Ms. Bierly points out that Ms. Thompson thinks some actors are "seasoning well" (Will Smith, Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, George Clooney) but the studios still "outsource" "rugged" roles. But a post over at Sugarbutch Chronicles questions the American vision of "masculinity" itself. Does being "male" mean "strength" and "brawn"?

Just as we would probably dispute any argument which equates femininity with softness or weakness, shouldn't we also pause before believing that a "real" man is brawny and tough? Sugarbutch blog has a video by Sanjay Newton (posted below) examining masculinity in Disney films. These are movies that kids watch over and over; and the "real" men have huge biceps, aren't afraid to fight, and dominate their opponents easily. Male characters who are fat or skinny (and not the brawny ideal) are comic outcasts; male characters who refuse to fight are pathetic.

So instead of wondering where all the "manly" men are, shouldn't we just accept that what it means to be "masculine" is changing? Do you think American actors aren't "macho" enough? Would you rather see rugged, square-jawed imports like Clive Owen instead? (I think I already know the answer to that!)

This Just In: American Actors Not Manly Enough [EW]
U.S. Short On Tough Guy Actors [Variety]
Masculinity Depictions In Disney Films [Sugarbutch Chronicles]
Sexism, Strength and Dominance: Masculinity in Disney Films [You Tube]

The company sold to the public and to Hollywood; it supplied the copper-green makeup that Margaret Hamilton wore as the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz as well as Tru-Color, "the world’s first perfect lipstick… non-drying but indelible." Max died in 1938, but his son Frank changed his name to Max, so the business transition was seamless. Unlike some other make-up artists, Max Factor was never painted as an effeminate type, the new book points out: "Photographs of Factor show him simultaneously as makeup artist, chemist, and father figure." Some great old Max Factor ads, below.

Max Factor’s “Crushed Rose” lipstick, 1955.
Is he going to kiss her or give her mouth to mouth?
Max Factor’s “Tru-Color Lipstick,” featuring Evelyn Keyes, 1942.
Never, ever heard of a "brownette" before. Interesting.

“Max Factor Hollywood” lipstick, featuring Susan Hayward, 1947.
Glamour changes! Clear red, blue red, rose red! Love the gold lipstick tube.

Max Factor’s “California Sun” lipstick, 1960.
Pastels make me feel queasy, maybe because of Pepto-Bismol.

Max Factor’s “Pink ’n Orange” lipstick, 1958.
"Got designs on a man? Then this is for you!"

Max Factor’s “Pan-Cake,” featuring Maguerite Chapman, 1946.
Sold, on the jaunty angle of her hat alone.

Makeup And Make-Believe [The New Yorker]
Face Value (Slide Show) [The New Yorker]

The New York Times:

Ms. Getty relished her late-in-life success, her son said. And she enjoyed reminiscing about more difficult times. In a 1990 interview she recalled one of her last secretarial jobs, at a company called Snap-Out Forms, where she kept her acting ambitions a secret for fear of being fired.

“At Snap-Out Forms, the first day I came to work, I had an audition, and I said, ‘Can I go for my lunch at 10 o’clock?’ ” she said. “The next day I had to go someplace else. I said. ‘Can I take my lunch at 2:30?’ The next day I asked if I could take lunch at 11 o’clock. The office manager said, ‘You have the strangest eating habits of any secretary we’ve ever had.’ ”

Associated Press:

Audiences particularly loved the verbal zingers Getty would hurl at the other three. When McClanahan's libidinous character Blanche once complained that her life was an open book, Sophia shot back, "Your life's an open blouse."

Getty had gained a knack for one-liners in her late teens when she did standup comedy at a Catskills hotel. Female comedians were rare in those days, however, and she bombed.

The Los Angeles Times:

Getty, a natural comedian famous for her one-liners even in private life, played Sophia for laughs, but she also brought depth to the character. It was her idea that Sophia would always carry a purse because, she said, older women are forced to shed so many possessions in their later years that everything they own ends up in their purses.

"Nobody puts down their life very easily," she explained in a 1992 interview with Newsday.

The Hollywood Reporter:

She requested that Fierstein write a part for her, which he did in "Torch Song Trilogy." The middle-aged Getty improbably became the toast of the town and was spotted by the "Golden Girls" producers who asked her to audition. Arriving in character — an oversized thrift shop polyester dress — she landed the part.

She was a vocal supporter of gay rights and active in fundraising for AIDS research. She retired in 2000 after revealing she was suffering from Parkinson's disease. Two years later, she announced she was suffering from Alzheimer's disease.

The National Post:

In a 1995 interview, the tiny Gettty — she was under five feet tall — admitted that many of her biggest fans were children.

"I think they look upon me as an old child, because I'm so little," she said.

Reuters:

Born Estelle Scher in New York City in 1923, Getty wanted to be an entertainer from an early age, despite her small size and the initial objections of her Polish immigrant parents.

She got her start as a comic at resorts in New York state's Catskill mountains and pursued her dream as an actress in regional theater and off-Broadway productions while raising two sons and working office jobs to make ends meet.

Entertainment Weekly:

Born Estelle Scher in New York City on July 25, 1923, Getty started out her career in the Yiddish theater, but her focus soon shifted to settling down and raising a family with Arthur Gettleman, whom she married in 1946. They remained together until Arthur's death in 2004.

Earlier: Estelle Getty, Thank You For Being A Friend

Outstanding Lead Actress In A Comedy Series
• Actress: Tina Fey; Show: 30 Rock; Role: Head writer/producer of a late night comedy show.
• Actress: Christina Applegate; Show: Samantha Who?; Role: VP of a real estate company who suffers from amnesia
• Actress: Julia Louis-Dreyfus; Show: The New Adventures Of Old Christine; Role: Owner of female gym and single mother
• Actress: America Ferrera; Show: Ugly Betty; Role: Fashion-challenged assistant to an editor at a fashion magazine
• Actress: Mary-Louise Parker; Show: Weeds; Role: Single suburban mother who sells pot to make ends meet

Outstanding Lead Actress In A Drama Series
• Actress: Sally Field; Show: Brothers & Sisters; Role: Matriarch of troubled family
• Actress: Glenn Close; Show: Damages; Role: Successful but ruthless lawyer
• Actress: Mariska Hargitay; Show: Law & Order: SVU; Role: Police detective with a heart of gold and a difficult past
• Actress: Holly Hunter; Show: Saving Grace; Role: Slutty, hard-drinking detective whom an angel has told is going to Hell
• Actress: Kyra Sedgwick; Show: The Closer; Role: Smart but off-putting deputy chief for the LAPD

