At what point does Hollywood stop giving Nicole Kidman starring roles in movies and instead ask her to do a pilot for the Oxygen Channel? Is it all the bad plastic surgery? Lousy career advice? A complete inability to judge a script? Marriage?Whatever it is, America has voted and they do not want to see Nicole Kidman.
Her current release, THE GOLDEN COMPASS figures to be one of the biggest bombs of the year (It’s not just Catholics. NO ONE is going to see this movie.). And it comes on the heels of MARGOT AT THE WEDDING (described by a friend as having glass in your eye for two hours), THE INVASION (taking Daniel Craig down with her), BIRTH (where she takes a bath with a ten year old), FUR (where she has to shave Big Foot), and who can forget one of the unfunniest comedies ever made, BEWITCHED?
Is she just self destructive? Did they stretch the skin too tight and it’s affecting her brain? I don’t get it. She used to be good. I saw her in person eleven years ago and thought she was the most naturally beautiful woman on the planet. She got Oscar nominations.
I’ll bet nine out of ten of you reading this are saying the same thing: It all started when she had to pretend to enjoy having sex with Tom Cruise in EYES WIDE SHUT. I would have to agree.
Get out now Katie while you can!!
I must agree with you on all counts... the beauty, the talent, the whole thing.
ReplyDeleteNow if you'll excuse me, I'm going to try to get this glass out of my eye.
Whatever it is, America has voted and they do not want to see Nicole Kidman.
ReplyDeleteI thought you were too creative to be a Holywood exec, but looks like you know how to do the job anyway!
For your next trick, you should take the top three opening weekend winners for the year, find out what color pants the protagonists are wearing, and if they're the same, demand that your writers write something with that color pants in it.
Bill Goldman was right. Nobody knows a goddamn thing.
But since you asked: THE INTERPRETER, COLD MOUNTAIN, BIRTHDAY GIRL, THE HOURS, THE OTHERS. All after EYES WIDE SHUT.
Given that, I'm voting for "inability to judge a script".
Let's see:
ReplyDelete2001:
The Others
Moulin Rouge
2002:
The Hours
2003:
Dogville
Cold Mountain
2004:
The Interpreter
(with Sean Penn)
To sumn it up: you are wrong Ken. Period. I know Botox and operations can be fun, and I know you are right that in the last two or three years she hasn't been in anything mindblowing but then again you should consider what exactly Hollywood IS producing. What other movies in the last three years have been critically acclaimed other than "Million Dollar Baby"?
Maybe I am just not confronted with tucked-back skin on an everyday basis to laugh about this but today's post makes me sad instead of laugh. Considering how two women now gave up their whole identity to stay successful in the industry by marrying Gay... err TOM Cruise. Heh... now that was a funny one ^^;
Again, sorry, but I think you are wrong. She's had a couple of bad movies but she's still making money out of them and that's better than no work at all.
I really wonder whether there's some kind of pattern here. I remember a post about other Hollywood actresses where you said they would return to TV soon enough but I can't remember you saying something like this about any actors (men).
Ken... you little sexist :-)
Nobody has told Nicole that she can turn roles down, I guess.
ReplyDeleteShe reminds me of a teenager afraid to be alone on Saturday night, so she accepts a date with the first bozo that asks her.
Seems to me she can afford to say 'no' every so often, especially to offers like 'Bewitched,' and the remake of 'The Stepford Wives.'
I love her work in 'Cold Mountain,' 'The Interpreter,' 'The Hours,' and my favorite 'The Others.'
Remember the last time an actress was labeled "Box-Office Poison"? We know how that ended: Katharine Hepburn received three more Best Actress Oscars during the following fifty years, four in total. Has Hollywood changed that much since then? NK has world enough, and time.
ReplyDeleteMakes you wonder how "Australia" will do here in the States. Is ANYBODY outside of Australia going to care about it? Unless Hugh Jackman is advertised as the main lead, I'd be nervous if I were Fox Studios. It's gone over budget and is already 9 months into filming and still not done.
ReplyDeleteAnd for Kidman's next trick? A role she is shooting in Germany beginning in January. The Reader. She plays a 36 year old who has an affair with a 15 year old boy. And years before that, she was a Nazi guard in a concentration camp.
