American Woman: Sister Suffragettes and Screen Sirens

Mike i.e. Goatdog (of the Best Pictures From the Outside In series) was visiting from the Windy City this past weekend. He brought the wind with him. It was so strong and crazy that he cracked "I think we're going to land on someone's sister". Hee!

We took in the "American Woman" exhibit at the Met. They had a section on Screen Sirens so... that's always one way to hook the cinephiles. Only one section was about the movies but I was reminded of other movies a few times as the decades past by: Howard's End and Thoroughly Modern Millie in particular.


It was a costume exhibit mostly, which covered the long slow rise of female liberation.

Reminders that it took multiple decades to get half of the population something as obvious as the right to vote suddenly gives you perspective about how slow progress is. And it reminds you that today's civil rights struggles will pay off... eventually. The problem is there's always huge conservative forces working against progress. And they're always so proud of it at the time. Decades later their ancestors will watch a period movie about some civil rights struggle and everyone will cluck at the screen and feel confident that they would have been on the progressive side and 'how horrible that people treat [fill in blank with any minority] this way!'. And they won't see the hypocritical parallel when they vote against whatever is the new civil rights struggle.

This is the way history (and movies about it) goes...and why everyone should stop fighting against other people's rights fer chrissakes [/soapbox]

It was totally fun to see how one decade would bleed into the next fashion-wise... but you know how I get about costume design. The whole thing made me long for a really great epic about the Suffragette movement. I love the "Sister Suffragette" number from Mary Poppins but it does depress me a little that that's my chief touchstone, cinematically speaking. Or am I missing some great obscure drama?

I also think we need a really big budget eye candy movie about flappers. My favorite fashion evolution was watching the slim androgynous lines of the flapper dresses morphing into the sleek but very feminine dresses of Hollywood's golden age.

The tail end of the exhibit, before you exit from the gift shop, is a circular room filled with costumes one might easily have seen in 30s and 40s movies with huge looping clip reels of greats like Jean Harlow, Katharine Hepburn and Rita Hayworth. A Norma Shearer vs. Joan Crawford clip from The Women, which I've seen a trillion times, was made fresh by Mike's Old Hollywood knowledge. He pointed out the ample display of Joan Crawford's legs while Norma is only shot from the waist up or covered up with a huge full skirt. I guess they rarely showed Norma's legs because they were considered unsexy/stumpy? It's another variation on Natalie Wood's bracelet (she was uncomfortable about her left wrist) or Barbra Streisand's 'only from the left side' profile edict.

I love Norma and I did not know this.

One of my favorite things about hanging out with fellow movie-obsessives is that you can make bad jokes and constant movie references all day and no one looks at you funny but instead plays along. Right before leaving the museum for dinner we chanced upon this statue of Cleopatra.

Nathaniel: I want my money back. This looks nothing like Liz Taylor.
Mike: OR Claudette Colbert.

The American Woman exhibit runs through August 15th and you can see a slideshow (partial) here. If you missed the celebrity attended opening last week you can see pics here.

Helen Mirren... Not Usually One For That Waxy Look

One of the most brilliant things about Dame Helen Mirren has to be how lively and famously sexy she still is in her 60s. It surely has to do with comfort in her own skin since she doesn't seem to be trying to come across like some fresh 45 year-old. One can't really imagine her ordering up plastic surgery or botox. Is that why seeing her pose with her wax self amuses so?


This statue is one of the newbies at Madame Tussaud's in London. Have you ever been there? I went only once here in NYC and found it all surprisingly amusing. I was stunned to find that RuPaul got quite the goddess centerpiece treatment. And this was a couple of years before RuPaul's comeback on RuPaul's Drag Race.

Despite only entering the tourist trap once, I regularly see their statues outside since they're very close to one of the biggest multiplexes here. Waxy Leonardo DiCaprio is hanging outside right now in a suit.

