Shadow and Flame with Magik

I was joking the other day about how much sleep Gwyneth Paltrow got during her conscious coupling to Chris Martin.  I’m simply not a fan of Coldplay.  Do they offer sleeping bags at their live concerts or do you have to bring your own?  I was joking about how she probably respected him as an artist and chose to never listen to his music, in fear that it wasn’t good and she would have to live her days pretending to like it.  But from occasion, she would hear this lovely sound that worked as a nice white noise machine and she would sleep and sleep.

Coldplay tried to trick me into liking them with that Superhero song of theirs that they teamed up with Chainsmokers to create “Something Like This.”  At first, I enjoyed all the superhero references but there was this nagging suspicion that something wasn’t right.  Especially as I was getting sleepy as I was driving and I figured out that it must be Coldplay but with an undercurrent of something else.

I’ve been tempted to start a Coldplay channel on Pandora and just downvote only Coldplay songs, but I doubt that would translate to my other Pandora channels.

From there, I started taking Paltrow for granted, saying how she was only really amazing in Duets, a film I really really enjoy.  She was also great in Bounce and the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  Within that same moment, I remembered she was in Se7en and got “what’s in the box?” stuck in my head for a while after that.  Ironically so.

She’s really been in some amazing films and I did a deep dive into her career to see if she’s usually great or am I just allowing her early films to set a tone for her that she doesn’t even adhere to.

Here is the link to her Wikipedia page, if you want to follow along.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwyneth_Paltrow

She’s Young Wendy in Hook.  Good film, it is mostly a piece of trivia as she’s not really doing much in it besides one scene, right?

Seven, great film!  She’s quiet in it and almost forgettable.

I want to watch Pallbearer, as I sort of like David Schwimmer and I am still confused why he didn’t get more work after Kissing a Fool.  Such a great film and he plays against type in it so that should have shown his range.  He must have been so confused after that film came out and didn’t get more roles like that.  Shame Jason Lee doesn’t work more these days too.  I get that actors peak and then find roles that they want to do but I want more Jason Lee in my life.  Did Mili Avital ever do anything else?  She’s literally just the girl in that film, the object of desire but I liked what she did with what she had to work with.  Some Law and Order episodes, that’s a shame but what I expected to see.

Back to Paltrow.

Emma, a film I haven’t seen but like Great Expectations, starts forming this picture I have of her of being in artsy films I have no interest in.  I recall watching Great Expectations with my arms crossed, demanding the film entertain me.  Which is no way to watch a movie.  I also was not entertained and meant to read the book but never got around to it.

In-between those films, she did Sliding Doors.  A film that I felt lost during but came back around to it a few years ago and it really stands out.  Big Love’s Jeanne Tripplehorn is in it and that was fun to discover.  That film does a lot with its 99 minutes.  Maybe I came to it a few minutes in on HBO or something and missed the crucial set up.  It is a great concept for a movie and it moves too.

Shakespeare in Love, which I enjoyed at the time.  She’s good in it.  I recall mostly watching it just for Ben Affleck as I’m still a pretty big fan of his.  I should watch it again as most of that cast is amazing.  I didn’t even know Colin Firth was in it.  Joseph Fiennes, Geoffrey Rush, and Tom Wilkinson (what does he do between this film and Batman Begins?).  Rupertr Everett is in it too, whatever happened to him?  Dame Judi Dench is in it as well though I never quite was impress with her like I’m supposed to be.  Her legend is based off of her stage work, right?  She hasn’t really done many films that I’ve seen.  She’s good as M in those James Bond films and I’m glad they carried her over from the Brosnan films to the Craig films.

I should watch Chocolat (especially after I Love You Man, I just never got around to it), Iris has Kate Winslet in it.  Notes on a Scandal is one of the first films I recall her being in that was not Bond related.  A trailer that was pretty good in regards to telling me I wouldn’t want to watch it.  Yep, those are the films.  I guess I view her as the British Meryl Streep, she does films that just don’t either appeal to me or cross over into my sphere, so I never even hear of them.

Wilkinson does Rush Hour and Shakespeare in Love in 1998.  Ride with the Devil, a fun western film with Tobey Maguire and Jewel (why she doesn’t act more, is beyond me) by Ang Lee.  I should watch Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, I like that cast, I just never got around to it.  Then he’s in Batman Begins.

Everett wins all of our hearts with My Best Friend’s Wedding, so now I’m going to have “Say a Little Prayer For You” stuck in my head for the rest of the day.  Sometimes these deep dives have consequences.  He commits career suicide with Inspector Gadget.  I attempted A Midsummer Night’s Dream and has started doing voice work which makes sense, he has a good voice.  So yeah, Inspector Gadget buried him, which didn’t necessarily happened to Matthew Broderick.  Hey, Michelle Trachtenberg was Penny in that film, she escaped it.  Though Broderick has paid his dues and his kids needed to go to college so he shouldn’t be punished for doing a money film.

