Certainly, every actor has movies or plays they would rather leave off of their resumes. Unfortunately for some of our well established and well-regarded performers, these cinematic achievements are often unearthed and put on display for the viewing public to watch and ridicule or just glance at and wonder what on earth they were thinking. For the rest of them, it is just another day at the office… making bad movies and making money (somehow) by doing it. Here are a few:

• Marlon Brando (he played Superman‘s Kryptonian father and was paid $14 million dollars for 13 days on the set. This breaks down to nearly $1.4 million dollars a minute for his total on screen time. An excellent movie, but a miserly performance).
• Elizabeth Taylor (her role as Wilma’s mother (did she have a name?) in the live-action Flintstone‘s movie was about as memorable as her laundry list of ex-husbands. Her payday must have been nearly as extravagant as Mr. Brando’s)
• Ben Affleck (should be named multiple times, but it can be summed up in one word… Gigli)
• Richard Pryor (ok… so maybe not one of our most celebrated actors… but I’m thinking the adult comic famous for his drug-addled standup of the 70s was attempting to change his image in the mid-80s when he decided to sign up for such movies as The Toy, Brewster’s Millions, both of which were relatively harmless comedies. However, he was at least in part to blame for the beginning of the end of a superhero movie franchise).
• Sir Michael Caine (thank goodness he has his role of Alfred the butler to make up for the travesty that was Jaws: The Revenge).

Although these are quite dated to be sure, there must be other memorable (memorable to mention perhaps not so memorable to watch) examples in which well-known and established actors were only looking for their next pay check. Feel free to include your favorite “paycheck” role/movie.

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It’s no secret who one of my favorite popcorn munching, thrill seeking, Saturday afternoon movie actors is. However, like most actors worth their salt, Harrison Ford does have a repetoire that extends far beyond two of the most successful film franchises in movie history and as I have been mentioning in probably half of my posts, he will be returning to the silver screen as a certain globe-trotting, snake fearing, bullwhip cracking, Nazi despising archaeologist. Below is a List of some of my other Ford favorites.

Witness: His first and (so far) only Academy Award nomination and it features a very cool song from days gone by.

The Fugitive: The best motion picture based on a television series.  Tommy Lee Jones’ Best Supporting Oscar winning film.  Excellent cat-and-mouse chase of the on the lam doctor and the obsessed federal marshal tracking him down. Also believed to be based on the actual case of  Cleveland, OH physician Sam Sheppard.

What Lies Beneath: Hitchcockian in its suspense without the blood and gore.

The Jack Ryan duology (Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger). Alec Baldwin started the franchise in The Hunt for Red October and Ben Affleck concluded it in The Sum of All Fears.  I know it is another series but Harrison’s two films are the best.

Air Force One: Flawed, cliched, but seriously, would it be so bad if he were our president?  Another good popcorn film.

I know I am forgetting a lot so please feel free to comment on some of your favorite Harrison Ford movies.  Any will do.

NO…. do not put me in a diaper. I was invited to attend a Pampered Chef party at the house of my very good friends. It was very entertaining. Everyone there got to help make brownies… (which ended up being slightly burned but with a little ice cream, were quite good). I ACCIDENTALLY spilled a smidgen of brown sugar on the floor as I was filling the plopper thing. THEN, I gracefully dropped a scoop of ice cream on the floor…. sorry.

After the demo, we arranged an Oscar night party. I have not seen any of the movies nominated for any of the major awards. I have heard that Gone Baby Gone is not all that great.Only that it is Ben Affleck’s directorial debut and has his brother, Casey in it. We briefly discussed Little Miss Sunshine which I have not seen but hope to. And while we were on the topic of Steve Carell movies, we mentioned Get Smart which will be coming to theatres this summer. I will say that I have seem Norbit on DVD which is up for Best Makeup. That movie should be a contender for WORST MOVIE EVER. I wonder how many movies have ever won both Oscars and Razzies.

Saw the movie Gone Baby Gone the other night…  Had a free rental at the video store; every once in awhile they call and give us one…  but I hate standing there forever trying to choose a good movie!  So we had Saw IV in hand, and my husband’s like, you know, we really haven’t liked the last 2 Saw’s all that much, compared to the first one.  So I said yeah, and I saw Gone Baby Gone, and since I’d heard it was supposed to be good, we went with it.  Besides, it got Oscar nominated, and I always like to be in on Oscar buzz…  Not my kind of movie.  Not that it was bad, but just a lot of dialogue and violence…  not my kind of movie.  It was entertaining, and I appreciated the twists and turns without seeing them coming, though I can’t say the same for Hubby.  We like to give movies we watch our own imdb (interent movie database – cool site!) ratings, so I gave this one a 6.2.  Hubby gave it a 4. 2.  I appreciated the movie for what it was, and I can’t say much more without spoilers, so I won’t.  The bottom line is, if you like violent crime dramas with intense dialogue, this movie is for you.  I personally have trouble following movies where they talk about a bunch of characters and the audience is expected to keep them all straight, but that’s just me.  A few plot inconsistencies, but my rating was kinda high because I did appreciate the complexity of the plot, even if it was a bit difficult for me to follow at times…  so to quote one of my favorite movies, That’s all I have to say about that.