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Mothers on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown

Adventures in DC Part 2

This weekend with friends visiting for the holidays we hit a lot of museums (and margaritas. shhhh). My friends are almost to a one culture lovers so museums are often good options. One of the best things we saw was something called The Cinema Effect: Illusion, Reality and the Moving Image (closing this coming weekend, here's a NYT review]. All of the video installations were about the way the motion picture portrays or pretend realism. My favorite piece in the roundup was by Candice Breitz and simply titled Mother (pictured below)


In the supremely well edited six screen extravaganza Faye Dunaway as Mommie Dearest, Susan Sarandon & Julia Roberts from Stepmom, Meryl Streep the ex Mrs. Kramer, Diane Keaton The Good Mother and Shirley Maclaine ...from the Edge have what amounts to a schizophrenic tearful and angry conversation filled with interrupted monologues and asides about being mothers and women. Fused together and separated from the context of their films, Keaton actually rivals Dunaway's camp icon for overacting and Maclaine comes across as the most sane. "I am...[slams piano]... STILL. HERE." This, as you may have guessed, is unsettling. Clearly none of them have been taking their meds. It's very very funny.

Thought provoking too, sure, in its voyeuristic way but I mention the funny because too few people in museums ever laugh. Another piece in the exhibit lampoons the E! True Hollywood Story pretending great typical rise-and-fall fame for Francesco Vezzoli following that nifty Trailer for the Remake of Caligula in which he convinced Gerard Butler, Helen Mirren, Milla Jovovich, Courtney Love and more to star. His E! prank follows all of the beats of those shallow infotainment documentaries so well that anyone who sat next to me in the room didn't get that it was a spoof. (I saw the ending three times -- trying to let friends catch up) and both times when it ended conversations were along the lines of "I have never heard of this guy. He's famous?" or "Did he really die?" Before you think this is a Nathaniel feeling superior moment I assure you it was more along the lines of confusion. The exhibit is called "Illusion, Reality and the Moving Image" and every piece is about how the presented real is never real. I really think misunderstandings arise because people don't expect humor when they go to see "Art". Certainly not humor that pairs Dame Helen Mirren, gay porn, Dietrich, biopic cliché and infotainment specials.

P.S. There was also a companion piece to Mother called Father which featured Dustin Hoffman, Steve Martin, Jon Voight, Tony Danza (!?) and Harvey Keitel but it wasn't as interesting. Men never are. But give me six Hollywood moms on the verge of nervous breakdowns? Bliss.
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Because you've been good museum attendees today, here's a retro treat. It's Shirley Maclaine's house rattling "I'm Still Here" from Postcards from the Edge.



How Maclaine wasn't Oscar nominated for this turn as the Debbie Reynolds-esque mom in this movie is one of the great mysteries of the 1990s.
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How I Spent My Summer Five Day Vacation

I want to thank my guests JA, Robert and mB for keeping the place warm and sweaty in my absence. Speaking of warm and sweaty, can summer be over now? I'm not a summer person. I spent my short break sweating. A lot. Summer is hateful. Anyway, here's the parts from my break worth sharing with you, my hundred thousand closest friends strangers... "frangers?"... "striends"?

Where I've been...


@ the Met's Superheroes: Fashion & Fantasy exhibit.
Among the many delicious sections was one on Catwoman (pictured above, La Pfeiffer's actual costume stitched seductively over a mannequin) and the "paradoxical body" I love this bit

Superhero comics have tended to promote an ideology that is both masculinist and driven to mastery. Nowhere are these biases more blatant than in the representation of female superheroes. With unabashed and unapologetic obviousness, women are portrayed as objects of male desire and fantasy with absurdly exaggerated sexual characteristics ... the frisson of fetishistic sexuality presented by female superheroes is adduced with one hand only to be dismissed with the other. This offering and denying of sexuality, which helps to resolve the sexual fears and desires of developing males, is the eternal paradox of the superheroine.

Offering and denying of sexuality, indeed. The same can easily be said of the superhero movie genre. God forbid if women actually got to do anything in the genre outside of being indisputably hot. There was a lot more to this exhibit including costumes for films from Iron Man, Spider-Man, the Batman franchise, and couture inspired by the same ("A Must See!" -The Film Experience) but I spent the most time with Catwoman. It was a bittersweet moment since I knew that as I stood there contemplating the costume, Michelle Pfeiffer's reign over the kingdom of "best performance in a superhero movie. ever" was coming to the end of its 16 year reign. The "now now now" of pop culture demanded that the crown be passed. I have no wish to rain on the Ledger worshipping parade --I too loved his performance-- and quibbling with The Dark Knight this week seems about as smart as strapping an explosive to yourself and handing a convention of fanboys the detonator. Will they think you deserve to live if you only liked the movie? They don't believe in anarchy like The Joker. They don't believe in good citizenry like Harvey Dent. They don't believe in whatever it is Batman believes in. They demand conformity! I am trying valiantly to not let this mass craziness spoil my pleasure in parts of the movie and in the wondrous Heath Ledger. It's too bad that bandwagons get so crowded.

