Mary-Louise Parker Is... Mary Louise Parker!

Thoughts I had while watching... RED (2010)

A few years ago I attended one of those New Yorker festival interviews that featured Mary-Louise Parker and the writer/moderator called her "a chameleon" after showing a clip of her from a movie I didn't recognize in which she wore a blond wig. It was the most ridiculous thing I heard that entire movie year.

Mary-Louise Parker is not a chameleon. Mary-Louise Parker plays Mary-Louise Parker. Like most enduring star actors, she's very very good at her one role.

This random memory came to me while watching RED, the October action comedy (yes, I'm two months late.) about Retired and Extremely Dangerous operatives, that the Golden Globe and Satellite voters unfortunately tossed into the precursor-mandated viewing schedule.

In the film Mary-Louise Parker plays Mary-Louise Parker with a headset. She works a boring job answering phones in some payroll divison of government and she enjoys flirting with retired killer Bruce Willis played by not-retired action star Bruce Willis. Once someone takes a hit out on Willis, MLP gets caught up in the madness.

All of the delightful MLPisms were there: the stoned line-readings, the sly smiles, the wide eyed narcisstic "this is happening? to me ???" wonder, that improbably unique fusion of frazzled and narcotized performance energy as if her body and mouth have never quite decided which brain  chemicals or illegal substances are in power during that moment.

The movie is not good. But I can't lie and say I didn't enjoy it at all. Here are the things I enjoyed about it most in descending order.

• Mary Louise Parker playing Mary Louise Parker.
• Bruce Willis playing Bruce Willis.
• Mary Louise Parker mumbling "pizza" from beneath duct tape after much unintelligible screaming about being tied up and duct-taped. It's true, I LOLed.
• Mary Louise Parker hiding behind Bruce Willis when confronted with John Malkovich playing John Malkovich. My what big teeth he has. "All the better to chew scenery with, my dear"
• Karl Urban being sexy, especially whilst wounded. 
• Bruce Willis casually stepping out of a madly spinning car, as if it's in park and he's just running errands... with loaded firearms.

But mostly I did not enjoy it. For these reasons.

• Brian Cox mangling a Russian accent. 
• Rebecca Pidgeon being cast as someone who you're not supposed to know is sinister, because she's always sinister.
• This is a personal thing but I have a super low tolerance for "comedies" that think rapidly escalating body counts are hilarious. And seriously this thing is vile with the 'killing people is fun and wacky! twinkly cheer.
• That neighborhood where not a single house lights up or neighbor emerges while a group of men machine gun a house for what feels like an hour.
• General laziness.
• The pervasive feeling that it might never end.

• The joke with the stuffed pig did not work. The set up, punchline and execution didn't feel at all in synch for what was, I can only presume, supposed to be a big takeaway gag. I mean, they even sent awards voters that very pig (albeit in miniature form).

Monty, who attacks stuffed animals on sight, was weirdly docile
when confronted with "the pig".

Lastly, I did not enjoy Morgan Freeman as Morgan Freeman or Helen Mirren as Helen Mirren because they both seemed to be phoning it in for a quick buck and both are capable of so much more. Seriously, do these two ever say "no" to an offer? Did any big-salaried actors make easier paychecks this year?

Even if you didn't see the movie... (you dodged a bullet --- thousands of them actually) do you like it when Mary-Louise Parker plays Mary-Louise Parker?
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A Metaphysical Can of Worms

"I don't see how I could go on living my life
the way I've lived it before"

[Great Moments In Screen Bitchery #17: Catherine Keener, Being John Malkovich]

Say What, Secretariat?

I asked you to amuse us by adding a caption or dialogue to this film still in the comments. The pic is from the upcoming inspirational drama Secretariat starring Diane Lane & John Malkovich and the winner is John T for this say ahhh silliness


For now at least... maybe one day Diane and John will get golden boys and fillings.
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Now Playing: Apocalyptic Duplicitous Bromances

