Glenn Close as Albert Nobbs

Glenn Close got back in front of movie cameras two days ago. Albert Nobbs has just started filming. She plays a cross dressing woman in 1890's Ireland.

[photo src]

Barring the movie going to cable (these things happen) of failing to get distribution (these things happen, too) will Glenn Close finally be back in the Oscar race next year at this time? She was last nominated for 1988's Dangerous Liaisons over twenty years ago. Since that Oscar regular heyday (5 nominations all within the 1980s) she's gone on to win 3 Emmys, 1 SAG and 2 Golden Globes for television roles.

The film is directed by Rodrigo García (pictured left with Close) who specializes in the actresses, most famously in television or in films like Mother & Child, Nine Lives and Things You Can Tell Just By Looking At Her. We hope he finds new inner fire as a writer/director this time. The talent with actors is obviously there but the energy of the filmmaking, some sort of electric spark is missing. So far. Will this project be the game changer?

The movie is based on the short story turned play The Singular Life of Albert Nobbs which the diva actress previously played on stage... before she was ever in a movie! I couldn't find a photo from the play but here's a review from 1982 (!) of Ms. Close's performance, the same year she first hit the big screen in The World According to Garp. Michael Gambon and Jonathan Rhys-Meyers co-star.

Happy 4th of July!

Be safe out there!
The Film Experience will be back tomorrow. Enjoy your festivities whatever they may be.
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Laura Linney In Conversation

I had the opportunity to attend “Laura Linney in Conversation” last night at the 92nd Street Y. They often host celebrities in their spacious auditorium and I knew better than to turn down the invite this time around. The last such function I neglected involved Glenn Close. I opted out on the grounds that I had Things To Do and that the night wasn’t about Ms Close (she was the interviewer) but apparently the interviewee convinced her to sing one of her big Sunset Blvd numbers for the crowd. Argh. To think I could have been there!

TLLL's last theatrical outing, Donald Margulie's Time Stands Still

No such impromptu singing erupted from The Lovely Laura Linney though the subject of musicals did come up. She absolutely loves them --- particularly big dance numbers -- but doesn’t have those gifts, can’t sing at all. The evening was a bit awkward with the moderator, theatrical producer Jordan Roth, occassionally waiting long stretches after Linney was done with an answer to move on, in which she would be forced to meander through a reiteration of what she’d just said. But for those who enjoy actorspeak and talk about “the craft” and the importance of art and culture, it was a totally engaging evening. I am one of those people. Duh.

Linney isn’t a celebrity that we know a lot about in terms of her personal life. I wasn’t aware, though maybe I should have been, that she is an absolute hard core stage actor. It’s how she defines herself. It’s clear that she wants to be treading the boards till she drops. (Mysteriously, I’ve missed all of her Broadway appearances.) She considers TV & Film to be strange things that happened along the way… she’s grateful for them, but she is all about the stage. She even described film as a medium that sucks things out of you without giving back. Stranger still, she’s scared of cameras and had to conquer that fear to do it. (She still hates to be photographed. Imagine!) She also talked a little about the differences between stage and film in terms of “rehearsal”…getting a laugh when she said that “rehearsal” for film should actually be called “negotiation.” She advised young actors to not get caught up in making choices for their “career” but for the material and the acting itself. There’s only so much control you have over a career.

Let’s see what else did we learn about TLLL? Her favorite costumes for any of her roles are the ones for John Adams – but she also kept her You Can Count On Me jacket. In her first Playbill they misspelled her name “Lavro Linney” and it taught her to not take herself too seriously since she had hundreds of playbills at home and was desperate to see her name in one. This story was very funny and she says her friends still call her “Lavro” if she starts taking herself too seriously. That first gig was an understudy for the younger female roles in Six Degrees of Separation and she watched Stockard Channing perform it every night for a year, completely enraptured. Every time she thought that Stockard couldn't take the role any deeper, she would.

That’s enough trivia!

She has zero interest in directing but she recently moved into the exciting world of producing for her new Showtime Series The Big C (see previous post) and she thinks she’ll be good at it. She talked a lot about understanding actors well enough to be very smart about call times, set environment and especially casting ‘No, cast this person. They have more range. It’ll inspire the writers and the show will be better.’ She also shared a theory on why when some actors emote you feel nothing and others will make you go all puddly (she believes the difference is that some actors knit their emotions specifically to the material whereas others are just accessing their own stuff... which is less thrilling.) More than anything else when the night ended, I wanted a private “Conversation With Laura Linney.” Which actors are which for you LAVRO? Spill. Show me your personal Oscar ballots!!!

Can We Talk About Damages ?

My general rule of thumb is that I don't talk about television on this cinema blog unless...

a) I can't help myself (Glee, Buffy)
b) it is connected to cinematic interests (Mad Men, Sex & The City) or...
c) it involves major film actresses

For today's small screen detour, we're talking "c". I watch Damages semi-religiously but I don't love it -- I curse you DVR! you made tv too easy for me -- and I think I've finally pinpointed why. The show is completely intimidated by its Star Actress.


Not that "two-time Oscar winning Gle"-- sorry, uh, "five-time Oscar NOMINATED Glenn Close" is not an intimidating force. She absolutely is. Have you seen what she can do to bunnies, dogs, and pfeiffers?

