Somehow, 20 years after “The Mask,” 2014 might be the year of Cameron Diaz

This could be the year of Shailene Woodley, or maybe in a looser way Miles Teller (or hell, maybe even Steve Carrell), but it’s doubtful anyone is going to be in as many mass-promoted movies in 2014 as Cameron Diaz. Consider Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

And Exhibit C:

That’s right. The Other Woman, then Sex Tape, and then Annie (at Christmas-time). You will see a lot of Cameron Diaz this year.

Brief thoughts?

The Other Woman looks funny; Leslie Mann is great. Kate Upton might be a weak link but ideally they mostly design that role to look pretty and have a few zingers. I find it impossible that the movie’s premise could basically insinuate that one guy has four separate lovers and three of them are Leslie Mann, Kate Upton and Cameron Diaz, but I guess money always has gone a long way in the pursuit of sexual fulfillment, now hasn’t it?

Sex Tape will likely be a horrible movie — the main joke tying it together is that no one understands “the cloud” — but Diaz and Jason Segel had good chemistry in Bad Teacher and can probably have it again, plus it looks like the cameos include everyone on the B-maybe-almost-A-comedy-circuit of current movie world. I’m sure there will be some good lines; I hope there are a ton that aren’t already in the trailers.

Annie will likely be very good. She’s a bad choice for the villain, in my humble opine, but Jamie Foxx is the man and it’s Jay-Z produced, and betting against Jay-Z in the modern era is like betting against Google. Plus, it comes out at Christmas. Even though the beginnings of that tale are full of woe, people will flock to it at Christmas.

But yea … 20 years later, now in her 40s, Cameron Diaz is still stealing screen time in the big rollout movies. She also believes “everyone will be cheated on,” so there’s that.

Ted Bauer