MattMaroon.com

I’ve mentioned before how annoying I find it the human tendency to eulogize others, so this particular one really pissed me off. I found it in Rolling Stone (I know, but I get it for free and Matt Taibbi is a really good writer) and it’s about Heath Ledger.

“the oscar that eluded him for Brokeback Mountain could be his posthumously. Small comfort for his family. But a fitting tribute to an actor who never settled for less than extraordinary.”

Really? How can you call yourself a film critic and say that? That’s like a wine critic saying “Ernest Gallo did more to increase the quality of wine than anyone who ever lived”. When I read that, I threw up in my mouth a little.

Don’t get me wrong, he might have finally had a good role in a good movie, and he died before it even got released. That’s a bad beat. But let’s take a good solid look at his IMDB page, and see if we can’t just find something less than extraordinary that he settled for. Here’s some of what we find, with IMDB rankings (on 10 scale) after the movie title.

First we have 10 Things I Hate About You (6.7), a cheesy teenage Taming of the Shrew. Then his big break in The Patriot (6.8). If you consider that movie extraordinary, please do your country a favor and don’t have children. Then, even better, we have A Knights Tale (6.5), which is the result of some Hollywood meeting where an executive said “how can we make a Mel Gibson movie but without Mel Gibson?”

Then we have Lords of Dogtown (6.8), which I’ve never had the privilege of seeing, but I don’t think has ever been called extraordinary by anyone. An even bigger flop than that was The Brothers Grimm (5.9). Thought he hit rock bottom with that one? I guess you didn’t see The Order (4.7). Judging from the rating and the fact that I’ve never heard of it, it may have gone straight to DVD.

He picked it back up again with Ned Kelly (6.3), another movie nobody has ever remarked about. He was in Monster’s Ball (7.2), which was a good movie, though I can’t remember him in it.

I guess I have to give you Brokeback Mountain (7.8). I found that to be the most overrated movie of all time. It was basically two hours of my life wasted that could have been saved if someone just told me “it’s tough being a gay cowboy.” That movie survived on shock value alone. It was basically The DaVinci Code but with good cinematography.

I was going to say that the only good thing he ever did was one line about high school girls in Dazed and Confused, but then I remembered that that was, in fact, Matthew McConaughey (though it was definitely the only good thing he ever did).

IMDB Rankings (out of ten)

6.7

6.8

6.5

6.8

5.9

4.7

6.3

7.2

7.8

Average: 6.3

It would seem that his entire career was mediocre at best. There were at least 6 movies made last year (No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood, Juno, Ratatouille, Atonement, and The Bourne Ultimatum) that were better, according to IMDB, than anything he ever did.

I know it’s scary when someone younger than us dies, as it reminds us of our own mortality. But let’s not let that cloud our judgment. His career wasn’t one gem after another. It was a dog turd with a couple quarters in it. There were some parts that had some value in it, but on the whole it was best left lying on the sidewalk.

This entry was posted on May 9, 2008 at 3:14 am and is filed under TV, Movies, Music, and Why They All Suck . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed Both comments and pings are currently closed.