Ham and Cheese/Quotes

"...But mostly it's an opportunity to watch John Malkovich turn in a performance that had to - HAD TO - be a direct challenge to the director, "Please, fire me. I'm begging you to fire me. I'll do a take like this and then you'll have to fire me. Wait, I'm still not fired?""

—Riff Trax, product description for Eragon

"That sardonic thing is mostly when the dialogue is puerile. You want to let the audience in on the fact that 'Yes, I know this is shit'."

—Christopher Plummer on the common characteristics of the characters he plays.

What I am saying is, Billy Zane, alone among all Titanic's many acclaimed cast members, seems to have realized what a ridiculous movie he was making, and he apparently decided to go full-on cartoon villain for the occasion. For though Billy Zane may not be the most able of actors, he possesses the essential quality of enthusiasm. Specifically, enthusiasm for unhinged, hilarious overacting. ... Zane is wildly over-the-top, which is probably why he didn't get good reviews. Also, Zane is wildly over-the-top, which is why he is the most entertaining thing in the movie.

"[Guy] Pearce, as the hero, makes the mistake of trying to give a good and realistic performance. [Jeremy] Irons at least knows what kind of movie he's in, and hams it up accordingly."

—Roger Ebert, reviewing The Time Machine (2002)

"HAM AND CHEESE!! BRILLIANT!!"

—Bill Bailey, talking about Toasties during bewilderness

"Only thing I kind of like in this movie is that weirdo villain. And that's just because he's so over-the-top bad! Now to be fair, this guy has done a lot of good serious work, like Braveheart, Titus and so forth, so I really credit this more to bad directing than I do bad acting. But hey, at least it was entertaining, which is more than I can say for the rest of this stupid film!"

—The Nostalgia Critic, reviewing Warriors of Virtue

"It's literally like he woke up every morning and said to himself "I'm not going to act today! I don't know WHAT I'm going to do, but it's not gonna be acting."

—The Nostalgia Critic, on Dennis Hopper's performance in the Super Mario Bros. movie.

"...For if knowledge is power, then A God Am IIII!!! {{[[[Beat]] beat}}] Was that over the top? I can never tell! Hahahaha!"

—The Riddler, Batman Forever

"The one thing I do like about the sequels is just how much fun Hugo Weaving seems to be having with the character. It's like he realized how poor the scripts were, and decided to make the best out of a bad situation."

—Film Brain on Matrix Reloaded and Revolutions.

"Brian Blessed pretty much singlehandedly made “Mindwarp” watchable for me, not in spite of but because of his scenery-chewing. He’s a respected Shakespearian actor, and you can really tell that he knows he’s slumming it here. But he’s also been in his share of schlock, like the 1980 Flash Gordon movie, and he knows that when you’re given a role as inherently hammy as Yrcanos, there’s no point in turning down the volume. If the story and the dialogue are going to be this bad, at least the actors should be having fun with it."

—Christopher Bahn on The AV Club, discussing the second portion of Doctor Who's Trial of a Time Lord story, Mindwarp