Nathaniel Thanks You

I am surely in a friend & food coma while you're reading this. Happily so! This Thanksgiving I'm grateful for all of you. You keep coming back daily to read the latest cinematic musings here at The Film Experience. Obsessing on the movies is really meant to be a team sport so I appreciate the fine company. They don't make movie theaters with one seat in them.

So thank you for being here daily from all over the world -- not just the States -- with an especially amorphous shout out to readers in Canada, the UK, Australia, Brazil, Germany, Spain, France, Mexico and The Philippines. You've always been supportive. And a big hug to my magical elves contributors who've really helped keep the blog going during a difficult year.

Normal programming resumes tomorrow but I must give thanks to the following sources of cinematic happiness at the moment: ambiguous endings, Liz & Monty, the canine ensemble in Valentino The Last Emperor, Colin Firth's spontaneous tears, Brad Pitt speaking Italian, cross dissolves, Viggo, Klute, Trudy Kockenlocker, Daniel Day-Lewis's salacious line readings in My Beautiful Laundrette "in my experience it's always worth waiting for Omar", Cary Grant, Alexandre Desplat, Penélope Cruz's breasts, "It twirlllled up!", Joseph Gordon-Levitt dancing, Gilda, that closeup of Jake Gyllenhaal, Heavenly Creatures' Mario Lanza fixation, Emmanuel Lubezki, Abbie Cornish's aggressive but amateur flirting in Bright Star, "Bingo!", Debbie Reynolds and cake in Singin' in the Rain, Nicole Kidman framed through the DP's camera in Nine, Dogville's set, that ornate black disc hat in Chéri, Tilda Swinton in black mask, the family cat in Mrs. Miniver, Ingrid Bergman's liquid closeups in Casablanca, the way Jeff Bridges runs his fingers through his hair or across his guitar or under Pfeiffer's dress, Meryl as Karen Silkwood, Paul Newman as Hud, silent film intertitles, The Awful Truth, "My Husband Makes Movies" and All That Jazz.
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Jose Gives Thanks.

Jose here.

Although we don't have anything resembling Thanksgiving in my culture (Penélope Cruz was talking about that on Letterman the other day) I have a special place in my heart (and stomach) for turkey, gravy and pumpkin pie.

I also feel very grateful for the following: Technicolor, Woody Allen banter, Judy Garland's smile, the millisecond of suspense between normal talking and spontaneous singing in the musicals, post-Volver Penélope, the Truffaut/Hitchcock book, still being thrilled by the sepia-to-color switch in The Wizard of Oz, Nino Rota and La Strada, Julia Roberts' laugh, Scarlett and Rhett, Bette Davis' eyes, Ingrid Bergman's Italian phase, Jett Rink, Jacques Tourneur horror flicks, The Blob, pre-supermom Gwyneth, WALL-E, Jean-Pierre Léaud, Anne Hathaway at award shows, Brando as Kowalski, Meryl!, Gene Kelly's butt, subtitles...


Audrey Hepburn's weird morning eating habits circa '61, Nathaniel letting me write all of this, West Side Story, Madge dancing as Susan, the Green Fairy and knowing that as I write this there's still thousands of movies I haven't seen, ready for me to feel grateful about them later on.
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Beloved Turkey: Vibes

Alexa from Pop Elegantiarum here to share a turkey for Thanksgiving. When Vibes arrived in theaters in 1988, I was predisposed to like it for a number of reasons. First, there was Cyndi Lauper in her first starring role. In the great Madonna/Cyndi debate of the mid-80s, I was firmly in Cyndi's camp. (Keep in mind that I was 12 years old at the time.) Second was her co-star, Jeff Goldblum, on whom I'd harbored a crush since watching his Seth Brundle awkwardly woo Geena Davis at the beginning of The Fly. (I chose to ignore the gallons of puss he spewed later in the film.) As an added bonus there was Julian Sands, whom I'd also mooned over since he swung from a tree in A Room with a View. Finally, add a zany Peter Falk, pathologically lying à la Vincent Ricardo, and you had the stuff of my cinematic dreams.


Well, not so much. It really is pretty terrible. But I still enjoy Vibes, even as I guiltily add it to my Netflix queue today. Lauper and Goldblum play Sylvia Pickel and Nick Deezy, a pair of psychics hired by Falk's character to travel to Ecuador in search of lost treasure. The best scenes are before any Incan treasure is introduced (with some resulting effects-laden nonsense), when the characters meet bug-eyed cute in New York. Sylvia finds that her sometime boyfriend (a young Steve Buscemi) only wants her for her ability to pick the best horse at the track. Meanwhile, Nick uses his ability to pick up underwear and know just who has been touching it to confirm his girlfriend has been "playing bouncy-bouncy with another guy."

The script, by Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel, is filled with those kind of gems, a sort of slapstick-meets-sympathy vibe perfect for an 80s Ron Howard (see their scripts for Night Shift, Splash, and Parenthood). But Ron wasn't in charge on this one. Instead, director Ken Kwapis brought all the subtlety of his previous effort, Follow That Bird. But hey, as Kwapis said in an US Magazine (remember when it was an entertainment rag?) interview at the time, "I knew that there was something so wrong about it that it had to work." He was right: like all guilty pleasures, it's so ridiculous it clicks.

Glenn Gives Thanks

Australia's only knowledge of Thanksgiving is, essentially, what we see from TV and the movies. I feel then that it is only fitting that I "give thanks" for a certain woman who has shaped by idea of Thanksgiving more than any other: Christina Ricci.

