In Contention

Tag: Cameron Diaz

  • THE LONG SHOT: Critical mass

    Guy’s updated Oscar predictions here.

    Just one week on from the first formal awards announcements of the season, the Oscar season may still be taking its first steps, but my personal interest in the precursor trail is nonetheless set to peak this very weekend.

    That, of course, is when the New York Film Critics Circle and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association weigh in with their selections of the year’s best, showing up the likes of the nominee-naming Washington group as the pretenders they are, while classing up the season with some unapologetically idiosyncratic film smarts.

    Or so we hope – for as much as the major critics’ groups often delight us by throwing caution (and Oscar-soothsaying cred) to the wind with rebellious left-field picks, they are equally capable of falling dully into line behind pre-anointed favourites. I was recently chased by Tom O’Neil’s resurrected Gold Derby site for my NYFCC and LAFCA predictions, and while I’m as game as anyone for a spot of light-hearted, consequence-free punting, the irony of the exercise still nagged away at me: the day I predict either group’s set of winners accurately is the day they’ll cease to matter to me.

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  • The Great Performances: 1999

    Terence Stamp in The Limey1999 was a strange year.  And it’s hard to believe a full decade has slipped past since.  There were some great award-winning performances, to be sure, but there seemed to be just as many not nominated that certainly should have been.

    Ten years later, I remain stunned that Reese Witherspoon was not nominated for her brilliant work in “Election” as a pathologically ambitious, grasping social climber student doing anything it takes to head up the student council in Alexander Payne’s astute and black comedy.

    Witherspoon won the National Society of Film Critics award for Best Actress, besting eventual Oscar, LAFCA and NYFCC champ Hilary Swank in “Boys Don’t Cry.” What made Witherspoon’s work so incredible was that we all must have known a Tracy Flick during our high school days, and the actress created such an accurate depiction.

    Swank was a most deserving winner for her superb performance, winning over nominees, Annette Bening in “American Beauty,” Janet McTeer in “Tumbleweeds,” Julianne Moore in “The End of the Affiar” and Meryl Streep in “Music of the Heart” (perhaps the perennial Oscar favorite’s least accomplished nominated performance).

    Bening’s performance was brilliant, she won the Screen Actors Guild award for it, and though there seemed to be a swell of support for her as Oscar night approached, there was no denying Swank for her career-altering work.

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  • Jolie tops female-powered Forbes list

    Angelina JolieI must say I’m always somewhat fascinated by the annual Forbes 100 Most Powerful Celebrities list, not least because I’ve never really understood how they arrive at it.

    I have no doubt the financial publishing behemoth has some sort of intricate formula that factors in earnings and media exposure to somehow arrive at a rank order, but as a total idiot in such matters, I remain bewildered by a list that compares the wholly disparate (to me, at least) achievements of such  figures as Rush Limbaugh, Ryan Seacrest and Roger Federer.

    But compare them they have, and this year’s number-crunching informs us that Angelina Jolie is officially the most powerful celebrity in the world.

    I suppose I won’t argue with that: while I wouldn’t call Jolie the most influential actress in the game at the moment (surely that title goes to Meryl Streep in her newfound incarnation as summer-movie titan, which landed her at #64 on Forbes’ list), “celebrity” is a very different animal, and the number of magazine covers Jolie graces weekly at a newsagent’s near you speaks for itself.

    Clearly that kind of exposure is a more crucial factor in Forbes’ estimation than earnings, as I’d reckon Jolie’s personal fortune is meagre compared to that of runner-up Oprah Winfrey. Interestingly, the top four spots in the list are held by women, which belies more than a few media perceptions.

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  • SHORT TAKE: “In Her Shoes” (**1/2)

    In Her ShoesCurtis Hanson’s “In Her Shoes” is an exercise in sluggish pacing.  It has a lot to say to its target audience, but it ultimately feels as though the filmmaker behind the project isn’t capable of really sparking the conversation.

    Cameron Diaz struts about the screen desperately in need of a meal, but fulfilling the empty framework of her character well enough to believably convey a ditz, while Toni Collette capably provides us with yet another brilliant performance in a sub-par film.

    The real question mark for me becomes why anyone would have made a big deal of Shirley MacLaine’s lackluster performance of a flatly conceived character.

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