Beauty vs Beast: Beauty & (Malkovich) Brains
Monday, March 23, 2015 at 12:45PM Jason from MNPP here with this week's "Beauty vs Beast" -- I wish that we could use this column every week to celebrate actresses on their birthdays, but it doesn't always work out that way time-wise unfortunately... this makes two weeks in a row though. Last week was La Huppert, and this week no less than the great Catherine Keener is celebrating her birthday! Keener's turning 56 today and so we celebrate with her, looking back at maybe our favorite performance of hers (although that's a tough choice) - Maxine in Spike Jonze's and Charlie Kaufman's brilliant existential-comedy Being John Malkovich (1999).
Maxine is in many ways the nasty yin to John Cusack's sad-sack yang... but nobody's rooting for Craig. That would make this question too easy. Craig's wife Lotte (Cameron Diaz) though... the battle for Malkovich Malkovich is in your hands!
PREVIOUSLY As mentioned up top we were all about Huppert last week - specifically her performance in Michael Haneke's The Piano Teacher (in a stroke of random continuity today is Michael Haneke's birthday! Happy birthday Mikey boy!) against that of the pretty boy played by Benoit Magimel - Pretty Boy put up a good fight all things considered but when your competition's willing to fill people's pockets with glass to win, it's not really a fair fight. Said Nathaniel:
"...the only way Walter is going to win this is if you post nude photos of Benoit Magimel with it and confuse people as to what they're voting on. That said I voted for Walter because Erika is so fucking depraved. and not in the good way. That ending!"
Reader Comments (12)
I'm team Maxine. Important question, though. What does the world look like now had Cameron Diaz netted that Supporting Actress nomination in 1999 that I'm sure many thought she would?
TPKIA - it's a great question. would more interesting roles have come her way or was she just fated to have a brief period of critical acclaim followed by random disposable comedies?
i used to dislike her in this movie but now i can't see why. it's such a good movie and everybody is great in it. especially Malkovich & Keener.
This is definitely my favourite Cameron Diaz performance by a country mile! Very unexpected of her and she's just fantastic in the film!
I am still baffled at how she didn't receive an Oscar nod!
I feel like Cameron Diaz was the OG ScarJo in terms of a lot of Globes love--(Malkovich, Gangs of New York, Vanilla Sky(Globe AND SAG noms)--that just never seemed to translate into an Oscar nomination.
Yeah, poor Cameron Diaz. She was a sixth place nominee twice, with this, and Vanilla Sky.
Although Toni Collette fully deserved that Sixth Sense nomination.
Both Keener and Malkovich should've won Oscars for their work in this movie. Diaz obviously deserved her nomination too. This movie is an underrated masterpiece and Kaufman's smartest movie (can't say it's his best with Eternal Sunshine existing but it's definitely a close second to me).
Team Maxine. She is cut of the same cloth as Linda Fiorentino's from The Last Seduction: a misanthrope with irresistible charm and wit, except she finds love and changes whereas Fiorentino just stays on course to become a psychopath.
Diaz is so so good in this! #TeamLotte all damn day.
I love Diaz dearly in this movie, but Keener gave us the greatest "Check, please!" in the history of all of cinema, so Team Maxine.
Catherine Keener! She's a national treasure. Would love to see her get another juicy role. I know she always works, but it's been a while since she had a killer part. I'm a big fan.
#TeamLotte. Diaz's best work by a longshot. She and Keener were just perfect..
@ Mike: The bar scene. Her timing is so good the editing is barely keeping up, but she never says "please". It's "Check!" only. She would never say "please"… … :)