Thanks to Musicloverslove for hosting that video, oh and you are welcome.

I chose Affleck over Matt Damon so I didn’t watch Talented Mr. Ripley.  I like to pick sides.

2000 is the year I start really liking her.  She is in Bounce with Affleck and she steals my heart in Duets.  Well, that entire movie steals my heart.  Duets and Mumford, are two films that I’ve probably seen the most.

Her father, Bruce Paltrow, directed Duets.

She’s in The Anniversary Party which is really Alan Cummings and Jennifer Jason Leigh’s film as they produced, directed, wrote, and star in it.  There is a slew of actors in the film so it is pretty great if you like to play the Kevin Bacon Separation game.

If you are curious, her Bacon Number is 2, she’s in Mortdecai with Johnny Depp and he’s in Black Mass with Kevin Bacon.  Two films I have yet to see.  I didn’t even know Bacon was in Black Mass.

I saw Shallow Hal, and that might be the film that soured me on Jack Black.  He wasn’t the guaranteed good time after that film.  It also isn’t very good.

I definitely don’t see every Wes Anderson film (not sure why not) so I have yet to watch Royal Tenenbaums.  I like the casts of his films, so I’m not sure why I don’t seek them out more.  I want to see Bottle Rocket as I’m a huge Luke Wilson fan.  I saw Rushmore and didn’t get the big deal about it.  I seemed to be the only one in my circle who liked Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, well me and my friend, Jay.  I didn’t care for Fantastic Mr. Fox, we rented it and it was the third movie of the weekend so maybe I was just burned out.  I wanted to watch Moonrise Kingdom.

She has a cameo in Austin Powers in Goldmember, but I don’t recall her at all.

So I start losing track of her around 2002.  I thought about watching Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, though I’ve never been a big fan of Jude Law or Angelina Jolie.  I was under the impression I wasn’t a big Paltrow fan too, so triple whammy but it looks like I’ve enjoyed the bulk of her films, thus far.

I had no interest in View from the Top.

I hadn’t heard of Possession but it has Aaron Eckhart so I should at least see if it is available.

I type all of that but I’m not watching any movie any time soon.

I keep having this memory of a commentary track where she makes a joke about who Brad Pitt was dating and she said she doesn’t know but she knows she was 1994 to 1997, and she said the dates real fast.  It was pretty funny.  Maybe it was an interview as I just Googled “Gwyneth Paltrow commentary track” and didn’t get any hits on the first three pages.

I haven’t heard of Sylvia and it doesn’t sound like a film I would be into.

I skipped three films of her earlier work.  Hard Eight, I haven’t heard of.  It has John C. Reilly and Samuel L. Jackson in it.  I haven’t heard of Hush.  She was in a remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s Dial M for Murder, A Perfect Murder.  That film has Michael Douglas and Viggo Mortensen so no rush to see that one either.

I hadn’t heard of Proof but it has Anthony Hopkins, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Hope Davis in it.  I’ll watch any film with Hope Davis!  I just haven’t seen enough of her films.  Such an amazing actress.

She was in Infamous, the other Capote film of 2006.  Toby Jones is Capote and the film has Hope Davis, these two would appear in Wayward Pines a decade later.  Sandra Bullock and Daniel Craig are in it along with Jeff Daniels and Sigourney Weaver.  I’ll add it to the list.

Running with Scissors is a film I wanted to watch as the story sounded very interesting.  She reteams with Joseph Fiennes from Shakespeare in Love.  Brian Cox and Alec Baldwin are in it.  So is Patrick Wilson, and there was a time I was watching all of his films, then he exploded on the scene and now it is hard to keep up.  Gabrielle Union is in it and I like her, though I don’t see nearly enough of her films.  Kirstin Chenoweth I can take or leave.

Her brother wrote and directed The Good Night, which I also hadn’t heard of.  Good cast though with Martin Freeman, Danny DeVito and Simon Pegg.  Penelope Cruz is in it as well but I don’t have any real connection with her.

2008 gives us Paltrow as Pepper Potts in Iron Man.  There is that great quote, that I can’t find right now, about Robert Downey Jr. convincing her to be in Iron Man so that she can be in movies people actually want to watch.  I’m sure if I can find the proper quote, I could search for it easier. I found a slew of quotes about him saying Paltrow and Jon Favreau will be in Avengers 4.