Outstanding Lead Actress In A Miniseries Or Movie
• Actress: Phylicia Rashad; Show: A Raisin In The Sun; Role: Widowed matriarch of a struggling Chicago family that dreams of buying a home
• Actress: Catherine Keener; Show: An American Crime; Role: Crazy divorcee who facilitates torture of a teenage girl
• Actress: Susan Sarandon; Show: Bernard And Doris; Role: Millionaire who leaves fortune to gay butler/best friend
• Actress: Dame Judi Dench; Show: Cranford; Role: Unmarried woman who places propriety at the utmost importance
• Actress: Laura Linney; Show: John Adams; Role: John Adams' intelligent, headstrong wife, Abigail Adams

Outstanding Supporting Actress In A Comedy Series
• Actress: Kristen Chenoweth; Show: Pushing Daisies; Role: Restaurant waitress and admirer of main male character (and boss), Ned
• Actress: Jean Smart; Show: Samantha Who?; Role: Estranged mother with a "bad" side
• Actress: Amy Poehler; Show: Saturday Night Live; Role: various
• Actress: Holland Taylor; Show: Two And A Half Men; Role: Mother known for her promiscuity and shabby treatment of others
• Actress: Vanessa Williams; Show: Ugly Betty; Role: Diva editor-and-chief of fashion magazine

Outstanding Supporting Actress In A Drama Series
• Actress: Candice Bergen; Show: Boston Legal; Role: Smart, sexy, dignified and successful lawyer
• Actress: Rachel Griffiths; Show: Brothers & Sisters; Role: Head of a successful family business who has trouble balancing work with her personal life as a mother and wife
• Actress: Chandra Wilson; Show: Grey's Anatomy; Role: Blunt and tough chief resident surgeon
• Actress: Sandra Oh; Show: Grey's Anatomy; Role: Driven but emotionally-challenged doctor/surgeon
• Actress: Dianne Wiest; Show: In Treatment; Role: Psychiatrist, mentor

Outstanding Supporting Actress In A Miniseries Or A Movie
• Actress: Audra McDonald; Show: A Raisin In The Sun; Role: Obedient, overworked daughter-in-law to Lena Younger
• Actress: Eileen Atkins; Show: Cranford; Role: Older sister to Dench's character, also a spinster
• Actress: Ashley Jensen; Show: Extras: The Extra Special Series Finale; Role: Well-meaning but socially inept and boy-crazy single Londoner, actress
• Actress: Alfre Woodward; Show: Pictures Of Hollis Woods; Role: Social worker who tries to find a home for a troubled teen
• Actress: Laura Dern; Show: Recount; Role: Bush administration lackey Katherine Harris

Helen Mirren: Television Is Better Than Film [Telegraph]
60th Primetime Emmy Awards Nominations [Emmys.tv]

Related: Emmy Nomination Hell: 10 Plots And Subplots To Watch After Today's Big Announcements [Defamer]

The 60th Primetime Emmys air September 21st on ABC.

Wall Street Journal:

"Hancock" has been packaged and heavily promoted as a summer blockbuster — a big, spectacular production starring the ever-likable Will Smith. It is indeed summer, and Mr. Smith plays the title role, but that's as far as any truth in advertising goes. The movie seems negligible; its running time is a mere 92 minutes. And it succeeds only at the hitherto-impossible task of making Mr. Smith disagreeable (though never boring; whatever he does, he's a movie star). He plays a gangsta superhero — a foulmouthed, misanthropic, booze-slugging slob who happens to have superpowers. It's a tricky notion done badly, though surely an oddity that will find a large audience. Any notions of demolishing black stereotypes — and what else could have possessed Mr. Smith to do this? — are dashed by the coarseness of it all, and by the narrative incoherence; a surprising plot twist turns a sloppy action-comedy into a totally different movie, and an even worse one.

Wired:

To match the film's tonal shift after the thrilling twist, cinematographer Tobias Schliessler trades in the sun-bleached Los Angeles cityscape that marks Hancock's early adventures for gorgeously distorted close-ups rendered in a rain-soaked color palette. These closing scenes work as the audience — and Hancock — finally learn the secret to the superhero's orneriness.

Unlike bland Everymen from Bruce "Hulk" Banner and Peter "Spidey" Parker to Clark "Superman" Kent, Smith's reluctant superhero shares an invaluable superpower with Robert Downey Jr.'s Iron Man. Both may have screwed-up personalities, but at least they know how to crack a joke.

TIME:

I just realized something. None of this matters. A critique of Hancock is an essay in irrelevance. It's Independence Day Week, and six times since 1996, that's meant a Will Smith movie — a mega-giga-gigantic hit. Independence Day; Men in Black; Wild Wild West; Men in Black II; I, Robot: He shows up, people line up. Thomas Jefferson used to own this holiday, but now the former Fresh Prince does. So why should critics even bother to review a new Will Smith movie? You'll go see it anyway.

Entertainment Weekly:

Hancock can revel in schmuckery, of course, because you and I and cute kids and peaceful oldies worldwide know in advance that there's no way on Hollywood's green earth Will Smith will ever play someone seriously, dangerously unsavory. Charm is the star's armor on either side of the alien-human divide, whether he's a Fresh Prince, a Bad Boy, a Man in Black, the last man alive in New York City, or Muhammad Ali. And so, in the beginning, the movie — part comedy, part action-thriller, and a whole lot of earnest, addled mush about purpose, fate, and angels — lets Smith (who is also one of the producers) have fun goofing on all that has already served him so well as a performer: Here's a hero in need of remedial charm school.

The New Republic:

Yet a dozen years after Independence Day, Smith has once again staked a claim to Independence Day, with the superhero subversion Hancock. And, like any good self-fulfilling prophecy, it will likely reign supreme at the box office because everyone has already assumed it would: Summer's other blockbusters have all deferentially ceded the field, so Hancock will go head-to-head against only a few limited releases and a kids-oriented film, Kit Kittredge: An American Girl, which just happens to star Smith's seven-year-old daughter, Willow, whom we can safely assume has been promised a lifetime of spinach if she doesn't take a dive for Daddy.

