Sunday, November 22, 2009

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?

19 comments:

MrW said...

Well, if that isn't as close to Geraldine Page nudity as you can get.

(One addition, btw: Rodney Dangerfield, *1921)

Melanie said...

Johnny Depp was named the sexiest man alive recently. Did you post about it in your blog? If so, I must have somehow missed it.

Do you agree? That he's the sexiest man alive?

Jude said...

I hope Woody finds a new muse, no offense ScarJo. Rebecca Hall was pretty good in Vicky Cristina Barcelona, she should do some more Allen movies, that'd be interesting.

brandz said...

you know, i finally saw An Education yesterday and I don't understand what all the fuss is about. i really tried to like the movie (i think because i was supposed to like the movie) but i came away disappointed. i think the storyline was too neat and tidy or something. Carey Mulligan is good, but not great. Meryl Streep was so much more memorable as Julia Child, easily.

mrripley said...

the pope of greenwich village - awful film but page has 2 scenes and the 2nd wow,oscar nommed out of nowhere.

Michael B. said...

For Anne Crawford its Israeli born not Israel born...

NoNo said...

@Melanie

Johnny Depp won People's Sexiest Man again? I think that makes him a two-timer like Pitt and Clooney. I guess it's better than Robert Pattinson. I'm sort of over People Magazine and their uninspired choices.

lylee said...

Agreed with you on Mark Ruffalo, Nat. I'm still hoping his career will pick back up. He's got too much talent & is too pretty to waste.

cal roth said...

Carey Mulligan gave the best female performance of the year, period.

cal roth said...

I'll be very pissed if she doesn't win that fucking Oscar. A instant classic and must-love performance, wonderful, full of grace and charm. That old Meryl Streep routine shouldn't beat such a marvelous break-through turn.

NATHANIEL R said...

@Melanie @NoNo -- yeah, i didn't comment on Johnny Depp because honestly, when I heard, I thought I had clinked on an old backlink or something. It didn't register to me as current news ;)

People magazine is kind of like "People's Choice Awards" though. You have to be very very very famous to win something like that so that limits your choices to about 20 men each year.

@Cal -- the year is not over yet.

@Jude -- i agree that Rebecca Hall should work with Woody Allen again. I thought she was a very natural fit for him.

cal roth said...

@NathanielR Don't you dare not to gold medal her! lol

cal roth said...

Ok, I admit I haven't seen Precious, and, of course, Nine, The Lovely Bones, It's Complicated, and Crazy Heart.

But you know and you see a GREAT performance, and not only a GREAT performance, but a performance you deeply admire but also love from the bottom of your heart.

I had never seen the girl before and now I love her, and I can do nothing about it.

These performances I haven't seen it must be a best of decade turn to make me forget Mulligan. I doubt it.

cal roth said...

Got to see Bright Star and Abbie is very very very very good. A solid bronze, up to now. Tilda is silver.

Andrew K. said...

I'm surprised [in a good way] that that's your favourite Geraldine performance.She should have won. I know that it's silly but that's the reason I never can warm up to Anne Bancroft in The Miracle Worker.

GreyDog said...

Nat --

I'm impressed you still remember that you "owe me" that Page write-up. Maybe one day we'll see it.

She's great in Sweet Bird playing totally against type. Would have loved to have seen her on stage.

Chele Belle said...

I also enjoyed Geraldine Page in SUMMER & SMOKE...which featured another favorite of mines from that era Laurence Harvey.

Anonymous said...

That Ruffalo pic is from what movie?

NATHANIEL R said...

i think it's from IN THE CUT. but i 'm not sure. maybe not. didn't he have a 'stache in that one?