At this party tonight, we were chatting about celebrities, analyzing them to death. (So FUN.) I asked whether Tom Cruise or Winona Ryder can ever recover their career greatness again, and the answer was no on both accounts. Unless Winona can star in some indie, low-budget arthouse runaway hit, she will not make it back, and honestly, she’s still beautiful, but she’s not a good actress and so that fate seems unlikely. I thought maybe if she did something “risky” like dulling her beauty in a star vehicle in a tasteful remake of “Stone Pillow” (a hard-hitting, early 80s TV movie starring Lucille Ball as a homeless woman in the West Village who lucked into gourmet handouts daily, and if you can’t tell, I’m totally being sarcastic about the “hard-hitting” part). Or you know, how every actor likes to play a mentally retarded person to prove their mettle? That could work. Sean Penn, that woman from “Sid and Nancy,” Ray Liotta (I think) have all tucked their t-shirts in high-waisted pants and slapped on a backpack on their way to stardom. As for Tom, the Scientology is his downfall and limited talented (he’s outgrowing the winner-fratboy schtick and hasn’t found a replacement.) Does Hollywood just like ruin people? Totally, and it’s so fun to talk about.
The other name we tossed about was Renee Zellweger. In general, I don’t care for her. She generally is over-the-top, indicates. Like “Jerry Maguire”? Painful to watch “I love him, Laurel!” (Hurl) or her sterroid-puff cheeks in “Chicago.” I know she won that Oscar for “Cold Mountain,” but DUDE, what was up with her accent? (“Number Oooooonnnnne and Number Twoooooowhah.”) It was insane, pumped up Ozark thing that put her in a different movie from Nicole Kidman and Jude Law. BUT before I completely eviserate this celeb, I happened to catch “Bridget Jones’ Diary” tonight on cable, and she’s GREAT in this flick. Her accent makes sense, her timing/comedy is subtle and underplayed, rather than insecure, melodramatic BS. She completely gets how to play the humiliation of the character and is completely likeable. And she looks cute chubby! A good performance from that Crazy Factory called Hollywood! Yay!
I love it when actors gain 50 pounds for their roles and they go on talk shows and say “I had to eat 9 meals a day, had to have two bagels with lox and cream cheese every hour on the hour…” and I’m like, oh, you poor baby, can I have your job please? I mean, wouldn’t it be cool if you had to get chunky as part of your job and it wasn’t just a by-product of getting older and being lazy?
i know, right? this is why i like writing. you don’t have to wear make up and you don’t have to lose weight or comb your hair. and i like that part of the gig when the movie star can go ape on sweets and carbs, but then they go mental when they have to lose it. i mean, then renee went tooooo skinny in between the two movies but she actually looks cuter with a little chub.