90's In Film Continued: Worst High-Grossing Films and Ten Most Wasted Talents

Worst Movie Over 500 Million World-Wide Gross: Ghost
Worst Movie of the Top 50 Grossing Movies: The Flinstones

10 MOST WASTED TALENTS OF THE 90’S (Alphabetical):
• Dana Carvey – He was funnier than Mike Myers, who tried to write him out of Wayne’s World until the producers decided the same thing (Carvey > Myers) and wrote him back in (hence all of the scenes with Garth by himself). Cancer, Wayne’s World 2, and dissing your sponsors in the first episode of your TV show though…that’s a lot to overcome.
• Robert Downey Jr. – “Quitting drugs is easy, I’ve done it hundreds of times.” A lost decade in his prime. Good to have him back.
• Angelica Houston – Between Addam’s Family and being rediscovered by Wes Anderson in the otts, nothing. It’s not a kind business to an aging woman.
• Jennifer Jason Leigh – After being the energy of The Hudsucker Proxy, essentially nothing. It’s not a kind business for a younger woman either.
• Dennis Leary – I admit it. I liked The Ref. Every time you see a hack like Dane Cook get another part, you have to wonder why a real comedian like Leary didn’t get more parts.
• Norm MacDonald – Another guy I think is hysterical who had no movie career of note.
• Tim Roth – After Reservoir Dogs and a dominant performance in Rob Roy, he sat the bench. I have no clue why. Maybe he has a bad agent.
• Marisa Tomei – One has to wonder if the story that she was blackballed after a semi-senile Jack Palance read the wrong name and gave her the Best Supporting Actress award is true. There’s really no other way to explain how a beautiful, funny actress with an academy award in a popular movie falls of the face of the earth.
• Denzel Washington – I know. It’s hard to say Washington ‘wasted’ his talent. But, to me, Denzel is the best actor of his generation. He should be making classics. Instead, this was his 90’s post-his epic 1989 performance in Glory: Heart Condition, Mo’ Better Blues, Mississippi Masala, Ricochet, Malcolm X, Much Ado About Nothing, The Pelican Brief, Philadelphia, Crimson Tide, Virtuosity, Devil in a Blue Dress, Courage Under Fire, The Preacher’s Wife, Fallen, He Got Game, The Seige, The Bone Collector, The Hurricane. Some of those are good movies. But that’s not the line-up of the best actor of his generation. He wanders between African-American social issues roles and bizarrely tame scripts. Is/was America not ready for a black leading man in a race-less role or is/was it just Hollywood that wasn’t ready? Was no one willing to cast him, or were the great writers and directors unwilling to write for him? Or does he limit himself…is this the career he wanted? An unanswered shame.
• James Woods – Few people know this, but in Sylvester Stallone’s long decline, The Specialist was the movie that could have put him back on top. It had Sharon Stone, it had Antonio Banderas, and it had James Woods playing a terrific bad guy. Instead, Woods’ film-stealing bad-guy was left on the cutting room floor due to Stallone’s ego. As a result, Woods’ rounded out the 90’s playing bit parts in should-have-been movies like Casino, Nixon, Ghosts of the Mississippi, and Any Given Sunday plus starring in one of the great 90s HBO features – Indictment: The McMartin Trial. James Woods is a truly talented actor. But this is Hollywood.