But Damages creative team seem to live in mortal fear of crossing her path. Every scene and plot development seems to tiptoe up to some big risky "in-your-face-Patty!" throwdown before it scampers away frightened. The way they construct both its rogues gallery and its elaborate plots boils down to the often non-riveting fact that Patty Hewes is an indestructable all-knowing amoral demi-god and everyone else is mere mortal.

For all of Damage's timidity in giving Hewes a true antagonist. -- Rose Byrne's "Ellen" has her moments but doesn't totally work when positioned this way -- you'd think the show would be more terrified to stare directly at Close's Medusa gaze. To make the show as riveting as it thinks it is, they need to focus on this fact: for all the staring matches, they have not yet turned to stone. Glenn Close will not destroy them if they fuck with her a little.

Last week's Close's strongest scene backs up my assertion. The actress nearly found a new note to play when confronted with a disturbing fact (involving her son) that her character was unaware of. Patty, you see, is never The Last To Know. The gap between what Patty always projects (absolute power and relentless determination toward End Goal) and Patty deciding what to project and how to get there without either of those fallbacks was delicious. The show needs a lot more of these gaps in its personality constructs.

Glenn Close is not going to be ignored... but neither, I don't think, would she mind a worthy acting opponent. I hoped, when I first heard that Lily Tomlin would play the Tobin matriarch that they'd make her Patty's arch-enemy. Instead the role, to this point, has been merely an above average take on a teary entitled widow.

I've included an entirely unrelated photo of Lily with Meryl just to make sure you're still reading. Aren't they cute?

I don't think Glenn Close has an equal in the intimidating factor -- unless they really thought outside the box and recruited someone foreign / frosty like a Isabelle Huppert type -- but drama doesn't need its protagonist and antagonist to be total mirrors. That's just one way to do it. Season 2 nearly found the right formula. The blithe carnality of Marcia Gay Harden (see previous post) was a smart, intriguing and non-reflective match for Close's blunt dominance. How, after all, would Patty stare down an opponent that wasn't staring back but checking her hair and talking in hushed sensual tones to everyone but Patty? Strangely though, the show decided not to truly pit the opposing councils against each other. Such a shame.

Should Glenn get another crack at Damages (a 4th season is up in the air), who should take a crack at her gorgon lawyer? Do you share my concerns about the show's imbalance... or do you merely despair that so many great actresses bolt the large screen for the small?
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Random Saturday Evening Thoughts

I've been cleaning the apartment, making party favors, half watching Oscar specials on TV and shopping to prep for the party. No time for writing (sorry!) and anyway I'm running on fumes for this year's big night. Herewith a few random thoughts...

• Watching Quentin Tarantino spazz out over love of cinema this and that on Charlie Rose's Oscar special. The Boyfriend says "If Tarantino didn't exist Joss Whedon would have invented him." Ha ha. So random. And, yet, so true. He is like an evil genius pop culture geek.
• Oprah special. Penélope Cruz's favorite movie is 8½. Who knew? I don't think Halle Berry has seen it. She made one of those non-committal mmmm noises when Pe mentioned it. And then they talked about how amazing Glenn Close was in Fatal Attraction, Halle's favorite movie. Which... yes. Glenn Close is on this same special talking about just that. This is the second time I've had the special on in the background and I just hate watching Glenn's face while Michael Douglas is talking about his two Oscar wins. (sigh) The world is stone.
• Was burning a mix CD of this year's movie tunes. Turns out Precious and Fantastic Mr. Fox make for awesome interstitials and The Best Original Song category is slightly more hideous than I had allowed myself to see... hear. My ears!
• I believe this is the first time I haven't completed my own awardage before Oscar night which is terribly frustrating but sigh the scrapbooking of each cinematic year is a circuitous journey. It gets there when it gets there.
  
• Legally Blonde is playing in the background and it's still such an adorable cartoon. I want to love Reese Witherspoon in something again real soon.
  
• Maybe Michelle Pfeiffer is going to be presenting at the Oscars after all? This interview with one of the show writers implies as much.
  

How are you spending Oscar Eve?

A Handful of Link

Reel Geezers on Avatar. I haven't watched this one yet but the real geezers are worth watching.

Tribeca Film Sandy/Streep face-off & the other acting races. By moi.
Movie Dearest on the Best Original Song nominees. Sing Out Louise Kirby!
New Yorker "talk of the town" And the Oscar Goes To...
In Contention Guy Lodge hits the Berlinale
Coming Soon Glenn Close to star in The Singular Life of Albert Nobbs, a gender-bending costume drama, which starts filming in July. Maybe she's not done searching for that missing Oscar yet. March 2011 or 2012 here she comes???
The Root on the history of African Americans and the Oscars from Hattie McDaniel to Precious

South Pacific

We took in the Broadway revival of South Pacific last night. Very handsome production, though I wish I'd seen the original cast. I've never been a big fan of the musical but I have to blame that on the stiff movie version and the subsequent TV version because, like most of Rodgers & Hammerstein's work it's pretty solid from song to song to song. This is why modern musicals are so often not wonderful, as they usually have to rely on one or two killer songs/hooks to get them through two plus hours. You need at least four or five!

