Alexa here. Yul Brynner has always been a favorite of mine, maybe because The King and I was the first musical I ever saw. Or maybe because my old Ukrainian great-grandmother swore he was the spitting image of her brother. Or maybe it was just his mellifluous voice and shiny dome. But it wasn't until I spotted the recent press on an exhibit of his photographs in New York that I was aware he was such an avid photographer.
In honor of the 25th anniversary of his death, a new, four-volume book celebrates his life in pictures. Edited by his daughter Victoria, Yul: A Photographic Journey includes four volumes: "Lifestyle", "Life On Set", "1956" (the pivotal year when he starred in The King and I, The Ten Commandments and Anastasia) and "Man of Style" (containing portraits of Brynner by famous photographers). I was most taken with his portraits of other actors. Here's a sampling. You can order a copy of the set here.
I really wish more actors would take up photography! Jeff Bridges is another example of an actor who kills time between takes with his camera. But maybe today's paparazzi culture has lessened the desire to document life on set.
The 48th New York Film Festivalscreenings begin with a promo reel in which a graphic animated map of the world is formed. Famous director names are paired with their countries of origin in rapid succession until the entire globe is lit up as if powered by the cinema itself! It’s a simple—even subtly clever—way to remind us that cinema is a global artform and that the NYFF in dependably international in breadth and focus.
True to form, NYFF’s 2010 lineup comes from all over the globe, and opinionated movie fans—and what other kind are there in New York City?—are finding plentiful opportunities to rave, kvetch and argue over subject and execution throughout. Quibbling and instantaneous opinion wars are part of the informed collective joy of any film festival experience.
To get a sense of my basic feelings on this year's fest (me likey) and a bit more on The Social Network, Tempest, My Joy, and whatnot... More full length write-ups are coming if I can eke out the time.
Money may not sleep but apparently our creativity does. Watching Wall Street the other day I couldn't help but ask myself how is it that technology took a turn on us at some point and now cell phones are going big again?
I know nothing will ever be as big as that brick Gordon Gekko checks out of jail in the sequel...
...but in theory the things we saw back in '87 are still going on today...sorta. It seems that for a while technology was driven towards making everything so tiny. Remember those cell phones that were supposed to be implanted in our molars? With the advent of the i Phone it seems that now all they want is to go back to a reasonable size that makes your hand feel like you are carrying something (have you noticed how hot those things can get sometimes?).
Can this be some sort of cautionary tale about how the excess of the 80's fooled the 90's into downsizing and then the 00's reminded us again about how weak we really are? OK someone stop me before I start sounding like Oliver Stone.
Speaking of which, have you seen it yet? Were you as baffled as I was? Are you more in love than ever with Carey Mulligan? Tell us!
When Sam Mendes and Maggie Gyllenhaal had lunch recently in NYC, what do you suppose they were talking about? I hope Maggie was saying "sorry about being such a one-dimensional cartoon in Away We Go -- but you weren't helping, mister man!"
What were they talking about? What were we talking about? What are we still talking about? (That actress list fo' sure and also the August: Osage County casting) Here's some recent comments on older posts that I wanted to call your attention to. Yes, I read everything! Thank you to everyone who comments. It makes the work of writing of the blog more like fun.
silencio actually loves Perfume Story of a Murderermore than Se7en in the serial killer genre. I don't hear that often. Truth (I haven't seen it. Shhhh). But it's funny that silencio should mention it since I have been thinking about Ben Whishaw all week. I'm fond but his part made-a me crazy in Julie Taymor's Tempest (for a few reasons... not really his fault. More on that later). How come I haven't seen Perfume?
Robby notices how many Oscar nominees are dropping off lately. Trust when I wrote that "still with us!" list in July I REALLY did not intend it as a morbid countdown. I just wanted to honor people while they were still with us. But yes it's already really out of date. Rough month of RIPs.
Jordan ranks David Fincher's films and is fond of the Modern Maestro series as a whole. I didn't mean to scare y'all with saying that it's wrapping up soon. Robert is staying with us. I love the column too but it's time to switch it up after a short break.
james t rediscovered the huge voice / brilliance of Ellen Greene in Little Shop of Horrors and pointed me to this Patrick ♥ Wilson / Carrie Underwood version (what the he--uh?) I included an Ellen Greene version too (from the Tonight Show) because I can never get enough of her as Audrey and I'd never seen this clip... apparently Siskel & Ebert talked her up on the Tonight Show too back in the day.