She was in Two Lovers with Joaquin Phoenix and Elias Koteas, in what I can only imagine in a small role.  Though from the Wikipedia page, it looks like he’s pretty involved in the final act.  I should seek this out too, though Joaquin doesn’t do much for me since Quills.

Iron Man 2, she’s also good in.

I was tempted to see Country Strong, her third film where she sings in after Duets and Infamous.  Tim McGraw with no hat on.  Tobey Maguire co-produced the film as his daughter’s nanny wrote and directed the film.  Trivia!

I recall the advertising for Contagion, a film my mother would love, I’m sure, as she’s a real nut for disaster films.  The film has a stellar cast – Marion Cotillard, who I have to see more films of hers, Matt Damon, Laurence Fishburne, Jude Law, Kate Winslet, Elliot Gould, Bryan Cranston, and Demetri Martin!  What?!  This reminds me that I wanted to watch Taking Woodstock, which was directed by Ang Lee, that guy is pretty well rounded.

I haven’t heard of Thanks for Sharing, but it has Pink in it so my wife will be interested in that.  The film also stars Mark Ruffalo, Tim Robbins, and Josh Gad.  I guess Paltrow has started making smaller films or I’m even more out of touch with films than I thought I was.

She was great, of course, in The Avengers and Iron Man 3.

At least she had more to do in Iron Man 3.

Mortdecai seemed like a joke of a film and then it got lousy reviews but what else was it going to be?  A sleeper hit?  It does feature Ewan McGregor and Olivia Munn, two people I enjoy watching.  Paul Bettany and Jeff Goldblum too.

Her appearing in Spider-Man Homecoming was a very nice surprised.  I’m glad she came back to the franchise.  Hopefully she’s here to stay or at least, gets a nice payday for a few hours work.

According to Wikipedia, she is slated to be in Infinity War and Avengers 4(Ever? Maybe?)  That seems to be the popular theory.  Time Travel or Fantastic Four related, which would be spectacular!

. . .

Television wise, she’s hosting Saturday Night Live once with Ceeloo Green for Season 36 Episode 12.  My Nintendos!  Apparently she has been on four other episodes, probably friends of those hosts.

She did a voice on the Clerks Animated Series, which seems familiar.

She was on five episodes of Glee, as Holly Holliday, which I think I saw one of those episodes.  I really had to stop with that show once Rachel and Kurt kept flying (or driving?) back from New York to Ohio and I looked it up and there is no way college students can afford that trip as often as they did it.  It is ten hours one way, so they will show up in Ohio for two scenes, be back in New York by night time, during the same day.  It was beyond belief!  Plus, screw those two coming back and not leaving the show.  Argh!  I’m over it.

For those interested, Season 2, Episodes 7 (The Substitute), 15 (Sexy), & 17 (A Night of Neglect), and Season Five, Episodes 12 (100) & 13 (New Directions).

She’s friends with Ryan Murphy and he thought she should showcase her singing prior to Country Strong coming out.

Thanks to vinsanity70 for hosting the entire episode!

She was on The Marriage Ref, a show my wife and I really enjoyed.  She was on the episode with Jerry Seinfeld and Greg Giraldo.  Tom Papa was great as the host too.  Season Two wasn’t as good though.

Thanks to George R. Whitaker for hosting the entire episode of this series!

Her episode of Who Do You Think You Are? was nice too.

. . .

She has won so many awards and nominated for even more that she has her own Awards Wikipedia page!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_awards_and_nominations_received_by_Gwyneth_Paltrow

Thanks to the Oscars for hosting their own video!  Not bad getting the award from Jack Nicholson.

So she’s an Best Actress Oscar winner for Shakespeare in Love, for her role as Viola De Lesseps, which I don’t think usually precedes her name, for whatever reason.  It isn’t like there is a time limit on how long one can use that.  It isn’t also like her career took a twist like poor Cuba Gooding Jr. either.  She also won a Golden Globe for that role.   She was nominated for her role in Proof for another Golden Globe.

For the Oscar, she beat out Cate Blanchett in Elizabeth, Fernanda Montenegro for Central Station, Maryl Streep for One True Thing, and Emily Watson in Hilary and Jackie.  Count Blanchett as another actress I’m not drawn towards. Those are four films I also never heard of.  I know Watson from Equilibrium and I’m probably one of a handful of people who kept getting Emily Watson and Emma Watson confused, always thinking Emily was doing very well for herself, getting all types of roles and attention but it was Emma.