Somehow, I can't see middle America flocking to see that movie.
She said she wants to do movies that "shock people" but is going out of her way to alienate them?
She said initially that she turned down the role in Golden Compass because she had just gotten married and wanted to be with her husband. But the authur & director "seduced" her into doing it. I guess a flop is what she gets for choosing a movie over family.
Nicole Kidman is one of the only actresses in Hollywood that takes chances on indies. Just because a small film does not have the box office receipts of a Star Wars or something, doesn't mean her acting was poor. It just means the general public wasn't interested in the film. Yes, she has made some real bombs, but why does everyone blame the female lead? YOu see it over and over--has Kidman, Witherspoon, Roberts lost their box office appeal? Why is the male actor never blamed for a bomb? Most of the films that they have blamed for a bomb on Kidman have had very strong male leads. Why not blame them? Will Ferrell, Daniel Craig, Sean Penn etc. Supposedly they all have a huge following. Nicole has never had a huge following, so again why blame her. She was superb in many of her films including Birth which you pan. She gave an excellent performance. Also in Fur. Just because the public didn't like or was attracted to the film...doesn't mean her performance was bad. What about Jennifer Aniston? Bomb after bomb and she CAN'T act. I don't hear people demanding she give it up!
ReplyDeletei was hoping Compass was going to be a monster hit just so that bigot Donohue wouldn't be able to go around claiming his boycott was effective.
ReplyDeleteI don't like Nicole Kidman. I have liked some of her work.
ReplyDeleteBut, Ken is right... in the past few years, she has accepted anything that even looks like a script. She needs intervention.
What a great post! Terribly funny too! :-)
ReplyDeleteI agree with you all the way!
It's Ken's blog, he pays the electric bill so I say anything goes! But definitely, NK has left a body of work that others actors would kill for.
ReplyDeleteActually, I was shocked at how good she was in The Hours. I plan to see the Noah-Jen film too. But that type of storytelling is an acquired taste... like Neil LaBute, Mamet or Albee... you know, all the guys who could never write for Disney.
Anyway, Nicole will always be on the A-list. Ken's entitled to his opinion but outside of that squicky bathtub scene, I don't agree with those complaints! :)
PS- thank you Dancer:
ReplyDelete"Most of the films that they have blamed for a bomb on Kidman have had very strong male leads. Why not blame them? Will Ferrell, Daniel Craig, Sean Penn etc."
Now if we could just get the word out to Warner Bros.
I have really stirred you guys up. I love it!
ReplyDeleteSome additional thoughts and rebuttals.
I never said I didn't like Nicole Kidman. In the right thing she's a terrific actress. But her selection process has been awful lately.
Why should an actress (or actor) be judged on their boxoffice success? Because of the salaries they demand. An star's name has drawing power. A string of flops has consequences. They have to be very careful about what they pick. Either she hasn't been or she's been given some real shitty advice.
And maybe some of the scripts were good and the execution was just terrible. But BEWITCHED? Jesus, she had to know by page 3.
I'm not sure "Eyes Wide Shut" was the turning point...she had plenty of stinkers before that. Days of Thunder, Malice, Batman Forever. Her best role was in "Dead Calm" in the late 80s or as a phone voice in Panic Room.
ReplyDeleteShe's still beutiful, even if she can't choose decent roles.
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Bewitched is funnier if you watch it in Australia with a Koala bear on the barbie.
ReplyDeleteI can't speak for everybody else but I know why I don't want to watch her films. I find her completely unrelatable. She was fun back when she had curls and her own skin, but now she's pulled so tight, stands so straight and acts so above it all that she doesn't look like the kind of woman who ever cuts loose.
ReplyDeleteI don't want to see a movie starring a woman who has absolutely nothing in common with me.
And yet, when she wakes up in the morning she's Nicole Kidman, and I'm, well, still....
ReplyDeletePlus, I haven't felt comfortable criticizing any kind of plastic surgery since the... circumcision.
