Pajiba

I have no problem with Pepper Potts or Paltrow's portrayal of her (or much of her acting at all). However...Paltrow as a person? Is kind of sucky. Read her blog, "Goop" where she tells "normal everyday people" how they can be as wonderful as she is. It is actually only mildly insane, but mostly incredibly self-absorbed (as most celebrities are, I know) and very condescending.I especially like the Christmas installations where she tells readers what "affordable" presents she buys for her friends, I don't think a single one of them clocked in at less than $250...She just seems to have no concept of reality.

Punched in the face? No, she's really not the worst one out there. Kicked in the vagina? Maybe...

I don't think anyone should punch anyone.

Except maybe boxers.

That fake GOOP entry was brilliant.

The Pepper Potts casting is pretty good and easily defendable.

Paltrow is an actress with a pedigree (from Awards, shut up it's an objective opinion). She also comes with a small but key fan base/demographic, and is more equipped to combat the character Tony Stark.

If Marvel went young and all body/no talent, there would have been a bigger gap between RDJ and Pepper that could create a weird old guy-young 20's relationship. And the people who did the casting certainly felt that Paltrow could stand toe-to-toe with RDJ as opposed to getting nailed (again) by shitting casting like Jessica Alba.

I'm not a big fan of Gwyneth unless her head is inside a mysterious package in the 11th hour of the movie, but its tough to step back and be really critical of her casting.

it's a joke. they do absurd jokes all the time.

Are you honestly unaware, Mr. Campbell, of the general netterweb consensus that Gwyneth is a monstrously superior, self-absorbed cow? Because there is one, owing mostly to the fact that she is one. I really like Gwyneth as Pepper; I really like her as an actress in many parts she's played, as a matter of fact. But Gwyneth Paltrow the actual person? Ew, gross. She's VILE. Although she is physically very lovely, and looks especially like her mother in that header pic. I just don't like it when she makes words happen from inside her own brain. Sssshhhh puppet, and don't talk unless someone decent hands you a script.

It's all GOOP backlash.

I love her and everyone else in Proof.

I've got nothing against her. Period. I thought she was awesome in The Royal Tennenbaums, and she was just fucking fine in Fight Club. I could give two squirts about her GOOP whatchamafuckingthehell, but as far as movies go? Doesn't bother me a bit...

Plus, I've masturmabated my diddle to View From The Top like, five hundred times...

Both hands, even...

"Plus, I've masturmabated my diddle to View From The Top like, five hundred times..."

Posted by: Skitz at April 20, 2010 10:34 PM

Because of Mike Myers' lazy eye, right?

...me too, Skittles. Me too.

"Fight Club?"

Posted by: coveredinbees at April 20, 2010 10:43 PM

I think he might mean Se7en. Either that, or he somehow thinks Paltrow and Helena Bonham-Carter look exactly the same, which...

Look, just don't tell him. It'll interrupt his happy fun special alone time with Mike Myers' lazy eye, and that NEVER ends well.

You see, coveredinbees, about six months ago, I sneezed while eating one of them dried wasabi peas and its managed to work itself through my sinuses and get lodged in my brain, fucking up the significant chunk that helps me think my thoughts.

That's why I get movies mixed up nowadays. I can smell colors, too!

Dear Skitz, I had no idea about your wasabi-related accident. My deepest and most abject apologies. Hopefully the time you have spent with Mike Meyers' wonky eyeball has helped the healing process.

And evan, while I agree Running With Scissors was, basically, a sh*t show, I LOVED Gwyneth in Tennenbaums. Every performance in that film is mannered, I think that's sort of the point of it, actually. It either vibes with people or it doesn't. I've never met someone who was indifferent to/impartial about that movie.

And yeah, as a person, she is a heinous smug-faced condescending too-rich-for-her-own-good prat. But that's really not the point, right?

I could careless about her personal agenda. She IS unattractive, and she is a BLAND actress at best.

I like Paltrow fine as a performer. As a person she seems to be an enormous twat. But I think 99% of all actors are likely enormous twats. I majored in theater for a while and just about every actor I've ever met was a pretentious fuckhead so I can only imagine how self absorbed they can get when someone is blowing smoke up their ass 24/7 about how great they are.

I didn't realize Gyllenhaal was considered miscast in The Dark Knight. I thought she did a great job and seemed more like a normal person than the women cast in the past like Basinger and Kidman.

I, too, am a little disturbed at glee toward anybody getting punched in the face. That being said, if that many people concur that seeing Paltrow get the shit slapped out of her, there must be something to it. You don't see bloggers saying that about, say, Drew Barrymore or Mark Ruffalo. Something about Paltrow makes people want to slap her.

"Gwyneth Paltrow is ridiculously gorgeous"

I will give her pretty and I will give her willowy. Not gonna give her "ridiculously gorgeous", though. Sorry.

How much fun would Amy Adams have been as Pepper Pots? Or Rachel McAdams?

I don't give a shit if she's annoying or self-absorbed -- or, hey, try this one on for size, JUST COMES OFF THAT WAY -- all this bullshit about punching her in the face???

