Top 5 Hollywood actors of the last 30 years

Top 5 Hollywood actors of the last 30 years

The actors in this list are all brilliant in their own right. It is difficult to sort them in any order. Their combined tally of 10 Academy Awards and 38 Nominations is proof enough of their ability and they are not required to score high in the rankings of people like me. Rankings like these are mostly determined more by personal likings than anything else. But still since we are making a list someone has to come to the top. So here goes:

5. Dustin Hoffman

Dustin Hoffman image courtsey: thegoldenyears.org

Dustin Lee Hoffman has the amazing quality of taking on any role and making us believe that he is the guy next door caught in an extraordinary situation. His first major breakthrough came in the movie ‘The graduate’ where he captured the right level of awkwardness of a young man being seduced by the mother of his girlfriend. Hoffman received his first academy nomination for the role. He would go on to receive 7 nominations in his life time of which he has won two, both for Best Actor. He won his first Oscar for playing the role of a single father and for capturing his anguish while going through a custody battle with his estranged wife in Kramer vs Kramer in 1979. The second was in 1988 for playing the role of Tom Cruise’s autistic brother in Rain Man.

His other notable performances included Midnight Cowboys, Lenny, Tootsie, Wag the Dog, and Marathon Man. In most these movies he played the ordinary guy, the underdog whom the audience would be forced to cheer on. Definitely one of the greats.

4. Tom Hanks

Tom Hanks image courtsey: wallpaperbase.com

Thomas Jeffrey Hanks’ graduation from playing goofball characters to playing dramatic characters was sudden and unexpected. But it helped in making him one of the greatest actors in modern era. He has the ability to get into the skin of his characters and give superlative performance. His performance in Castaway is a testament to his brilliance where he acts a major portion of the movie without dialogues. His first major success was with the 1984 romantic comedy Spalsh. But he earned critical as well as box office success with the 1988 movie Big which also gave him his first Oscar nomination. He would go on to get 5 Oscar nominations winning 2 of them.

The role that really made him a heavy weight in Hollywood was that of a gay lawyer suffering from AIDS who sues his former employers for firing him because of his disease in the movie Philadelphia. Hanks gave a touching performance in it and followed it up with his brilliant portrayal of a simpleton in Forrest Gump the very next year. Both these roles helped him in winning back to back Oscars, a feat that was achieved only once before by Spencer Tracy. His other notable works include Apollo 13, Saving Private Ryan, The Green Mile and Catch Me If You Can. He is truly a loveable great actor.

3. Al Pacino

Al Pacino image courtsey: poster.net

To me Alfredo James Pacino will forever be Michael Corleone of the Godfather trilogy. If ever an actor is said to have lived a role it is this. Pacino made the role so immortal that you can never think of one without thinking of the other. It also earned him his first Oscar Nomination. It has to be said that the Academy has been slightly unfair to him by giving him the nod only once among 8 nominations. He is also the first actor to have been nominated in two different categories in the same year. He eventually won the Best Actor for his portrayal of a retired blind Lieutenant Colonel in The Scent of a Woman.

Though he is best remembered for giving towering performances in gangster flicks like The Godfather Trilogy and Scarface, it would be unfair to classify him in that genre alone. He has given other versatile performances in Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon, …And Justice for All and Glengarry Glen Ross. His portrayal as the devil in the Devil’s Advocate elevated an otherwise ordinary movie to the status of a good movie. His hallmark is his dialogue presentation and the energy that he exudes on the screen.

2. Robert De Niro

Robert De Niro image courtsey: poster.net

Robert Mario DeNiro, Jr gained internal stardom playing the role of Vito Corleone in The Godfather II. It also garnered him his first Oscar. There has always been a lot comparison between him and Pacino. The reason we have rated him higher than Pacino is because of his wider range of roles and its versatility. He was part of one of the most successful actor-director combinations ever with Martin Scorsese by working with him in 8 movies. The duo reeled off one classic after another in their prime which has stood the testament of time.

De Niro’s devotion to acting is legendary. For his Oscar Winning role as boxer Jake LaMotta he put a lot effort into the gaining weight to play the character’s later stages in life and then lost it to play his younger life. Overall De Niro has been nominated by Academy 6 times of which he has got the nod twice. His other notable performances include Taxi Driver, Deer Hunter, Awakenings, Cape Fear, and Good Fellas. De Niro is an actor whose performances stay with you long after you have watched it. His immortal line ‘You Talkin’ to me?’ is proof enough of that.

1. Jack Nicholson

Jack Nicholson image courtsey: ari.cankaya.edu.tr

Born John Joseph Nicholson is known for his portrayal of larger than life or over the top characters. He is guy that you love to hate but still can’t take your eyes off of when he is one the screen. His greatest asset is that he makes acting look so easy. He has won the Academy Award 3 times and is tied with Walter Brennan for most wins by a male actor. His is also tied with Spencer Tracy for most Academy nominations for a male actor with a tally of 12 nominations. He has been nominated for an Oscar in every decade from 1960.