Shakespeare in Love won the most awards at the 71st Academy Awards with seven.  Tough competition against Saving Private Ryan.  1998 was a good year for films.  Shakespeare in Love won Best Picture, Steven Spielberg won Best Director for Saving Private Ryan, Judi Dench won Best Supporting Actress, Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard won for Best Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen, Stephen Warbeck won Best Original Musical or Comedy Score.  Gary Rydstrom, Gary Summers, Andy Nelson and Ron Judkins won Best Sound for Saving Private Ryan.  Martin Childs won Best Art Direction and Jill Quertier won Best Set Decoration for Shakespeare in Love.  Janusz Kaminski won Best Cinematography for Saving Private Ryan.  Sandy Powell won Best Costume Design for Shakespeare in Love.  Lastly, Michael Kahn won Best Film Editing for Saving Private Ryan.  Poor Joseph Fiennes wasn’t even nominated for Best Actor and Geoffrey Rush was at least nominated for Best Supporting Actor.

Montenegro is a Brazilian actress, who I’ve ever only seen in Love in the Time of Cholera.

Thanks to AwardsShowNetwork for hosting this video.  Getting the award from Tim Robbins isn’t too bad.  He was in Howard the Duck and Antitrust!  Two fun guilty pleasure films.  Of course, with Shawshank Redemption and Bull Durham, one can afford to have a little fun later in his career.  And earlier, he’s in the pilot episode of Moonlighting too!

Tad awkward with the thanks to the Weinsteins, but that’ll be true for an entire decade of awards though.

The Golden Globe win is a tad more impressive as it is in Musical or Comedy and I’ve seen more of those films.  She beat out Cameron Diaz from There’s Something About Mary, Jane Horrocks in Little Voice, Christina Ricci in The Opposite of Sex and Meg Ryan in You’ve Got Mail.  I’ve attempted Opposite of Sex and it didn’t grab me.  I passed on You’ve Got Mail as I barely watched Sleepless in Seattle.  I’ve never even heard of Little Voice nor Jane Horrocks until right now.  She was in The Witches and Memphis Belle, so I’ve seen two of her films.

Shakespeare in Love also won Best Film – Musical or Comedy.  I can’t believe Patch Adams was nominated, I hate that movie so much!  Bulworth, Mask of Zorro and There’s Something About Mary are pretty great.  People don’t seem to talk about Bulworth enough, except for how it introduced people to Halle Berry.  A British film, Still Crazy, was also nominated.

It also won the Golden Globe for Best Screenplay over Bulworth, Happiness, Saving Private Ryan and The Truman Show.  Storywise, Truman Show got robbed!  At least Truman Show earned Jim Carrey Best Actor – Drama, it won Best Music, Original Score by Burkhard Dallwitz and Philip Glass.  Ed Harris won Best Supporting Actor.

Michael Caine won Best Actor – Musical or Comedy for his role in Little Voice, maybe I should try to watch that movie.

Paltrow lost her second chance at a Golden Globe in 2006 to Felicity Huffman in Transamerica.  That year, Maria Bello was nominated for A History of Violence, Charlize Theron for North Country and Ziyi Zhang for Memoris of a Geisha.  I have only seen A History of Violence out of those five and Bello should have won as she’s amazing in that film.  Funny enough, Dench would love to Reese Witherspoon so both Paltrow and Dench were nominated the same years twice, and both won their awards and lost awards together eight years later.  Dench was in Mrs. Henderson Presents and Witherspoon was in Walk the Line, two more films I haven’t seen.  I’ll be tempted by Walk the Line.

I didn’t know John Williams did the score for Memoirs of a Geisha, he won Best Original Score.  Walk the Line won several awards that year as did Brokeback Mountain.  2006 was also the year I started dating my wife as I watched Capote and Brokeback Mountain with her, on the same day so that we could enjoy the Oscars later that day.

George Clooney won Supporting Actor for his role in Syriana, the first Batman to win a major award.  Christian Bale would eventually win an Oscar for The Fighter, so Clooney isn’t alone anymore.

Thanks to rp58641 for hosting this video.  Allison Brie looks amazing, as always!

In 2011, she won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series for Glee.  Apparently Wikipedia keeps these awards under the Creative Arts Emmy Awards and not the Primetime Emmy Award, took me some doing to locate her win at the 63rd Emmys.  She was officially nominated for the Substitute episode of Glee.  She beat out Elizabeth Banks from 30 Rock, Kristin Chenoweth, also on Glee, Tina Fey from various characters on SNL (lame?), Dot-Marie Jone also from Glee and Cloris Leachman from Raising Hope.  There was a time when Glee was pretty beloved.

For her Oustanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role at the 5th Screen Actors Guide Awards, she beat out the same group from the Oscars – which makes sense – but instead of Montenegro, they swapped in her Golden Globe competitor, Jane Horrocks.

