Angelina Jolie

My Netflix queue finally pushed to the top a slate of Angelina Jolie films. By coincidence, it was just as the most genetically-gifted child in the history of the world was born. As a media fixture and hot babe, Jolie is certainly at the top of the heap. Push come to shove, I don't think there's any actress working today who has more sex appeal, and the crazy vibe she gives off in interviews certainly lends the impression that she is a tigress in the sack. But can she act?

I took a look at a handful of her films that I hadn't seen before, plus a pair that I hadn't seen a while. They are: Hackers, Foxfire, Gia, Original Sin, Life or Something Like It, Taking Lives and Alexander (Mr. and Mrs. Smith remains, but it appears to be popular with others, as it hasn't come yet).

What immediately strikes me after watching these films is that no matter how bad they are, Jolie is an intense presence. There's something about her, beyond her looks, that captures your attention. Hackers is a crummy little movie, and she is absurdly cast as a rebellious computer nerd, but you can see the kernel of a movie star. The same for Foxfire, which is a kind of lesbian fantasy about girl-bonding in high school. But the tour-de-force in her early career was Gia, as the supermodel turned heroin addict who eventually died of AIDS. Jolie deservedly won a Golden Globe for the part, playing the wild child with a balls-to-the-wall brio that announces she has arrived as an actress.

I have seen her Oscar-winning role in Girl, Interrupted a few times. I was very impressed, but in the larger picture her turn as Lisa seems like something she was settling into--the girl with a chip on her shoulder.

Jolie then became a mega-star, cashing in with two Tomb Raider films. She also took a stab at comedy with Life or Something Like It, and although she held her own, there was no chemistry with her co-star, Edward Burns. Her role as Alexander's witchy mother was also somewhat comic, given her Boris-and-Natasha accent.

I would like to see her in something that stretches her acting chops. Now that she's so rich she can hire the country of Namibia as a birthing center, perhaps she can be extremely selective about her roles, and look for something challenging. Since she studied with Lee Strasberg, I also wonder if she would be any good on the stage. Her diction is at times slurred (she has a habit of talking through her teeth). She'd make a great Cleopatra. But, if she goes for Tomb Raider 3, then I give up.