Showing posts with label Jamie Lee Curtis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jamie Lee Curtis. Show all posts
Friday, October 29, 2010
Friday, October 01, 2010
Tony Curtis (1925 - 2010)
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.
A few admittedly more timely farewells
- Boy Culture remembers a Shelley Winters anecdote
- Coffee Coffee and More Coffee shares a personal memory and marvels at Curtis ability to slide so easily back and forth between comedies and drama.
- New York Times on his good looks and storied "vigorous heterosexuality" despite the sexually ambiguous roles.
- Vanity Fair his idea of perfect happiness was "top billing"
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Crying with Juli M. Laughing with Jamie Lee. Casting of Chloe M.
Hollywood Reporter Speaking of JLC, she has...feeelings about this True Lies reboot for TV.
Coming Soon Chloe Moretz to play Emily Strange. She's the only young girl in Hollywood. The only one you're allowed to see in anything, okay?! Learn to love her. Or else.
...And my latest column at Towleroad covers Buried with Ryan Reynolds and has a lot more linkage too, including that hilarious 'Julianne Moore Loves to Cry' video that several of you have alerted me, too. I love to watch her weep but it's not because I'm a sadist. Find out my self-rationalizing theory over there.
Something else I need to find a rationalization for: I've had Atom Egoyan's Chloe --no, not Moretz! -- sitting on my TV for a week or more now and I still haven't watched it. Damn you time management issues. This is also why posting has been slim while I've been NYFF'ing. Apologies.
P.S. More Foreign Film Oscar Submission have happened and the charts are updated. But you know what's really weird. When I was looking up the info I found this article from the AP which says the craziest thing
"Lula, the Son of Brazil" will be among 95 titles from around the world competing to be chosen for the shortlist at the US Academy Awards ceremony on February 27, the culture ministry saidApparently the culture ministry hasn't followed the Oscars much. I've been tracking this category extensively since 2001 and I've never seen a year that hit 75 titles, let alone 95!
Here's a music video from Andrius Mamontovas from the Latvian Oscar submission Hong Kong Confidential. Andrius also co-stars in the romantic dramedy.
Monday, July 19, 2010
A Picture's Worth A Thousand Yesses
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JA from MNPP here. Have you guys seen the cast list for You Again? I mean sure it's made by the guy who made Race to Witch Mountain, but it co-stars those two firecrackers above along with Betty White, Kristen Bell, Cloris Leachman, Victor Garber, and Kristen Chenoweth! Will it be too much of a good thing? Will they all just stand around with nothing to do? I don't care, I could watch these people stand around with nothing to do. They'd do even that delightfully, I wager. More on the movie here. More pictures from it here. And here's the trailer:
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It's out on September 24th.
Sigourney Weaver Jamie Lee Curtis
Sigourney Weaver Jamie Lee Curtis
Monday, June 07, 2010
25th Anniversary: Jamie Lee Curtis is Perfect
this was supposed to be a reg'lar monday monologue but i got distracted
Put down that Activia and listen up. I accidentally saw Freaky Friday again (as funny as ever) so Jamie Lee Curtis was bouncing round in me brain. Long before Curtis was regulating the nation with great yogurt (What? It works.) she was already something of an icon of health & fitness.
Perfect in Pink
Her marvelous bod first got a ton of media attention in Trading Places (1983, t'was the boobs). Most famously, the blockbuster True Lies (1994) exploited her goods with that memorable striptease sequence.
And twenty-five years ago this very day, Perfect (1985) opened. This proved to be the most literal interpretation of her 'Let's Get Physical' career thread. She even had Olivia Newton-John hair. In the film she played Jessie, "the aerobics pied piper" at the Sports Erection... excuse me... Sports Connection that Rolling Stone reporter Adam (John Travolta) is about to crucify in a big condescending expose about health clubs as the new singles bars.
Jessie is too savvy to agree to be Adam's profile subject but too enamored of the cleft chin'ed one not to bed him. This leads to one of the most ridiculous pre-sex metaphorical banter ever heard on film (warm up = foreplay and, well, you get the picture from there) and an even more ridiculous post coital scene. After their lovemaking Travolta attends Curtis's slimnastics class and for an ENTIRE FIVE MINUTES (I'm not even exaggerating by one second) we watch them doing a sweaty intense pelvic gyration routine while making ooh and aah and youaresobadyousexything faces at each other. It's hideous!
Adding to the hilarity is the lyrics of the song that's playing. "Shock me til I can't sit up I can't sit down. Oh no... temperatures higher" -- which sounds like... well, the characters might want to hit the free health clinic after their sexworkout. [Sadly it's one of the movie's only moments that's so-bad-it's-good. The film is too inert and serious overall to have become a fondly remembered Bad Movie We Love.]
Late in the movie Jessie's worst fears are confirmed about Adam and what he intends to write. She sees this heinous article on his computer AND I MUST SHOW YOU THE COMPUTER BECAUSE OF THE CRUCIAL QUESTION OF WHAT IS IT???
I don't even understand what I'm looking at. It's like a desktop computer grafted onto the back of a laptop with some sort of stand/lift on the back. And giant yellow letters, only 16 lines of them, on the screen. To erase it -- which Jessie does in anger -- she has to backspace every line. There's not even a highlight/delete function.
This movie should be placed in the Smithsonian it tells you so much you'd forgotten about the 80s. For example, I had completely forgotten that "eat shit and die" was like an every-single-day insult between friends and that people said "sleaze" instead of skank, slut or ho.
For reasons only my late 80s self comprehends, I was very obsessed with Jamie Lee Curtis's line reading of "What's so wrong with wanting to be perfect?" It's the only thing I remembered about the movie in 2010 before looking at it again. Watching it now, it's still an emotional climax but it's more blah than I'd remembered. Like the rest of the movie. It's one of those "duh" and OOH... SPEAK YOUR THEMES TO ME *HOT* moments that I sometimes like to make fun of in modern movies. Anyway, before Jamie Lee has her would be famous speech, she calls John Travolta a bitch. Which is awesome. And very non 80s of her, I think. Then she lays into the bitch.
Perfect has a terrible reputation but it's actually kind of interesting in a time capsule way even though, no, it's not particularly good. It's angsty take on journalistic ethics is fairly typical of movies but it's an eye opener to watch this and remember that working out regularly was once looked down on as a fad and there's also the constant and now shocking reminder that magazine articles use to have major cultural impact. The life of a writer was certainly different.
But I don't mean to be a draggy downer like the film. Despite it's glum mood, it's sort of adorkable anyway since it has forgotten 80s lingo, hilariously awful 80s music, memorable 80s people (Rolling Stone founder Jan Wenner in his chubby pre-coming out days plays a Rolling Stone editor, Carly Simon cameos, Marilu Henner!) and actual 80s fashions (rather than costumed designed interpretations) all the way from single girl party wear to stripper costumes to workout clothes. You even see what we now call "mom jeans" on hot young pieces like Jamie Lee. Even Jamie Lee can't make them work. She looks better naked.
It's like these three characters (a throuple) say in the film.
*
Have you ever tried aerobics? Which movie most screams "authentic 80s!" to you?
Further Reading?
Adam's "Signatures: Jamie Lee Curtis"
Susan's Top Ten Movie Hookers
JA's Top Ten Actress in a Horror Film Performancess
Put down that Activia and listen up. I accidentally saw Freaky Friday again (as funny as ever) so Jamie Lee Curtis was bouncing round in me brain. Long before Curtis was regulating the nation with great yogurt (What? It works.) she was already something of an icon of health & fitness.