Which is a shame because, Smith's indisputable talents notwithstanding, Hancock is an utter mess.

The New York Times:

The extent of that complexity doesn’t emerge until the big reveal, which involves Ms. Theron’s character and is so surprising that I heard several grown men loudly gasp. (“No way!”) I was more struck by Ms. Theron, an actress who, I think, is capable of greater depth than most of her performances require, even those that try to rub the glamour off her. She helps Mr. Smith enrich the story’s emotional texture, which is no small thing, since the movie itself starts to falter just when it begins to deepen. That’s too bad because while “Hancock” is far from perfect — it feels overly rushed, particularly toward its chaotic end — it has a raggedness that speaks honestly to the fundamental human fragility that makes the greatest heroes super.

CNN:

It's when this scenario plays out that Peter Berg's movie jumps the tracks. Writers Vincent Ngo and Vince Gilligan have concocted an outrageous, mind-boggling twist that comes so far out of left field you would need a crystal ball to see it coming.

No spoilers here, but it doesn't work, not in the short term and not in the big picture either. It's as if we've been whisked from one kind of movie — a brisk, superficial but entertaining high-concept comedy — and into the theater next door, where they're showing some sort of tragic "X-Men" knockoff. The last half-hour of this 92-minute movie is a fiasco.

Berg's shaky-cam technique doesn't help, nor does a weak, inadequate villain (played by Eddie Marsan). Still, it's rare — and startling — to see a big-budget movie fall apart so dramatically. Whether it was inspired by ego or economics, more than anything the turnaround feels like a colossal collective failure of nerve.

NPR:

It's a strange feeling to see the summer's most promising premise self-destruct into something bizarre and unsatisfying, but that is the Hancock experience.

It has to be emphasized that though the film's trailers carefully hide it, Hancock has a blisteringly profane tongue. How diatribes that would make a stevedore blush got a PG-13 rating is a question for another day.

The A.V. Club:

Still, it's a daring, even mildly challenging mixture for a superhero film, and while the pieces don't entirely add up, the puzzle is at least original. Smith is too much a ubiquitous superstar to entirely disappear into his role, but his playing against type offers its own flavors of comedy, and Bateman, in his comfortably well-worn role as a glib peacemaker, fills the charisma void left by Smith's stony performance. Hancock is an odd film—part My Super Ex-Girlfriend, part Transformers-esque messy blockbuster, part weird indie comic—but while it isn't necessarily as poignant as it wants to be, it manages the humor and heroics side of the equation admirably enough. If nothing else, it's worth it just to see a ready-made Superman-sized superhero in action without all the baggage of decades of retellings and reworkings; even looking at familiar faces working through a familiar genre, it's nice to be surprised for once.

Dallas Morning News:

Mr. Smith's charm helps sell the transformation of the character and the movie; part of the joke lies in seeing a megawatt star embrace his inner grouch with fantastical blunders, and part of the anticipation lies in seeing Hancock become, well, Will Smith, king of the summer box office. Some of the CG effects come off as chintzy, which may have as much to do with our general effects burnout than with deficiencies of this particular movie. (As David Denby recently noted in The New Yorker, we've reached a point where effects-driven movies come off as both too much and not enough.)

Your ultimate judgment of Hancock will likely hinge on whether or not you buy the film's dramatic identity shift. I found it rather sudden and perfunctory. I was also a little relieved to discover there's more here than initially meets the eye, that there's a movie to go along with the concept.

NY Post:

To say that Mary has a past would be the understatement of the summer. Let's just say her character makes no sense.

Nor are Mary's relationships with Ray or Hancock remotely plausible, even in a fantasy context.

Leaving behind the laughs for schmaltz, "Hancock" chickens out

at the last minute, lurching toward a cop-out happy ending that gives every indication of having been reshot at the behest of test audiences. Well, at least you won't be bored.

'Hancock' opens today, nationwide.

In an interview with Premiere magazine, Mena says of the decision to have cornrows: "It was in conjunction with [director] Stuart. I think we just wanted to kind of establish Brandi as a particular kind of girl from a particular place. I think that we felt that it would be, like, Providence, Rhode Island, with a mix of cultures. That's kind of what we were going for."

Stuart Gordon, whose films include Re-Animator, Castle Freak and Space Truckers, has the right to take creative license and make what ever kind of film he likes. But why didn't he use a black actress? Why was it okay to just put blonde, ethnically Estonian Suvari in cornrows? Why have Angelina Jolie play Marianne Pearl? There are so few black actresses in great, meaty roles (Jennifer Hudson in SATC does not count) and most of the big releases have male stars. There's a lack of parts for women in Hollywood altogether — do actresses of color have a chance if white women can just put on some corn rows (or a curly wig) and play "a particular kind of girl from a particular place" ?

Mena Suvari: 'I Never Had My Jaw Hit The Floor So Many Times' [LA Times]
Mena Suvari Gets 'Stuck' [Premiere]

Earlier: Coming Soon: 2008, The Summer Of The Dick Flick

NPR:

And thus a by-the-numbers rom-com is born. Alas, What Happens in Vegas ... limps through its first hour or so — where all the "com" is supposed to be — in a knockabout-slapstick mode for which director Tom Vaughan demonstrates no flair whatever. Still, casting will out, and the stars are appealing enough to make the making-up homestretch kinda sweet. No chemistry, mind, and precious few chuckles, but with the only romantic-comedy alternative at the moment being Made of Honor, things could definitely be worse.

Telegraph:

As premises go, it makes the heart not so much sink as shrivel. And yet, though it may indeed be synthetic pap with cynical mercenary undercurrents, I'll say this for the movie: we've seen much worse. Neither of the leads, Ashton Kutcher and Cameron Diaz, is a stranger to the slick business of lucrative high-concept comedies - if you catch them looking ecstatic at any point, you wonder if it's just at the box-office prospects.

Salon:

While Kutcher is reliably believable as a rumpled yet fun-loving slacker, Diaz is considerably less convincing as a steely, MBA-enhanced powerhouse. She may have the jittery energy of a woman who's a stranger to sleep, but with her giggly hair flips, smeary lip gloss and neon-bright micro skirts, she looks more like a party girl staggering home at dawn than a would-be titan of the stock market.

