Dreams Come True: Nathaniel's Audience With Julianne Moore.

As some of you know, I had the opportunity to sit down with Julianne Moore last week. The occasion was the release of The Kids Are All Right, Julianne's 48th movie and one of her very best. Julianne plays "Jules" the flighty wife of "Nic" played by Annette Bening. They've raised two children together. Nic had Joni (Mia Wasikowska) and soon thereafter Jules had Laser (Josh Hutcherson). It's one of Julianne's best comic performances in a career that's mostly been noted for her dramatic magic with internally shell shocked women. But it wasn't always accolades. Julianne's big screen career started twenty years ago this summer when the horror flick Tales of the Darkside was released. Inauspicious beginnings but no matter.

My history with Julianne doesn't stretch back quite that far. I first took true notice of Julianne in Benny & Joon (1993) when she was playing a former (bad) actress turned waitress. In one of the movies most endearing scenes, Johnny Depp mimics her horror performance that he's memorized as they watch it together. She nearly dies of embarrassment. Five years later, I did more than notice her. I fell madly in love with her in her next bad actress incarnation as porn star Amber Waves. Ironically, though those two key bad actress roles were the beginning of my major Moore obsession, the woman herself is anything but a bad actress. She's one of the greats.

The first incarnation of The Film Experience (my baby that you're reading right now) was actually a print zine called "FiLM BiTCH" and Julianne Moore was the first iconic (literally) cover girl. I painted her as a religious icon. I met Julianne once before in 2002 on the Oscar campaign trail for Far From Heaven but it was a simple 'hello, good luck' type of public event and my girl friend snapped this dorky photo.

Julianne & Nathaniel in 2002 at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood.

I knew when I was granted an actual audience with Ms Moore eight years later that I'd have to risk the ridiculous and bring my post collegiate / pre website zine with me to show her. Entering the plush hotel suite, I told Julianne I was nervous. "I'm not scary," she assured warmly and then we discussed what to drink (sparkling water it was) and then she actually poured me a glass. Her serving me... What universe is this?! I told her I wasn't scary either. It was important for her to know that, I joked, before we began since I was about to whip out the truly fannish obsessiveness. Julianne took it all in stride, laughing, and even seemed to enjoy the history as I showed her the zine.

(I've bolded, italicized and explained to give you a sense of my interpretation of what follows)

Nathaniel: You actually inspired my writing career inadvertently, I'm not even joking.

Julianne: No kidding? [Wide eyed look at magazine, squeals] Did you make a magazine?

Nathaniel: I did.

Julianne: Oh my gosh, that's nuts!!! [reading aloud] "Julianne Moore is God" [laughter]. You're so sweet! Holy cow. This is crazy.

Nathaniel: I even brought one for you in case you have a stash of weird fan things.

Julianne: Well, thank you. I'm very touched. [Signed the cover] Can you read this? It says "To Nathaniel, with love and deep appreciation"

Nathaniel: You know what it was? It was Boogie Nights. I had so many feelings about that movie at the time that conversations weren't enough so I had to start writing. I'm being totally serious. You were a big inspiration.

Julianne: That's so cool. I'm very touched.

Nathaniel: So that said --that crazy story said -- how weird is fame for you?

Julianne: [Laughs]

Nathaniel: Strangers giving you gifts. Have you totally acclimated to it?

Julianne: It's funny. We were just talking -- my friend who I've known for a really long time -- he was talking about reality stars. And people just want to be famous. I said, 'I don't understand that. I don't understand fame without content.' Because it's not -- I don't know if fame is anything in particular. I feel like it's an offshoot of something else.

You know I always said to my kids when they were little, especially when they'd see me on a magazine, and like, if somebody said 'Are you there because you're famous?' I'd say to them 'No, I'm there because of this job that I do and this job requires that I do this other public stuff.' I think if it's not rooted in something that you actually do, then it becomes -- then it's not necessarily a comfortable thing.


And also I'm not wildly famous, you know? I'm a person who is sort of moderately famous.

Nathaniel: But your fame, the ascendance of your fame, happened in lockstep when things were getting really crazy for famous people in the late 90s.

