LonesomePolecat Posted November 15, 2012 Share Posted November 15, 2012 Have you ever noticed that good movies have good child actors, and if a child actor is bad it kinda ruins the whole movie? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hamradio Posted November 15, 2012 Share Posted November 15, 2012 Far as a chiildren that made the movies, Haley Joel Osment in "The Six Sense". Found it strange I haven't seen him since. Mandy Miller in "Mandy" and :Peter Billingsby in "Christmas Story" Far as breaking a movie, Hillary Duff *almost* did in "Casper Meets Wendy". The wrong choice by which she wasn't all that cute (far from the comic charactor) and was snotty and arogent. Should I blame the lazy casting director or Hollywood not making a decent sequel to the 1995 "Casper" movie? How about a child actress that became a star even though she starred in a turkey. Shirley Temple in "Stand Up and Cheer". Not even she could save that film from being a boring flop. I like to pose the question the other way around. What if a movie makes or breaks a child actor. Case in point Sybil Jason, who got into the wrong studio, Warner Brothers gave her substandard material to work with. Edited by: hamradio on Nov 14, 2012 9:00 PM Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sfpcc1 Posted November 15, 2012 Share Posted November 15, 2012 Haley Joel Osmet has been in a few films since The Six Sense: AI, Pay It Forward, (which was lambasted on another thread even though the idea itself isn't bad) Second Hand Lions, Home Of The Giants, and the wonderfully titled The Misadventures Of Dunderheads, (I have it on my DVR.) He doesn't seem to make that many films. Scarlett Johansen gave maybe her best performance when she was 12 in Manny And Lo. I just saw a film called Trust about a 14 year old girl who gets sexually assaulted after meeting a old man on the Internet. Newcomer Liana Liberato gave a memorable heartbreaking performance. (Maybe 14 is older than the intent of the thread?) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ginnyfan Posted November 15, 2012 Share Posted November 15, 2012 > {quote:title=hamradio wrote:}{quote} > > > I like to pose the question the other way around. What if a movie makes or breaks a child actor. Case in point Sybil Jason, who got into the wrong studio, Warner Brothers gave her substandard material to work with. > That is certainly true with Ms. Jason and it's something we often debate concerning the one I follow. Would a studio have made a difference? I do have a TV example that breaks the rule. Larry Mathews just may have been the worst child actor ever and The Dick Van Dyke Show is still a classic. Of course, they could just leave him in his room for seasons at a time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hamradio Posted November 15, 2012 Share Posted November 15, 2012 Since you brought up television, Jerry Mathers in "Leave It To Beaver" and Jon Provost in "Lassie" centainaly *made* those classics. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
exapno Posted November 15, 2012 Share Posted November 15, 2012 Just about all the kids in A Christmas Story were real good - and the adults too. And I will make the obligatory Natalie Wood in Miracle on 34th St reference before anyone else! Only the Barone kids of Everybody Loves Raymond were shown less than poor Larry Mathews in TDVDS.... Edited by: exapno on Nov 14, 2012 11:07 PM Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sfpcc1 Posted November 15, 2012 Share Posted November 15, 2012 Sorry, I made a typo. The girl met an older man not an old man. Dakota Fanning does not seem to have substance abuse issues so she may have one up on Lindsay Lohan. Another good kid performance, (wow back to classic movies) was Peggy Ann Gardner in A Tree Grows In Brooklyn. My favorite scenes in a Shirley Temple movie were Jane Withers acting like a brat, ("oh good Uncle Ed Doesn't have to live with us anymore") I get that kid. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sfpcc1 Posted November 15, 2012 Share Posted November 15, 2012 I've seen Hounddog. Trust is a much better film. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hamradio Posted November 15, 2012 Share Posted November 15, 2012 On the dark side, Linda Blair did make the head turning "The Exorcist". It proves a child don't have to be pretty to get noticed. Edited by: hamradio on Nov 14, 2012 11:31 PM Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twinkeee Posted November 15, 2012 Share Posted November 15, 2012 Who can forget Patty McCormack in THE BAD SEED? She was BRILLIANT and certainly made that movie! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brackenhe Posted November 15, 2012 Share Posted November 15, 2012 Maybe it has more to do with the director than the children. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonasEB Posted November 15, 2012 Share Posted November 15, 2012 The two kids in Yasujiro Ozu's Good Morning form a devestating "big guy, little guy" comic duo. Petula Clark had a small but delightful part in I Know Where I'm Going. Another Powell & Pressburger, A Canterbury Tale, features a great war games sequence involving a group of children. The 400 Blows and The Innocents, of course. The Nanny, a Hammer Horror with Bette Davis, has some great child performances in it. More recently, Moonrise Kingdom features two of the best child performances of all time (Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward.) Wes Anderson's earlier Rushmore launched Jason Schwartzman; 17 at the time but clearly incapable of playing older than a high school student. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