Bless her lil cotton socks, but Christina Ricci had already solidified herself in the annals of cinema history by the age of 17 with her performance in Ang Lee's The Ice Storm. The gifts of that film are many, but the bit that I always remember first and foremost is the toast that Ricci's Wendy gives. Let us relive it:

Dear Lord, thank you for this Thanksgiving holiday. And for all the material possessions that we have and enjoy. And for letting us white people kill all the Indians and steal their tribal lands. And stuff ourselves like pigs, even though children in Asia are being napalmed.

Literally very amazing. And if it weren't just The Ice Storm keeping the Ricci Thanksgiving alive it would be Addams Family Values, a movie in which Ricci gives one of the best supporting actress performances of the decade (the Oscar, however, went to the New Zealand child, Anna Paquin). That Thanksgiving pageant is delightfully insane, and Ricci's speech is something to behold. The best moment in the film is Wednesday's smile. The faint crack of a smile that she emits to shocked onlookers. "I'm not perky."

Thank you Christina Ricci for services towards making Thanksgiving somewhat relevant to people outside of America. You'll always have a place in my heart!

What's Birthday Got To Do With It?

Cinematic birthdays to celebrate on this day, 11/26. If its your special day, we dedicate a Tina Turner song to you.

Peter, Arjun and La Cicciolina

1922 Charles M Schultz, Peanuts!
1933 Robert Goulet, actor/singer
1951 La Cicciolina, provocateur. Don't you think she needs a biopic? OK, maybe a few decades from now and by some fringe director, once the MPAA ratings system has completely broken down
1966 Garcelle Beauvais, beautiful blacktress
1972 Arjun Rampal, award winning Bollywood actor and spurned Kidman love interest
1973 Peter Facinelli, actor, underwear fan, patriarch vampire
1974 Tammy Lynn Michaels, former actress, current Mrs. Melissa Etheridge
1986 Trevor Morgan, actor

And finally, let's give it up for the legendary Tina Turner. You're simply the best... ♪ you're better than all the rest... better than anyone... anyone i ever met. She turns the big 7-0 today. You know she coulda been in more pictures had she wanted it post Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome. Loved her as 'Auntie Entity'. But since she didn't really care about acting, at least she let others do it for her. All hail the great Angela Bassett, Tina's cinematic counterpart in that fiery Oscar nominated star turn in What's Love Got To Do With It (1993). What's your favorite Tina Turner song? Sing it out in the comments. I'll start...

You better be good to me
That's how it's gotta be now
Cause I don't have no use
For what you loosely call the truth
You better be good to me...

That's mine! Not from a movie alas. Not that I don't love her movie songs and since this The Film Experience, let's hear 'em. Here's the underrated "I Don't Wanna Fight" from her biopic and the classic "We Don't Need Another Hero" from Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome

JA Gives Thanks...

... for the weirdly discomfiting scene at the pizza place early on in Ti West's terrific horror-throwback The House of the Devil. It cements everything that the film does so well, from the uncannily spot-on period detail to the off-kilter hum of dread throbbing below the most banal of surfaces. Greasy pizza will murder us all!

Plus Greta Gerwig's hairstyle is just flippin' rad.
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[Editor's Note: the official site says this is now available VOD if you're curious]

Beloved Turkey: Poison Ivy

Adam of Club Silencio here with a dose of good cheer and a dollop of bad taste.

Thanksgiving is about family and turkey, and giving thanks when they're ironically combined into a turkey movie about family. One of my favorites, Poison Ivy, is like a cornucopia of crass. Cheap in titillation and sentiment, it speaks of what it takes to be a family, for better or much, much (much) worse.


Whether you already have a family that loves you or you're planning on seducing a new one, Poison Ivy reminds us ALL to give thanks for Cinemax-style softcore. Take this story of a Lolita-like Drew Barrymore seeking a family to embrace her. Mock her methods of matricide or making it with Tom Skerritt, but Ivy's devotion to starting a family is met with a gung-ho kind of grace. She befriends a lonely outcast named Sylvie (Sara Gilbert), whose father is experiencing a late-life crisis and whose mother is more likely to hug her oxygen tank than her own daughter. It begins tenderly as many friendships do, at the local tire swing. Soon it progresses to underage tattoos, bisexual taboos and doing the dirty with the downtrodden Dad while he's checking in on his unconscious wife. Thanksgiving is also about family dysfunction and turkey, and Poison Ivy will make almost anyone's family drama seem relatively low key.
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Robert Gives Thanks

I love slow movies. Really slow. For the longest time I thought everyone else considered that word to signify the worst in movies. Slow meant bad enough to put you to sleep. I love movies that put me to sleep. I’ve a whole collection of movies that I can pop in the DVD player whenever I can’t sleep and they’ll do the trick. If we can agree that music peaceful enough to put you to sleep can still be great, why not movies?

So this year I’m thankful for slow movies. But I’m also thankful for others who love them, because together we inspire filmmakers to keep making them. Great modern films like Goodbye, Solo and The Assassination of Jesse James..., and The Band’s Visit and Silent Light.

I’m thankful that cinema hasn’t been completely overrun by the desire to make anything but “boring” when too often films that are poetic, relaxing, serene, and contemplative are given that most terrible of labels.