L I M I T E D
The New Twenty This is only playing here in New York at the tiniest screen known to mankind (Hi, Quad!) For a first film it's quite good. Ignore the generic 'we'll get the gays to see it!' poster (if the leading man looks familiar think Beyonce's "If I Were a Boy" video) and somewhat clumsy title. The plot is a little shapeless but the characters are quite likeable and engaging. The sex lives and friendships of this makeshift family, some gay some straight, are more realistic than you usually see in movies. All that plus the film doesn't push its jokes -- some of the characters just happen to be funny. That's the way we like our laughs in ensemble dramas. B

Hunger If you've been reading lately you know that I highly recommend this one, the true story of a hunger strike in the early 80s in a hellish prison. It's politics are only viewed from one angle but cinematically it operates on several. The artist Steve McQueen is gifted behind the movie camera. (previous thoughts) A-

The Great Buck Howard "Malkovich! Malkovich! Malkovich!" This time he plays a "mentalist"... that's almost like the time Jack Nicholson played a wolf. Is the casting too on the nose?

Máncora A Peruvian road trip film about a young brother and sister and the sister's husband following their father's suicide. Apparently "lines are crossed".

Skills Like This an indie comedy that had festival audiences chuckling. It's about a frustrated writer who suddenly robs a bank.

Valentino The Last Emperor a documentary that follows the closing act of über famous orange designer Valentino Garavani and his business partner Giancarlo Giametti nearly 50 year career. I always hold out hope that there will one day be another fashion documentary as good as Unzipped (1995). Could this be it?

Sin Nombre A sociopolitical thriller about Mexican gangs and a teenager from Honduras on a freight train bound for the States. It wowed critics at Sundance, winning both Best Director (it's a first feature for Cary Fukunaga) and Cinematography prizes.

E X P A N D I N G
Sunshine Cleaning It has occasional trouble navigate its need for quirk (the bane of self-conscious indies). I have no idea why it steals a character wholesale from a better film -- in this case Alan Arkin all but reprising his Oscar winning Little Miss Sunshine performance -- but the rest of the supporting cast handles their roles beautifully and without much fuss. In it's best moments, particularly those involving a love affair between Amy Adams and Steve Zahn, it plays naturalistic and humble. Emily Blunt and Adams are completely watchable, sexy and winning but I suppose that's no surprise at this point. B/B-

W I D E
I Love You, Man Paul Rudd is, according to EW, the most adorable movie star on the planet. I missed the part where Amy Adams was dethroned but I love the Rudd, too. Jason Segel co-stars in this bromantic comedy. Is this popculture movement a trend or a fad? It depends on whether or not this movie is a smash I suppose.

Knowing If you stop seeing bad movies, you can do your part to prevent the apocalypse. Or at least the final destruction of our beloved cinema (my review) D


Duplicity Remember that awesomely hostile sexual chemistry Clive Owen and Julia Roberts had in Closer? It's back in full force only this time twisted slightly to service comedic spy games. They really are a sensational screen couple (and relatively close in age: take note Hollywood. This helps). I'm already eager for a third date with them. Although a second date with this movie might be helpful because it's so damn confusing. Also quite fun. B+

Are you at the movies this weekend or staying in with DVDs?
If you're doing neither, explain yourself oh foe of cinema !
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"Don't stand in the way of my actualization as a man."

Angelina Distraught! Angelina Hoodwinked! Angelina Institutionalized! Angelina Hosed Down!

It's the All Angelina all the time trailer to Clint Eastwood's thriller Changeling



I love how meek her voice sounds at the beginning. But I could live without the plate smashing. It gives me nightmares of the ubiquitous Oscar baiting In the Bedroom sequence. Other notes: Had no idea that John Malkovich's role was large. Also interesting that Denis O'Hare, who assisted Angie in A Mighty Heart is pitted against her here. And finally, the LAPD... they just can't catch a break in the movies, can they? They're always the villains.

Tuesday Top Ten: Weirdos

Let's venture where few actors dare to go... or stay, rather. Many thespians go to strange places onscreen but few remain in those outer regions for several films in a row or radiate that quite naturally as a celebrity. This list is dedicated to Angelina Jolie who used to be magnetically weird despite her beauty but is now a classy world-famous humanitarian and earth mother. Shame.

Top Ten Weirdo Actors

This list does not include Tom Cruise because.... too easy.

