumpy high speed barrel roll down the hill of not aging well. Setting aside the first “Die Hard” movie and The Sixth Sense, what has this guy really done? In case you might have forgotten films like Disney’s The Kid, The Siege, The Whole Nine Yards, Breakfast of Champions, Bandits and the laughable Armageddon, you can find them on the bottom shelf at the video store. Do video stores actually have an “Old Releases” section? What happens when a “New Release” becomes “old”? Or an actor for that matter. Perhaps it’s time to get back to basics. Can anyone say “Die Hard 4”?
38. BOB HOPE ^ By all physical means SHOULD be the coldest person in Hollywood but continues to be the 8th living wonder of the world. Roaches, Polystyrene and Bob Hope will be what remains when the dust clears.
39. DREW BARRYMORE ^ This recent weight gain, 160 pounds of pure annoyance, will be a hindrance on getting hired. Not since the set of Roseanne (Tom Arnold years) has Hollywood needed the title credit of “Husband Wrangler.” If it comes down to a choice between a sequel to Charlie’s Angels or Riding in Cars with Boys, please go with the Angels’ sequel.
Get the rest of the list in THE FRIGID 50: THE COLDEST PEOPLE IN HOLLYWOOD (40-50)>>>