Julianne: Actually, that's true. There was never... when you were an actor, there was never any expectations that it was going to come with all this other stuff. Suddenly the whole celebrity culture blossomed around the same time.

That stuff, I think, is unusual. I think you've got to compartmentalize. It has to be a completely different thing.

Nathaniel: So, The Kids Are All Right. I read that you signed on because of High Art. Love that film. You signed on before while Lisa was still writing it? Is that correct?

Julianne: Well, no. What happened was I met Lisa at a Women in Film luncheon. I went over to meet her and I said 'Hey, why didn't I see the script to High Art?' She laughed. And I was like 'No, seriously. I don't understand. I see all these scripts. I never saw your script.' I loved the movie. I just thought it was great. She kind of laughed. I said 'Well, you know...' We agreed that we liked each other and we had a meeting. She said 'I'm going to write something for you one of these days.' Not too long after that she sent me Kids... which she had written with me in mind.

And then it was a period of four or five years before we finally got it off the ground. So, I would have done anything she sent me, probably. And it just happened to be this really terrific script. And then there were many iterations of it: Stuart came on as a co-writer, the script became much more comedic in tone. But it was always something I really responded to.

Nathaniel: Because you were involved early, did you have any input into the character?

Julianne: I don't do that.

Nathaniel: You don't?

Julianne: I actually don't do that. I like the tension between the character and the actor. So I don't want to say things, like, "I wanna make her blah blah blah."

But I will get attached to certain things. There was some stuff in the movie -- remember I had that line when Annette and I walk away and I say that thing about Jose. 'I had to fire him he was a crack addict.'?

Nathaniel: Hilarious.

Julianne: Yeah. That was a line that was left from another scene, another version, where I kept talking about the gardener having a huge drug problem and how I have to do something about it. It was so funny and then it got cut. I was like 'I'm bringing it back!' I didn't care that it was on our backs as we were walking away. I'm just throwing it back in there.

In that sense I will harvest thing from other versions.

Nathaniel: I know you don't talk about your process that much.

Julianne: Right.

Nathaniel: A little nugget? I know the scripts mean a lot to you. Do you just read them a lot and internalize or if someone grabbed your script would it be just covered in notes?

Julianne: Almost nothing in the script. If there are line changes I put them in. My scripts are pretty empty. It's just about internalizing it, actually, like you said. I read it...think about it... think about it. It kind of percolates. The interesting thing is that I might not do a lot of writing on it and that kind of stuff but I get really upset if I don't have the script for a few months. It has to be there for me to be reading and thinking about.

Nathaniel: On the set?

Julianne: Before I'm shooting. If someone says to me 'Hey we're shooting this movie in two weeks.' 'WHAT? WHAT I need...' I like to have the script for a couple of months at least because I have this process of thinking and thinking about it.

Nathaniel: One thing I loved about the performance is the energy with Annette Bening -- I'm sure this is conscious -- there's a little bit of shrinking back like you were almost one of the kids in the family?

Julianne: Right, right.

Nathaniel: I thought it was really interesting. With your peer group of actresses ... you've done The Hours with Kidman and Streep but you didn't have scenes with them.

Julianne: We were all separate.

Nathaniel: I was wondering. What was that like working with someone [Annette Bening] of your stature, so to speak?

Julianne: Great! It was great. It was definitely a partnership, a marriage. It was our job to illuminate that and the dynamics of that marriage. And insomuch as she [Jules] doesn't seem to be the dominant partner, you realize that she has an emotional transparency and fluidity that her wife [Nic] doesn't have.

Nic (The Bening) and Jules (God)

She might not be the one making the decisions or the money or whatever but then you realize, oh, but she's the fun one. It might seem like someone is in charge but then you go 'noooo...' There's all this balance, I think.

Nathaniel: The script is beautiful. You haven't had that many opportunities to be paired with an actress.

Julianne: No, you never get to do that. Who was I just talking to about this? Just to be around women. It's very exciting. You're always with guys. Always, always, always with guys. I was just talking about this to this young actress, this girl, Emma Stone. Most of your career you spend with men.

