Angelina Jolie burst onto the scene with "Gia" in 1998, then the next "It" girl, where would she head? In the fall of 1999, she was in "The Bone Collector." From Netflix, Rookie cop Amelia Donaghy (Angelina Jolie) reluctantly teams with Lincoln Rhyme (Denzel Washington) -- formerly the department's top homicide detective but now paralyzed as a result of a spinal injury -- to catch a grisly serial killer dubbed The Bone Collector. The murderer's special signature is to leave tantalizing clues based on the grim remains of his crimes. This movie is unforgettable ten years ago after seeing it in theaters. All I remember is it trying to be as good as Fincher's "Seven" and how the killer just popped out at the end, like they just picked a name out of a hat. Luckily for all of us, this wasn't Jolie's only film in 1999. She had a small part in "Pushing Tin", a remarkable film because it makes air traffic controllers looks cool. She showed us what she could do in "Girl, Interrupted."
"Girl, Interrupted" starred pre-kleptomaniac charged Winona Ryder as Susanna Kaysen, a girl in the 60s who is sent to a mental institution because she didn't know what to do after high school and didn't want to turn out like her mother. It mentions she swallows a bottle of aprin with a bottle of vodka. So the girl has her issues, seems pretty tame to everything else we've heard about the era. In the institution she meets all kinds of new gal pals including the with the rebel yell, she cried more, more, more Lisa played by Angelina Jolie. Jolie takes her Gia character and splashes danger and psychotic psychedelics to this 60s film. The role garnered Jolie an Oscar. Ryder is good in it but for all intents and purposes, Jolie elevated this out of Lifetime M.O.W. status and made it something more. James Mangold directed the film which would be put him on a path of making quality films for years to come: "Identity", "Walk The Line", "3:10 to Yuma". For pure oversight and fairness, he also did "Kate and Leopold". It's an underrated film with some flaws but the role of Lisa is one of the best female written roles in the last ten years. After "Gia" and "Girl, Interrupted", Jolie went on to play video game vixens, "Tomb Raider", sexy drivers, "Gone in 60 Seconds", assassin wives, "Mr. and Mrs. Smith", grieving wives, "A Mighty Heart", secret society assassin, "Wanted". I'm afraid Angelina Jolie is playing the sexy fill in the blank way more than she should. Are the studios to blame for not focusing on good scripts for women or are they not just wanting to make them? Angelina Jolie could be much more than Cambodian adopting tabloid fodder. I wish her assistant, her agent, whoever is the Ari Gold and Eric Murphy to her Vincent Chase are able to find a role to keep her in the game when she can no longer play the sexy fill in the blank, though she could probably convince all of us as the sexy geriatric in the nursing home.
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