Perfect in PinkHer marvelous bod first got a ton of media attention in Trading Places (1983, t'was the boobs). Most famously, the blockbuster True Lies (1994) exploited her goods with that memorable striptease sequence.
And twenty-five years ago this very day, Perfect (1985) opened. This proved to be the most literal interpretation of her 'Let's Get Physical' career thread. She even had Olivia Newton-John hair. In the film she played Jessie, "the aerobics pied piper" at the Sports Erection... excuse me... Sports Connection that Rolling Stone reporter Adam (John Travolta) is about to crucify in a big condescending expose about health clubs as the new singles bars.Jessie is too savvy to agree to be Adam's profile subject but too enamored of the cleft chin'ed one not to bed him. This leads to one of the most ridiculous pre-sex metaphorical banter ever heard on film (warm up = foreplay and, well, you get the picture from there) and an even more ridiculous post coital scene. After their lovemaking Travolta attends Curtis's slimnastics class and for an ENTIRE FIVE MINUTES (I'm not even exaggerating by one second) we watch them doing a sweaty intense pelvic gyration routine while making ooh and aah and youaresobadyousexything faces at each other. It's hideous!
Adding to the hilarity is the lyrics of the song that's playing. "Shock me til I can't sit up I can't sit down. Oh no... temperatures higher" -- which sounds like... well, the characters might want to hit the free health clinic after their sexworkout. [Sadly it's one of the movie's only moments that's so-bad-it's-good. The film is too inert and serious overall to have become a fondly remembered Bad Movie We Love.]
Late in the movie Jessie's worst fears are confirmed about Adam and what he intends to write. She sees this heinous article on his computer AND I MUST SHOW YOU THE COMPUTER BECAUSE OF THE CRUCIAL QUESTION OF WHAT IS IT???
I don't even understand what I'm looking at. It's like a desktop computer grafted onto the back of a laptop with some sort of stand/lift on the back. And giant yellow letters, only 16 lines of them, on the screen. To erase it -- which Jessie does in anger -- she has to backspace every line. There's not even a highlight/delete function.
This movie should be placed in the Smithsonian it tells you so much you'd forgotten about the 80s. For example, I had completely forgotten that "eat shit and die" was like an every-single-day insult between friends and that people said "sleaze" instead of skank, slut or ho.
For reasons only my late 80s self comprehends, I was very obsessed with Jamie Lee Curtis's line reading of "What's so wrong with wanting to be perfect?" It's the only thing I remembered about the movie in 2010 before looking at it again. Watching it now, it's still an emotional climax but it's more blah than I'd remembered. Like the rest of the movie. It's one of those "duh" and OOH... SPEAK YOUR THEMES TO ME *HOT* moments that I sometimes like to make fun of in modern movies. Anyway, before Jamie Lee has her would be famous speech, she calls John Travolta a bitch. Which is awesome. And very non 80s of her, I think. Then she lays into the bitch. You talked to me about Emerson and Baby Boomers and Physical Great Awakening and all you do is write a fucking little piece about people getting into each other's pants.He whines "But every thing I wrote is true."
It's not the truth I'm worried about, it's the tone... and hurting people and using them.The her in question is Linda played by Laraine Newman. I remember this supporting role was kind of a big deal at the time because Newman was an SNL regular and she's pretty good in a dramatic role as the desperate workout fanatic and "sleaze".
You're so disgusting. How can you be nice to somebody like McKenzie and then shit on Linda? What did she ever do to you or anybody else for that matter? Nothing! What's wrong with wanting to be the best that you can be? What's so wrong with wanting to be perfect? What's wrong with wanting to be loved?
You're going to ruin her life.
Perfect has a terrible reputation but it's actually kind of interesting in a time capsule way even though, no, it's not particularly good. It's angsty take on journalistic ethics is fairly typical of movies but it's an eye opener to watch this and remember that working out regularly was once looked down on as a fad and there's also the constant and now shocking reminder that magazine articles use to have major cultural impact. The life of a writer was certainly different.
Jessie: How many articles do you write a year?Many writers nowadays have to churn out several a day. Quality and depth of research have surely suffered in this content and pageview driven new world.
Adam: I dunno. Ten?
But I don't mean to be a draggy downer like the film. Despite it's glum mood, it's sort of adorkable anyway since it has forgotten 80s lingo, hilariously awful 80s music, memorable 80s people (Rolling Stone founder Jan Wenner in his chubby pre-coming out days plays a Rolling Stone editor, Carly Simon cameos, Marilu Henner!) and actual 80s fashions (rather than costumed designed interpretations) all the way from single girl party wear to stripper costumes to workout clothes. You even see what we now call "mom jeans" on hot young pieces like Jamie Lee. Even Jamie Lee can't make them work. She looks better naked.
It's like these three characters (a throuple) say in the film.
"The better your body looks the more you want to take off your clothes."*
*
Have you ever tried aerobics? Which movie most screams "authentic 80s!" to you?
Further Reading?
Adam's "Signatures: Jamie Lee Curtis"
Susan's Top Ten Movie Hookers
JA's Top Ten Actress in a Horror Film Performancess
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Birthday Suits: Deserve's Got Nothin' To Do With it
Celebrating the birthdays of the cinematic peoples daily. If you were born on 11/22 shout it out in the comments. How will you celebrate these fine folks, listed below?
Scarlett, Mark and Mads
1920 Anne Crawford Israeli born British actress of the 40s. Died when she was only 35.
1923 Arthur Hiller Canadian director. Oscar nominated for mega-hit Love Story (1970). Also known for comedies like The Out-of-Towners, Silver Streak and Outrageous Fortune and some erratically interesting choices like The Americanization of Emily, Man of La Mancha and Hollywood's first mainstream gay film Making Love (1982).
1932 Robert Vaughn The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and one of The Magnificent Seven
1940 Terry Gilliam crazy indispensible auteur. He doesn't deserve all the funding / filmmaking problems he's had of late. But, sadly, I can't really recommend The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus which is messy in dozens of ways
1956 Richard Kind character actor (A Serious Man)
1959 Jamie Lee Curtis actress of the Perfect bod, Mrs. Christopher Guest, the most successful "final girl" of all time, yogurt spokesperson and Oscar snubbee (deserved so much better but at least the Golden Globes paid respects)
1960 Christopher Ciccone Madonna betrayer (boo. hiss)
1960 Leos Carax French auteur behind the excellent Lovers on the Bridge and the darkly hypnotic Pola X. Rent them
1961 Mariel Hemingway Woody Allen's first intergenerational onscreen love affair in Manhattan. Unfortunately she would not be his last. Her birthday suit was an 80s staple: Personal Best, Star 80 and Playboy magazine.
1964 Ingvar Eggert Sigurðsson Icelandic actor of memorable eyes and scary forehead (Jar City, Angels of the Universe)
1965 Mads Mikkelsen Denmark's chief export, male actor division
1967 Mark Ruffalo (sigh) Hollywood ain't done right by him. Enough with the thankless second banana crap... give him something meaty. He's proven his worth
1984 Scarlet Johansson remember when I was so obsessed with her that I devoted a whole week to her on the blog? Damn that was a shortlived infatuation. I don't expect my new indifference will turn around much with Iron Man 2, given that ScarJo does her best work as quiet reactive women in dramas but we'll see...
