RCL: Bradley, Anna, Geena, Viola

Red Carpet Lineup. Early each week, an assortment of movie peeps who’ve been out and about. Who is where (and what are they wearing)? It’s not really a fashion thing. It’s more like a photographic excuse to mouth off about random celebs.

From left to right: Bradley Cooper was running down 5th avenue, trying to escape Renee Ze… oh, I kid. He was running down 5th avenue (where I’m sitting even as you read this) filming tense scenes for The Dark Fields. Abbie Cornish was also seen running from another actor with villainous intent. The sci-fi tinged medicinal thriller, from Illusionist director Neil Burger is about a former coke addict (Cooper) who takes a drug with rather mysterious enhancing effects.

Do you thinkAnna Kendrick thinks about Up in the Air when she travels? She arrived in Vancouver this week to begin filming Untitled Super Busy Actor Project. Super Busy Actor being Seth Rogen. The comedy is about a young man who gets cancer. Between this and Laura Linney's The C Word how many cancer comedies are we going to get in the next 12 months? Who knew cancer was so hilarious? Do you think Anna will soon start resenting her useless Twilight role given that her star is rising elsewhere?

Geena Davis was at the Paley Center looking like she’d just stepped out of a Nancy Meyers movie. So very beige. Some of you might be old enough to remember that Geena was once known as a crazy fashion risk taker in the early 90s. What happened to her sense of sartorial fun? She was promoting The Geena Davis Institute which focuses on improving gender portrayals in media aimed at children. Wouldn't it be sweet if future generations weren't so programmed with antiquated notions about what girls can be, feel and do? I've been meaning to talk about Geena's new movie Accidents Happen. Soon.

Finally, Viola Davis, who looks so great in bold colors (remember her gold Oscar dress?), was at the Broadway opening of the manic comedy Lend Me a Tenor which has been attracting plentiful celebs. Julianne Moore and Michelle Pfeiffer have already been spotted in the audience and one assumes the third member of TFE’s trinity (Streep) won’t be far behind. The show was directed by La Streep’s pal Stanley Tucci and is getting rave reviews. Speaking of Streep… remember when she won SAG two years back and begged Hollywood to give Viola Davis a big movie to star in? Streep is a charitable force but Hollywood less so. We’ll believe Viola getting the parts she deserves when we see it. Unfortunately in Hollywood deserves (often) got nothing to do with it. Next up for Viola is another one of those “best friend of star” roles in Eat Pray Love... which, however good the movie might be, is probably not what Streep meant. Maybe someone should make a movie of her stage triumph, Intimate Apparel?

If you were writing a movie for Viola, what kind of part would you give her?
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April Showers, Brad Pitt as "JD"

april showers, daily @ 11

Tonight's shower is provided by mother nature rather than traditional indoor plumbing. That's appropriate since Thelma & Louise (1991) is elemental: all wide open spaces, blazing sun, dusty earth and women as hard driving forces of nature.

While the film belongs to Susan Sarandon's Louise, Geena Davis's Thelma is the maddening/adorable one. Among her many exasperating yet endearing qualities is her uninhibited horniness for one J.D. (early Brad Pitt). In the scene pictured to your left, Louise has booted the caddish hitchhiker out of their car since the friends are getting hotel rooms for the night. J.D. struts away into the rain shower, fully confident that Thelma's eyes are still on him. He even kicks up a boot heel, a private little show for her, as the car drives away.

There he goes. I love watching him go.

Wrangler butts drive her nuts... or something.

If you've seen more than two or three movies you'll know that this lustfully observed exit will not be J.D.'s exit from the movie. But Thelma apparently hasn't seen so many movies. She's surprised (and thrilled) when he comes a'knocking on her hotel room door later that same night.

J.D. is such a skilled charmer that the outcome of his neighborly call is never in doubt. The aw shucks grin is ease itself. He even knows just how to pose in the pouring rain so that the water runs, just so, off his cowboy hat. His 'I'll get out of your hair now' wet puppy act is all pretense. He's no puppy but a dog. He knows he's getting out of the rain. He knows he's getting into her bed.

