Patricia Neal (1926-2010)

Sad news. The Oscar winning actress Patricia Neal (Hud) has passed away at 84. She had been battling lung cancer. Neal had a memorably husky voice and something like tragedy in her beautiful eyes. And that was even before tragedy hit.

She first hit screens in the late 40s but the 1960s were a particularly volatile time for the great actress. Consider the Everest sized career peaks and tragic personal valleys: In 1960 she was co-starring with Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke in the Broadway hit The Miracle Worker (she didn't travel with them to the film version); Her infant son's carriage was hit by a taxi in 1961 (he survived); her seven year old daughter died suddenly in 1962; in 1963 Hud was released; In April 1964 she won the Oscar for that indelible housekeeper role (she did not attend the ceremony); in 1965 while pregnant with her fifth and last child, she suffered a multiple stroke that put her in a coma for three weeks. Miraculously her daughter was born healthy months later. But Neal had to learn to walk and talk again. She felt she had to pass on The Graduate (which became a classic role for former co-star Anne Bancroft) due to the recovery period but she returned to film twice in 1968 for the short documentary about her rehabilitation Pat Neal is Back and the drama The Subject Was Roses. She received her second (and last) nomination for Best Actress for the latter.

Neal didn't work so often late in life but made a memorable appearance as the title character in Robert Altman Cookie's Fortune (1999). Her death in that film -- was it a murder or suicide? -- causes abundant family infighting (Glenn Close is such a bitch!) and comic confusion (Julianne Moore is rather dim).

How many Oscar winners get to be played by other Oscar winners? Not even Katharine Hepburn got that (since Cate Blanchett hadn't won yet when she acted out the role in The Aviator). Neal's life was dramatized in 1981 for a telefilm called "The Patricia Neal Story" starring two time winner Glenda Jackson.

Glenda Jackson as Neal and Dirk Bogarde as her husband,
author Roald Dahl (yes, that Roald Dahl), in "The Patricia Neal Story"

Do you have any favorite Patricia Neal movie memories? Please share them as I need viewing tips. Apart from the 1960s films, I'm afraid I'm not that familiar with her work.

With co-star/lover Gary Cooper in The Fountainhead (1949)
And with Paul Newman in Hud (1963)

Please tell me you've seen Hud (1963), though. If not, it should be your absolute tippity top rental priority. I don't care what your priority was before. Guy Lodge recently called Hud 'hard, precise, ineffably sad' in a tweet and I marvelled at his own precision with that description. The movie is insanely good and should've won the Best Picture Oscar (that it wasn't nominated for). It's one of the best movies of the 1960s... or any decade for that matter. Though her screen time is limited, Neal is magnificent in her crucially observant sideline role.
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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?

De Niro to the 7th? (Oscar's Male Hierarchy)

Have you been buying the minor huzz (hype+buzz) 'Robert De Niro's 7th Oscar nomination' for the holiday film Everybody's Fine? My friend txt critic saw it last night and sent the following note by phone...

it's, well, fine. most definitely a drama (despite the trailer) and conceptually a cross between About Schmidt and Four Christmases. nice, sweet and somewhat forgettable.

might, MIGHT be a nomination for DeNiro, but i wouldn't bet on it.

I dunno. I wasn't betting on it either but Best Actor sure seems vacant this year with only Colin Firth (A Single Man) and George Clooney (Up in the Air) catching any sort of real fire. As I've been saying for months, Fox Searchlight shouldn't have even hesitated to position Crazy Heart for a 2009 release. Jeff Bridges would have a clear shot at the career trophy given the field (if -- and it's always a big if since distributors routinely call upcoming performances "the performance of a lifetime" -- the star turn is as good as they say). I'm glad to hear that release is still a possibility... though the hour is getting late. UPDATE: Fox finally came through. It'll be released on December 16th. Why must everyone wait until December? Good smaller movies routinely get crushed when they're released at the same time, the heavyweight big budget contenders sucking the air out of the room as they do.

Aside from Firth and Clooney, the rest of the men are all still assumed rather than proven contenders. Anything might happen in that category.

