Remember that graph of M. Night Shyamalan’s career trajectory based on his movies’ RottenTomato scores over time? Some Poindexter over at Slate put together an actual application that graphs actors’ and directors’ careers based on their RottenTomato scores. Obviously, movies aren’t math, and as we’ve learned, most critics are stupid, but it’s still fun. Among their shocking discoveries, the highest average film score belongs to French actor Daniel Auteuil. Among Americans and people you’ve actually heard of, the top spot belongs to John Ratzenberger. That’s right, Cliff Clavin from Cheers. It’s a little-known fact that John Ratzenberger is the best actor in America.
Best Actor: Daniel Auteuil. With an average film score of 86 percent, Auteuil has appeared in the most consistently high-quality films of the last few decades. The French star, best known for his role in Jean de Florette (1986), may benefit from the critical soft spot for foreign films. If you prefer to count only red-blooded Americans, the top honor goes to John Ratzenberger (76.1 percent average), who has voiced a character in every Pixar movie to date. [Slate]
Oh right, Pixar. Meanwhile, if you throw out his voice work, he’s got scores of 0% (House II: The Second Story, starring Bill Maher, among others), 13% (for That Darn Cat, with Doug E. Doug), and who could forget the 2007 Jamie Kennedy vehicle, Kickin’ It Old Skool, which rated 2%. The lone positive review came from Caroline Kepnes of E, who wrote, “This is the kind of movie in which a fat guy in a bra gets felt up by three guys at once,” which, to be fair, does make it sound pretty good. Meanwhile, worst actor honors go to Chuck Norris (20) and Jennifer Love Hewitt (18.9). Now, it was at this point in writing this post that I realized that this Slate article is from a few weeks ago, but I’ve included a few notable career graphs below, because God knows I’m not wasting all this work.
Curiously, they didn’t have numbers for Seltzer’s co-tard, Jason Friedberg.
As suggested in the comments, Kevin Smith vs. Michael Bay. Curious…
Samuel L. Jackson. He works a lot.
Speaking of guys who work a lot…
Kate Kudson vs. Katherine Heigl.
Looks like old M. Night has some company in the old downward trend department…
And speaking of downward trends… Imagine what’d that look like without Into the Wild in there. I didn’t even remember Vince Vaughn being in that movie.
Seagal, Van Damme, and Lundgren. Holy crap there are a lot of zeroes in that graph.
House II: The Second Story
Kickin’ It Old Skool
Okay, okay, I’ll add Nic Cage, yeesh. Anyone else disturbed that his highest-rated movie is Face/Off? (Tied with Moonstruck).