@ the Movies
I saw the thriller Transsiberian (which I've reviewed for Pajiba) and The Dark Knight. I'll try to write that one up here. Perhaps in a few days. Once the villagers have put down their torches or lowered their guard a little. Everybody gets hungry eventually and returns home. Mobs dissipate.

@ the Yazoo reunion tour
Gah. This night was so cool. I've listened to Upstairs at Erics (be suspicious of all 'best album' lists that don't include it) and You and Me Both more times than I can count. They're embedded in my DNA. I was able to listen to both live for the first time ever (they performed every song but two I believe), with Alison Moyet doing her supersized vocals and Vince Clark doing his trademark shy genius keyboardist/computer guy thing "How did I get to be a famous gazillionaire rock star responsible for Depeche Mode, Yaz and Erasure? I hate being on stage. Don't look at me! Why are you here?!?"

Only You Them: Vince Clark & Alison Moyet

That was my week that was. Was yours eventful?
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Hump Day Hottie: Matthew Barney

Because some days, like days in which you return to New York City from Utah (just... hypothetically speaking), nothing but a Mormon obsessed art world superstar will do.

Matthew Barney in "The Order" from Cremaster 3

There's nothing like a man who likes to toss his own sculptures around, wear feather headdresses, pink kilts and shove bloody rags into his mouth.

The many faces (and bodies) of Matthew Barney

Sometimes there's nothing like a man who dresses his nude body in intricate outfits and squids, obsesses about viscous fluids, shrinks his own testicles for art and then ties ribbons on them, chops up his pop star girlfriend in rising water before transforming into a whale, and reworks the Guggenheim as a video game setting.

There's nothing like a man who makes things with his hands.


Today is one of those days. No other man but Matthew Barney will do.

sleepwalkers

If you're in the New York area anytime between now and February 12th, I'd suggest taking in the Doug Aitken sleepwalkers exhibit @ MoMA. It's a free outdoors exhibit and, more importantly, it's good. I was rather hypnotized by the multiple screen parallels of various people silently waking, performing their morning rituals, going through a standard work day, and finally finding release in music, albeit still silently. It's got great energy, sly wit, and it's beautifully filmed and edited. My friends and I watched it from both major viewing areas for slightly different experiences and textures: seeing the different building facades of brick or glass underneath the images proved an unexpected highlight for me.


The cast of Sleepwalkers (each one gets their own screen) was a big draw. The enduring Donald Sutherland, beautiful musicians Chan Marshall (Cat Power), Seu Jorge (cineastes will remember him from The Life Aquatic), and Ryan Donowho. I saved the best for last: the fifth costar is art fiend/iconoclast muse/movie star Tilda Swinton.

True story: We started watching the exhibit on the West side in an open lot where you can see one screen beautifully while another draws peripheral attentions. After about 20 minutes we decided to move into the MoMA Garden where you can see all the screens. About five minutes after picking a spot to gaze around I was looking up to my right at one screen when my friend leans in and says to me "look to your left" I turn and there so close I could have touched her by taking just one step forward was Tilda Swinton herself, chatting gaily with a small entourage of friends, one of whom I believe was her husband.

Tilda Swinton at her own exhibit!

Imagine sitting next to her in your local arthouse watching a Derek Jarman film. Imagine waiting in a concession line for your popcorn for The Chronicles of Narnia and seeing her with her own tub of popcorn. Bizarre. She was practically standing next to me and I was so entranced by the movie (hey, I'm me) that my friend had to point her out to me. I should mention that just above her, off in the distance was an enormous image of her gazing enigmatically at the camera. The real and the reel both in my line of view. This wasn't sleepwalking. It felt more like a dream.

