Samuel L. Jackson has played in a truckload of movies. If you do a search on IMDB, you'll find more than a hundred hits on Shaft, or his alias Samuel L. Jackson. Much like the case of Chuck Norris and Walker, Texas Ranger, I'm not really sure which character is the fictional one.
Anyway; not only has Samuel L. Jackson played in an extraordinary amount of movies - an exorbitant fraction of these movies are total garbage. Granted, even good actors can be seen in bad movies (Hello, Nicholas Cage), so obviously talent is not enough - the choice of movies in which they participate also greatly affects how we perceive an actor. SO; the number of movies with Samuel L. Jackson I actually like divided by the number of S.L. Jackson movies I've seen ought to give me a coefficient which is proportional to how good (according to my taste) an actor Shaft really is. Obviously this works for every actor, but I will name it after Samuel L. Jackson, since he is the reason I came up with the idea, and also since I suspect that his ratio will serve well as a baseline (did I mention that he has appeared in a LOT of crappy movies?).
It just so happens I've seen 30 movies featuring Shaft, and I thought 5 ofof these were good - Changing Lanes, Pulp Fiction, Menace II Society, Eddie Murphy's Raw and Star Wars III. That gives a SLJ-factor of 0.17. In other words, being that past performance is the best available indicator of future performance - if Samuel L. Jackson is featured in a movie, the odds of me liking it are way less than 1 in 5. Thus; in my estimation, Samuel L. Jackson sucks as an actor.
So lets try this with another actor - like the aforementioned Nicholas Cage. Three minutes on IMDB tells me that I've seen 14 movies with him, of which I enjoyed 8. That gives a SLJ-factor of 0.59, or in other words, when new Nick Cage movies come out, I've got better than even odds to like it. This despite the fact that I've seen "Peggy Sue Got Married", "Gone In Sixty Seconds", "Guarding Tess" and "8 MM". Cage always does a good job, even though the cover of the movie might be able to suck a minivan through a keyhole.
Edward Norton? I've seen 6 movies with him and truly enjoyed 5. That's an SLJ-factor of 0.83 right there, which fits well with the fact that he is one of my absolute favorite actors.
Tom Cruise, on the other hand, is to me the poster boy for most of what sucks about Hollywood. I've seen 21 movies with him, of which I think 4 are good - SLJ = 0.19. Less than 1 in 5 Tom Cruise movies appeal to me, so odds are I won't be standing in line to get tickets to any of his movies.
Jack Black appears to have disappointed me lately, what with "Nacho Libre" and "Pick Of Destiny". If I'd bothered to calculate his SLJ-factor, I'd known that it's the other way around - dude got lucky with "School Of Rock" and "High Fidelity". The remaining JB-movies I've seen were atrocious, and out of the 11 movies I've seen with him, I enjoyed 2 - SLJ = 0.18.
Ben Stiller? Dude has a checkered record at best. I've seen 12 of his movies, and thought 6 were good - "Along Came Polly" (only because of Hank Azaria, but still), "Zoolander", "Meet The Parents", "Keeping The Faith", Mystery Men" and "There's Something About Mary". SLJ = 0.5, and even odds of me liking a future release from the talented member of the Stiller family.
See how well this works? You try it......
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9 comments:
"How good I like an actor"
The SLJ factor is not just a grading of an actor, but also his/her ability to choose the right movies, if I understand correctly?
Anyway, I just check Al Pacino. One of my favorites, I admit. I’ve seen 12 of his movies, put up 10 good ones and 2 “bad” ones. But even the ones I put in the bad ones, wasn’t horrible. They are actually OK, but I had to place somebody in the not so good category.
But looking through the list of movies he has appeared in, I saw that he had played in some movies that are horrible. I know they are, but I haven’t seen them. Movies like Gigli and Dick Tracy.
Which basically lead me to one conclusion: I really don’t choose what movies to see based on the actor. Granted, some actors I dislike so much that I’m skeptic about a movie (did I hear Leonardo DiCaprio?), but generally I don’t go see I movie just because it has good actors in it (did that error with Family Business).