Mitzi Gaynor sings in outside the shower

If you're an overachiever like West Side Story, you don't take any chances and only allow superlative classics into your song score. Literally any of those numbers could carry entire lesser musicals through long rough patches.

I thought the recent TV version with Glenn Close was close to unwatchable. Not sure why I had that reaction, but I did. Maybe it's all the icky dated romantic stuff? I mean, I love "Carefully Taught", one of the most succinct and potent songs ever written about racism and prejudice. But then that beautiful message gets all bogged down in weirdly creepy 50s sexual politics. Like My Fair Lady, South Pacific ends with such a conservative 'a woman's place is in the home' worldview that it's hard to really get behind. And that's not the half of it.

The second tier romance in the movie/play is more troubling. The big romantic ballad "Younger Than Springtime isn't as quite as creepy as Gigi's "Thank Heaven For Little Girls" but it's just as emphatic about women being desirable only if they're young. [Have you ever heard Annie Lennox's retro skewering of this mentality? So fun]

Lt Cable has a thing for young Asians: film version (John Kerr),
current B'way (Andrew Samonsky), TV movie (Harry Connick Jr)
and original B'way cast (Matthew Morrison from Glee. Yay!)

Even though the show is morally right-on about love being color blind, it's still asking you to swoon for two complicated and one ethically questionable romance. The lead romance involves a much older man who lies (or at least hides the truth) to a young woman he'd like as the mother of his two children. The secondary romance involves a man and younger woman who can't even communicate (but for hot sex)... and she's basically been pimped by her entrepreneurial mother! You're definitely supposed to think that Lt. Cable scored by getting a girl that's "younger than springtime". Creepy!

Have you seen any versions of South Pacific and do you find it easy to ignore the politically sexually questionable politics in old movies/classics? Do you wash those memes right out of your hair?
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A Single Actress (Julianne Moore and Oscar)

There can be only one ...winner, that is.

This year's supporting actress contest (new predictions!), if you believe early hype, is down to Mo'Nique vs. ummmm? She's way out front for her abusive mother role in Precious. But with Julianne Moore's supposedly vivid contribution to Tom Ford's A Single Man newly exciting festival auds, we could see the redhead goddess nab her 5th career nomination. That's quite an honor, even if she never wins that elusive statue.

The Man That Got Away Keeps Getting Away

A couple of years ago I asked readers who the next Deborah Kerr would be. Which modern important actress will be forever appreciated but never fully embraced by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences? Back then Kate Winslet was sort of gunning for the honor. Now that the English Rose has noisily moved into the winner's circle, the imaginary competition is back on. Although maybe it's no competition at all. The honor (?), at this point, thoroughly belongs to Glenn Close. She's much further away from winning an Oscar now than she ever was before, having abandoned anything like a substantial movie career.

Julianne may have another golden opportunity in the near future as the lead of the western drama Boone's Lick (previous post) but by the time the next next Oscars roll around she'll be 50. And we all know how unlikely it is for women over 50 to win Best Actress. It's only ever happened 8 times in 81 years and 3 of those times the woman's name was Katharine Hepburn, furthering lowering the statistical odds for women of a certain age. Since Julianne so often toggles between supporting roles and lead parts, maybe we should call her the next Deborah Kerr (6 Lead Actress noms / 0 wins) AND Thelma Ritter (6 Supporting Actress noms / 0 wins) combined.

Either way, it's just an honor to be nominated. And a pretty substantial honor to be nominated so many times. Even if you should, like Julie Ann, already have 2 gold boys on the shelf. If Moore pulls off this fifth nomination on February 2nd, 2010 she'll be in the very elite club of actresses to have been honored 5 times or more.

The Top 27 Oscar Women

1. Meryl Streep (15 noms, 2 wins)
   
2. Katherine Hepburn (12 noms, 4 wins) deceased
   
3. Bette Davis (10 noms, 2 wins) deceased
   
4. Geraldine Page (8 noms, 1 win) deceased
   
5. Ingrid Bergman (7 noms, 3 wins) deceased
   
6. Jane Fonda (7 noms, 2 wins) out of retirement - yay! Now where are the Big Drama roles?
   
7. Greer Garson (7 noms, 1 win) deceased
   
8. (tie) Jessica Lange and Maggie Smith (6 noms, 2 wins)
   
9. (5 way tie and all of them are still working regularly -- someone will break this tie) Sissy Spacek, Vanessa Redgrave, Judi Dench, Kate Winslet and Ellen Burstyn (6 noms, 1 win)
   
10. (Oscarless tie) Deborah Kerr & Thelma Ritter (6 noms, 0 wins) both deceased
    
11. (tie) Elizabeth Taylor and Olivia de Havilland (5 noms, 2 wins) both retired
    
12. (7 way tie) Cate Blanchett, Audrey Hepburn deceased, Shirley Maclaine*, Anne Bancroft deceased, Jennifer Jones retired, Susan Sarandon Norma Shearer** deceased (5 noms, 1 win)
    
13. (Oscarless tie) Glenn Close & Irene Dunne deceased (5 noms, 0 wins)

*Re: Shirley. We're only counting acting nominations here. She has 6 in total but one is not for acting.
**Norma Shearer could also be considered tied for 9th depending on how you count her double nomination.


