Xixax Film Forum

Film Discussion => In Front of the Camera => Topic started by: meatball on April 02, 2005, 11:26:15 PM

Title: Premiere's 50 Greatest Movie Stars
Post by: meatball on April 02, 2005, 11:26:15 PM
Premiere Magazine's 50 Greatest Movie Stars

17 Mar 2005
KFCC Feature

Premiere magazine's editors spent two years putting together a roster that places Tom Cruise at No. 3, behind only Marilyn Monroe and list-topper Cary Grant for the 50 Greatest Movie Stars, which is getting more jeers than cheers from film lovers offended that Tom Cruise outranks John Wayne and Marlon Brando. Or even more incredulously, stars like William Powell, Robert Montgomery, Ava Gardner and Barbara Stanwyck weren't even listed.

Another head-scratcher was Julia Roberts, who cracked the top 10 at No. 7, while four-time Oscar winner Katharine Hepburn came in No. 14. We'll trade you Julia Roberts for Gloria Grahame (also not listed) anyday.

Laugh now because it's only a list, and it isn't ours. The issue with the list is currently on sale with Tom Cruise on the cover. Premiere's list of 50 Greatest Movie Stars:
1. Cary Grant
2. Marilyn Monroe
3. Tom Cruise
4. John Wayne
5. Ingrid Bergman
6. Paul Newman
7. Julia Roberts
8. Greta Garbo
9. James Stewart
10. Henry Fonda
11. James Cagney
12. Grace Kelly
13. Humphrey Bogart
14. Katharine Hepburn
15. Marlon Brando
16. Jack Nicholson
17. Robert Redford
18. Audrey Hepburn
19. Spencer Tracy
20. Sidney Poitier
21. Clark Gable
22. Judy Garland
23. Fred Astaire
24. Doris Day
25. Bette Davis
26. Errol Flynn
27. Gregory Peck
28. Tom Hanks
29. Warren Beatty
30. James Dean
31. Steve McQueen
32. Jane Fonda
33. Shirley Temple
34. Rita Hayworth
35. Harrison Ford
36. Sean Connery
37. Al Pacino
38. Robert De Niro
39. Denzel Washington
40. Elizabeth Taylor
41. Peter Sellers
42. Gary Cooper
43. Clint Eastwood
44. Will Smith
45. Jack Lemmon
46. Meryl Streep
47. Johnny Depp
48. Nicole Kidman
49. Russell Crowe
50. Brad Pitt
Title: Premiere's 50 Greatest Movie Stars
Post by: MacGuffin on April 03, 2005, 08:54:27 AM
Nevermind the whole Tom Cruise debate, there's no way John Wayne was a better actor than James Stewart, James Dean, Henry Fonda, Gregory Peck, Gary Cooper and Spencer Tracy (among some others).
Title: Premiere's 50 Greatest Movie Stars
Post by: SiliasRuby on April 03, 2005, 08:59:31 AM
I read this article the other day and felt emotionally sick afterward. Two years putting this list together, jesus, what a waste of time.
Title: Premiere's 50 Greatest Movie Stars
Post by: Gamblour. on April 03, 2005, 11:32:58 AM
I like how Pacino and de Niro are right next to each other, and oh so properly placed behind Sean Connery and Harrison Ford......they probably couldn't tell the difference between Pacino and de Niro
Title: Premiere's 50 Greatest Movie Stars
Post by: Gold Trumpet on April 03, 2005, 01:43:20 PM
Quote from: MacGuffinNevermind the whole Tom Cruise debate, there's no way John Wayne was a better actor than James Stewart, James Dean, Henry Fonda, Gregory Peck, Gary Cooper and Spencer Tracy (among some others).

Movie star....not actor.
Title: Premiere's 50 Greatest Movie Stars
Post by: lamas on April 03, 2005, 08:08:15 PM
what about Schwarzenegger and Stallone?
Title: Premiere's 50 Greatest Movie Stars
Post by: ᾦɐļᵲʊʂ on April 12, 2005, 02:17:17 PM
I think they chose the Top 50 Stars of Good Movies.  It's easy to think an actor is good just because they're in a good movie.  For instance, Tom Cruise was in Eyes Wide Shut and Magnolia.

(Although some, like Marilyn Monroe have me a little confused about their acting and the movies they're in)
Title: Premiere's 50 Greatest Movie Stars
Post by: kotte on April 12, 2005, 02:32:14 PM
Quote from: WalrusI think they chose the Top 50 Stars of Good Movies.  It's easy to think an actor is good just because they're in a good movie.  For instance, Tom Cruise was in Eyes Wide Shut and Magnolia.

Yeah, but he is a good actor.
Title: Premiere's 50 Greatest Movie Stars
Post by: Myxo on April 12, 2005, 03:00:29 PM
Yeah, this list is a joke.

What exactly is a "movie star"?
Title: Premiere's 50 Greatest Movie Stars
Post by: Alethia on April 12, 2005, 03:29:50 PM
a household name who works in the movie business
Title: Re: Premiere's 50 Greatest Movie Stars
Post by: Stefen on July 01, 2011, 01:15:46 AM
Bill Simmons over at Grantland wrote a really great piece about male movie stars and how there isn't really any. Good read if you're interested.

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/6716942/view/full/the-movie-star

Is anyone reading Grantland? I've always been a fan of Bill Simmons, but not so much Chuck Klosterman. It's got some hits and misses, but overall I think it's a good idea. I love the footnotes.
Title: Re: Premiere's 50 Greatest Movie Stars
Post by: JG on July 01, 2011, 02:19:31 AM
Simmons irks me most of the time, that article included, but I like the site's premise(/promise) and so far its a yielded a few gems, some even by Klosterman, who I usually only like when I'm not reading his writing..
Title: Re: Premiere's 50 Greatest Movie Stars
Post by: cronopio 2 on July 01, 2011, 07:58:25 AM
the logic behind that article is that if you narrow it down to two or three examples, your argument is suddenly true and valid. even i can see that. of course there are movie stars, that's why they're called movie stars. this article just decides to not talk about them.