I’m also thankful for Studio Ghibli, Charlie Chaplin, Mumbecore films, Faye Wong in Wong Kar Wai movies, Maria Falconetti , Charlie Kaufman, the masculinity of John Huston, the Iranian New Wave, Max Von Sydow (who looks like my grandfather), Fellini in the 1980’s, everything that comes out of Werner Herzog’s mouth, the modern Documentary movement, Louise Brooks and her hair, and Jude Law’s last line in A.I. “I am, I was!”

Thanks Giving and Beloved Turkeys

Wishing you and yours the best for the holiday tomorrow. If you're travelling today, be safe. If you're trying to lose weight, sorry! If you aren't American, please pardon the slightly hijacked programming.


Over the holiday break, there will be posts. I've asked TFE contributors to give thanks for their favorite cinematic whatsis of the moment or to honor beloved turkeys. The other kind of turkeys. Not that you wouldn't eat a deliciously bad movie if you could. After years of obsession I don't so much regard Showgirls (1995) as a bad movie to love but a genius movie that only wears gaudy clothing and talks trash to be bad. So my favorite bad movie of all time is undoubtedly the Olivia Newton-John rollerskating musical Xanadu (1980), so if you haven't read that piece, click here.

Happy Thanksgiving

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Birthday Suits

Your filmic birthdays for 11/25
1914 Joe DiMaggio, center fielder and Mr. Marilyn Monroe, albeit briefly
1920 Ricardo Montalban "Smiles everyone, smiles." (sniffle)
1933 Kathryn Grant, aka Mrs. Bing Crosby, whose film career was spotted with famous stuff (Rear Window, My Sister Eileen, The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad) but less than a decade in length.
1947 Jonathan Kaplan, director of 80s & 90s actresses (Bad Girls, Love Field, The Accused, Heart Like a Wheel) who now only works on TV
1947 Tracey Walter, character actor
1960 JFK Jr., prince of Camelot, dater of actresses, magazine entrepeneur. I loved George back in the day. Remember that?
1965 Dougray Scott, the almost Wolverine (Mi:II, Enigma, Dark Water)
1984 Gaspard Ulliel, French looker. Also acts.

Nine Posters? Nine Nominations? Nein Review!

The Nine embargo is still in place for "reviews" but lifted as far as any other discussion goes: awards and whatnot. I'm curious how there can exist an embargo on discussing a movie (outside of a review embargo which I totally understand) since people discuss movies freely for years before they come out. Free Speech! I'm joking. It's an awards season curiousity but I play along. After all, the game of waiting for something you desperately want can be fun. Think of how you felt about Christmas as a child. The problem stems from the studios making film fans wait way too long. Christmas should come every weekend, you know. Movies are not like gifts. You can't just unwrap them and move to the next and form a big pile. They take 2 hours just to unwrap in the first place. Spread them out!


You know what else is curious? The new posters. The marketing peoples for Nine made the numerically questionable decision to release 4 posters. I'd say why not 9 except the movie itself doesn't really seem to know why it's called Nine. I enjoyed the movie a lot but when you cut out the Nine song, you do sort of mess with the title... since there's only 8 characters. You have to count Guido twice. But without the song... oh, never mind. I'm still smarting from the dumping of that song. I love that song! And damnit, I wanted to hear Sophia Loren sing it.

The first two posters above are fine but I shan't say anything more about the crammed and ugly poster (third from left) that Jose savaged yesterday. He said it all. But this next one...

Huh ????????? (Nine question marks) Only 3 stars are featured on this poster to your left. I keep blinking and staring at it and yet my girl Nicki never appears. This poster is defective!

Seriously, what is that about? In another 58 years people our ages now won't have a clue who Fergie and Kate Hudson are but the movie freaks will be holding centennial parties for Nicole Kidman. It's so obvious. When will the goddess catch a break? I guess we have to wait until 2010 when Rabbit Hole reminds... Crossing my fingers for that at any rate. You never know. It could be another Fur (an effort but one that doesn't work).

I understand that Fergie is a hitmaker, musically speaking, but is she really more bankable for a m-o-v-i-e than Dame Dench, Kidman, or Daniel Day-Lewis. Bizarre. Not to diss Fergie. Her number "Be Italian" is terrific, the 'Cell Block Tango' of this Chicago sibling. Rob Marshall is the babydaddy again. If you haven't inked him down in your Best Director predictions, you should.

Nominations in order of likelihood

• Cinematography, without question
• Picture, easy-peasy
• Director, ditto
• Costume Design, in Atwood they trust
  
• Art Direction, they keep nominating John Myhre for dressing up theater stages (Chicago, Dreamgirls) so why stop now?
• Editing, Moulin Rouge! and Chicago factored in here. But not Dreamgirls so who knows...
  
• Sound Mixing it being a musical and all. Likely
  
• Original Song, after that debacle with The Wrestler last year and the "Come What May" situation with Moulin Rouge! back in the day I will never again assume that this category can contain locks. But I hope to see Marion Cotillard perform "Take it All" at the Oscars but not Kate Hudson shimmying to "Cinema Italiano".
  
  that's 8 nominations and that's where things get trickier...
  
  
• Supporting Actress This would be a slam dunk for Marion Cotillard except that she's campaigning for lead actress. So there's probably room for Penélope Cruz, unless they object to her garbling the very funny lyrics of "A Call From the Vatican"
  
• Actress More on Marion later. I need to discuss that specifically and all by its lonesome.
  
• Actor The novelty and his reputation might be an irresistable combo. but who knows before the precursors have their say in a race that looks pretty tight for the 4th and 5th spots
  
• Adapted Screenplay If they're feeling nostalgic to honor tAnthony Minghella (RIP)
  
• Supporting Actress Marion Cotillard if AMPAS rejects her Weinsteined categorization
  
• Supporting Actress Judi Dench if they flip their shit for the movie.