Last Night I Met Kate Winslet

If the title of this post has you gasping for air, imagine how I felt face to face and shaking hands with one of my all time favorite actors. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s back up…

Last night at MoMA they had a special cocktail party for Little Children to which yours truly was invited. Yes, seven years of slaving away at a computer and loud opinionated Oscar watching does have its privileges. I arranged to meet Susan, a frequent contributor @ Oscar Watch (with whom I’ve corresponded but never met) at the function since she was also planning on attending. I know you’re desperate to get the Kate Winslet part but you’ll have to wait like Susan and I did. Susan is a lovely woman and it was a total pleasure meeting her. Strength in numbers as they say and I was immediately less nervous about the prospect of meeting the great Kate.

Now, when a PR team says "cocktail party" they usually just mean “glasses of wine” And that means I was stone cold sober while approaching artists whose work I greatly admire. This helps you not to say anything stupid but it does nothing for your nerves. Note to self: Have your own cocktail before entering.

I began with the director Todd Field whom I approached after Kate Winslet had been whisked from his side, presumably by the PR team. The idea of these things is mingle! Perhaps it’s mingle or be mangled by the media but I really wouldn’t know. I am a movie fanatic first and foremost and the rest is just peripheral to me. What I mean to say is that if Winslet had spat at me I would still give her a great review. I assume corporate media outlets require more traditional schmoozing –hence, cocktail parties!

The conversation with Todd Field was perfectly cordial until it ended rather abruptly. In retrospect this was my fault since I wouldn’t shut up about Once & Again and a conversation about Little Children would’ve been a savvier (not to mention more appropriate) choice but what can I say…

You may recall that Once & Again is an all time favorite of mine. You may also have noticed that I get a little obsessive about anything that can justifiably be referred to as an all time favorite. Mr. Fields’ first comment when I mentioned this particular nugget of fandom was something along the lines of ‘oh yes, I had to play the same scene over and over again’ which made me laugh. A perfectly true statement it was: he had a rather thankless role on that great show. He lit up a little when he talked about the chance he had to direct the show. We talked a little bit about his favorite episode, the one wherein Evan Rachel Wood as Jessie got her period. I complained about the Emmys snubbing all of them except Sela. We shared notes on how unbelievably talented Evan Rachel Wood is, and was even then. And suddenly he moved on to another partygoer, mingling to escape Once & Again mangling.

I returned to Susan and her friend Mary and we all chatted briefly with Jackie Earle Haley who plays the neighborhood pedophile in Little Children. His most famous role is probably Moocher in Breaking Away, a film I loved a great deal as a child but which I haven’t seen since. So I didn’t have much to say on that front (Susan and her friend did). Mr. Haley and I agreed that Little Children is pretty brave as movies go. I told him I admired it for not coddling anyone in the audience. He remarked that he liked that it also didn’t judge any of the characters. ‘Or it’s judging all of them’ I offered as another interpretation ‘It’s a flexible film.’ To some degree I know --or worry-- that you’re probably supposed to just say “I love your work” and move on. But I have to discuss movies. That’s the way I’m wired.

A little while later, still buzzing from meeting with Kate Winslet (that’s the climax of this post, be patient), I returned to Jackie since he was with Noah Emmerich who I hadn’t yet talked to. I wanted to ask Noah about a specific line in the film about how he’s gotten fat. The actor is tall and skinny. So when I was watching the movie the line took me out of the movie for a split second. So I wanted to ask him. He laughed with surprise and said that he’d never been asked this question and then very amiably he discussed the scene and admitted that for a brief time period they considered changing the line (which is actually closer to ‘I’ve put on so much weight’) but decided it’s something skinny people say too if they’re feeling bad about themselves. Which is true. So it became a character revealing choice more than accurate self-assessment dialogue. It was a fun conversation.

There were other celebrities milling about but too Kate focused to pay much attention. Though I will say that Edie Falco in particular looked great. I briefly considered thanking her for preventing me from stabbing out my eyes while watching Freedomland but I decided (wisely) against it. In the end, though --and everyone in attendance clearly understood this-- the night was all about gazing at the glorious Winslet. She was stunningly put together, tailored black suit, hair pulled back not one strand out of place, perfect simple makeup, beatific smile.

