Worst Supporting Actor of 2005

They all achieved their personal brand of suckiness in different waze, but there's no getting around it: They DID all suck. And if you're having trouble picking just one, try Choice #6 -- ALL OF THE ABOVE!

The one thing was that I felt that Burt Reynolds performance as Boss Hogg was the highlight of the movie...and that was the only reason I didn't give him the nod for worst actor... Everyone else dragged him down... So my guess was that he needed the money for this one... I wouldn't see The Longest Yard BECAUSE it is a football movie...

I'm one of those who hates football because it is too violent...but proud to be a hockey fan...

My vote went to Hayden "post Mortimer" Christensen...for his wooden performance in EP III... Lord Vader...he ain't... Lord Vapid...is he...

Hayden Christiensen helped ruin what could've been one of the greatest movie prequel trilogies ever.

I honestly cannot remember a single good movie Eugene Levy ever did. It must really suck to be Earl Camembert in real life!

JOE (Reply from HeadRAZZberry): I was up late the other night and happened to catch a chunk of MIGHTY WIND on Comedy Central, featuring Eugene Levy as a washed-up folk singer. While WIND is no match for the brilliance of THIS IS SPINAL TAP, I'd still argue it was at least a "good" movie...

As much as I would like this award to go to Hayden Christensen, I just can't cast my vote for him because he notably wasn't a supporting actor in Revenge of the Sith.  He was the star of the tragic affair. 

Granted, he wasn't the biggest name actor there, but since the entire movie was about his relationship with Ben Kenobi and his turning toward the dark side, and he had more screen time than anyone else except perhaps for Ewen McGregor (not to mention that the plot turned very largely on his actions), I think saying he was a supporting actor in Revenge of the Sith is about like saying Mark Hamill was a supporting actor in A New Hope.

Even though I'm going with Burt Reynolds for even looking at the script for The Dukes of Hazzard, I'm all with the nominations for Son of the Mask.  Movies that bad should come with complimentary cyanide pills.

In response to "Andiboi" -- I am delighted at the command of English you display in your posting, as well as the level of cynical humor (You should see some of the postings regarding Hilary Duff!).

But I am getting just a TAD tired of defending Hayden Christensen being listed in our Supporting Actor category rather than leading. Here's a quote from one of my earlier posts on the subject, which (I hope) will finally put an end to this "controversy":

"As for Hayden Christensen being a lead actor in this film, watch the movie with a stopwatch, and you'll realize that, although the entire movie is about his character, Hayden/Anakin is only on screen for about 25-30 minutes out of a total running time of 140. He also has THIRD billing, behind Ewan McGregor and Natalie Portman (and just ahead of Samuel L. Jackson, who's barely even in the movie!). By most normal accounting, that would make him a Supporting Actor. If you're looking to identify the LEAD role, I'm fairly certain that top-billed McGregor as Obi-Wan had much more screen time than Christensen did..."

I'm going to start this entry with a couple of apologies.  First, my apologies to the Head Razzberry for opening a can of worms you have spent much time dealing with (and my thanks for the compliment you paid me, while I'm at it).  I'm afraid while I've long known of, and been grateful for, the Razzies, I've only recently-- as in, days ago-- discovered you had a public venue and more importantly, an interactive one.  I haven't had time to review all your archives, and as such didn't realize this topic had been covered.

I didn't mean to show disrespect by ignoring your previous statements on the topic.  I was simply unaware you had made any.

Second, I know this entry is going to end up being more long winded than most, so my apologies in advance for that.  I admit I can be verbose, but I do like being thorough and not skimping on my line of thinking.  Oh, and sorry to Ewan McGregor for misspelling his name earlier.

I also want everyone to know I'm not trying to start an argument, especially in light of the tolerance I've been shown thus far (it's been my experience the instant you disagree with the views of most moderators, they tend to just boot you off the forum and erase everything they don't like, so it speaks very well of this one that he chose to respond rather than retaliate).  I am simply stating my peace.  It doesn't mean I'm right.  It just means that's what I think.

That said, I took the Head Razzberry's advice.  I literally sat down with my stop-watch this evening, and watched Revenge of the Sith.  In fact, I did it twice, once to keep track of Hayden Christensen's onscreen time and once to keep track of Ewan McGregor's (and I tracked the scenes they were together in independently to make sure I credited both actors equally for time spent together onscreen).  I'm going to play the "obvious" card for not bothering to track anyone else's.  It's obvious no one besides those two could have been the lead or spent nearly as much time on-screen, so I felt no need to track their screen time.  Besides, it would've taken forever and a day to delineate everyone's screen time in that movie.  I'm just one guy here.