Nathaniel: Paul Thomas Anderson and Todd Haynes are two of your most famous collaborators. How different are they than Lisa Cholodenko to work with?

Julianne: You know, every person is different. Every director is different by virtue of who they are. But the directors that have interested me and who I've had successful collaborations with are people with very strong visions. That's sort of my job to facilitate that, to be a conduit for their words and imagery. To get it out there. A lot of it with an actor is to figure out, to be somewhat adaptable to whatever their personal, like, vibe is. That's interesting to me, to key into that and avail yourself to that.

Nathaniel: You've played lesbians before even though it's not a famous part of your career like 50s housewives, for example. And you've worked with a lot of gay directors.

Julianne: Yeah.

Nathaniel: Have you always felt that affinity with the gay community?

Julianne: I don't know that... [Considering her words] I always hate to be divisive about gender or sexuality or race or anything like that. I feel like sometimes, even with the best of intentions, when we put ourselves into boxes, it ends up being a less universal thing.

But I will say that I've always worked with filmmakers who are interested in very human, not so much plot driven, stories -- more kind of character and emotionally driven. And a lot of gay filmmakers fall into that category.

[At this point Julianne and I were interrupted. My time was coming to a close. Time is a cruel mistress. Wrap up! For the finale, I couldn't resist swinging way back to the beginning.]

Nathaniel: I have to ask you this because I was giggling to myself outside about your career and how long I've followed it.

Julianne: It's so cute.

Nathaniel: I've seen all of your movies but four.

[At this last confession outburst, Julianne registers a split second of shock, followed by hilariously self-deprecating sympathy.]

Julianne: Really? My god, you've seen some junk then!

Nathaniel: Twenty years ago -- your debut on screen was twenty years ago, in Tales of the Darkside. When you were being killed by the mummy, did you ever imagine this future for yourself?

Julianne's Darkside in 1990

Julianne: No.

Nathaniel: ...Oscar nominations?

Julianne: No way. No way.

The funny thing about that mummy movie is that I didn't even read the end of it. Because I have this tendency not to read the stage directions. I just like dialogue. At the end of the movie there's all this stuff about me being, you know, attacked by the mummy and I thought I was finished. I remember the director says to me you 'You didn't read the end, did you?' I was like 'UH OH!'

So, no, I didn't imagine it at all. I just wanted to work. I just wanted steady work.

Nathaniel: It was so nice to meet you.

Julianne: I'm so flattered. Oh Nathaniel, thank you.

<-- Julianne on the day we met.

As I rose to leave I offered my hand to shake and Julianne threw out her arms for a hug instead.

I'd run out of time. I already knew I was her last interview before her lunch break after a full morning of interviews. It was ending and we hadn't even talked about the sore topic (to fans at least) of her Oscar record! I collected my bag and we said our final goodbyes. I couldn't help a smidgeon of small talk about the Oscars... the good lucks and such. "I'm pissed you haven't won yet," I grumbled. She smiled. She's heard this a million times, though she said nothing of the sort. "Oh," she said, shooing it off sensibly "As long as I keep getting jobs." And then she was off to lunch and I was floating away, having met one of the great screen actresses and a personal inspiration, too.

And for the record, no.

No, I never imagined any of this either when I was painting that oil portrait of her in 1997 and affectionately nicknaming her "god" with other actress-loving friends. No way. No way.
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"Do I miscalculate?"

"Well, then. Is something detaining you?"

[Great Moments in Screen Bitchery #609, Nicole Kidman in The Hours]

Can you think of anything more exhilarating than a trip to London?
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Decade in Review: 2002 Top Ten

As with 2000 and 2001, I'm reprinting my original top ten lists and commentary. If I've got something new to say, it'll be in red below.

Please note: This list was based on NYC release dates in the year 2002. Some movies are listed as different years at the IMDb based on when they were produced or released in their home country or in LA or whatnot.


