In possession of a "dramatic" range that, on the evidence to hand, appears to extend no further than a butterfly fart in a brisk breeze, Nicole Kidman inexplicably continues to attract people's attention for doing little other than flashing her eerily inexpressive eyes and Tic-Tac teeth on any public occasion in the direction of a camera; an anemic-skinned, perpetually sheath-clad and curiously sexless presence forever tottering up and down the red carpets of the known universe for the delectation of those camera-toting flashbulb junkies of the gutter press known as the "paparazzi" and the peanut-brained halfwits whose lives revolve around bouts of serial drooling over amateur footage of this wraithlike creature who, sans clothes, would probably resemble little more than a pasty streak of pelican shit on a pavement.
Even David Thomson, a normally astute critic and commentator on all things filmic, was so moved in the mandatory mid-life crisis that afflicts middle aged-men of his ilk the world over, that he devoted an entire book to the woman, the thing itself being little more than a thinly-disguised, self-indulgent masturbatory fantasy about how keen he'd be to bonk the little bony bint.
Why on earth is this mammalian stick-insect so popular? What is the significance of Nicoleus Insectus Kidmanus to and in our lives, and why are we forever being inflicted with article after article and column inch upon column inch of torridly turgid tripe that strives so to convince us that not only is there a significance, but it is the type of significance which, in ancient times, may have moved nations to erect temples in her name and indulge in a little sacrificial throat-slitting of small children in her honour?
"Oh look, Nicole and Keith went up the shops on Saturday morning for a carton of milk ... what a lovely photo. Don't they look sweet?"
I'm fucked if I can figure it out.
Let's have a look at the films (or some of them) that feature this peculiarly popular specimen of weightless puffery that is "Our" Nicoleus Insectus Kidmanus ... "Dead Calm", "Days of Thunder", "Billy Bathgate", "Far And Away", "Malice", "To Die For", "Batman Forever", "Portrait Of A Lady", "The Peacemaker", "Practical Magic", "Eyes Wide Shut", "Moulin Rouge", "The Others", "Birthday Girl", "The Hours", "Dogville", "The Human Stain", "Cold Mountain", "The Stepford Wives", "Birth", "The Interpreter", "Bewitched", "Fur", "The Invasion" and the just released "The Golden Compass" ... (Alas and alack, we still await with breathless anticipation the most recent offering from world-renowned dance-party organise- ... er, film director Baz Luhrmann and his pre-proclaimed "epic" "Australia").
In a period of 18 years, from 1989 ("Dead Calm") to 2007 ("The Golden Compass"), there is nothing among that lot that could even remotely be considered a "classic" work of cinema or, unless you're prone to futile exercises in optical self-abuse, much worth bothering with again if you've already seen it once ... (I will cede that Anthony Minghella's "Cold Mountain" contains some excellent moments, but the best and most successful of these do not involve “Our Nicole” and revolve instead on sub-plots and situations played out and populated by an outstanding cast of supporting players including Philip Seymour Hoffman, Giovanni Ribisi, Ray Winstone, Brendan Gleeson and Eileen Atkins among a multitude of talented others. No, I did not forget to mention Renee Zellweger, I just didn’t want to, okay?).
Five films from Kidman's oeuvre (or ordure, if you will) to consider: Stanley Kubrick's final film "Eyes Wide Shut", a sluggish bucket of icily sterile crap that is widely held as his worst ever film; an emotionally crippled exercise in dirty-old-man-ism that makes "Barry Lyndon" look like part of the "Die Hard" franchise by comparison; "Batman Forever", the death knell of that series at the time and almost the death knell of George Clooney's career to boot; "Bewitched", in which she bravely attempts to channel the spirit and essence of Marilyn Monroe ... through her nose; "Days Of Thunder", a ridiculous Bruckheimer-Simpson film (is there anything Bruckheimer and Simpson ever did that wasn’t ridiculous?) about racing cars that memorably featured a scene where Robert Duvall, the greatest actor of this or any other generation quite frankly, was required to give a pep-talk to a fucking automobile for Chrissakes (one hopes he was extremely well recompensed for his efforts).
And then there was “The Hours”, in which Kidman, sporting a silly putty nose, picked up an Oscar as Best Actress in 2003 for sporting a silly putty nose, drabbing it up as Virginia bloody Woolf and putting us all to sleep in the process.
Nicole Kidman won an Oscar. If there is a god, he’s one sick little puppy. Yet Julianne Moore, in the same film and whose astonishing talents would be noted in cinema history forevermore if she’d stopped working after “Safe”, “Short Cuts”, “Boogie Nights” and “Far From Heaven” did not. You have got to be kidding.
Now, in comparison to Kidman, consider the ridiculously brief and far more accomplished film career of Grace Kelly ...
In only 5 years (to Kidman’s 18, remember) spanning 1952 to 1956, Grace Kelly starred in these five films: Fred Zinnemann’s “High Noon” with Gary Cooper; John Ford's "Mogambo" with Clark Gable; and for Hitchcock, "Dial M For Murder", "To Catch A Thief" and, most unforgettably, "Rear Window". It was in the latter that Kelly delivered unto James Stewart and film history a kiss so charged with raw sexuality and relentless eroticism that it could probably have reduced the entire pantheon of Roman and Greek Gods to bubbling little puddles of goo.
Furthermore, Grace Kelly was never so addled in the membrane as to consider for even one one-billionth of a nanosecond hitching her spunky little wagon to a stunted fuckwit such as this bleach-toothed, sofa-hopping tit.
Kidman did adopt a couple of wee bairns, and that was sweet of her I guess, though I suspect she only did so because given the extra-minus size of her hips, she could probably no more birth a busted Sao biscuit than I could pass a melon through the tip of my penis.
