Hollywood's highest paid actresses

Angelina Jolie and Sarah Jessica Parker were the highest paid actresses of last year.

The Hollywood beauties tied at the top of the list, compiled by Forbes magazine, earning $30 million each.

 Angelina Jolie: Angelina's earnings come mainly from her starring roles in two big budget action movies, Salt and The Tourist, the latter of which earned $280 million at the box office.

 Sarah Jessica Parker: Meanwhile, SJP made most of her money from the series Sex And The City, both from TV re-runs and the second movie, which took $290 million at the box office.

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Jennifer Aniston & Reese Witherspoon: Friends star Jennifer Aniston shared third place with Reese Witherspoon, each earning $ 27 million.

Aniston – who has experienced a string of flop movies, including 2008's Management, which generated less than $1 million – took home high pay cheques from The Bounty Hunter, which made $136 million and Just Go With It, which was the fourth-highest grossing film of her career to date.

 Julia Roberts: In fifth place is Julia Roberts with a reported income of $20 million in the last financial year.

 Kristen Stewart: Sharing the fifth place with Julia Roberts is Twilight Saga actress Kristen Stewart, also earning $20 million in the last financial year.

 Katherine Heigl: Forbes magazine calls her the queen of rom-coms who can still earn $12 million per picture. Katherine Heigl is at number 7 with an income of $19 million last year.

 Cameron Diaz: Still ranked among the most-popular actors in Hollywood, Cameron Diaz ranks at number 8 earning $18 million last year.

 Sandra Bullock: Sandra was last seen in The Blind Side which won her an Oscar, with no releases last year. Yet she ranks at number 9, earning $15 million last year.

 Meryl Streep: The award-winning actor ruled with her performances in Julia and Julia and It's Complicated. She'll return later this year as Margaret Thatcher in the biopic, The Iron Lady. Meryl Streep rounds off the top 10 list earning $10 million last year.

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'Larry Crowne' is the king of nice

Julia Roberts, left, and Tom Hanks turn the hard knocks of life into an upbeat fantasy in "Larry Crowne."

"Larry Crowne" is such a twinkly and likable movie, you wish it were a better one. Starring the twinkly and likable Tom Hanks (who also directed and co-wrote, with Nia Vardalos), it's the story of the nicest guy in the world.

Larry Crowne, who's in his 50s, spent time in the Navy before taking a sales job at a big-box electronics store. He works there for many years, making friends and helping customers — and then he's summarily fired, ostensibly for not having a college degree. Underwater on his mortgage and reeling from the financial free fall of a bad divorce, poor sweet Larry, blinking in the California sunshine, is facing a grim future.

That's the first few minutes of the movie, and they aren't promising; though Larry's troubles are certainly reflective of today's economic climate, they're presented so cutely that nothing seems real. Luckily, "Larry Crowne" the movie quickly remembers that it's a fantasy, and things immediately pick up for Larry Crowne the character: In short order, he acquires a scooter, finds a new job and signs up for community college. There, he meets a) a lovely and age-appropriate speech professor (Julia Roberts) with a bad marriage and a drinking problem, and b) a lovely and age-inappropriate fellow student (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) who adopts Larry as a sort of pet, giving him a makeover and recruiting him into her ever-smiling scooter gang. (If you're not sure which woman he ends up with, you haven't seen enough movies.)

In time (not much), things work out so nicely that "Larry Crowne" could well cause a flood of middle-age men to sign up for community college, in hopes of meeting dewy young women who'll put them in cuter shirts. Most of the characters lack nuance — particularly Roberts' no-good husband, played with a nearly mustache-twirling sneer by Bryan Cranston — and the plot jerks along awkwardly. We learn, pretty quickly, that nothing terrible's going to happen to Larry, so it all becomes a matter of waiting for Roberts' character to stop being pissed off.

But the movie has just enough funny lines and amusing casting choices (George Takei has a ball as a pompous economics professor) to make it all go down pleasantly, and Hanks' sweetly brash charisma could fill an entire multiplex of movies and then some. You find yourself rooting for Larry, though he doesn't need it — nice guys, in this movie, always finish first.

Julia Roberts

Julia Fiona Roberts is an American actress. She became a Hollywood star after headlining the 1990's romantic comedy Pretty Woman, which grossed $464 million worldwide. After receiving Academy Award nominations for Steel Magnolias in 1990 and Pretty Woman in 1991, she won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 2001 for her performance in Erin Brockovich. Her films My Best Friend's Wedding, Mystic Pizza, Notting Hill, Runaway Bride,Valentine's Day, The Pelican Brief, Ocean's Eleven and Twelve have collectively brought box office receipts of over $2.4 billion, making her one of the most successful actors in terms of box office receipts.

Julia Roberts