Finally, I have been terribly remiss in writing more about Geraldine Page who left this mortal coil shortly after her long-awaited Oscar win (Trip to Bountiful) 24 years ago. She would have been 85 today.
Page and her kept man. Who wouldn't keep him?
Of all of Oscar's most beloved actresses (up there with Bette Davis and Ingrid Bergman!) she gets zero attention in the online film world. Surely she deserves more. I promised reader George that I'd write about her two years ago and I still haven't. Argh! At any rate, I need to watch a few more films but my favorite performance of hers from those I've seen is unquestionably Tennessee Williams' Sweet Bird of Youth, opposite Paul "hard gold" Newman, in which she plays a temperamental actress, desperate for a big comeback. She out divas several more famous divas and that's saying something. Have you seen it?
Scarlett, Mark and Mads 1920 Anne Crawford Israeli born British actress of the 40s. Died when she was only 35.
1923 Arthur Hiller Canadian director. Oscar nominated for mega-hit Love Story (1970). Also known for comedies like The Out-of-Towners, Silver Streak and Outrageous Fortune and some erratically interesting choices like The Americanization of Emily, Man of La Mancha and Hollywood's first mainstream gay film Making Love (1982).
1932 Robert Vaughn The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and one of The Magnificent Seven
1940 Terry Gilliam crazy indispensible auteur. He doesn't deserve all the funding / filmmaking problems he's had of late. But, sadly, I can't really recommend The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus which is messy in dozens of ways
1956 Richard Kind character actor (A Serious Man)
1959 Jamie Lee Curtis actress of the Perfect bod, Mrs. Christopher Guest, the most successful "final girl" of all time, yogurt spokesperson and Oscar snubbee (deserved so much better but at least the Golden Globes paid respects)1960 Christopher Ciccone Madonna betrayer (boo. hiss)
1960 Leos Carax French auteur behind the excellent Lovers on the Bridge and the darkly hypnotic Pola X. Rent them
1961 Mariel Hemingway Woody Allen's first intergenerational onscreen love affair in Manhattan. Unfortunately she would not be his last. Her birthday suit was an 80s staple: Personal Best, Star 80 and Playboy magazine.
1964 Ingvar Eggert Sigurðsson Icelandic actor of memorable eyes and scary forehead (Jar City, Angels of the Universe)
1965 Mads Mikkelsen Denmark's chief export, male actor division
1967 Mark Ruffalo (sigh) Hollywood ain't done right by him. Enough with the thankless second banana crap... give him something meaty. He's proven his worth
1984 Scarlet Johansson remember when I was so obsessed with her that I devoted a whole week to her on the blog? Damn that was a shortlived infatuation. I don't expect my new indifference will turn around much with Iron Man 2, given that ScarJo does her best work as quiet reactive women in dramas but we'll see...
Finally, I have been terribly remiss in writing more about Geraldine Page who left this mortal coil shortly after her long-awaited Oscar win (Trip to Bountiful) 24 years ago. She would have been 85 today.
Page and her kept man. Who wouldn't keep him?Of all of Oscar's most beloved actresses (up there with Bette Davis and Ingrid Bergman!) she gets zero attention in the online film world. Surely she deserves more. I promised reader George that I'd write about her two years ago and I still haven't. Argh! At any rate, I need to watch a few more films but my favorite performance of hers from those I've seen is unquestionably Tennessee Williams' Sweet Bird of Youth, opposite Paul "hard gold" Newman, in which she plays a temperamental actress, desperate for a big comeback. She out divas several more famous divas and that's saying something. Have you seen it?
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Signatures: Jamie Lee Curtis
Adam of Club Silencio here with another look at my favorite actresses and their distinguishing claims to fame.
Jamie Lee Curtis leads a multitude of magnificent lives. Hollywood Royalty holder, children's author, wife to Christopher Guest, AARP covergirl and staunch advocate for Activia yogurt. But then that's what she's shown to be so splendid at throughout her revealing and revitalizing career: balancing these many separate lives. It's enough to make anyone scream, but then Jamie Lee Curtis is also the queen of that.
The virginal high school babysitter with the homicidal, immortal brother; the hitchhiker with a past who's sure to put out. Jamie Lee Curtis is like an onion. As she progressed through the 80's we saw her shed layers... and eventually her layers.
A street-tough cop and undercover thief are both hard earned women's roles that transcend just just being topless. It's all about range, and Jamie's sensual and oft-victimized self takes some harder-edged turns. Not only is she playing the independent brains behind the operations, Jamie Lee proves she's a horror heroine, comedian and an action star! Maybe someone will have the sick humor to pair her with Arnold Schwarzenegger...
But first come see the softer of side of Jamie Lee... Although it's easy to understand this little girl's suspicions. There's definitely some backstory there - especially obvious when Jamie Lee shows up at a funeral home in her camper trailer asking for a cosmetology job. Is she telling the truth? Lies?
You don't marry Arnold Schwarzenegger in a movie and think all you're getting is a joint checking account. The jig is up: hubby's a secret agent and that mousy wife of his (Jamie Lee wears glasses!) has been sleeping with her own 007 on the side. But then we can understand why, given Jamie Lee's past. For one thing this new guy also lives in a trailer. Just peeling back the layers with Jamie Lee...
And I bet Jamie Lee Curtis's body is looking pretty good to Lindsay Lohan right about now... (Take that as you will.) Even if she needs to swap bodies with her daughter to gain perspective, Jamie Lee's found perfect balance when it comes to her body of work. She's managed to stay fearless and funny, taut and terrified. Her sparse appearances always remind me of why I loved her in the first place.
Few have managed to hold a horror film AND the sheer terror of the Disney summer movie. As organically as her career has unfolded, she's somehow kept that Hollywood legacy fresh. Either she's constantly swapping bodies with teenage girls or that Activia yogurt really does work wonders.
Jamie Lee Curtis leads a multitude of magnificent lives. Hollywood Royalty holder, children's author, wife to Christopher Guest, AARP covergirl and staunch advocate for Activia yogurt. But then that's what she's shown to be so splendid at throughout her revealing and revitalizing career: balancing these many separate lives. It's enough to make anyone scream, but then Jamie Lee Curtis is also the queen of that.
The virginal high school babysitter with the homicidal, immortal brother; the hitchhiker with a past who's sure to put out. Jamie Lee Curtis is like an onion. As she progressed through the 80's we saw her shed layers... and eventually her layers.
A street-tough cop and undercover thief are both hard earned women's roles that transcend just just being topless. It's all about range, and Jamie's sensual and oft-victimized self takes some harder-edged turns. Not only is she playing the independent brains behind the operations, Jamie Lee proves she's a horror heroine, comedian and an action star! Maybe someone will have the sick humor to pair her with Arnold Schwarzenegger...
But first come see the softer of side of Jamie Lee... Although it's easy to understand this little girl's suspicions. There's definitely some backstory there - especially obvious when Jamie Lee shows up at a funeral home in her camper trailer asking for a cosmetology job. Is she telling the truth? Lies?
You don't marry Arnold Schwarzenegger in a movie and think all you're getting is a joint checking account. The jig is up: hubby's a secret agent and that mousy wife of his (Jamie Lee wears glasses!) has been sleeping with her own 007 on the side. But then we can understand why, given Jamie Lee's past. For one thing this new guy also lives in a trailer. Just peeling back the layers with Jamie Lee...