Incidentally, if De Niro miraculously manages a seventh nod this year, it doesn't disrupt Oscar's actor hierarchy so much, it just switches who De Niro is tied with. The 22 Most-Favored list currently goes like so [please note: this is for competitive acting statistics only... some actors moonlight as producers, writers, directors, what have you]

1. Jack Nicholson (12 noms, 3 wins)
2. Laurence Olivier (10 noms, 1 win)
   
3. Spencer Tracy (9 noms, 2 wins)
4. Paul Newman (9 noms, 1 win)
   
5. (tie) Marlon Brando and Jack Lemmon (8 noms, 2 wins)
6. Al Pacino (8 noms, 1 win)
   
7. Peter O'Toole (8 noms, zero wins)
   
8. Dustin Hoffman (7 noms, 2 wins)
9. Richard Burton (7 noms, zero wins)
   
10. (tie) Robert De Niro and Michael Caine (6 noms, 2 wins)
11. (tie) Robert Duvall and Paul Muni* (6 noms, 1 win)
    
12. (6 way tie) Tom Hanks, Fredric March, Gary Cooper, Gene Hackman, Denzel Washington and Sean Penn (all of them with 5 noms, 2 wins)
13. (tie) James Stewart and Gregory Peck (5 noms, 1 win)

There are three obvious living threats to this list that come to mind: Johnny Depp, Leonardo DiCaprio (3 noms, massive stardom, gainfully employed well into the next decade) and Morgan Freeman (4 noms, 1 win and still working regularly at 72 years of age). But cross your fingers that Jeff Bridges and Albert Finney (with 4 and 5 noms respectively) get another shot at the competitive gold soon.

*depending on how you count those "unofficial" deals in the early years. If I made any mistakes in the chart -- i'm only human -- I assume you'll let me know in the comments.

MM@M: Joan Crawford, Caterpillar Woman

Mad Men at the Movies: Discussing movies referenced in the '60s set series. Previously: Gidget, The Wizard of Oz, Lady Chatterley's Lover and Natalie Wood.

1.6 "Babylon"
Don Draper relaxes in bed with his wife's book "The Best of Everything". She joins him.

Don Draper: [sarcastically] This is fascinating.
Betty Draper: It's better than the Hollywood version.
Don: Certainly dirtier.
Betty: Joan Crawford is not what she was. And honestly, I found her eyebrows completely unnerving, like a couple of caterpillar's just pasted there. Her standing next to Suzy Parker... as if they were the same species.
Don: Well, some men like eyebrows. And all men like Joan Crawford. Salvatore couldn't stop talking about her.

<--- Crawford and her offending eyebrows as a bitchy editor in The Best of Everything (1959).

Like the Gidget reference, this last line is another wink to modern audience that Salvatore, Don's co-worker, is gay. These days who loves Joan Crawford more than the gays? Of course back in the day straight men loved the larger than life actresses, too. Movie culture wasn't always so focused on the preferences of teenage boys.

Betty: To think, one of the great beauties and there she is... so old. I'd just like to disappear at that point. It makes perfect sense.
Don: [gently joking] I promise Betts, first sign of crow's feet and I'll put you on an ice flow. Or would you prefer to be my girl in the iron mask?
Betty: My mother was at least two years older than whatever Joan Crawford says she is and she was still very fetching.

Out of context this scene might read like another attack on one of Hollywood's most durable punching bags. In context it's a rather incisive peak at Betty's ample phobias and beauty fascism.

As per usual the research team on Mad Men deserve enormous kudos. This is a brilliant, but not obvious, choice of films. It allows us to see Betty's class entitlement issues all entangled with her other neurosis. Note that Betty approves of Suzy Parker, the supermodel-turned-actress who was the epitome of high end glamour when Betty herself would have been at an impressionable age. Crawford had peaked before Betty was a teenager. Though certainly glamourous, the movie star never read as "high class", often playing self-made women or social-climbing working girls. No wonder Crawford unnerves Betty. She pushes all of her buttons.


