Angelina Jolie most commercially successful films, including "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider" (2001) and "Beowulf" (2007), overtly relied at least in part on her sex appeal, with "Empire" stating that her "pneumatic figure", "feline eyes", and "bee-stung lips" have greatly contributed to her appeal to cinema audiences. Conversely, "Salon" writer Allen Barra agreed with critics who suggested that Jolie's "dark and intense sexuality" has limited her in the types of roles she can be cast in, rendering her unconvincing in many conventional women's roles, while Clint Eastwood, who directed her Oscar-nominated performance in "Changeling" (2008), opined that having "the most beautiful face on
Clint Eastwood Power", alongside Gene Hackman (with whom he had appeared in "Unforgiven"). Eastwood played the role of a veteran thief who witnesses the Secret Service cover-up of a murder. The film received a mixed reception from critics. Later in 1997, Eastwood directed "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil", based on the novel by John Berendt and starring John Cusack, Kevin Spacey, and Jude Law. The film met with a mixed critical response. Eastwood directed and starred in "True Crime" (1999). He plays Steve Everett, a journalist and recovering alcoholic, who has to cover the execution of murderer Frank Beechum