Who's The Bigger Star? Part 10

Here is a fun post where a compare two actors/actresses, sports stars, TV personalities, etc against each other and determine who is the bigger star.  Let's see who wins this time:

Russell Crowe v. Hugh Jackman

Russell Crowe

• Biggest Role:  Maximus
• My Favorite Role:  Maximus
• Top Earning Movie:  Man of Steel ($291.0 million)
• Biggest Flop:  It has to Winter's Tale, that movie blew.
• Awards:  3 Academy Award Nomination (1 Win), 5 Golden Globe Nomination (1 Win)
• Career:  Before he was an actor, Russell was in a band by the name of 30 Odd Foot of Grunts.  I'm not kidding.  As for his acting career, the first thing I remember him in was The Quick and the Dead with Gene Hackman, Leo, and Sharon Stone.  It wasn't bad, but it didn't hold a candle to his next movie, Virtuosity.  He was awesome as the sadistic serial killer computer program come to life.  Next, he had a great string of roles in L.A. Confidential, Gladiator, A Beautiful Mind, Cinderella Man, and 3:10 to Yuma.  However, since then it has been a mixed bag of stuff like Robin Hood, Les Miserables, and Noah.  He's got a couple of movies in the works, but nothing of note.

Hugh Jackman

• Biggest Role:  Wolverine
• My Favorite Role:  Wolverine
• Top Earning Movie:  X-Men: The Last Stand ($234.4 million)
• Biggest Flop:  I'm going with Movie 43, but it could have easily been The Fountain.
• Awards:  1 Academy Award Nomination (0 Wins), 2 Golden Globe Nomination (1 Win), 3 Emmy Nominations (1 Win)
• Career:  Right out of the gate, we saw Hugh as Wolverine in the first X-Men movie and he nailed it.  Since then, he has gone on to do, well, the same character six other times and some other decent stuff like The Prestige, Les Miserables and some not so good stuff like Swordfish, Van Helsing, and Real Steel.  In all, he has carved out a decent career based on one character.  Next up, he will be playing, surprise, Wolverine in another stand-alone movie and the next X-Men sequel.  Also, he will be playing Blackbeard in a new Peter Pan movie even though I don't remember Blackbeard ever being in Peter Pan.

Oddly enough, the only reason we know who Hugh Jackman is is because Russell Crowe turned down the part of Wolverine and when their second choice (Dougray Scott) couldn't do the part due to a scheduling conflict with Mission: Impossible 2.  Then Russell suggested his friend Hugh.  But that isn't what this is about.  If we held this contest in 2000, it would have been Maximus v. Wolverine and I probably would have gone with Maximus (unless it was a fight to the death).  But today, Hugh Jackman's career is definitely still going strong and Russell Crowe can't seem to do a movie worth a shit.  So, Wolverine wins.  But we all knew that was going to happen.

"That's the face of a winner."

Who Is The Bigger Star? Part 9

Here is a fun post where a compare two actors/actresses, sports stars, TV personalities, etc against each other and determine who is the bigger star.  Let's see who wins this time:

Arnold Schwarzenegger v. Sylvester Stallone

Arnold Schwarzenegger

• Biggest Role:  The Terminator
• My Favorite Role:  Jack Slater in Last Action Hero
• Top Earning Movie:  Terminator 2 ($204.8 million)
• Biggest Flop:  Batman & Robin, I will never let anyone associated with that movie get away with their crime.
• Awards:  2 Golden Globe Nomination (1 Win)
• Career:  First off, I want to point out that I am shocked Arnold owns a Golden Globe.  He won it for something I've never heard of back in 1977.  Back to his career.  Arnold started out as a bodybuilder then got his first big part as Conan, but hit it big when James Cameron cast him as The Terminator.  Since then he has been a huge star and been in everything from action movies to comedies to whatever Junior was.  Recently, he can only seem to find work in crappy action movies and has a bunch of sequels to his older movies in the works like another Conan and Terminator movie.