LA Times:

Hokey and forced as it is, What Happens in Vegas eventually settles into a rhythm, maybe because Diaz and Kutcher actually look like they have fun together. Which, unfortunately, is saying a lot. Most of the humor is derived from the same moldy men are from Slobland, women are from Planet Clean clichés, but the movie is just weird and disjointed enough to keep from feeling like an utterly soulless Hollywood product.

USA Today:

Apparently what passes for comedy today is a new form of toilet humor involving the creative use of sinks... What Happens in Vegas has a variation of a joke featured in Baby Mama, as well as a slew of stale riffs on gags and scenarios from a number of comedies, mostly of the romantic variety. It's a story that feels familiar at best, hackneyed at worst, which is surprising and disappointing, as director Tom Vaughan also made last year's Starter for 10, a charming British coming-of-age comedy.

Entertainment Weekly:

Ashton Kutcher and Cameron Diaz hate on each other with dynamite verve in What Happens in Vegas. The Punch and Judy fireworks get off to an early start, when the two wake up in Las Vegas only to learn that they got hitched during what should have been a sloshed one-night stand. To lay claim to a $3 million slot-machine payoff (one pulled the lever, the other provided the quarter), the two are forced to live together for six months as husband and wife, and I would say that the romantic hilarity just ensues from there, except that Kutcher and Diaz diss each other with such eye-rolling, fang-baring, sexually sarcastic conviction that you may think you've wandered into a dinner-theater revival of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? starring (and rewritten by) Jimmy Kimmel and Sarah Silverman.

Washington Post:

The best thing about the fight is how unfairly each wages it, and how the campaigns are based on the classical fault lines of boy-girl cohabitation. That one about the toilet seat (it always has to be down?): The movie addresses it in a clever scene in which Diaz's Joy McNally tries to explain the fundamental difference between the deep concepts of "up" and "down," as if she's explaining quantum theory to a chimp, which she basically is. It's a terrific little set piece, particularly for the expression on her face, which is an odd blend of pity, contempt, boredom, irritation and loathing, all without destroying the fact that she's staggeringly beautiful.

New York Times:

This digression may seem off the point of What Happens in Vegas, but because its director, Tom Vaughan, brings nothing of interest to the movie, including filmmaking, there isn't anything to say other than to note its insulting ugliness and ineptitude. The badly matched Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher mug wildly, waving their limbs like upturned beetles. Ms. Diaz is particularly ill served by the material and the production; she's harshly, at times brutally, lighted and often unflatteringly costumed. It's disheartening that Ms. Diaz doesn't seem to realize that there's no upside to a role that strips away her dignity even as it peels off her clothes, especially when she's playing the shrew. It's no wonder Mr. Kutcher looks so relaxed.

What Happens in Vegas opens in theaters today

The Times' Julie Bosman thinks it's amusing that the same magazines and televisions that cover the ins and outs of celebrity breeding, fighting, sexing and weight-loss are also covering (some) of the ins and outs of the campaign — and not just where it intersects with celebrity, as was the case in 2004. What's even more interesting is that the editors are all doing it not as a public-service but because its what readers actually want!

It is also because having a woman and a young, photogenic man in the race hits the right notes, demographically speaking — the vast majority of readers of magazines like US Weekly are women. Many of those readers are, for the first time, paying close attention to the presidential primaries, and turning politics into dinner-party conversation.

Anyway, as a woman who writes for two women's sites and almost exclusively about politics, I have to say, I'm not really surprised that women are interested in politics and I don't think it's just because Barack is cute or Hillary's a woman. (Maybe it has something to do with old adage about Washington, D.C. and the town being like Hollywood for ugly people.) I might have approached Anna when I was let go from a certain political website and asked to keep doing Crappy Hour and other stuff, but, interestingly Glamour also approached me talk about writing for Glamocracy. Both of these places pay me to write about politics because both Jezebel readers and Glamour readers want to read about politics and talk about issues and rally for candidates and generally act like responsible citizens of this democracy while they also talk about Rock of Love or Heidi Montag's bad attitude. Many women, in fact, enjoy walking, chewing gum and thoughtfully debating the merits of health care policy and the problems with race in America today while cooing over cute shoes. I just hope it continues after the election because I'll still have bills to pay come December.

Sex? Yawn. Politics? That's Hot! [New York Times]

<,p>
• Ellen Page,Jane Eyre: Page is set to play Jane Eyre in a new adaptation of the classic novel by Charlotte Bronte. Jane Eyre is a bildungsroman about an orphaned girl who works as a governess for a handsome married man with an insane wife he keeps locked away. Verdict: Just because a film is based on a classic piece of literature doesn't mean that it won't be chock full of female stereotypes (in fact, literature is usually chock full of those!) and Jane Eyre is just about the biggest lovable female victim in English literature.

• Eva Mendes, Queen of the South: Mendes will star as a Mexican woman who escapes to Europe after her boyfriend is murdered and then becomes the reigning drug-smuggler in Spain. She does this all while being hellbent on avenging her murdered boyfriend. Verdict: While the avenging-murdered-lover thing sounds kind of victimy, the drug-smuggling thing sounds kind of awesome. Of course, a woman can't rise to the top unless she has some secret traumatic past haunting her waking and sleeping moments!

• Kirstie Alley, Nailed: Alley will play a veterinarian who cannot remove a nail from her niece's head after an accident. Her niece, played by Jessica Biel, then travels to Washington D.C. to fight for better healthcare and falls in love with a congressman. So quirky! Verdict: Alley's role seems a bit too small to get enough attention to swing it towards any stereotypes.

• Susan Sarandon, Peacock: Peacock is a psychological thriller about a town in the aftermath of a train crash. Sarandon will play the mayor's wife who also runs a woman's shelter. Ellen Page and Cillian Murphy are also set to star. Verdict: There are little details about Sarandon's character, but we imagine it would be pretty difficult to portray a woman who runs a woman's shelter negatively.

"Ellen Page Takes On Jane Eyre" [Variety]
"Queen Appoints Hartnett, Kingsley" [Variety]
"James Brolin Gets Nailed" [THR]
"Susan Sarandon, Josh Lucas Join Peacock" [THR]

Newsweek:

Many people had a hard time imagining Downey donning superhero garb. In truth, it's hard to imagine "Iron Man" without him. For without his ironic hipster spin, without his rapid, off-speed line readings, which can make the most ordinary exposition sound like tossed-off improvs, this would be just another generic action picture with risible villains, a conventional story arc, and the inevitable showdown between two lumbering hunks of CGI metal—Iron Man vs. the even larger Iron Monger.

