Thomson, a writer and film historian, has himself been praised as "a critical minimalist [who] often nails the essence of a personality or career in less than a dozen words" by Publishers' Weekly. And EW declares the book "deserves a home on whatever flat surface is available between you and your DVD player."

Why all the fuss? Here's a sampling of Thomson's bitter bon mots to chew on:

JULIA ROBERTS: She played the kind of adorable whore whom a respectable man could take to the opera and put through college; she was an Audrey Hepburn who'd give head.

KEIRA KNIGHTLEY: She is ­astonishingly beautiful. But Keira is about as interesting as a creme brulée where too much refrigeration has killed flavour with ice burn. She is still more credible as a faintly animated photographer’s model than as an actress.

“

What’s most interesting about Damon is the very lack of good looks — and the feeling of a squashed and rebuilt face.

”

ANGELINA JOLIE: No one writing about Angelina’s arrival on screen in the late Nineties could mask sheer wonder at the carnal embouchure that is her mouth. It could blind anyone.

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.

RICHARD GERE: He has been in enough bad films to make one think his career was drawing to a close - he is generally more interesting when doing less.

CATE BLANCHETT: Something is not quite clicking. She was prone and unconscious for most of Babel; implausible in Notes On A Scandal; again in Elizabeth: The Golden Age; unbelievable and undesirable in The Curious Case Of ­Benjamin Button. Enough?

MERYL STREEP: She has problems now with seeming natural.

DEMI MOORE: She has no dramatic sense. At present, it is not quite clear if she is active, resting, or just out of it.

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.


BRAD PITT: Hardly anything he touches now is less than ‘precious’ and ‘awesome’ — it can’t be long before he begins to look very tired. (Ed. note -- this has happened!)

JENNIFER ANISTON: She’s in her 40s now and her £5 ­million-a-movie career ­cannot go on for much longer. But rather in the manner of Doris Day, while one can make gentle fun of Jennifer Aniston, it’s hard to dislike her.

STEVE MARTIN: He seems fundamentally averse to acting.

SANDRA BULLOCK: She has become a business, a ­production company and what is called a national favourite. So be it — but, as I go through the list of her films, I defy you to be quite sure which film was which.

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.

MICHELLE PFEIFFER: She still carries the rather stunned, obedient air of a checkout girl at the supermarket, as well as the lustre of a beauty ­pageant winner.

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.

HARRISON FORD: There may not be an actor in the ­history of movies whose films have grossed more money. But on the few occasions of ­adventurousness in his career, he has revealed himself as a limited, anxious actor.

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.

GEORGE CLOONEY: It’s clear, as he approaches 50, that George Clooney is the most liked actor in U.S. ­pictures. And it is also clear that he knows it.


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

BRUCE WILLIS: The ­mystery continues. Willis makes ­quantities of commercial junk, where his raised eyebrows soar into the space left by his ­receding hairline. And then he produces something that unmistakably reveals a tender, wise actor.

NICOLAS CAGE: It has to be said that the Cage of the past few years has been distressingly fixed on money-making movies of questionable worth. If he doesn’t have enough money yet to settle for taking a risk, then what is the point of money?

CATHERINE ZETA-JONES: The ‘Zeta’ in her name (a shrewd move) does suggest some Latin blood that would match her extreme, ripe, dark good looks. But, in truth, it was her grandmother’s name — and if one knows Wales at all, there is a very Welsh look to Jones — a kind of Polly Garter flash, full of flirt, anger, and sauce. In the real valleys, it must be said, it is a prettiness that tends to fade early.