Amy 'Arrives' This Friday
Monday, November 7, 2016 at 9:56PM 
Just a few days until Arrival opens. It's one of the year's best movies and a mainstream sci-fi grandiosity that deserves success so do not miss it. I watched it with anxious wonder, something like the expression Amy aces at peak moments within the film.
Psycho Beach Party (2000)Up next for the 42 year old Oscar-Darling: the miniseries Sharp Objects (quick name an Oscar-bait actresses who isn't doing a miniseries in 2017 -- they're everywhere!) and two reprisal roles with Lois Lane again (sigh) in Justice League and Giselle again (yay) in Disenchanted.
Do you remember the first time you ever saw Amy Adams onscreen? For me it was either flirty bitchy "Marvel Ann" in Psycho Beach Party (2000) or "Cousin Beth" on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But I first really paid attention and noted her name in Catch Me If You Can (2002).
Reader Comments (39)
Her first nomination made me notice her because that's what happens when someone is nominated.
Probably Catch Me If You Can. What a sweet, wonderful presence she had in that. Love her chemistry with Leo in it so much.
Junebug, which she was incredible in.
Drop Dead Gorgeous!!
Put your knees together; I could drive a boat show through there.
It was Junebug by Phil Morrison that made me sit up and ask who this incandescent actress was. I saw her in most films she appeared in since. But she was still the best in Junebug despite her many other subsequent nominations.
My first encounter with Amy Adams was in that awful straight-to-DVD prequel to Cruel Intentions. It's an awful film but Amy was the only thing in that film that was worth watching. Let's not forget her debut in Drop Dead Gorgeous where she was just adorable in that film. Man, she came a long way.
Nathaniel, can Adams snag one of the two remaining slots in Best Actress? It seems like a toss up between Negga , Streep, Huppert, Chastain, and Adams for the fourth and fifth spots. So competitive. It reminds me of two years ago when Jake Gyllenhaal and Tom Hanks missed nominations due to brutal competition.
Never has an actor proved so disappointing to me after such a strong breakthrough. I liked her in 'Her' and 'American Hustle,' but otherwise she's just so basic.
I grew up right near the Chanhassen Dinner Theater in Minnesota where Amy did work in the mid-late 90's, and I vividly remember her. She got Drop Dead Gorgeous not long after, and I've been rooting for her ever since. Bring on nomination #6!
Definitely Drop Dead Gorgeous. Go Muskies! Woo!
(Though I first obsessed over her in Junebug. Her line, "You were not" is maybe my favorite line reading ever.)
Do you remember the first time you ever saw Amy Adams onscreen?
If I had to pin down an exact date, I'd say November 27, 2001. She guest starred in the 7th episode of SMALLVILLE, her first exposure to the Superman canon. She played an overweight teen who got skinny thanks to a Kryptonite-enhanced diet, which in turn gave her an insatiable appetite. And then things got weird.
Junebug, in which she made me bawl my eyes out. She should've won the Oscar that year.
Junebug, in which she made me bawl my eyes out. She should've won the Oscar that year!
I think it is actually Enchanted. But I also remember her vividly in Catch Me If You Can. How weird it is for her to finally get recognition in Junebug YEARS after starring in a Spielberg movie. Love you Amy. Get that Oscar girl!
Obviously Junebug and since then she has become a reliable sign of quality,the only thing about her is name recognition around the world,she needs a signature role for which she will be remembered by the public like Titanic or Shakepeare in Love etc.
I know there are bloggers out there who like to bring her down as undeserving when one of their faves are kept out of a category by her but I think personally she has been deserving in all her nominatons.
She is also proof that actresses in their 40's can still do great work with mainstream directros in mainstream films,I can't recall anything she was downright awful in.
DROP DEAD GORGEOUS was my first time.
I know it's not "cool" to love her as much as I do, but whatever she's a great talent. THE FIGHTER's "I love my life" moment is her at her peak powers in my estimation, simple honest and layered.
It was Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day which made me go "oh she's great, that's the girl from Drop Dead Gorgoeous". I didn't come to Junebug until later, I think the oscar nom somehow didn't stick in my mind. She floored me in Junebug though.
I first saw her on Smallville. I loved Drop Dead Gorgeous, but only realized that she was in it after having seen Catch Me If You Can and Junebug. Fell for her big-time in Enchanted, because I wouldn't have believed I would actually suspend disbelief for anybody as an animated Disney princess confronting the real world. These early roles proved that she was not only adorable, but a fine actress too.
Watched pretty much everything with her thereafter - Miss Pettigrew, Sunshine Cleaning, Charlie Wilson's War, her Amelia Earhart (and impossibly tight pants!) in Night at the Museum, Doubt, The Master, American Hustle, etc. I was over the moon when she was cast as Lois Lane, I figured she'd be the best Lois EVER... but those awful films haven't used her well.