And finally, I was pleased to see that in the Tangled post, there were quite a few people popping in to express their love for the music of Hunchback of Notre Dame. I'm glad I wasn't alone in thinking that Judge Frollo's songs really are special in that movie.
My point is this: Thanks for visiting The Film Experience every day! It was our biggest September over and I suddenly feel very enthused about the rapidly approaching awards season.
Consider this an open comment thread!
What's on your movie-lovin' mind? *
Recently after an accidental couch potato binge on The Golden Girls -- you all know what that's like, right? -- I realized that the boyfriend had never seen the classic 70s sitcom Soap, which is from the same creative team,so we've been watching. The main character is rich dotty matriarch Jessica Tate (Katherine Helmond of Whos The Boss fame). She brings up movies and movie stars constantly. The fantasy of movies is a natural fit, since she doesn't have the firmest grasp of reality. She's basically a template for Rose on Golden Girls. Helmond, like White after her, has a very firm grasp of comic timing.
In this scene she wants to look through a family photo album because she believes they've all been cursed.
Jessica Tate: I think that in those pictures we'll find the answer. Mary did you see The Omen? Well, I mean nobody believed Lee Remick when she said that her son was the devil and he was trying to kill her and you know what happened? He killed her. And then, I mean, of course everyone said 'well, she was right' but it did her a lot of good, she was dead by then.
Ha. It's much funnier with Helmond's loopy train of thought speed delivery.
Have you ever gotten into an entertainment mood that you couldn't quite shake? See I've been in this broad yuks mood for like a month now. It's not a normal mood for me. I think it started when I caught the Off Broadway Hitchcock spoof The 39 Steps a few months back which had a lot of inspired slapstick. Recently this mood was reignited watching Mel Brooks Silent Movie (1976) on BluRay (from this terrific box set that). Lets just say I hurt from laughing... especially during Bernadette Peters repeat vavavoom number. Her hip swivels just knock audiences right over. Literally.
The success of any comedy is so dependent on your mood, isn't it?
Anyway, back to Emmy-winning Helmond. Here's another actressy bit when Jessica is accused of the murder of her young lover. Her husband promises her they'll get the best lawyer. "But what about that movie?!" she pleads confusing him, and she's off in her own world again. Instead of worrying about the trial she's worried about who will play her in the movie version she's certain they'll make.
Jessica: Promise me that you'll try to maintain some control. Because I just have a feeling -- I just have this awful feeling that they're thinking of having Shelley Winters play me! See I was thinking of someone like Catherine Deneuve --she's attractive enough. Or it could make a wonderful musical. Barbra Streisand could play me.
Shelley Winters, for those of you who are only familiar, was briefly a starlet and then an Oscar bait actress but as early as the 60s she had moved into her late period blowsy mouthy dame mode. She wasn't exactly an emblem of "class" in the movies.
If you were ever on trial for murder, would you worry about who would play you in the movie? * *
JA from MNPP here. At this point in Thelma & Louise, our girls have just robbed a convenience store (not to mention that whole shooting a rapist thing slightly earlier). In fact that tiny bottle of Wild Turkey that Thelma's contemplating chucking out of the car is amongst the stolen goods. And yet even the fiercest lady outlaws must have their standards. No littering!
Watching some of T&L this morning - it'd been awhile - the friction between the ladies they were and the criminals they're becoming is played for laughs a lot more than I'd remembered and this is one of my favorite throwaway moments. Although Louise is closed-off at the start she's hardly a schoolmarm, yet she keeps getting forced into the position with the newly rebellious Thelma, and Sarandon plays these moments with a really funny dose of bug-eyed bewilderment, unsure how she's found herself in the position of Mom. I wish she and Geena Davis had done a comedy together at some point, they would've been great at it. They still could...