But the real treat is for grownups, who get a beguiling character study behind and above the special effects. Favreau — who directed the best Will Ferrell comedy (Elf) and an agreeably mature fantasy (Zathura: A Space Adventure), and before that wrote and starred in Swingers, maybe the sharpest buddy comedy of the '90s — knows that, when making a big movie, you do not leave your I.Q. at the soundstage door; you bend your gifts in different directions. He lends Iron Man the unobtrusive speed and precision of classic comedy. An actor before he was a director, he's not content to let his stars play stereotypes, or even archetypes. Bridges and Toub, and Gwyneth Paltrow as Stark's gal Friday (the most attractive she's been in years), aren't slumming in the least. They're rising to the material, and elevating it.

Like Tony Stark, Iron Man the movie has a maddening way of hiding its light (Downey) under a bushel—actually bushels and bushels—of special effects. During the action sequences (especially the disappointing final one, a face-off between Stark's Iron Man and Stane's Iron Monger), this movie could be any expensive summer blockbuster, with exploding tanks and bisected city buses and faceless mega-robots duking it out on rooftops. But when it's idling in neutral, and we're watching Stark putter in his workshop or seduce unsuspecting journalists, Iron Man abounds in that rarest of superpowers: charm.

The ace up Iron Man's sleeve, quite unexpectedly, is Gwyneth Paltrow, who brings both radiance and gentle intelligence to the role of a glorified housekeeper called Pepper Potts. How she takes out the laundry in those heels is beyond me, but she's a great sport for doing it, and her dry chemistry with our hero is worth a dozen atomic warheads. Downey may be the smartest star in a mask since Michael Keaton, but this fun, rattling picture would be all boys and toys without Paltrow to humour him.

The genius of the production lies in the agility with which it leaps from one mode to another. I'll be happy to see it again — and plan to do so over the weekend — for the pleasure of Mr. Downey's company, plus the genuine sophistication of the world that Tony Stark inhabits when he isn't driving his sexy cars or bedding a sexy writer from a glossy magazine. The serious-ish plot involves Tony's spiritual conversion from an arms magnate to a peacenik at war with his own corporation and the military-industrial complex, not to mention global terrorism, while his comic-book origins give him what amounts to an Achilles heart, a nuclear-powered device that makes him vulnerable as a man and all but invincible as his alter ego.

As Stark soars around in his titanium alloy outfit, aiming fireballs with perfect precision, he is as potent a figure as Superman. He's as rich as Bruce Wayne with an extra dollop of science-guy nerdiness, finished off with a heaping dose of snark. Iron Man's biggest strength is that the fantastically armored suit doesn't overpower the intriguingly flawed character encased within.

Wearing a goatee right out of the beatnik '50s, he's fast and frictionless, as airlessly ironic as a talk-show host who's been shoved onto the air at 3 a.m. and left to his own what-the-hell devices. The key to Downey's mocking, crumpled charm is that no matter whom he's talking to, he's really just nattering to himself. When he climbs into his Iron Man machine suit, with its whirring, clicking limbs and plated chest, flamethrower arms, and mask of a medieval knight, he doesn't disappear behind the tin-can walls of that chunky, atomic-age jet-pack robot. He's still there, a deftly fragile motormouth — a damaged soul who needs armor to fully become himself.

The hero must flex and furrow his brow; the bad guy must glower and scheme; the girl must shriek and fret. There should also be a skeptical but supportive friend. Those are the rules of the genre, as unbreakable as the pseudoscientific principles that explain everything (An arc reactor! Of course!) and the Law of the Bald Villain. In "Iron Man" it all plays out more or less as expected, from the trial-and-error building of the costume to the climactic showdown, with lots of flying, chasing and noisemaking in between. (I note that there is one sharp, subversive surprise right at the very end.)

What is less expected is that Mr. Favreau, somewhat in the manner of those sly studio-era craftsmen who kept their artistry close to the vest so the bosses wouldn't confiscate it, wears the genre paradigm as a light cloak rather than a suit of iron. Instead of the tedious, moralizing, pop-Freudian origin story we often get in the first installments of comic-book-franchise movies — childhood trauma; identity crisis; longing for justice versus thirst for revenge; wake me up when the explosions start — "Iron Man" plunges us immediately into a world that crackles with character and incident.

Downey clearly has a ball playing the weapons dealer Stark, best described as a cross between James Bond, Mick Jagger and Howard Hughes (whom Lee reportedly based Stark on). During an early flashback sequence, he's portrayed as a kid in a testosterone-laced candy store, living in a concrete temple to modernism in Malibu, delegating his longtime assistant Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) to dispatch his one-night stands with dry-cleaned clothes and a limo home, partying with his Pentagon liaison Jim Rhodes (Terrence Howard) in a private plane that, after a few drinks, transforms into a flying strip club. Once the guns start going off, "Iron Man" is fueled by so many explosions and sundry ejaculatory ya-yas that watching it is akin to sneaking into a treehouse past a sign saying "No Girls Allowed."

It's not difficult to guess where this is heading — Marvel stories are all permutations on a handful of stock scenarios — but Favreau doesn't blow it up any more than he has to. In "Elf" and "Zathura" he showed he could integrate special effects and carry the story, but like Downey, he's almost always looking for a comic spin.

A scene in which Tony invites his assistant, Pepper Potts (an appealingly valiant Gwyneth Paltrow), to reach into the hole in his chest and fix his battery is a cheeky cocktail of trust, disgust, love, sex, fear and courage (it's also a key plant for subsequent developments), but above all it plays funny. When a movie is firing on all those cylinders, you know it's a winner.

*Inspired by Shirley MacLaine's assertion that the best parts for actresses fall into one of the above categories.

• Angela Bassett, ER: Bassett will be playing a troubled doctor who comes back to Chicago after doing tsunami relief in Indonesia. Her arrival promises to "shake County General's ER to the core." Verdict: Well "troubled" usually translates to "victim," although a victim usually doesn't shake a television series to it's "core." She might be playing a shrew as well.