Though Kidman often leaves me cold or makes films that don't pique my interest, I try not to be too hard on actors for the choices they make. Who knows what went into her decisions to make certain films? Hindsight is 20/20, but if a major studio comes to you and says "We've got a cute idea to adapt Bewitched; Nora Ephron and Will Ferrell are on board; it'll be fun and we'll give you millions of dollars for a couple months work," you might be tempted (cue snarky digs at Ephron and Ferrell, which I may even agree with). Maybe Kidman loved "When Harry Met Sally" and thought having a few extra mil in the bank would allow her to make a couple of riskier projects way below her usual quote.
ReplyDeleteI also think actors often commit without a completed script because the project (and sure, the money) seems attractive. The director of Invasion was coming off of Downfall; Baumbach was nominated for Squid and the Whale; The Human Stain was a Philip Roth book, adapted and directed by Robert Benton, and Anthony Hopkins starred. Everyone thought Kidman was miscast in that -- she probably saw an opportunity to stretch.
Whatev. FWIW I think she's been great a few times (The Others, Portrait of a Lady, Eyes Wide Shut, To Die For), but she's no favorite. And The Golden Compass was a bore. It would've been a bore with Meryl Streep or Cate Blanchett or Tilda Swinton or John Travolta in drag. And the box office would probably be about the same.
While I'm not sure Nicole Kidman's career has reached the Halle Berry-level of complete implosion (Gothika, Catwoman), it certianly isn't doing that well. But having seen The Others & The Interpreter, I still have *some* faith in her.
ReplyDeleteMaybe she's like a William H. Macy-type, who will star in ANYTHING that pays? (Even if that ANYTHING is something horrible, like Jurrasic Park III)
I think you're being too hard on her. I don't think she was ever a box office draw so laying the failure on her is too harsh. I think she's a good actress but not personable in a Julia Roberts way. Anyway, she's playing a villainess in Golden Compass so her unlikeability should be an asset. I think the film failed at the box office because it looked like a movie people had seen already, "Lord of the Stardust Narnia", with those polar bears from the soda ads. And the somewhat founded anti-christian allegations levied against the film probably didn't help. Also, the review have been pretty mixed, leaning towards negative. And I'm surprised nobody mentioned her best performance by far in To Die For.
ReplyDeleteOn the subject of freaky-looking stars making bad choices, surely Nicolas Cage must feature high up the list.
ReplyDeleteHave you guys seen The Wicker Man?
Another cute Aussie actor who seems not to know when to say 'no thanks'. Mel Gibson. Mind you, 9 kids (?) take a lot of school fees.
ReplyDeleteKen:
ReplyDeleteThey have to be very careful about what they pick.
I take your point, but it probably hasn't occurred to many people that in the Australian film industry, you can't afford to be picky. When a half-decent job comes along, you take it.
(It helps that a higher proportion of Australian film projects are half-decent or better. I have a bad feeling about AUSTRALIA, though. Even most Australians are cringing in anticipation.)
RAC:
Bewitched is funnier if you watch it in Australia with a Koala bear on the barbie.
I can assure you that irrespective of how many koalas you've consumed, any Nora Ephron film made in the last 15 years is still not funny.
Remember, Hollywood execs are not creative people. My entre into the biz was working with a WB exec who had a degree in civil engineering. He recently got promoted to janitor, I heard...
ReplyDeleteBeth said...
ReplyDeleteShe reminds me of a teenager afraid to be alone on Saturday night, so she accepts a date with the first bozo that asks her.
Really?
You got her number?
oh come on. she was A-MA-ZING in Birth --thought she was tops in Golden Compass too, best thing about the movie.
ReplyDeleteand I know it's no "blockbuster" but how is a $26 million opening weekend "nobody going to the movies"? --that's more than some oscar nominated best pictures make in their entire runs
$26 million is way south of expectations. Expect week two to be less than half of that. Cost of the movie: Upwards of $250 million.
ReplyDeleteTrust me. It's a bomb.
Considering this is the same industry that has issues with paying writers a few pennies on Internet and DVD purchases, I trust that no matter how much money this movie makes it will be considered a bomb.
ReplyDeleteThanks to Ken for finding a picture showing how Nicole's managed to make herself uglier through plastic surgery she's never had.