And I bet Jamie Lee Curtis's body is looking pretty good to Lindsay Lohan right about now... (Take that as you will.) Even if she needs to swap bodies with her daughter to gain perspective, Jamie Lee's found perfect balance when it comes to her body of work. She's managed to stay fearless and funny, taut and terrified. Her sparse appearances always remind me of why I loved her in the first place.
Few have managed to hold a horror film AND the sheer terror of the Disney summer movie. As organically as her career has unfolded, she's somehow kept that Hollywood legacy fresh. Either she's constantly swapping bodies with teenage girls or that Activia yogurt really does work wonders.
Tuesday, August 05, 2008
Tuesday Top Ten: The Queens of Screams
Tuesday Top Ten: For the listmaker in me JA and the listlover in you you
JA from MNPP here, guest-blogging the Top 10 for this week.
The way I reckon it, I don't want to step on any toes while guesting here, so I want to choose a topic that Nathaniel would never do on his lonesome. But I also want to choose a subject that'll tickle y'all's fancy at the same time. And it's gotta be something I know something about (which narrows the field down considerably). So taking into account The Film Experience's general love for the actresses (hence Nat's delightful term "actressexuality"), and my own love for horror movies, and (bless his scaredy-cat lil' heart) Nat's aversion to the same... well, a list was born unto us this day!
To the Year One, y'all. Tis a list of what I have deemed The Top 10 Leading Ladies of Horror. Basically... these are my 10 favorite female horror movie performances. I went for just leading ladies here, which kept stellar supporting characters (Hiya, Minnie Castavet!) from stealing the spotlight (again). I tried to cover all the bases - we've got the victimized types of course - where would horror be without 'em? - but also our tough chicks, and then there's those loveable crazies too. So without further...
The way I reckon it, I don't want to step on any toes while guesting here, so I want to choose a topic that Nathaniel would never do on his lonesome. But I also want to choose a subject that'll tickle y'all's fancy at the same time. And it's gotta be something I know something about (which narrows the field down considerably). So taking into account The Film Experience's general love for the actresses (hence Nat's delightful term "actressexuality"), and my own love for horror movies, and (bless his scaredy-cat lil' heart) Nat's aversion to the same... well, a list was born unto us this day!
To the Year One, y'all. Tis a list of what I have deemed The Top 10 Leading Ladies of Horror. Basically... these are my 10 favorite female horror movie performances. I went for just leading ladies here, which kept stellar supporting characters (Hiya, Minnie Castavet!) from stealing the spotlight (again). I tried to cover all the bases - we've got the victimized types of course - where would horror be without 'em? - but also our tough chicks, and then there's those loveable crazies too. So without further...10) Heather Donahue in The Blair Witch Project - “I am so sorry! Because it was my fault.“ – It’s easy to hate on Heather… she brings it on herself, really. Like so many of the characters in this most recent wave of first-person horror (think Cloverfield) that picked up from Blair’s 10-year old success, Heather was labeled annoying and self-centered and well won’t you just put the camera down, lady?
But horror would be nothing without its determination to show us the lesser sides of ourselves – people making terrible decisions and being punished so we the viewers don’t have to is par for the course. Hell, sometimes it's the whole course. And Heather, in her justifiably famous snot-faced soliloquy, turns the camera in on that side of ourselves that we’d like to think we wouldn’t be in that situation but 9 times out of 10 will, most assuredly, be. And if one of the most vital parts of what I consider to be a great horror performance is the ability to truthfully convey real fear – an uncensored, wide-eyed terror – Donahue earns her spot on this list for that alone.
9) Linda Blair (and Mercedes McCambridge... and Ellen Burstyn) in The Exorcist - "Keep away. The sow is mine." – It just doesn’t feel right leaving off credit to McCambridge, the woman who gave voice to little Regan McNeil’s demonic possession. So I had to include her name. That said, as horrific as the second-half of this film is (where credit must be paid not only to McCambridge but the make-up and effects people as well) I find the medical examination scenes of the first half nearly as terrifying as the later blasphemies, and all we have there is tiny Regan thrown into the midst of a bunch of loud machinery, so obviously Blair is doing some heavy lifting on her own. And then I find I must add on Ellen Burstyn’s fine performance as Regan’s helpless mother who can only look on… all said, it’s difficult for me to choose just one aspect to praise here; they’re all inextricably linked. The mother, the daughter, and the unholy spirit, as it were.
8) Kathy Bates in Misery - “God I love you.” – Yes, the film spins Annie Wilkes off into a bit of a hysterical caricature in those final ten minutes or so. But before she becomes an unkillable madwoman, Bates' performance is one of the simultaneously funniest and saddest portrayals of deranged loneliness ever put on-screen. Because I’ll be damned if she doesn’t just know that the writer named Paul Sheldon’s literal fall into her lap wasn’t a gift sent from cockadoodied wherever, and she’s gonna make it bitchin' worthwhile. Why shouldn’t the fans have their say, anyway? I’m not going to be the one to argue that point and make her feel all oogy.
7) Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween - “It was the boogeyman, wasn't it?” – She set the archetype in stone. The Final Girl. Sally may’ve screamed louder (and longer... and earlier), and Nancy might’ve built exploding light-bulb booby-traps, but nobody personified exactly what the Slasher genre needed better - the female yin to the male killer's wang - than JLC's Laurie Strode. Almost too smart for her own good – she felt it coming, annoyed everybody, but still couldn’t stop it all the same – there’s myriad reasons Curtis is, to my mind, still the greatest straightforward Final Girl, but none moreso than the first half-an-hour or so as we watch Laurie spot the boogeyman behind the bushes or in the backyard, and see her preparedness despite herself click defiantly into place.
6) Jodie Foster in The Silence of the Lambs - “Some kind of screaming, like a child's voice.” - Sweet Clarice Starling, just trying to bury the sounds of those lambs to the slaughter. Little girls, they go next, off to the dressmakers... somewhere in America there is a pit in a basement with a Senator's daughter all holed up. Loose skin. Come and get it, Precious.
5) Sigourney Weaver as Ellen Ripley - “Get away from her, you bitch!“ – Of the first two Alien flicks, I only really consider Ridley Scott’s original film to be a horror film. But Weaver’s Ripley doesn’t emerge as the main player until the very end. She’s most obviously the main character of James Cameron’s Aliens, but that’s an action movie with monsters. So how do I justify placing her on a list? By just mushing the entire quadrilogy’s worth of her performances together. Yes, I’m cheating. But this list just seemed wrong without her. Where maybe too many of the women on this list are of the victimized sort - immediately previous company excluded, of course - I needed to include a woman who rocks off an acid-spewing alien’s face with a gun larger than my entire torso to even things out. And then, like a full half of this list, she's Mother, too. And if there's one thing this list proves - and this list, too! - nothing is scarier than mommy-hood.
4) Shelley Duvall in The Shining - “We're all going to have a real good time.” – Always overshadowed by Jack Nicholson’s Jack Nicholson-sized performance, Duvall’s Wendy Torrence is and always will be my favorite part of Kubrick’s coolly malignant flick. Duvall was always channeling her gawky physiognomy to great effect with her characters, whether it was her hysterical Olive Oyl stroll or just the way she held a cigarette in 3 Women… but nowhere to my mind was she more brilliant than here. Has anyone ever held a knife or an axe more awkwardly? And watch the way her occasional outbursts of positive energy – always so sadly forced - quickly slide back into a slumped-over shell of a woman, beaten down both literally and figuratively, and then the eventual, probably Kubrick-inflicted real-seeming terror that courses across her bug-eyed face… it’s a vanity-free, often humiliating role, which Duvall upends and owns with her every silent scream.
