Cinematical

Ever seen the TV show, Nathan Barley? Whenever I read things like this I always think exactly the same as Julian Barratt's character: "The idiots are winning!"

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Whoever wrote this article needs to get their facts right before writing about Heath Ledger.
It was an accidental overdose of perscrition drugs, and he didn't take too many, just took a bad concoction of drugs that obviously weren't meant to be taken together.
He did very much appreciate what he had, which he deservedly achieved through hard work. Just because he kept himself to himself and liked having a private life doesn't mean he wasn't appreciative.
He loved Matilda Rose and the rest of his family more than anything and would never be so selfish and commit suicide.
The fact that you say he should have won a Darwin Award for Brokeback Mountain shows that you obviously have no clue what you're talking about...if it was that bad a performance then it is very stange that he was nominated for an Oscar.
And he "mumbled his way" through the film because that was how he thought Ennis should have been portrayed, as a man who says little and who finds it difficult to open up, and his protrayal obviously worked well.
Heath Ledger was an amazing actor and it's shame that he died just as people started to notice him and take him seriously.
Articles like this make me SICK.

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While I agree that having Heath as the number one spot was a low and tactless move...the rest of the list is quite entertaining - especially number 10!!!

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Distasteful and attention seeking.

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you know what, i'm just gonna go ahead and say it.

while kind of tasteless, this makes sense. i mean, don't get me wrong, heath was my favortie actor, i saw TDK 6 times, and got so teary eyed and in shock after he died, i even named my dog after him. true story. but sometimes, it needs to be said. i mean, you have thousands of kids out there who would absolutely kill to be in a spot like heath's, just to get the opportunity, yet it seems talented stars have a tendency to take things for granted and pretty much do everything they can to throw it away. i mean, a video even came out that should him doing coke a week before he died. why would he do something like that?

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@Sophie Farrelly: No, we got our facts straight. If you read the piece, you'll notice we even link to the final toxicology story. It was never a matter of taking too many of any given drug, it was the fact that he irresponsibly mixed a number of drugs that he shouldn't have even come close to thinking about mixing (and we list those drugs too, lest folks not know what they were). Ledger is number one on the list for all the reasons we state, and all the anger in the world at us for us calling him irresponsible isn't going to change the fact that he OD'd in a particularly idiotic fashion.

Oh, and see Robin's response for the explanation of the Darwin Awards sentence.

@MartyJ: We love "Nathan Barley," and the idiots won a long time ago (see #10 on our list).

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@stevenh: he wasn't doing drugs in that video. It was all hype.

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Oh my god, it doesn't matter if you people defend your opinions about Heath Ledger being ungrateful and overrated. What really matters is the fact that the article's description is RUDE! Its distasteful and mean-spirited. They shouldn't be talking shit about someone who died! To me, its as bad as the Westboro Baptist Church protesting at funerals for fallen soldiers.

Give some respect to the dead.

By the way, I'm a Heath Ledger fan also. I do think its awful that the article insults Ledger. Yet, I find it even more awful that the people at FILM THREAT have the nerve to spit on his grave.

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I have to agree from a standpoint of getting attention, this was a genius move. From an ethical standpoint this was a very wrong thing to do.

Putting him at the #1 spot is ridiculous. Honestly, I wouldn't even have put him on the list (or Renfro for that matter.) As far as I can tell this list is somewhat for fun and everyone else listed are people who have made bad career moves that could technically be turned around. Heath Ledger made a move that ended his life which is something you can't turn around.

While I won't argue he's off limits (the guy was a public figure afterall) I will argue that anyone who cares more about their reputation than their ratings would have left this one alone.

As far as a Darwin award, give me a break. You have to do something uniquely stupid for one of those. People overdose and mix prescriptions all the time, and for a lot worse reasons than Ledger did.

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What I cannot understand about anyone's comments is the judgments made.

Heath DID take an accidental overdose by combining a variety of prescription drugs which were not meant to be taken together due to the cumulative nature of their effect.