I've been suspicious of Nicole Kidman ever since she appeared in 1990's Days of Thunder. Not because that's when she met Mr. Cruise, but because she chose at age 23 to play a brain trauma surgeon. And then, amazingly, that brain trauma surgeon was seen riding on a motorcycle without wearing a helmet.
ReplyDeleteSo she's NEVER been good at picking roles. When she gets a good one, it's probably accidental.
Still she gains some respect for smartly backing out of the disastrous 2005 production of "The Producers" after being cast as Ulla -- a part for which she was agonizingly ill-suited (and yet the producer of The Producers were able to find someone even worse in Uma Thurman).
And Kidman was flat wonderful in "To Die For," "Dead Calm" and even the under-rated "Far and Away."
As to her surgical work, the great tragedy of it is that it was all probably unnecessary. Without it, she'd probably be one of the world's most beautiful 40 year-old women. With it, she's just a porcelain goblin.
Ok it's a bomb (IMDb lists the production cost at 150 mil) - I won't argue with that. But honestly not every actor can be Matt Damon. And compare that to the box office of Superman - it get's a sequel because it was successful overseas (namely here in Europe and in Asia).
ReplyDeleteSo she can't act, and when the movie sucks as a whole it's also her fault for picking the wrong script...
Here's her salary list from IMDb:
Salary
Bewitched (2005) $17,500,000
The Interpreter (2005) $17,500,000
Birth (2004) $15,000,000
The Stepford Wives (2004) $15,000,000
Cold Mountain (2003) $15,000,000
Dogville (2003) $2,800,000
The Hours (2002) $7,500,000
Birthday Girl (2001) $1,500,000
The Others (2001) $7,000,000
Moulin Rouge! (2001) $7,000,000
Eyes Wide Shut (1999) $6,500,000
Practical Magic (1998) $6,000,000
The Peacemaker (1997) $5,000,000
The Portrait of a Lady (1996) $2,500,000
Batman Forever (1995) $2,500,000
To Die For (1995) $2,000,000
My Life (1993/I) $500,000
Far and Away (1992) $250,000
Billy Bathgate (1991) $200,000
Days of Thunder (1990) $200,000
Seems she's "bombing" up the ladder all the way. 110+ Million only in this list.
Man I would love to BOMB like that.
Besides, I don't really see the plastic surgery in this pixelated mini-photo with a much brighter picture on the left, most likely shot close-up, compared to a dark shot at some award show on the right. To be honest: I simply ASSUME that the one on the right is her now.
I don't particularly like Nicole Kidman. She gives me the creeps. I would have to meet her in person to be able to judge her, she's very hard to read, she seems ice cold. And honestly I like Renée Zellweger because of "Nurse Betty" and she seems to be a loon considering how she supposedly stalked George Clooney.
Anyway: I just don't see it. I guess you can regard all this as funny and arguing about humor is idiotic - you either laugh or you don't.
I just don't get the bashing.
I have to agree with another commenter: search YouTube for "Vicker Man" and Nicolas Cage. All I have to say is "Aaaaaaaaaaah beeeeeees" and how he kicks that woman into the wall :-)
"Bewitched is funnier if you watch it in Australia with a Koala bear on the barbie."
ReplyDeleteAh ...no. It was that bad, not even grilled marsupial helps it:)
cheers
Dave.
PS She seems down to earth but I reckon she's only been in 2-3 good movies(which is a fantastic achievement but not sure if it outweighs the not-so-good). I have missed so many of her movies for many of the reasons listed above.
Forgive the ramble, flu is winning.
Ken,
ReplyDeleteYou keep mentioning Bewitched as one of her bombs. What about "The Stepford Wives?" Both were unwatchable but I'm hard pressed to decide which one was worse.
BTW, as a semi-tangent, isn't it interesting how actresses in their 40s and up who had (or have) reputations as beauties are now regularly being cast as villainesses, especially in children's movies? Nicole Kidman. Michelle Pfeiffer (Stardust). Susan Sarandon (Enchanted). It's like the Baby Jane-Sweet Charlotte trend of the sixties. Ah, the plight of the aging actress.
