My Udo My Udo What Have Ye Done

JA from MNPP here. Have you read this phenomenally odd and delightful interview with the actor Udo Kier at The AV Club? Odd and delightful are the two words I'd always use whenever mentioning Mr. Kier, but he really brings it this time around.

Over at MNPP  I picked out my fifteen favorite quotes from the interview, but I'm so oddly delighted in this chat's wake I've got to just keep on thinking about Udo, and what better way to do that then to mercilessly pick apart the work he's done over the years with a completely frivolous list. He's worked so much in such a vast array of projects that there are dozens of his performances that I've missed (I don't know how this is possible but it appears I've never seen any of the films he's done with Fassbinder, for example), but out of the many I have seen here are my five favorite performances of his.

5 Favorites



Lee Meyers, My Son My Son What Have Ye Done - I don't think it's often that Udo gets picked to play a straight man to somebody else's nuttery, but when stacked up against a way out there Michael Shannon it's not only possible, it's enthralling.

NSFW image after the jump

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Six Actresses Walk Into a Room...

The Hollywood Reporter is proclaiming that "Awards Season Begins Now" but the cover is freaking me out. Did Nancy Meyers direct it? It's so beige.

Do Amy Adams, Nicole Kidman, Hilary Swank and Natalie Portman all suddenly have the same hairstylist & colorist these days? They're interchangeable. And with women that special, that's a big no-no. Kidman's styling bugs me the most. It's so Blair on Facts of Life.

Am I right?

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"you may link, there's nothing to it. But I simply cannot do it alone!"

Tribeca Film I have a new weekly column there "Best in Show" where I'm extolling the virtues of MVPs in new movies. First up: Tom Hardy in Inception.
Mr Dan Zak wants Angelina Jolie to adopt him, loves her in Salt.
The Observer top 10 movie cameos. Wide range of years here, so, yay.
Totally Looks Like Whoa. Keanu Reeves & Tchaikovsky.


In Contention Wait. What's this? Fresh rumor hell that Margaret (2005) starring Anna Paquin might finally see release. I'd rather not hope again given that they're saying 2011.
i09 okay I kind of think this Green Lantern movie is going to be terrible. BUT. This is so sweet/adorable: Ryan Reynolds reciting the oath for a kid at Comic Con.
Playbill the musical adaptation of Pedro Almodóvar's Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown is getting a starry cast for Broadway: Patti Lupone, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Sherie Rene Scott. Yay and also yikes. How can it live up to the film? A lot will depend on how strong the musical score is. And unfortunately film-to-stage transfers haven't seem to view the song score as that important, trusting on name brands to sell the show (see also: Addams Family, Legally Blonde, etcetera)

Finally, let's wrap up with Caroline O'Connor ("Nini" from Moulin Rouge!, don'cha know) performing Chicago's Velma Kelly intro "All That Jazz"



Yes! Caroline is bringing her all singing all dancing one-woman'ish show (there are back up dancers) "The Showgirl Within" to London this fall. Wish I could see it. (I expect a full report from at least one of you Brits reading The Film Experience in the dark out there.) I once had hoped to interview all 'Four Whores of the Apocalypse' from Moulin Rouge! (2001) though I never got very far. My favorite film of the Aughts celebrates its 10th anniversary next year, so I'll have to return to it in a big way. It's been a few years since I last watched it now.

Keanu Finds It All Very Tedious...

Keanu Reeves on the set of Henry's Crime (co-starring Vera Farmiga)

...as do I! I haven't had a moment to breathe lately. But I'll try to wrap up the first Oscar predictions of the year tomorrow. Then I'm off to the Nashville Film Festival. Stay tuned...

Meanwhile... how is your week going? Please tell us it's better. Cheer us (okay, me) up!

Tom Waits Has Something For the Kids on Easter

It's called "Chocolate Jesus"



Remember when Tom Waits was actually a part time actor and not just a world class musician? Good times... especially the Lily Tomlin coupling in Short Cuts and the bug eating in Dracula.

One of my favorite film books, With Nails: The Film Diaires of Richard E Grant, has a few bits on Waits. Grant, like Waits, was a frequent supporting player in interesting / storied movies of the early 90s and he lived to write about it.