Sylvester Stallone

• Biggest Role:  Rocky or Rambo, it's a coin flip
• My Favorite Role:  John Spartan in Demolition Man
• Top Earning Movie:  Rambo: First Blood Part II ($150.4 million)
• Biggest Flop:  Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot
• Awards:  2 Academy Award Nomination (0 Wins), 2 Golden Globe Nomination (0 Wins)
• Career:  The first time I remember seeing Sly was in a crappy movie called Death Race 2000 (that was later remade into an even crappier movie).  Then he wrote and starred in Rocky (which somehow beat out Taxi Driver for Best Picture) and everything changed.....kind of.  He did a couple more Rocky movies and then starred in the first Rambo movie, followed by a bunch more Rambo movies.  Since then he has done all sorts of stuff like Tango & Cash, Judge Dredd, and a lot of Expendables movies.  Next up, you guessed it, another Expendables movie.

If we had done this back in the 90's, it would have been a hell of battle.  Today, they are both older than my dad and really seem to hanging onto their personas as action stars despite nearing 70 years old.  Sadly, neither is really a star anymore and for that reason, I am declaring a tie even though if I really had to choose, I would go Arnold because of his accent.

"Yup, a tie.  They are both has-beens."

Who's The Bigger Star? Part 8

Here is a fun post where a compare two actors/actresses, sports stars, TV personalities, etc against each other and determine who is the bigger star.  Let's see who wins this time:

Denzel Washington v. Morgan Freeman

Denzel Washington

• Biggest Role:  Malcolm X
• My Favorite Role:  I have no idea.
• Top Earning Movie:  American Gangster ($130.2 million)
• Biggest Flop:  Basically anything he's done in the past 5 or 6 years.
• Awards:  6 Academy Award Nomination (2 Wins), 7 Golden Globe Nomination (2 Wins), 2 Emmy Nominations (0 Wins)
• Career:  Apparently, Denzel got his start on St. Elsewhere, which I've heard of but have never seen.  Then he got his big break in Glory and for a solid decade, he was Hollywood's go-to black leading man with movies like Malcolm X, Philadelphia, and Training Day.  However, for the past decade he has done a lot of random garbage with a couple of decent movies sprinkled in there.  Up next, he is doing a movie called The Equalizer that has a plot that sounds exactly like Man on Fire.

Morgan Freeman

• Biggest Role:  Hoke Colburn from Driving Miss Daisy
• My Favorite Role:  Easy, Red from The Shawshank Redemption
• Top Earning Movie:  The Dark Knight ($534.9 million)
• Biggest Flop:  Tough call, but I'm going with his part in Wanted, that movie sucked hard.
• Awards:  5 Academy Award Nomination (1 Win), 6 Golden Globe Nomination (2 Wins)
• Career:  Come on, it's Morgan Freeman, do I really need to go over his incredible career?  Driving Miss Daisy, The Shawshank Redemption, Se7en, The Dark Knight Trilogy, he's amazing and we all know it.

I know, I'm comparing two black guys for this post, that's kind of the point of this thing, to compare two similar actors' careers.  And for this one, I at first thought it would go to Denzel hands down mostly because he was such a huge actor during his prime.  But sadly, his career has gone downhill recently (seriously, 2 Guns?) and Morgan Freeman is still going strong after 40 years in the business.  Look at it this way, Denzel has only one movie in production and Morgan has six.  Just for that stat alone, I'm going with Morgan Freeman.

"And Morgan agrees with me."

Who's The Bigger Star? Part 7

Here is a fun post where a compare two actors/actresses, sports stars, TV personalities, etc against each other and determine who is the bigger star.  Let's see who wins this time:

Will Ferrell v. Jim Carrey

Will Ferrell

• Biggest Role:  I guess it was Ron Burgundy
• My Favorite Role:  I loved him as Chazz Michael Michaels in Blades of Glory, but Mugatu from Zoolander was better.
• Top Earning Movie:  Surprisingly, Elf ($173.4 million)
• Biggest Flop:  I'm going with Land of the Lost
• Awards:  2 Golden Globe Nomination (0 Wins), 3 Emmy Nominations (0 Wins)
• Career:  Obviously, Will got his start on Saturday Night Live and we all knew he was destined for a great future.  He took a bunch of small roles in movies like Austin Powers, Zoolander, and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and then he left SNL and things took off.  Elf, Old School, and Anchorman were some of his first big roles after TV and has been going strong since.  For the past 8 years or so, he has been doing any and everything from leading roles to cameos.  He really doesn't have much in production right now, but I'm sure he will find work.