• Nicole Kidman, Dusty Springfield Biopic: Novelist Michael Cunningham (The Hours) has revealed that Kidman will star in the upcoming Dusty Springfield biopic he's writing. The film will explore Springfield's tortured, drugged, and depressed years, as well as her successes. Verdict: No one does victims quite like Cunningham, and Springfield's biography is not lacking in victimized and depressed elements.

• America Ferrera, An Invisible Sign of My Own: Ferrera will star in this coming-of-age film about a 20-year-old loner who turns to math for salvation when her father becomes ill. [Uh, isn't that a play called 'Proof'? -Ed.] When the character becomes an adult, she must teach math to students using her crisis as inspiration. BO-RING. Verdict: All of the victim keywords are here: "crisis" "salvation" and "ill father," but the character might overcome her own victimization in the end, so we will have to see how the movie plays out. The only thing that is unfortunate about this is the talented Ferrera starring in another snoozer.

• Shenae Grimes, Beverly Hills, 90210: Former Degrassi: The Next Generation star, Grimes, will play Annie in this 90210 remake on the CW Network. The Annie character will be based on the character played by Shannen Doherty in the original. Verdict: Although Doherty was a decent character on the show, off-set, she was generally too busy victimizing people to be a victim herself.

Angela Bassett Makes Rounds For Last ER Shift [Reuters]
Nicole Kidman Playing Dusty Springfield In Biopic, Says Michael Cunningham [NY Mag]
America Ferrera Joins Invisible [THR]
90210 Cast Continues To Grow [Variety]

Because the film is not typical boy-meets-girl fare, the Times is wondering if two women in their late 30s can carry a comedy in a world where 14-year-old boys (and men with 14-year-old mentalities) are the comedy film "sweet spot" of ticket purchasers. Baby Mama has neither big boobs, nor big bombs. Here's what Poehler has to say on the matter: "Everything is a harder sell until it's a success and then it's not." She continues:

What I'm proud of about this film is that there was an actual beginning and middle and end, and characters change and all that kind of stuff. Which is kind of like an actual movie? It's nice to be a part of that. Especially coming from the world with a lot of sketch, where everything is transient and temporary. It's nice to explore an actual arc in an actual film. I like movies that 14-year-old boys like, I like a lot of those. I would hope that they would like the same things I like too.

Fey and Poehler Gamble With 'Baby Mama' [Los Angeles Times]
Tina Feytigue [Videogum]

Earlier: Tina Fey To Amy Poehler: I Wanna Put My Baby Inside You
Tina Fey: Comedienne, Cover Girl And "Great Role Model" For Women

• Cynthia Nixon, Distracted: Nixon is set to star in this Off Broadway play by Lisa Loomer about a mother "struggling to learn" whether her son has ADD. According to a previous review, Nixon's character plays more of a narrator to the play. Verdict: She may be a Victim, but it seems like the character is too removed from the story to garner a full verdict, so it all depends on how Nixon plays it.

• Halle Berry, Frankie and Alice: Berry will star and produce this "indie" film about a woman "struggling" with multiple personality disorder and a racist, white, other personality that preys upon her mind. Berry playing a white and black character? It's like Queen all over again! Except for the whole psychological disorder thing. Verdict: Racism and a mental disorder? Victim.

• Sophie Monk, Hardbreakers: Professional nobody Monk will be fleshing out her IMDB profile by starring in the straight-to-DVD film, Hardbreakers. The movie follows two hot and caraaazy single girls who are navigating the dating scene in LA. Monk will play a girl who "has been with a lot of guys." Verdict: This movie is so Z-List we shouldn't even be paying attention to it, but Monk sounds like she will be a pseudo-"feminist" slutty Hooker who will probably end up learning a special lesson about sleeping around once she meets Mr. Right.

• Keshia Knight Pulliam, Tyler Perry's Madea Goes To Jail: Little Rudy from The Cosby Show will star in Perry's newest film as an imprisoned prostitute who is rescued by Perry's matriarch, Madea after she spends some time in jail.Verdict: The very obvious answer: Hooker.

• Ashley Tisdale, Teen Witch: Tisdale, who is apparently some sort of celebrity, will star in a remake of the pseudo-musical (and one of my personal favorite campy movies) Teen Witch. Tisdale will play an unpopular girl who learns she is a witch and then uses her powers to get back at the popular girls at school. She also makes her BFF perform a poorly lip-synched rap and watches impromptu dance performances by cheerleaders. Verdict: This movie is too campy and young to fall into any of the stereotypes.

Cynthia Nixon To Star In "Distracted" [Variety]
Queen [IMDB]
Halle Berry Set For "Frankie And Alice" [Variety]
Sophie Monk Signs For "Hardbreakers" [THR]
Crosby Daughter Hooks Up With "Madea" Comdey [THR via Yahoo!]
Teen Witch Rap Scene [Youtube]
Teen Witch- I Like Boys [YouTube]
Ashley Tisdale Graduates "High School" [THR]

• Kristen Johnston, Bride Wars: Johnston will play a self-absorbed, opportunist friend of Ann Hathaway's character. The film revolves around the shenanigans that occur when two BFFs (Hathaway and Kate Hudson) have their weddings on the same day and at the same place. Verdict: Ah, the annoying friend character, almost always a Shrew.

• Allison Janney, This Must Be The Place and A Thousand Words: In This Must Be The Place, Janney will play a loud and brassy woman who has "a few screws loose." In A Thousand Words, she will play Eddie Murphy's money-grubbing literary agent. Verdict: Wow! Two Shrews in two separate movies! Now that Janney is getting "old" by Hollywood standards she'll probably see a lot more abrasive female characters coming her way.

• Danielle Panabaker, Friday the 13th: Panabaker (who plays James Woods' daughter in Shark) will co-star in this remake of the horror classic. She will be playing an "adventurous, athletic type" who is dating a rich boy. Verdict: A young girl in a Hollywood horror movie? She is definitely a Victim.

• Uma Thurman, Motherhood: Thurman will star as a mother of two who faces "a myriad of urban challenges" as she tries to plan her daughter's sixth birthday party. Not sure if this is supposed to be a comedy or a drama. Verdict: While the details are skimpy, a "harried mother" role is usually an emotional Victim of some kind. But we will wait until the movie comes out to impose a real verdict.