More after the holidays. Or maybe during them. You can't get enough of Nine can you? I hope the movie lives up to your dreams.
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The Somewhat Lovely Bones?

You probably caught on Awards Daily that some early reviews of The Lovely Bones are out. Lots more to come presumably. But did you see this tweet from British actor/novelist/funny man Stephen Fry

Variety is significantly less riveted than Fry, calling it an "artistic disappointment". Todd McCarthy also crushes my dreams by starting the review talking about Heavenly Creatures, a film which he seems to hold in as high regard as I do (One of the three best films of the 1990s, if you ask me).

The "disappointment" seems to stem from Jackson's infatuation with visual f/x. As for its actors, this bit is interesting...

With reddish hair, brilliantly alive eyes and a seemingly irrepressible impulse for movement and activity, Ronan represents a heavenly creature indeed, a figure of surging, eager, anticipatory life cut off just as it is budding. Less quicksilver and more solidly built, McIver's Lindsey properly begins in her live-wire sister's shadow only to grow gradually into an impressive figure. Chain-smoking and depleting the liquor cabinet, Sarandon camps it up for a few welcome laughs...

McCarthy is less impressed with the parental units, Wahlberg and Weisz. Are you still counting down the days until dem bones arrive?

Mare Hugs Jake

Watch me bury the lead.

I'll be writing about Brothers, the new war-at-home drama, for Tribeca Film soon but for now I just wanted to say that I didn't even know until I was watching it how much I'd missed Mare Winningham. She's an actress whose vibe is a little closer to television (familial, earthy, someone you might see every day) but whose talent is silver screen (rare, outsized, possibly superhuman). I was thrilled when she was unexpectedly nominated for an Oscar for Georgia in the 90s. If you've never seen that performance you must. She's projecting so many layers of character in that film, you start to realize that most performances are threadbare. Put some layers on, actors! You'll catch a cold.

Even though Mare has next to nothing to do in Brothers other than project step-maternal concern, I wanted to hug her as hard as she's hugging Jake Gyllenhaal in the photo.



And usually when someone is hugging Jake Gyllenhaal I am thinking about being them rather than hugging them back. I'm just sayin'.

So yeah, I met Jake Gyllenhaal.

Also rare, outsized, superhuman...

He looks exactly the same offscreen as on (which isn't always the case for better and for worse). I don't advise, if you are a mere mortal like myself, to stand next to celebrities and be photographed. You will just feel so... pathetically human. I don't normally do it (this is only the second time but the first was with Julianne Moore years ago and in both cases, I couldn't not. I'm only human). He was friendly and after I paid him the mandatory compliments that probably sounded like weird if familiar gibberish to him (I'm guessing) we chatted very briefly about Brothers and the Danish film its based on -- yes, he's seen it --before we took this photo. Then I let him loose on the next person who was desperate to talk to him. They were also human.

It's so weird when celebrities are in a room. The crowd can be totally dispersed and navigable and then *boom* bottleneck traffic jams. Everyone wants to be in the place nearest to the celebrity/celebrities.
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Two Ladies

an update: The Nine embargo has officially lifted SORT OF. There be fine print. "Reviews" still have the embargo in place... so back to the drawing board for me. I'll write about the Q&A I attended or something else soon. Stay tuned.
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Curio: Those Aren't Pillows

Alexa from Pop Elegantiarum here sharing a little Thanksgiving cinema goodie. Planes, Trains and Automobiles captured the purgatory that is holiday travel; watching it is a great Thanksgiving tradition. I know some may think its signature scene is homophobic, but I don't think so: it just shows two men who really don't want to get to know each other that well, in a situation of awkward, forced intimacy. Sort of how I feel at holiday gatherings with most of my extended family. So I thought it only fitting to feature these this week, in celebration of holiday togetherness:


Wouldn't it be great to have those overnight guests of yours sleep on these? You can buy them here. Save 'em for next year.

The Blog Saga: New Link

Movies Kick Ass deconstructs yet another photoshop casualty (i.e. movie poster), this one for NINE . My thoughts on that film will hopefully be up later today... time is a tough taskmaster.
Cinema Styles looks forward to Luise Rainer's 100th birthday in January. We should all be celebrating! Especially since she'll (god willing) still be alive for it. She was Oscar's very first two-time acting winner... beating Spencer Tracy to the title by one year.
Topless Robot Batman's TV villains who should make the leap to the screen
Scanners (sarcastically) hates on ambiguous movie endings
Empire keeps track of Thor's ever expanding cast list so you don't have to. The only person this chart is missing (as far as I know) is Kat Dennings (Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist)
In Contention looks at the Adapted Screenplay Oscar race
Noh Way expresses photographic love for director/muse duos beyond Pedro & Penélope

Sexiest Men Alive?
popbytes is on the Brad Pitt beard watch. Did it cost Brad the title of...
People's "Sexiest Men Alive". It's not just Johnny Depp. Roughly every famous person shows up. Though...
Go Fug Yourself has a laugh about the Glee photoshoot therein
My New Plaid Pants, uninfluenced by mainstream rags, remembers his love for Jean Claude Van Damme [nsfw]

Twi-Hard
Bright Lights After Dark "tortured longing is the new coke" Erich's inner 13 year old makes a case for The Twilight Saga: New Moon
Erik Lundegaard gleans box office meaning: stop ignoring girls
Variety director Chris Weisz blames New Line for the way The Golden Compass (2007) turned out. You know, I liked that movie more than most but it was but 1/20th of what it could have been given how excellent the book is. But I'm not sure you can take this in a black & white way, blame wise. Why would they interfere so much there but not on The Lord of the Rings? Would they have interfered with Peter Jackson if he weren't such a goddamn visionary? I just think this is probably a gray area unless Weisz has suddenly shown new cinematic mastery with New Moon. And well...
Antagony and Ecstasy thinks it's "boring as fuck-all". And wouldn't that indicate some degree of problems with Weisz' powers behind the camera?