ReplyDeleteanonymous said: "And I'm surprised nobody mentioned her best performance by far in To Die For."
ReplyDeleteYou clearly didn't read the long, rambling post I put up a couple of hours before yours (and who can blame you?), but I did mention To Die For.
As for Bewitched, I thought the first half or so was fairly amusing, even charming in a couple of spots. It all starts to unravel in Act 3, and none of it adds up to anything, but I've seen worse. The wacky meta-concept that drives the story has some potential - but it would take a more daring comic mind that Nora Ephron's to fully realize it. Still, I don't quite get the reviews that stop just short of suggesting the Ephron sisters be tried for crimes against humanity.
In The Stepford Wives, I think Kidman recaptures some of her To Die For sang froid in the beginning, but her character doesn't really have anywhere interesting to go once she moves to Stepford. But Paul Rudnick got a few laughs out of the premise, and the audience I saw it with actually seemed to enjoy it more as it went along.
Well, during the strike there isn't as much opportunity to promote a film on a talk show or most other "live" television appearances, so let's wait and see.
ReplyDeleteIt might suffer from the burnout we all feel after five or six Harry Potters, that awful Narnia POS, and from looking down the barrel of yet another Narnia film. I know that I'm done with this kind of film for a long while.
Good God!!! Her surgeries are all starting to make sense. She's hoping to star in the remake of "Chinatown".
ReplyDeleteForget it, Jane. It's Chinatown.
What the hell have they done to her face?
I’m just a hick from the southern part of the wrong coast but I think I understand.
ReplyDelete1. No one said she doesn’t have some talent.
2. No one said she could not look attractive.
None of this matters because out here in the boonies if your name is above the title you are then responsible.
I liked "Birth". The opening shot of the man running through Central Park in the snow is hauntingly beautiful.
ReplyDeleteAs for Nicole Kidman's face. I don't see the big deal. I think if there were a photo of her now without botox, looking her age, there would be other flaws one could point out. It's true for all actresses: damned if you age, damned if you don't.
Does anyone grind Jim Carrey for flop after flop? Or excoriate him for looking old and having obvious plastic surgery?
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone grind George Clooney who hasn't had a box office hit in some time? (In fact, his only real hits have been ensembles "Ocean's Eleven,etc. " and "Perfect Storm.")
This is why he ditched White Jazz - he needs a hit. This is why he's turning to directing.
Does Clooney get excoriated for looking old and, yes, having plastic surgery (his bags and jowls of a few years ago did not disappear due to rest.)
How about Brad Pitt who, other than the tabloid fueled Mr. and Mrs Smith likewise has had flop after flop, likewise has had a nip/tuck and could use a bit more.
Pitt too knows he desperately needs a hit and that's why he ditched State of Play.
These guys don't get beaten up the way the women do. Gasp! Nicole Kidman did the unpardonable. She turned 40.
How about Ben Stiller's recent stinkers, Heartbreak Kid, etc. His sophomoric antics no longer jibe with his middle-age. Does he get ripped apart?
Hey, Ken Levine, instead of following the pack and regurgitating the same old hate, why don't you use this tiny blog to inject a fresh perspective, a call for change?
With Bewitched she had to know by the opening shot--a foot? The first thing an audience would see is NK's foot in an ugly shoe? Box Office magic.
ReplyDeleteTo be fair, in real life, she's down to earth and Aussie and funny. Too bad most of her roles are so frozen.
One of the funniest lines in the history of The Simpsons: "Who needs the infinite compassion of Ganesha when I have Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman staring at me from the cover of Entertainment Weekly with their dead eyes?" (Apu Nahasaprimafetalan)
ReplyDeleteWhen did her eyes go dead?
When I first glance of the title of your blog post, I thought it read "Botoxed to Death."
ReplyDeleteI loved Golden Compass. It may not be a big hit but if it gets one young girl to feel like she can be a strong person who stands up for herself, it's well worth it.
ReplyDeleteAnd Nicole was perfect for the part, so shut up.
Just because a movie doesn't make a ton of cash doesn't make it bad. "Brick" is one of my favorite movies of the decade and didn't make near as much as "Stepford Wives". And honestly, Daniel Craig is just as poisonous as NK. After all his Bond movie didn't do half as well as any other Bond movie. I think even "Never Say Never Again" did better.