However:

Did the doctors who prescribed the medication tell Heath what the active drugs were in each medication?

Did the doctors who prescribed the medication ask him what other medication he was currently taking or had in his possession?

Did these same doctor's carefully explain that the active drug in the medication worked on the autonomic nervous system and what that means?

I tend to think NOT. I don't believe that Heath fully understood the nature of the medications he was on and may have simply thought that, since it came from a doctor, it was safe. I also believe that he was ill with pneumonia at the time - which would have had a detrimental effect on his respitory system and would certainly not have helped in the situation.

I think Heath was simply ill, exhausted from the heavy work load in London prior to his return to New York, desperate for some sleep - which he could not seem to get and took the prescribed dose of everything he had thinking that, at last, he would crash out for the night.

I don't enjoy sitting here reading other people's judgmental opinions. Whatever his personal and medical problems may have been, he was a brilliant artist and, by all accounts from those who knew him, a wonderful human being - emphasis on the word "human".

As for th person who mentioned the drug video - it was not taken a week before he died - it was taken 2 years ago - I've seen it and, guess what, it doesn't show him snorting drugs.

This list may cause notoriety but it certainly won't earn any respect from me. In fact, I think it's a load of spurious nonsense.

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"Take that, promising young actor who died tragically!"

No tragedy at all. The dude killed himself. Let it go. Yes, junkies know what to mix and the dude was a junkie.

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That is repulsive and very indicative of the worst of the internet. But I guess the "controversy" will increase their hits, so then its OK to slam somebody who died accidentally, leaving behind grieving family members, friends and a legion of fans.

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Paul Newman, Bernie Man, and George Carlin also died this year (and the latter was a well-known drug-user! Shocking, I know) and were beloved by many ala their #1 choice, so why not put them on this P.O.S. list too, ala Ledger and Brad Renfro as well, if Film Threat REALLY wanted to be daring? The fact is, the "staff" of a former magazine that couldn't cut it on the newsstands goes online to print their liberal garbage; they act like the're so COOL yet don't have the guts to properly slam such douchebags as Spike Lee, Bill Maher, or worst of all the toxic Sean Penn (seriously, does anyone REALLY like these "people", even if they happen to think they're talented? They have all the charm of cyanide!) because they two the simple-minded liberal company line favored by douchebags...FILM THREAT can go FUCK themselves not for the Ledger/Renfro pics so much as they totally missed out on the true #1 coldest person in Hollywood...FAT FUCK HARVEY WEINSTEIN!!!

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Re. Mark Bell: Even if you're right about Heath Ledger, you're still a heartless scumbag...and WTF is your problem with Scarlett Johansson and Natalie Portman, anyway? You seem to have a lot of problems with women, anyway (no wonder you won't bash Spike Lee, you have so much in common); you basically tell Katherine Heigl to "shut up", but let that race-baiter hack of a "director" who made a damn fool of himself trashing Clint Eastwook slide; typical snarky bourgeois attitude from a snot who can't do any better...

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Agree. Deserves #1 because he was adored by so many for being a junkie and a prima donna. They should rename the list in honor of Anna Nicole, another nobody loser who died far too late from saving us the disgrace of watching her waste her life in public.

Heath isn't that bad, but a junkie primadonna movie star (with *actual talent* nonetheless, which makes it all the more tragic) deserves to leave his kids without a father, it just that these people are spared the fate they deserve far more often than they are made to deal with the consequences of bad decisions.

As a motorcycle rider, I know that everytime I take to the streets on my ride, one bad decision leaves my family with one less member and I will have to (hopefully?) live with the consequences. Unlike half (most) of Hollywood, this translates to my real life and makes me think twice before popping pills, drinking and driving, slapping my fiancee when we disagree, and mercilessly physically assaulting coworkers when they are clearly in the wrong.

It's always refreshing to see someone so public deal with the same consequences millions already have to live with every day of every year in private.

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Even if you were a fan of his work or not, it shouldn't really matter. Those remarks are pretty tasteless.

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