Actresses with fewer nominations are too plentiful to list... but Julianne Moore, Emma Thompson and Frances McDormand are looking like the current (only?) threats to the esteemed company above. That should give you a clue as to how rare 5^ nominations truly is in Oscar's 81 years.

Think Julie will pull it off on February 2nd?
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Emmy Live Blogging: Swine Flu Fever Edition (Pt 2)

part one
refresh screen regularly

9:03 I recently flew home to visit my parents who were moving out of my childhood home. One of my brother's friends was living in their basement. Killing time one night, I watched How I Met Your Mother on the ancient TV system. It only seemed to carry the broadcast networks. It's like the TV had absorbed my parents refusal to join the modern world. Anyway... while watching the show, my brother's friend comes in the room and says "this is a funny show but you know what the funniest show is? Two and a Half Men. I LOVE that show."

This is why people like Jeff Probst win "Best Host of a Reality TV Program"

9:07 Gilles Marini is thrusting so often on that clip from Dancing With the Stars I feel like he should be punished on an episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.

9:14 Shohreh Agdashloo wins Best Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or Movie blocking Marcia Gay Harden's attempts at the triple crown. If Shohreh Agdashloo worked a sex phone line I would go bankrupt calling it. That voice!

Too much information I know. I'm sick. You're required to put up with me.

9:15 We're over an hour in and we've only had two Kanye West jokes. This is a surprising development.

9:28 It's hard to tell what is my fever and what is Patricia Arquette and Jennifer Love Hewitt standing before me. It's a chicken and an egg situation, surely. The cold sweats have set in.


Sadly, I'm not joking.

9:34 I just realized that both Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange can't win for Grey Gardens because they rightly considered them both leads. No category fraud here. It's Jessica Lange. I'm happy for her but quite honestly I thought Drew deserved it. Didn't you?

9:46 I'm dying here. Little Dorrit keeps winning things and I could have sworn that was an Oscar movie in the 80s. I'm starting to hallucinate. The Year in Variety. Like varieties of flus? HA? Avian? H9N2? I could have sworn I just saw a cross dissolve wherein Will Swenson from Broadway's Hair lept at me with his legs spread until he was Barack Obama.

9:57 If you have any antibiotics I could borrow, please convert them into comment form so I can absorb them before it's too late.

10:02 They have a Original Music category at the Emmys? Hugh Jackman's number from the Oscars wins. I love that the Emmys are always giving awards to other awards shows. Hollywood Inbreeding. It stops only for Hollywood Back Patting! Inbreeding is the theme of the weekend (see also: previous post).

I wish other blogs would give me awards but patting my back right now might not be a good idea. I can only imagine what I'd cough up.

10:11 I can't go on without more comments. The pillows are singing their siren song. Say something damnit.

10:17 NPH was just standing next to Dianne Wiest and he neither acknowledged her nor fell to his knees in worshipful genuflection. This is the first time I've ever been disappointed in NPH.

10:21 They're speeding things up. Michael Emerson wins Best Supporting Actor for Lost. Cherry Jones wins Best Supporting Actress for 24. WAIT! Where is Sarah Paulson??? First no NPH / Burtka kiss and now I'm denied girl on girl action with my ladies? What the hell... I have a fever. I deserve my televised gay love.

10:27 Sarah McLachlan sings "I Will Remember You" for the in memoriam. There's no way to cover this adequately whilst liveblogging. So I won't say anything other than 2009 has been a real death bummer, no?

10:38 Mad Men wins Best Writing for "Meditations in an Emergency" -- that was the second season finale about the Sterling Cooper merger and Betty's pregnancy

Close of the fierce back and faulty memory

10:40 Best Actress in a Drama Series goes to... Glenn Close Damages. Kyra Sedgwick is bummed. Elisabeth Moss is robbed. Glenn is confused... claiming that Patty Hewes is "maybe... the role of her lifetime". As NoNo smartly says in the comments: "Glenn hasn't seen herself in Fatal Attraction lately". Right? "Or Dangerous Liaisons!", I'd add. Time to pull those DVDs out of storage, Glenn.

10:50 Best Actor in a Drama Series goes to Bryan Cranston in Breaking Bad. (I don't even know what that show is about). Best Comedy Series goes to 30Rock.

11:01 I think it's shameful when awards shows that are running over time go to commercials before the final award. I mean, really. Screw the advertising dollars, think of the audience with the flu watching at home.

11:02 SIGWEAVIE! A vision in red. And Mad Men wins best series. Good night. Thanks for watching with me from your homes, through the internet where you can't catch my flu virus. Only other kinds.

Good night, and good luck.

Before There Were Websites... (Pt 2)

...there were scrapbooks (prev. pt 1)

Let's continue that silly reveal of my "Movies of the Eighties" scrapbook. I'm still hoping to locate the "Movie Stars of the Eighties" companion volume in which I ranked all the actors and actresses of the decade. Wouldn't that be a ROTFL experience? If I can find it I will share, despite the loss of dignity it will surely occasion.

