Saturday, August 23, 2008

My Dirty Friends Comeback

Since I've been lagging the last couple of days (not counting George's suggestions), today I'm going to make up for lost time. I have a triple hat-trick for you: Three trios.

2000:

Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore and Lucy Liu, AKA Charlie's Angels.

I've said this before: The 2000 movie may not have been, shall we say, mindblowingly original. In fact I've come to think of it as "Noise in Babesland."

But it is something of a guilty pleasure (also a great film to watch on the exercise bike).

The sequel, meanwhile, made the first look like Goldfinger.




I don't know who the schlep in the jeans jacket is, but I do know what he's thinking: Yes!


Updates:

Cameron Diaz's last film, What Happens in Vegas, stopped in theaters only briefly before heading for DVD. But spare her no tears, she's presently Hollywood's highest-paid actress (Reese Witherspoon was number two, Jennifer Aniston third).

New fact about Barrymore (since we've done her separately): She recently revealed that she has the worst taste in karaoke.



Lucy Liu, a prominent Barack Obama supporter, is seen here at a recent fundraising gala with actress Nia Long (of Boyz N the Hood and other films).

She voiced a character in the hit animated summer movie Kung Fu Panda, which I haven't seen.



Kirsten Dunst, Eliza Dushku and Gabrielle Union, better known as the cheerleading captain, the newest member of her squad, and their rival in Bring It On.

They're just excellent. So is the movie, which has more weight than expected.

Updates: Kirsten Dunst is waiting to hear about Spider-Man 4.

Eliza Dushku recently upset animal lovers when she revealed she has a penchant to hunt. She will appear in Joss Whedon's creepy-sounding new series as a brainwashed woman.

Gabrielle Union, statuesque as she is, badly needs a successful film. She was (briefly) onscreen this summer in Eddie Murphy's high-profile miss Meet Dave. She's done better on television, with a guest star part on Ugly Betty, which I don't watch but know is a popular show.

Incidentally, Union was also a physical role model for a character in my current work-in-progress.

Jennifer Aniston, Lisa Kudrow and Courteney Cox, better known as the girl Friends.





Aniston has more to offer as an actress than sex appeal and beauty, check out The Iron Giant, in which only her voice appears. But Lisa Kudrow seems to me to have made the most adventurous choices (Happy Endings) as an actress.



Her HBO sitcom The Comeback didn't get a second season, but I think it could easily be revived as a special, and should. Her role in it-- as an actress trying to revive her career--easily lends itself to plugging into whatever the "hot" trend of a current TV season is.

An example of this is seen in an extra bit made for the DVD release, where we see her backstage at Dancing With the Stars.

Courteney Cox remains kind of the Rodney Dangerfield of the girl Friends, to me. Aniston and Kudrow both won Emmys, but I don't think Cox was even nominated. I believe she deserves better.

I liked her post-Friends series Dirt, which made it to a second season (more than either The Comeback or Studio 60 can say) but was then cancelled. In my opinion it was a casualty of the writers' strike.



She also has the distinction of appearing in the greatest horror film series of the '90s, Scream (although the end of 2 and all of 3 bring the average down a bit).

Updates:



It is a testament to Aniston and her publicists that she has managed to cast herself--a sexy, successful, beautiful and highly-paid young woman--in the press as a victim time and again.

Granted, "Brangelina" helped with that a little.

Lisa Kudrow joins Courtney Love in being recently sued, and will be seen next in the film Kabluey, which is getting good advance notices.

Courteney Cox seems to be focusing on motherhood for the moment, but is also moving behind the camera as a director.

1 comment:

Johnny Bacardi said...

Agree with you about Dirt- the writer's strike (and lack of Paul Reubens) pretty much killed that one.