Also, one flaw with this system is the “up and coming” period for an actor. In order to survive, they have to take the roles offered to them. An actor struggling to survive in Hollywood can’t be picky on the roles. So those early, crappy movies would take the SLJ factor down, even if the acting is good.
Absolutely. And you're right about the early movies probably pulling down the average. This is another reason why I chose Shaft, seeing as how he's been in the game for a very long time, has been very productive and has aquired the status where he can pick and choose which roles he wants to participate in.
The thing is - you've got to take the overall quality of the movie into consideration, otherwise, people like Nick Cage would always equate to a good movie. But he's starred in "Peggy Sue Got Marriied", and so on.
But what use is the SLJ factor? Is it to have a parameter to determine your odds for whether a new movie is worth seeing, based on the actor?
In that case, Ok, but as I said, I don't base my selection on movies on the actor (the director and/or producer, on the other hand, that might give a factor more useful for me). And, if you have one actor with high and one with low in the same movie, what do you do? And should the SLJ factor be based on only lead roles? I mean, you listed SLJ as appearing in RAW, but he only had a minor role in on sketch in there. Most likely he hadn't even read the whole script for the movie and his role doesn't make or break the movie in any way. Hence a small part in a movie shouldn't influence the SLJ factor is the factor is used to predict future good movies.
Or is it to judge the actor?
If so, the factor would be biased due to the selection of the actors past work you've chosen to see. I.e. anybody that has had a part in the Godfather trilogy (like Al Pacino) would get a head start, since people know these are great movies, thus these are more available and people are more likely to want to watch them, then crappy movies long time forgotten.
Interesting topic.
One more thing: Female actors.
Hollywood is known to prefer looks over talent when it comes to female actors. How does this affect the SLJ factor? Can female actors SLJ score be used to predict bad or good movies, or is the SLJ factor only good for male actors in this case?
Are we biased to good looking actresses, since we know Hollywood prefer looks over talent?
Personally, I'll use it go gauge whether or not I'm gonna see a movie when it arrives in the theaters based on how well I like the lead actor. For example; a new Hulk-movie starring Ben Affleck? Don't think so...
But I don't think the SLJ-factor should be based on leading roels only, as there are too many examples of small characters in movies having a more lasting impact (for better or worse). For example; in the Raw example, the way Shaft portrayed his character actually allowed Eddie Murphy to refer back to his portrayal in other stand-up routines.
Like all factors of this kind, it works best for the actors who have been around for a while, played in many different movies (both as lead and other characters), and who has reached a certain status.
In other words - screaming naked girl in shower number fifteen in any given horror movie is not well suited for this treatment.
Your point about female actors, i.e. actresses, is an interesting one, but in my opinion, the SLJ-factor still works when applied to major characters.
Try it yourself with, say, Jodie Foster vs. Pamela Anderson or that plastic tomb raider chick.
Pamela Anderson did her best performance ever in the Borat movie. Some even says the does not act in that one...
For me, personally, I still think a producer/director SLJ factor would be better then an actor SLJ factor. Bad actors can ruin a good film, but good actors can't save one.
And why haven't our resident short and stubby bird commented on this post? As I recall, he seems to have an opposite opinion about Leonard DiCaprio then me.
.......ahh...the producer/director route.
I've got a system for that - I like to call it the "stay the hell away from Michael Moore and Steven Spielberg".
Feel free to define a similar factor for directors.....what would you call that?
The problem isn't really to know which movies to stay away from (I bet the next scream movie is bad, no matter who plays in it or who directs it). And the SLJ factor also does this pretty well, granted you've seem enough flicks by the given actor.
Is there a system (i.e. SLJ factor) that can predict if a movie is really good? Reading the reviews in the paper we all know isn't helping much; Titanic and The English Patient got really good reviews as I recall. They suck, even if they do have something that is really great (special effects and photography).
So, what else is there?
Well....I guess it would have to be a composite factor based on past performances of the main actor and the director, and also something correlating how well the characters fit the actors' profiles. For example; NOBODY buys Ben Affleck as an ass kicker, so why he starred in DareDevil is beyond me (although he was not the only thing wrong with that one).
How well the role fits with the actor's comfort zone definitely matters, though.
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