Why are these Oscar winners all action?

After winning the Oscar, a stars asking price jumps up considerably, so I don't blame them for some picture choices.  It's up to the fans to pick and choose (wisely) what pictures to watch and not watch.

 In Angelina Jolie's case, she does donate a great deal of her picture earnings to different charities.  I say go for it! Keep making the Tomb Raider movies.

Besides, I love action movies....including Tomb Raider and James Bond.

Going to movies isn't always about making social statements or commentary, sometimes it's just about entertainment.

I say to the Oscar winners....Go ahead make more movies....I love choices!

No offense, but Dame Judy had already starred as "M" in two (2) James Bond movies before she went on to Shakespear in Love. Since M is a recurring character she also stars in the sequels.

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"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind." (Dr. Seuss)

i dunno if you can compare both dame judy dench and helen mirren to, say, charlize theron or hilary swank. such a comparison doesn't work for me.

on one hand, you have long, established actresses who have paid their dues and been around in hollywood and the english media for a long time, at least twenty years. so if they wanna horse around and do shoddy movies for a sizable paycheck as they enter their golden years, good for them! what we should be proud of is that they are still considered bankable actresses in an industry where age is mostly a liability, not an asset.

on the other hand, you have the young, recognizable, but hardly-have-paid-their-dues type of younger actresses who haven't been around long enough for us to determine whether their resumes are particularly respectable or not.

so no comparison, in my mind.

you can dance

you can jive

having the time of your life

Most actors and actresses work on a lot of movies, one after another and it can take a year, even a couple of years before something they've acted in shows up on the big or small screen. And then it'll take a lot of time before it's nominated for anything. So by that time you've already probably worked on a multiple movies and those gigs you got before anyone knew you had it in you to get an Oscar.

Most actresses probably take as many jobs as they can possibly get and if someone's knocking at your door to star in a big screen action movie and throw millions of dollars at you to do so... well, you do the math.

Most actresses and actors don't stick around to see if their work is going to get them awards before doing another job, that would take way too long. And you're only as good as your latest movie that's out. But the question is, when you HAVE won the Oscar and are looking for new projects, that's when you should take advantage of your Oscar status.

Plus, then there's the whole thing about depressing/heavy roles vs. fun/light roles. Helen Mirren as the Queen, not exactly a barrel of laughter and a light movie, so she probably wanted something light and fun and action is usually the way to go.

Shakespeare in Love was a terrible movie. Though Dame Judy was great in it, just as she was great in the Bond films. I actually kind of like that after an oscar win actors do a no fuss action role. Otherwise I just feel like they're fishing for another win.

I mean, Hillary Swank had to space her "butch chick who gets beat to death" oscar-winning roles with crappy films or it would have been mighty conspicious.

While the Oscar voters clearly look down on action movies as inferior to their drama cohorts, I think it's an unfair hierachy. There is just as much crap being churned out in the drama genre as there is in the action, and with none of the cheap thrills that give us all such a buzz when we go to the movies...just bone-numbing boredom (and then they go and give those films Oscars)

The Core was a great wee movie, the Tomb Raider films may have had shite dialouge and some awful supporting actors but seriously, great films for obvious reasons! And Dame Judi in James Bond was a masterstroke of casting(although I did read that they wanted to make her a lesbian in the latest installment but Daniel Craig advised against it). If these gals want to make a action film in which they will probably have a damn sight more fun than they would in any tear-jerking, ponderous, period drama/true story etc etc then I say good on 'em!

I have no problem with academy award winners going on to do action movies. The unfortunate thing is that mostly they go on to do ones that suck, because that's mostly the only kind there is. It's such a horrible shame that there are so few really great female action heroes in film. The greatest one I can think of off the top of my head is Ripley, and how long ago was that??!! TV has done considerably better, but even the small screen has a noticeable dearth of women kicking ass now that Alias is gone.

As for Dame Helen in particular, I adore her, even though she has taken on plenty of bad roles in her time. I just hope she'll be able to continue to follow those up with good ones. And hey, if she didn't take chances on mediocre scripts, she never would have made that weird little lesbian made-for-tv movie Losing Chase.

As has already been noted, Dame Judi was M before she was Queen Elizabeth in Shakespeare in Love; her cheesy action movie was Vin Diesel's The Chronicles of Riddick in which she played air elemental Aereon.  Rumor has it she got way bigger bucks for this than anything else she'd done before or since. Go Judi!

-Sputter-

I liked Tomb Raider and I really liked Aeon Flux...

 I'm sorry, I just like the genre. It makes my lesbian heart beat just a bit faster :D

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 Who you gonna be if you can't be yourself,
you can't get it from t.v., you can't force it on
anybody else.-- Ani Difranco