...and no, I have no real plans to see New Moon. Unless it falls into my lap, I shan't ever know if it improves upon the original (which wouldn't be a significant hurdle). Time and money are both precious commodity this time of year. I have so many movies left to see in such a short time frame before awards are passed out. So I'm not going to pay hard earned $ to be bored (and support Mormon causes financially) if I don't have to for Oscar write up purposes. I'm guessing I don't have to worry about this movie securing nominations. If I'm wrong I promise to stare at Kristen Stewart and her dead eyes (shouldn't she be playing the vampire?) for 2.5 hours and issue my mea culpas.
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Son of Birthday Suits

Celebrating the cinematic personalities born on 11/24. Even if you're not cinematic, you're probably a personality. Wish yourself a happy one in the comments. There's no way there's been no Scorpios (or now) Saggitarians reading. Speak up when it's your big day!

Garret, Shirley and 'Izzy'

1913 Geraldine Fitzgerald actress (Wuthering Heights, The Mango Tree, Rachel Rachel)
1942 Billy Connolly, comedian, actor, 'Mr. Brown' (he who was beloved by Judi Dench) and 'Barry' (he who was poisoned by Michelle Pfeiffer)
1949 Manuel De Sica composer (The Garden of the Fitzi Continis), Son of Vittorio
1954 Emir Kusturica two-time Cannes winning Serbian filmmaker behind Underground & When Father Was Away on Business (Oscar nominee)
1964 Garret Dillahunt, terrific actor who has lately specialized in the skin-crawlingly creepy (The Road, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles) and the endearingly pathetic (No Country For Old Men and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford) but a blog post to whoever can tell me what the hell movie that photo is from up top!?!
1965 Shirley Henderson helium voiced actress, who billions will recognize as "Moaning Myrtle" but she's been quite memorable in some films like Topsy Turvy, Yes and Miss Pettigrew...
1977 Colin Hanks, Son of Tom
1978 Katherine Heigl "difficult" actress... though sometimes that's code word for "won't suffer fools". The difficult ones are sometimes well regarded after the fact (see: Bette Davis) but that's not until the dust settles. Think Katherine is burning too many bridges or just warming up her inner screen fire?

And finally today is the 93rd anniversary of the birth of Irwin Allen, multihyphenate "master of disaster". He's the 70s force behind The Towering Inferno, The Poseidon Adventure and less heralded TV films with wonderfully literal titles like "Fire!" and "Flood!".

Roland Emmerich is not his direct descendant, biologically speaking, but you're forgiven if you assumed so. The 2012 director is also fond of staging epic disasters and end of civilization scenarios (The Day After Tomorrow, 10,000 BC, Independence Day). Who saw and loved that Palin 2012 spoof on SNL? You have to laugh or you'll be too terrified to go on living.

Monologue - "L-I-V-E"

Jose here with the Monday Monologue.



When nineteen year old Harold Chase (Bud Cort) meets seventy-nine year old Maude (Ruth Gordon) at a stranger's funeral, he has little idea of what she has in store for him. The eccentric lady shows him how to live, not in the corny sense we've come to see recently in movies about dying people, but in a more active way.

She gets him out of his rich kid world (which he already loathes) by reminding him that "It ain't about morality"

With that in mind they steal cars to go plant stolen trees to the forest, attend funerals of people they never met before and they smoke, seemingly illegal, herbs before plunging into deep conversation.

It's during one of these smoke-and-talks where Harold confesses,

I haven't lived
I've died a few times

And Maude listens surprised while Harold reveals how he became so obsessed with death...

Well, the first time was when I was at boarding school in the chemistry lab. I was in there cleaning it up, so I decided I'd do a little experiment...
so I throw this stuff out, begin mixing it up-very scientific.

There was this massive explosion! It knocked me down, blew out a huge hole on the floor.
There was boards and bricks and flames leaping up!

I figured, you know, time to leave. My career in school was over...

So I went home, my mother was giving a party, so I just ran up the backstairs, went to my room, turned on the light and got this funny feeling. The doorbell rang, I went out to the banister and two policemen came in. They found my mother and told her that I was killed in the fire.

I decided right there that I enjoyed being dead

The scene is moving because of the sincerity with which Cort delivers the lines. It explains, if anything ever could, why he'd tried to set himself on fire before in the film. With this scene we stop holding on to the idea that he's a spoiled brat and begin to empathize with him.

But this moment truly belongs to Gordon. Some people believe that an actor shows his mastery of the craft by his ability to listen.
If that's the case, then Gordon sits and listens like a pro, before she goes and gives Harold a sweet pep talk about taking risks in life and being bold enough as to get hurt in the process. "Otherwise you got nothing to talk about in the locker room" she says.

And we can only imagine all the things someone like her had to talk about...
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Nobody Did It Better...

.

... than Tilda Swinton in Julia this year.