Undervalued: Morvern Callar, Roger Dodger, About a Boy, White Oleander, Panic Room and Kissing Jessica Stein Top 10 Runners Up: Chicago, Monsoon Wedding, Punch Drunk Love and Spirited Away I still am glad I championed most of these movies though I am sad that some of them aren't in the top ten... particularly Morvern, Monsoon and the Miyazaki. The MMMs. Though I'm not sure I'd know what to remove to make room for them.

10. 8 Women (François Ozon)
Ever since I a French teacher took my friends and I to see french movies on a field trip to the Detroit Institute of Arts in high school, I have been in love with French cinema. So, you can imagine I was in heaven watching icons of French cinema sing and dance through this spiked-punch celebration of femme-fatale cinematic archetypes. My only real regret is that this giddy movie wasn't called 11 Women. You see, in my throes of Gallic ecstasy I accidentally shouted out "Binoche" "Adjani" and "Bonnaire" before being bitch-slapped back into submission by the inimitable divas that were on display: Catherine Deneuve, Isabelle Huppert, Emmanuelle Beart, Fanny Ardant, Virginie Ledoyen, Danielle Darrieux, Ludivine Sagnier, Firmine Richard. A terrific, campy, twisty, and finally poignant film. (Full Review)

Maybe overvalued this. I still think it's great fun but...

09 Lovely and Amazing (Nicole Holofcener)
When I first saw this scathing comedy of self-image I admired it a lot but thought it little more than a well written indie. Trouble was, it wouldn't let me be. It kept playing again and again in my head until I returned the following week for another look. At that point I began to notice how marvelously it was put together. Its haphazard lack of plot felt instantly right. This film has bigger fish to fry than to live in subservience to the almighty plot. Upon a recent third viewing it felt churlish to leave something this direct, memorable, and incisive off of the list for something with flash or size. Despite its surface hostility there's something really lovely, humane, and 'just right' about this minor gem.

I rarely think about this movie now but when I do something really vivid usually springs up.

08 The Hours (Stephen Daldry)
In almost any article you'll read about this motion picture, the Pulitzer Prize winning novel upon which it is is based is mentioned as "unfilmable." Never mind all that. Unfilmable novels get made into movies every year. With actresses as talented as Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman, and Julianne Moore onboard... unfilmable was always an inappropriate adjective. Who better than this exceptionally talented A list team to illuminate the interior monologues that this magnificent book is riddled with.

Though the film falls short of the masterfully complex feeling of Michael Cunningham's source material, it's a sophisticated, perceptive and fascinatingly assembled triptych. It casts a rarely seen thematic light on the generational progress of female as well as gay liberation. The carefully rendered and ambitious portraits of sadness illustrate how emotional struggles can be passed down and reverberate through bloodlines, art, and relationships.

07 Spider-Man (Sam Raimi)
Popcorn flicks are famous for their fast fade. But Spider-Man truly comes to life before your eyes while you're watching it. I kept reliving the film's terrific setpieces and thinking about the iconic characters afterwards. Sam Raimi's unashamed affection for his source material and the lead actors' sincere commitment to their characters breathes life into the legendary romantic coupling of Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson. The film's elated peak comes upside down with a passionate sure-to-be classic kiss in the rain. My passion for it didn't fade at all.

Some months later, I'm convinced that Raimi's Spider-Man has left the 70s Superman in the dust. I'm more and more prone to think that this inventive director has also surpassed even the weird grandeur of Tim Burton's Batman Returns. Spider-Man may well be the cinema's best superhero flick. Ever. (Review & Kirsten Dunst appreciation)

It's funny. I love Spider-Man 2 so much more than this one that I had altogether forgotten how much I loved this. Spider-Man 2 is easily my favorite superhero picture ever made. It gets everything about the fun, color, style, superpowers, and heightened emotions of comic book heroism just right. And it's got a better villain.