It became obvious to me early in the movie tracking "face time"-- that is to say the time you can actually SEE the actor's face on screen-- was nigh on impossible and largely irrelevant due to the way George Lucas films, because he doesn't seem to like to hold camera shots very long, preferring to shift from actor to actor so you see primarily their face while they are speaking.  Sometimes he doesn't, but much of the time his scenes consist of a multitude of shots a spare few seconds long each, if that.

At that point, I had to decide on a fair way to gauge the actor's overall role in the film based on their appearances without starting and stopping on the milliseconds they were afforded “face time”, and decided to go by what I will refer to as "feature time"-- that is to say, how often the actor was physically present in a scene and, more importantly, one of the prime characters interacting directly during that scene-- to determine how long they were onscreen.

On the one hand, that means if the camera cut away for a few seconds to feature another character's dialogue, I still counted the actor as "onscreen" even though you couldn't see them because their presence was still explicit in the scene and because the action which took place without seeing the actor directly involved interacting with them (meaning their physical presence and what they were doing were still the significant points). 

On the other hand, it means if they were just standing around like a prop in the background, I didn't bother to count them as being onscreen, even if you could see them.

Believe it or not, there was precious little time for either character where they were onscreen but doing nothing which would draw the action or the viewer's attention to them specifically, so it was pretty much insignificant.

I also didn’t bother to count the frequent long CGI “cutscenes” where you were basically watching traffic go by or a ship coming in out of orbit (and when you start keeping an eye out, there turns out to be a God-awful amount of them), even if the actor was the last thing you saw before the cutscene and the first thing you saw afterward.

Anyway, this is what I found:

Of the total of 140 minutes credited to the running length of Revenge of the Sith, only 132 minutes or so were of "movie".  The rest were opening and closing credits.

Of that 132 minutes, Hayden Christensen spent just over seventy minutes being directly featured onscreen.

By comparison, of the 132 minutes, Ewan McGregor spent just over fifty-two and one-half minutes being directly featured onscreen.

That leaves Hayden with nearly twenty minutes more onscreen time than Ewan McGregor.

Did you see either of their faces the entire time?  No.  Like I said, George Lucas likes to flip flop his camera angles, so when Hayden is speaking you see pretty much only him and when Ewan is speaking you see pretty much only him.  However, since both were given credit for corresponding amounts of scene time when the scene cut away from them but they were still part of the main focus of the scene, it washes out in considering how much of the film directly dealt with them.  In reality, Hayden Christensen DID appear onscreen more than any other actor, and more of the scenes of the movie focused directly on interacting with his character, in person specifically, than they did with any other actor.

Even if you want to subtract the time I counted for Darth Vader (as in the guy in the big black suit and that “still oh-so-creepy after thirty years” breathing problem) being onscreen time for Hayden, which I counted because it was both a continuation of the character he portrayed and because he was physically the actor inside the suit during those scenes, and add in the time I discounted for Ewan McGregor being lugged around on Hayden's back (which I didn't count for him because he was more of a prop than an actor during those sequences, just like I didn't count the moments the CGI "stumpy" Hayden was being ferried around on that medical platform), Hayden still comes out being onscreen significantly more than Ewan McGregor does.

If you couple all that with the fact the movie centers around Anakin Skywalker and his fall from grace, to my mind that makes Hayden Christensen the star of the film.

Now then, all THAT said, does that mean I'm right and those who think Hayden Christensen is a supporting actor are wrong?  No.  Not in the least.

This is honestly a subjective point of view.  We're talking about different people looking at an artistic work and making a subjective judgment based on how that artistic work impacted them.

In looking at things, I do realize those who judge the Razzies did feel a significant impact from Hayden Christensen's performance, so I can't say "well, they simply overlooked it".  They didn't.  It had enough of an impact for those judging to suggest he had one of the worst performances of the year.  That's a significant impact.

So, I'm left with assuming in the final analysis, the overall weight of Hayden's performance just wasn't as deep or significant (for good or for bad) as Ewan McGregor's was, and those judging subsequently feel Ewan was the more important character... and I can fully respect that.

I can also respect the fact that I am one lone person who popped in to give his opinion, but those I have given it to have spent a lot of time and proven their opinions as valid enough to warrant consideration and merit by even Oscar winning professionals, whereas I have neither taken the time nor put myself through such effort.  That, too, must be respected, and I'm not writing any of this to either impugn or refute their points of view.

These are simply some of my reasons for having a different one.

After reading all of the posts on this subject, AndiBoi
 has convinced me that Hayden Christensen was not the lead actor in Star Wars Episode III, but a supporting actor.  Was the reason for nominating him here just to make room for Tom Cruise is the lead actor category (which is just ridiculous anyway).