Sort of cool to be fifth person to win an award.  Jodie Foster won the first one for Nell – a film I still think about from time to time when Liam Neeson and Natasha Richardson have to figure out exactly why Nell talks the way she does.  After that, it just makes sense and they can start communicating with her.  Jeremy Davis is in that film too.

Susan Sarandon won for Dead Man Walking, I’m not a huge fan of Sean Penn’s so I didn’t watch it.  Frances McDormand won for Fargo, a film I tried to watch when I was younger but couldn’t get into it.  Helena Hunt won for As Good as It Gets.

Paltrow also won for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture, which is an award that I like.  I hate to be in a film that wins that award but not counted towards the cast of the film.  That’ll be awkward!  Her co-winners were – Ben Affleck, Simon Callow, Jim Carter, Martin Clunes, Judi Dench, Joseph Fiennes, Daniel Brocklebank, Colin Firth, Paltrow (of course), Geoffrey Rush, Antony Sher and Imelda Staunton.

That award wasn’t given out at the first ceremony.  So Apollo 13’s cast won the first one at the second ceremony, next The Birdcage, then The Full Monty and Shakespeare in Love.  I should watch Full Monty again as that cast has gone on to do more work.  I still don’t have much interest in Birdcage.

In 2013, she was nominated for Best Actress in an Action Movie for the Critics’ Choice Movie Awards for her work in Iron Man 3, losing out to Sandra Bullock in Gravity, which is Gravity even considered an action movie?  I guess if you are a film critic.  Jennifer Lawrence one the very first one for the first Hunger Games, the year prior.  Bullock beat out Jennifer Lawrence (Catching Fire) and Evangeline Lilly for Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug.  Did Lilly do much in the second Hobbit film?  I barely remember her in it but that was a long film.

MTV Movie Awards

She won 1998 MTV Movie Awards for Best Kiss with Joseph Fiennes from Shakespeare in Love.  Back when I used to swear only by the MTV Movie Awards, they nominated the films I actually watched.  Then I just stopped watching movies, a kid will do that you during the very few years.  She lost to Cameron Diaz for There’s Something About Mary in the Best Female Performance.  Diaz also beat out Jennifer Love Hewitt in Can’t Hardly Wait, a much better film than those two movies.  Jennifer Lopez was nominated for Out of Sight, which I couldn’t get more than 30 minutes in a few years ago when I attempted the film.  They were on a highway and life happened and I haven’t gone back.  Liv Tyler was also nominated for Armageddon.  Fiennes was nominated for Breakthrough Male but lost to James Van Der Beek for Varsity Blues.  Which I can’t blame MTV for making that choice.  Shakespeare in Love lost Best Picture to There’s Something About Mary.

Paltrow and Fiennes beat out Neve Campbell, Matt Dillon and Denise Richards in Wild Things, which is pretty amazing.  George Clooney and Jennifer Lope in Out of Sight.  Cameron Diaz and Ben Stiller in There’s Something About Mary, which is surprising as that film sort of swept the awards that night.  I’m surprised to be reminded that Jeremy Irons and Dominique Swain was nominated for Lolita, way to go MTV!  Seems very bold of a choice for a nomination.

At the 2001 MTV Movie Awards, she and Ben Affleck lost Best Kiss in Bounce to Julia Stiles and Sean Patrick Thomas’ kiss in Save the Last Dance.  I can’t blame MTV for that one.  Also nominated was Jon Abrahams and Anna Faris in Scary Movie, which I don’t recall a kiss in that film.  I mostly remember Tori Spelling (I almost wrote Donna Spelling, 90210 represent!) and the ghost bed scene from that film and the buckets of sperm for Anna Faris in the freezer scene.  David Cross in the wheelchair.  Was the first one the one where the guy puts his football gear on the girlfriend?  That was a funny gag too.

Tom Hanks and Helen Hunt’s kiss in Cast Away (at the end, maybe?) and Anthony Hopkins and Julianna Moore’s kiss in Hannibal were nominated as well.  I don’t recall either kiss.

That was Bounce’s only nomination.

Sean Patrick Thomas also won Breakthrough Male for Save the Last Dance.  I did like how the sequel to that film had a girl from the streets trying out for ballet, the only real move a sequel could do.

At the 2005 MTV Movie Awards, Paltrow and Jude Law lost their best kiss in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow to Rachel McAdams and The Gos’ kiss in The Notebook.  That one, I won’t even question, he built her a house!  Though Natalie Portman and Zach Braff’s kiss in the rain in Garden State is pretty up there but kissing in the year of the Notebook, why even bother.  Jennifer Garner and Natassia Malthe kissed in Elektra and I don’t recall that at all.  Must have been in a middle of a fight, probably in the woods.  That movie isn’t very good.  Elisha Cuthbert and Emile Hirsch rounded out the kissing in The Girl Next Door.