06 Late Marriage (Dover Kosashvilli)
My sixth choice is the most obscure selection to make my top ten list. Seek it out on DVD. This searing emotionally truthful drama from Israel was submitted for the foreign language Oscar race last year but it didn't make the shortlist. But never mind about the Academy. The truth is that it's better than any of the films that were nominated in that category last year. Late Marriage achieved a small degree of fame for its relatively explicit sex scene. But the film packs a powerhouse emotional punch that you won't soon forget. If debuting writer/director Dover Kosashvilli's subsequent efforts are this strong, watch out... (Review)

Lior Ashkenazi in the terrific Israeli picture Late Marriage

I wish this had been one of my "best picture" nominees. I think of it often. It has such potency. Sadly, Kosashvilli seemed to vanish afterwards. His follow up feature never made it to the States... never made it much of anywhere, actually. Though I guess there's hope still. He has two features in the works.

05 The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (Peter Jackson)
Last year's opening chapter in Jackson's astonishing interpretation of J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth saga left my mouth agape. I have been an ardent fan of Peter Jackson since 1994's Heavenly Creatures and he continues to amaze. Filmmaking, storytelling, and grandeur are in his blood. Even his small guerrilla features have "scale" for lack of a better word. Whether Jackson is filming fornicating puppets or murderous schoolgirls, his commitment to showing you the world within his film is immense.

The only reason that The Two Towers isn't higher on the list is that I had a little trouble jumping in this time. I found the opening off-putting and consequently I had a little trouble with the initial rhythm of the crosscutting triple narratives. But one can't complain too much about a stop-and-go momentum when there is so much to see at every stop and so much momentum in every go. These films are the greatest the fantasy genre has ever offered. And more than that, irrespective of genre, the Lord of the Rings trilogy will eventually be taking its rightful place in history alongside other acknowledged masterworks like Kieslowski's Trois Couleurs and Coppola's Godfather films once the journey is complete. Though I'm anxious for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King I'm also a little sad to see it arrive. The journey is filled with sorrow but I wouldn't trade it for the world and I'll be sad to see it end.

Towers might be my least favorite of the LotR films though I think it's maybe a "better" film than Return of the King and it contains some of the greatest moments in the series. That's a puzzle. Is it because it's all middle -- no thrill of beginning or catharsis of ending? And I've lost a lot of faith in Peter Jackson since.

04 25th Hour (Spike Lee)
A bold, provocative work from one of America's most controversial directors. Spike Lee's latest joint is both a bracing portrait of a city in mourning and an intimate character study of a man approaching unavoidable crossroads. Responsibility is the larger theme and Lee approaches it with dry honest eyes and fearless maturity. This film hit me in the gut. It's a rarity...a 9/11 related piece that doesn't feel like a cheapening of the tragedy, but a tough love gift to a wounded beautiful city.

One of many films each decade to be undervalued primarily because it makes the mistake of opening when 70 other shinier films are opening and when everyone is too busy to think and when the media has too many other things going on to give it any due. Oh, Christmas time at the movies! You give but you take take take.

03 Talk To Her (Pedro Almodóvar)
I have been a devotee of Almodovar since I first saw Law of Desire in the 80s. I was scared, fascinated, and deeply in love with that movie... and I've eagerly awaited each subsequent film. There's been a lot of talk in recent years of Almodovar's "maturation" as a filmmaker but he's always been a great auteur. It's just that his recent films have more of a surface veneer of respectability. Thankfully he's retained his subversive edge. Almodovar's compassion for even the lowliest most morally reprehensible characters give his films an utterly moving humanism. Talk to Her is the perfect embodiment of this trait within his work. Depending on which angle you're seeing it from, this narrative of two comatose women and the men who love them is either a disturbingly pitch-black comedy or a highly effective melodrama (or both). But regardless of what genre from which the film springs, it's a great one. The auteur has again crafted another mysterious jewel. He's the kind of filmmaker who can move people to tears with a single shot; a man swimming underwater or a comatose woman whose sheets are being changed. He's the kind of filmmaker whose films grow richer on repeated viewings. He's the kind of filmmaker who can slyly drive his narrative straight through even the most diversionary moments like dropping a silent film right into the flow of the film. He's that kind of filmmaker. There aren't enough of them.