ReplyDeleteThis post doesn't surprise me as I see you wrote for "Everybody Loves Raymond" which was, aside from "American Idol" possibly the most mean spirited show ever to air in the US.
1. Ken made no judgment of the quality of The Golden Compass, merely its marketability. Based on the last half-decade or so, it is completely reasonable to say that America does not want to see Nicole Kidman. Maybe America is wrong, but that's not the point.
ReplyDelete2. Ken and his partner David Isaacs never wrote an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond. Ken did direct some episodes.
3. Personally, I disagree with your opinion that Raymond was a mean-spirited show. Looked a lot like my family (which is why I live 3000 miles away from my mother,) but that doesn't make it mean.
4. You make a false comparison between Brick and The Stepford Wives. While the latter did gross more, its budget was considerably higher than the indie darling, meaning that Stepford *maybe* walked away with $10M (though I suspect the reported $90M budget was actually higher.)
"Margot at the Wedding" is actually quite good. It was written and directed by Noah Baumbach (who did last year's "The Squid and the Whale.")
ReplyDeleteJennifer Jason Leigh excels, but Kidman is also quite good in her role as the visiting catalyst of dysfunction.
You cannot blame the failure of The Golden Compass on Nicole Kidman. It was a terrible adaptation of an extraordinarily complex book. Not to mention that our country only likes blockbusters that have Christian overtones (whether they are overt like Narnia, or just below the surface like LOTR and Harry Potter, which is pretty much a retelling of the Christ tale except he doesn't die at the end SPOILER ALERT!!! and he is a witch) and when the movie subverts them America is not pleased.
ReplyDeleteThat said, Kidman was ABSOLUTELY PERFECT for her role. It was exactly how I imagined it to be. She was one of the only things that the film did well and if it had been a huge Narnia-sized mega-hit, her name would have been bandied about as a potential Best Supporting Actress nomineee.
I've read through everyone's responses, and you've all made a lot of good points. Personally, I think she's now trying to squeeze in as many projects as possible (high-paying and more "artistic" fare) because she believes all work will stop soon because of her age.
ReplyDeleteI read an interview with Jodie Foster a couple months ago, and she mentioned how everyone around her told her that she had to make all the money she wanted to make by the time she was 40 because she would be done after that.
People do go after the actresses more harshly than the actors, that's hardly a secret. They've got to be twice as good to get half the credit.
karl lagerfeld said that nk was a strange mix of different body parts - or words to that effect ... and i think her total package - on and off the screen - is a big puzzle of disjointed parts.
ReplyDeletei find her obsessively fascinating - tho i am not entirely sure what for [perhaps she is a mirror to me} ... like sean penn, i also feel to die for was 'THE one'. whenever i see her films in great anticipation and always hopeful, it is always just nicole kidman for me... and somehow always irritating. the way she talks irritates me ... esp 'live.'
in terms of all the surgery debate, this is what i think, for what that's worth ... she has re-aligned her eye-brows ... but i don't buy the botox story - she doesn't need it as her skin is flawless and she looks after it completely ... and all those people saying her face is 'frozen' when acting ... well, that is the whole point ... when actors are able to convey enormously impactful emotions, and even the story, without moving a single muscle ... it's called being able to see the "inner monologue" ... pulling that off does not mean 'botox' - tho it might look like that.
what i DO think she is doing .. as i see it ... and as i don't like, is that she is pumping up her lips ... i can see why ... because [being scrutinising for the sake of the debate] the right side of her top lip is uneven and when she smiled, it revealed more gum than would be considered acceptable in a 'flawless face' - one especially smiling off the covers of mags ... esp as she has needed to start 'smiling' more to melt the ice queen image.... a sexing up of nicole ... hence also the boobs on VF in september.
i heard nicole say [on radio] that Pullman wrote her character with her in mind ...
now that is irresistable!
She always leaves me cold and I rarely find her characters believable.
ReplyDeleteNicole, you have ruined your looks. Instead of aging gracefully, you have made your face a canvas of lies. Screw you for sending this message to women turning forty everywhere.