The Best of Everything opened in the fall of 1959, several months before this episode takes place. It was another in director Jean Negulesco's parade of colorful films about trios of working girls. His previous efforts included the wonderful How to Marry a Millionaire and the Best Picture nominee Three Coins in the Fountain (previous post).

further reading
a fun article on the fashions in The Best of Everything
Basket of Kisses the great Mad Men fansite

other references in this episode
Cinema: Paul Newman in the (upcoming) movie version of Exodus and a brief visual reminder of The Red Balloon. Books: The Best of Everything, The Bible, Exodus Celebrities: Dick Van Dyke, Mary Martin and Brigitte Bardot. Politics: Fidel Castro and Nikita Krushchev.
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What movie...

...or movie star were you just thinking about?

I'll go first. I was just thinking about Exodus with Paul Newman and how I've never seen it. And also late period Joan Crawford and "caterpillar" eyebrows. I'm currently halfway through a marathon of Mad Men season 1 and both were just discussed. Love it when period pieces reference movies from their period.
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Beauty Break

I'm having a retro moment. I blame Jane Fonda gearing up for tonight's TONY Awards. Let's go 1960/70s. Mmmm, hairy.


Catherine Deneuve, Racquel Welch, Jane Fonda (the culprit!), Robert Redford & Paul Newman, Julie Christie, Steve McQueen, Pam Grier and Jacqueline Bissett. Mmmm⁹

Hump Day Hotness: Marital Bliss

Have you seen Vanity Fair's list of Hollywood's rarest unions: the longterm actor/actress marriage? I don't need to tell you that most Tinseltown marriages end in divorce. Yet some couple stick by each other and anyone in a long term relationship or marriage will know what a feat that often is. The immortal Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward are the longest lasting dual movie star marriage -- they were married for 50 years before Newman's death (2008, RIP). But the lengthiest dual actor marriages ever? The Reagans with 52 years and, up at the tippity top, recent Oscar nominee Ruby Dee (American Gangster) and Ossie Davis (2005, RIP) with 56 years of happily ever after.


I'm sure you've heard the famous Newman paraphrase about fidelity

Why fool around with hamburger when you have steak at home?

but what I loved most about their celebrated marriage was that they weren't overly sentimental about it in interviews, often admitting that couples can drive each other nuts, and regularly implying that patience and space are required -- they probably weren't co-dependent nuts in other words. They were able to do things without the other. The sense of humor also definitely helped. I hadn't read this before but I love the inscription on Newman's wedding gift (sherry glasses and a silver cup) to Woodward in 1958

So you wound up with Apollo / If he's sometimes hard to swallow / Use this.

The longest SAG marriages still running: Paula Prentiss (The Stepford Wives) and Richard Benjamin (Portnoy's Complaint) who've been together since 1961 and Oscar winner Olympia Dukakis and Louis Zorich (Mad About You) who've been together since 1962.

The only thing unsatisfying about a very satisfying stability-list like this is that a lot of star couples skip the matrimony part* so it's not entirely accurate. Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins have been together for 21 years now and have yet to marry. And then there's the 26 year situation between Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell.

Clockwise, top left: Patricia Wetting & Ken Olin, Tim Robbins &
Susan Sarandon (not married), Helena Bonham-Carter & Tim Burton (not
married), Dukakis & Zurich,The Beatty / The Bening, Will and Jada, Amy
Madigan & Ed Harris and Jamie Lee Curtis & Christopher Guest.

Two weeks back I attended a wedding in Austin which was multi-racial / multi-cultural (Japanese and American) and multi-religious (Shinto, Unitarian, Mormon) and included a moment to honor those who can't be legally married yet (the bride, a longtime friend of mine, has two mommies and two daddies). It was awesome. So anyone who thinks Rachel Getting Married was pure east coast liberal fiction can suck it! My point, which I haven't even gotten to, is this: Ain't love grand? ... and complicated ... and hard to measure... and worth celebrating whether it's fresh or well aged and whether or not there's a wedding certificate?! Celebrate it!

Truth, Beauty, Freedom...
and above all things, Love

P.S. Ryan Reynolds and Scarlett Johansson (aka "Abs & Boobs") have now been married for 7½ months !

<--- P.S. 2 Check out this awesome photograph of Newman and Woodward at home, just a few years into their marriage. SO adorable. Thanks to Catherine for pointing the way to it.

previously on hump day hotties:
April Fools, Battlestar Galactica, Carla Gugino, Juliette Binoche, Gael Garcia Bernal & Diego Luna and many more...