• Jessica Chastain, Tree of Life: Chastain has been cast to play Brad Pitt's wife in the upcoming Terrence Malick flick about the loss of innocence, as seen by the son of Pitt and Chastain's characters as different individuals race to find the mythical "tree of life." Verdict: There isn't much information about the characters in the film so we will hold off on judgment for now.

• Sigourney Weaver, Avatar: Weaver will play a character in a new James Cameron film that was originally supposed to be a man. The plot is about a band of humans colonizing and warring with a distant planet's indigenous population. Weaver describes the character as being "driven, idealistic, perfectionist, but with great heart underneath" and a "great woman character."Verdict: While our intuition tells us that "driven" female characters in Hollywood are almost always portrayed as evil, we will trust ex-Yalie Weaver on this one.

3rd Rock Veteran Joins Fray In Wars [THR via Reuters]
Allison Janney Set For Two Comedies [THR]
Danielle Panabaker Adds "Friday The 13th" To Calendar [THR via Yahoo!]
Trio Preps For 'Motherhood' [Variety]
Chastian To Star Opposite Pitt In 'Tree' [Variety]
Weaver, Cameron Reunite For 'Avatar' [UPI]

Slate:

Too bad the movie's central relationship, the prickly courtship between Wetherhold and his doctor girlfriend, never finds its momentum. Quaid and Sarah Jessica Parker, both terrific, aren't to blame. The problem is that their relationship proceeds according to the As Good as It Gets law, which dictates that angry, paunchy, deeply disturbed old men in the movies need only to dial down their unpleasantness by 5 percent to win the affection of smart, kind, beautiful young women.

Its pretty conventional characters are often pretty funny. Or maybe I should say, surprisingly interesting. Ellen Page (recently of =Juno ) brings her wise-child persona to a somewhat more mature character with ironic expertise. The same can be said of Church, who knows how to do slackers, without seeming to be one as an actor. Paradoxically, he's an energetic slob. Parker probably has the toughest assignment here, as a smart woman making a dumb choice. But she has charm and perkiness and if she doesn't entirely persuade us to suspend disbelief, she at least gets us to elide it.

Noam Murro's feature debut, "Smart People," suffers from that kind of perspiration problem. There's not a minute in the picture where we're not reminded, either by a too-polished line of dialogue or a precociously unstudied camera angle, that this is a movie for an intelligent, sophisticated audience, an audience who just naturally gets it. "Smart People" is so preoccupied with congratulating us for getting it that it fails to give us much to get in the first place, even though it features a respectable ensemble of actors — among them Dennis Quaid, Thomas Haden Church and Sarah Jessica Parker — squeezing as hard as they can to wring some life from the material.

In addition to the machinations of father, daughter and brother, there is a flimsy subplot involving Quaid's son (Ashton Holmes), a college student with literary aspirations of his own. Mystifyingly, there is a young female character who plays a student of Quaid's who also shows up on his college's search committee for department chairman. No explanation is made, making it seem as if the filmmakers were scrimping on hiring actors.

Ellen Page does the best she can as a teen automaton who wants her Dad to stop holding onto Mom's old clothes because if he donates them to charity they'll get a tax write-off, "which is pretty cool." But this pitiless caricature of Young Republicanhood is meant for broader farce, not a dreary dramedy like Smart People. As it is, it's hard to shake the impression of Juno MacGuff offering an ironic portrait of Tracy Flick.

But as refreshing as it is to hear people speak in complete paragraphs in a movie, these characters all feel vaguely familiar. Page, fresh off her career-making star turn in last year's "Juno," affects the same irritatingly prolix persona of that movie's precocious title character, the only difference being that Vanessa is a Young Republican. As the commitment-phobic doctor, Parker often resembles Carrie Bradshaw in a white coat, plying the same approach-avoid technique for romance that propelled "Sex and the City" season after season. And for all the sympathy Quaid implicitly brings to the stock character of unrepentant academic misanthrope, Wetherhold's pomposity and pedantry fit too squarely into what is by now an overused mold.

Lawrence, a widower not so secretly married to his grief, hides behind a façade of insouciance fortified with truculence. If he were more readily likable, the movie would be predictable, but he isn't, and it isn't (except, perhaps, for a flagrantly feel-good end-title sequence). This is some of the best work Mr. Quaid has done in an always interesting career. Since he's an exceedingly likable actor, he can play Lawrence as a pompous stranger to his children (he also has a son, a closet poet) and the despair of colleagues who think they know him, yet keep us rooting for him all the way.

That may sound like a minor accomplishment, but the great virtue of "Smart People," attributable to Noam Murro's easygoing direction as well as to Mr. Poirier's wandering screenplay, lies in its general preference for small insights over grand revelations. There is a fairly busy plot, and some of its developments — an unplanned pregnancy, a flicker of quasi-incestuous sexual interest, the acceptance of a poem by The New Yorker — clatter onto the screen like carelessly flung darts. But to a greater extent than in most comedies, the narrative seems more like background or scaffolding than like the engine that drives the characters, who are propelled instead by their own colliding, confusing, idiosyncratic energies.

•Natalie Portman, Wuthering Heights: Portman is slated to play Catherine Earnshaw, the female lead, in this new adaptation of Emily Bronte's novel. Catherine is in love with her adopted brother, Heathcliff, but marries a more suitable man and is then driven to madness over her decision. Verdict: Catherine is a variation of a hooker, marrying for stability and then being punished for it.

•Elsa Pataky, Giallo: Spanish actress Pataky (who is perhaps better known to American audiences as Adrien Brody's girlfriend) is set to play Celine, the kidnapped sister of an American flight attendant. Verdict: Beautiful kidnapped woman? Victim, duh.

•Marcia Gay Harden, The Tower: In this new CBS drama, Harden will star as a millionaire who buys a newspaper where the journalists not only break stories but also solve mysteries! Verdict: The plot might sound a bit boring, but Harden's character might come out OK, for the time being.

•Paz Vega, Triage: Vega, from Talk to Her and Spanglish, will play the girlfriend of a a colleague of Mark (Colin Farrel), a photojournalist, who investigates the mysterious disappearance of her boyfriend. Verdict: While the details are skimpy, the tragic girlfriend character just screams "Victim."

