And Julia Roberts has famously been the only female star in Hollywood for a while now.

Poor Meg.

Meg has the Mary Pickford problem: people loved her for being cute and sweet and eventually she got tired of being cute and sweet but it was too late.

Could that sentence *be* worse without having "teh" and "OMG" in it?

eventually she got tired of being cute and sweet but it was too late.

Plus she joined the ranks of the Hideous Creatures That Came From Beverly Hills.

But top grossing stars are often not great actors or even in great movies. I mean, who has classic film fest of the movies of Tyrone Power?

But top grossing stars are often not great actors or even in great movies. I mean, who has classic film fest of the movies of Tyrone Power?

I think that between Samuel L. Jackson, Harrison Ford, Tom Hanks, Eddie Murphy, Tom Cruise, Bruce Willis, James Earl Jones, Mel Gibson, Jim Cummings, and Gene Hackman there are hours, if not days, of viewing fun.

I don't have to add Schwarzenegger because he's temporarily retired.

To me, that helps keep him on the list -- if/when he leaves elected office, his films will probably still do pretty well on the strength of his charisma. But I can understand keeping him off given that all this is hypohetical.

Someone wake me when the only 4 real stars in Hollywood aren't 4 people who 9 times out of 10 make me run screaming from the theatre.

I think some of the things that make you (and this is more a people-like-you you, than a you-individually you) want to run screaming -- the big smiles and insistence that they be lovable!, and the media overexposure -- may also be the things that help make someone a big star. So this day may never come. Sorry.

And I agree that most actors now succeed or fail on the strength of the franchise, not on their own merits.

ita, yeah, I meant that top stars may make some folk run screaming from the theater, but that's not a new phenomenon. There have always been actors and actresses who the public will happily pay to see, even if (maybe BECAUSE) they are in bad movies. I didn't mean to imply that being a top star means you are necessarily in bad stuff.

I think putting Gene Hackman on the list is kind of like cheating -- his career is like a corporate bullpen session. There is no shit he has not thrown on the wall (sometimes, his acting skill elevates a crappy project into bizarre fun!), so it's not exactly a surprise that some of it has stuck. Same with Michael Caine.

Not that I can say anything bad about the man who starred in The Poseidon Adventure.

John Ratzenberger, babee! Well, okay, just his voice, but still! Top ten!

And I can't freaking believe how much Bruce Almighty made. Man, that movie was terrible.

I choose to believe it was because people wanted to see Morgan Freeman play God.