Jim Carrey

• Biggest Role:  Ace Ventura
• My Favorite Role:  It has to be Lloyd Christmas from Dumb & Dumber
• Top Earning Movie:  The Grinch ($260.0 million)
• Biggest Flop:  Definitely The Number 23
• Awards:  6 Golden Globe Nomination (2 Wins)
• Career:  Just like Will, Jim got his start on TV on a little show called In Living Color.  He had some small parts and then Ace Ventura came out and everything changed.  His next two movies were The Mask and Dumb & Dumber.  That's a pretty damn good stretch.  For awhile he was the biggest comedy star in Hollywood, then he got weird and did movies like The Majestic, Man on the Moon, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.  For the past few years, he really hasn't done much besides supporting roles, but all that will change soon, because a Dumb & Dumber sequel will be coming out in November and there is no way that won't be awesome.

These two guys have had an eerily similar career arc.  Both started on TV, then had some huge hits, followed by a stint in some serious movies, and then went back to their bread and butter of being funny.  At first, I figured that Will would run away with this, but I really did forget how hilarious Jim Carrey was in his prime, but in the end, Will Ferrell is the bigger star today.  That could change if Dumb & Dumber 2 is a hit and Jim figures out that he should stick with comedy, but for now, Will is our winner.

Who's The Bigger Star? Part 6

Here is a fun post where a compare two actors/actresses, sports stars, TV personalities, etc against each other and determine who is the bigger star.  Let's see who wins this time:

Bradley Cooper v. Matthew McConaughey

Bradley Cooper

• Biggest Role:  Phil from The Hangover movies
• My Favorite Role:  Sack in Wedding Crashers
• Top Earning Movie:  The Hangover ($277.3 million)
• Biggest Flop:  Definitely All About Steve
• Awards:  2 Golden Globe Nomination (0 Wins), 1 Oscar Nomination (0 Wins)
• Career:  Brad's first role that anyone remembers him was in Wedding Crashers.  After that, he played sidekicks in things like Failure to Launch and Yes, Man.  Than came The Hangover and his career really took off with movies like The A-Team, Silver Linings Playbook, and American Hustle.  Up next he will be voicing Rocket Raccoon in this summer's Guardians of the Galaxy, which I'm really look forward to.

Matthew McConaughey

• Biggest Role:  Wooderson from Dazed and Confused
• My Favorite Role:  Wooderson from Dazed and Confused
• Top Earning Movie:  Magic Mike ($113.7 million)
• Biggest Flop:  You would think it would be any of his crappy romantic comedies, but I'm going with Tiptoes.  Look it up, it's about midgets.
• Awards:   1 Golden Globe Nomination (1 Win), 1 Oscar Nomination (Pending)
• Career:  Technically, the first thing he did was a part on Unsolved Mysteries, but his next role was in Dazed and Confused.  The next time thing I remember seeing him in was A Time to Kill, followed by Amistad and Contact.  Then he did a bunch of stupid romantic comedies and that dumb dragon movie, Reign of Fire, with Christian Bale.  Recently, he has been doing a lot of critically acclaimed movies like Mud, Dallas Buyer's Club, and Wolf of Wall Street.  This summer he will be starring in Christopher Nolan's Interstellar, so that should be awesome.

Bradley Cooper is a likable guy and I really wanted to pick him, but the fact is, Matthew McConaughey truly is the bigger star.  In fact, my brother and I had a conversation recently about whether Matt is a good actor and we came to conclusion that, yes, I guess he actually is.  So, in the end, I had to go with Wooderson.