10 Rossy DePalma -She's not the only bizarre looking person on the list but she's the only one who is here because of how strange the mug is. And yet it's made for the screen, too, don't you think? So pleased that Almodovar has cast her for the sixth time (She'll be in his 2009 feature Broken Hugs. I like to think of this director/muse pair as the modern Spanish counterpart to 70s era Shelley Duvall & Robert Altman. Would Rossy be too much to handle in a lead role? Try Pedro, try.

P.S. Has anyone sniffed her perfume? What ever does it smell like?

09 Johnny Depp -I almost didn't include him because of the familiarity. His weirdness is Disney marketable now: cute, safe, beloved. But then again it doesn't feel artificial, or like a costume he puts on for show the way Norma Jean could famously flip her switch to access Marilyn Monroe. One only has to consider how quickly it came to him --his first Burton film (Edward Scissorhands) and the way the delicious 'beautiful people' years with Winona Ryder always had a gothic undercurrent and sense of humor "Wino Forever" -- and that it never left again. Defecting to France, Captain Jack Sparrow, and that sartorial sense that seems to be composed of equal parts 70s pimp, 90s grunge rocker and Batman's The Joker, all of it just underlines the genuine strangeness.

08 Isabelle Huppert -She's either the greatest actress who ever lived or she's insane, possibly both. I came to this conclusion after watching The Piano Teacher and 8 Women in short succession. Ma Mére only confirmed it. Please don't leave me alone in a room with her.

07 Daniel Day-Lewis -If there is a God and that whole favorite Christian saying 'don't hide your light under a bushel' applies to life in general than God is very mad at DDL for working so infrequently. But he's on this list because he makes his own shoes and because we suspect God is actually more Daniel-Fearing than the other way 'round.

06 Tilda Swinton -Subversive. Brilliant. Iconoclastic. Odd in all of the most inspiring enviable ways. Plus the filmography is to die for ...any artistically bent actor should be green with envy.

05 Vincent Gallo. Maybe the people who agree to (ahem) co-star with him are even crazier.

04 John Malkovich. Charlie Kauffman, screenwriter extraordinaire, has made many perceptive and bizarrely witty choices in his oeuvre. None are greater than putting a portal inside this actor's head for Being John Malkovich. Sure, you could have creative fun for hours imagining variations of this film with a different name following the Being... [it becomes a whole 'nother film --try it], but no actor could have possibly fit better into the inimitably odd demands of this head trip.

"Malkovich! Malkovitch! Malkovitch!"

03 Crispin Glover. Perhaps an obvious choice but even when he goes entirely mainstream (Charlie's Angels or Back to the Future f'rinstance) he's decidedly off. Couldn't quite call myself a "fan" but I do at least cherish all three "Groovin' Larry/Gary"s in The Beaver Trilogy. I seriously do. Have any of you seen it? You won't soon forget it.

02 Juliette Lewis. Many actors dream of being rock stars (and vice versa) but Juliette is one of the only ones who does both convincingly. She was a freak from the get go: an emancipated minor at 14, shacking up with Brad Pitt at 17, Bo Derek braids to the Oscars after salaciously sucking Robert DeNiro's thumb in Cape Fear. She's given so many fine and disturbed performances. Her greatest is in Natural Born Killers in which she's both scarier and funnier than Woody Harrelson with her possessed mood switches and jumping bean mayhem. But the rosetta stone to her public persona onscreen is "Faith" in Strange Days (1995), in which she gives half of a great performance, seems a little wasted and is also possessed by rock n roll dreaming while she's channeling PJ Harvey on stage.


She's one of a kind. Why is Hollywood so scared to use her properly? She's only 34 but she hasn't had a decent movie role since 2000. Get with it casting directors. Time is a wastin'.

01 Christopher Walken. Whether he's imagining deadly car crashes with numb conviction (Annie Hall), playing Russian roulette (The Deer Hunter), dancing in an empty hotel in one of the best music videos ever made (Weapon of Choice), sexing up John Travolta (Hairspray), or badly in need of dental hygiene (Sleepy Hollow) he's always defiantly joyfully weird. Well done.

