Six years and three months ago — on 3.21.01 — I considered a spate of dreadful early 21st Century youth-market pics like American Pie (has anyone re-watched this thing lately?), Saving Silverman, Head Over Heels, Say It Isn’t So, Tomcats, Josie and the Pussycats and American Pie 2. I then considered the young actors who’d starred in these films, and decided that they’d basically become (or were fated to be) shit magnets. As it turned out, I was mostly (or at least half) right.
My personal must-to-avoids in that pre-9.11 time pocket were Jason Biggs, Freddie Prinze Jr., Chris Klein, Amy Smart, Seann William Scott, Monica Potter, Tom Green, Mena Suvari, Jack Black and Amanda Peet.
Which of these actors has a reasonably vibrant, still-happening career today? One — Jack Black. The others are either marginal, sputtering or fizzled. Why? I think it’s at least partly because these actors made so many shallow/dreary/shitty movies, and people just got tired of submitting. Another reason is that anyone enjoying any kind of career flare-up these days is doomed to succumb to the 15-minute cycle because of the increasing velocity and volume of everything.
Question: which young actors today are cruising for a similar bruising? You see their names on the poster, and right away a voice tells you (however fairly or unfairly, accurately or inaccurately) it’s either so-so or mediocre or an outright stinker. Because of one factor and one factor alone — they’re in it.