Movies

My comment to Sean, and his post, got me thinking about a couple things.

First with movies. I hate when good actors get so big that they start sucking. They completely lose believability (is that a word?). It's not Character X, it's Dustin Hoffman acting like Character X. I know I said this about Paul Giamatti, who's not necessarily a "movie star", but he sucks donkey balls and still has this effect. Anyways, Al Pacino is the poster child for this. And does he have to give a monologue at 120 dB and anguished moans in every movie? You can see these guys acting. De Niro's pretty bad too.

I have several "big stars" in mind that have seemed to resist this but am interested in who you guys think are examples of and against this phenomenon. Plus any explanations as to why this is. Do they just think that they have to show off their acting so much and their work is actually declining or is the problem with me as the viewer in that I've seen them in so many memorable movies that I am looking at them differently?