And she was the female lead in Men In Black, for God's sake! You'd think that would have been her "in" for larger studio leading lady roles, but she just vanished for no apparent reason. Shame.
AndyDursin wrote: Mon Dec 09, 2019 10:56 am She was a massive pain in the ass from what's been written over the years. Terrible attitude, hard to work with, etc. Allegedly Tommy Lee Jones wasn't going to come back on MEN IN BLACK II if she returned -- that was the rumor anyway. Kevin Smith later came out and said she was difficult on DOGMA and hated working with her. So stuff along those lines.
One of my biggest sequel cliché hates...when the hero hooks up with the female lead in the first (or is well on the way to doing so), and yet when the sequel rolls around, they give her an off-screen exit between films with a curt, throwaway explanation as to her absence (like Elisabeth Shue in The Karate Kid II). With Fiorentino in MIBII, I guess she was axed due to pressure from Jones, but I wonder if it doesn't happen most often just because the male lead considers it a "perk" to get cast opposite a new, sexy (and probably younger) actress in each new sequel (the "Bond Girl Rule", as it were). Karen Allen was originally supposed to return as Marion in a potential Raiders sequel, but we saw where that went (and it's noteworthy that Allison Doody was at least half Harrison Ford's age in Last Crusade, which made his chiding of Sean Connery for boffing her with the line, "It's shameful, Dad, you're old enough to be her, her grandfather!" awfully hypocritical).Had to have been bad, because MEN IN BLACK was structured specifically for her, setting her up to return as a lead in the sequel.
We're allowed to swear now...?AndyDursin wrote: Mon Dec 09, 2019 11:18 amAlso shows how phony this progressive-feminist bullshit is today with people making a big deal of the casting in MEN IN BLACK INTERNATIONAL -- they were all set to do it 20 years ago in that franchise!
You'd think that no women, EVER, had played strong action hero roles prior to Wonder Woman or the "all-girls" Ghostbusters reboot, considering how actresses like Brie Larson make absurd claims how they're "blazing trails" with something as mercenary and forgettable as Captain Marvel, or how Disney made it seem like Black Panther was the first superhero movie ever with African-American leads, completely ignoring a whole TRILOGY of Blade movies with Wesley Snipes. 
Yeah, I heard about that. Shame.
She had a pretty great run in the late 80s and early 90s, taking roles that could have been merely decorative sexpots or damsels in distress and giving them far more dramatic heft they would have had otherwise. Watched China Moon again tonight from my recent Kino binge, and while it's not a "great" film (it owes far too much to the superior Body Heat), Stowe is certainly a dame worth killing for in that. 
In 2016, Sobieski confirmed "I don't do movie stuff anymore." Commenting on the reasons for her early retirement to Us Weekly, Sobieski said, "I am just focused on my kids. I think that's mainly why I stopped ... Also, ninety percent of acting roles involve so much sexual stuff with other people, and I don't want to do that."
For all the pretensions of Eon productions, the "cancellation" of lecherous men (and prosecution of Harvey Weinstein) Hollywood is still a misogynistic boys club -- with few good roles for women, and where actresses are put out to pasture at age 30 (unless they want to platy "the mom" on a sitcom).AndyDursin wrote: Fri Sep 24, 2021 12:21 pm I liked her too, but she wanted to have kids and didn't want to work in that world anymore. I definitely respect that decision. Few people are able to stay in that universe and have a healthy family life, especially out in L.A.
Twenty years ago, Catherine Zeta Jones was a highly-prized "get" for any movie production, but now that she's in her fifties, Hollywood's basically done with her. 
She still looks fab even now, so I miss seeing her in movies.