DISQUS

Film School Rejects: Shouting Match: Is Jamie Foxx a Good Actor?

  • Voltron · 7 months ago
    there should be way more of these, always funny
  • sean · 7 months ago
    I thought Cuba Gooding was good in Men of Honor :(
  • _Christopher_M · 7 months ago
    don't forget Snow Dogs
  • Dan · 7 months ago
    He was awful in Pearl Harbor
  • Dan · 6 months ago
    and dont forget Daddy Day Camp
  • jack2jack · 7 months ago
    Jamie Foxx is not a good actor, he is a good mimic. His gift as an excellent comedian. Jamie has the ability to transform his roles as he does comedic performances. But do not confuse a comedic performance with acting. Jamie will never get roles like I am Legend (Will Smith), The Shooter (Mark Walberg), Man on Fire (Denzel Washington). Lack of roles aside for Black Men. Jamie does well in ensemble pieces and autobiographies. Bait was funny and also featured another comedian Mike Epps and the underrated David Morse. People thought good comedic team not excellent male lead actor. Put Jamie's performance next to Leo's in What's Eating Gilbert Grape and Sean's in I Am Sam. Who turned in superior acting and who was merely mimicing their perfromance?
  • Spacetree · 7 months ago
    Wait, wait... did you just say Mark Wahlberg in Shooter was a good role?! The words "good" and the movie Shooter should never be in the same sentence.

    And what's with this "not a good actor, just a good mimic" thing? That makes no sense. So is anyone who's played a biographical role just a good mimic/not a good actor, or does this just pertain to Jamie Foxx? Further, when is it fair to hold average/good acting in crappy movies against an actor? These criteria seem pretty tenuous to me.
  • jack2jack · 6 months ago
    I'd like to see Jamie take a role seriously. And come at it with raw human emotion. Not with the comedic approach he uses to his roles. I want to feel as though he is the charachter. I want to be seperated from everything he's done. I want to sit in the theater and say Whoa! Keanu Reeves punn intended. When I saw Edward Norton in American History X, I had chills. Edward had to go to a very uncomfortable place to pull off that role. You could see it in his eyes after he stomped on the guys neck. And people walked up to him and congratulated him for going to hell and back in that role, myself included. He made me question was he really racists? Jamie has surrounded himself with really good people. I question how Keanu Reeves continues to get the roles he does? It's what you do with the material given to you. You can work the hell out of a role even though the script is crappy.
  • _Christopher_M · 7 months ago
    I don't think he could really pull off a dramatic performance if the person didn't exist or he didn't have access to footage of them...he is a good mimic plain and simple...let's see him play a fictional character and blow us away...
  • jack2jack · 7 months ago
    Now I'd pay $10 to see such a performance.
  • _Christopher_M · 7 months ago
    Foxx's one Oscar doesn't make up for the years of awful television shows and movies we've been subjected to....If anyone had seen his television show he's always been able to sing, play piano and do musical impressions...so his performance in Ray was a little more hype than actual talent...Jamie Foxx is a comedian first , singer second and actor last....granted he did well in Collateral which is strong more due to the fact Michael Mann was the director if anything else....

    I have more issue with such a limited amount of black lead male actors getting work in Hollywood....I mean having like 10 actors on a short list for projects is kind of stupid...Jamie Foxx really shouldn't be the go to guy for dramatic roles...
  • Kangaroo Be Stoned · 7 months ago
    "Foxx's one Oscar doesn't make up for the years of awful television shows and movies we've been subjected to..."

    I hate to say this, but I feel this way about Heath Ledger. In fact, when I made my opinion known at /Film, albeit in a harsher manner, I was instantly deemed and troll and banned from making comments. Ledger's resume is wholly unimpressive. In my opinion he has only had three good roles out of his entire filmography. It is possible had he not died, we may have seen more out of him.
  • jack2jack · 7 months ago
    Your comment could not be more correct. People were naturally in a reactive mode following his death. Let's face it, anyone who acts along side Mr. Coach Jumper gets the Oscar. In Living Color was ground breaking in many ways. But spouting sonnets does not make him Shakespeare.
  • Adam_Since_1986 · 6 months ago
    But still better then Ben Affleck. But really we are splitting hairs here because that movie was just bad.