It’s hard to beat David Thomson as a writer or as a film critic, but Mr. Nice he is not. Thomson can often be quite mean about Hollywood stars, and as The Hollywood Reporter disclosed this weekend, he uses the latest edition of his New Biographical Dictionary of Film to chop some new meat. Here are his latest bon mots:
Leonardo DiCaprio: “Beginning to look a touch puffy … that touch of fey magic he once had has slipped from his face.” (well, we can’t be 20 forever, can we?)
Ben Affleck: “Boring, complacent and criminally lucky to have got away with everything so far.” (A limited actor who does a nice job when he’s in his comfort zone.)
Tom Cruise: “The worst of the spoilt brats of Hollywood.”
Hilary Swank: “Pretty, dull, ordinary and incapable of lifting the film clear of a sanctimonious mud.” (Seems true, alas.)
Angelina Jolie: “The carnal embrouchure that is her mouth [could] blind anyone.” (And. . . ?)
Keira Knightley: “About as interesting as a creme brulee where too much refrigeration has killed flavor with ice burn.”
Hugh Grant: “A refugee from Thirties theatre — or an incipient sneeze looking for a vacant nose.” (The truth hurts.)
Matt Damon: “A squashed and rebuilt face.” (And yet. . .he works, and works, and works.)
Harrison Ford: “A limited, anxious actor.” (Very true. Morning Glory, for example, revealed all his limitations and all the potential that was never realized.)
Meryl Streep: “She has problems now with seeming natural.” (She has no problems being great; she’s made more good decisions than any other middle-aged actress.)
Demi Moore: “She has no dramatic sense.” (No argument.)
Bill Nighy: “Somewhere between a scarecrow and a faded aristocrat.” (Always a pleasure to see him.)
Richard Gere: “He has been in enough bad films to make one think his career was drawing to a close.” (True, but still capable of doing a good job in some muddy circumstances, like The Hoax.)
John Cleese: “This great man is no longer funny.”
Cate Blanchett: “Prone and unconscious for most of Babel; implausible in Notes on a Scandal; again in Elizabeth … unbelievable and undesirable [in] Benjamin Button. Enough?” (I think he just doesn’t like Cate Blanchett.)
Brad Pitt: “Hardly anything he touches now is less than ‘precious’ and ‘awesome.'” (Like Oceans 13?)
Steve Martin: “Fundamentally averse to acting.”
Bruce Willis: “Makes quantities of commercial junk, where his raised eyebrows soar into the space left by his receding hairline.”
Ralph Fiennes: “Acts as if he would rather be offscreen.”
Catherine Zeta-Jones: “It is a prettiness that tends to fade early.” (And. . . ?)
Hugh Jackman: “He is hot (I suppose). Now, he just needs to be interesting.” (True.)
Nicolas Cage: “If he doesn’t have enough money yet to settle for taking a risk, then what is the point of money?” (Alas, didn’t Cage lose all his money?)
Jennifer Aniston: “Her £5-million-a-movie career cannot go on for much longer.” (No, it cannot. Why doesn’t she return to TV?)
Michelle Pfeiffer: “Still carries the rather stunned, obedient air of a checkout girl at the supermarket.”
Julie Christie: “Sadly, obvious in her efforts … gawky, self-conscious and lantern-jawed.” (Too cruel.)