"Alright, alright, alright, I win again."

Who's The Bigger Star? Part 5

Here is a fun post where a compare two actors/actresses, sports stars, TV personalities, etc against each other and determine who is the bigger star.  Let's see who wins this time:

Seth Rogen v. Jonah Hill

Seth Rogen

• Biggest Role:  A Big Goofy Slacker in all of his movies.
• My Favorite Role:  Dirty Randy from The League or Cal from The-40-Year-Old Virgin
• Top Earning Movie:  Monsters v. Aliens ($198.4 million)
• Biggest Flop:  Definitely The Green Hornet.
• Awards:  1 Emmy Nomination (0 Wins)
• Career:  Seth got his start on the Judd Apatow show, Freaks and Geeks, then went on to do the Judd Apatow show, Undeclared.  His first big part in a movie was in Judd Apatow's The 40-Year-Old Virgin and then got his first leading role a couple years later in Judd Apatow's Knocked Up.  Notice a theme yet?  After that, he has stared in a lot of stuff like Pineapple Express, 50/50, and This is the End.  In other words, he is getting a steady string of work with plenty in the works.

Jonah Hill

• Biggest Role:  His character from Moneyball
• My Favorite Role:  Honestly, I really don't have one.
• Top Earning Movie:  How To Train Your Dragon ($217.6 million)
• Biggest Flop:  It's either The Watch or The Sitter, you decide.
• Awards:   1 Golden Globe Nomination (0 Wins), 1 Oscar Nomination (0 Wins)
• Career:  The first time we saw Jonah was in a tiny part in I Heart Huckabees.  After that he played Seth Rogen's sidekick for a couple of years and then got a couple of movies of his own like Get Him to the Greek and The Sitter.  However, recently he has landed roles in a couple of critically acclaimed movies like Moneyball and The Wolf of Wall Street and even got an Oscar nomination for Moneyball.

I really want to pick Jonah Hill because I just don't like Seth Rogen all that much, but his star power is just too big to overcome Jonah's more solid acting resume.  So, even though I don't want to do it, Seth Rogen wins.

"I have no idea what is going on here."

Who's The Bigger Star? Part 4

Here is a fun post where a compare two actors/actresses, sports stars, TV personalities, etc against each other and determine who is the bigger star.  Let's see who wins this time:

Robert Downey Jr v. Christian Bale

Robert Downey Jr

• Biggest Role:  Iron Man
• My Favorite Role:  Harry Lockhart from Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
• Top Earning Movie:  The Avengers ($623.4 million)
• Biggest Flop:  I'm not sure because he did a lot crap while he was recovering from drug addition that I never saw, so I will say Due Date because that movie just wasn't that funny.
• Awards:  5 Golden Globe Nominations (3 Wins), 2 Oscar Nominations (0 Wins), 1 Emmy Nomintation (0 Wins)
• Career:  RDJ started off really strong with movies like Weird Science and Back to School, followed by one season on SNL in 1986, then got an Oscar nomination for playing Charlie Chaplin in a biopic.  But then drugs set in and he did a whole lot of crap for about 15 years until he got his break in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.  After that, he hit it big with Iron Man, then Sherlock Holmes, and he hasn't looked back.  Nowadays, he is one of the most profitable actors in Hollywood.

Christian Bale

• Biggest Role:  Batman
• My Favorite Role:  Batman
• Top Earning Movie:  The Dark Knight ($534.9 million)
• Biggest Flop:  That stupid dragon movie, Reign of Fire.
• Awards:  2 Golden Globe Nominations (1 Win), 2 Oscar Nominations (1 Win, 1 Pending)
• Career:  Chris (we're cool like that) got his start in the Spielberg film Empire of the Sun about a kid who has to live in a Japanese POW camp during WWII when he was only 13 years old.  The first big movie people took notice of him as an adult was American Psycho, but then he got cast as Bruce Wayne in Batman Begins and his career really took off.  Since then he has won an Oscar and has been in some truly great movies.  Next up, he will be playing Moses in the Ridley Scott's newest epic.

