The top 100 All-Time Box-Office Hits - Page 2

[doodlenyc]

Posted: 5/10/10 at 4:40pm

I loathe Love Story and Ali McGraw is the worst actress ever.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 5/10/10 at 4:49pm

I put Ali McGraw on par with Sean Young. I think the only actor worse is the guy who played The Poker in Batdick and Throbbin'.

[doodlenyc]

Posted: 5/10/10 at 4:53pm

lol
Yes, Ali gets the "Worst actress to be nominated for an oscar" award.

Kim Basinger gets the "Worst actress to WIN an oscar" award.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 5/10/10 at 6:09pm

I sort of partially agree with you somewhat on Kim Basinger. I thought she was mostly terrible (with the exception of Blind Date and Batman) until L.A. Confidential, for which I did think she deserved the Oscar (but not that she ever deserved it before or since). Trouble is, she is the only thing I liked about that stupid movie and I felt it deserved no other nominations other than hers. And I had the misfortune of watching While She Was Out. That film was a real step backward in the horror-suspense genre, though not solely for Basinger's performance.

[Marquise]

Posted: 5/11/10 at 8:27pm

LOVE STORY was carefully crafted to manipulate the american public, especially the youth market of that era. Eric Segal wrote the script first and in the middle of filming Paramount urged him to adapt it into a novel to use as a marketing tool to cross promote the film before it hit theaters. It worked. The novel was released prior to the film's release and became a huge best seller, so much so that it increased anticipation for the film. When the film finally hit theaters it was touted as being based on the #1 best seller (which it technically wasn't, it was the other way around) add to this the casting of popular up and comers Ryan O'Neal (fresh from his Peyton Place success) and Ali MacGraw (who at 31 was older than her character but was married to Paramount exec Bob Evans and riding the tide of a successful debut in Goodbye, Columbus) and Francis Lai's appropriately bittersweet score which showcased the haunting theme from the film and the film, whether you loved it or hated it was destined to become the international box office smash it went on to become.

[best12bars]

Posted: 5/13/10 at 9:19am

This thread veered off course a bit, but hey, I do that all the time myself, so I'll chime in!

Love Story---yeah, I get it. It was a huge tear-jerker, a six-hanky chick flick, with two hot actors, a hit book, and a hit song. And the timing was right for a movie like that. There were also a million ripoff movies that followed, all trying to emulate the success of "Love Story." It was a cheap movie to make. Some were good, some bad. Most were made for TV. It's hard to picture a time before "that kind of movie" was made. And I don't mean to imply that it was the first of its kind. But after this film, we got at least 3 or 4 movies like it every year. It became an instant cliche. Watching it today, it feels a little bit like nominating "Twilight" for Best Pic.

Kim Basinger in LA Confidential---I really don't get it. I didn't at the time, and I just re-watched it last week on a movie channel, and I still don't get it. She gives a decent performance and looks absolutely beautiful as the sexy Veronica Lake lookalike, but nothing about her performance is Oscar-worthy. The role isn't Oscar-worthy either. There was nothing surprising or emotionally riveting about anything she did. I'm not saying she was bad at all. But I think people must have fallen in love with the 1940s throwback to the "femme fatale," even if so many performances from that era outdo hers in this film. To me, it's kinda like voting for Grace Kelly just because she's really pretty.