Actors who slum it

James Gandolfini in “Surviving Christmas” — James doesn’t have the list of film credits that some of the other nominees have, and he is best known for playing one role on a TV series, that of Tony Soprano. But his work on “The Sopranos” gained him a seemingly bottomless pit of respect — until he hit bottom by signing onto this. It’s an achingly unfunny tale of a callous young millionaire (Ben Affleck) who goes back to his childhood home in a desperate attempt to find some holiday cheer at Christmas, then offers to pay the family that now lives in the house to play along and act like his family. Gandolfini plays the man of the house. He’s fine, but the rest of the movie should have been weighed down with chains and cinder blocks and tossed over the side of the Stugots.

Columbia

Robin Williams in “RV” — With the high price of gasoline these days, there was a concern among tourists that RVs would be too costly to operate this year. It’s unfortunate prices didn’t skyrocket sooner, before they started production on “RV.” Robin does his best Chevy Chase imitation as a frazzled dad taking his family on vacation in a giant RV, with the requisite misadventures and random oddballs along the way.  The gags are anemic, the situations are predictable and the characters are recycled from every other such movie. Robin works often, so it’s hard to understand how a multitalented performer who has been nominated four times for Academy Awards and won once could get himself involved in a movie whose high water mark is the emptying of a septic tank. Must have been a BIG check.

Touchstone

Steve Martin in “Bringing Down the House” — Like Robin Williams, Steve is an immensely gifted funnyman who has written and/or starred in some exquisite comic creations such as “All of Me,” “Roxanne” and “L.A. Story” as well as more serious fare like Lawrence Kasdan’s “Grand Canyon” and David Mamet’s “The Spanish Prisoner.” So what was he doing in this fruitless attempt to squeeze a few chuckles out of a black-white relationship between an escaped prisoner (Queen Latifah) and the lonely man upon whose life she wreaks havoc? Martin seems to have found steady work in mainstream high-concept comedies lately, which is good and bad. It allows him to remain popular for a whole new generation of moviegoers. But little by little the comic genius that we used to know fades in the memory. It should have been called “Burning Down The House.”

Columbia Pictures

Nicole Kidman in “Bewitched” — It was a tossup here between “Bewitched” and “The Stepford Wives,” two efforts in the fantasy/comedy realm that went horribly wrong. And Nicole starred in both, poor kid. But “Bewitched” gets the edge because of its alarmingly high doses of vapidity. Director Nora Ephron didn’t remake the old TV show, she made a movie about remaking the old TV show. Kidman and Will Ferrell go through the motions, trying to conjure up belly laughs out of wink-wink cynicism, and ultimately failing because it’s nothing more than a bubbling cauldron of comic confusion. Between “Bewitched” and “The Stepford Wives” in back-to-back years, let’s hope Nicole banked enough to keep her in diamonds and Gucci so she doesn’t have to take another project like those two for a while.

Alex Bailey / Paramount Pictures

Angelina Jolie in “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider” — When discussing actors who take roles simply for the check, movies made from video games jump to the front of the line, especially those that inspire sequels. This is just a lot of brainless action and stunts with no story, a typical Hollywood exercise in production excess with no reason to live other than to lure kids from their computers into theaters. Jolie plays Lara Croft, a tough adventurer a la Indiana Jones, only the film has none of the storytelling verve and skill of that franchise. The best that can be said about Angelina’s participation is that somewhere down the line a portion of her earnings from this series will find its way to African relief efforts, although some money should also probably go to disadvantage souls who had to sit through this. 

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