02 Y Tu Mamá También (Alfonso Cuarón)
By now it's already clear that Y Tu Mamá También has achieved classic foreign film status here in the States. Cuarón's take on the rowdy road movie is one of those rare film experiences where every element adds up to make the whole much greater than any of its individual parts. It moves rapidly on several layers and works on every last one of them: road movie, coming of age drama, teen sex comedy, sociopolitical statement. The recipe itself is deceptively simple: One gifted director + two randy boys ÷ one woman with a secret x a mythical beach = movie paradise. Like "Heaven's Mouth", the beach the boys invent only to discover in reality, this movie is a more magical thing than even Alfonso Cuarón probably imagined while dreaming it up.

I might reverse the order of this and the Pedro film now. They're so different, one is magic the other is a masterwork. But both are treasures.

01 Far From Heaven (Todd Haynes)
We begin and end with Douglas Sirk, you see. If nothing else, this was the year of the great melodrama director. His name popped up all over the place in film conversations, in retrospectives, in essays, and his films on television screens in the background of the most unrelated films (like 8 Mile). Sirkian tropes and homages were in the air. 8 Women was a comic primer for one way of looking at that world but with Far From Heaven, the renewed interest in melodrama and Sirkian emotionality reached its apotheosis.

The most infrequently understood yet most crucial to understand thing about Far From Heaven is that its replication of a bygone era is only the jumping off point for a film that is resolutely about the here and now. Among the film's many wonders is the extraordinary alchemies that Todd Haynes performs. While fashioning a replica and homage, he creates a thing beautifully his own. While hypnotically immersed in 50s minutiae, Far From Heaven offers a looking glass for the neo-conservative now. It's a film for the eyes, intellect, and heart. Like Moulin Rouge! which topped last year's list, Far From Heaven has gloriously resurrected and elevated a lost and potent genre.

Here's to all artists like Todd Haynes who when looking at the past find in it not rusty templates or stagnant by-the-book filmmaking, but timeless truth and the impetus to experiment artistically. Haynes dives into the past to show us the relevant present. His experiment pays its respect then moves divinely forward, like its heartbroken protagonist, into the uncertain future.

Far From Heaven is so familiar to me now, after multiple viewings, that it strangely feels a bit stiffer. It's like I didn't break it in so much as break it by obsessing on it so shamelessly and for so long. Still love it though. "I just adore it... that feeling it gives."


How was 2002 for you? They weren't mentioned in this article but some of the movies people really cared about that year were Adaptation, Bowling For Columbine, Minority Report, The Pianist, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Signs, About Schmidt, Road to Perdition, The Bourne Identity, 8 Mile and Gangs of New York. Which movies still mean the most to you? Which have you cooled on or forgotten all about?
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60 Appropriate Ways to Celebrate Meryl Streep Month

Happy 60th Birthday to Meryl Streep

1. Be your very best
2. Be dramatically potent.
   
3. ... then unexpectedly hilarious.
   
4. Fake a new accent every hour.
   
5. Imitate the dial tone on your phone.
   
6. Run around like a joyful madwoman with your hands in the air, stopping only to kiss people.
7. Run around like a joyful madwoman whilst singing your favorite ABBA song.
8. Accentuate your WASPiness... (or fake it).
   
9. Stay married to the same person for decades, confounding Hollywood protocol.
   
10. Pretend your significant other is a sculptor, make them use their hands.
11. Befriend Cher.
12. Watch Kramer vs. Kramer again.
13. Watch Angels in America again.
14. Consider yourself overrated... "but not today!"
    
15. Be highly quotable.
    
16. Memorize the entire Miranda Priestley "Cerulean" monologue.
    
17. Ask your best friends to call you "Mary Louise" for the remainder of the week.
18. Stweep!
19. Give to charities.
    
20. Sing more spectacularly than is humanly fair considering all of your other talents.
    
21. Watch Julia to see how it all began.
    
22. Say "That's ridiculous" with a Polish accent all day.
23. Visit Simply Streep and Meryl Streep Online.
24. Idolize your mama.
25. Make out with someone who looks like Robert Redford, Bobby DeNiro, Kevin Kline, Kurt Russell or Alison Janney
26. Send mixed messages to someone who looks like Jeremy Irons
    