I almost didn’t meet her. That’s another reason to thank Susan, she being blessedly more aggressive than I. It was Susan who grabbed at our only real chance to catch Kate’s eye as she turned from a short conversation with a genuflecting “I love your work” actress (whose face I recognized but whose name escapes me). Susan quickly reached out her hand in greeting and just like that Kate was talking to us. I told her immediately that I had been with her “in spirit” since Heavenly Creatures which blew me away in 1994 and I asked her if she ever saw any of this coming? She said that she absolutely did not. She’s still amazed by her career and that people keep hiring her. Susan reminded her that she gets work because of the incredible things she does with each role. And I agreed, ‘you’re brilliant in everything.’ To this tagteam assault of praise, the great actress replied in a gobsmackingly charming way (with just the teensiest hint of playful false modesty) ‘well, not everything!’

Kate went on to tell us that she had never even auditioned for anything before making Heavenly Creatures and it wasn’t until she found herself sitting in Venice with the film that it dawned on her that she had made a movie, that she was an actress. Having learned my lesson from Todd Field, I seguewayed into talking about Little Children. After hearing my enthusiasm for Patrick Wilson’s performance, career, and their chemistry together she also praised him. The interesting tidbit here was that she said she had become friendly with Patrick’s wife (sorry boys and girls: taken) and told the lucky Mrs. Wilson that she would be pregnant by the end of the shoot. Kate can see the future, too.

The rest of the conversation is something of a blur. I did wish her a happy belated birthday. But mostly I remember her ease, beauty, and poise. The biggest star there and still the easiest to converse with, so friendly and engaged in the chatter. When she said her goodbyes she even remembered details, that Susan had not yet seen the film and that I had. I left the event feeling remarkably warm.

Kate Winslet sure can mingle.

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previous Winslet postings:
strange homophone * The Next Deborah Kerr * A Heavenly Creature * My Kate. My Self * Top 5 Actresses of the Aughts *

Incredibly Random Star-F**king Goodness

Queerty loves The Devil Wears Prada. Re: it's box office, I love that I called that this would be a big hit and no one believed me. One reader actually told me privately 'you're crazy. Only gay men will want to see that' and I also staunchly defended its unusual trailer (just one scene) which some people hated but which totally did the trick: i.e. introduced the characters. Made you want more...
Oh No They Didn't on Keira Knightley's skeleton.
Just Jared w/ photos of God and her family. So many redheads! I'm glad she's multiplying and replenishing the earth, good talented genes and all... but I hope she starts making good movies again.
Female First on the "top gays" Sir Ian rules. Oh, and that pic above is of Gandalf marching in London pride with a guy who is rumored to be his new boyfriend (the guy to the left in the Blondie t-shirt) --if you haven't yet voted on the fav actor right now poll Ian is one of your contestants.

and just because it's the Fourth doesn't mean we can't be critical...
Cinematical on South Korea's quota drop for Hollywood films. My opinion? A very bad move on South Korea's part. The countries that survive, cinematically speaking, put quotas on these things and their citizenry is thus coaxed to see their own good stuff and Off-Hollywood cinema survives ...as it should. Cinematical also has an intriguing post on the 'anti-american accusational brouhaha over Superman Returns. I totally agree with their take.

And why am I showing this picture of Matthew Barney and Chlöe Sevigny chatting it up? Well, like the Ian pic and Keira link above it's from Oh No They Didn't. The photo is labelled something like 'the talented Chlöe Sevigny'. You know that I worship celebrities as much as the next person and enjoy the gossip blogs but crap like this bugs. When one of the most important celebrated artists in the world (and Mr. Björk to boot) is standing next to a talented indie actress, shouldn't he at least get a mention? I mean think about it. He's far more important to the art world than Sevigny is to the gossip / celebrity world. Grrrr. It's like seeing a photo of Nicole Kidman with Barack Obama on a political blog and the blog just saying "the wonderful Barack Obama" ... and ignoring that one of the world's most important movie stars happens to be standing right next to him. Ah well. At least it didn't read "...and unidentified friend."