Would love to hear your lists. Obviously oddity is in the eye of the beholder. There were many others I almost included instead like Sharon Stone [check this out. tee hee] or any proselytizing Scientologists. There's a whole other list to be made of faux-weird ...people we suspect may be deeply and utterly suburban despite outward appearances to the contrary.

if you're here for the first time and you read blogs through a service, please consider subscribing. More weirdness to come. Not so directly mind you... But this blog sells its own crazy




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We Can't Wait #2 Burn After Reading

Directed by The Coen Bros
Starring George Clooney, Brad Pitt, John Malkovich, Richard Jenkins, Tilda Swinton and Frances McDormand
Synopsis OK... this is a Coen Bros comedy so the plot is pretty crazed and probably best left discovered in the theater. It involves a CIA Agent (Malkovich) his friend (Clooney) his wife (Swinton) and two gym trainers (McDormand and Pitt) who get their hands on a disc containing the Agent's memoirs and plan to blackmail him with it. Lots of confusion, internet dating (?) and comedic hijinx ensue.
Brought to You By Working Title Films & Focus Features
Expected Release Date Sept 26th, 2008

Nathaniel: We're reaching the tippity top of the list and it's harder to breathe up here. All I heard was the Coen Bros and my mind sort of went blank like a dial tone. Only in a pleasureable way like Meryl Streep humming to her toes in Adaptation. I realize that isn't a Coen Bros reference but my mind wanders through celluloid like that.

Anywayyy... someone take it from here. Please to explain. It's obviously high on everyone's lists.

MaryAnn: It's the Coen Brothers. Honestly, need more be said? Well, okay then: It's George and Brad. And Tilda. And Malkovich and McDormand.

George Clooney filming a scene in Brooklyn Heights

And -- oh my god -- parts of this were shot in the Bronx, too!

Glenn: Unlike The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, I am looking forward to Brad Pitt in this Coen Bros flick - their first after their sure-to-be-Oscar-winning No Country for Old Men. He's worked well with George Clooney before and we all know that George Clooney worked well with Tilda Swinton before, too, so throw in the Coen Bros who are coming down from their (feel free to argue this point) career apex and I'm doing my best not to quake in anticipation.

Joe: It really is like a Six Degrees Mobius Strip kind of thing, where Brad worked with Clooney and Clooney worked with Tilda (who is in Benjamin Button with Pitt), and also with the Coens (the underrated O Brother, Where Art Thou?), and the Coens have obviously worked with Frances McDormand, who was in North Country with Richard Jenkins, and on and on. Good to see the Coens returning to (I'm assuming) screwball comedy after the dark night of their Oscar-winning (fingers still crossed) soul. Great director plus all-star cast. It's the easiest math I know.

Nathaniel: Yes, math and I aren't tight but that's a simple mouthwatering equation. It's always tough to come off of a masterpiece or near masterpiece or whatever No Country was but this should be an easy transition on account of... how do you compare? That's another way of saying that I'm glad it's a comedy and an original screenplay again after the adaptations they've been doing. I love Fargo and Raising Arizona like crazy. And The Big Lebowski I've been itching to see again. It's time for a comedic Coen home festival.

What's your favorite Coen Bros? I mean, apart from No Country For Old Men.
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<-- Sister Aloysius prays for your wicked soul if you haven't been reading the "we can't wait" countdown #1 Synecdoche, New York / #2 Burn After Reading / #3 Australia / #4 Milk / #5 Blindness / # 6 Doubt / #7 The Curious Case of Benjamin Button / #8 Revolutionary Road / #9 The Dark Knight / #10 Sex & The City: The Movie / #11 The Lovely Bones / #12 Wall-E / #13 Stop-Loss / #14 The Women / #15 Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince / Introduction / Orphans
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Hump Day Hottie: Uma Thurman

"Uma. Nathaniel" "Nathaniel. Uma" I still remember my introduction to this woman vividly. We were both much younger. I was anxious to get to the theater for Dangerous Liaisons but as I sat down the faces that I was longing to gaze at were those of Close & Pfeiffer. The first was hot hot hot and due for Oscar at the time and the latter was closing out a big year with her third success (following Tequila Sunrise and Married to the Mob). But as the reels unspooled it became clear that there were lots of other people milling about onscreen (the nerve!).