Have any of you read this IMDb list which purports to evaluate the "overall importance and impact" of film actresses across the span of the past two decades. That'd be 1990-2009 (though obviously they're including 2010.) I had somehow missed this list which arrived in September I think but I can't let it go by without some comment. I'm not sure what they mean by "impact" exactly... global fame? If so, Angelina is too low. And "importance" is another highly subjective word. The list is as follows.
[I've added the "peak periods" after their names to attempt to show when they were most "important/impactful" or, rather, "when people cared about them the most" in film.]
I've never attempted to remove my own opinion for an objective list... objective lists are best done by committee. But I did notice that most of the objections to my own personal "Best of the Aughts list" (which only counted 2000-2004 as it was made in 2005) were based on the overall fame and consensus acclaim of the snubees combined with the willful refusal to see that it was a subjectively judged "best/favorite" opinion piece.
But even if you are trying to be objective with "impact/importance" there will be disagreements.
<--- Nathaniel's #1 "Actress of the Aughts"... if you include the 1990s though, her rank would drop quite precipitously.
For example, I can't figure how Jennifer Aniston ranks at all since they're talking about a decade in Cinema. If you include TV, she is absolutely deserving of a top 20 spot given global fame and tv iconography. But even her romantic comedy features aren't the classics or blockbusters that the other romantic comedy women on the list (Julia + Sandra + Cameron + Meg) have achieved -- usually more than once, too. So I think they're confusing "fame" which she certainly has a lot of with "importance to cinema".
Also: Gwyneth Paltrow. Similar situation in a way to Jennifer Aniston... i.e. unquestionably one of the biggest celebrities, but one of the biggest actresses? Unless "overall importance and impact" means "size of celebrity" in which case, the list would need serious reworking.
Most surprising (but deserved) inclusion: Meg Ryan. She's the only person who made the list who hasn't been capturing public attention recently and not generally treated positively. I'm proud of the editors for their objectivity there. See, you can usually tell when a list is made by what the rankings are; they always follow current perception meaning that however people are feeling about someone right then matters far more than whatever they felt about them over the course of whatever time frame they're judging. Take Helen Mirren for a prime example. She is very very very busy right now and has sustained the hysteria over The Queen (2006) surprisingly well -- good for her and her team -- so she makes the list but in actuality she has one of those filmographies/ careers where people flit in and out of interest in her quite easily. When she's out of sight, isn't she out of mind?
Missing from the list: I think the most obvious snub is Reese Witherspoon who was working for all of those 20 years and earned a couple of classics, a few self-sold blockbusters and an Oscar as reward.
Schneider is the epitome of faded rakishness as Charles Armitage Brown, the somewhat disarmingly oily, though tender, poet pal and occasional gooseberry orbiting around both Ben Whishaw’s Keats and Abbie Cornish’s Fanny in Jane Campion's excellent Bright Star (2009). He is the film's third, understated star – his character is a gem of a role for an actor more averse to playing contemporary slackers.
Fanny on his mind. Schneider as Brown in Bright Star
Some found his Scottish accent a bit wavering, but I didn't notice anything odd about it (though it’s possible he may well have watched Billy Connelly clips as practice). The way he instills Brown with a larger-than-life robustness was endearing and playful; it was a sheer pleasure to watch him jauntily thrust himself front and centre into all social situations, talking up his game a mile-a-minute to everyone around him.
Schneider played Brown as a man open to all adventure – someone who wholly encourages the pleasures of the day ahead. But there was a brewing sadness hovering around the edges of his character. An unforeseen and hidden emotion spills out of him at one particularly crucial moment in the film. Schneider masters his line delivery whilst desperately attempting to swallow down a life's worth of sorrow. He was truly amazing in this scene and indeed every minute of his screen time. Just where was that Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination, Eh?
Take Two: Not just Like Jesse James.
In addition to main star Brad Pitt The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007) was dutifully backed up by a coterie of acting talent from some of today’s best male stock. All the support cast had established fine careers beforehand, but where the likes of Jeremy Renner, Sam Rockwell and Casey Affleck went on to noticeably higher profile leading roles recently (with The Hurt Locker, Moon and The Killer Inside Me respectively), Schneider has continued to graft away in supporting parts (Ditto Jesse James’ other hidden supporting gem Garret Dillahunt). His key role will come. But in the meantime he gets to add his own slice a slippery menace to Andrew Dominik's painterly version of the James myth.