But as to the precise nature of “The Kidman Effect”, puzzled cinemagoers everywhere still anticipate delivery of that special feeling which is forever being promised by the snapping hounds of P.R. departments the world over and denied us by actual experience, as thus far, the only noticeable effect in evidence is that we, all of us, have been deprived of 15 bucks which would have been far better spent on a knees-up at McDonalds and a packet of toothpicks for after.
Even David Thomson, a normally astute critic and commentator on all things filmic, was so moved in the mandatory mid-life crisis that afflicts middle aged-men of his ilk the world over, that he devoted an entire book to the woman, the thing itself being little more than a thinly-disguised, self-indulgent masturbatory fantasy about how keen he'd be to bonk the little bony bint.
Why on earth is this mammalian stick-insect so popular? What is the significance of Nicoleus Insectus Kidmanus to and in our lives, and why are we forever being inflicted with article after article and column inch upon column inch of torridly turgid tripe that strives so to convince us that not only is there a significance, but it is the type of significance which, in ancient times, may have moved nations to erect temples in her name and indulge in a little sacrificial throat-slitting of small children in her honour?
"Oh look, Nicole and Keith went up the shops on Saturday morning for a carton of milk ... what a lovely photo. Don't they look sweet?"
I'm fucked if I can figure it out.
Let's have a look at the films (or some of them) that feature this peculiarly popular specimen of weightless puffery that is "Our" Nicoleus Insectus Kidmanus ... "Dead Calm", "Days of Thunder", "Billy Bathgate", "Far And Away", "Malice", "To Die For", "Batman Forever", "Portrait Of A Lady", "The Peacemaker", "Practical Magic", "Eyes Wide Shut", "Moulin Rouge", "The Others", "Birthday Girl", "The Hours", "Dogville", "The Human Stain", "Cold Mountain", "The Stepford Wives", "Birth", "The Interpreter", "Bewitched", "Fur", "The Invasion" and the just released "The Golden Compass" ... (Alas and alack, we still await with breathless anticipation the most recent offering from world-renowned dance-party organise- ... er, film director Baz Luhrmann and his pre-proclaimed "epic" "Australia").
In a period of 18 years, from 1989 ("Dead Calm") to 2007 ("The Golden Compass"), there is nothing among that lot that could even remotely be considered a "classic" work of cinema or, unless you're prone to futile exercises in optical self-abuse, much worth bothering with again if you've already seen it once ... (I will cede that Anthony Minghella's "Cold Mountain" contains some excellent moments, but the best and most successful of these do not involve “Our Nicole” and revolve instead on sub-plots and situations played out and populated by an outstanding cast of supporting players including Philip Seymour Hoffman, Giovanni Ribisi, Ray Winstone, Brendan Gleeson and Eileen Atkins among a multitude of talented others. No, I did not forget to mention Renee Zellweger, I just didn’t want to, okay?).
Five films from Kidman's oeuvre (or ordure, if you will) to consider: Stanley Kubrick's final film "Eyes Wide Shut", a sluggish bucket of icily sterile crap that is widely held as his worst ever film; an emotionally crippled exercise in dirty-old-man-ism that makes "Barry Lyndon" look like part of the "Die Hard" franchise by comparison; "Batman Forever", the death knell of that series at the time and almost the death knell of George Clooney's career to boot; "Bewitched", in which she bravely attempts to channel the spirit and essence of Marilyn Monroe ... through her nose; "Days Of Thunder", a ridiculous Bruckheimer-Simpson film (is there anything Bruckheimer and Simpson ever did that wasn’t ridiculous?) about racing cars that memorably featured a scene where Robert Duvall, the greatest actor of this or any other generation quite frankly, was required to give a pep-talk to a fucking automobile for Chrissakes (one hopes he was extremely well recompensed for his efforts).
And then there was “The Hours”, in which Kidman, sporting a silly putty nose, picked up an Oscar as Best Actress in 2003 for sporting a silly putty nose, drabbing it up as Virginia bloody Woolf and putting us all to sleep in the process.
Nicole Kidman won an Oscar. If there is a god, he’s one sick little puppy. Yet Julianne Moore, in the same film and whose astonishing talents would be noted in cinema history forevermore if she’d stopped working after “Safe”, “Short Cuts”, “Boogie Nights” and “Far From Heaven” did not. You have got to be kidding.
Now, in comparison to Kidman, consider the ridiculously brief and far more accomplished film career of Grace Kelly ...
In only 5 years (to Kidman’s 18, remember) spanning 1952 to 1956, Grace Kelly starred in these five films: Fred Zinnemann’s “High Noon” with Gary Cooper; John Ford's "Mogambo" with Clark Gable; and for Hitchcock, "Dial M For Murder", "To Catch A Thief" and, most unforgettably, "Rear Window". It was in the latter that Kelly delivered unto James Stewart and film history a kiss so charged with raw sexuality and relentless eroticism that it could probably have reduced the entire pantheon of Roman and Greek Gods to bubbling little puddles of goo.
Furthermore, Grace Kelly was never so addled in the membrane as to consider for even one one-billionth of a nanosecond hitching her spunky little wagon to a stunted fuckwit such as this bleach-toothed, sofa-hopping tit.
Kidman did adopt a couple of wee bairns, and that was sweet of her I guess, though I suspect she only did so because given the extra-minus size of her hips, she could probably no more birth a busted Sao biscuit than I could pass a melon through the tip of my penis.
But as to the precise nature of “The Kidman Effect”, puzzled cinemagoers everywhere still anticipate delivery of that special feeling which is forever being promised by the snapping hounds of P.R. departments the world over and denied us by actual experience, as thus far, the only noticeable effect in evidence is that we, all of us, have been deprived of 15 bucks which would have been far better spent on a knees-up at McDonalds and a packet of toothpicks for after.
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