Batman v. Iron Man.  You know what, this one is really tough.  Based off of RDJ's ridiculous recent success, I feel like he should probably win, but those 15 or so years of substance abuse (one time he woke up from a crazy night of hard drugs in his neighbor's kid's bed) and terrible movies, I just can't pick him.  Sure, his Iron Man and Sherlock Holmes movies are great, but that's just not enough to beat out Batman.  If you ask me this question ten years from now, the answer might be different, but in the end I went with Christian Bale.

"Honestly, this picture was what really won it for Christian."

Who's The Bigger Star? Part 3

Here is a fun post where a compare two actors/actresses, sports stars, TV personalities, etc against each other and determine who is the bigger star.  Let's see who wins this time:

Matt Damon v. Ben Affleck

Matt Damon

• Biggest Role:  Jason Bourne.
• My Favorite Role:  It has to be his cameo in Eurotrip
• Top Earning Movie:  The Bourne Ultimatum ($227.5 million)
• Biggest Flop:  Definitely Stuck on You.
• Awards:  5 Golden Globe Nominations (1 Wins), 3 Oscar Nominations (1 Win)
• Career:  Matt had a couple of little roles before playing the title character in Good Will Hunting and winning an Oscar with Affleck for writing that movie.  Since then he has had a pretty incredible career playing Private Ryan, Mike from Rounders, one of Ocean's 11, and finally striking it big with Jason Bourne.  He's not afraid to take cameos like Eurotrip or his awesome part on 30 Rock.  Also, he once gained a lot of weight for his role in The Informant and has gone on to do other acclaimed movies like The Departed.  Not too shabby.

Ben Affleck

• Biggest Role:  Ummm.....I guess it's Argo.
• My Favorite Role:  Honestly, I don't know, so I'm going with his role in Dazed and Confused.
• Top Earning Movie:  Armageddon ($201.6 million)
• Biggest Flop:  Tough call considering some of the garbage he has done, but I'll go with Gigli.
• Awards:  4 Golden Globe Nominations (3 Wins), 2 Oscar Nominations (2 Wins)
• Career:  Ben's career has been really weird.  After Good Will Hunting, he got a big part in Armageddon and it looked like he was going to be the next big thing in Hollywood.  But then he kept making terrible movie decisions like Reindeer Games, Daredevil, and finally Gigli.  After his fall from grace (and his terrible choice in Jennifer Lopez), he kind of disappeared for a few years until he got behind the camera and remade his career as a director capping it off with a Best Picture win last year with Argo.  Today, he is hot again and even won the part of Batman in the upcoming Superman sequel.  Some people hated that he got cast as the Caped Crusader, but I disagree.  Affleck had some really low lows, but equally high highs so it's hard to figure out what to make of his career.

These two started their careers together and it was only fitting that they went head to head in this post.  You would think that Matt Damon would run away with this thing, but Affleck's recent years have really made this decision a little harder.  However, in the end, I just can't pick the guy who thought marrying Jennifer Lopez was a good idea and Damon won, but not as easily as I thought it would be.

"Yup, this is my favorite Matt Damon character."

Who's The Bigger Star? Part 2

Here is a fun post where a compare two actors/actresses, sports stars, TV personalities, etc against each other and determine who is the bigger star.  Let's see who wins this time:

George Clooney v. Brad Pitt

George Clooney

• Biggest Role:  I guess it's either his role from ER or as Danny Ocean.
• My Favorite Role:  Everett McGill from O Brother, Where Art Thou?
• Top Earning Movie:  Surprisingly, it's Gravity.
• Biggest Flop:  Easy, it was Batman & Robin.
• Awards:  13 Golden Globe Nominations (4 Wins), 8 Oscar Nominations (2 Wins), 2 Emmy Nominations
• Career:  Random tidbit, he was on a show called E/R and then the show we all know, ER.  Anyways, after leaving ER for the movie industry, he did a lot of random stuff until the Ocean's Eleven movies and from there went on to direct and produce.  He recently won an Oscar for producing Argo, so his career is still going strong.