JA from MNPP here. You show me an actress' performance from 2009 and I will show you the shadow that Tilda's Julia casts across it, engulfs it with, and then takes it down in three swift gulps, perhaps letting out a valiant belch in a vague and half-remembered recognition of their effort.

I was reminded of this while reading Glenn's piece on the film at Stale Popcorn this morning and it made me angry. Angry! Angry that she's really nowhere near the Oscar's already insane echo-chamber of self-propelled hype this year. "Oh she won two years ago." "Oh her film opened way back in nowhere-land."

And? Tilda's Julia rips the cooking sherry out of Meryl's Julia's hand and bashes her in the head with it. She climbs into bed with Abbie's Fanny and invites that whinging Keats over for threesies (but then just throws up over the side and passes out, naturally). She stuff's Gaby's Precious in the trunk of a stolen car and then loses her in the desert.

She wins even though she's not trying.

And they're not trying, so oh well. Just another one of the greats that'll slip by because of whatever political nonsense they wanna ascribe to it. So I wanna know this: which early non-contenders from this year's race are bumming you out the most? See it is still early so maybe if I just shout about Tilda a bunch people will remember. Shout! This is me shouting! Shout about yours in the comments. No actor left behind! (Or director, or writer, or cinematographer... so on.)
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Uncanny Birthday Suits

Celebrating cinematic folk, born on this day 11/23. Get out your kazoos.

Franco, Maxwell and Harpo. Half of the fun of building these posts
is these completely nonsensical groupings!

1859 Billy the Kid, outlaw. I've always thought it a mystery as to exactly why people routinely idolize characters whom they would never want to meet in real life. Murderers, criminals, thieves, (especially gangsters)... they all get the silver screen pedestal treatment. Billy has been portrayed dozens of times and Val Kilmer, Emilio Estevez, Kris Kristofferson, Buster Crabbe and Paul Newman have all done the job.
1888 Harpo Marx I'm embarrassed to say this but I can never remember which Marx Bros is which. When I watch 30s comedies, I almost always select a screwball romance.
1892 Erté artist over whom wee Nathaniel obsessed, wanting a whole animated movie to spring forth from his theatrical illustrations of ladies in elaborate headdresses and fab gowns.
1913 Michael Gough, I know that people like Chris Nolan's Batman approach (a movie star in every role!) but to me, Gough will always be "Alfred Pennyworth". Take that Michael Caine!
1924 Anita Linda, award-winning Filipino actress
1941 Franco Nero, Mr. Vanessa Redgrave and sexy Sir Lancelot in Camelot (1967) "♪ ♫ If ever I would leave you..."

I absolutely love this, don't you? One of the dreamiest numbers ever

1944 Joe Eszterhas self assured writer of oft terrible but usually hugely entertaining and vulgar screenplays: Flashdance, The Jagged Edge, Showgirls and the Sharon Stone box set. How does he do it?
1944 James Toback writer and director, not always simultaneously. Films include: Bugsy, Tyson and a Robert Downey Jr double feature (Two Girls and a Guy, The Pick-Up Artist)
1948 Bruce Vilanch Emmy winner, Oscar joke writer, strange character
1959 Maxwell Caulfield, La Pfeiffer's 'Cooo-oooo-ooo-ool Rider'
1959 Dominique Dunne, young actress who was murdered the same year her career took off with several TV gigs and the smash hit Poltergeist (she was the teen daughter)
1966 Vincent Cassel Mr. Monica Bellucci. He's very busy between American supporting roles (Eastern Promises, Oceans 13, Black Swan) and French stardom (Public Enemy No. 1, Irreversible ...a bit more on that one here)
1970 Oded Fehr, Israeli actor. Busiest in American television but you'll occassionally spot him onscreen in films like The Mummy
1970 Danny Hoch, actor/monologuist
1992 Miley Cyrus, ubiquitous gazillionaire

Finally, today marks the kickoff a week long blog-a-thon in honor of the immortal Boris Karloff, who brought so many imaginative film characters and movie monsters to life. Today is the 122nd anniversary of his birth. What would horror cinema be "Karloff the Uncanny", the man who brought Frankenstein (1931) and the Mummy (1932) to life? Though he's best remembered for those films of the early 30s -- he made a ton of them -- his career spanned from silent short films all the way to 70s horror pictures and one particularly memorable voice gig. He's the star of the 1966 animated TV classic How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

The Oscar Winds Are Blowing...

I've worked hard over the years to insure that this is more than just an Oscar blog. There's lot of love for movies outside of the film year we're living in. But... but... it's awfully hard to resist the "All Oscars! All the Time!" siren song that starts wailing through every film industry speaker when Thanksgiving approaches. So I figured I'd finish revising the Oscar pages. There's more soon, particularly in regards to the foreign, animated, documentary and costume races, but for now there are tweaks. Here's the index of predictions.


I've gained faith in Nine (more on that once the embargo breaks) and I've lost some faith in Invictus and The Lovely Bones (generally speaking, I'm suspicious of the annual films that hide) but I've curiously regained a little for Avatar which climbs the charts in a few areas and which remains the film I'm predicting as having the highest nomination count without a corresponding Best Picture bid. Even if it's great -- and James Cameron's name augurs well for that -- it's still a sci-fi picture. Having had a few conversations with industry folks (including AMPAS members) over the past week I'm starting to think I've underestimated A Serious Man which is Avatar's inverse prediction wise (i.e. the projected Picture nominee with the least amount of nominations). And it may mean nothing but one voting producer and his wife that I chatted with were both nuts for Sam Rockwell in Moon. Who knew? Not that producers can nominate actors, but I thought it was interesting nonetheless.