Behold! To your left is the tv guide cover that started it all. I guess it wasn't an actual TV Guide as my personal mythology has always relayed but whatever television magazine thingie was inserted into the Detroit Free Press back in the day. That cover right there started my whole Oscar obsession -- look how worn, damaged and fingered it is. I thumbed through it so many times. What is this naked gold man they call Oscar??? This cover unlocked my latent awards mania. I had seen Tootsie and E.T. (massive family friendly hits both) but it was the center statue that seized my imagination. Soooo shiny.

Shiny shiny sha-na-na-na.
Shiny shiny bad times behind me

From there I became more and more movie obsessed. Based on the "everything I've seen" scribblings it looks like I was seeing about 25-40 films a year. Not all of the clipping collages matched the screening lists. I can't recall exactly what dragged me to theaters back then, but Dennis Quaid was a factor.


Do you know the 14 films displayed there? Some of them I barely remember...

The 1988 and 1989 pages are heavily Burtonesque with a late blooming burst of Pfandom by way of The Fabulous Baker Boys. I thought this clipping below was an interesting time capsule: a note about who might play The Joker before Batman (1989) was even filming. It was superhero casting speculation before steroids the internet.



It's smudgy but it reads

Although an unknown will be considered for Batman, Jack Nicholson (far right) has been mentioned in connection with the Joker. _____'s personal picks for the role are Ray Liotta (Something Wild, left) or Willem Dafoe (Platoon, center).

For the Record: Heath Ledger was 10 years old when Tim Burton's Batman arrived in theaters. Who imagined that Nicholson's Joker would eventually have to stand down?

If you want to see more of this scrapbook, say so in the comments.

But I wanted to wrap up this part 2 peak with this: Lists! Apparently I thought the best "losing sanity" performances of the 80s were:

Jack Nicholson Batman
Meg Tilly Agnes of God
Glenn Close Fatal Attraction
Meryl Streep Plenty

With the distance of time, I'd only feel comfortable standing by the bunny boiler. Not that there isn't much to admire in Streep's 1985 performance. But why only four performances? The magic number is five, Nathaniel, hello. Everyone knows that.

Stranger still is the "best sequels of the decade" ranking

5. Superman II 4. Star Trek IV 3. Aliens 2. The Empire Strikes Back 1. Return of the Jedi

That order is ALL wrong: Jedi is a sorry sibling to Empire, The Wrath of Khan crushes other Trek adventures and sentient humans and drooling monsters alike recognize that Aliens is the sequel of the 80s as well as one of the best action flicks ever. I like to think that somewhere inside I knew this and thus felt compelled to scribble A-L-I-E-N-S in large capital expanding letters.

Finally, there's the list of the movies I saw most often, "Again and Again and Again" This one honestly surprised me. I don't remember seeing some of these movies multiple times. I never see things more than twice in the theaters now. Unless the movies are called Moulin Rouge!

(4 times) A Chorus Line, The Empire Strikes Back, Dreamscape, Fire and Ice, The Lost Boys, The Princess Bride, The Secret of My Succe$s, Romancing the Stone, The Karate Kid, The Little Mermaid, Beetle Juice and Ladyhawke
(5 times) A Room With a View, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Clue, St. Elmo's Fire
(6 times) Batman
(9 times) Return of the Jedi
(10 times) The Breakfast Club

You know what question I am forced to ask now: What movie did you see the most in grade school, junior high and high school?
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"Your Girl is Lovely, Hubbell"

Robert Redford is in the air. He hasn't dissolved into something atmospheric (stop being so literal!) but his name keeps turning up. Last week his two early sexually fluid performances opposite Natalie Wood (This Property is Condemned and Inside Daisy Clover) were playing here in New York and next month in Brooklyn BAM Cinema hosts a retrospective. It culminates on September 13th with four films and the Sundance Kid himself in person. For whatever reason they've narrowed down the final four to Redford as romantic figure, often paired with true giants among actresses.

On the last day they're screening...

• Out of Africa (1985) The Best Picture winning bio in which Redford can't be tamed by Meryl Streep's author/heroine but gladly offers up shampoo and stud services.
  
• The Natural (1984) this prestige pic is a mythic baseball drama. Redford and cast are bathed in Caleb Deschanel lensed sunshine and the lovely ladies include then rising stars Barbara Hershey, Glenn Close (Oscar nominated here... though I'm still not sure why) and Kim Basinger.
  
• The Electric Horseman (1979) Redford and Jane Fonda fall in love at the rodeo. And compete in a Best Feathered Hair competition.
  