Fast Eddie Fathered Carrie White

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JA from MNPP here. I watched The Hustler yesterday for the first time, and every time Piper Laurie was on-screen (as Eddie's usually-sloshed lover Sarah) all I could hear was the future echo of that career-defining "roadhouse whiskey" speech Laurie would give 15 years later in Carrie. What do we really know of Carrie's father after all? Just that he puts his drunken hands all over her mother Margaret and Margaret liked it, she liked it!!!


Sarah liked it so much that when Eddie recommended she get treatment for her drinking problem, she she slid into his arms and slurred "I'm getting my treatment right here."

I hear ya, sister. That's some treatment.

When was the last time you couldn't watch one performance by an actor without it being colored and reshaped by another performance of theirs that's so iconic to you that it infiltrates their every cinematic moment that you see?


Piper will just always be Margaret White to me, and St. Sebastien bless her for it.
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Happy Valentines from Brick & Maggie

May you have whatever your heart desires today. Whether that be forbidden romps with your old high school football buddy or all the wealth that one can marry into... well, we're not here to judge.

SAG Live Blogging (Part 2)

continued from part one

9:03 One thing I should mention about Sally Field. I love that she referred to her fellow nominees (i.e. the losers) as "the cable girls." Heh. Whoever chose the clips for the TV Drama Actress category (which also included the great Holly Hunter looking ravishing as always) defines great acting as screaming. Every clip was pitched to the rafters. Is the editor a member of SAG too.

It wouldn't surprise me. They're such suckers for the BIG moments.

9:04 Forrest Whitaker loves James Earl Jones's "mesmerizing deep valley voice". That's great. Maybe Whitaker should do this live-blogging because my descriptive powers have failed me. Jones is accepting a lifetime achievement award (the name I forget). Apparently Jones moved to Michigan at age 5 and his life changed after winning a poetry contest. (I won a spelling bee contest in Michigan but it did not change my life).

9:14 James Earl Jones is comparing actors to God. The camera cuts to Meryl Streep.


This might be the best single reaction shot decision ever made at an awards show and I think the director or the editor or whomever was responsible really should win a prize. Maybe they could remove Ron Howard's Frost/Nixon director nomination and replace it with this guy because that's genius.

9:24 Laura Linney won for John Adams again. Her fiancé told her not to fondle the statue. Ha! Oh you know Laura Linney has a great sex life. Think of how hilarious and relaxed she is as an actor in those sex scenes in Love Actually or The Savages. She just announced that she's moving to Chicago. Someone just freaked out.

9:30 Paul Giamatti won for John Adams. Can you believe there's only half an hour left of this show and they have given out only one movie award?

9:31 "In Memoriam" always make me so sad. The Cyd Charisse moment make-a my heart go boom. I love Van Johnson, too. sniffle. Pat Hingle. He's so loveable but remember that intense scene in The Grifters where he's threatening Angelica Huston with the bag of oranges? Jesus Christ that was frightening. What an actor. Eartha! Nina Foch. Paul Newman... "pure hard gold" to quote Geraldine Page in Sweet Bird of Youth... "pure hard gold"


That montage killed me. If there are no further updates you'll understand.

9:43 From the "In Memoriam" we move into Best Supporting Actor which is certainly no mistake if a bit... er... why am I always so uncomfortable with all the Heath Ledger tributes? Is it because I feel proprietary having recognized his worth before he died unlike so many voting peoples [cough * Capote * cough] . I don't know. Maybe I'm just not comfortable with public grief but it sure does hurt still.

Best Supporting Actor Heath Ledger as "The Joker" in The Dark Knight. Well deserved.

9:49 On a totally superficial note I feel it's important to note that Kristin Scott Thomas announced that award and she was smoking hot in her French/British ice queen way. I bow down (and tremble in fear). She's been working a kind of a goth look this awards season and she's way more convincing than Evan Rachel Wood ever was at it.

Will Marilyn Manson be calling?