What a fucking misogynistic crock. And thank you, Ranylt, for pointing out that we don't see huge swaths of the internet dedicated to "comic" fantasies about doing violence to the grotesquely assholish fuckwads out there on the male end of the Hollywood spectrum --- no, somehow it's always the females who end up with their faces getting smashed in.

PRETTY PICTURES.

No -- I mean pictures of the asswads doing the fantasizing. Accurate to a fault of just what kind of fucking scum they really are.

Ranylt, Maryscott O'Connor, WORD. Can't improve on your comments.

I know a lot of professional actors, and self-absorption is practically a job skill. Is it annoying? Hell yes, which is why I don't hang out with most of them, but: castigating a Hollywood star for a combination of self-absorption and lack of self-awareness is kind of like mocking Jamie Dimon for not knowing the price of a loaf of bread. Reprehensible for an average human but fully a product of an industry that operates on warped values.

It is a RARE actor who can accurately assess and use the personal qualities that make them a good OR bankable actor, combined with the necessary thick skin for survival, without becoming an asshole. Focus on yourself + don't care what other people think about you = a formula that can go so wrong in so many ways. Only a few actors can be both effective and self-effacing.

I don't read GOOP because I don't give a crap and my hate-cup is already full: I thought Gwyneth Paltrow was excellent in Emma and in the underrated Flesh and Bone, and I'm not interested in her take on how to live. It depresses me just a bit to think of how much time and energy people put into publicly despising her, while Ben Roethlisberger is apparently only getting a 4-6 game suspension.

She's just another pointless red-carpeter

Ranylt, I'm confused, so you are saying that is or isn't her real hair color?

More disturbing still, we don't see them saying it about the truly heinous: Charlie Sheen, Steven Seagal. It's fucked up backwards, if you ask me. And kind of telling.

The difference is, no matter who scumy those two are, they aren't telling anyone else how to live their lives. Or at least if they are they aren't nearly as known for it. And there is a huge difference and wanting to see someone punched in a movie and wanting to see them punched in real life.

And Maryscott O'Connor this "What a fucking misogynistic crock. And thank you, Ranylt, for pointing out that we don't see huge swaths of the internet dedicated to "comic" fantasies about doing violence to the grotesquely assholish fuckwads out there on the male end of the Hollywood spectrum" is pure bullshit. You honestly don't think if the same sort of joke video had been made about Tom Cruise or Roman Polanski there wouldn't have been the same kind of reaction?

bananapanda I thought it was an absolute crime that Paltrow beat Blanchett that year. Ludicrous.

EricD, yes, that is exactly what I think. It would not be a viral fucking video if The Onion had created it about Roman fucking Polanski or Tom Cruise, and I think it's disingenuous of you to even suggest it.

As an actress, Paltrow seems to be precisely as good as the material she's given to work with - no better, no worse. She's poor in Iron Man because Pepper Potts is a nothing part; she makes about as good a fist of it as anybody would. Her character in Se7en is a pallid, pretty cipher, and it seems to suit her.

On the other hand, it takes a special skill to be by some distance the worst thing in a film as poor as Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, in which, with only Jude Law for competition, she's acted off the screen by Angelina Jolie (and by Bai Ling, for God's sake, who gets about two minutes' screen time and doesn't even have a speaking line). Jolie has charisma, and Paltrow can't even fake it.

She plays irritating and self-absorbed with real conviction, though. There is definitely something about the Paltrow persona in real life that catches a lot of people on the raw: an ineffable smugness that you suspect nothing short of an actual slap could penetrate.

Physical violence solves nothing, of course. But widely shared fantasies don't come from nowhere, and generalised misogyny isn't a good enough explanation - this is an apparently spontaneous expression of a widely shared and very specific dislike of one person.

(And many people do feel exactly like this about Tom Cruise.)

Also Eric D

Why would you compare disagreeing with Obama to wanting to punch Gwen in the face?

First of all we're talking about a president versus an actress.

Second, disagreeing with someone is not racist in the slightest. Wanting to beat a woman could be seen as mysogynistic. Not saying it automatically is, just wanted to point out the big difference.

She's actually dead nuts on about her New York comment. Otherwise, I believe misogyny has anything to do w/ the Paltrow 'hate.' Hell, the onion did a bit a few years ago about people at a test screening of Gigli writing all the ways they wanted Affleck and J-lo to get killed on screen. Nothing to do w/ their sex, it's cuz they're both perceived as annoying H-wood doucebags. Same applies here, even if I may not totally agree w/ the assessment.

Gwyneth is a decent actress, but she is no Cate Blanchett (who, as others have stated should've gone home with that Oscar for Elizabeth!!! Travesty!). Take the Talented Mr. Ripley for example, where Gwyneth was good but Cate stole the show even w/ the little amount of screentime she had. Her personality is also off-putting. Geesh, there really is a list a mile long running against her. I also agree with an above poster that I thought Maggie G. was great in Dark Knight, MUCH better than Kidman!!! I'll take her over a movie star celebrity like Nicole Kidman any day of the week!

She's way ugly and can't act worth a damn. At least Scarlett Johansson, even though she has no talent in the acting department or the music (seriously did you hear a damn "song" from her tribute album to Tom Waits?), is pleasing to the eyes.

Death to Paltrow I've always said.