Title: Re: Premiere's 50 Greatest Movie Stars
Post by: ono on July 01, 2011, 10:18:45 AM
That article is pretty stupid to me.  It's just splitting hairs.  If you star in a movie you're a movie star.  It matters not how well the damn thing did.  Now bankable, that's another thing altogether.  The degree in which you succeed is measured by how prolific and acclaimed you are.  Carrey still works.  Still a star.  Just reminds me of the longest trail of shit (http://xixax.com/index.php?topic=5633.0) thread, though.
Title: Re: Premiere's 50 Greatest Movie Stars
Post by: Stefen on July 01, 2011, 12:03:48 PM
The part that intrigued me was the Will Smith part and how everything he does is a calculated and precise effort. I found that very interesting. He better still be with whoever the agent is that he came up with this formula with.
Title: Re: Premiere's 50 Greatest Movie Stars
Post by: pete on July 01, 2011, 01:35:35 PM
the article was a riff on something Chris Rock said a few years ago - "if you can't get a star, just wait" and talked about how jude law is not a star.
Title: Re: Premiere's 50 Greatest Movie Stars
Post by: cronopio 2 on July 01, 2011, 05:11:22 PM
will smith , tom cruise, and leonardo dicaprio all found their respective ways to control the movie they star in, their 'vehicles' . in this sense they're as successful as the hollywood mantra can get, because they're in total control of their movies.
i mean , tom cruise picked his role in valkyrie just because he saw a profile picture of Stauffenberg and thought his nose was similar, for fuck's sake. christopher mcquarrie gave an awesome interview once , where he said that a screenplay, in that sense, ends up being an afterthought of an idea for a movie. if any of these actors happen to read a book about aliens in the sixties and they express interest,  somebody fetches them a screenplay that's based on that, and it becomes a thing.

tom cruise is the hero who always runs. no matter what. he's been shifting towards the family man figure lately.
will smith is the hero who gives his own life.
dicaprio's the man deceived by treacherous women who wants to make it right.

i don't mind them. the world needs these types of actors. i think will smith is charming but his ambitions are loud and dumb, and he's not aging in a cool fashion.


in a classic sense, my favorite movie star is george clooney probably, because he's never been interested in becoming an insipid character actor. i also think hugh jackman's cool, but he chooses to star in a lot of shit, like that amores perros with fighting robots movie.

a favorite actor is a different matter.  
Title: Re: Premiere's 50 Greatest Movie Stars
Post by: Jeremy Blackman on July 01, 2011, 06:45:32 PM
Are we lucky that some of them, like Cruise, are actually very good actors and are capable of great things (Magnolia/EWS/etc.), or is that not a coincidence?

I think DiCaprio has yet to do something "great" in that sense. When he tries, he tries too hard, and you end up with an abomination like his performance in The Aviator.
Title: Re: Premiere's 50 Greatest Movie Stars
Post by: cronopio 2 on July 01, 2011, 06:50:43 PM
i hate it when people just brand them as idiots. whenever somebody badmouths cruise, just remind them that he was in magnolia, then they'll realize that they haven't seen it -and if they have they'll retract their comments- and you will be victorious.
Title: Re: Premiere's 50 Greatest Movie Stars
Post by: Pubrick on July 02, 2011, 01:48:23 AM
Quote from: cronopio 2 on July 01, 2011, 06:50:43 PM
-and if they have they'll retract their comments- and you will be victorious.

no they won't., they will remember that they saw it but forgot about it instantly cos they didn't understand a second of it, came away with the impression that this thomas anderson dude is a pretentious idiot who's working out his psychosis at everyone else's 8.50.

i think to the average person the movie star is still as real as ever.. when they go to the movies they just look for that face they recognise and hope that for the next couple of hours they'll get to see it and marvel at it and buy any bullshit it's selling. that's how people have been fooled into going to Tree of Life.. that's why the world hated Punch Drunk Love.. all the people who saw these films were confronted with an unveiling of their most treasured false beliefs. it's a phenomenon that operates explicitly in eyes wide shut.. much to its own detriment unfortunately since the world turned on that as well.

so if there are no movie stars now then there has never been any movie stars. bogart flopped majorly with Beat the Devil only a couple of years after winning his only oscar in African Queen.. so does that mean he stopped being a movie star? gtfo with that shit.
Title: Re: Premiere's 50 Greatest Movie Stars
Post by: Stefen on July 02, 2011, 02:10:23 AM
Every person who I've ever been courageous enough to talk to about movies hated Magnolia or didn't see it or even heard of it. They don't even mention Tom Cruise. They're just like, "It was boring!" or mostly, "neva even heard of it!" and they're always yelling because we're at a club.
Title: Re: Premiere's 50 Greatest Movie Stars
Post by: Jeremy Blackman on July 02, 2011, 02:29:22 PM
Agree with the above... I've rarely spoken to anyone who has seen Magnolia, and if they've seen it, usually they didn't like it or liked it but have forgotten about it. Surprising to us fans, but true.

I'm surprised Brad Pitt wasn't mentioned until Pubrick's post (indirectly). And the original list put him at 50 out of 50. He actually seems like a bigger star than Tom Cruise, and certainly Will Smith. And it's a win/win with Pitt, because not only is he more relevant than Cruise or Smith, I'm pretty sure he's been in more legitimately good/great movies than any other current "movie star." In fact, he's almost an unlikely movie star because of the sheer number of oddball films he's consistently done, which makes his status all the more impressive.