3) Ellen Burstyn in Requiem For a Dream - “I like thinking about the red dress…” – Like the invisible arm of Death itself that kills so many teenagers – and so imaginatively! - in the Final Destination flicks, the horror of Requiem is of a different breed - it’s the mental demons inside these characters that tear them to shreds. But make no mistake – this is a horror film, and one of the most horrifying ever made. And nowhere does that horror manifest itself more cruelly than in the guise of a lonely Coney Island widow that can’t let go of a dream long dead. Burstyn’s physical deterioration as she’s swallowed whole by her addictions is haunting enough – the final shots of the film rend my heart every time – but Burstyn makes it clear from the start that Sarah Goldfarb has one foot over the precipice just looking for anything that might offer her even the briefest of smiles.
2) Sissy Spacek in Carrie - “It was bad, Mama. They laughed at me.” – The most spellbinding moments in DePalma’s 1976 classic for me are the ones where we see Carrie White begin to come out of her shell – the way her inherent good-nature peeks around that shy smile… a flurry of compliments from Billy the cute boy asking her to the prom and from her teacher who means so well… all of which lead to that spinning-out-of-control on the dance-floor moment. And then falls the crown. And we all know what horror lay beneath that heavy load. Carrie White is horribly human… until she’s not human at all anymore. And then she’s back again… but it is too late. After all, sin never dies... and Spacek makes us understand every step of the way, with a most terrible accuracy, what has gone so very wrong.
1) Mia Farrow in Rosemary's Baby - “This is no dream! This is really happening!” – Is it simply the paranoia of a young lady with too much time on her hands, or is there something sinister going on with that too-friendly old couple next door? Is her husband distracted with work, turned off by her constant sickness, or has he perhaps made a Faustian trade-off with the soul of little Andy-or-Jenny? In the book, Rosemary Woodhouse is described as a large-hipped Midwestern girl, built for breeding, but in one of the very few deviations from page to screen, Polanski cast Farrow (once Tuesday Weld backed out) and the character clicked into perfection. Because the story is about watching the span of pregnancy as if in the nightmarish reflection of a fun-house mirror, it’s vital that Rosemary look like someone devoured by that giant belly, and tiny little Mia in her yellow sun-dresses with the face of a ghoul poking out fit the bill, and then some. But even beyond the physical perfection of the casting, Farrow nails every note of paranoia, and as we watch her flail about under the arms of all those she’s trusted as they drug her into unconsciousness, we truly know what helplessness is.
Well that was fun/painful. And if you want to see who just missed the cut, you can head over to MNPP where I spit out Ten More Lovely Ladies (Wah-ah-ah!) that are also worth their weight in carnage.
..
But horror would be nothing without its determination to show us the lesser sides of ourselves – people making terrible decisions and being punished so we the viewers don’t have to is par for the course. Hell, sometimes it's the whole course. And Heather, in her justifiably famous snot-faced soliloquy, turns the camera in on that side of ourselves that we’d like to think we wouldn’t be in that situation but 9 times out of 10 will, most assuredly, be. And if one of the most vital parts of what I consider to be a great horror performance is the ability to truthfully convey real fear – an uncensored, wide-eyed terror – Donahue earns her spot on this list for that alone.
9) Linda Blair (and Mercedes McCambridge... and Ellen Burstyn) in The Exorcist - "Keep away. The sow is mine." – It just doesn’t feel right leaving off credit to McCambridge, the woman who gave voice to little Regan McNeil’s demonic possession. So I had to include her name. That said, as horrific as the second-half of this film is (where credit must be paid not only to McCambridge but the make-up and effects people as well) I find the medical examination scenes of the first half nearly as terrifying as the later blasphemies, and all we have there is tiny Regan thrown into the midst of a bunch of loud machinery, so obviously Blair is doing some heavy lifting on her own. And then I find I must add on Ellen Burstyn’s fine performance as Regan’s helpless mother who can only look on… all said, it’s difficult for me to choose just one aspect to praise here; they’re all inextricably linked. The mother, the daughter, and the unholy spirit, as it were.
8) Kathy Bates in Misery - “God I love you.” – Yes, the film spins Annie Wilkes off into a bit of a hysterical caricature in those final ten minutes or so. But before she becomes an unkillable madwoman, Bates' performance is one of the simultaneously funniest and saddest portrayals of deranged loneliness ever put on-screen. Because I’ll be damned if she doesn’t just know that the writer named Paul Sheldon’s literal fall into her lap wasn’t a gift sent from cockadoodied wherever, and she’s gonna make it bitchin' worthwhile. Why shouldn’t the fans have their say, anyway? I’m not going to be the one to argue that point and make her feel all oogy.7) Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween - “It was the boogeyman, wasn't it?” – She set the archetype in stone. The Final Girl. Sally may’ve screamed louder (and longer... and earlier), and Nancy might’ve built exploding light-bulb booby-traps, but nobody personified exactly what the Slasher genre needed better - the female yin to the male killer's wang - than JLC's Laurie Strode. Almost too smart for her own good – she felt it coming, annoyed everybody, but still couldn’t stop it all the same – there’s myriad reasons Curtis is, to my mind, still the greatest straightforward Final Girl, but none moreso than the first half-an-hour or so as we watch Laurie spot the boogeyman behind the bushes or in the backyard, and see her preparedness despite herself click defiantly into place.
6) Jodie Foster in The Silence of the Lambs - “Some kind of screaming, like a child's voice.” - Sweet Clarice Starling, just trying to bury the sounds of those lambs to the slaughter. Little girls, they go next, off to the dressmakers... somewhere in America there is a pit in a basement with a Senator's daughter all holed up. Loose skin. Come and get it, Precious.
5) Sigourney Weaver as Ellen Ripley - “Get away from her, you bitch!“ – Of the first two Alien flicks, I only really consider Ridley Scott’s original film to be a horror film. But Weaver’s Ripley doesn’t emerge as the main player until the very end. She’s most obviously the main character of James Cameron’s Aliens, but that’s an action movie with monsters. So how do I justify placing her on a list? By just mushing the entire quadrilogy’s worth of her performances together. Yes, I’m cheating. But this list just seemed wrong without her. Where maybe too many of the women on this list are of the victimized sort - immediately previous company excluded, of course - I needed to include a woman who rocks off an acid-spewing alien’s face with a gun larger than my entire torso to even things out. And then, like a full half of this list, she's Mother, too. And if there's one thing this list proves - and this list, too! - nothing is scarier than mommy-hood.