Brad Pitt

• Biggest Role:  As Angelina Jolie's husband.  Are they married?  I have no idea anymore.
• My Favorite Role:  It's tough to go against Tyler Durden from Fight Club, but I'm going with his character in the little known movie, Snatch.
• Top Earning Movie:  World War Z
• Biggest Flop:  He's actually done a number of crappy movies, but my least favorite was when he played Achilles in Troy.
• Awards:  5 Golden Globe Nominations (1 Wins), 4 Oscar Nominations, 1 Emmy Nominations (for his cameo on Friends)
• Career:  The first thing he is remembered for was his part in Thelma & Louise and then went on to do all sorts of random stuff for the next decade like Se7en, Fight Club, Interview With A Vampire, etc.  Seriously, if you don't know what he's been in then you must have been living in a cave your whole life.

At first, I really thought Pitt would run away with this thing, then I changed my mind and thought with Clooney's recent exploits he should be dubbed the winner.  But then I changed my mind again because Brad Pitt was just too awesome in Fight Club that I'm going to give him the award even though it was really really close on this one.

"I don't know if that's true, but I do know his kids might be."

Who's The Bigger Star?

I came up with a fun new concept we will call "Who's The Bigger Star?" where we try to figure out who is more famous.  Each time I do one of these posts, I'm going compare actors, sports figures, or TV personalities against each other and see who I deem to be the bigger star.  This week I picked a tough one:

Tom Hanks v. Harrison Ford

Tom Hanks

• Biggest Role:  Tough call, I guess it would have to be his role in Big.
• My Favorite Role:  Jimmy Dugan in A League of Their Own
• Top Earning Movie:  Toy Story 3 (but Forrest Gump when he actually appeared on screen)
• Biggest Flop:  I honestly don't know.  Most people would say Joe Versus the Volcano, but I actually liked that movie so I'm going with The Ladykillers even though The Terminal was equally as bad.
• Awards:  4 Golden Globe Wins (nominated 7 times) and 2 Oscar wins (nominated 5 times) and will probably be nominated for both Captain Phillips and Saving Mr. Banks for this year's awards.
• Career:  Starting with Splash in 1984, Tom has had a hell of a career and has never really had a stretch of bad movies in almost three decades.  He's won two Oscars and starred in some iconic movies like Big, Forrest Gump, and Saving Private Ryan.

Harrison Ford

• Biggest Role:  Even though Indiana Jones was awesome, Han Solo was way better.
• My Favorite Role:  Han Solo, duh.
• Top Earning Movie:  Star Wars, duh.
• Biggest Flop:  Over the years, Harry (we're that close) has done some really weird stuff and a lot of people hated his movies like Six Days Seven Nights and Hollywood Homicide, but I'm going to go with something that hasn't come out yet and pick The Expendables 3 because I saw the first one and it was so bad I still don't know how it has gotten not one, but two sequels.
• Awards:  No big wins, but he did receive 4 Golden Globe nominees and one Oscar nominee.
• Career:  He got his big break in American Graffiti and then went on to Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and then played Jack Ryan in a couple of movies.  However, after Air Force One, he really hasn't done anything memorable in 15 years unless you count that terrible Indiana Jones 4 movie, which I try to forget exists.

Verdict:  Harrison Ford starred in two incredible franchises and is beloved by all, but Tom Hanks is Tom Hanks.  Everyone loves that guy and if you saw in the news that he punched a nun, you're first thought would probably be "What did the nun do to make Tom hit her?  It couldn't have been his fault".  Plus Tom Hanks' body of work is just that much more complete from start to finish.  If this post was written in 1997, Ford probably would have given Hanks a run for it, but from 1997 on, Harrison has done a lot of garbage.  Tom on the other hand has been starring in quality movie after quality movie his entire career.  It's still hard to vote against Harrison Ford because of Han Solo and Indiana Jones, but I still have to give it to Tom Hanks.

"If this was based on Worst Hair in a Movie, Tom would have won again."