As ever the Golden Globes and the NBR have a lot of power to set the tone IF (and only if) they go with anyone that's not already a sure thing or give an obvious cold shoulder to someone who is. Can't wait to see what happens next...

PICTURE / DIRECTOR / ACTOR / ACTRESS / SUPPORTING ACTOR / SUPPORTING ACTRESS / FOREIGN FILM / COSTUME DESIGN / ANIMATION / VISUALS / AURALS
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Crazy and Beautiful, That's Kiki

Dave here, popping in to offer thoughts on a sliver of 2001's cinematic offerings as per Nat's request.

As a movie, crazy/beautiful isn't nearly as offbeat as its uncapitalized title and forward-slash want to suggest - the arc of the story is effortlessly predictable and the social divisions between the couple are often drawn in laughably implausible ways. But it marks itself out as a movie worth watching by having Kirsten Dunst burning a hole through the screen throughout. She seems to have been missing from the movies lately, which probably makes a lot of people quite happy... but I don't count myself as one of them. Her performance as Nicole in crazy/beautiful was perhaps the first time her charisma, as seen from her debut in 1994's Interview with a Vampire to 2000's energetic Bring It On, was backed up by blindingly evident acting chops.

She shoots this routine plot through with a bare-faced honesty, a vibrant but completely confused girl, switching from violent temper to coy flirt to desolate weeper at the blink of an eye. Her 'biggest' scene - a heightened encounter with her father and her cold stepmother - is sadly also the one crack in Dunst's armour, as she rather overdoes the emotional breakdown. But for the rest of the film, she makes Nicole a pathetic mess, but one that you can see the spark that attracts Carlos (Jay Hernandez) and makes him want to 'rescue' her. The film ends up spelling out why she's reached this state, but it's all been clear in Dunst's performance from the start - she's almost given up on herself at the very start, as she half-heartedly says "stay away, I'm dangerous" to Carlos and his friends. Frequently it's obvious how much she relies on other people to indulge her pretences, and Dunst excels at the self-conscious, pathetic sadness Nicole feels when someone cuts through it.

I'm not pretending it's the best performance of 2001 (not when Naomi Watts is staring at me...), but it certainly deserves more attention than it got and should remain a highlight of Kiki's career. Maybe her taking some time out of the limelight will help in final breaking her out of being perceived as a teenager and give up some parts, like Nicole, that are worthy of her considerable talent and charisma.

(A shallow postscript: is she not infinitely preferable with the glowing red hair to the slightly pasty-blonde? Yet another reason the Spider-Man movies - we'll just pretend the last one didn't happen - are golden.)

Late to the Comment Party? No Biggie

Some of you may have noticed that any articles that have slipped off the front page now have moderated comments. I was forced to do this by huge waves of spam hitting my blog -- it's getting worse all the time actually, dozens of spam comments to be weeded out every day. But I'm delighted that people still comment on older articles. Two recent comments I wanted to draw attention to:

anonymous (sign your names people, it takes all of 1.5 seconds) on the casting of the August: Osage County movie

You know Doris Day has been itching to come back to do a film....and what a way of coming back to movies...also Im surprised no one has mentioned Beth Grant (from Sordid Lives) or even Delta Burke

I can't imagine that Doris Day wants to work again. A Doris Day return would be an event regardless of the vehicle. Her last feature film With Six You Get Eggroll was released 41 years ago. After that she did five years of her own TV show and then retired at 51. She's 87 years old now. That's not exactly young but if Estelle Parsons can travel the country doing a 3 hour play twice a day at the age of 82... maybe there's a lot of elderly actresses still spry enough for a good movie role, should any screenwriters bother to write them. Still, I worry when actors retire. 'If you rest, you rust' and all of that. But wouldn't it be fun to see Doris Day one more time on the big screen? Especially in a comedy.

janelia commented on the Precious review, and I'm glad she did

I am all for Meryl winning Best Actress. I have now watched Meryl, Carey and Gabourey and I honestly think Meryl gave the best performance of these three. Sure, it was a lightweight movie, but that doesn't mean Meryl's performance is lightweight. I remember a youtube video from way back when showing clips of Oscar winning actresses that all had crying scenes and people wondered if an actress could win without a dramatic screaming and crying scene. I think one can make the argument that it takes more effort to win over an audience without the sympathy factor. We always lament the crowning of Oscar bait roles, but then we complain when there is a contender that isnt the typical Oscar type?

She makes a great point. This is totally and always the case when a "lighter" performance gets recognized in any way. So Oscar is damned if they do and damned if they don't. We have to get beyond our hangups about tears equalling great acting, in order to see that each character makes different demands of the actor playing them. I don't personally think the Julia Child performance is the best of the year but it is super fun and besides, preferences and predictions are different things. Curiously, literally every Oscar pundit I've talked to online or in person thinks I'm crazy in my firm suspicion that Meryl Streep will win this year. I guess I'll either have the last laugh or I'll look, well, crazy. Either way is fine; you have to call it like you see it and give yourself plenty of rope to hang or else it's no fun to swing.
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Ewan McGregor's Link Saber

Fin de Cinema appreciates Tilda in Julia. More people need to
Spiegel Online "we make lists because we don't want to die" Good point. But also because they're fun
In Contention the animated shorts finalist list
Movie|Line interviews Hal Holbrook for That Evening Sun. The performance of his career?


