comment #1

Bilge says ...

Biographer? I think "stalker" was the word you're looking for.

comment #2

huntermdaniels says ...

The Others is the only real 4 quadrant hit she ever had as the lead and even that was a genre picture first and a star vehicle second.

comment #3

huntermdaniels says ...

In fact, I'd maintain that the vast majority of modern actresses are famous, rather than movie stars. Can anyone name a woman who can open a picture based solely on her presence?

comment #4

Deathtongue_Groupie says ...

Besides Julia Roberts, you mean hunter?

But your point is well taken. In today's marketplace, there aren't the type of films that women were the stars of in the recent past.

comment #5

Dan Revill says ...

I saw The Interpreter...and before that the last Kidman movie I saw in a theater was The Others. I am pretty sure I'm not the only one who would say that (or something similar).
When it comes to big Hollywood fare, I don't think she really chooses interesting projects to be perfectly honest. Her choice in indies on the other hand, while not always perfect, at least are never boring (from what I've seen).

comment #6

bmcintire says ...

BEWITCHED, THE STEPFORD WIVES, THE INTERPRETER and THE GOLDEN COMPASS all opened to north of $20M. None of the films was great by any means (though I really did enjoy the last two), but her job as a "star" was to open the damned things. Crappy scripts, direction, marketing, etc. undid them in the long run. AUSTRALIA is as much an albatross around the necks of Luhrman and Jackman as around hers.

comment #7

bmcintire says ...

THE INVASION, however - where do you even start with that thing? A gross miscalculation on everyone's part.

comment #8

btwnproductions says ...

Though every so often they make a hit, she and Sam Rockwell are reliable flop indicators.

comment #9

lipranzer says ...

Maybe Kidman, as Thompson suggests, would be good in comedies, but as Aladdin Sane points out, the ones she's chosen have been pretty crappy. I'm glad, however, he liked BIRTH - one of the underrated films of the decade so far. And while I don't hold MARGOT AT THE WEDDING in the same esteem he does, and hate FUR with a passion, they aren't safe choices. She needs to concentrate on those kinds of movies more.

comment #10

Circumvrent says ...

What this amazingly beautiful woman did to her face should be illegal.

Am I the only one who enjoyed THE STEPFORD WIVES? Probably. But the article is built on the premise that a big, sweeping epic about cattle-drivers called AUSTRALIA was ever going to be a hit in the United States, and that seems ridiculous to me.

comment #11

LexG says ...

"Dogville" and "Birth" OWN, and she was world-class in most of "Eyes Wide Shut," so I think she just makes for a big, tabloid-friendly target to take down, but her body of work outside of mainstream pictures is pretty impressive.

Also a little odd that Kidman gets so singled out in "does she or doesn't she?" Botox discussions-- kind of a cheap shot there, at least in her case; There's now a whole GENERATION of actresses, many of them way too young for it, who have DESTROYED their looks with that distortive shit; By comparison-- and none of us know conclusively if she uses it or not-- Kidman's changes are relatively subtle.

I don't know if it's the thin thing, current makeup, or if they're really 'Toxin for real, but some pretty major actresses as youing as mid-20s look pretty drastically different than they did three or four years ago. Ladies (not that any read this blog for cosmetic tips), but...), you need to cut that shit out before you all look like JOHNNY FUCKING HANDSOME, or at least that Pussycat Dolls owner whose brother was in The Goonies.

comment #12

Josh Massey says ...

Reese Witherspoon is the only actress today who is actually a box office draw. Julia Roberts hasn't been one in years.

comment #13

huntermdaniels says ...

Can Roberts open a film today?

comment #14

huntermdaniels says ...

I'm with Massey here. Witherspoon is the only woman who can really open a picture.

comment #15

Chase Kahn says ...

Roberts? I thought she was bad in 'Charlie Wilson's War' -- a painfully average movie...

comment #16

D.Z. says ...

Josh: I don't think Roberts ever opened a non-rom-com outside of Erin Brokovich and the Ocean films. Maybe Pelican Brief, but I think that was cashing in on Sneakers more than anything.

comment #17

Bilge says ...

>>Maybe Pelican Brief, but I think that was cashing in on Sneakers more than anything

This must be the first time the words "cashing in on SNEAKERS" have been uttered in the English language.

comment #18

Josh Massey says ...

The Pelican Brief was cashing in on Sneakers? Really? No, dude, really?

Julia took the dreadful Sleeping With the Enemy to over $100 million. That should say everything you need to know about her early '90s starpower.

comment #19

Bilge says ...

Also, the problem with Kidman isn't her frozen forehead (lots of actresses and actors have those). It's her pontoon lips.

A shame, too, because she really can be an incredible actress. Agreed on DOGVILLE, EWS, and all sorts of other films mentioned here. So what if they weren't hits? They were great, and she was great in them.

comment #20

BurmaShave says ...

D.Z., thank you for bringing that old random craziness back.

comment #21

dangovich says ...

I think the best example of Julia Roberts' box office power, at its height, was that turd Dying Young. She carried it completely, and It was the 16th biggest movie worldwide in 1991.

comment #22

bfm says ...

Whatever she's done to her face, I think the point is that it's distracting. I find myself watching her lips in fascination, then studying her forehead to see if it can move. Not thinking about the character that she's playing.

Really, I was never sure why she was touted as being the star that she was - several actresses seemed to be bigger draws than her: Julia Roberts, Cameron Diaz, Catherine Zeta Jones, Charlize Theron... I like Nicole, but even I have only seen maybe 1 in 3 of her films (and some of those were exercises in endurance).

comment #23

huntermdaniels says ...

To Dogville fans, any of you seen Manderlay? It's even better than Dogville.

comment #24

atticusrex says ...