• The Way We Were (1973) in which Barba Streisand falls hard for Redford but McCarthy era Hollywood tears them apart
  

Here's the difficult part: You can only choose one. They screen simultaneously, somewhat staggered due to running times, and then the man himself appears to talk about his career to the moviegoing crowd. I'm tempted to go Horseman (the only one I haven't seen) but The Way We Were is easily my favorite among those films. It's so underrated and much more expansive than its veneration as Classic Chick Flick suggests. If you ask me, Barbra Streisand deserved the Oscar in 73. Her chemistry with Redford is every bit as remarkable as you've heard. No wonder Carrie Bradshaw obsessed so.
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Streep Nom #7-8: The Abundant Riches of 1987-88

We've been looking at each Meryl Streep Oscar nod and its competitive field. Previously: 78, 79, 81, 82, 83 and 85

Meryl Streep's first act was the Liberated Lady. The second was The Chameleon in which Meryl was always the lead, always had new hair, voice and body language and basically controlled Oscar's Universe. It was as if there was only 4 spots for Best Actress, one reserved for her in perpetuity. This second act ended with her intense immersion into notorious dingo-hating Lindy Chamberlain in A Cry in the Dark. [Editor's Note: Yes, I'll do a top ten performance list when "Streep at 60" wraps in mid July. I've heard your requests and I've been rewatching all the movies.]

Starting in 1989 Act III of Streep's career began but we'll get to that shortly. First, let's look at her competition in the last two years of her legendary Act II.

1987

the nominees were...

• Cher, Moonstruck
• Glenn Close, Fatal Attraction
• Holly Hunter, Broadcast News
• Sally Kirkland, Anna
• Meryl Streep, Ironweed
  

I've always loved that "Mary Louise" exchange. But is Cher rewriting history to claim Silkwood as her first movie or was Come Back to the Five and Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean filmed second and released first?

Other 87 ladies for context: The Globe nominees that weren't Oscar nominated were Barbra Streisand (Nuts), Faye Dunaway (Barfly), Rachel Chagall (Gaby: A True Story), Diane Keaton (Baby Boom), Jennifer Grey (Dirty Dancing) and Bette Midler (Outrageous Fortune). The year also included: Lindsay Crouse (House of Games), Cher & Sarandon & Pfeiffer (The Witches of Eastwick), Holly Hunter (Raising Arizona), Ellen Barkin (The Big Easy), Robin Wright (The Princess Bride), Mia Farrow (September), Mimi Rogers (Someone To Watch Over Me) and Daryl Hannah (Roxanne)

Nathaniel's List. This is one of the truly rare Oscar years in that I love every single nominated Best Actress performance. I'm not talking just like but love, would-propose-marriage-to deep love. My only sadness then and now is that Oscar doesn't give double nominations (Hunter in Raising Arizona = amazing and possibly even better than in News) and that there wasn't room for Emily Lloyd's fresh and now little seen debut performance in Wish You Were Here. Emily won the NSFC Best Actress prize, a BAFTA nomination and my own heart. No one speaks of her anymore but it seemed like she was going places in 1987. Those places didn't materialize. After a few short years of lead roles her film career withered into occasional supporting parts and then... nothing.

Here's an in-depth article about the many things that went wrong for Lloyd following her breakthrough role. Yet another example of why I usually try to wait before obsessing over newer actresses.

1988
the nominees were...

• Glenn Close, Dangerous Liaisons
• Jodie Foster, The Accused
• Melanie Griffith, Working Girl
• Meryl Streep, A Cry in the Dark
• Sigourney Weaver, Gorillas in the Mist

Other 88 women for context
The year's most outrageous snub was surely Globe nominee Susan Sarandon in Bull Durham. The movie had been a big hit, it lifted her into a new tier of stardom, her reviews were ecstatic and it arguably remains her best work. 1988 also marked the peak of Barbara Hershey's career. In just twelve months on US screens she had a huge hit (Beaches) and saw the release of not but one TWO consecutive Cannes winning performances (Shy People and A World Apart). But outside of the south of France she was only recognized once (Chicago Film Critics).

Oh the rollercoaster of fame! Glenn Close, Kim Basinger and Barbara
Hershey were all smiles in 1984 (they co-starred in the baseball drama
The Natural). Who knew that Basinger, the least acclaimed at the time,
would become the sole Oscar winner?

Globe kudos that didn't transfer to Oscar were the winner Shirley Maclaine (Madame Sousatzka) and nominees Amy Irving (Crossing Delancey) and the awesome trio of Christine Lahti (Running on Empty), Jamie Lee Curtis (A Fish Called Wanda), and Michelle Pfeiffer (Married to the Mob). 1988 also included Gena Rowlands (Another Woman), Bette Midler (Beaches), Geena Davis (Beetle Juice), Carmen Maura (Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown) and the debut of Ricki Lake (Hairspray).

<-- Meryl and Don at the March 89 Oscars

Nathaniel's List I consider 1988 one of the richest years of all time for female leads (though I don't much like the performance that won the Oscar. Figures). So without rescreening 7 or 8 films, I can't decide. But of one thing I am reasonably certain: my gold and silver medals would be melted down, mixed together and handed simultaneously to Glenn Close and Susan Sarandon if I were ever allowed the one-time Best Actress tie that Oscar itself gave out (in 1968). Meryl Streep would be in the mix and the remaining two spots would be hard won between...

Don't make me decide right now. I change my mind. This year gives me migraines... of pleasure.

What are your lists like for 1987 and 1988?
Who do you think should have won and which movies top your list of "I must see this!" if you haven't already?