Teen Choice Awards

In 1998, she was nominated for Choice Actress – Film and Sexiest Love Scene for the Teen Choice Awards.  That second one seems odd for a category for the Teen Choice Awards.  Looking at the nominations, I should be watching these awards as they also seem to be nominating the films I watched.

Freddie Prinze Jr. won Choice Movie : Actor, for She’s All That, beating out Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Ryan Phillipe, Giovanni Ribisi, Adam Sandler, Will Smith AND Ben Stiller!  That’s my boy!

Jennifer Love Hewitt won Choice Movie : Actress for I Still Know What You Did Last Summer.  1998 was the first year for the award show.  So even more impressive for these two actors to win the very first awards.  She beat out Drew Barrymore, Claire Danes, Cameron Diaz, Kirsten Dunst, Paltrow, Christina Ricci, and Reese Witherspoon.

Sarah Michelle Gellar won Choice Movie : Villain for Cruel Intentions.  James Van Der Beek won Choice Movie : Breakout Star for Varsity Blues.  Cruel Intentions won Choice Movie : Drama and There’s Something About Mary beat Shakespeare in Love for Choice Movie : Comedy.  City of Angels won Best Soundtrack.

Rachael Leigh Cook and Freddie Prinze Jr.’s love scene in She’s All That won Love Scene – which I don’t even remember a love scene in that film, I guess it means falling in love and not sex scene?  Probably as Drew Barrymore and Michael Vartan were nominated for Never Been Kiss.  Sex scene for Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman.  Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts in Notting Ill.  Elizabeth Hurley and Matthew McConaughey in EDtv.  Love scene for Heath Ledger and Julia Stiles in 10 Things I Hate About You.  Sex scene for Ryan Phillippe and Reese Witherspoon in Cruel Intentions.

Sarah Michelle Gellar also won TV Actress for Buffy.

FPJr won Hottie Male and Hewitt won Hottie Female.

Stone Cold Steve Austin won Professional Wrestler over Kurt Angle, Goldberg, Hulk Hogan, Kevin Nash, THe Rock, Sable and The Undertaker.

In 2001, Sarah Michelle Gellar won Best Actress : Comedy for Daphne Blake in Scooby Doo.  FPJr was nominated for Fred Jones but lost to Chris Tucker in Rush Hour 2.  Gellar beat out Paltrow from Shallow Hal, which makes sense.  She also beat out Selma Blair and Cameron Diaz in The Sweet Thing (canceling each other out?), Anne Hathaway in Princess Diaires, Christina Ricci in Pumpkin (a decent film), Winona Ryder in Mr. Deeds and Reese Witherspoon in The Importance of Being Earnest.

Instead of Love Scene, they broke it up (maybe?) and went with Movie : Chemistry and Movie : Liplock.  The Spider-Man kiss won Liplock (and Movie: Action/Drama and Actor  : Action/Drama for Tobey Maguire).  Mandy Moore and Shane West won Movie : Chemistry for A Walk to Remember.

Somehow Mr. Deeds won Movie : Summer.

Gellar kept her reign of Best TV Actress Action/Drama for Buffy.  Tom Welling won Breakout TV Star Male for Smallville.  Alyson Hannigan won TV Sidekick for Willow on Buffy.

In 2008, Rachel Bilson won Movie : Action Actress for Jumper.  Paltrow lost, as Pepper Potts doesn’t do anything actiony in the first Iron Man film.  Abigail Breslin in Nim’s Island, Diane Kruger in National Treasure : Book of Secrets, and Christina Ricci in Speed Racer were all nominated.  I haven’t seen Speed Racer but I don’t recall Ricci being in that film.

In 2010, Zoe Saldana won Movie Actress : Sci-Fi for Avatar.  Paltrow was nominated for Iron Man 2, probably lost due to Iron Man 2 not being Sci-Fi.  Scarlett Johansson was also nominated for Iron Man 2.  Rachel McAdams was nominated for Time Traveler’s Wife, a film I still want to see and Amanda Peet was nominated for 2012.

In 2013, Anne Hathaway won Movie Actress : Action for being Catwoman in The Dark Knight Rises.  Paltrow was again nominated for Potts (three for three!) in Iron Man 3.  Jessica Biel in Total Recall, Adrianne Palicki for GI Joe : Retaliation and Rachel Weisz in The Bourne Legacy were also nominated.  Iron Man 3 did beat out Dark Knight Rises for Movie : Action, which is a bold choice.  Downey beat out Bale for Movie Actor : Action.  So Poor Paltrow probably thought she was a lock for her category.  Twilight Saga : Breaking Dawn Part 2 ends Twilight’s like five year reign over Teen Choice and MTV Movie awards, is probably when I stopped watching these things.