Um, Ms. Streep is doing fine at the boxoffice right now. As for acting I would most def put Ms. Theron way ahead of Ms. Ex-Cruise.

It's always been a strange reality in Hollywood that Men are stronger openers/draws at the boxoffice. However during Hollywood's golden age Women also reigned i.e. Bette Davis, Crawford, Garbo, Hepburn etc.

Ms. Kidman though never really seems to inhabit a role. She is a tad bit the Ice Princess. though I kinda liked To Die For.

Besides one could also argue that Hugh Jackman can't open a film either. Well except for Wolverine... but then it's the Character not the actor opening eh?

comment #25

CitizenKanedforChewingGum says ...

I think D.Z. should enlighten us all and tell us what other films have "cashed-in" on Sneakers. I am seriously dying to hear this...

comment #26

Rich S. says ...

The fact that they've never found a proper vehicle for Jackman outside the X-Men universe is baffling. The guy is handsome, can act reasonably well and can even sing and dance. In the early 50s, he would have been one of the biggest stars in the universe.

Maybe they can plug him in as the new James Bond once the "gritty" thing wears off (which already appears to be happening).

comment #27

CitizenKanedforChewingGum says ...

NK is an interesting case. She will make one interesting film once every four or five years, then in the time between she's in a bunch of garbage that makes you wonder why the hell anyone thought she was any good to begin with. Then Dogville comes out, you remember, then the long wait begins anew...

comment #28

Howlingman says ...

You know, until someone mentioned Charlie Wilson, I couldn't recall the last movie Julia Roberts was in.

comment #29

CitizenKanedforChewingGum says ...

I thought Jackman was damn good in the Fountain. I know it got pretty universally shat upon commercially (and even critically)...curious if anyone here saw it and actually dug it (besides me)?

comment #30

actionman says ...

I fucking loved The Fountain -- and Jackman has never been better. Critics should be emabarassed wth themselves for panning that film the way most of them did. It's brilliant. It requires multiple vieweings, but it's well worth the investment of time.

Saw Australia over the weekend. It was OK. I didn't hate it, I was entertained, but it was just...too much. Very ambitious on the part of Baz to make a western, a war film, and a romance all in one, while also addressing the "stolen generations." It couldn't help but feel a bit broad and the characters were archetypes but in an old-fashioned epic sort of way, it worked just fine. It was a "movie-star, movie-movie" and every once in a while those sort of things can be fun.

However, I have to say, I thought Kidman looked wonderful all throughout. Not as beautiful as she looked in Cold Mountain, but pretty attractive nonetheless. I don't get all of this "look at her forehead" shit.

And also, for the first time in MONTHS, I was in a theater where people clapped at the end. My showing of Australia on Sunday at 4pm in CT was more than 50% full and people seemed to love the film. I know it's tanking at the domestic B.O. but with the apparent good word of mouth, I am sort of puzzled.

Kidman, IMO, has had a pretty strong career. She's mixed big studio stuff with edgier, indie flavored stuff and while not everything she's done has been a success, she's always making interesting choices. For whatever reason, I've always had a soft spot for her. Birth and Eyes Wide Shut are probably her best films with her best performances.

comment #31

atticusrex says ...

I kinda have a soft spot for Jackman's first major film role after X-men, The silly fun Swordfish. Which reminds me I actually was ok with Ms. Kidman in another of my guilty pleasures, The Peacemaker.

The Fountain was a boringly beautiful mess not unlike a Terrence Malick film.

As for Charlie Wilson's War, I did have problems at times with they way the applied the period makeup on Ms. Roberts. But I love that movie for one reason Hanks withstanding and that is the absolutely great Sir Hoffman spouting Sorkin bon-mots.

comment #32

nola says ...

I think of her more as an actress than a star. I loved her in Birth, The Others, Flirting, Moulin Rouge and To Die For.

I don't know what the heck she did to her face. It IS distracting. All these actresses in their 20s and 30s need to cool it with the surgery. Streep, Dench, Diane Lane they look like people not robots.

comment #33

vp19 says ...

AUSTRALIA is as much an albatross around the necks of Luhrman and Jackman as around hers.

But in the Hollywood culture, failure is invariably deemed the fault of the actress. And it's always been thus, even during the height of the studio system.

For example, in 1940, Carole Lombard had an opportunity to star in Orson Welles' planned first film project at RKO -- an adaptation of the comic thriller "The Smiler With A Knife" -- but turned it down, even though she liked Welles. "If it's a hit he'll get all the credit," she reportedly said, "and if it's a flop I'll get all the blame." (So we can indirectly thank Carole for "Citizen Kane.")

Nicole Kidman has made her share of mistakes (though I lay the blame for the "Bewitched" fiasco more on Nora Ephron than on her), but on the whole she's made a number of fine, offbeat films that I applaud her for. She has certainly taken more risks than Julia Roberts who, once she found her niche, rarely ventured out of it, save for "Erin Brockovich."

comment #34

eoguy says ...

During Australia's ridiculously stretched out final act my friend and I spent the time watching Kidman's forehead to see if it every moved. It didn't.

comment #35

ZayTonday says ...

I thought Heart of Darkness was Orson Welles' first planned film...

comment #36

fitz-hume says ...

The problem with Nicole Kidman these days is the botox. It's disturbing. I saw The Golden Compass when it came out and I was really distracted by her fake botox look. I'm actually going to skip Australia solely because of her monstrous look.

comment #37

huntermdaniels says ...

I ADORE The Fountain. Also, Jackman is the best interview I have ever had the pleasure of conducting. Zach Snyder too. Both men and pleasant, funny and charming without seeming pandering.

comment #38

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