ReplyDeleteO V E R R A T E D
ReplyDeleteShe's practically becoming Queen of the Turkeys - but she's very clever at manipulation the media and distancing herself from her flops.
Yes, she has made some real bombs, but why does everyone blame the female lead?
ReplyDeleteTotally agree.
As for ragging on her because she chose to have surgery, seriously, what the hell has that got to do with anyone? Surely it's her right to make such a decision? It seems to me that she's one of the more reasonable Hollywood types, who refuse to hang her dirty knickers out for the world to see, which makes a refreshing change.
De Niro, Pacino et al, all made shit films, yet people conveniently forget that, when waxing lyrical over them.
And like somebody said earlier, just because the film bombed doesn't take anything away from her acting abilities.
Austin Power's Goldmember was apparently a hit, but to me that has to be the worst excuse for a film I've ever seen. I'm pretty certain it was a movie that only men could enjoy, what with all the infantile 'humour' and all.
And I noticed that you conveniently left out the decent films that she has actually done.
ReplyDeleteI don't want to see a movie starring a woman who has absolutely nothing in common with me.
ReplyDeleteSo no Hollywood movies for you then huh?
You know that was a slightly idiotic thing to say don't you honey?
I'm not a huge fan of NK, and her film choices have to do with that. The scripts are too bad to carry off unless you are a "great" actress. (Even then, the scripts probably couldn't be saved, hence why others passed on them.)
ReplyDeleteBelieve it or not, I liked her in "Practical Magic". A fluff film, but enjoyable.
I'm not a meany, but to me, she still doesn't have the acting "chops".
And that has nothing to do with facial appearance. I mean, come on. Glenn Close has never been a beauty, but her acting skills makes you forget all that.
I completely agree with Levine regarding the hugely overrated Ms. Kidman, whose ambition far exceeds her talent. She can be quite good in the right role -- The Others, Dead Calm, To Die For -- but is such a wan presence otherwise, with her immobilized features and breathy, little girl voice. As for the so-called risks she takes by starring in indies, there's no payoff: she was woefully miscast in Fur (a wretched, self-important film) and flat-out dull in Birth.
ReplyDeleteI have always thought Kidman was overrated. She was good in a few things though. But one thing about actors, they often must sign up for "packages"--they get a good role but then they also have to sign up for the lesser role. THat is probably why Bewitched was made. I read that is why Jolie did WANTED, (a rather stupid movie for her at this point) but she had to do that in order to do The Mighty Heart.
ReplyDeleteIt is now 2012, and wouldn’t it be refreshing if Nicole did an honest interview and revealed the following:
ReplyDelete1. My marriage to Cruise was not conventional. He required a public foil for his homosexuality and I am an extremely ambitious actress, who was offered and willingly accepted a contract, which gave me unprecedented exposure in hollywood and around the world.
2. Part of the reason my two eldest children have virtually nothing to do with me is because I was not a great mother. Funnily enough, Tom has much better parenting skills than me.
3. Even though we divorced over 10 years ago, I continually mention Tom in interviews because I know his name will generate me publicity.
4. I am terrified of losing my looks and that is why I obsessively exercise and botox my face to eradicate any signs of ageing. Breast and cheek implants, skin bleaching, etc. I will do whatever it takes to remain desirable and relevant.
5. My life is far from perfect. My ambition is so overwhelming and in my desperation to remain in the public eye and make even more money, I continually work ... consequently, there is little time left over for my family.
6. I am not shy. Actually I am quite cunning, controlling and very high maintenance.
7. I have been deliberately misleading the public for years and I apologise.
I stumbled across this but since you wrote it lets look how Nicole Kidman's box office performance has gone:-
ReplyDelete2008 Australia - FLOP
2009 Nine - FLOP
2010 Rabbit Hole - FLOP
2011 Just Go with it - BO HIT
2011 Trespass - FLOP
2012 The Paperboy - FLOP
So in the last 5 years since you wrote your article, she's had one box office hit and that was a Adam Sandler & Jennifer Anniston movie.
Nicole is box office gold again 2019! You go girl!
ReplyDelete