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Career Watch: Harrison Ford

By Anne Thompson (Subscribe to Anne Thompson's posts), Posted Nov 16th 2010 2:00PM
Filed under: Features, Columns, New Releases

Career Watch is a regular column by veteran film reporter and Moviefone guest blogger Anne Thompson looking at the career of a major Hollywood star, analyzing the moves they've made thus far and offering career advice on where they could or should head from here. This week: Harrison Ford.

Harrison Ford is an iconic actor who can still draw crowds in an Indiana Jones sequel -- but at age 68, he is looking to reclaim his box office mojo after a run of flops.
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Career Watch: Joaquin Phoenix

By Anne Thompson (Subscribe to Anne Thompson's posts), Posted Sep 21st 2010 6:00PM
Filed under: Features, Columns, New Releases


After impulsively declaring his retirement from acting in the fall of 2008 after wrapping the film 'Two Lovers,' Joaquin Phoenix gained a natty beard and a paunch, chased a new career as a hip hop artist and looked depressed and druggy on a February 2009 appearance on the 'Late Show With David Letterman' that was widely viewed on the Internet. Now that the world at large sees the 35-year-old actor as a basket case, Phoenix will need to do some serious repair work to reemerge from this two-year career hiatus. (The fact that his gifted, troubled older brother River died of a drug overdose does not help his case.)
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Career Watch: Julia Roberts Is Back on Top

By Anne Thompson (Subscribe to Anne Thompson's posts), Posted Aug 16th 2010 3:30PM
Filed under: Columns
Career Watch is a regular column by veteran film reporter and Moviefone guest blogger Anne Thompson looking at the career of a major Hollywood star, analyzing the moves they've made thus far and offering career advice on where they could or should head from here. This week: Julia Roberts.

Bottom Line: When you open a women's picture like 'Eat Pray Love' to $23.7 million despite often savage reviews, you are a star. Julia Roberts -- the most successful actress of all time, with more than $2.4 billion in U.S. ticket sales -- is back. What 'Eat Pray Love' director Ryan Murphy allowed Roberts to do in the movie, which takes writer Liz Gilbert on a quest for inner truth from Italy to India to Bali, was to be herself, comfortable inside the role she was playing. Roberts single-handedly holds the screen with her wide grin and inner glow. And she's game for more: ''I haven't done a main part in a movie in a long time," she told Reuters, "and I wondered if that kind of workload would still be interesting to me, and I was very happy at the end of this that I felt incredibly fulfilled as a creative person.''
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Career Watch: Steve Carell Builds a Movie Career as Deadpan Leading Man

By Anne Thompson (Subscribe to Anne Thompson's posts), Posted Aug 2nd 2010 3:20PM
Filed under: Columns
Steve CarellCareer Watch is a regular column by veteran film reporter and Moviefone guest blogger Anne Thompson looking at the career of a major Hollywood star, analyzing the moves they've made thus far and offering career advice on where they could or should head from here. This week: Steve Carell.

With 19 films under his belt, sweetly bumbling comedian Steve Carell is on a roll as he ditches his hit TV series 'The Office' to star in more movies. Who can blame him? So far he's three-for-three in 2010, and pulling in $12 million paydays. 'Dinner for Schmucks' opened well, 'Despicable Me,' in which he voiced lovable megalomaniac anti-hero Gru, is a summer animated hit, and romantic action comedy 'Date Night' launched him as part of a popular new movie team with ace comedienne Tina Fey. Does he have the momentum to continue his film success and join the ranks of TV actors-turned-film-stars like Tom Hanks, Jim Carrey and Robin Williams?
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Career Watch: Nicolas Cage Risks Overexposure

By Anne Thompson (Subscribe to Anne Thompson's posts), Posted Jul 19th 2010 11:30AM
Filed under: Features, Columns
Career Watch is a regular column by veteran film reporter and Moviefone guest blogger Anne Thompson looking at the career of a major Hollywood star, analyzing the moves they've made thus far and offering career advice on where they could or should head from here. This week: Nicolas Cage.

Bottom Line: A solid marquee draw in the right project, cash-strapped Nic Cage, 46, is taking on too many roles, increasing the odds that he'll pick weak vehicles and make audiences forget what a daring and gifted actor he is. After 60 movies, he's starting to repeat himself.

Signature line: "Put the bunny back in the box," -- 'Con Air.'

Latest Misfire: Cage came up with the idea of playing a magician in a live-action movie inspired by 'The Sorcerer's Apprentice' sequence in 'Fantasia.' The actor gives a solid performance in the $150-million movie developed, produced and directed by the team that delivered the goods in 2004's PG franchise 'National Treasure' and its 2007 sequel, 'Book of Secrets.'
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Career Watch: Tom Cruise

By Anne Thompson (Subscribe to Anne Thompson's posts), Posted Jun 23rd 2010 3:05PM
Filed under: Features, Columns
Career Watch is a regular column by veteran film reporter and Moviefone guest blogger Anne Thompson looking at the career of a major Hollywood star, analyzing the moves they've made thus far and offering career advice on where they could or should head from here. This week: mega-star Tom Cruise.

Signature line: "Show me the money!" yells Jerry Maguire.

Career Peaks: Cruise emerged in the early 80s in 'Taps' and 'The Outsiders,' and first broke out his cocky screen persona as a broom-riding teen entrepreneur in 'Risky Business' and a flying ace 'Top Gun.' He proved his mettle by opening even a lousy movie, 'Cocktail' -- the mark of a marquee draw. Nobody works harder than Cruise at self-improvement. He burnished his acting bonafides opposite Paul Newman in Martin Scorsese's 'The Color of Money' and Dustin Hoffman in Barry Levinson's 'Rain Man.' Fifteen years into his career, he landed the action franchise 'Mission: Impossible,' which has delivered $1.4 billion worldwide over three films. Cruise also carried two Steven Spielberg event movies, 'Minority Report' and 'War of the Worlds' (global gross: $359 and $592 million, respectively).
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Career Watch: Jake Gyllenhaal

By Anne Thompson (Subscribe to Anne Thompson's posts), Posted Jun 7th 2010 4:16PM
Filed under: Hot Topic, Columns
Career Watch is a regular column by veteran film reporter and Moviefone guest-blogger Anne Thompson looking at the career of a major Hollywood star, analyzing the moves they've made thus far and offering career advice on where they could or should head from here. This week: newly minted action star Jake Gyllenhaal.

Signature line: "I wish I knew how to quit you," says Jack Twist to Ennis del Mar, in 'Brokeback Mountain.'

Career Peaks: Raised in L.A. by director Stephen Gyllenhaal and screenwriter Naomi Foner, Gyllenhaal popped up as a teen actor in the 1999 true story 'October Sky,' followed by his breakout role in Richard Kelly's strange 2001 psycho-drama 'Donnie Darko,' which went on to attain cult status. Gyllenhaal burnished his acting cred by playing a series of sensitive, sweet young men in low-budget indies such as 'The Good Girl,' 'Proof' and 'Lovely & Amazing.' While it was not Gyllenhaal's finest hour, the 2004 disaster epic 'The Day After Tomorrow' marks the actor's biggest global hit to date: a total $544 million. He scored critical raves for two 2005 films, Gulf War actioner 'Jarhead' and Ang Lee's tragic gay romance 'Brokeback Mountain,' opposite Heath Ledger, which earned $178 million worldwide.
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