Jason Lee

For awhile, Jason Lee's career seemed promising. Then he stopped doing low-budget Kevin Smith movies and decided to grab a couple of paychecks. He never stopped grabbing them. When spouting Smith's genius dialogue or wearing a mustache and rocking out for Cameron Crowe in Almost Famous, Lee seemed like a talented up and comer, but when he finally dove into big time Hollywood films he did so without a filter. Lee seemed to take anything and everything that went across his desk. His fans tried to stay with him, give him the benefit of the doubt, but it really all fell apart with Alvin and the Chipmunks. There's just no way to defend a movie about singing rodents.

I'm not sure what happened to the fast-talking flim-flam man we used to see in cool, edgy indie movies in which heteros date lesbians or angels shoot up the Catholic Church, but I miss him. These days the real Jason Lee can only be found on television, playing up southern clich閟 in whatever network show needs someone with an accent. On film, he's a lame cartoon who seems as though he's only in it for the money. You can only try to convince yourself Stealing Harvard is funny for so long, before you come to the awful truth: The Jason Lee we knew, the Jason Lee who seemed to care, is long gone.