IN RETROSPECT…EMMA STONE

For the 10th iteration of this series, I wanted to feature a lady who has somewhat quietly been an A-lister for a considerable amount of time and one of the few actors out there that might have universal likeability. A woman whose effortless charm, diversity of roles, deadpan humor, and genuine fearlessness make her truly one of the very great actors working today…

EMILY JEAN (aka Emma) STONE

Throughout the history of cinema, there have been 14 women who won the Best Actress Oscar two times. Absolute Legends like Elizabeth Taylor, Audrey Hepburn, Frances McDormand, Meryl Streep, Sally Field, Jodie Foster, and Jane Fonda are on this list. A lot of the most notable actresses over the past 30 years have not achieved this feat and I couldn’t help but notice a bit of chatter immediately following the Oscars this year about whether or not Stone belonged on this list. So many conversations about “the robbery” that took place in the Best Actress category this year, and I found myself just listening to you jabronies silently shaking my head. I only have so much energy to engage in the shouting conversations these days.

Emma Stone is a model of consistency. That it is such a quiet model of consistency makes her seem out of left field, and to some unworthy of the praise in comparison to her contemporaries that do a lot more flashier roles. But I’m here to tell you, Stone is not just some really good actress who lucked into two Oscar wins. Her resume proves her greatness beyond any shadow of measure especially over the last 10 years or so. Yes, GREATNESS. I said it.

When speaking of the resume of Emma Stone I would like to talk about something that I like to call… THE POINT GUARD PERFORMANCE. That’s a basketball reference. For those of you who do not know what a point guard does in the game of basketball, simply put… It is the point guard’s job traditionally to set up other people on his/her team to play the best game that the team can possibly play. To make others look good while looking good yourself. That is what a traditional point guard is supposed to do.

Emma Stone has multiple performances in really really good movies where she is playing things very straight and isn’t flashy whatsoever. These are films where other people have gotten the lion’s share of credit and she just kind of seemed to be there. However, in watching these particular movies over again, most of her performances have been very underappreciated.

Before I get into that, however, as we tend to do with this series, we must mention the films that we will not be talking about. We are here to talk about the essential Emma Stone performances and not everything she’s ever done. There are really notable movies that she had minor roles in, and there are a couple of animated films that you may know, but they’re so unessential to her resume that you may have forgotten she was in them all together. Those films are:

The rocker
Ghosts of girlfriends past
The House Bunny
Paper man
Marmaduke
Friends with benefits
The croods movies
Movie 43
Her Woody Allen collaborations
The interview
Popstar: never stop never stopping

There’s a lot of notable stuff in there. But in going over a couple of these movies, her presence (or the movie itself) is very unimportant. Respectfully.

Anywho, without any further Ado here is…

THE EMMA STONE TIER LIST!!

Greatness 🤩
Greatness Adjacent
Goodness 😊
Meh...
What the f*** is this garbage? 🤮

×

❮ ❯

🤩GREATNESS🤩

POOR THINGS

Let's just start off with her career-best performance and work our way down from here.

I don't know what the f*** you guys are talking about who thinks that Emma Stone's performance in this movie wasn't completely deserving of an Academy Award? She is as funny as she's ever been in anything else, the role requires a certain kind of physicality that couldn't have been easy to get down, she's in practically every single scene of a two-and-a-half-hour movie, and she carries it with the greatest of ease. People have won Oscars for doing substantially less than what she does in this movie. Not only was this the best performance by an actress last year, but this was also the best overall performance by an actor in 2023 regardless of gender.

ZOMBIELAND

Zombieland is a film that arguably deserves to be mentioned among the greatest action comedies of all time. It is a film that indefinitely deserves mention amongst the greatest horror comedies of all time. This is a great for Emma Stone. She doesn't do a lot of wacky stuff in this movie, that is left to Jesse Eisenberg and Woody Harrelson. Stone plays straight mostly, she gets her action stuff in, and she's good for a couple of laughs, but she doesn't get any real set pieces of her own here. Yes, the story is primarily about her and Eisenberg's characters, but we're not watching a film called zombieland for the story. We're watching for the wacky s***.

CRAZY, STUPID, LOVE

I'm so glad this is getting the recognition it deserves all these years later. Modern-day romantic comedies DO NOT get much better than this. This is perfectly cast from top to bottom and has one of the better plot twists in a movie that I've seen in a really long time. Stone and Ryan Gosling have so much chemistry here that it's ridiculous. They worked together two more times after this, and this is undeniably their best work together.