He plays Dick Liddil: Lothario, braggart and rough-hewn gang member – essentially a turn-of-the-century male slut with a holster and a wry glint in his eye. He’s admired by some James gang members, despised by others, but keeps himself in check with wily panache and plenty of arrogant smirks.
The gang's all here: Schneider - second from left, top row.
His slightly heightened vocal inflections – which give Schneider’s voice a cleverly subtle whiny lilt – are almost sing-song, but insinuating. Schneider displays Dick’s unsettling bravado best in the scene where Ford (Affleck) bathes in a tub outside whilst Dick questions his true intentions, before pointing a gun to his face and saying, “I’ll look you up. I’ll knock on your door, and I’ll be as mad as a hornet. And I will be hard.” His temper and disposition flit between carefree and insidious. It’s a real about-turn from moments where he’s relaxed or turning on the lowly charm – like when he’s seducing his conquests in outhouses. (Oddly, his best work here is often delivered in scenes featuring external WCs.) Schneider seduces us too – and he's the best of a 'bad' bunch.
Take Three: Paul, the real guy?
Schneider’s career emerged alongside director David Gordon Green’s – who cast him in two early shorts (Pleasant Grove, Physical Pinball) and his first two features: 2000's George Washington and 2003’s All the Real Girls. It was his role as Paul, the Southern small town womaniser who flounders in the face of real love (with Zooey Deschanel), in the latter film which thrust him into the indie spotlight and set his career off to a gloriously groovy start. It’s not quite an alt version of the Scorsese & DeNiro-style team-up, but the promise was there.
Schneider and Zooey Deschanel apart in All the Real Girls
Schneider's was a role could've easily sailed close to indulgent wallowing – an actor too familiar may have jarred with the film’s overall perfectly parochial tone, an actor too over-rehearsed may have laid it on thick – but Schneider’s rookie affability (a characteristic the actor gladly hasn’t yet lost) and natural ease ensure that Paul’s arc is realistically and affectingly conveyed. The whole film can be seen as a portrait of a guy on the cusp of being a lifelong loser, but who holds off long enough to strive for something else, some kind of miniature personal redemption. It's given simple style and performance assurance by Schneider.
Schneider and Zooey Deschanel together in All the Real Girls
The desire to feel half irritated at Paul’s slovenly, cocksure mannerisms and half intrigued by his wayward, unfocused lifestyle constantly pulls at the audience's sympathies. Paul’s a familiar enough type, who most people have likely met, but Schneider blends together a variety of internal emotions, tics and instances of accurate woeful male heartbreak and lets them out in a surprisingly layered, truthful way. Looking at the film again now, it’s a pleasant surprise just how confident a performance it is. Schneider had the smarts from early on.
Three more key films for the taking: George Washington (2000), Elizabethtown (2005), Lars and the Real Girl (2007)
Warning: Teaser poster for True Grit bound to shame eventual actual poster with its gorgeous directness and simplicity.[Editor's Note: I've been in a very bad place/mood when it comes to movie posters lately. More on this soon.]
big screen Scanners wonderful piece on the editing in Inglourious Basterds and what kind of choices Sally Menke was making.
Guardian I hadn't realized that The Kids Are All Right hadn't made it to the UK yet. But now that it's getting there: new articles! Lisa Cholodenko offers up an interesting theory about why women directors are few: It's not systemic sexism but based on what audiences value. Cinema Blend an easter egg (we used to call them "inside jokes") in The Social Network for Fight Club fans. Nick's Flick Picks has a brief encounter w/ none other than Roger Ebert
Our Stage the pop stars in big films this year Boing Boing Yoda as Princess Leia. teehee
small screen DeadlineWonder Woman via David E Kelley for television? There's a lot of snark in the comments on this post (I didn't know that Deadline had such conservative readership but I don't pay much attention to other sites... a problem when you have to run your own). My mind unwillingly flashed to Michelle Pfeiffer playing the Queen of the Amazons (previously played to camp perfection by Cloris Leachman in the 1970s tv show.) Daily Beast 'Why I Loathe Glee'. A compelling argument about what's wrong with the series (and why it's going to get worse) Movie | Line The 3 worst stereotypes on TV this week
offscreen (I'm trying to avoid eyestrain)
Interview Naomi Campbell reminisces (lots of celebrities and history). Weird factoid: very few things remind Nathaniel of the early 90s more than "The Trinity": Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista and Christy Turlington. REEAD I have no idea why this slide show arrived in my inbox under the heading "Is Madonna a religion?" but it just goes to show you that having a beautiful body can get you lots of page views... even if your headlines are misleading. TCG Readers who are interested in theater might enjoy seeing which current plays are slated for the most regional production this coming year. I've been meaning to write about the Hitchcock spoof The 39 Steps forever. I guess I should. So many productions coming up.
