Max wrote:

Oh, OK, then.  Well, I'll have to do it.  Al Pacino is a one-dimensional actor (ever see him try to develop a character other than the one he always plays, such as in Scent of a Woman?  It was pretty hard for me to watch him in that).  But that doesn't separate him much from any other well-deserving icons of American cinema, such as Humphrey Bogart.

Bogart's character in The African Queen is so much of a departure from the Sam Spade type of role he was known for to that point in his career, it was almost unsettling to watch.
And of all his movies, my favorite is The Caine Mutiny. His brilliance is his ability to portray the character's vulnerability.
Pacino is a good actor who has been fortunate to have been cast in some exceptional roles, but I can't see him pulling off Capt. Queeg.

Max wrote:

Maybe, for a Hollywood star,   . . . but neither are anything at all like what a real actor like Daniel Day Lewis pulled off in his repeated metamophoses in My Beautiful Laundrette, A Room with a View, Unbearable Lightness of Being, My Left Foot, Last of the Mohicans, etc.

Maybe, but as diverse as that resume is, there's no actor on the planet more malleable than Steven Seagal.
He's practically Gumby. Well, if Gumby carried an elephant gun.

Max wrote:

No reason to stop at Stephen Seagal.  Let's add Sly Stallone, Chuck Norris, etc.

I once heard a nice takedown as a means of praising Paul Reuben.  The comment was how admirable his dedication to the Pee Wee Herman character was "ultimately developing the emotional range of, say, Alan Alda."

Hey fella, Alan Alda was a badass in "1600 Pennsylvania Ave."
So there.

Mags and I once had a discussion about when the TV version of MASH jumped the shark. I argued it may have been as early as when McLean Stevenson and Wayne Rogers departed, and certainly no later than when Larry Linville left. Mags contended it was when Alan Alda was cast.