9:50 Best Actress in a Leading Role MERYL STREEP in DOUBT
As per usual La Streep brings down the house with her speech. Damn this woman rocks. She alone (or at least with very little company) understands that awards shows are for the audience watching. She mugs for the camera. Who me? No way! She kisses people. She runs around so much in the audience I half expected her to start singing. It's a lost scene from Mamma Mia!

She does clever shout outs to co-stars and makes them laughs. (Viola Davis is the happiest person in the room tonight. She was even joyful losing Best Supporting Actress). And she tops it all off with a hilariously self referential/deprecating speech "there is no such thing as 'The Greatest Living Actress'"

I think Meryl Streep's birthday should be a Federal Holiday. Or maybe it should coincide with a week long arts festival all across the globe.

9:57 Best Actor in a Leading Role is presented by Katie Holmes. Why? Why does she get to do this?The Boyfriend says "that's like drinking orange juice after brushing your teeth". It's Sean Penn for Milk. He gives a confused speech with a gay joke (he's noticing the package on the statue. Perhaps Laura Linney's fiancé should have words with him afterwards). He also alludes to all the scuttlebutt surrounding his and Mickey Rourke's supposed animosity. He isn't pleased. He seems genuinely moved to win though which is nice.

10:02 Ensemble. Sir Anthony Hopkins introduces the movies and when he says Slumdog Millionaire the last few syllables are super rushed like it's Milinair. That's probably how I should say it to get Oscar season over with quicker. Save me 2009! Take me away from all of this.

And yeah, they win. You weren't surprised, were you? Nah, didn't think so. Their acceptance speech is a weird list of names (though it's cute and wonderful to name the child actors) and lots of "we deserve this". This is like when I do affirmations in the mirror. One of these days I'll convince myself!

Completely Morbid Thought of the Week

I've been so sad about Paul Newman all week. Now, everyone has to go at some point ...that's the way of life. And no one could argue that Newman, at 83, didn't have a full one. But it got me to thinking about how few truly massive screen stars remain among us. I'm talking classic film stars that were with us before the cultural upheaval of the '60s which brought a large wave of new stars to the cinematic forefront (Nicholson, Redford, Fonda, Christie, Eastwood, Streisand, Dunaway, Deneuve, Beatty, and more...) many of them still working steadily. Though Newman's work in the 1960s (Hud, The Hustler, Cool Hand Luke) is his most revered he actually ascended in the mid50s just as he was entering his thirties. Films like Somebody Up There Likes Me and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof made him a star.


There are so few stars left from the days when cinema was BIG in that way... and I'm not just referencing CinemaScope. Many still-living once household name actors have very low profiles; Olivia DeHavilland, Kirk Douglas, Tony Curtis, Van Johnson, Karl Malden, Jennifer Jones, Mickey Rooney, Luise Rainer (all well into their 80s or 90s) aren't topics of conversation much anymore unless you're in the good, nay, glorious company of true cinephiles.

The truth of it is that most celebrated actors don't maintain the kind of decade after decade Name in Lights prominence that Paul Newman did to his very last. Shirley Maclaine and Sophia Loren who rose to fame roughly concurrently with Newman still walk the earth (in heels), god bless, both at 74. But the closing chapter I fear the most will be losing Elizabeth Taylor. La Liz, who is 76, has been internationally famous for sixty-two years now. To me she's the last of the Immortals. She's had so many health scares for so many decades that it became a joke to think of her as being perpetually at death's door. It's not at all funny anymore. I hope there's a great screening room in heaven. When Taylor finally arrives -- and I hope that's a long long time from now -- Newman, Monroe, Brando, the Hepburns, Bogie and Garland will undoubtedly have a seat ready for her: diamond encrusted, the one right between Richard Burton's and Montgomery Clift's.
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The Unbearable Linkness of Blogging

The House Next Door has Sheila O'Malley on Paul Newman
Danny Miller on the screen giant
Self Styled Siren also on the legendary actor (and come to think of it they're three of the writers I was most anxious to read pieces from)
INF Daily pics from the set of Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland. Tim's fetish for characters that look like Christina Ricci in Sleepy Hollow continues
Nick's Flick Picks a lot of you still haven't voted in our Best Pic tournament. Do that!
Spout's Karina Longworth doesn't much like this Che fellow
Boy Culture James Franco in Interview
Towleroad James Franco in Out. My god, he's everywhere

Scanners 'Sarah Silverman is a genius (still)'... a piece on her YouTube promo for The Great Schlep
My New Plaid Pants a moment of silence for the Wedding o' the Week Defamer yet MORE fallout from that Reader release date kerfuffle.
In Contention's top 10 Paul Newman performances. We agree heartily on #1.

