'Julie Christie Is Lantern-Jawed' and 12 Other Scathing Reviews of Screen Legends By a UK Film Critic

How could you possibly criticize Julie Christie, the Doctor Zhivago beauty, Oscar winner and screen legend whose career has spanned five illustrious decades? Let British film critic David Thomson show you: "She is, sadly, obvious in her efforts, lacking in either gaiety or insight and, most serious of all, gawky, self-conscious and lantern-jawed." Tell us how you really feel! Oh, wait; you did.

Thomson, a New York Times contributor, also slags everyone from Meryl Streep to Matt Damon in his new edition of the Biographical Dictionary of Film a.k.a. an entertainingly bitter Hollywood Burn Book. The most entertaining slams -- and one backhanded compliment to an Oscar winner -- below.

HUGH GRANT: With his drooping chin and pouty lips, his quaff of hair and dithery manner, Hugh Grant seems like a refugee from Thirties theatre -- or an incipient sneeze looking for a vacant nose.

BILL NIGHY: Somewhere between a scarecrow and a faded aristocrat.

MERYL STREEP: She has problems now with seeming natural.

JAMIE LEE CURTIS: She works steadily, usually in ­family comedies or the obligatory horror films (which also fit her increasingly haunted look -- or is that just keeping in such tip-top condition for so long?).

TOM CRUISE: There are those who view Tom Cruise as the representative of all that is immature in American cinema today -- the cockiness, the grin, the huge box-office ­success and the sudden falls from grace. In that spirit, Cruise is the worst of the spoilt brats of Hollywood -- because he has been the most successful.

HUGH JACKMAN: He is hot (I suppose). Now, he just needs to be interesting.

BEN AFFLECK: On one hand I have always had a soft spot for Affleck. But my other view is that he is boring, ­complacent and criminally lucky to have got away with everything so far.

HILARY SWANK: In nearly everything she has done, she has been pretty, dull,

ordinary and incapable of lifting the film clear of a sanctimonious mud.

GWYNETH PALTROW: Awarding her an Oscar for her performance in Shakespeare In Love was too generous.

LEONARDO DiCAPRIO: Now that he is past 35 and beginning to look a touch puffy, there are those ready to dismiss DiCaprio. We'll see how much creative stamina he possesses, but I fear that kind of fey magic he once had has slipped from his face.

DREW BARRYMORE: I can't help finding it shocking, as well as startling, that Drew Barrymore was born so recently (in 1975), and yet seems to have been here, and a problem, for so long.

MATT DAMON: What's most interesting about Damon is the very lack of good looks -- and the feeling of a squashed and rebuilt face.

It wasn't all bad. Thomson did reserve at least one compliment for Rachel Weisz.

RACHEL WEISZ: Yes, she's Jewish and unwilling to do anything to mask it - including putting a damper on her vigorous intellect.

Uh, thanks?

· Tinsel Town egos stripped bare: One brave film critic exposes the unvarnished truth of the Hollywood stars [Daily Mail]