Streep Tweets & Henry Wolfe

I know you Meryl Streep fanatics out there are getting tired of waiting for the "Streep at 60" pieces. I can only move at the speed at which I can move. My ideas are always larger than what can be shoved into my viewing/writing schedule. The retrospective is not going to end right on her birthday (June 22nd) so just enjoy as it comes. While you wait -- I'm working on the 1979-1981 movies at the moment -- please enjoy highlights from the past 48 hours of Streep related tweeting... stweeping? One of my favorite things to do on Twitter is just look up a phrase or name and see what complete strangers are saying about that topic. It's so random, weird and amusing ... so long as you can edit out the dull parts, which I've done for you!

I'll kick things off by stating the very very obvious.


My favorite tweet from that batch above is from sinistergiraffe, partially because I imagine Glenn Close has the exact opposite take on the actressing situation as is.

For the record, Don Cumming's A Good Smoke (today's reading) is about a mom (guess who?) who quits all her medication cold turkey and goes into severe drug withdrawal in a desperate ploy to wrestle back her family's attention. Gee... a narcissistic drug addled mom tormenting her daughter? I guess Meryl is already rehearsing for August: Osage County : The Movie !



Oh and here's the performance Meryl was watching yesterday in Williamsburg via L Magazine. That's her son Henry Wolfe strumming and singing. Beautiful song.
*

April Showers, Glenn Close

April Showers evenings @ 11

I was too young to understand or appreciate the rise of Glenn Close in the early 80s but by the time the one/two punch of Fatal Attraction / Dangerous Liaisons hit in 87/88 she was knocking me out. She was already a star by then, though. Those fourth and fifth Oscar nominations (and who knew they would be her last?) only amplified her celebrity. Critics and Oscar voters had been devoted since her feature debut in The World According to Garp (1982).

The murderous climax to Fatal Attraction wasn't the first time a Close movie scored big with a tub/shower sequence and it wasn't the first time she starred in a Best Picture nominee either. The Big Chill (1983) brought her her second supporting actress nod and some people believe her nude shower scene sealed that honor.

We're not far into this reunion film when it happens. The film has had a surprisingly light mood despite its kick off funereal plot point (Kevin Costner is the dead man, though he was left on the cutting room floor). Suddenly Close kills the laughter but amplifies the movie's dramatic undercurrents. There's no warning.


Directly on the heels of a light scene the camera pans very slowly through her bedroom (we don't understand what's happening at first) until we reach Glenn racked with sobs in the shower.

As The Big Chill's "Sarah" she's arguable at her warmest if still a little cool and guarded. That's why this sudden but tellingly private display of vulnerability works. Ah! So she does feel after all. Close performs this same rug-pulling stab of pain in even more devastating fashion for the finale of Dangerous Liaisons five years later. But after her 80s heyday, that sudden reveal of the three dimensional woman behind the icy mask became as rare as Yeti sightings. Close's screen persona hasn't altered that much over the years but it has hardened.

What would Sarah Cooper make of Patty Hewes?

She has no trouble commanding the small screen on Damages but even in those moments when her character "Patty Hewes" appears to be vulnerable, tears welling up furiously in her eyes, one still can't trust her. Close was always expert at showing us the mask. Now, when she lets it slip, aren't we only seeing another mask just underneath?
*

Glenn Close Must Have Great Vision

Will she star in a Bugs Bunny biopic next?

Video Recaps | Full Episodes | Webisodes

lol. Tonight is the season finale of Damages. If they ever want to work a little more humor into the show Close is up for it.

Linky GaGa

Nick's Flick Picks Nick picks this top ten 2008 flicks (top 12 if you're counting the undistributed)
This Recording interesting take on Revolutionary Road "a movie about illusions. The actors act like people acting..."
popbytes Glenn Close finally got her Hollywood Blvd star just yesterday!
NewNowNext Tilda Swinton as the "Voice of Hope"


IZ Reloaded Whoa. check out this sexist 70 year old rejection letter from Disney
The Bad & The Ugly casting call for Johnny Depp's female co-star in The Rum Diary. Good luck finding the right enigmatic sexual daredevil
My New Plaid Pants gives Slumdog Millionaire an award I can finally get behind
Glark maybe these cats should've starred in Valkyrie instead
Coming Soon awesome rumor alert: Linda Hamilton and Terminator Salvation

a couple of Globe pieces
Low Resolution stat sheet (hee)
fourfour Rich hates the Globes and tells you in exactly which ways

Advertisement or Sharply Satirical Messaging?

Do you see a photo promoting the new season of Damages...



...or a subliminal message about the way Oscar treated Glenn Close in the 80s.
(note the shiny gold dress!)

Kiss of the Spider Woman Contest Winners

Monologue Monday (Interrupted)

This is where the important part begins. The part about the lovers...

William Hurt was named Best Actor @ Cannes and by Oscar, NBR, LAFCA & BAFTA voters

Lovers of actresses & cinema for our purposes today.

For the entire first reel (and then some) of Kiss of the Spider Woman, William Hurt's "Molina" tries to monologue his way through memories of a favorite film. He loves to perform but his cell mate "Valentin" (Raul Julia) never lets him get lost in his speechifying the way he plans to, continually interrupting him with requests, jokes, corrections and commentary. And so begins an odd couple film that wraps political idealogy, cinematic obsessions, and sexual identity into a memorable actor's duet with as much theatricality as Molina himself wraps his head while daydreaming of his favorite screen diva (Sonia Braga).

