During the process of recording her second album, Lopez decided to tweak her image as she began to develop into a sex symbol. She started going by J.Lo, something fans often called her in the years after director Oliver Stone coined the term on the set of the 1997 film U Turn. She subsequently named the album J.Lo. Released on January 23, 2001, it was a commercial success, debuting at number one on the US Billboard 200. During the same week, her romantic comedy film The Wedding Planner in which she starred opposite Matthew McConaughey opened atop the box office. This made her the first woman to have a number one film and album simultaneously in the United States. The album was preceded by the release of its lead single, "Love Don't Cost a Thing", which reached number one on the Billboard Mainstream Top 40 chart. It was followed by the single "Play". In April 2001, Lopez launched J.Lo by Jennifer Lopez, her own clothing and accessory company. Lopez felt that "the voluptuous woman [was] almost ignored" in the fashion industry, and therefore her company specialized in clothing women of all shapes. The following month, she starred in the romantic drama film Angel Eyes, which performed disappointingly at the box office and generated mixed reviews. After several months, J.Lo was declining on the charts; this prompted Mottola to recruit rapper Ja Rule to create an urban-oriented remix of the song "I'm Real". This led to the release of "I'm Real (Murder Remix)", which quickly reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100. Its success resulted in J.Lo being reissued to include the single, which was number one in the United States during the week of the September 11 attacks. J.Lo became the best-selling album of Lopez's career, having sold 3.8 million copies in the US and moved over 12 million units worldwide.
Lopez received her first professional acting gig in the direct-to-video drama film Lost in the Wild (1993), co-starring with Lindsay Wagner and Robert Loggia. Later in 1993, Lopez signed a deal with CBS to co-star in the television series Second Chances. Lopez received her first major big-screen role in Gregory Nava's 1995 drama My Family portraying Young Maria. Although her role was uncredited, Lopez received an Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Female nomination for her performance. In November 1995, Lopez starred in Money Train alongside Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson as New York City transit cops. In August 1996, Lopez had a supporting role in the comedy Jack.
More InfoOn Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 84% based on 369 reviews, with an average rating of 7.56/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Ad Astra takes a visually thrilling journey through the vast reaches of space while charting an ambitious course for the heart of the bond between parent and child." On Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, the film has a score of 80 out of 100, based on 56 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B-" on an A+ to F scale, while those surveyed at PostTrak gave it an average 2.5 out of 5 stars, with 40% saying they would definitely recommend it.
More InfoDuring the process of recording her second album, Lopez decided to tweak her image as she began to develop into a sex symbol. She started going by J.Lo, something fans often called her in the years after director Oliver Stone coined the term on the set of the 1997 film U Turn. She subsequently named the album J.Lo. Released on January 23, 2001, it was a commercial success, debuting at number one on the US Billboard 200. During the same week, her romantic comedy film The Wedding Planner in which she starred opposite Matthew McConaughey opened atop the box office. This made her the first woman to have a number one film and album simultaneously in the United States. The album was preceded by the release of its lead single, "Love Don't Cost a Thing", which reached number one on the Billboard Mainstream Top 40 chart. It was followed by the single "Play". In April 2001, Lopez launched J.Lo by Jennifer Lopez, her own clothing and accessory company. Lopez felt that "the voluptuous woman [was] almost ignored" in the fashion industry, and therefore her company specialized in clothing women of all shapes. The following month, she starred in the romantic drama film Angel Eyes, which performed disappointingly at the box office and generated mixed reviews. After several months, J.Lo was declining on the charts; this prompted Mottola to recruit rapper Ja Rule to create an urban-oriented remix of the song "I'm Real". This led to the release of "I'm Real (Murder Remix)", which quickly reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100. Its success resulted in J.Lo being reissued to include the single, which was number one in the United States during the week of the September 11 attacks. J.Lo became the best-selling album of Lopez's career, having sold 3.8 million copies in the US and moved over 12 million units worldwide.
More InfoWhile attending her final year of high school, Lopez learned about a film casting that was seeking several teenage girls for small roles. She auditioned and was cast in My Little Girl (1986), a low-budget film co-written and directed by Connie Kaiserman. Lopez acted as Myra, a young woman at a center for troubled girls. After she finished filming her role in the film, Lopez realized that she wanted to become a "famous movie star". To please her parents, though, she enrolled in Baruch College, only to drop out after one semester. She told her parents about her dream of becoming a movie star, but they insisted that it was a "really stupid" idea and that "no Latinos did that". The differences in opinions led Lopez to move out of their family home and into an apartment in Manhattan. During this period, Lopez performed in regional productions of the musicals Jesus Christ Superstar and Oklahoma!. From there, she was hired for the chorus in a Golden Musicals of Broadway, which toured Europe for five months. She was unhappy with the role, as she was the only member of the chorus not to have a solo. She later got a job on the show Synchronicity in Japan, where she acted as a dancer, singer, and choreographer.
More InfoVariety critic Owen Gleiberman praised Pitt's performance, explaining, "Gray proves beyond measure that he's got the chops to make a movie like this. He also has a vision, of sorts — one that's expressed, nearly inadvertently, in the metaphor of that space antenna." Peter Travers of Rolling Stone rated the film four out of five stars and referred to it as "absolutely enthralling" and praised Gray for his direction and his unique approach to the science fiction genre, as well as the cinematography and Pitt's performance (whom he referred to as "marvel of nuanced feeling"). He also drew comparisons of the film's tone and themes to other notable films set in space, particularly 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Solaris (1972), Gravity (2013), and Interstellar (2014). Critic Kurt Loder praised the visual effects but criticized the lack of originality and the patchwork style of the script. Adam Graham writing for The Detroit News found problems with the film, giving it a "C" rating: "This is slow, obtuse filmmaking with little emotional connection."
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