She's right at the top of my list of current lead-role actresses who I'll watch in ANYTHING.
Like Brevity, my first encounter with Amy Adams was on Smallville. Now and forevermore she will be the former fat kid with an insatiable appetite.
I did see Drop Dead Gorgeous and Psycho Beach party and Catch Me If you Can - and although I remembered each of those performances vividly enough, I never connected them with the same actress until my brain went on a dopamine overdose properly discovering her in Junebug. It's still my greatest moment of 'who-is-THAT?!' in all my moviegoing.
I caught Nocturnal Animals last week, and oh my god, you were not kidding. That film is a hollow (misogynist?) mess. And - though she's fine - it's easily Adams's dullest performance - so I did not get the Amy-hit I was craving.
Therefore I will be lining up for Arrival when it opens here on Friday.
I also like the fact that to get an Oscar she hasn't deglammed or played a hugely famous real life person,Big Eyes doesn't count.
I think she us a fine actress, sometimes an excellent actress (when directed by David O. Russell), but it's a waste she is not a musical star.
She should go to Broadway like CZJ after Chicago and then come back for a big musical career, like Anna Kendrick.
I first remember seeing her in that Cruel Intentions sequel, but as with most filmgoers, she won me over with her breakthrough performance in Junebug. I would have been happy to see her walk away with Oscars for that and her wonderful work in The Fighter, but everything else that I've seen in her filmography has been no more than an "eh" for me.
I think she is a fine actress, sometimes an excellent actress (when directed by David O. Russell)
Her work becomes more artificial under his direction. And her performance in American Hustle is atonal to everyone else in the cast.
She gave a career-making performance in JUNEBUG, but THE FIGHTER stands above the rest for the level of surprise it gave for someone we just thought we had under our thumb. She should have won for her career-best work there, but Melissa Leo was also giving us the absolute best she was ever going to have. Would have loved to see them share the award that night.
I don't think her rawness in The Fighter is artificial. She is indeed artificial in American Hustle, like everybody else, and there is nothing wrong with that. The movie is supposed to have this heightened quality.
I like her quite a bit. I think she's very talented and gets undue criticism because she doesn't quite have the status a 5-times nominee should have. (Not when you remember that Nicole Kidman has only 3 nominations). I blame Doubt and The Master. Two performances I enjoyed greatly but that I will admit did not deserve Oscar recognition. There simply wasn't enough there. I first remember her from Drop Dead Gorgeous and fell in love with her in Junebug. I think her career best was American Hustle but she was going against Blanchett's Jasmine and there was really no way..
I like her quite a bit. I think due to her popularity she is miscast a lot--Doubt, The Master, Man of Steel--but she really can surprise me, as in American Hustle, in which she was very resourceful and elevating the material in a film that I otherwise loathed. I first saw her in Catch Me If You Can, and I never forgot the impression she made. She has an energy on screen very few currently have. I am very excited to see Arrival. Which incidentally is the title of the ABBA album that featured Dancing Queen and shot them to superstardom.
I'll never understand the shade she gets on here for her Master performance. Her performance was way better than Hathaway's amateurish and OTT Les Mis performance. Maybe it's because Amy wasn't OMG!Acting like Anne was..
First saw her in Junebug and loved her in it... since then have seen most of her work and find she is a very good solid actress... it may not be "cool" to like her ? but so be it...
Everyone on this blog drools over Kidman... who I think most of the time is a lackluster actress...
I think the first time I probably saw her was Drop Dead Gorgeous but the first time I really noticed her was Junebug. And that performance is still *heart eyes emoji*
Tess, I love Amy, but she just don't got it in The Master. Every time her character is called upon to be vicious and cruel, she looks like she's about to burst into tears.
Her casting in The Master dates the movie. Waiting for her to Zelleweger fizzle out.
brookesboy - Disagree so hard. She startled me in the "We have to attack" scene. Very frightening and powerful stuff from Adams.
LOL /3rtful you wish she was another Zellweger. She's here to stay baby.
@tess. You do not mess with ,,,3rtful. He is serious. Vb
Tess, that's why we're here--to disagree politely. If we all agreed, the world would be pretty damn boring. Have an awesome day.
"Everyone on this blog drools over Kidman... who I think most of the time is a lackluster actress..."
Oh my god thank you!
I hate pitching these disussions in terms of one actress against another. But seriously. How does one refer to Adams as bland or uneven or dull or overrewarded, then turn around and gush starry-eyed at Grace of Monaco herself? The mind. It boggles.
First remember her from Junebug, post nomination. I somehow never saw CMIYC until several years aftere release, and she was perfect. In general, love her, especially in The Fighter and American Hustle (so much going on in that performance and I love it all).
I saw Drop Dead Gorgeous in the theater! "If you could be a tree, what kind would you be?" "Green?"