The Kiss of the Spider Woman was a best picture nominee for 1985. The other shortlisters were more traditional fare: a beloved novel adaptation The Color Purple, the romantic epic Out of Africa, the mafia black comedy Prizzi's Honor, and the contemporary hit drama Witness. Kiss... has since been the hardest film for younger Oscar completists to see but a 2 disc collectors edition is now out and I have four copies to give away, one for each of its nominations. But before I announce the winners (drawn randomly) I wanted to share some really fun contest entries. I asked contestants to throw a headwrap on and make like Molina, obsessing over a favorite actress/performance in their imaginary prison cell. Some of them even sent photos --can I just say that TFE readers are so awesome to play along!

Originally I was going to post my favorite entries but there were so many that I decided I had to limit the 'extra' sharing to the entries that came in with photos ;) The following contestants did not win the random drawing but but they are so awesome for playing along...

<--- Jonathan from NY

Meryl Streep. Sophie's Choice. Cliched? Perhaps. But can the others recite word for word, facial tic and intonation down pat, the scene where she struggles to tell Stingo about being sent to Auschwitz? Or what about that accent? And she's never been more sexually charged in a film. Best performance by any actor (that I've seen but no, I'm just going to say it, EVER) in history. Streep at her streepiest, and I've loved every 20+ viewings of it. Whoever's in that jail cell better know what I'm talking about when I reference the famous silent scream in the climactic scene, or else they'll be getting an earful.....

Brian in New Mexico --->

I would likely develop, and discuss at length, whose marvelous powers I most wished to possess on any given prison day. Would I want to channel Sissy Spacek's Carrie White and her telekinetic grudge match powers? Or would it Rita Moreno's Anita and her ability to deliver a scathing insult as though it was a love pat? Or would it be Meryl Streep's dexterity in self-transformation that I would covet? (Of course, on really bad days, I would likely pretend to be Hope Emerson and leave it at that...)

<--- JS in the Philippines

Anyone in prison would have to learn and emulate the virtues of Glenn Close's performance in Dangerous Liaisons because like her, you'd be in a similar environment where you would have to practice detachment, learn how to listen and deceive all in service of devising means of escape no one had ever thought of before. It's "win or die." :)

Mark in Manchester --->

I could have gone the easy route and picked Sigourney in Aliens but if I shared a cell i'd obsess over Brooke Smith as Sonya in Vanya on 42nd Street. I only saw this performance recently and was so moved we could act out her final monologue scene with the cellmate as Wallace Shawn.

<--- Cenzig in Florida

Liza Minnelli as Sally Bowles. She oozes that Fosse sexuality that we all know and love. She captures our attention with "Divine decadence darling!" and holds it, even through the tears during "Cabaret" You root for her. You know the mess that is about to be WWII and you want her out, to live with Brian in delicious sin. She's Fun. She's Fabulous. She's Fucking Sally Bowles!!!

You know who is fun and fabulous? Everyone who entered this contest!
For those that didn't win or haven't seen the film, catch up on a little 80s Oscar lore by seeking it out now that it's available again for home viewing.

[drum roll please]

And the winners are...

Nick in Connecticut

I would talk with my cellie about Salma Hayek in Desperado, because, while the film isn't a masterpiece, she was INCREDIBLY sexy in that film. The way Rodriguez lit her, and her willingness to take part in that steamy love scene with Antonio, set my pulse racing as a 15 year old action-movie junkie. She's still one of the hottest women ever to grace the silver screen, and the way she looks in Desperado is the sort of thing that dreams are made of. Those sun-dresses, that long, wavy hair, her accent, her curves… man-o-man what a stunning creature she is.

Ben in Los Angeles

Naomi Watts in Mulholland Dr, hands down. You get two characters to talk about individually, and then you get to talk about the two together. Plus, you can obsess over how overlooked she was in terms of bling for the mantle - no Oscar? Psh!

Dennis in Wisconsin

If I had to go with one performance, it would be Vivien Leigh in Gone With the Wind. That movie had such an impact on me when I first saw it at 12 years old. She rocked my world! I could talk about Scarlett/Vivien for days.

Chuck in Kentucky

Maria Falconetti. Perhaps it is unfair to choose an actress who appeared only in one film. Yet I believe that Falconetti's performance in Dreyer's seminal The Passion of Joan of Arc goes beyond a mere cineast obsession, and can be viewed instead as a sort of religious longing, a desire for emancipation, a devotion to something intangible and ethereal. Falconetti's struggle would be my own, and the haunting memory of her performance would move me more than any other celluloid creation. My memory of those tortured eyes would no doubt provide the sort of spiritual solace only found in prayer; she would be the single slash of light that cuts through the coagulating and ever-present darkness.

I hope you enjoyed reading about these personal cinematic obsessions as much as I did. And while we're on the subject of Kiss of the Spider Woman... you can check out my vague recollection of my favorites in 1985 If you have any thoughts to share on that 1985 Best Picture race, do so in the comments. Out of Africa, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Prizzi's Honor, The Color Purple or Witness? How many have you seen and what's your choice for "Best" ?