The cast of Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula gathers at the Coppola estate for a week long bonding / rehearsal session before filming. Gary Oldman looks sad and tells Grant that his 11 month marriage to Uma Thurman (Grant's co-star from Henry & June) is over -- he wonders if he'll be one of those people who marries a lot. The actor/diarist notices that Winona Ryder and Keanu Reeves are "sibling-close" and he's amused by Keanu who has decide to call everyone by their second names "Laura Ryder, Leonard Oldman, Phillip Hopkins". Tom Waits arrives a day later, pulling the focus.

Tom Waits. How can I not introduce him to these pages without falling into the cheesy showbizzy-sleaze-shpeak of a lone motel lounge act compère - hit the snare drum, smash a cymbal, bang a drum and wind up with 'LADIES - AND - GENTLEMEN - THE - IN - HOLE - THE - WALL - BAR - AND - SNAKEPIT - SALOON - PROUD - 'N' - PRIVILEGED - TO - PRESENT - FOR - YOUR - ENTERTAINMENT - AND - YES! - GODDAMMITT!! - EDUCATION - TONITE - THE - ONE - AND - THE - ONLY - MR - LONELINESS - OF - A - LONG - DISTANCE - SONGWRITER - HIMSELF - IN - THE - FLESH - IN - THIS - HERE - LOUNGE - LADIES - 'N' - GENTLEMEN - LET'S - PUT - OUR - HANDS - TOGETHER - AND - GIVE - IT - UP - FOR - (gasping for breath) - MISTAH!!! TOM!!!!!!! WAITS !!!!!!!!!!' Everyone else is in smatterings of designer casuals. Mistah Waits arrives straight off an old record cover in a '64 open-topped Cadillac, with fins, with a funnel of dust trailing down the dirt road. The gravel voice gets out some howdy-doodys and his clothes and hair are crumple-sculpted to him. Doesn't seem to have a straight bone in his bearing and kills me off with his cool by growling out a compliment for Withnail. Out the side of his mouth. Like we might be being spied on by the bailiffs. Him, rolling tobacco and reefer. Winona and I are 'We've got all your recordings, Tom!!' To which he just heh-hehs.

I just noticed that Mistah Waits is in the cast list of Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus which I'm more and more excited about. [previously excitement] Danger! Danger! One should never ever get excited about movies that only have release dates scheduled in Romania and the Czech Republic.

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus clockwise from top left: Christopher Plummer as "Doctor Parnassus", Heath Ledger (and Johnny Depp and Jude Law and Colin Farrell) as "Tony", Tom Waits as "Mr. Nick" (some sources refer to this character as "The Devil"), your auteur Terry Gilliam, Lily Cole as the Doctor's daughter and Andrew Garfield as "Anton".

Lionsgate is going to be handling the film's UK release but I can't understand why nothing is set for the US? You'd think someone in a suit would remember that for all of Gilliam's recent film completion / box office troubles, it wasn't always this way (think Twelve Monkeys and The Fisher King... though I realize that Hollywood memories don't stretch back that far. Weren't movies silent and in black and white back then?). Plus there's the free publicity of being Heath Ledger's last film and having three A-Listers sub for his incomplete scenes and those Cannes rumors. Can we get this thing on the schedule already? Even if it's no masterpiece it'll surely be worth gawking at.

May Flowers

Now Playing: Streep Does Tai-Chi, Keanu Does The Streets

L I M I T E D
Chaos Theory -Ryan Reynolds, Emily Mortimer and Mr. Charlize Theron star in this comedy about an efficiency expert (Reynolds) who starts going a little crazy
Dark Matter -Meryl Streep has a supporting role here for which she's winning fine reviews (surprise!) as a wealthy university patron but the movie is about a Chinese student (Liu Ye) at an American university whose academic theories run counter to those of his mentor's (Aidan Quinn).
Persepolis -The English language version this time... some of the same voices though, Catherine Deneuve and Chiara Mastrioanni remain.
Remember the Daze -a movie about graduating high school seniors in 1999 -- they include Amber Heard, Melonie Diaz and Alexa Vega
The Visitor The wonderful Richard Jenkins (who you'll remember as the ghost that haunted Six Feet Under, the dad that cried for daughter Charlize in North Country and that dinner table political quagmire in I Heart Huckabees) finally gets to carry a movie. This is the sophomore effort from the actor turned writer/director of The Station Agent and it's about a professor whose life is altered when he meets a foreign couple.