One of those was the quivering naive Cecile played by Uma Thurman. It was impossible not to notice her given that amazingly fresh and sculptural face. It didn't hurt that her romantic interest was a similarly blessed unique looker, Keanu Reeves. But let's be honest. It wasn't Uma's face that first hooked audiences, nor the performance. I still remember the gasp heard around the movie theater when she pulled off her top for John Malkovich [NSFW]. I still remember the dream I had about her later--oh, sorry TMI!

Fortunately for Uma she proved to have the talent to keep audiences drooling for years to come. Just two years later she gave an awesome theatrical star turn in Henry & June. That sexually provocative film had lots of nudity but I still maintain that it was Uma's (mostly) clothed star turn and her smoldering in-your-face eroticism, that raised temperatures enough to provoke the ratings board into creating a new rating. The NC-17 was born.

Uma's filmography, performances and even her willingness to use her sensuality onscreen have been wildly inconsistent... but when she's "on" she is one for the pantheon. She proved it again just recently with that Kill Bill led revival. She returns to the screen again in two days for My Super Ex Girlfriend so I send her love now in case the critical and box office reception is unkind. Robert and Nena Thurman done right when they named their daughter Uma. It's an unforgettable name for an unforgettable woman.


Previously on "Hump Day Hotties"
Cheyenne Jackson -extreme stage hottie crossing over to film.
HDH Season One - Jake Gyllenhaal, Lady Tottington, and more...

If you don't want to miss any postings on Uma or others, please consider subscribing. Share in the cinematic obsessions.





tags:
Uma Thurman, Kill Bill, Henry & June, movies, film, My Super Ex-Girlfriend, Dangerous Liaisons, Glenn Close, Michelle Pfeiffer

Blogosphere Multiplex: How to Learn Swedish in 1000 Difficult Lessons

Once a week I'm grilling noteworthy bloggers about their own film experiences. This week's victim interviewee is Francis Strand from "How to Learn Swedish in 1000 Difficult Lessons" And yes, like last week's interview this one is TransAtlantic. I am such the jetsetter.

On his award winning, well-informed blog Francis talks about whatever occurs to him (politics. life abroad. personal life) and ties it up with a Swedish word of the day. It's a clever concept and addictive, too. So please click over to How to Learn Swedish..." and investigate. You can learn the Swedish words for shameless just in case you meet Lasse Halström or hearing impaired if you're introduced to Roxette at a party or popular should you be discussing Garbo or bold, audacious, daring in case you have the great honor of meeting Ingmar Bergman.

10 Questions with Francis

Nathaniel: How often do you go the movies?

Francis: These days, I'm not much of a moviegoer. Maybe once a month, tops. We actually buy movies on DVD much more often than we see them in the theater, since it costs about the same for two tickets as for a DVD, at least here in Stockholm.

Nathaniel: Speaking of "we" and your significant other, ever had a huge disagreement about the quality of a movie...or do you have twinner taste?

Francis: We like similar food, art, furniture, travel, humor, but we have quite different taste in movies, actually. He's more into action movies, thrillers, blockbusters. I tend to like smaller more eclectic movies. I think he first glommed onto this when I made him watch Walkabout, which he thought was dreadful.

But I've managed to sway him a bit, gotten him hooked on films he probably would never have liked until I made him watch them, movies like Velvet Goldmine, Miller's Crossing, The Graduate, Groundhog Day. Of course I've never converted him to some of my other favorites, like Time Bandits, and he's never converted me to all those Planet of the Ape movies (I only like the first one) or Minority Report, which I think is confused and doesn't know what the hell it thinks.

Nathaniel: I hear you on Minority Report (my review). Spielberg has long ago moved into heavier "idea" films but I always feel he hasn't thought them all the way through which is why he has such problems with the endings --or at least that's my theory as to one of the reasons why.

OK as an honorary Swede, how many Bergman have you seen? Be honest.

Francis: Bergman isn't exactly my cup of tea, although I did see an excellent
production he directed of Ibsen's Ghosts with Pernilla August, here in Stockholm at the Royal Dramatic Theatre. As for films, I've only seen four and a half, the first three of which I saw more than 20 years ago: Persona, Cries and Whispers and Fanny and Alexander. I've only seen a sizeable chunk of Summer with Monica- I fell asleep - but it was fascinating mostly because it shows what Stockholm looked like as a city in the early 1950s, including some scenes out in the archipelago, with people dancing on a jetty (something they still do at Midsummer). He's just too grim for me.