4) Shelley Duvall in The Shining - “We're all going to have a real good time.” – Always overshadowed by Jack Nicholson’s Jack Nicholson-sized performance, Duvall’s Wendy Torrence is and always will be my favorite part of Kubrick’s coolly malignant flick. Duvall was always channeling her gawky physiognomy to great effect with her characters, whether it was her hysterical Olive Oyl stroll or just the way she held a cigarette in 3 Women… but nowhere to my mind was she more brilliant than here. Has anyone ever held a knife or an axe more awkwardly? And watch the way her occasional outbursts of positive energy – always so sadly forced - quickly slide back into a slumped-over shell of a woman, beaten down both literally and figuratively, and then the eventual, probably Kubrick-inflicted real-seeming terror that courses across her bug-eyed face… it’s a vanity-free, often humiliating role, which Duvall upends and owns with her every silent scream.3) Ellen Burstyn in Requiem For a Dream - “I like thinking about the red dress…” – Like the invisible arm of Death itself that kills so many teenagers – and so imaginatively! - in the Final Destination flicks, the horror of Requiem is of a different breed - it’s the mental demons inside these characters that tear them to shreds. But make no mistake – this is a horror film, and one of the most horrifying ever made. And nowhere does that horror manifest itself more cruelly than in the guise of a lonely Coney Island widow that can’t let go of a dream long dead. Burstyn’s physical deterioration as she’s swallowed whole by her addictions is haunting enough – the final shots of the film rend my heart every time – but Burstyn makes it clear from the start that Sarah Goldfarb has one foot over the precipice just looking for anything that might offer her even the briefest of smiles.
2) Sissy Spacek in Carrie - “It was bad, Mama. They laughed at me.” – The most spellbinding moments in DePalma’s 1976 classic for me are the ones where we see Carrie White begin to come out of her shell – the way her inherent good-nature peeks around that shy smile… a flurry of compliments from Billy the cute boy asking her to the prom and from her teacher who means so well… all of which lead to that spinning-out-of-control on the dance-floor moment. And then falls the crown. And we all know what horror lay beneath that heavy load. Carrie White is horribly human… until she’s not human at all anymore. And then she’s back again… but it is too late. After all, sin never dies... and Spacek makes us understand every step of the way, with a most terrible accuracy, what has gone so very wrong.
1) Mia Farrow in Rosemary's Baby - “This is no dream! This is really happening!” – Is it simply the paranoia of a young lady with too much time on her hands, or is there something sinister going on with that too-friendly old couple next door? Is her husband distracted with work, turned off by her constant sickness, or has he perhaps made a Faustian trade-off with the soul of little Andy-or-Jenny? In the book, Rosemary Woodhouse is described as a large-hipped Midwestern girl, built for breeding, but in one of the very few deviations from page to screen, Polanski cast Farrow (once Tuesday Weld backed out) and the character clicked into perfection. Because the story is about watching the span of pregnancy as if in the nightmarish reflection of a fun-house mirror, it’s vital that Rosemary look like someone devoured by that giant belly, and tiny little Mia in her yellow sun-dresses with the face of a ghoul poking out fit the bill, and then some. But even beyond the physical perfection of the casting, Farrow nails every note of paranoia, and as we watch her flail about under the arms of all those she’s trusted as they drug her into unconsciousness, we truly know what helplessness is.
Well that was fun/painful. And if you want to see who just missed the cut, you can head over to MNPP where I spit out Ten More Lovely Ladies (Wah-ah-ah!) that are also worth their weight in carnage.
..
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Let's See. Words That Rhyme With "Fish"...
Seems that John Cleese is busy writing the book and lyrics for a stage musical adaptation to his huge 1988 hit A Fish Called Wanda. [src] Given the massive success of Spamalot (the adaptation of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, 1975) which he did not work on and reportedly didn't ask for royalties on, it's no surprise. Hopefully Cleese has scoured the awful Wanda sequel Fierce Creatures from his memory banks and no trace of it will remain as he returns to that non-Python classic one more time.One troubling question remains: How will they ever fill Jamie Lee Curtis's shoes? So comedically gifted, that one. Shouldn't she have like three Oscar nods by now? Oh, right comedically gifted. They'd better gift "Wanda" with the show's best number.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Top Ten: Movie Hookers
tuesday top ten: a weekly series for the list lover in you and the list maker in me
Susan of Awards Daily here again, with my final guest post, the "Tuesday Top Ten." Thanks to Nathaniel, my co-guest bloggers and the Film Experience readers.
This week's countdown focuses on a subject that's been in the news lately, especially for those of us in New York. That’s right, those short-skirted, high-heeled and gold-hearted dames (and dudes) who practice the "oldest profession" in the world: Hookers
10 “Lana” in Risky Business (1983): Need quick cash while your folks are out of town (especially after trashing dad's Porsche)? Why not turn your house into a brothel? You know it's a teenage fantasy when the prostitute looks like Rebecca De Mornay. And the john is a young, dances-in-his-undies Tom Cruise.
Emperor’s Club or Street: Would probably command Emperor’s Club rates today.
Heart of Gold? More like head for business.
09 "Luenell" in Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006): Actress/comedian Luenell Campbell makes the "perfect" dinner party date for the Kazakh reporter. She's also one of the few performers in on the joke.
Emperor’s Club or Street: Definitely street.
Heart of Gold? Yes.
08 "Vivian" in Pretty Woman (1990): Julia Roberts' breakthrough role had her sashaying down Hollywood Boulevard and into Richard Gere’s fancy car, hotel suite, bed, bath and ... beyond.Emperor’s Club or Street: While she works it on the street, her weekly rate comes to $3,000. That’s far below the hourly rates of the Emperor’s Club, but one must consider inflation.
Heart of Gold? Yes. And by the end of the film, she's got the credit cards to match.
(tie) 07 “Mike” in My Own Private Idaho (1991): River Phoenix never seemed more vulnerable than when he played this young, narcoleptic street hustler.Emperor's Club or Street: Street, but only in this film.
Heart of Gold? Yes.
(tie) 07 “Lynn” in L.A. Confidential (1997): Kim Basinger’s Veronica Lake look-alike prostitute manages to make both Russell Crowe and Guy Pearce swoon. Not bad.
Emperor’s Club or Street: Emperor’s Club, and unlike the other "starlet" hookers, she didn't need to get "cut" to achieve the Lake look.
Heart of Gold: Yes, especially when it comes to Crowe's troubled cop. (Can't say I blame her.)
06 “Linda” aka "Judy Cum" in Mighty Aphrodite (1995): Oscar winner Mira Sorvino adapts a voice that could cut through glass as the prostitute/porn star mother of Woody Allen's adopted child. The performance grates on the nerves until it wins you over.
Emperor’s Club or Street: She looks like she should be in the Emperor’s Club, but sounds Street. Bonus points for good genes.
Heart of Gold? Yes. And based on her porn credits, she also has an Enchanted Pussy.
(tie) 05 “Simone” in Mona Lisa (1986): Cathy Tyson portrays a high-priced call girl who forms a unique bond with her paid driver, the blokey George, (the wonderful Bob Hoskins). A sleek and disturbing film.
Emperor’s Club or Street: Emperor’s Club with Street ties.
Heart of Gold? She’s a little too complicated to pigeonhole.
(tie) 05 "Bai Ling" in 2046 (2004): The breathtaking Ziyi Zhang can win the lust, but not the love of her neighbor (Tony Leung Chiu Wai) when she moves into room 2046. The film never explicitly states that she's a prostitute, but it's implied.
Emperor's Club: She's just working out of her apartment, but everything about this character is Emperor's Club.
Heart of Gold? Not in the traditional sense, but definitely more vulnerable than she'd like to be.
04 “Ophelia” in Trading Places (1983): Jamie Lee Curtis shows off that “Perfect” 80s bod and manages to keep pace with the comic talents of Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy.
Emperor’s Club or Street: She’s street in the movie, but that’s only in a movie.
Heart of Gold? Definitely.