first and last images from motion pictures (excluding credit sequences)
Can you guess the movie?*
It's a biopic from the 1990s. If you're stumped highlight for the answer. It's... LOVE IS THE DEVIL starring Derek Jacobi and Daniel Craig. How about that? *
First comes Oscar. If you follow my charts and this race each year it's impossible to escape Argentinian movie star Ricardo DarÃn. Not only is he continually employed but whichever body chooses Argentina's Oscar submission each year has a huge crush. He's the star of their 2001 nominee Son of the Bride and their 2009 winner The Secret in Their Eyes and he's also principle cast in their submission titles that weren't nominated from 2002 (Kamchatka), 2005 (El Aura) and 2007 (XXY).
<--- Portrait of a Busy Actor.
The charts have been updated to include new submissions from Argentina, Costa Rica, Hong Kong and Portugal. The latter chose a transsexual film from the controversy baiting director João Pedro Rodrigues of O Fantasma (2000) fame. If you've ever seen that one, and if this one feels like it's coming from the same mind, you'll understand this is a brave if impossible choice.
Here are the trailers for the Argentina (in which DarÃn plays an ambulance chaser who gets involved with a doctor) submission and Portugal, too.
There's some missing info but I shall fill in as I find time. I'm off to the New Yorker Festival to see Pee Wee Herman and Jake Gyllenhaal. They can't be kept waiting. *
Headbanded Emily Jenkins gets the titular case plopped on her desk, so she duly investigates a couple who she suspects have been mistreating their 10-year-old daughter Lillith (Jodelle Ferland). She scrambles to the couple's creepy house along with boss Ian McShane (growling an otherworldly accent as yet unidentified by literature or science), just as the parents are about to roast li’l Lill in the oven -- seriously, this scene is hilarious. Zellweger and McShane lay waste to moody-mom and bad-dad’s furniture and faces whilst rescuing the half-baked moppet. (McShane, trying out too-late for a role in The Expendables, literally dropkicks the mother into a table and indents a fridge with the father’s head - and McShane’s about 110 years-old! The Oscar for Best Supporting Sexagenarian Shit-Fit is his for the taking).
*The film was completed in 2006 but has only now seen the light of day, after an ever-shifting release date pattern that took in fifteen date changes over three countries.
To celebrate the 75th birthday of the great Julie Andrews, our favorite singing governness, our favorite magical nanny, our favorite gender bending toast of Paris. Something big was in order. Why, she's practically perfect in every way... so in her honor, a resurrection of a long dormant exhaustively researched 100% true* series that was once the Film Experience's most popular feature.
1935 Julia Wells is born to Mrs. Barbara Wells in Surrey, England. Mr. Wells is not the father. Scandal! This bastard child will one day become the icon of squeaky clean family entertainment. She won't always enjoy it. At her christening the good fairy Fauna grants her the gift of song
One gift, the gift of song,
Melody your whole life long!
The nightingale her troubadour,
Bringing his sweet serenade to her door.
(We figure that's the only way you get a voice that lovely.)
1940 Having already recognized the fairy's generous gift, non biological daddy Ted Wells sends Julia to live with mom's new man Ted Andrews (also not her biological father --- so confusing!) who is better equipped to give her the musical education she needs.