D O C U M E N T A R Y L A N D
Body of War -is the story of a paralyzed Iraq war vet. It won the NBR for best documentary but it's only open in DC so far.
Bra Boys Russell Crowe narrates this documentary about manboobs (?) drag queens (?) I kid. This is actually about a surfing community in Australia.
Young @ Heart could be huge. Who doesn't love cute old people doing youthful things like [danny zuko voice] "rockin' and rolling' and whatnot"? P.S. The poster is so cute. Gimmicky but really pinching cheeks worthy, don't you think?

W I D E
Prom Night I'm so glad this is opening because I'm so sick of its 'let's kill beautiful girls on their big night' vibe polluting my TV every night. They play that commercial everywhere ...as if the demographic that might be interested in watching teen beauties hacked up might also enjoy gay minstrels in Bravo, intergalactic interspecies warfare, and endless Clinton vs. Obama punditry.
Smart People Sarah Jessica Parker (or SJP as we prefer) warms up for her summertime pop culture stampede in Sex The City: THE MOVIE --you will be trampled by its Manolo Blahniks! Don't even think you'll escape the puncture wounds -- by romancing 50something widower Dennis Quaid. Ellen Page and Thomas Hayden Church wisecrack from the sidelines. It's a very low key film, Quaid is particularly subdued. He's quite convincing as a misanthropic paunchy literature professor but he's turned down his star wattage so much to fit into a closed man that he doesn't pop like usual ... still, if you enjoy those four actors you could do worse.

sex shooter. shootin' love in your direction. unnnh-huhh unhh-huh

Street Kings Keanu Reeves is swinging around heavy artillery again. It's been awhile. He's now 43 which is... unreal. How can Keanu Reeves be 43? I like the trailer because Chris Evans is playing his junior partner (they're cops) and I like to imagine that performance is actually the real thing --Chris Evans realizing he's a star-in-training whilst Keanu Reeves --whatever one thinks of his acting skills-- is the real thing: a movie star.
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My Own Private Narcolepsy

I'm having a River Phoenix in My Own Private Idaho kind of day. Only without the hustling part. And no Keanu Reeves to hold me either (damn).... okay just the narcolepsy part. That's the only part I'm having.

So, I got nothing today. Talk amongst yourselves.

Have a nice day
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Fast Lucas. Crazy Kyra. Puffy Keanu.

Lucas Black: banking on more public attention now that Jake Gyllenhaal isn't
dancing naked w/ a santa hat as his co-star. That was pretty hard to compete with.

In Multiplexes (links go to trailers/sites)
The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift Is it just me or is it racist/annoying that even when movies have Tokyo in the title, Asian actors still can't get lead roles. Argh!
Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties I am a cat lover. I love the fuzzy felines even when they're hateful. I still would never see this. Argh!
The Lake House Keanu and Sandra are making me feel old because they suddenly look all middle aged and puffy. Argh!
Nacho Libre Surprisingly this is the only option that does not provoke an immediate "Argh!" And that makes me feel...well... Argh!

Notice the tilted camera angle. It signifies tension. Something is terribly wrong.
Nice directorial touch courtesy of Kevin Bacon. Very subtle !!!

Limited Release
Loverboy Kyra Sedgwick w/ a few screws loose.
The Mostly Unfabulous Social Life of Ethan Green Remember Camp? That film's main cocktease takes on lead gay duties here. Just the poster alone makes me feel flabby. So, er...
Only Human Norma Aleandro (hmmmm) in an "eccentric" family comedy. So hard to tell about foreign films from their trailers.
Wordplay A documentary about crossword puzzles with cameos from celebs like Jon Stewart and Bill Clinton. Remember when Michelle Pfeiffer played a crossword puzzle writer in The Story of Us. No? Well she did. I'm like a Encyclopfeiffia.

What will you be doing/seeing this weekend?