His is the guy you should run to if you want to see insane and menacing performances. But that is not to say that he doesn’t have the versatility to act in other roles as well. His Chinatown and Terms of Endearment or even As Good As It Gets is proof enough of that. I first saw him in Batman as the joker and was totally blown away by it. Years later I saw his ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ which garnered him his first Oscar and understood why he is considered as one of the best actors of all time. It was further solidified when I saw A Few Good Men where in the final few minutes he transformed an otherwise okay-ish movie into something beyond its level. That is Jack Nicholson an actor in a totally different league from the rest.

Five big things that could end your honeymoon

Five big things that could end your honeymoon

Image courtsey: bookafrica.com

Honey moon time is of uncontrollable passion that fills whole days and nights of a happily wedded couple; they feel detached from the surrounding realities and live in a world of their own. Unbridled passion makes them ignore grave issues while they get lifted to elation by trivial things. Time flies, honey moon becomes as a thing of the past. When searching something else they bump upon wedding photo albums, memories take them to those times when they lived in the spell of a magic which has vanished long back leaving them as ordinary couple always engaged in quarrels not knowing what the actual reasons are.

The following are five reasons which put an early end to the magic of honeymoon, these are simple things and easy to follow as all great things in life are simple but seldom understood! Just five things to be kept in mind.

1. It is common to expect that both spouses should be similar in their way of thinking style of doing things, such differences do not appear in the early stages as honey moon generally is not for critical analyses. As time passes by realities begin to bite; differences so far hidden during honeymoon arises issue by issue. The time of reckoning has come ‘my spouse is not that what I sought’ murmurs inner mind and frustration slowly takes over the front seat. This can be taken for the smell of the end of their honeymoon.

The spouses are two different individuals and they come from different situations, their dreams, their ambitions and their view-points also may be different. It is unjust to expect one’s spouse to change altogether, respect the differences and accept it as the basic right of a spouse to be oneself.

2. “Expecting that the duty of the spouse is to make other happier” There are spouses who spent (wasted) all their life in the attempt to make the other one happier and failed miserably in this attempt. Happiness is something that cannot be taken in a pan and poured in to one’s mind, because it is intangible. Neither parents nor spouses can make one happy as far as one is not happy to be happier.

King Solomon was the wisest man on earth and he could follow the language of animals and birds; once had a bout of melancholy, all the pantaloons of the palace were called in, they performed their best items, but the king could not made happy. Best of the land’s musicians failed to cheer him up.

While the king strolled through his palace garden immersed in deep melancholy; he heard a sorrowful song of a cuckoo bird; which had lost its pair. That song contained a sad undertone with which the king could get identified with; and his own sorrow vanished as he felt he was not alone in his grief. Only consideration and sympathy can bring real happiness and one who is forced to make the spouse happy is a tragedy in real life. Solomon could read the sorrow of the bird, one who has real love will never insist his spouse to make him happy.

3. The concept that there should not be any behavioral restraint among spouses as ‘home is the place to vent one’s pent up emotions’. It is a fact that outside world is filled with skirmishes and one who plays the diplomacy cards always has to pocket a lot of insults and get frustrated. Returning back to home and release these tensions by thrashing children and shouting at the spouse is curiously accepted as a standard behavior even in a civilized society. Often such exercises turn counterproductive as the other either shouts back, weep, wail or curse causing the frustration to double. There are houses where children ‘shudder to think about the return of the dad from work’.

It is accepted that one may have to receive a lot of insults in the process of working for a living; one’s spouse can accept it as it is her own problem as well. Instead of shouting it out just share it ‘sorrow vanishes by sharing where as joy doubles when shared’, this enables to wake up like a fresh lily smile at the children next day morning instead of shying away from them like a culprit of the day before!

4. There may be instances of pointing out mistakes or expressing one’s distress or disagreement, point out the specific instance and ‘never keep a record of wrongs’ and recite it occasionally, this will un-necessarily sully relationships. Isolated incidents may be kept as such and never kept any co-relation with present or past mistakes committed or presumed to be committed. Many a couple spoil their whole pleasures of life just because they keep a record of the other one’s follies and keep on reciting them as it is a ritual.

5. Resorting to aggressive arguments is generally considered to be a tool for settling disputes between couples, but nothing is farther than the truth. An argument ends at poking fun at each other or their relatives leaving deep scars on all participants, only mutual hatred flourishes it this battle. ‘In an argument no one is a winner’ To begin one is akin to jumping in to a deep well; it is easy to jump but very difficult to get out of it. Frightened at the impending defeat most of the couples resort to attacking at the weakest spots like looks or backgrounds of the other; thereby inflicting long lasting wounds on the ‘opponent’ spoiling the whole relationship all to win in an unwanted argument!

Not accepting differences gracefully, thinking it is the duty of the other to make one happy, venting out frustration without restraint, keeping a record of wrongs and indulging in arguments to sort out issues are the five things to noted as main culprits which damage married life, replacing them with positive steps are inexpensive but capable of retrieving one spoiled relationship back to normalcy. Just by these simple steps just try it! And be a happily wedded couple for ever!

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