willbefree25 Posted November 15, 2012 Share Posted November 15, 2012 True and true. The Barone kids were awful, every one. On Christmas Story, it's a sad career that Flick came to take. ginnyfan, FAR worse than Larry Matthews was I Love Lucy's Little Ricky, his "that's what I've been trying to tell you!" is the stuff that nightmares are made of. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DownGoesFrazier Posted November 15, 2012 Share Posted November 15, 2012 Justin Henry in KRAMER V KRAMER, and Quinn Cummings in THE GOODBYE GIRL. Both great. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sepiatone Posted November 15, 2012 Share Posted November 15, 2012 We've seemed to move a bit from child actors in movies to those who appear in TV shows. OK then, my nomination for a good "kid" actor is the kid who plays "Brick" in "The Middle". I put the quotation marks on kid because my WIFE is convinced he's really 30 years old! In movies, MARA WILSON had a lot of chops. PLUS the ability to be utterly adorable in spite of not really being cute. How good is THAT? I was never particularily fond of MARGARET O'BRIEN, but still undecided if it's HER, or the type of kids they had her play. Larry Mathew's "Ritchie" was the most candy-a**ed, whiny, twerpy little brat ever to grace the tube. I don't BLAME the Petries for keeping him out of sight a lot. And I always thought in lieu of how the character Ray Barone behaved, them having children was redundant. Sepiatone Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
willbefree25 Posted November 15, 2012 Share Posted November 15, 2012 Sorry, Sepiatone, I tended to turn off movies with kids in them, since I hated Shirley Temple and her ilk. Was it Margaret O'Brien who had that annoying voice? Blech. With television shows, I stuck around for the show, and ignored the kids. Atticus Shaefer of The Middle has Osteogenisis Imperfecta (Brittle Bone Disease), is that what your wife is finding different about him? OT, I loved Natalie Wood in Miracle On 34th Street. Oh, and Josephine the Plumber was an hilarious child actor. Hah, so there are two I liked. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ginnyfan Posted November 15, 2012 Share Posted November 15, 2012 Sepia, Mara Wilson has a lot of chops as an adult, just not on screen. Her blog is great, as is Quinn Cummings' s. I got a good look into the psyche of the former child actor through both of them. Larry Mathews problem, or should I say one of them, was that he would start to grin and look off camera for approval every time he had a line. When they did their reunion show about a decade ago, they still only let him have one scene. Will, If you are going to like a child actor, and it isn't the one I write about , you can't do better than Jane Withers (Josephine to you). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sfpcc1 Posted November 15, 2012 Share Posted November 15, 2012 I saw Moonrise Kingdom a couple of weeks ago. You're right, those kids were great. It might have been one of Wes Anderson's best movie. (maybe another thread can be about Wes Anderson and how his movies resemble 30's screwball comedies.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dargo2 Posted November 15, 2012 Share Posted November 15, 2012 If we're still talkin' television here, all the kids on "Modern Family" are first rate little actors. In fact, they're as good as the adult actors on that show...and they're all very good. (...yep, there is a reason why that show and its actors keep winning Emmy after Emmy) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dargo2 Posted November 15, 2012 Share Posted November 15, 2012 Oh, and if we're talkin' classic films here, could any other little actor other than Freddie Bartholomew have acted on a par with the great Spencer Tracy in Captains Courageous? (...nope, I don't think so) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jezebelle Posted November 15, 2012 Share Posted November 15, 2012 I used to think it was acceptable for a child actor to be spotty or just not good. I figured "hey they're just kids" but I saw Dakota and Elle Fanning, Chloe Grace Moretz, Bailee Madison. Then I remembered and rediscovered Shirley Temple and Freddie Bartholomew and now I find it totally unacceptable for child actors not to be on par with them. It just kind of makes me wonder why child actors who are spotty get casted. But I guess they can't all be perfect. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LonesomePolecat Posted November 16, 2012 Author Share Posted November 16, 2012 I made that comment before I saw this, which goes along with my point: > {quote:title=helenbaby wrote:}{quote}Maybe it has more to do with the director than the children. And I have to say that, this being said, if the kid is just annoying there's no getting around it. Edited by: LonesomePolecat on Nov 15, 2012 7:02 PM Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
willbefree25 Posted November 16, 2012 Share Posted November 16, 2012 if the kid is just annoying there's no getting around it. Or as Little Ricky used to intone, arms akimbo, face scrunched up, eyes looking off camera to his Mom, no doubt: "That's what I've been trying to tell you!" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sfpcc1 Posted November 16, 2012 Share Posted November 16, 2012 Elle Fanning gave a great performance in Phoebe In Wonderland. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dpompper Posted November 16, 2012 Share Posted November 16, 2012 I kept hoping the tripod monster in the "War of the Worlds" (2005) would eat Elle Fanning. What an annoying, screaming-mimi brat. That's not acting at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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