Hollywood Elsewhere asks an understandable question regarding The Twilight Saga: New Moon's box office numbers
Awards Daily wonders whether Sandra Bullock is a safer bet than previously thought for The Blind Side
Vanity Fair handicaps the Oscar race and makes a case for Fantastic Mr Fox costumes (hmmm) but falls into the age old lazy schpiel about "not enough best actresses to fill a category". I swear to god that people say this every f***ing year and it is never ever true. You just have to be willing to look at performances that people aren't talking about for various reasons: Tilda Swinton in Julia, Abbie Cornish in Bright Star, Michelle Pfeiffer in Chéri, Saoirse Ronan The Lovely Bones, Melanie Laurent in Inglourious Basterds, etcetera... and that's just off the top of my head beyond the contenders that people are talking about at the moment (Bullock/Cotillard/Mirren/Mulligan/Sidibe/Streep) which already equals more than an entire shortlist can hold. The lists are always at least twice as deep as most pundits are ever willing to admit. Why is that? Why won't these blinders ever come off?

Finally, you've probably seen Forbes' list of Hollywood's most overpaid stars by now. This isn't something I think about a lot given that my favorites tend to be people whose salaries aren't reported. But I do think lists like this are problematic. They underline obvious truths (no star is foolproof... even when they stick to formula and some people are just lucky / some people are grossly overpaid because they happen to star in franchises that would be hits without them) and often obscure some real truths.

Ewan McGregor's diminishing filmography

Ewan McGregor comes in at #2. Is he grossly overpaid or is he just making films that his core audience isn't remotely interested in? I'd guess the latter or somewhere inbetween. I'm hardly an accurate judge of box office appeal -- in my world Tilda Swinton is a way bigger name/draw than Tom Cruise or Adam Sandler and the name "Pedro Almodóvar" would put more asses in seats than "Michael Bay" on opening weekend -- but I am a huge fan of McGregor's and frankly, he hasn't made a movie that I've been excited about since the twofer of Big Fish and Young Adam back in 2003. I really love him but I have little interest in seeing him play second fiddle to Renée Zellweger (Miss Potter) or Hilary Swank (Amelia) in stale prestige biographies or do ensemble work in lame Tom Hanks franchises (Angels & Demons). Ewan came to fame doing edgy, boisterous and inventive cinema (Trainspotting, Moulin Rouge!, Velvet Goldmine, The Pillow Book) and might that not still be what his base is hoping to watch him do? That won't keep him in the lap of luxury or anything but it might be more artistically satisfying.
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"How come he's so good at killing people?"

Birthday Suits: Deserve's Got Nothin' To Do With it

Celebrating the birthdays of the cinematic peoples daily. If you were born on 11/22 shout it out in the comments. How will you celebrate these fine folks, listed below?

Scarlett, Mark and Mads

1920 Anne Crawford Israeli born British actress of the 40s. Died when she was only 35.
1923 Arthur Hiller Canadian director. Oscar nominated for mega-hit Love Story (1970). Also known for comedies like The Out-of-Towners, Silver Streak and Outrageous Fortune and some erratically interesting choices like The Americanization of Emily, Man of La Mancha and Hollywood's first mainstream gay film Making Love (1982).
1932 Robert Vaughn The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and one of The Magnificent Seven
1940 Terry Gilliam crazy indispensible auteur. He doesn't deserve all the funding / filmmaking problems he's had of late. But, sadly, I can't really recommend The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus which is messy in dozens of ways
1956 Richard Kind character actor (A Serious Man)

1959 Jamie Lee Curtis actress of the Perfect bod, Mrs. Christopher Guest, the most successful "final girl" of all time, yogurt spokesperson and Oscar snubbee (deserved so much better but at least the Golden Globes paid respects)
1960 Christopher Ciccone Madonna betrayer (boo. hiss)
1960 Leos Carax French auteur behind the excellent Lovers on the Bridge and the darkly hypnotic Pola X. Rent them
1961 Mariel Hemingway Woody Allen's first intergenerational onscreen love affair in Manhattan. Unfortunately she would not be his last. Her birthday suit was an 80s staple: Personal Best, Star 80 and Playboy magazine.
1964 Ingvar Eggert Sigurðsson Icelandic actor of memorable eyes and scary forehead (Jar City, Angels of the Universe)
1965 Mads Mikkelsen Denmark's chief export, male actor division
1967 Mark Ruffalo (sigh) Hollywood ain't done right by him. Enough with the thankless second banana crap... give him something meaty. He's proven his worth
1984 Scarlet Johansson remember when I was so obsessed with her that I devoted a whole week to her on the blog? Damn that was a shortlived infatuation. I don't expect my new indifference will turn around much with Iron Man 2, given that ScarJo does her best work as quiet reactive women in dramas but we'll see...

Finally, I have been terribly remiss in writing more about Geraldine Page who left this mortal coil shortly after her long-awaited Oscar win (Trip to Bountiful) 24 years ago. She would have been 85 today.

Page and her kept man. Who wouldn't keep him?

Of all of Oscar's most beloved actresses (up there with Bette Davis and Ingrid Bergman!) she gets zero attention in the online film world. Surely she deserves more. I promised reader George that I'd write about her two years ago and I still haven't. Argh! At any rate, I need to watch a few more films but my favorite performance of hers from those I've seen is unquestionably Tennessee Williams' Sweet Bird of Youth, opposite Paul "hard gold" Newman, in which she plays a temperamental actress, desperate for a big comeback. She out divas several more famous divas and that's saying something. Have you seen it?