SUPERBAD

As time has gone along superbad has proven to be one of the most quotable and memorable comedies of the last 25 years. The 2000's were the decade of god-tier R-rated comedies and this (along with wedding crashers, The 40-Year-Old virgin, The hangover and step Brothers) goes easily in the top five. And considering how many great ones there are in this decade...that's saying something. This is another one of the point guard performances of Stone. She has her moments when she's around but she's sadly not around for that long.

Birdman (or the unexpected virtue of ignorance)

Up until 2023, I considered this to be the very best performance of Emma Stone. It is here where she kind of crosses over into "Damn, she can really go THERE too?" kind of territory. Up until this moment, it was just rom-coms and Spider-Man movies for the most part. This is absolutely one of the best films of the previous decade, it's the movie that won the 2014 Oscar for Best Picture, and in my opinion, she has the best scene in the entire movie. It was absolutely impossible for her not to get her first Oscar nomination for this film, but unfortunately, the category featured Patricia Arquette. If not for that, I think Stone might have taken it for this one.

GREATNESS ADJACENT

EASY A

Yes, she had done superbad and zombieland before this, but this is the first headlining role she ever had. And because of that, I consider this to be a breakout performance, and it's easily one of the most notable breakout performances of the 2010s...but it's a comedy. And because comedies tend to not get as much respect as dramatic films, we don't put this on the same scale as the breakouts of Jennifer Lawrence, Florence Pugh, or Anya Taylor Joy whose breakouts were all in heavily dramatic films. Even though all of her accolades and high-profile performances, fans of Stone will identify this right amongst everything else because of how easily she carried this film.

The red-headed era of Emma Stone was something special.

CRUELLA

I must admit, I'm a bigger fan of this movie than most people are. I'm not a fan of a lot of the Disney remakes. A lot of them are quite mid if we're being honest here. I don't know if you can count cruella as a Disney remake, but if you do then this is unquestionably the best one that has come out. It built a world unto itself, has an amazing soundtrack, and above all else has Emma Stone in a role that she can make a franchise out of. This is the most movie star type of performance that she has in her catalog. And she chews up every scene like she really hasn't before. This is a highly underrated movie. Even without Stone's wonderful performance it still would have been pretty good with a lesser performer. Cruella seems to be made for Stone. I hope there's at least one more sequel to this film.

THE HELP

What a cast. Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer, Bryce Dallas Howard, Jessica Chastain, Sissy Spacek, Cicely Tyson, Allison Janney, and Emma Stone in the most point guard-iest performance that she has ever had and possibly will ever have. She is either first billed or second-billed on this movie, and you would never know it given that the attention for this film went in three different other directions than hers. Not a bad performance by any means, but her performance is not why this movie was great. Respectfully.

😊GOOD😊

BATTLE OF THE SEXES

This movie worked for what it set out to do. It's perfectly cast, and both Steve Carell and Stone nail their roles as Bobby Riggs and Billie Jean King. If you seen enough interviews with Billie Jean King you will understand just how on the nose Stone's portrayal of her is. However, there is an entertainment factor that is lacking here that shouldn't be as much as it does. I don't really know what more this film could have done to become more entertaining, but it feels longer than it actually is and it doesn't really feel like the kind of Oscar-bait film it clearly wants to be.

THE FAVOURITE

I've always found it to be a little bit weird that Olivia Colman won the Oscar for this movie for the leading actress category, and she is in no way the main character of this film. It's also very peculiar on how Rachel Weisz shared the lion's share of kudos that went to this film, and she's the third billed name on the front of the poster. All of this is because of the world-class point guard performance that Emma Stone is putting up yet again. It is through no fault of her own that she is by far the unflashiest thing about this movie. But you know what? That's okay. Part of being a truly great actor is making those better who are around you. That's what Stone has done throughout her career by this point.

MEH...

LA LA LAND

I personally believe that it is totally plausible to acknowledge the technical superiority of a film and give credit to that technical superiority...all while very much hating the film itself.

I'll just mention the good stuff here first. This is a really, really, good Stone performance, and she was a lock to win that Oscar given how underwhelming the Best Actress category was that year. (Respectfully) Damien Chazelle is a gifted director, and stylistically this is about as good as he can get. The art direction, cinematography, and yes the musical numbers are visually very impressive. Even for a man who absolutely detests this movie, those factors are absolutely undeniable.

(Unfortunately, this is the film that does include her cinematic apogee, so more on this later...)

ZOMBIELAND: DOUBLE-TAP

This is a movie that definitely was made because of the success of the previous film. It is a tried and true example of a copy-and-paste kind of sequel. That being said, it ain't bad or anything like that. It just isn't... fresh. The first one had that element of surprise that you didn't see coming and you really can't say that for this one. Stone is just as good here as she was in the last one. Pretty much everybody is. A Diet Coke version of what came before.