03 “Severine” in Belle de Jour (1967): Ah, marriage, soooooo mundane. That's one reason to take up an afternoon hobby as a prostitute. The ridiculously beautiful Catherine Deneuve is frigid, damaged and only able to connect with herself within the fantasy of "Belle de Jour."Emperor’s Club or Street: Her rates are probably closer to being Street, but she's definitely Emperor's Club material.
Heart of Gold? Who can tell, it's surrounded by ice.
02 “Satine” in Moulin Rouge! (2001): Nicole Kidman broadly plays the “sparkling diamond,” at first, and then reveals the woman inside. Still, truth, beauty, freedom and (above all things) love are definitely held on a pedestal, and that’s where the tragic Satine remains.
Emperor’s Club or Street: Definitely Emperor’s Club--or in this case, The Duke's Club.
Heart of Gold? Yes. Unfortunately, her lungs are made of less durable material.
01 “Lulu” in Pandora’s Box (1929): As the doomed prostitute in this silent classic, stunning Louise Brooks launched herself, her iconic hairdo, and perhaps the prototype of the sexually liberated woman (who must pay the price for her freedom), into the cinema consciousness.
Emperor’s Club or Street: Emperor’s Club--she's a screen Goddess.
Heart of Gold? Uncertain, as Brooks is too enigmatic to define.
What ladies (or gentlemen) of the night would you pay for?
*
Friday, May 11, 2007
What's Your Poison, Lindsay Lohan?
With Lindsay Lohan partying again and Georgia Rule surfacing (the movie on which she was famously reprimanded for her unprofessional behavior, i.e. too much partying / not enough acting) I thought it was time to look at the liquid evidence in Lindsay's movies. Does she drink? Does she drive others to drink? Let's take a brief illustrated journey through the filmic evidence...
The Parent Trap
Nine whole years ago in Lindsay's very first movie, director Nancy Meyers underscores one of Linds' first scenes with "Bad to the Bone" --I'm not making this up. In the scene Lindsay plays a sneaky game of cards at summer camp and the music is used for comic effect...though maybe Ms. Meyers was trying to tell us something. Turns out back home in California, miss thing's dad owns a winery.
Uh oh... I regret to inform that cute young Linds spends that entire movie surrounded by alcohol! This can't be good. In the still above she downs her morning mimosa. No, I kid ...it's orange juice. I realize it's a terrible thing to joke about... but the movie DOES joke about it. Check out this scene below. Her mom has given her a glass of wine. She comically passes out after one sip, staggering back up to her feet asking to be excused
It's actually but a sneaky ploy to leave the dinner table. And thats all the drinking that she does in The Parent Trap aside from one water bottle at camp, a sip of that orange juice. (For solids: one single bite of toast in the whole film) The bulk of the drinking is from the adults around her.
Here Lindsay reacts to screen mom Natasha Richardson who has definitely had one too many.
I'm not saying Lindsay rehearsed this scene with Dina Lohan ... but I'm not saying she didn't either.
Freaky Friday
La Lohan's second film was also a surprisingly good remake of an earlier hit. In this movie she switches bodies with an award-worthy Jamie Lee Curtis as her mom. Lindsay has even less of an appetite in this one. The only solid she consumes in the whole movie is a fortune cookie (the magical one that makes mom & daughter switch bodies --don't you hate when that happens?)
...oh and a few french fries, too. But it's really Jamie Lee Curtis eating the french fries since they've already switched places. Otherwise Lohan is not hungry for this whole movie. In detention troublemaker Linds gives up her sandwich and powerade to the supervising teacher. For liquids, she stays hydrated only with water at the House of Chiang (that's all they serve apparently --even to toast with!) and Lindsay never looks particularly happy about it.
'I really don't understand why this restaurant serves only water and fortune cookies.
They're ruining my life!'
Other Films
I'm skipping Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen because life is short. But know this: She spends the entire film trying to meet her idol, a rocker named Stu from her favorite band. He turns out to be a crushing disappointment: a big lush! Lindsay helps him sober up in time for the happily ever after finale. Clearly it's a fantasy film.
I love A Prairie Home Companion but there's not much to her role there aside from writing bad poetry and singing nervously. I haven't seen Bobby. I know you wanted a grand finale where I dissect her partying habits in Herbie Fully Loaded but I think the title covers it, don't you? In Just My Luck --couldn't sit through that again, not that much of a masochist -- she does in fact throw a wild party that gets her into mucho trouble. Art imitating life?
We'll conclude with Lindsay's best film, and the one most responsible for the goodwill that she hangs to now by a precarious thread...
Mean Girls
I thought about investigating all 97 minutes of Lindsay's best film for clues to her real/reel behavior but this one's easy...
A (moving) picture is worth a thousand words.
*
tags: Lindsay Lohan
*
The Parent Trap
Nine whole years ago in Lindsay's very first movie, director Nancy Meyers underscores one of Linds' first scenes with "Bad to the Bone" --I'm not making this up. In the scene Lindsay plays a sneaky game of cards at summer camp and the music is used for comic effect...though maybe Ms. Meyers was trying to tell us something. Turns out back home in California, miss thing's dad owns a winery.
Uh oh... I regret to inform that cute young Linds spends that entire movie surrounded by alcohol! This can't be good. In the still above she downs her morning mimosa. No, I kid ...it's orange juice. I realize it's a terrible thing to joke about... but the movie DOES joke about it. Check out this scene below. Her mom has given her a glass of wine. She comically passes out after one sip, staggering back up to her feet asking to be excused
It's actually but a sneaky ploy to leave the dinner table. And thats all the drinking that she does in The Parent Trap aside from one water bottle at camp, a sip of that orange juice. (For solids: one single bite of toast in the whole film) The bulk of the drinking is from the adults around her.Here Lindsay reacts to screen mom Natasha Richardson who has definitely had one too many.
I'm not saying Lindsay rehearsed this scene with Dina Lohan ... but I'm not saying she didn't either.
Freaky Friday
La Lohan's second film was also a surprisingly good remake of an earlier hit. In this movie she switches bodies with an award-worthy Jamie Lee Curtis as her mom. Lindsay has even less of an appetite in this one. The only solid she consumes in the whole movie is a fortune cookie (the magical one that makes mom & daughter switch bodies --don't you hate when that happens?)
...oh and a few french fries, too. But it's really Jamie Lee Curtis eating the french fries since they've already switched places. Otherwise Lohan is not hungry for this whole movie. In detention troublemaker Linds gives up her sandwich and powerade to the supervising teacher. For liquids, she stays hydrated only with water at the House of Chiang (that's all they serve apparently --even to toast with!) and Lindsay never looks particularly happy about it.
'I really don't understand why this restaurant serves only water and fortune cookies. They're ruining my life!'
Other Films
I'm skipping Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen because life is short. But know this: She spends the entire film trying to meet her idol, a rocker named Stu from her favorite band. He turns out to be a crushing disappointment: a big lush! Lindsay helps him sober up in time for the happily ever after finale. Clearly it's a fantasy film.
I love A Prairie Home Companion but there's not much to her role there aside from writing bad poetry and singing nervously. I haven't seen Bobby. I know you wanted a grand finale where I dissect her partying habits in Herbie Fully Loaded but I think the title covers it, don't you? In Just My Luck --couldn't sit through that again, not that much of a masochist -- she does in fact throw a wild party that gets her into mucho trouble. Art imitating life?
We'll conclude with Lindsay's best film, and the one most responsible for the goodwill that she hangs to now by a precarious thread...