Paltrow lost the 1998 Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress to Cate Blanchett in Elizabeth.  New to the category that year was Holly Hunter in Living Out Loud and Ally Sheedy in High Art, two more films I haven’t seen or heard about.

She lost the 1998 Empire Award Best Actress to Cate Blanchett, but she was nominated for Sliding Doors, as it is a British award.  Peter Howitt did win Best British Director for Sliding Doors.  Sliding Doors lost to Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels for Best British Film.  Odd how they did Best Category and then Best British Category.  Like, one sort of trumps the other.  Here is the best overall actress, but if we are narrowing it down to only British people, then she is the clear winner.  Helen Hunt was also nominated for As Good as It Gets, Jennifer Lopez in Out of Sight and Pam Grier in Jackie Brown.  Awkwardly, her Award Wikipedia page states she won that award but the page for the 4th Empire Award states Blanchett won.

She won the 3rd Florida Film Critics Circle Award Best Actress for both Shakespeare in Love and Sliding Doors.  Ian McKellen won Best Actor for both Apt Pupil and Gods and Monsters.  Shakespeare in Love won Best Film and Best Screenplay for Norman and Stoppard.  Christina Ricci won Best Supporting Actress for Buffalo ’66, Opposite of Sex and Pecker.  So the FFCC really appreciates hard workers.

Impressively, Paltrow has only ever been nominated once for a Razzie, 2015’s Worst Actress for Mortdecai.  Dakota Johnson earned Worst Actress for Fifty Shades of Grey, sharing it with Jamie Dorman #NotMyChristian.  Those two also share Worst Screen Combo.  Josh Trank’s Fantastic Four took Worst Picture and Worst Director.  Shades also won Worst Screenplay, I didn’t hate that movie but it different wasn’t the sexy romp it advertised itself to be.  All four “Fantastics” were nominated for Combo.  Katherine Heigl in home Sweet Hell, Mila Kunis in Jupiter Ascending and Jennifer Lopez in Boy Next Door were also nominated for Worst Actress.  I saw the Honest Trailer for Jupiter Ascending and Boy Next Door wasn’t a horrible film.  Lopez still has it going on.  Grey won five of the six categories it was nominated in.  I misread it originally, Fantastic Four AND Fifty Shades of Grey won Worst Picture.  Ouch!  Sam Taylor-Johnson dodged the only bullet not winning director for Grey.

Paltrow lost the 1998 Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Actress to Cate Blanchett’s Elizabeth, so Blanchett may have thought she had a chance at the Oscar.  She was Paltrow’s main rival that year.  Emily Watson was also nominated for Hilary and Jackie.

People’s Choice Awards

I used to be a big fan of the People’s Choice Awards too until Twilight dominated the awards for half of a decade.

In 2013, for Iron Man 3, Paltrow lost both Favorite Actress and Duo.  Iron Man 3 did win Favorite Movie and Action Movie.  I do like how they use “Favorite” instead of “Best” as that is what it really is.  I also like how being nominated in one category doesn’t eliminate you from another.  That’s how Sandra Bullock won Favorite Movie Actress, Favorite Dramatic Movie Actress, and Favorite Comedic Movie Actress.  Paltrow was only nominated in Favorite Movie Actress, as was Jennifer Aniston, Scarlett Johansson and Melissa McCarthy.

Somehow Sandra Bullock & George Clooney won Favorite Movie Duo, though I’m pretty sure they are only together for like ten minutes.  Clearly people saw Bullock’s name and just checked her name whenever they saw it.  Paltrow and Robert Downey Jr. were nominated for Iron Man 3.  Jennifer Aniston & Jason Sudeikis for We’re the Millers.  Bullock beat out herself and McCarthy in The Heat, one would think there would be vote split action but I guess not.  Chris Pine & Zachary Quinto in Star Trek Into Darkness round out that category.

Shoot, Iron Man 3 won two of its three categories, only losing the one Paltrow was in.  That doesn’t seem right.

In something I find highly suspicious, at the 1998 San Diego Film Critics Society Awards, they awarded Paltrow a “Special Award” for both Sliding Doors and Shakespeare in Love.  I did a quick Google search and no one seems to have written about how silly that seems.  They gave Best Actress to Susan Sarandon for Stepmom, so who knows what is happening there.  Madden did win Best Director for Shakespeare in Love and Best Screenplay – Original went to Peter Howitt for Sliding Doors.  I wouldn’t mind learning more about that Special Award decision.  I like Sarandon in Stepmom but it seems so out of left field.