Matthew is on my brain at any rate because my friend Astroboy (who wrote those last couple of horoscopes for y'all. This is him to the left, his beau in the middle, and yours truly to the right) just went with The Boyfriend (mine. pay attention) to this exhibit "Into Me, Out of Me" at PS 1 this past Sunday and who was actually there to see the same exhibit? Matthew Barney, Björk, and their daughter Isabella. Astroboy, who feels about Björk the way I feel about La Pfeiffer, was entirely beside himself and has not uttered a word about anything else for the past 48 hours. If my one and only with Michelle Pfeiffer in the flesh is any indication... he'll be talking about this day for years to come.

At one point The Boyfriend was standing next to Barney and Astroboy was standing right next to Björk as they all stared at the same exhibit. Oblivious to the art and the starfucking fandom, wee Isabella played with her necklace on the museum floor. My favorite part of the story is that at one point they saw Matthew Barney holding his daughter and pointing at his own installation in the show (which features him dangling in a harness --buck naked of course --it's Barney) and explaining it to her.

I love Matthew Barney & Björk. Loved them separately. Love them together. I obsess on Cremaster and even made it through Drawing Restraint 9 (pictured right) which completely terrorized my fragile psyche. So why did I stay home instead of seeing this exhibit with them? Bad decision on that particular Sunday afternoon, I'll tell you that.

24 Hour Psycho

A new exhibit called Douglas Gordon: Timeline just opened on the 6th floor of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). If you're in New York City between now and early September when the exhibit closes, you must see it.

I know very little about Douglas Gordon as an artist but it's obvious (and not just from the title of the retrospective) that he is very concerned with the elapsing of time. It's most obvious in the first piece which is 24 Hour Psycho, a piece from 1993. In the center of a dark room Psycho is projected (you can look at it from either side) at two frames per second. At that speed it lasts all day.

I have seen Psycho several times and I thought I'd instantaneously know where I was narratively but, as it turns out, film projected at 2 frames per second is quite a different experience. I was lost. I don't know how long it took me to realize that I had just missed the shower scene but I had. The shower sequence from Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 masterpiece is one of the greatest narrative tricks ever played on a moviegoing audience. Murdering your protagonist in the film's first half is simply NOT done. I wasn't alive in 1960 but I've often felt that this film must have been more shocking to audiences then than anything we've ever seen in multiplexes in the following forty some years. You're suddenly rudderless --there is no audience surrogate. When I realized I'd missed the scene I felt a wave of disappointment. But what happened next was surprising to me.

Before I knew it I was in the headspace of Norman Bates himself, feeling my own wave of nausea and guilt (just as Norman does staring at what "Mother" has done), realizing that I had walked into this exhibit and even vaguely planned the time of my arrival to see the murder. Sick!

This exhibit unexpectedly gave me a different Psycho experience than I've ever had before. I felt more inside the film than ever. But I also felt removed enough (without the sound and music) to notice things I've never noticed and to appreciate with renewed clarity what a genius Alfred Hitchcock was. During the clean up sequence that camera barely moves. I'm just staring at that damn showerhead with Norman Bates coming in and out of frame. 99% of directors, particularly modern ones, would've had the camera moving all around Bates and the body. Hitchcock just frames that bright shower with a dark doorway. So it's not just in the murder sequence where he's tricking you into filling all the gorey details in for yourself.

Time is a funny thing. At two frames per second I was mesmerized staring at Norman Bates who was a) moving very very slowly b) feeling guilty very very slowly c) turning off the motel lights very very slowly and d) cleaning up the bathroom very very slowly while Janet Leigh's arm hung limply and tellingly in frame. While all of this was happening very very slowly it turns out the time was flying by. Before I knew it 45 minutes had passed and I had to hurry through the rest of the MoMA exhibit.

Alfred Hitchcock is a famously fetishistic director and Psycho lends itself very well to external fetishizing too. Douglas Gordon isn't the first to scrutinize this work of art and Gus Van Sant (who made the misunderstood recreation) won't be the last. I highly recommend this exhibit. I'll be back to spend more time with the rest of it, and I'll try not to let Norman's psychosis suck me back in for another hour so that I can give the other Gordon pieces their due.

crossposted in an abridged version @ Modern Fabulousity