Two Female Leads [XKCD]
Portman Set For 'Wuthering Heights'[Variety]
Adrien Brody To Topline 'Giallo'[THR]
Harden, Logue Pick Pilot Projects[Variety]
Colin Farrell Makes Three For 'Triage' [THR]

*Inspired by Shirley MacLaine's assertion that the best parts for actresses fall into one of the above categories.

• Rosamund Pike, The Surrogates: In this sci-fi police thriller based on the graphic novel of the same name, Pike portrays the wife of a cop (played by Bruce Willis) investigating the corrupt world of life-surrogates that this future society depends on. In the story, Willis' character grows increasingly critical of depending on surrogates while Pike's character sticks to the cultural norm for fear of growing (and looking) older. Verdict: Doormat, while she may be defying her husband, her character represents the follow-the-herd mentality of the future society and the vanity of women.

• Camilla Belle, Adrift: This Brazilian movie set in the 1980s centers around a 14-year-old girl who learns about the infidelities of her father, played by (sigh) Vincent Cassel, as she experiences her own sexual awakening. Belle is slated to play a young woman that is having an affair with Cassel's character. Verdict: while we don't know much about her character, the fact she plays a young woman sleeping with an older, married man has the potential to be either a hooker or doormat.

• Nicole Kidman and Judi Dench, Nine: It's another movie based on a musical based on a movie! This film is based on the musical adaptation of Fellini's classic 8 1/2 and Kidman and Dench are in talks to join a cast that already includes Javier Bardem, Penelope Cruz, Marion Cotillard, and Sophia Loren. The movie follows a film director as he juggles the demands of different women in his life. Verdict: Since details of their characters have yet to be released, we will have to hold off on judgment.

• Mary Lynn Rajskub, Julie & Julia: This film is based on the "true life" tale of a woman named Julie (played by Amy Adams) who blogged about cooking all of the recipes in Julia Child's famous cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cuisine, in the space of one calendar year. The film will also focus on Julia Child's personal life, played by Meryl Streep. Rajskub will play Julie's best friend. Verdict: While there is little information on the character, this movie sounds like it will be one big snooze-fest (a film about blogging can only be boring, trust.) And best friend roles are usually wither so secondary they aren't noticeable or they turn into doormats for the lead character's plot line.

"Bruce Willis Starrer 'Surrogates' Adds Cast" [Hollywood Reporter]
"Camilla Belle Is Cast 'Adrift'" [Hollywood Reporter]
"Nicole Kidman, Judi Dench Eye 'Nine'" [The Hollywood Reporter]
"Rajskub Joins 'Julia' Cast" [The Hollywood Reporter]

But what about Buffy? You may ask (I definitely ask!) Hari answers:

The few strong women in Hollywood movies and TV are safely located in an unreal world: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Xena: Warrior Princess. The closest to an unapologetic feminist is Lisa Simpson - and she is eight years old, and a cartoon. This isn't because Hollywood is especially sexist. Hollywood largely gives us what we want - and we don't want to idolize strong, powerful women today.

Hari notes that today, a majority of college graduates are female. We have a woman running for president. We live in a time where women are in business, in government, in outer space. Why aren't they in entertainment?

Johann Hari: Where Have All The Strong Women Gone? [Independent]

The Hollywood Reporter:

The film, adapted by David Magee and Simon Beaufoy from a newly rediscovered 1939 novel by Winifred Watson, comes at you in a whirlwind of comic coincidences, sentimental yearnings, amorous betrayals and rapid costume changes. The Focus Features release, an enjoyable as it is forgettable, should find enthusiasm among older audiences in specialized venues — those who can either remember 1939 or at least imagine it. A clutch of musical standards from that era by Cole Porter, Johnny Mercer and Yip Harburg wrap the package in a nostalgic glow.

Nalluri has trouble with pacing in "Miss Pettigrew," which should snap, crackle and pop with "Dinner at Eight" alacrity. But the film's flaws are nothing compared with the pleasures it offers, chiefly in its unapologetic pursuit of old-fashioned sweetness and romance. Coming off a charming triumph in "Enchanted," Adams is a champagne cocktail in a peignoir, but it's McDormand who sashays away with the movie, as a woman who seems to ripen and bloom in real time.

McDormand's performance slowly builds a solid integrity, and contrasts well with Adams' more flamboyant turn, which initially accentuates Delysia's constant role playing but eventually flowers into a gratifyingly full-fledged portrayal of a woman with a past she wishes to escape. Hinds puts real feeling into his work as a self-made gentleman who instantly recognizes Guinevere's fine human qualities.

The film flits from apartment to nightclub to fashion show and then back to the apartment, like a play. It's all highly, even shrilly theatrical. Yet once the performers take it down a notch and the workmanlike direction by Bharat Nalluri stays out of the way, "Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day" makes you forget that the roles played by McDormand and Adams—both of whom have done wonderful things in other movies—probably could've been handled with more finesse by, oh, several dozen other performers, English or American.

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day is a trifle of a movie confection, sweet and gummy as a jelly bean—and 10 minutes later, just as forgettable. Nothing really registers here. The casting is absurdly miscalculated. Even the costumes are wrong. It's supposed to be set in 1939 London, on the eve of the blitz, but the party clothes are straight out of the Roaring Twenties, and Frances McDormand, in the title role, is by no stretch of the imagination another Thoroughly Modern Millie. Surrounded by so much ugliness and violence, a film this giddy should be more of a relief, but Miss Pettigrew proves that light as a bubble is not always a guaranteed antidote to tedium.

There are so many movies jockeying for our attention these days that a slender pleasure like Bharat Nalluri's drawing-room comedy "Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day" could all too easily slip between the sofa cushions. The picture falls far short of perfection: It doesn't pop and sparkle as much as it needs to. Nalluri — who has worked mostly in television — doesn't have as much control over the material as he might: This story, set between the two world wars, of an unemployed governess who changes several lives (one of them her own) in the course of a single day is joyously exaggerated and exuberant, but sometimes it's a little too heavy on its feet. The jokes and gags hit too squarely; the movie conspicuously lacks a light touch.

Adams is the sole reason to bother with this flimsy time-passer—which perpetually appears to be funnier than it actually is—but not an inconsiderable one, given how many scenes are offered up for her to steal. But in trying to recapture the spirit of classic '30s screwball comedies, the film too often mistakes manic energy for wit, and it ends on a note of gloppy sentimentality that wouldn't have held water in Old Hollywood.