Mean Girls
I thought about investigating all 97 minutes of Lindsay's best film for clues to her real/reel behavior but this one's easy...
A (moving) picture is worth a thousand words.
*
tags: Lindsay Lohan
*
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Tues Top Ten: Funny (?) Girls
for the list maker in me and the list lover in you
Today is the birthday of both Barbra Streisand (the Funny Girl herself) and Warren Beatty's Sister (like Babs, expert with the comic timing) so in honor of them and other funny ladies of yore (I'm partial to Carole Lombard, Irene Dunne and Judy Holliday) I thought I'd do a list of female comediennes. The only trouble was that once I started to form it I realized that I don't see a lot of what passes for comedy these days (mostly because it's male driven and those comedy stars aren't always that funny to me and some I'm straight up allergic to: David Spade and Jon Heder for example) so my list would have too many glaring omissions.
So, rather than do a list of the "funniest women", which might include a few SNL or sitcom alums or even Charlies Angels if I'm generous and would include everyone who works with Christopher Guest, I thought I'd do a list of people I wish would yuk it up more often on the big screen
09 Anna Faris Perhaps I should have said "actresses who should do more good comedies" --I think she's quite funny in the bit roles in which I've seen her but it's not like I'm going to sit through most of the dreck she finds herself in to see if she's as funny as she seems. Can't someone who writes intelligent comedy (f.e. the Coen Bros, David O'Russell, Christopher Guest, Woody Allen, or Alexander Payne) get her some better material?
08 Christina Ricci. Now that she has taken a step back towards recovering her screen mojo (Black Snake Moan), I'd love to see her seize a comedic role with the same intensity and enthusiasm that she did back in her Addams Family Values days. That'd be off the chain. Get it? Um... Black Snake Moan plus... oh never mind.
07 Holly Hunter. More on Holly's best work here.
06 Rachel McAdams. I sometimes get the sense that we're all holding our breath for nothing. It's clear that should she want it, huge stardom is hers. But her career is awfully quiet in proportion to the enthusiasm from moviegoers. She proved she could carry films with Red Eye and The Notebook but my favorites in her filmography are in comedic supporting roles: the caustic sister in The Family Stone and that already classic queen bee in Mean Girls ("I know right?")
05 Meryl Streep. Last year's twofer (Prairie Home Companion and The Devil Wears Prada) confirmed what Streep fanatics have known for a longtime: her legend was built from drama but her delicious silliness deserves its own act in her career.
04 Lily Tomlin. Never mind those Huckabees videos... what matters is what ends up onscreen and Tomlin always delivers. So why is it that one of the best film comediennes only gets teensy roles once every three years or so? Huckabees, All of Me, Nine to Five and Flirting With Disaster are lonely for company in the great comedies playroom
03 Joan Cusack. She's the only female Saturday Night Live alum to win an acting Oscar nomination, two of them in fact (Working Girl and In & Out), marking one of the rare times that Oscar voters have really been wise to the skill and inspiration a comedic performer has brought to the filmmaking table. I wish she'd make more movies. It was good to see her again in Friends With Money.
02 Laura Dern. She's a subtle hoot in The Year of the Dog as an overprotective suburban mom. Pair that with her brilliant film carrying work in Citizen Ruth (1996) and be forcefully reminded that there's much more to this undervalued actress than playing formidable muse for David Lynch.
01 Reese Witherspoon. She's following up her somewhat divisive Oscar-win for Walk the Line with another teary drama (Rendition) and I get the sense that that's the direction she's headed in in general. But she's a spitfire in a good comedy, elevating both Legally Blonde movies and selling the heck out of her career breakthrough in Election. I had to "Pick Flick" for the top spot.
Who would you like to see in more comedies?
Today is the birthday of both Barbra Streisand (the Funny Girl herself) and Warren Beatty's Sister (like Babs, expert with the comic timing) so in honor of them and other funny ladies of yore (I'm partial to Carole Lombard, Irene Dunne and Judy Holliday) I thought I'd do a list of female comediennes. The only trouble was that once I started to form it I realized that I don't see a lot of what passes for comedy these days (mostly because it's male driven and those comedy stars aren't always that funny to me and some I'm straight up allergic to: David Spade and Jon Heder for example) so my list would have too many glaring omissions.So, rather than do a list of the "funniest women", which might include a few SNL or sitcom alums or even Charlies Angels if I'm generous and would include everyone who works with Christopher Guest, I thought I'd do a list of people I wish would yuk it up more often on the big screen
Actresses Who Should Do More Comedies
10 Jamie Lee Curtis. It pains me greatly that her career ended with Christmas with the Kranks and not the one for which she shoulda been Oscar nominated: Freaky Friday. She never got the credit she deserved during her acting career. She was nearly always much better than she had any right to be given the films and the roles. Such a funny and unique talent. sigh. Well we'll always have Halloween, True Lies, A Fish Called Wanda and Freaky Friday
09 Anna Faris Perhaps I should have said "actresses who should do more good comedies" --I think she's quite funny in the bit roles in which I've seen her but it's not like I'm going to sit through most of the dreck she finds herself in to see if she's as funny as she seems. Can't someone who writes intelligent comedy (f.e. the Coen Bros, David O'Russell, Christopher Guest, Woody Allen, or Alexander Payne) get her some better material?08 Christina Ricci. Now that she has taken a step back towards recovering her screen mojo (Black Snake Moan), I'd love to see her seize a comedic role with the same intensity and enthusiasm that she did back in her Addams Family Values days. That'd be off the chain. Get it? Um... Black Snake Moan plus... oh never mind.
07 Holly Hunter. More on Holly's best work here.
06 Rachel McAdams. I sometimes get the sense that we're all holding our breath for nothing. It's clear that should she want it, huge stardom is hers. But her career is awfully quiet in proportion to the enthusiasm from moviegoers. She proved she could carry films with Red Eye and The Notebook but my favorites in her filmography are in comedic supporting roles: the caustic sister in The Family Stone and that already classic queen bee in Mean Girls ("I know right?")05 Meryl Streep. Last year's twofer (Prairie Home Companion and The Devil Wears Prada) confirmed what Streep fanatics have known for a longtime: her legend was built from drama but her delicious silliness deserves its own act in her career.
04 Lily Tomlin. Never mind those Huckabees videos... what matters is what ends up onscreen and Tomlin always delivers. So why is it that one of the best film comediennes only gets teensy roles once every three years or so? Huckabees, All of Me, Nine to Five and Flirting With Disaster are lonely for company in the great comedies playroom
03 Joan Cusack. She's the only female Saturday Night Live alum to win an acting Oscar nomination, two of them in fact (Working Girl and In & Out), marking one of the rare times that Oscar voters have really been wise to the skill and inspiration a comedic performer has brought to the filmmaking table. I wish she'd make more movies. It was good to see her again in Friends With Money.
02 Laura Dern. She's a subtle hoot in The Year of the Dog as an overprotective suburban mom. Pair that with her brilliant film carrying work in Citizen Ruth (1996) and be forcefully reminded that there's much more to this undervalued actress than playing formidable muse for David Lynch.01 Reese Witherspoon. She's following up her somewhat divisive Oscar-win for Walk the Line with another teary drama (Rendition) and I get the sense that that's the direction she's headed in in general. But she's a spitfire in a good comedy, elevating both Legally Blonde movies and selling the heck out of her career breakthrough in Election. I had to "Pick Flick" for the top spot.
Who would you like to see in more comedies?
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