Satellite Awards

Satellite is one of those words I can never spell.

In 1996, Paltrow won the very first Best Actress – Musical or Comedy for Emma.  So funny to think about these awards that are relatively new.  She beat out Glenn Close in 101 Dalmatians, Shirley MacLaine in Mrs. Winterbourne, Heather Matarazzo in Welcome to the Dollhouse, and Bette Midler in First Wives Club.  Which seems super impressive for her first big role.  Matarazzo was in Scream 3, Princess diaries, Sorority Boys, Saved!, Princess Dairies 2: Royal Engagement.  She’s Hathaway’s friend in those movies.  So she must have been super young in Welcome to the Dollhouse, which I’ve heard of.

In 1998, she lost Best Actress – Musical or Comedy to Christina Ricci in Opposite of Sex.  Ricci was having a banner year that year too.  Horrocks, Hunter and Meg Ryan were You’ve Got Mail were all nominated.  Shakespeare in Love did win Best Film – Musical or Comedy.  But lost a slew of awards!  Truman Show’s Dennis Gassner won Best Art Direction, Thin Red Line’s John Toll won Best Cinematography, Elizabeth’s Alexandra Byrne won Best Costume Design, Thin Red Line’s Terrence Malick won Best Director, Saving Private Ryan’s Michael Kahn won Best Editing, Pleasantville’s Gary Ross won Best Screenplay – Original, and Bill Murray in Rushmore won Best Supporting Actor – Musical or Comedy over Geoffrey Rush.

In 2002, she lost Best Supporting Actress – Musical or Comedy for Royal Tenenbaums, to Maggie Smith in Gosford Park.  Which I still haven’t seen but that’s another good cast.  Anjelica Huston was also nominated from Royal Tenenbaums, so maybe there was some vote splitting.  BUT!  Helen Mirren and Emily Watson were both nominated for Gosford Park, so Smith must have been very good in it.  If I was a betting man, I would have thought all of the vote splitting would have worked in Miriam Shor’s favor for Heding and the Angry Inch.  I’m not familiar with her or the film.

In 2010, Country Strong’s title track lost Best Original Song to Burlesque’s You Haven’t Seen the Last of Me.  127 Hours’ If I Rise, Alice in Wonderland’s Alice, and two songs from Twilight Saga : Eclipse were also nominated, What Part of Forever and Eclipse.

Saturn Awards

The Saturn Awards is another award show I should follow but is it even aired on television?  I thought Spike had them for a time.

In 1995, she was nominated for Se7en for Best Supporting Actress, but lost to Bonnie Hunt in Jumanji.  I do like Bonnie Hunt.  Also nominated was Illeana Douglas in To Die For, Salma Hayek for Desperado, Jennifer Jason Leigh in Dolores Claiborne, and Juliette Lewis in From Dusk till Dawn.  Dolores Claiborne is the only film of that group that I haven’t heard of or watched.  Actually, I know of Desperado but I haven’t’ seen that one, now that I think about it.  It is an adaption of a Stephen King work and in 2013, Time Magazine named it in the top ten best adaptions of his.  Kathy Bates is in it too.  It came in seventh.

In 2008, Paltrow was nominated for Best Actress for Iron Man but lost to Angelina Jolie in Changeling.  Which are two different performances in vastly different films.  Cate Blanchett rears her head again in Curious Case of Benjamin Button.  Maggie Gyllenhaal in Dark Knight, Julianne Moore in Blindness, Emily Mortimer in Transsiberian were also nominated.  I should check out Transsiberian as I do enjoy Mortimer.  Woody Harrelson, Ben Kingsley and Kate Mara are in it.  I do like Kate Mara too!

. . .

So, just based off of Emma and Great Expectations, I have her as this fancy dancy actress in my mind and she clearly doesn’t deserve to be written off like that.  I’m glad I went down this deep dive with her career.  I have a few movies I need to check out.

For my own benefit, those films would be –

Pallbearer

Talented Mr. Ripley

Anniversary Party, as I don’t remember her being in it.

Royal Tenenbaums

Thanks to Rohan for hosting the video.

Austin Powers in Goldmember – scratch that, she’s in the parody Tom Cruise movie with Cruise as Powers and Paltrow as the girl.  Dixie Normous, get it?

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, maybe?

Proof

Running with Scissors

Contagion

Thanks for Sharing, is on Hulu right now

Country Strong

Two Lovers

That could be a decent couple weeks of films.  I’ll definitey seek out Pallbearer, Proof, and Contagion, if I have to narrow it down to three films.