Linker's Dozen

GreenCine rounds up the Newman tributes
Are You There Blog? finds a great humanist quote from Newman. And I already really loved Newman. I didn't need more reasons.
NewNowNext Gwyneth Paltrow's new business venture. (Maybe she should, you know, concentrate on improving her acting career while she's still young. Just a thought)
Some Came Running Glenn Kenny on Bill Condon's Oscar gig. Crazy ass screengrabs
Fabulon checks in with Sharon Stone. Someone has to
Mirror Who's That Girl? It's not Madonna. It's Debbie Harry, looking all polished and Madonna-esque. Everything comes full circle you see?
Defamer's a Call to the BullPen: Dakota Fanning on Facebook. Hee

Goatdog accomplishes the seemingly impossible. He's now seen every Best Picture nominee. Go congratulate him. I'm not even close.
A Socialite's Life Anne Hathaway making the rounds with Rachel Getting Married in NYC
Just Jared Ryan Reynolds and Scarjo are now husband & wife. [see previous TFE post for their engagement announcement]
Filmbo makes an odd comparison. Honest to blog
Moviefone asks Stan Lee (Marvel Comics) a bunch of questions. Bizarre asides about Will Smith as Captain America and Barack Obama follow.
Coffee Coffee and More Coffee reviews Seoul Raiders, that movie I'm giving away starring Tony Leung. Today is the last day to enter that contest.

Paul Newman (1925-2008)

Great star, great man, great actor Paul Newman died yesterday of cancer [src]. Our hearts go out to his wife Joanne Woodward. The Oscar winners had been married for fifty years -- they married just a few months before their first film together The Long Hot Summer arrived in theaters. Newman will live on forever in the movies. What an inarguably rich filmography he's left the audiences who loved him.

My personal favorite of his performances, and one I hope you'll watch to bid him farewell is Hud (1963). That indelible title role won him the third of his nine Oscar nominations for acting. I also must highly recommend his underdiscussed (at least nowadays) directorial debut Rachel, Rachel (1968). That collaboration won Joanne Woodward the second of her four Best Actress nod and Newman a Best Picture nomination (though not a directing nod). I was startled at how modern it felt while I was watching it. It's aged well just as the actor did. He will be missed.
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Sage Advice From the Movies, Brick & Maggie Edition

"You can be young without money but you can't be old without it."
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perhaps it's not advice per se but it's a truth (sigh)
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The Book of Links

Where am I? Where are you? Help meeeeeeee
[Nathaniel is tired of being away from home, man, cat... and blog]

Defamer Seems that Richard Dutchmer, the kick-off auteur of that mini Mormon movie trend (and yes I saw one of 'em) is leaving the church. Damn! [expressed as in surprise rather than in the eternal damnation sense ~editor]
<---- Empire has teaser posters (of a sort) for Australia. But with Baz Luhrmann's Australia there's been so much teasing I think we're approaching extensive foreplay. Time to put out. Is it November yet?
Just Jared has three teaser posters for Oliver Stone's W. How about that tagline?
OMG! even Bruce LaBruce (Raspberry Reich) has made a zombie movie. The genre is officially oversaturated. Though since it's LaBruce we'll see it.
The Book of Lies Brad Meltzer's latest novel gets a trailer. Do you think we'll start seeing more movie trailers for books?
Sunset Gun Kim Morgan remembers Coal Miner's Daughter

Michael Phillips on the odd language of MPAA ratingss
---> Wonderland Magazine has an interview with Miss Julianne Moore. Yummy new photos ahoy. I love this self-love for her red hair

she did dye her hair blonde for Blindness – the first time in her career she hasn’t opted for a wig. “I thought, ‘This’ll be fun,’ but I hated it!” she blurts. “I was bizarrely visible – people would yell at me as if there was a light shining on my head. The minute I wrapped, I came home and dyed it back to red. I was more strongly identified with my hair colour than I thought.”