My favorite is The Magic Flute, which looking back on it, I think was surely filmed at Drottningholm at the little baroque theater there; it's a charming filmed version of what I think must be the favorite opera of Swedes.

Nathaniel: Persona and Cries and Whispers are two of my favorite films. ever. But "grim" is definitely an appropriate word. Since you're an American who has been living abroad forever I'm curious re: your feelings about films with this subject. Have you ever seen a movie that you feels captures this dynamic? Or maybe a character in a film that spoke to this part of you?

Francis: I haven't been living abroad forever... it's only been seven years. But, this is a difficult question. Because being an expatriate has two distinct aspects to it: one's relation to the country one comes from, and one's relation to the country one lives in. Although at the most basic level, it's about how one handles being an outsider.

I haven't seen a film that captures how I feel about Sweden, but I lived for about six months in Spain before I moved here, and a film comes to mind that captures more how I felt about Spain when I lived there - Jim Jarmusch's Stranger than Paradise. Spain was, and still is, a mystery to me, I love it and hate it more than any other place, and I can so relate to the character played by Esther Balint, dependent on people who probably shouldn't be trusted, but smart enough to still manage not to lose herself. I love it in the end when she finally leaves the second time, and says: "This dress bugs me."

Nathaniel: How about Lost in Translation's dynamic?

Francis: I like Lost in Translation, it's clever and pleasingly melancholy, but it isn't at all about what it's like to be an expatriate. They're simply doing business, or married to someone doing business, in a strange culture, not making a life there.

Thinking about it, my experience in Sweden is much closer to, not a movie, but a British TV series based on a book by Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited: Solidly (upper) middle class Charles Ryder (played by Jeremy Irons in his first big role seen by Americans) falls in love first with Sebastian Flyte, and later his sister Julia, becoming enchanted and hopelessly tangled with their upper class family, their fabulous house, their neuroses, but he's never really a part of them, he's always outside, and he never quite understands them, either.

Nathaniel: This also sounds like the plot of Match Point ... only without the messy murder bits.

Francis: Haven't seen that yet. I've sort of fallen out of love with Woody Allen, I tend to find him irritating these days. I think the last thing I liked was Husbands and Wives, but mostly it was Judy Davis who made that movie.

Nathaniel: OK easier question multiple choice: Heath Ledger or Jake Gyllenhaal?

Francis: Anyway, easier multiple choice...? It isn't. So I'll split that one. Heath Ledger, based on having seen him in one movie, is surely the better actor. But, well, Jake Gyllenhaal is the better sex object.

Nathaniel: Nicole Kidman or Naomi Watts?

Francis: Nicole Kidman.

Nathaniel: Let's talk for a second (indirectly?) about your profession. You are a magazine editor, right? Are you eager to see Meryl Streep's Anna Wintour's skewering in The Devil Wears Prada?

Francis: Now you've caught me out in my total out-of-touch-with-the-fatherland-ness... or else I'm slipping up on my duties as a gay man and could risk losing my membership. But, while I've heard of the book, it's never caught my interest and, well, I had no idea they were making a movie of it. But Meryl Streep is pretty much hot shit no matter what she does, so...

Nathaniel: Cool. OK. We've reached our finale: They make a movie of your life. Who would play you? What's the title? What's the rating?

Francis: John Malkovich. Webster's Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language - The Movie! (don't forget the exclamation point...) Definitely with an R rating. Thanks, Nathaniel, it's been fun...

Nathaniel: And a big "tack" (that's Swedish for 'Thanks') to Francis of "How to Learn Swedish in 1000 Difficult Lessons" for participation in this "blogosphere multiplex" interview.


New Reader?
If this is your first time here please check the rest of the blog or some of the film experience's greatest hits: "She's a Bitch" * Pfeiffer Forever * Top 100 Actors * A History of ...Gyllenhaal * 2005 Film Bitch Awards *

Previously at the Multiplex:
Ron L'Infirmier
Thomas & Co.

To All Readers:
Any suggestions of bloggers you'd love to see featured? I'll try to rope them in.

Tags: movies, cinema, Sweden, blogging, Swedish, Spain, expat, film