Hi, everybody! It's JA from MNPP here again, all set to rampage across your computer screens once more. Yay! This time I'm doing exactly what I did last time... only different! Last time it was Geena Davis' birthday that made me all nostalgic for an AWOL actress. This time, same spiel, different actress - today is the 45th birthday of Bridget Fonda, and I miss her something terrible too.The last time Fonda worked was seven full years ago for a couple of television projects, but the real shining gems in her resume, as far as I'm concerned, go back a few years further to Sam Raimi's A Simple Plan in 1998 and Quentin Tarantino's Jackie Brown in 1997 (side-note: These remain both of these director's finest films. Discuss.)
Honestly, smacking those two performances beside each other right now is a little mentally overwhelming, so large does my love for both of them loom. In the former she's Sarah Mitchell, her pregnant belly disguising a mounting villainy of Lady MacBeth-like proportions, and in the latter she's Melanie Ralston, for whom the bell tolls an echo in the sound of "Huh, Looooooouuuis.... where's the car, Looooooouis?" Chills, just thinking about that gal's fate.
Of course, Fonda had done plenty of fine work outside of those two roles, but it was this terrible two-some that forever cemented my love for her. And then, within a couple of years, she was gone. Poof! You don't know whatcha got, et al. That tunefully prolific bastard Danny Elfman went and stole her away with apparently happy off-camera living and now I'm left with a Melanie's-bong shaped hole in my heart. Sadness. Hopefully she'll get the itch back like her Auntie Jane did and come back to us. Fingers crossed!
FUN FACT! I just learned this while skimming her IMDb page: Fonda was a big fan of Italian horror-maestro Dario Argento and was supposed to play the main character in his 1997 flick The Stendhal Syndrome. The role went to his daughter Asia instead, who then got to roll around with a mostly naked Thomas Kretschmann in her place. I hope Fonda had a damned good excuse for missing out on that hotness..
Posts
15 comments:
Hmmm.... the best. I do think Jackie Brown is horrificly underrated, especially Pam Grier and Robert Forster, but Pulp Fiction is also awesome.
I loved A Simple Plan as well, but sadly have not seen Raimi's other films.
To anyone reading and thinking "damn, but Bridget Fonda was great in those two movies" please put SCANDAL on your queues. She's in tippity top shape in that one, too.
it's really strange that her career never seemed to pan out. With the right directors and choices it seems like it could have been much bigger.
(course, I guess you can say that about anyone)
A big fuckin' ditto to this whole post. I REALLY REALLY REALLY want to see more of her.
-Jason
Everytime I see her I can't help but think of LAKE PLACID ("I keep getting hit with heads!")...
Um, that's not really a good thing, is it.
Anything that brings to mind Betty White feeding a cow to a giant alligator is NEVER a bad thing, Ryan.
Don't get me wrong, JA. I love me some Betty White:
POLICE: "Did the crocodile kill your husband?!"
BETTY: "If I had a dick, this is where I'd tell you to suck it."
Pure. Magic.
Oh man, Bridget Fonda. I really do wish she was still around. Her Jackie Brown performance is classic. "hellitsforyou" is perhaps the great line reading in any QT film. Ever. And that's saying a lot.
In fact the entire Fonda clan needs to stop living off their royalties and earn a living, okay?!
Maybe I'm just weird... but Spiderman 2 is my favorite Sam Raimi film.
Amanda -- mine too! let's be weird together
So hot in JACKIE BROWN, not to become one of those people in a comments section to talks about how hot someone is. I do wonder why her career ended right around the time she married Danny Elfman.
Maybe she is the full time warden of the LaLaLa children's choir he keeps in his basement?
you made my day nat singling out bridge.
supp actress nominations in 97 and 98 HOW ABOUT YOU would they have made your ballot.
fine in scandal and single white female too.
Spider-Man 2 and Evil Dead 2 (always the 2nds) probably battle it out to the death for second place in my personal hierarchy of Raimi movies.
I liked her in Single White Female. When I was younger, I always got her confused with Bridgette Wilson, lol.
I love Bridget Fonda and I adore naked Thomas Kretschmann. I support any combination of the two.
Maybe if we give it a few more years Tarantino can give Bridget her second comeback.
Remember that she was the first choice to play Ally McBeal? Imagine how different her career might be now if Bridget had not turned it down. I can do without Calista Flockhart personally!
Post a Comment