..would that more Hollywood redheads would learn to love their own fiery self.
IndieWire TIFF lineup announced

To close, here's a gorgeous tribute to the ailing Paul Newman from the mastermind behind one of the best titled blogs in the 'sphere "And Your Little Blog, Too"

The Longest 'Best Picture' Titles

tues top ten: for the list maker in me and the list lover in you
UPDATE: oops. LotR was messed up. Fixed below.

Jonathan's fun movie facts post led me to this indirectly. But on a dull train ride last week I whipped up this absolutely crucial list. Your life isn't complete without knowing the answer to the following question:

...What Are the Ten Longest Titles of Best Picture Nominees?

10. It's a six-way tie for 10th place: The wordy names being One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) Love is a Many-Splendored Thing (1955), Meredith Wilson's The Music Man (1962). Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), Seven Brides For Seven Brothers (1954) and Around the World in Eighty Days (1956) --Perhaps we should just hand 10th place to 80 Days since it's the most long winded of these six films, clocking in at 3 hours. Hey, it takes a long time to shove in all those celebrity cameos, people. The Player was an hour faster with the same task but Michael Anderson is no Robert Altman.

09. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
I've never seen this film. In my defense there's not an actress in it (well not one with more than a walk-on from the looks of the cast list) and since I'm first and foremost driven by actressing... Well, that's my excuse. Side note: While attending that junket for Elegy last week Dennis Hopper listed this as one of the five best/most important movies ever. He was caught off guard by the question and answering on the fly but still... that's high praise from a man who has been in classics ranging from Rebel Without a Cause and Easy Rider to Blue Velvet.

08. Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind (2004) Oh, wait. Riiiiight. (sigh) the Oscars suck.

08. I am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang (1932) The tag line of this drama about a wrongly imprisoned man is even a mouthful "Six sticks of dynamite that blasted his way to freedom... and awoke America's conscience!"


07. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
By now you've probably read that Paul Newman, our Butch, has limited time left here on earth. That fills me with such sadness... just as I have been digging back into his filmography. What an actor and what a star he's been for multiple decades. Few people ever have had such a long and deserved run.

---> Elijah Wood has seen too much. He is terrified to watch all of the Rings movies back to back.

06 and 05 The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002), and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003 --see previous post) take these spots. I bet you thought they'd come in first. I know I did when I got curious about title length. Incidentally, Return... is also one of the very longest Oscar winners at 201 minutes. I believe ---someone correct me if I'm wrong -- that it's the 4th longest Best Picture ever. Only Gone With the Wind, Lawrence of Arabia and Ben-Hur have numbed more asses. The last Rings film is even one minute longer than The Godfather Part II, currently the fifth longest sit.

03 (tie)
The Russians Are Coming The Russians Are Coming (1966)
I didn't realize this was a comedy until I was writing up this post. No matter how many films I see, huge gaps remain. Has anyone reading seen this? No on speaks of it. So if you have, do.
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003)
Tim Robey of the Daily Telegraph is like a one man army proselytizing this film's greatness. He even convinced Nick to raise his letter grade considerably. That's persuasion. Perhaps I too should give it another spin. I did crazy enjoy Paul Bettany the first time through and liked the movie as a whole. As for the title... I realize it's lifted from the novels but I think it's awkward at best and unintentionally funny at worst.


02 The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) oops. I had this one too low. Perhaps I was appreciating its brevity (length) in the face of Return of the King

01 Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
Not only does this classic comedy have the longest title ever from a best picture nominee, it has one of the best period. Ever. Don'cha think?

I can do without most ":" subtitle situations... but wouldn't it be great if more titles were this creative, funny and movie-descriptive? Remember when that Nicolas Cage romantic comedy was called Cop Gives Waitress 2 Million Dollar Tip which was a fun "ripped from the tabloids" descriptive title and then it became the utterly generic sounding It Could Happen to You, a title which could fit only hmmm two hundred thousand other movies with ease. zzz.

So, here's to short movies with long titles like Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Bomb. It's easy to sit through them and it's fun to say their names aloud.
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