27. Enjoy Silkwood all over again.
28. Flash your left tit and laugh about it.

29. Appreciate one of her rare underappreciated performances like the one in A Prairie Home Companion.
30. Stare off into space while dreaming of that farm in Africa, the French Resistance, your life as a singer, Virginia Woolf, the drugs you wish you were on or that French Lieutenant who will never return.
31. Wear a Vassar t-shirt.
32. ...or Yale paraphernalia
    
33. Pretend you've won an Oscar.
34. ...and another.
    
35. Pretend you've won a third since you deserve it.
36. Polish Meryl's star at 7018 Hollywood Blvd.
37. Stare at the sea provocatively whilst practicing "Obscure Melancholia"
38. Speak highly of New Jersey
    
39. Take your family white water rafting.
    
40. Watch Out of Africa again (you haven't seen it since the 80s).
    
41. Lighten the room when you walk in.
    
42. End your conversations with a dismissive "that's all".
43. Work towards making lots of "All Time Great" lists in whatever it is that you do.
    
44. ...actually deserve the honor.
45. Don't take yourself too seriously.
    
46. Proclaim "the dingoes got my baby!"
47. Have some cream of watercress.
    
48. Mix a drink for your friends (or frenemies) and pretend it's an immortality potion.
49. Be a legendary household name whilst avoiding any personal drama.
50. ...stop to consider and then appreciate how truly difficult that is to do.
    
51. Read up a little on the amazing Julia Child before Meryl's next picture Julie & Julia arrives.
52. Take a hot bath and fantasize about Clint Eastwood.
53. Make your significant other wash your hair outdoors.
54. Play dress up like Sophie or Kate Gulden
    
55. Be proudly liberal and politically active.
    
56. Make the world a better place.
    
57. Inspire future generations in your field.
58. Raise talented children
59. Age more spectacularly than a good wine.
    
60. Share this tribute post & video with Meryl-loving friends!
    

THAT'S ALL.
Click here for full blog / fresh posts
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Donut World

Mars Attacks! (1996)

Today is National Donut Day. I knew it and then I forgot it and then I passed by a rack of donuts at the grocery store not one hour ago. Aren't you thrilled to have a play-by-play of my life!? Well, aren't you? I opted not to buy them thinking "Sugar is not the answer, Nathaniel!"

See, I've been totally depressed. Like, Laura Brown depressed (yeah, that bad), which is totally an appropriate screen comparative because it's my birthday tomorrow and you know how much trouble Laura Brown had with that cake. That damn cake that she just couldn't get right!

If Toni Collette were to drop by for a cup of coffee right now, I'm reasonably certain I would try to make out with her.

So sugar isn't the answer even if it is Donut Day.

Maybe Mars Attacks! is the answer? I should watch it right now. It's not quite Tim Burton's funniest movie, that honor going to Pee Wee's Big Adventure, but it's surprisingly strong competition. If I only had a copy of the movie handy, I would run back to the grocery store and kick back with a whole mess of those deep fried rounds.


I'd lift a donut to salute Lukas Haas each time he appears. He seems like a sad fellow even in happy movies, even surrounded by donuts in Donut World, and misery loves company.
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Happy Inauguration Day!

I was so giddy last night that I spent hours goofing on Obamicon.Me creating these.

Enjoy...






images from Fight Club (1999), Doubt (2008), Alfred Hitchcock, Romeo + Juliet (1996), The Hours (2002), Scarlett Johansson and Isaac Mizrahi, Far From Heaven (2002) and Hilary Swank's second Oscar win.

return to the main blog for the latest posts
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Three Different Women. Each Living a Lie

Six years ago today The Hours had its red carpet premiere stateside before strolling on to Oscar glory with stones in its pockets and flowers it had bought itself. To celebrate enjoy this brilliant music video riff...



Thanks to Nick for pointing it out two months back. I revisited too often not to eventually share it here. Even if you've already seen it, one viewing can't possibly be enough.