1947 Julia -- now "Julie Andrews" -- makes her professional debut at the London Hippodrome singing the aria "Je Suis Titania" (i.e. 'I am Titania' -referencing the Queen of the Fairies in A Midsummer Nights Dream, no doubt an homage to generous Fauna) from the opera Mignon. She blows the roof off the place.
1951 Does not prick her finger and fall into an unnatural slumber but is, by now at 16, a British star of stage and radio. Waits impatiently, but sweetly, for love's first kiss total world domination.
1954 Start at the top: Debuts on the American stage on Broadway in the lead role of The Boyfriend.
1956 Wouldn't it be loverly if she originated the plum role of Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady and concurrently became a superstar with the live television airing of the musical Cinderella? Statistics vary but her numbers are basically up their with the explosion of the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show and the final episode of M*A*S*H. We're talking everyone... or roughly 10 times the numbers that even the biggest "event" nowadays.
1959 Love's first kiss: Marries set designer Tony Walton who she met on the stage in London many years prior whilst playing the Egg in Humpty-Dumpty.
1960 Her eggs produce first child, Emma. Also creates the original Guinevere in the smash hit Broadway musical Camelot.
1962/1963 Julie, already a household name in America, is passed over for the movie version of the role she created in My Fair Lady because Jack Warner, in a typically lazy movie industry move (that we still see every day in 2010) only wants someone "bankable." Never mind that her first two movies become enormous "all time" blockbusters, each outgrossing My Fair Lady (which was also a hit with "bankable" Audrey Hepburn). Nobody can see into the future and most people aren't willing to risk casting based on rightness for a role... even though anyone in the right role at the time can become bankable as Mary Poppins will soon prove.
1964 Kill Audrey, Vol 1: Julie's movie debut Mary Poppins outgrosses My Fair Lady.So much for not bankable.She also stars in the acclaimed adult-oriented drama The Americanization of Emily, a film which she reportedly loves, though few notice in the enormous wake of that flying nanny.
1965 Kill Audrey Vol. 2: Julie wins the Oscar, besting Audrey Hepburn (who actually wasn't nominated but this isn't the way history remembers it. Shut up!).
As follow up, Julie spins around on a mountain top; billions of people all over the world get dizzy, and thousands of fairies are born. The Sound of Music outgrosses every movie that's ever existed including Gone With the Wind (if you don't adjust for inflation).
After defeating Audrey Hepburn, Julie targets Vivien Leigh. 'You can make one dress out of curtains? Amateur!'
Von Trapp play-clothes
1966 Hitchcock, having worn on Tippi Hedren's last nerve, has to find a replacement blonde. He tries Julie out for Torn Curtain. Outcome: Not icy and anonymous enough for Hitch. They never work together again. The film is a big hit. So is Hawaii that same year. Even outside of musicals Julie is beyond bankable.
1967 Julie stars as wannabe flapper Millie in Thoroughly Modern Millie. People remember it today as a misfire or flop but sorry: another huge hit, the biggest in Universal's history up till then. Julie + musicals =box office gold.
1968 Except when it don't. Oops. Star, a bloated biopic of Gertrude Lawrence becomes her first failure. Julie divorces Tony Walton and...
1969 ...marries Blake Edwards after filming Darling Lili (1970) for the director with Rock Hudson.
1970s After five years on the mountain top of global stardom, Julie bows out of the movies, making only two more films over the decade. She has two more children and then adopts two more still. She makes multiple television appearances.
1981 Blake convinces his wife to bare her breasts, which he had undoubtedly seen thousands of times already but he's a sharer. Her boob flash in S.O.B totally scandalizes Mary Poppins fans and my parents (also Mary Poppins fans). I remember the fallout vividly from my youth. They were furious.
1982 Despite her "betrayal" of squeaky clean loving fans, Hollywood and pop culture reembrace the icon when Victor/Victoria hits. Her multi-octave slide in "Le Jazz Hot" shatters glass and thousands more fairies are born. Julie is nominated for another Oscar for her woman-pretending-to- be-a-man-pretending- to-be-a-woman nightclub act wherein she falls in love with gangster King Marchand (James Garner again) or "Fairy Marchand" as his arm-candy girlfriend rechristens him in a jealous rage.