Oscar and The Jesus Year

I'm really trying to leave the gold man behind but he never unclenches his grip. Have you noticed the arms? Plus he has a sword... so, one has to move slowly away. Tip toe. Tip toe. I advise against sudden movements.

Anyway, for fun I thought I'd dedicate a post to the dozen acting Oscar winners who won when they were 33 years of age. Why? Because it's all about Kate Winslet right now! Here they are...

• Harold Russell, The Best Years of Our Lives (1946... the only man! they make them wait longer. He was also the first disabled Oscar winner if my trivia is correct)
• Olivia DeHavilland, The Heiress (1949... second Oscar)
• Donna Reed, From Here to Eternity (1953)
• Sally Field, Norma Rae (1979)
• Meryl Streep, Sophie's Choice (1982... second Oscar)
• Jessica Lange, Tootsie (1982)
• Geena Davis, The Accidental Tourist (1988)

• Emma Thompson, Howards End (1992)
• Juliette Binoche, The English Patient (1996)
  
• Julia Roberts, Erin Brockovich (2000)
• Catherine Zeta-Jones, Chicago (2002)
  
• Kate Winslet, The Reader (2008)

You know this list makes Mel Gibson seethe with jealousy.

No Best Actor nominee has ever won during his Jesus year. In fact no actor who has ever risked playing Jesus has won an Oscar either before or after that Only Begotten Moment (and that includes actors as acclaimed as Ralph Fiennes, Max von Sydow -- whom I interviewed and asked about the "spiritual thread" in his career, Willem Dafoe and Christian Bale all of whom you'd think would have a statue by now) so maybe it's an Academy curse.

If I am struck by lightning after posting this, I'll try to film it so David Fincher can use it in his next movie.

If your Jesus year is still ahead of you you can use this trivia as a goal post. How will you work towards winning an Oscar by then? Make a plan and get busy! If you're older than 33 try not to feel desperately unaccomplished.
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Breakfast With ... Thelma & Louise

Just coffee and girl talk.
(I hope it's decaf. Thelma is already bouncing off the walls)

Thelma: Hiiii-iiiii
Louise: What happened to your hair?
Thelma: Nothing. It got messed up.


Louise: Thelma. What's wrong with you?
Thelma: Nothing. Why. Do I seem different?
Louise: Well... now that you mention it, yeah, you -- you seem like you're crazy or you're on drugs.


Thelma: Well, I'm not on drugs
.>>>>>>... But I might be CRAAZZZZZY!

I don't think I've ever properly expressed how much I love Thelma & Louise but let me just say that this movie makes me as happy as Brad Pitt's hitchhiking cowboy made Geena Davis's Thelma!


(In other words: When I saw this movie in 1991 it was like I "finally got laid properly")
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Alright, Who Slapped A Lock On Geena Davis?

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JA from MNPP here, momentarily realizing how strange it is that this is the second time lately (last time) that I've popped up here at The Film Experience to natter on about something related to Beetlejuice. But there it is. I have a problem apparently.

It's Geena Davis' birthday though, and I want to wish her a very happy one, and beg on her behalf a career renaissance. Where has she gotten herself to anyway? Did her sleeve catch on one of those near-Olympian-level arrows she was slinging and carry her off to Never Never Land? She played the Lady-In-Chief in that missed-the-zeitgeist-by-a-hair television program and then promptly vanished.

The world needs her, I say. What is the movie-world without a plump-lipped fire-haired Valkyrie to carry it on her shoulders? Nothing! A big boring bowl of plump-lipped fire-haired Valkyrie-less oatmeal. Bah!

Darlin' look out, cuz her hair is comin' down!