Julie Anne, Mary Louise & Nicole Mary @ the premiere

Top Ten: Prosthetic Appendages

tues top ten: a weekly series for the list lover in you and the list maker in me


Rose McGowan may have the first machine gun leg in the current "hit" Grindhouse [Please allow me to willfully ignore the box office problems. I'm not a big gore or exploitation movie buff but the least the gore loving moviegoing public could do to satisfy my worries about their bloodlust is go see something with at least some pretense of quality or reason for existence beyond the carnage. Thank you -your editor] but she isn't the first actor to be blessed with a memorable part. Get it? "part" I kill myself.

Ten Memorable Prosthetic Appendages

10 Virginia Woolf's nose in The Hours. When Denzel Washington presented Nicole Kidman with her Oscar for this movie he made a really stupid joke about winning "by a nose". But, you know, that probably did tip the scales in her favor what with the Academy being the Academy. A gimmick goes a long way.

09 ROSE MACGOWEN HAS A MACHINE GUN FOR A LEG! Yes, we covered this already. Calm down.

08 Adam's demon arm gets firepower in Buffy the Vampire Slayer (season 4). Or as Adam likes it call it: upgrades. Yes, BtVS works its way onto every top ten list. I'm an addict, can't be helped. If you still have not taken the cue and learned to love this television series as much as I than it's really your problem, not mine.



07 Björk and Matthew Barney legs in Drawing Restraint 9. At least I hope those were prosthetic legs they were both wearing in that truly sickening whaling climax. Or maybe they were the real deal in which case the arty rock star and the rocking art star are both wearing proshetics now. Mommy! Björk & Barney are scaring me again.

06 Lena Olin's limbs in Romeo is Bleeding *SPOILER*. I remember virtually nothing about this movie other than that Lena Olin's ferocity scared the s*** out of me. And she capped off the movie with a truly masochistic evil fait accompli involving the loss of her own limbs. Ewwww

05 Steve Martin's nose in Roxanne. Any Cyrano movie would certainly do but I include this one because I have to share this anecdote I had totally forgotten about before typing this list. I had my undergraduate experience at BYU which is *gasp* a Mormon school. I usually avoided their campus cinemas because they would edit all the movies so as not to offend delicate sensibilities. Delicate sensibilities are abundant with religious types, don'cha know. One night we went to see Roxanne on campus. I'm sitting there totally enjoying msyelf when it comes to that big bar scene where some redneck calls Steve Martin a "Big Nose." Steve then humiliates the name-caller by relaying 20 wittier insults he could have used. It's a long scene that's essentially a countdown joke --a crowd pleaser -- and we're just laughing away and then they bleep out the fucking punchline. The entire countdown joke ruined. Argh. Some people don't deserve movies at all.

04 Mark Wahlberg's penis in Boogie Nights. Contrary to popular juvenile belief found every damn place on the internet the majority of famous men --hell the majority of men period -- do not have gigantic pornstar phalluses. So don't be so shocked next time you see a tabloid nudie shot of a movie star and he doesn't look like he's cut out for a career with Falcon Entertainment. So... Marky Mark got a fake one for Boogie Nights. [Obviously NSFW] People complained at the time that it didn't look real but whatevs. How often do prosthetic appendages look totally real in the movies? I mean, aside from that machine gun leg on Rose McGowan: a study in verisimilitude.

03 Luke Skywalkers right hand in Empire Strikes Back gets all chopped off and replaced with robotics. Like father, like son. I was pretty damn obsessed with Lukes fate in Empire as a wee boy. As previously detailed here.

02 Beer filled legs in The Saddest Music in the World. Like a lot of precocious or quirky auterial work (see also John Waters) Guy Maddin's films tend to be more fun to think about in retrospect or beforehand than whilst watching. I still chuckle inwardly whenever I think of those beer legs in this complete oddity of a musical. Isabella Rossellini, very well cast here and absolutely in love with her alcohol legs, is one of the most adventurous thespians working. "If you're sad and like beer, I'm your lady" Indeed.

01 Captain Hook in Peter Pan. You have to top each list with a classic. It's a rule or something.