🤮WTF IS THIS GARBAGE?!🤮

THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN MOVIES

I have paradoxical sentiments about both of the Amazing Spider-Man movies. On one hand, these are nowhere near the worst superhero movies that we've been fed over the past 15 or so years. This is actually near the upper echelon of Sony superhero movies as sad as that is to say.

But on the other hand, to just compared to the other Spider-Man trilogies there are significant deficiencies when comparing the overall storyline, the action, the villains, and the overall dialogue to the other Spider-Man trilogies. Yes, Andrew Garfield is a really good Spider-Man. (Not Peter Parker, but Spider-Man) It is indeed saying something that Spider-Man really has not ever had a truly atrocious performance from an actor in the title role. That being said he is miscast as Peter Parker. And he is a distant bronze medal to the other two Spider-Mans that do exist.

Also in the distant bronze metal territory is the chemistry between Spider-Man and his love interest in these movies. Just go back and try and watch these scenes where Peter is trying to impress her or even talk to Gwen. It's not charmingly awkward. It's cringe-worthy stuff. Which is actually incredible considering that Stone and Garfield were dating each other at the time in real life.

ALOHA

This movie is not very good and I don't blame either Bradley Cooper or Emma Stone for this. They are trying as hard as they can. I will say that Cameron Crowe might be one of the most overrated directors who has ever lived. As a screenwriter, he's extremely good at times. Aloha is the foremost example of how bad he can really be, and how pretentious his films can truly get.

GANGSTER SQUAD

I have no earthly idea how this incredible cast roster assembled for this January release. GANGSTER SQUAD may go down as the single biggest waste of All-Star talent that I've ever seen in a movie. The pacing is off, the story is cliche, and the story is only made watchable because of legendary actors doing what they do and making chicken salad out of chicken s***. As far as Stone goes, I can say without question that to this day she has never looked more beautiful in a film. GOOD LORD.

CINEMATIC APOGEE

I am the biggest hater when it comes to la la land. I don't necessarily understand what the point of what Damien Chazelle tries to do with his films. With the exception of first man, every single film that he seems to have made so far is really denigrating the business part of showbiz. And although that's somewhat understandable, it does add a thick layer of pretentiousness to the proceedings as you watch.

A petty rant is absolutely necessary before I start talking about anything else good about this film.....

*I hate what this movie has to say about the art of jazz (a genre that I listen to from time to time)
*I hate that the moral of this movie seems to be that you cannot achieve what you want to achieve in Los Angeles without being in a healthy relationship with the person that you love.
*I hate what this movie says about what selling out looks like.
*I hate that John Legend is in this film for no f****** good reason.
*I hate the entire third act.
*I hate the fact that people were so shocked that Emma Stone could sing and dance like she wasn't in cabaret on Broadway damn near 2 years prior to this film being made.
*I hate that this was getting compared to some of the most celebrated musicals of all time like two weeks after its release.

And mostly. I absolutely f****** hated the Oscar buzz for this movie. I'm a big fan of awards season, and from the minute award season started everybody was so resigned to the fact that La La Land was going to sweep everything that nobody even entertained the idea of something else getting Best Picture. I don't even f****** blame Faye Dunaway for saying the wrong name when it came the time to announce Best Picture. She, (like the rest of the Earth) was being told for months on end that nothing else had a chance. She, (like the rest of the Earth) saw this movie storm into the Golden Globes and walk away with SEVEN GODDAMN TROPHIES. And when Warren Beatty fumbled that envelope she cut the time by saying what we all thought was going to happen.

I'm so glad this didn't win Best Picture and I'm so so glad that nobody considers that a highway robbery considering that moonlight was the superior picture without f****** question.

Okay, now that I've gotten that out of my system, I got to say the lovely night musical sequence between Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling is absolutely fantastic. The two of them dancing as the sun sets is one of the more indelible images of 2010's Cinema and there's very little to complain about when it comes to the sequence itself. Stone kind of has that high school musical falsetto-sounding voice that Anne Hathaway had in Les Miserables... but hey, I'm not picky when it comes to musicals as long as you can hit the notes you can hit the notes.

**************

At the end of the day, Emma Stone remains a model of consistency, her work is only getting more daring, she's a triple threat, she's funny, and she's wildly charismatic. I do think the term legend is thrown around a little bit too loosely when describing famous actresses like Emma Stone. Some would say it's way too early for her to be considered one, and I would agree.

However, when would be the crossing point where she stops just becoming another Superstar and we start considering her output of high-quality work to be legendary? Stone is not a Hollywood legend as of yet. But in another five years or so? At the rate that she's going right now? We may arrive at a point where a legendary status for Emma Stone may be absolutely undeniable.