1983 Julie Andrews loses the Oscar to Meryl Streep in Sophie's Choice as would anyone from any year in any film under any circumstance.
rest of the 1980s makes a few more movies with Blake Edwards but nothing ascends. Bares her breasts again opposite Rupert Everett in Duet For One (1986) but few notice. You only get a shock from that once.
1990s-1999 returns to Broadway, eventually revives Victor/Victoria in new form, refuses a Tony nomination for their "egregious" snubbing of her fellow cast members. Vocal problems begin. Undergoes surgery for throat nodules and something goes wrong and she is unable to sing again. A special new circle of hell is created for whomever is to blame though...
2000 ...here on earth the matter is settled in a malpractice lawsuit. Julie's Just Rewards: She becomes "Dame" Julie Andrews by order of the Queen.
2001 Speaking of Queens... The Princess Diaries opens, surprising virtually everyone by becoming a smash with non-bankable Anne Hathaway in the leading role of the Princess and non-singing no-longer bankable Julie as the Queen of Genovia. The hit film will win her a new generation of young fans and set in motion a new career in children's films, albeit usually just as voice work. As in...
2010Despicable Me wherein Julie Andrews plays the disapproving mother of super villain Gru. On October 1st, Julie Andrews celebrates her 75th birthday.
Here's to her next quarter century as one of the great entertainers of all time!
"Dating you is like dating a stairmaster," Erica Albright (Rooney Mara) says, exasperated, in the opening sequence of THE SOCIAL NETWORK. Her personal stairmaster is Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) and you're witness to a car wreck of a break-up in progress. It's emotionally gorey but there will be rubbernecking; you can't look away. If the hilarious stairmaster line doesn't hook you, something else in the screwball sharp rat-a-tat-tat of Aaron Sorkin's screenplay will. Not many movies open with five unbroken minutes of conversation but not many movies are as confidently verbal and as exhilarating made as this one. The instantly classic opening scene works like a gunshot and the movie is off.
P.S. I didn't go on and on (though I well could have) because I figure we'll have lots of opportunities to discuss this movie over the next few months, in all of its varied parts, as its totally in the game for Oscar. Go see it this weekend!
He was born in 1925 when the masses were still swooning for silent icons like Rudolph Valentino. By the late 1950s he was a household name heartthrob himself if not a silent one. Still, that oft imitated Bronx accent "yonda lies the castle of my fadduh" couldn't derail his movie ascendance.
History continually teaches movie stars -- though scant few of them seem to really listen -- that what's important is not the paycheck or even necessarily a great role but working on enough top notch material with top directors to wind up in a few classics. It's one of the only ways to ensure that you are remembered, if screen immortality is indeed your goal.
Curtis, like any star, had his share of duds but history has and will continue to remember him because he appeared in a good share of classics, most notably that one-two-three-four punch of Sweet Smell of Success (1957), The Defiant Ones (1958), Some Like it Hot (1959) and Spartacus (1960). That's a four year run of winners that would make any career a major one.
That kind of ascendance is nearly impossible to undo. Sure, huge stars usually fade and become "celebrities" rather than vital working actors... but you can't take the classics away from people.
And aside from often solid work in a wide variety of genres from those classics to thrillers (The Boston Strangler) to romantic comedies (Sex & The Single Girl with my girl Natalie Wood) we must thank Curtis for bringing Jamie Lee Curtis into the world (she's the infant in mama Janet Leigh' arms in the photograph below). That definitely made the world a better place.
The Curtis Family (left to right): Kelly, Tony, Janet Leigh and Jamie Lee
How heady must Curtis & Janet Leigh's "golden couple" years have been? Consider that during one calendar year they delivered unto the world three classics: Jamie Lee Curtis, Touch of Evil and The Defiant Ones. Then, they chased that triple with Some Like It Hot, Psycho, Spartacus and The Manchurian Candidate in the last four years of their marriage. It boggles the mind it does.
The Film Experience™ was created by Nathaniel Rogers, gemini, actressexual and cinephile. All material herein is written and copyrighted by him, unless otherwise noted.
I really wish more actors would take up photography! Jeff Bridges is another example of an actor who kills time between takes with his camera. But maybe today's paparazzi culture has lessened the desire to document life on set.
Posts