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Olympian (Almost)

Overhearing conversations in my hotel, glancing at the headlines on papers and listening to the television commentary gives me the sense that all anyone cares about during the Olympics are record breakers like Michael Phelps. As for myself, I'm not winner focused. I blame that on my ancient obsession with Oscars. I'm more fascinated by the nomination process than who wins. It's also why when I started my online punditry many years ago (many many many many years ago. sheesh I'm Gandalf) I passed out virtual gold, silver and bronze medals rather than a single trophy. That's commonplace around the blogosphere now but I trail blazed that Olympic take on movie awards.

This is all a long way of saying that I get really bored with what I view as bad sportsmen statements that you hear all during the games "he/she won't be happy with a silver medal!" as if being second best in the entire world is something to be ashamed of. Maybe I just don't have enough of a competitive spirit but I watch these games and I get bored with the winners (Michael Phelps ...again? There are so many great swimmers) just like I get bored with multiple repeat Emmy winners or regular Oscar nominees who don't deserve shortlisting every single time. Instead, I feel so much for the Olympic "losers". They are amazing amazing athletes. Imagine being among the very best in the world at any one thing? It's just... gah! What a thrill it should be. And yet we focus only on the gold.

So here's to all the fourth place finishers in Olympic events and here's to anyone who ever lost an Oscar! And please raise your glass to all the people who were ever great at anything. And even all the people who were ever almost great. Working at being nearly great is better than most people manage, don't you think? So here's to all the Olympians from everywhere and the alternates, too.

And, finally, here's to Geena Davis !


She's the only famous actress I know of who was also nearly an Olympian. It's my favorite bit of Olympic sports trivia. "Thelma" tried out for the US archery team way back in 1999 but didn't make the finals. She did win the Oscar. She also got to have famous pretend sex with Brad Pitt. But then her movie career dried up long before anyone expected it would. The moral of this story is that you really can't win them all. But win or lose, be game.
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The Ecstasy of Madame de Tourvel

[i'm on vacation so a prerecorded note on today's blog event...]

Madame de Tourvel may have found previously unknown pleasure in the arms of her cruel lover Valmont but her ecstasy was short-lived in Dangerous Liaisons, the best film of 1988. The field of Oscar supporting actress nominees was almost entirely newbies that year but Pfeiffer (The Madame in question) suffered a little death there as well when she lost the Oscar to Geena Davis. I'm guessing Michelle de Tourvel's fate doesn't improve in this month's Supporting Actress Smackdown over @ StinkyLulu's... but you'll have to click over to find out. As will I (it's a nail biter to the actual contributors too)

To whet your appetite for that Smackdown rematch, here's five minutes of retro '88 pleasure with Sigourney Weaver, Frances McDormand, Joan Cusack, Davis and Pfeiffer:

1988_SAS
Uploaded by nathanielr

"Fifty Bucks Says You Don't Look This Good In Your Fifties"

...that's what I imagine Geena Davis saying in this photo which was taken about a year ago.

I'll admit to intermittent amnesia when it comes to the fabulous Ms. Davis but for awhile in the 90s it was tough to beat her. She was really on top of the game. An Oscar in March of 1989, a starring role in a hotbutton classic in 1991 (Thelma & Louise), carrying a big hit in 1992 (A League of Their Own) in which she replaced an 'it girl' from the 1980s: Debra Winger. Hollywood is quite the merry go round, in'nt it? People jump on, they get dizzy and fall off, they marry Finns who destroy their careers...

Geena Davis may not be the star she once was, but I'm always hoping she'll surprise us with one more great movie role. Even if she never acted again though she'd hold a special place in my heart just for "Thelma". One of my favorite line readings of all time belongs to her in that film. She and Louise (Susan Sarandon) are trying to determine what to do next and they both realize that returning to their past lives is no longer an option.

Something's, like, crossed over in me and I can't go back. I mean I couldn't live.

She's so earnest in her delivery and so surprisingly unsurprised. And she's sunburnt (good look on both those ladies, btw). God, I love that scene.

Happy birthday Geena!